AA shareholders rev up sale of stake in £2.5bn roadside recovery group

The owners of the AA are exploring the sale of a large stake in the breakdown recovery service two years after taking it private.

Sky News has learnt that Towerbrook Capital Partners and Warburg Pincus have hired Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, to advise them on a potential deal.

A transaction could involve them offloading a stake to a third-party investor, resulting in the three shareholders owning the company equally.

The AA has nearly 13 million roadside customers and two million insurance customers, making it one of the biggest financial services businesses in Britain.

It struggled for years under an enormous debt pile, and eventually agreed to be bought by Towerbrook and Warburg Pincus in a deal which valued its equity at less than £250m.

The valuation that they intend to seek in a deal was unclear on Monday, although one analyst said the two private equity firms could value the AA at more than £2.5bn including debt.

Known for its distinct yellow livery, the AA was founded as the Motorists Mutual Association in 1905.

It passed 100,000 members in 1934, before reaching the one million mark in 1950.

For a period, the company was owned by Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, but was later sold to another consortium of private equity firms and merged with Saga under the Acromas corporate umbrella.

It was then spun out again and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2014.

If the AA does bring in a third major shareholder, it would mirror a deal struck in 2021 by the RAC, its closest UK rival.

The RAC’s then owners – CVC Capital Partners and the Singaporean state fund GIC – brought the technology-focused private equity firm, Silver Lake, in as another major investor.

The AA has shaken up its management since the company was taken private, recruiting Rick Haythornthwaite, the former Centrica chair, as its chairman.

It is run by CEO Jakob Pfaudler, a former Lloyds Banking Group executive.

In the first half of its most recent financial year, the AA reported a 5% rise in revenues.

It operates the largest driving school business in the UK under the AA and BSM brands.

The company also said last year that it had reduced net debt to £2.3bn in the last financial year, a fall of £344m on the prior 12-month period.

Infrastructure funds are thought likely to show an interest in investing in the AA, although talks are yet to get formally under way.

An eventual separation of the breakdown recovery and insurance arms is also considered a long-term possibility.

The AA, which is scheduled to release full-year results later this week, declined to comment, while Towerbrook declined to comment.

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