Rentokil flags debugged trend towards mega buyouts
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own. Updates to add graphic.
By Karen Kwok
LONDON, July 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) -A potential takeover of London-listed rat-catcher Rentokil RTO.L is a sign that mega buyouts are getting debugged. Former BT BT.L boss Philip Jansen is talking to private equity groups about taking the $17 billion company private, says the Sunday Times. Similar-sized deals look increasingly possible given easier debt markets. The challenge is persuading shareholders to sell.
Rentokil is not the only potential large buyout now on the cards. Unilever ULVR.L is talking to private equity firms to sell its ice cream business, worth a reported 15 billion pounds, Bloomberg says. Pharma giant Sanofi’s SASY.PA $20 billion spinoff of its consumer drugs business has attracted interest from Bain Capital and Cinven.
It’s certainly getting easier to finance big deals. Central banks are cutting rates, which reduces borrowing costs. The extra return investors demand to hold risky junk-rated bonds over safe government ones has fallen by around 1 percentage point in Europe over the last year, to 3.3 percentage points, per LSEG data. Issuance of European collateralised loan obligations, a key source of financing for buyout debt, is surging, with new CLO volumes reaching 24 billion euros in the first six months of the year, according to PitchBook LCD, more than double the rate of last year.
And Rentokil would be a juicy catch. A messy integration following the 2022 takeover of rival Terminix has left the group with a pile of debt and lacklustre growth. With a 30% premium to Friday’s undistributed price, the company would be worth 17.7 billion pounds including net debt, just 14 times the EBITDA that analysts expect it to generate this year, Visible Alpha data shows. U.S. peer Rollins ROL.N is trading at 31 times.
The buyers wouldn’t need to work too hard to get a good return. Analysts expect Rentokil’s EBITDA to grow by roughly 5% annually in the next five years, according to Visible Alpha. Assume the new owners can boost that to 7.5%, closing around half the gap with Rollins, and then re-list Rentokil at 20 times EBITDA, its peak multiple from 2020. That would deliver an internal rate of return of over 20%, according to Breakingviews calculations, which assume debt of 6 times EBITDA and interest costs of 8%.
Jansen and his backers would need to stump up a lot of money; even with that level of borrowing the equity cheque would likely exceed 10 billion pounds. The bigger challenge would be persuading Rentokil’s shareholders to sell. After all, they could capture a lot more upside if Chief Executive Andy Ransom can turn the business around. If Rentokil was valued in line with its 2020 peak multiple of 20 times forward EBITDA, its market capitalisation would reach 22 billion pounds, over 70% above the current equity value, according to Breakingviews calculations. With ever bigger mousetraps, private equity will have to dangle a lot of cheese.
Follow @karenkkwok on X
CONTEXT NEWS
Former BT CEO Philip Jansen is studying a buyout of Rentokil, the UK-listed rat-catching firm, the Sunday Times newspaper reported on July 21.
A buyout could value Rentokil at 15 billion pounds, assuming a standard takeover premium of 30%, the Times said, adding that Jansen has worked in the past with Bain Capital, on the buyout of payments group Worldpay.
Rentokil shares were up around 10% as of 0820 GMT.
Graphic: Rentokil traded at its peak in July 2020 https://reut.rs/3SkFjQu
Editing by Neil Unmack and Aditya Srivastav
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