Silver Lake to take stake in UK’s RAC
Private equity company joins CVC and GIC as shareholder in breakdown group
US private equity company Silver Lake is set to take a stake in RAC, one the UK’s biggest breakdown assistance providers, joining existing owners GIC and CVC.
RAC said in a statement on Monday that California-based Silver Lake would become a co-shareholder, bringing with it “unparalleled technology expertise, skills and relationships”. The company did not disclose the value of the deal, which is expected to close later this year.
Simon Patterson, Silver Lake managing director, said RAC had adopted “an ambitious plan to invest in digital technologies to further improve the offering and relationships with customers, and we look forward to assisting them implement it”.
CVC has been a shareholder since 2016, when it bought into the company in a deal that valued RAC at £2.2bn including debt. GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, has been an RAC shareholder since 2014.
Silver Lake, which manages more than $88bn in combined assets, is known for its investments in technology groups. Its portfolio includes the likes of Airbnb, food delivery company Getir and Klarna.
It has been on a shopping spree since the pandemic began, directing billions of dollars into Twitter, travel booking site Expedia and Alphabet’s self-driving auto unit Waymo in the months after coronavirus first spread around the world.
In April, it paid about $800m for a stake in G42, an artificial intelligence and cloud computing group with links to Abu Dhabi’s ruling family.
Dave Hobday, RAC chief executive, said the planned arrival of Silver Lake meant the breakdown specialists had a “fantastic opportunity to accelerate our investment trajectory and provide more digitally enabled products”.