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Guy Hands' Terra Firma close to agreeing Phoenix Energy sale

August 01, 2013 at 04:42 pm EDT

MarketScreener.com By The editorial team

(Reuters) - Terra Firma Capital Partners, the buyout group run by dealmaker Guy Hands, is close to agreeing a deal to sell its Northern Irish gas distribution company Phoenix Energy Holdings Group to Hastings Funds Management, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

The deal could be announced as soon as Friday, Bloomberg reported citing two people familiar with the talks, and could be worth about 700 million pounds, the financial news wire cited one of the people as saying.

Terra Firma, best known for its purchase of music group EMI, which it later lost to Citigroup (>> Citigroup Inc) after defaulting on its loans, invested in Phoenix Energy in 2005, according to its website.

The private equity company, which has also invested in groups as diverse as aircraft leasing firm Awas, cinema operator Odeon & UCI, German motorway services group Tank&Rast and British housing group Annington Homes, declined to comment to Reuters on the report.

Hastings Funds Management could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Abhishek Takle in Bangalore; Editing by Anthony Barker)

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Guy Hands

Guy Hands was educated at Ravenscroft Scool in Beckington and Judd Scholl Tonbridge. He was a student at Mansfield College, Oxford.

He began his career as a trader at Goldman Sachs in the early 1980s, and has left this position to Nomura in 1994 and made his fortune as CEO of the Principal Finance Group, with the purchase of a chain of a string of commercials UK.

Guy Hands has created the investment fund Terra Firma Capital Partners in 2002, derivative from Nomura.

Terra Firma started with $ 2.7 billion of private equity funds, and Guy Hands immediately made of Terra Firma one of the largest private equity firms in Europe.

Terra Firma has acquired a property portfolio in the UK and Germany (where they are the biggest owners of the country), but also of the former housing the Ministry of Defense and British service stations. He is also the largest owner of movie theaters in Europe, having taken control of United Cinemas International and Odeon Cinemas chain. Among other acquisitions, there is the Waste Recycling Group, a company that recycles wastewater.

Hands and his wife Julia are also owners of Hands Picked Hotels, a chain in 14 countries, managed by Julia.

In 2008, he had to confront to controversy about his management of EMI (acquired in 2007) when he decided to fire thousands of people to "rationalize" the organization and "maximize" resources. Robbie Williams has refused to publish his album on this label in order to protest. Other artists have expressed similar concerns.

In 2008, Julia and Guy Hands Hands had a fortune estimated at 250 million pounds. In 2005, the fortune was around 175 million pounds sterling, which made them the 281st richest people in the UK.

Terra Firma currently employs over 100 people. It is also the first investment company in the UK to have complied with the guidelines of David Walker (Morgan Stanley) about transparency.

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