The company's owner, Knowledge Universe, has appointed investment bank Rothschild to handle the sale of the group's 214 sites, which are expected to fetch more than £200m. The sale will include debt currently carried by the company.
Busy Bees Benefits, which is a provider of childcare vouchers and a separate business owned by Busy Bees Group chief executive John Woodward, is not part of the discussions.
Busy Bees has just emerged from a period of dynamic growth. Last year it acquired the nine settings of Sussex-based Early Years Childcare and the 71-strong national nursery group Just Learning. This pushed its number of sites up to 214, offering a total of 19,500 nursery places.
At the end of last year it became the largest of the groups in terms of numbers of settings and also provided more than 20 per cent of the places shared among the 25 largest nursery chains.
John Woodward said, 'Busy Bees has had five backers since it launched and the possibility that we might now sell is part of the process of looking forward and planning how the group can continue to grow, in terms of its quality and services. It might mean that we don't do anything other than re-structure. What is really important is that the current management team will remain in place and staff will not be affected.'
Steve Eccleston, development director, Busy Bees Holdings Limited, added, ‘During our 30-year history we have worked with a number of different partners and investors and this has enabled us to grow and develop a successful business. We understand that this makes us highly attractive to potential investors and although we are delighted with the support and investment we have received under the ownership of Knowledge Universe Education we are confident that if a change in ownership were to take place this would provide more opportunities for us into the future.’
BUSY BEES TIMELINE
- 1984 – Busy Bees founded by John and Lynn Woodward, with their friends Margaret Randles and David Thackeray
- 1999 – Busy Bees launches Busy Bees Vouchers
- 2006 – Busy Bees nursery and voucher businesses bought by ABC Learning
- 2007 – Busy Bees and parent company ABC Learning acquire 88 Leapfrog Nurseries
- 2008 – ABC Learning sells Busy Bees Vouchers to Computershare
ABC Learning goes into receivership
- 2009 – the original founders of Busy Bees buy back a large share in the business for an undisclosed sum. The sale also sees the private company Knowledge Universe, a Singapore-based global education firm, become the major share holder and financial backer
- 2010 – Busy Bees returns to the voucher business, with John Woodward launching Busy Bees Benefits
- 2012 – Busy Bees acquires Early Years Childcare and Just Learning
- 2013 – John Woodward appointed as interim chief executive of Knowledge Universe
- Busy Bees launches ‘Mind the Gap – Raise the Cap’ campaign to ensure the Government’s proposed tax free childcare scheme reflects true costs