BoilerJuice
Liberty Corporate Finance is pleased to announce that Livingbridge has completed an investment in BoilerJuice, the UK’s most popular online heating oil retailer. Following the investment, Ian Ronald, former CEO of discount diners club Tastecard, will also join the business as Chief Executive, working alongside the founder Paul Ward.
Boilerjuice was founded by a group of friends in 2004 with the aim of making ordering heating oil easier, cheaper and more convenient. Today the business helps households throughout the UK buy their oil from a network of suppliers, delivering millions of litres to thousands of customers every week.
Approximately four million UK households, or c15% of the entire population, are not connected to the gas grid, of which around 1.6 million use kerosene for domestic heating. Historically, households relying on heating oil for their energy needs would look to order their fuel deliveries individually or via village and town “fuel clubs”, resulting in higher costs for consumers and reduced delivery efficiency for suppliers.
Liberty acted as corporate finance advisors to Livingbridge throughout the process providing a full range of buyside services – financial modelling support, debt raising, project & due diligence management, completion cashflows.
BoilerJuice uses its technology platform and extensive network of suppliers to match customer orders with supplier capacity in the local area, thereby encouraging suppliers to offer their most competitive prices. As a result, suppliers are able to maximise their volumes and manage their deliveries more effectively while customers are able to significantly reduce their fuel bills.
Livingbridge’s investment in BoilerJuice will help the group to continue to grow its presence throughout the UK. In addition, the investment will help the business to improve the order experience for customers even further through developing its technology, growing the supplier network and investing in customer support.
Matthew Upton, Director at Livingbridge commented:
“Liberty provided invaluable support to our team throughout all stages of the deal, from helping management develop a financial model, through managing the due diligence and arranging banking, to completion cash and funding. They worked effectively with all the other parties and kept on top of all aspects of the deal, managing it efficiently and with integrity.”
Senior debt to support the transaction was provided by HSBC.