Proactive Investors - Very Group, the online retailer owned by the Barclay family, has secured £125 million in funding from private equity firms Carlyle (NASDAQ:CG) and IMI (LON:IMI).
Around £85 million will be given to Very from Carlyle, while the additional £40 million will be sourced from IMI, the Abu Dhabi investment group led by Sheikh Mansour.
Both private equity firms will also receive a place on Very’s board, providing another blow to the influence the Barclay family has over its shrinking empire.
The Barclay family lost control of The Telegraph and The Spectator after having amassed debts worth £1.2 billion in the space of a decade.
IMI, the Abu Dhabi-based group, is part of the joint venture RedBird IMI, the group attempting to take control of the Telegraph after it loaned the Barclay family £600 million to repay debts to Lloyds (LON:LLOY).
Very Group saw sales lift from £1.21 billion to £1.22 billion in 2023, with the discount retailer having swung from a £2 million loss in 2022 to a pre-tax profit of £2.1 million last year.
Aidan Barclay said: “Carlyle and IMI provide the support of two long-term, experienced institutional sponsors that understand our business extremely well.
“Their commitment underlines the confidence they have in the group, and their contribution to the board will be invaluable as we look to the future.”
UK regulators are currently undertaking a review into RedBird IMI’s proposed takeover of the newspapers, with a decision expected to be made in March.
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