established providers to release capital. Courteney Donaldson, director
and head of childcare at Christie & Co, sets out the detail.
Sale-and-leaseback has been a decades-old method to raise funds, particularly across the hotel and care sectors. While there have been many successes, the failures of such financial models often receive greater attention. The collapse of Britain's largest care home operator, Southern Cross, in 2011 was one. In the nursery sector, a 2006 deal saw the UK's largest nursery chain, Busy Bees, become the first major childcare provider to complete a sale-and-leaseback transaction, raising £2.2m. The aim was to finance the chain's expansion strategy. It was made possible by the launch of the first bespoke financial product for childcare providers in 2005, from Nexus Group, which provided a £50m pot through its Pine fund, a unit trust based in Jersey.
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