The owner of Silentnight, one of the largest British bed manufacturers, is preparing to end a controversial 14 -year -old mandate which included colonies with regulators worth tens of millions of pounds.
Sky News learned that Hig Europe, who bought Silentnight thanks to an insolvency process in 2011, appointed bankers in Rothschild to sell the company.
City sources estimated on Monday that the company could be worth the value of 100 million pounds sterling.
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It is unlikely that an agreement will be concluded with a buyer until next year.
When the sale will take place, it will put an end to the HIG association with a company that has been at the center of one of the most controversial investment capital agreements in the United Kingdom for decades.
HIG Europe, which specializes in the purchase of medium -sized companies, acquired Silentnight after having identified an opportunity to generate a good return if it could conclude an agreement without the retirement responsibilities of the bed manufacturer.
The investment capital group bought part of the debts of Silentnight, set up new restrictions on its loan installations, then forced it to a restructuring process.
Due to the cash crisis which followed, KPMG, the accounting firm, put in the administration in the evening and immediately sold its assets to Hig Europe without its pension plan.
The agreement sparked a pension regulator investigation, which used its anti-avoiding powers to continue the buyout company for substantial compensation.
The guard dog issued two warning warnings in 2014 and 2016, with HIG Europe requesting a judicial examination from the latter.
His request was rejected and, in 2021, he agreed with a settlement of 25 million pounds sterling with the pension guard dog.
Although these funds were injected into the Silentnight pension plan, the injection was not sufficient to prevent its responsibility to pay the retirees transferred to the pension protection fund, the rescue canoe funded by the industry.
“Our case was that HIG used the control that was available in loan facilities to cause unnecessary insolvency of the companies who were viable that supported a pension plan (defined advantage),” said TPR at the time of settlement.
“We would not touch on that lenders provoke unnecessary insolence, and we therefore do not usually plan to target them with our powers.
“However, we will be attentive to any case where we think that unnecessary insolvency is caused to break a program of his employer and will continue these cases to appropriate results in accordance with our legal objectives.”
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Hig Europe was not the only party that was touched in the pocket on his conduct compared to Silentnight.
In 2021, KPMG was sentenced to a fine of nearly 13 million pounds sterling by the Financial Reporting Council – at the time an almost record sum – for its role in facilitation of the pre -pack sale of the bed manufacturer in Hig Europe.
A FRC court also inflicted a fine of the partner of KPMG who directed the agreement, David Costley-Wood, and prohibited him from holding membership of the professional accounting body for 13 years.
The KPMG restructuring arm in the United Kingdom was sold – also in 2021 – in Hig Europe, and renamed Advisory Interpath.
The investment capital company is now launching a sales process for the company which could enhance it at around 800 million pounds sterling.
A Hig Europe spokesperson refused to comment on the appointment of bankers.