TORONTO — Access Cash General Partnership, a private-equity-investors group, has acquired Canada's EZEE ATM LP from Newport Partners Income Fund.
According to a news release, proceeds from the deal totaled CAN $36.5 million (U.S. 33.2 million). Proceeds from the all-cash transaction have been used by Newport Partners to reduce debt.
Newport Partners made its initial investment in EZEE ATM in March 2004. Since then, EZEE has returned a total of CAN $14.7 million (U.S. $13.4 million) in distributable cash.
"While there have been recent improvements in the operating results of this business, the nominal total return on the investment in EZEE has fallen short of our target range," said Peter Wallace, Newport Partners' president and chief executive. "We've determined that our invested capital can be more effectively deployed by the (Newport Partners Income) Fund in reducing debt. Our primary goal for 2008 was to reduce the (Newport Partners Income) Fund's net debt to EBITDA, and this transaction gives us an opportunity to make progress on that objective."
The entire EZEE ATM management team is expected to go along with the Access Cash deal. The business will continue to operate under the EZEE ATM and ACCESS CASH brands.
EZEE is Canada's second largest full-service independent ATM operator/provider, serving more than 3,800 businesses and processing more than 19 million ATM transactions each year.
EZEE ATM and Access Cash say they plan to continue focusing on ATM acquisitions across the country and have secured "significant" acquisition capital for additional buyouts. Over the last few years, EZEE ATM has successfully acquired ATM portfolios from TRM Corp., Technoda, STR, Domotec and Rapid Cash.
