H.I.G. WhiteHorse Provides Financing in Support of Varova Fashion
LONDON – May 11, 2017 – H.I.G. WhiteHorse, a credit affiliate of global investment firm H.I.G. Capital, has arranged a €15m loan for Varova Fashion, which operates a number of retail and wholesale fashion brands in the Benelux region, and is majority owned by Varova Investments. Varova Fashion is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands and operates over 110 stores across the portfolio of diversified brands covering a wide range of target groups in terms of age, price and fashion content.
H.I.G. WhiteHorse has provided a flexible financing structure which provides capital to support further growth and investment. Varova has grown its sales at an average of over 12% in the last three years.
Herman Vocking, Principal at H.I.G. WhiteHorse, said: “This transaction demonstrates H.I.G. WhiteHorse’s ability to tailor a bespoke, flexible and deliverable debt package to support Varova Fashion as it capitalizes on opportunities arising from its multi-channel approach and verticalization trends within the fashion industry. We look forward to supporting its future success”.
Maarten Vaessen, Co-Founder of Varova Investments, commented: “This transaction provides Varova Fashion with the flexibility to continue investing in its strong growth trajectory and further build on our current strong market position. H.I.G. WhiteHorse has been supportive and demonstrated a high degree of flexibility and pragmatism in providing us with a solution that suited our requirements and we look forward to working with H.I.G. WhiteHorse as a financing partner”.
About Varova Fashion
Varova Fashion operates 12 retail and wholesale brands in the Benelux region. The brands share a common infrastructure platform which serves as an incubator for smaller brands and an accelerator for more established ones via the use of own retail. The company operates over 110 stores across its three largest brands. Each of the brands has a unique offering which enables Varova Fashion to cover a wide range of target groups in terms of age, price and fashion content. The Company’s new funding package will enable Varova Fashion to further invest in the strong growth of the platform and grow its European footprint.
About Varova Investments
Varova Investments is a Dutch-based operationally focused investment firm that focuses on medium sized companies with annual revenues in the range of €5 million to €150 million. Varova Investments mainly invests in European companies active in the manufacturing and selling of consumer goods or industrial products. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands.
About H.I.G. WhiteHorse
H.I.G. WhiteHorse is the credit affiliate of H.I.G. Capital focused on providing flexible debt financing solutions to middle market companies in Europe and the United States. Operating a broad investment mandate, H.I.G. WhiteHorse provides unitranche, senior and subordinated debt capital for refinancings, growth capital, acquisitions, buyouts, and balance sheet recapitalizations. Credit facilities typically range from €10 million to €75 million for companies with revenues of €40 million or more. For more information, please refer to the WhiteHorse website at: http://higeurope.com/whitehorse/.
About H.I.G. Capital
H.I.G. is a leading global private equity and alternative assets investment firm with more than €20 billion of equity capital under management.* Based in Miami, and with offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Atlanta in the U.S., as well as international affiliate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogotá, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/ value-added approach:
- H.I.G.’s equity funds invest in management buyouts, recapitalizations and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses.
- H.I.G.’s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. is also a leading CLO manager, through its WhiteHorse family of vehicles, and manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance.
- H.I.G.’s real assets funds invest in value-added properties, which can benefit from improved asset management practices.
Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 200 companies worldwide. The firm’s current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of €28 billion. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at www.hig.com.
* Based on total capital commitments managed by H.I.G. Capital and affiliates.