Delivery giant Evri has been sold by its private equity owner to Apollo Global Management, the fund which tried to buy Wood Group earlier this year.
The parcel delivery group was put up for sale this year by Advent International and was said to be seeking offers of £2billion.
Fromerly known as Hermes UK, Evri delivers more than 700 million parcels each year.
The £2.7billion deal was confirmed this morning, but Apollo has declined to confirm the value of the sale.
The sale had attracted interest from several buyers, including the Chinese internet group, JD.com, InPost, a Polish operator of parcel lockers and DHL.
Martijn de Lange, chief executive of Evri said: “We are incredibly proud of the transformative changes that have enabled Evri to efficiently scale while maintaining our focus on on-time delivery and an environmentally responsible model.”
“We want to thank the team at Advent for their partnership over the past five years and for providing the business with a strong foundation for continued expansion.”
Evri are the latest logistics business to have faced being sold.
Yodel, which was previously owned by the Barclays family, was recently sold to a group of investors and the owner of Royal Mail is reportedly being targeted by Daniel Kretinsky, the Czech billionaire.
FTSE 100
The UK's flagship share index, the FTSE 100, was up 23-points at 8,186 shortly after opening this morning.
Brent crude oil futures were up 0.10%, trading at $82.45 a barrel.
Companies reporting today
Drax Group | Half Year Results |
IMI | Half Year Results |
Jupiter Fund Management | Half Year Results |
Man Group | Half Year Results |
NatWest | Half Year Results |
Rightmove | Half Year Results |
SEGRO | Half Year Results |