Montagu to buy cloud computing firm from Oakley

LONDON, UK: Buyout house Montagu is set to buy cloud computing firm Host Europe from listed investment firm Oakley Capital as the European firm spends remaining funds before setting about raising new capital.

Montagu will pay 222 million pounds ($344.1 million) for the business, which offers web hosting, domain registration and web-based software to small- and medium-sized companies in Britain and Germany, the group said in a statement on Wednesday.

Montagu has started warming up investors for another 2.3 billion euro ($2.99 billion) buyout fund, having asked them for another year to spend the remainder of its current buyout fund. About 75 percent of the firm's 2.3 billion euro fund has been committed to deals.

Montagu said it plans to merge Host's two businesses, Webfusion and Host Europe GmbH, which serve Britain and Germany respectively.

The sale marks the first significant exit by Oakley's private equity arm, which was established in 2007, and earns the firm about three times its initial equity investment.

Oakley, which also manages an absolute return fund and provides advisory services, said it expects net asset value to rise to 152 pence to 154 pence a share following the sale.