The Advent Difference

Founded in 1998, TCP is the third-largest container terminal in Brazil and a port of call for most shipping lines operating in the country.

The company’s services include loading and unloading of ships, bonded warehouses, monitoring of refrigerated containers and container stuffing.

After six years of careful analysis and intensive sourcing in the port sector with our operating partner Jesper Kjaedegaard, we acquired a 50% stake in TCP in July 2011, partnering with the existing shareholders and management team. As a result of our diligence work, we saw beyond TCP’s successful history and strong macro environment. The well-regarded company was constrained by a lack of capacity and its productivity and service metrics were below international standards.

We supported management in putting in place improved corporate governance which included a new culture of performance measures. Maintenance improvements and additional equipment have already helped to increase productivity from 30 moves per hour to about 40 moves per hour. This in turn has expanded the terminal’s capacity 14% to 800,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) per year. In 2011, TCP’s revenue grew by 15%.

To further increase capacity, the company has embarked on the construction of a third, 315‑meter long berth, which will accommodate a new range of larger vessels. Ultimately it aims to improve productivity to more than 70 moves per hour, bringing it in line with some of the best ports in the world. With all of these initiatives, TCP expects to double its annual capacity to 1.5 million TEUs and achieve its vision of becoming one of the largest and most productive container terminals in Brazil.

After tracking the US building products sector for several years, we saw an opportunity to consolidate a large, attractive market at a favorable time in the cycle. We would create a leading national player in the highly fragmented roofing supply sector.

Our first move came after the US construction market had crashed and participants were facing a time of unprecedented turmoil. In August 2008, we acquired Bradco Supply, the third-largest supplier of residential and commercial roofing supplies in the US. The family-run business was undermanaged, without a significant succession plan and underperforming relative to its peers. We believed we could help Bradco to become a more professionally-managed business with higher profitability and to ultimately drive a market consolidation ahead of an eventual industry recovery. Over two years, key hires and operational improvements strengthened the business, while the management team built a solid pipeline of potential add-on acquisitions. By 2010, the company had acquired and integrated four local and regional firms, kicking off the industry consolidation plan.

Bradco was beginning to acquire smaller competitors when an opportunity to accelerate the industry consolidation developed. Advent approached the family owner of ABC Supply, a $2.7 billion distributor of roofing and exterior building supplies to explore a combination which would create a clear industry leader that would be almost three times the size of the next largest player. In June 2010, Bradco was merged into ABC Supply and Advent made an additional equity investment in the combined company.

This new business is a truly national player with a presence in all major US markets, approximately 7,000 employees, and over $4.5 billion in sales. With greater scale and geographic breadth, the company benefits from purchasing and cost leverage as well as regional diversification. Since the merger, our focus has been on integration and leveraging the strengths of the combined company.

ABC Supply now has 479 branches in 45 states, with leading positions in all regional markets. The company is well-positioned, both strategically and financially, to benefit from an eventual recovery in the US construction sector.

WorldPay, which was acquired by Advent International and Bain Capital in 2010, is a highly complex carve-out from The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which retains a minority stake.

At the time, WorldPay, the largest provider of card payment services in Europe and the fourth-largest globally, was a non-core division of the bank. However, as a standalone business, it offered the potential for considerable growth underpinned by the continuing shift from paper-based payments, such as cash and checks to electronic payments.

Still, just completing the $2 billion transaction required a thoughtful approach to the complex network of relationships involved and respect for the roles each party would play in the future independent company. The experience and philosophy of management-led change held by our Portfolio Support Group, operating partners and our partners at Bain Capital proved invaluable in coming to a consensus on how to address challenges and drive progress at WorldPay. We were also able to leverage our Financial Services team’s knowledge and experience in US-based Vantiv and French firm Monext, both transaction processing carve-outs from their former parent companies.

In the last year, WorldPay has made marked progress across all areas of the business. We augmented the management team with key hires and firmed up the organizational structure as part of the separation program from RBS, which is well on-track. Business units that had been underperforming for several years have seen operational and commercial improvements and now show positive momentum. A new outward-looking, can-do approach has started to appeal to merchant customers and drive growth.

WorldPay is now accountable, customer-focused and well on the way to independence. Looking to accelerate growth, we continue to work with the management team, our operating partners and our partners at Bain Capital to invest in the technology infrastructure and explore new opportunities for growth in the rapidly changing payments market.