EXCLUSIVE: Simon Cowell’s agency YMU is shedding some weight by selling its accountancy firm via an management buyout (MBO).
The deal, for which financial terms were undisclosed, comes a year after YMU was sold to private lending firm Permira Credit under a £60M ($73M) deal.
YMU Business Management, which launched in 1986 and was incorporated into YMU in 1995, will become known as OJK Business Management from next month following the MBO led by Joint MDs Julie Symes and Simon Petrie.
YMU, which reps the likes of Cowell, Graham Norton and Ant and Dec, will continue to partner with the circa-85-strong staff accountancy firm for existing and future clients, it said. OJK will “focus on being a bespoke accountancy, tax advisory and business management practice.”
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YMU CEO Mary Bekhait said: “This transaction enables YMU to focus on its core purpose and business – the management of elite clients in Sport, Music and Entertainment and allows the OJK team to focus on theirs in accountancy. We have the utmost respect for all that Pat Savage and the Business Management leadership team have built over the years and we will continue to partner with OJK on existing and future YMU clients for accountancy services.”
Symes called the deal a “mutually beneficial agreement which allows both organisations the opportunity to continue working side by side.”
The move caps off a year of change for London shop YMU. Last year’s sale saw Permira convert £32.9M of YMU debt into shares for a newly-created parent company, cancel a further £16M of debt and forge a credit facility of £10M available to YMU. A number of agents then left, taking big clients with them, while YMU has since hired a number of agents and clients, most recently a global literary chief.
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