TDR Capital has agreed to buy Lovehoney Group for roughly €400m (£334m), taking out majority owner Jacobs Capital and minority investor CDH Investments. The price sits well below the "in excess of €1bn" valuation attached to the business when it merged with WOW Tech Group five years ago.
Lovehoney was founded in Bath in 2002 by Richard Longhurst and Neal Slateford as an online retailer. It has since grown into a group of about 20 sexual wellness brands, including Fifty Shades of Grey, Amorana, We-Vibe and Womanizer, as well as the French retailer Espace Plaisir, which trades online and through boutiques in Lyon and Toulouse.
The group is headquartered in the UK and Germany, employs more than 850 people and sells into more than 60 countries.
The deal
According to Sky News, the London-based buyout firm signed the agreement in the last few days after extensive talks with Lovehoney's shareholders. TDR, whose portfolio includes Asda and Stonegate, Britain's largest pubs operator, declined to comment.
Houlihan Lokey advised the sellers on the sale process. Equity and debt splits, and the treatment of management shareholdings, were not disclosed.
The parent company is expected to be rebranded in due course.
How the cap table got here
Lovehoney's ownership has changed hands twice before:
- 2018: the founders sold a majority stake to Telemos Capital, which later merged with Jacobs Holding to form Jacobs Capital, the family office now selling.
- 2021: Lovehoney merged with WOW Tech Group, the German maker of the We-Vibe and Womanizer brands. At the time, the enlarged company was said to be worth more than €1bn (£834.8m).
- 2026: TDR agrees to buy out both Jacobs Capital and CDH Investments, the Asian asset manager that held a minority position.
The €400m headline price is roughly 60% below the 2021 figure. The two numbers may not be measured on the same basis, since the 2021 valuation was a merger statement rather than a cash transaction. Even so, the gap is a sharp reset for a category that drew heavy investor interest during the pandemic-era boom in direct-to-consumer brands.
What TDR is buying into
One source told Sky News that TDR sees an opportunity to build a broader multinational intimate wellbeing platform, growing both organically and by consolidating what remains a heavily fragmented sector.
Other investors have tried a similar playbook. Waterland backs EQOM Group, and Swedish rival Lelo looked at a London listing in 2021 before dropping the plan. With public markets still largely shut to consumer brands of this size, a sponsor-to-sponsor sale was the clearest exit route for Lovehoney's backers.
For the Bath-born business, the deal opens a third chapter of private equity ownership. The next test is whether a buy-and-build strategy can recover the value lost since 2021.
Original source: Sky News — https://news.sky.com/story/buyout-firm-tdr-capital-strikes-400m-deal-to-buy-lovehoney-13606074
