London-based IMAN Capital Partners has, together with a group of investors, agreed to acquire a majority stake in Crealsa Investments, a Spanish provider of web solutions for the financing of invoices and promissory notes to SMEs on a nationwide basis.
London-based IMAN Capital Partners has, together with a group of investors, agreed to acquire a majority stake in Crealsa Investments, a Spanish provider of web solutions for the financing of invoices and promissory notes to SMEs on a nationwide basis.
Headquartered in London and founded in 2018, IMAN Capital is a private capital firm focusing on special-situation or tactical private investments across Europe and other countries. This is IMAN Capital’s first investment.
Founded by Andrés Rubio, a former senior partner of Apollo Global Management and a private investor, the firm is focused on value investing where underlying asset value and/or expandable cash flow generation offer attractive risk-adjusted returns over the long-term.
Crealsa’s co-founders Jose Molina and Javier Chisbert will continue to hold a significant stake in the company, with Molina acting as CEO.
The investment will aim to boost Crealsa’s position in the financing of current liabilities for SMEs across Spain. Crealsa will discount close to EUR100 million in 2020. With the backing from IMAN Capital, the company expects annual discounted volumes to increase several-fold over coming years.
Headquartered in Valencia with commercial branches in Madrid and Murcia, Crealsa is a Spanish fintech platform operating a web-based origination and underwriting platform, providing solutions for the financing of invoices and promissory notes to SMEs with around EUR270 million of discounted volume across 50,000 transactions.
“Through our online platform SMEs can manage their working capital needs using their invoices as an underlying asset and achieving immediate liquidity, said Jose Molina, cofounder and CEO of Crealsa.
“Our vision is to be a leader in the fintech sector in Spain and that is why we are delighted to be partnering with IMAN Capital to support Crealsa in its next stage of growth and business expansion,” he added.
Since its foundation in 2009, Crealsa has serviced close to 3,000 clients and underwritten nearly 7,000 debtors. The Spanish confirming and factoring market had total volume of around EUR166 billion in 2018 with specialist firms, such as Crealsa, representing EUR839 million and growing their volumes by more than 15 per cent annually during the previous five years.
“This is IMAN Capital’s first transaction and forms part of an extensive pipeline of credit and real estate oriented investments across Europe that we are pursuing in partnership with selected institutional and private investors,” said Andrés Rubio, founding partner of IMAN Capital.
IMAN was advised by Arcano, Gómez-Acebo y Pombo, KPMG and Capgemini, while Crealsa was advised by EY and Cuatrecasas.
