Oakley Capital Investments

Investment vehicle Oakley Capital offers investors access to the private equity forays of entrepreneur Peter Dubens, who built and sold internet plays Pipex and 365 Media.

OCI raised £100m at float in August 2007 to invest alongside the unlisted Oakley Capital Private Equity fund. The portfolio so far consists of businesses operating in the areas of website hosting, niche media and derivatives broking.

Oakley's largest investment to date has been in web hosting, by way of a £120m acquisition from Freedom4 (formerly Pipex and where Dubens is still chairman and 5% shareholder). With market-leading positions in domain names and shared hosting in the UK and Germany, the web hosting operation is flourishing in a fast-expanding market and, thanks to £19.4m of debt financing from the fund, is building new capacity to take advantage of this opportunity.

Dubens describes the media arm as a ‘consolidation play’, currently consisting of a news digest for remote hotels and ocean liners; man-overboard and fire-safety training services for ships and boats; entertainment services to keep maritime crews amused; and the repurchased TeamTalk sports websites Dubens sold to BSkyB in 2006. He intends further consolidations in this 'niche' and says ‘discussions are in progress’.

The most recent addition is Monument, a derivatives, equities and fixed-income broker bought from Insinger de Beaufort last July. ‘Current trading is good,’ says Dubens, who says now is ‘a good point in the cycle’ to expand through discounted acquisitions and the hiring of brokers.

With OCI having invested €48.3m, or 34.5% of its available capital, Dubens declares that ‘as the share price is trading at less than cash and loan value, the businesses that we own are in for free’. Although the market has yet to be convinced, his money-making abilities are proven and the shares possess a good degree of speculative potential.