Oakley Capital Investments (OCI ) is deploying up to £90m as part of private equity fund Oakley Capital Fund V’s acquisition of UK automotive services platform Steer.

Founded in 2018, the independent collision repair group has established a network of over 100 repair centres, representing about 5% of the UK market, a stock exchange notice said.

The investment will the be the third largest in the £1.2bn London-listed investment company, which holds a portfolio of largely pan-European technology-focused businesses through its investment in Oakley funds. 

Founder of Steer, Richard Steer, and the current management team will continue to lead the business and are reinvesting alongside Oakley. As part of the transaction, Oakley will acquire the shares held by Keyhaven Capital Partners and Chiltern Capital.

Partnering with Oakley will facilitate Steer’s next stage of growth in the fragmented collision repair market, further strengthening its investment in its facilities, development and training through the Steer Academy programme, and electric vehicle repair capability to meet the demands of newer, more technologically advanced vehicles.

‘Our strategy has always been to invest behind exceptional founders with a clear strategic vision. We have been impressed by Richard and his team, and the way they have built Steer to serve the changing needs of the UK automotive industry,’ said Peter Dubens, founder and managing partner of Oakley Capital.

OCI’s other recent investments include £9m in Alerce Spanish, a transport and logistics software solutions provider, and £3m into Webcentral, an Australian domains and hosting provider, both of which were made in October.

At 30 September, outstanding commitments were £1,053m (88% of net assets), while the fund had net cash of £222m, or 19% of net assets, and an undrawn debt facility of £175m.

Having rallied 14% over the last three months in line with optimism over interest rate cuts, the shares currently sit at a 28% discount to the September net asset value of 679p per share.

Deutsche Numis’ head of investment company research Ewan Lovett-Turner said the pace of realisations is likely to pick-up as several businesses are maturing which may serve to demonstrate the value of the trust’s underlying companies.