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Welsh, Carson to sell Ruesch to Apax portfolio company Travelex27/03/2007. Source: AltAssets. 
 US private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe has agreed to sell Ruesch International, a Washington, DC-based business-to-business payments services company, to Apax portfolio company Travelex for $440m.
Travelex plans to merge Ruesch with its Commercial Foreign Exchange division.
Stephan Wilcke, a partner at Apax and a director of Travelex, said, 'In assisting Travelex in this acquisition, Apax has capitalised on its global reach using a combined UK and US transaction team to deliver a transatlantic deal for one of our global portfolio companies.'
Funds advised by Apax Partners acquired a majority stake in Travelex in August 2005. At the same time, Standard Chartered Bank acquired a minority stake in the company. In November 2006 Apax and Standard Chartered agreed to increase their investment in Travelex by acquiring the 3i's remaining stake.
In December 2005 Travelex entered into a ten-year partnership with Western Union. John Martin, formerly group finance director of Hays, was appointed Group CFO in March 2006. Two months later Peter Burridge joined the company as divisional managing director of the Commercial Foreign Exchange division from Siebel, where he was general manager responsible for Asia. In August last year Travelex agreed to acquire 25 branches of Reisebank in Austria, The Netherlands and Switzerland.
In January 2007 Travelex appointed Ian Meakins, the former CEO of Alliance Unichem, as group CEO. In March 2007 Travelex raised a £177m Senior PIK Facility.
Apax has had a very busy year so far. The firm's recent transactions have included the acquisition of a 49.9 per cent stake in Trader Media Group from the Guardian Media Group; and the acquisition of Hub International, together with Morgan Stanley Principal Investments; the sale of its stake in German fashion group CBR to EQT; the dale of its stake in Greek mobile phone carrier TIM Hellas Telecommunications to Weather Investments; and the Mölnlycke Health Care Group exit.
Martin Halusa, worldwide CEO of Apax, recently announced that Apax will no longer invest in venture capital opportunities. The firm will focus all its efforts on the buy-out, especially the larger buy-out side of the private equity business.
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