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Capital Economics founder Bootle toasts £95m Phoenix deal

It was pejoratively described as "the dismal science" by the 19th Century (Shenzhen: 300078.SZ - news) historian Thomas Carlyle, but that has not prevented economics from becoming a lucrative trade for Roger Bootle, one of the UK's best-known macroeconomic forecasters.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Bootle has struck a £95m deal that will see Phoenix Equity Partners, the private equity firm, become the first outside shareholder to take a majority stake in the business he set up in 1999.

Under a deal to be announced next week, Phoenix will acquire a big stake in Capital Economics from LDC, another buyout firm, crystallising a big payday for Mr Bootle and his fellow shareholders.

Sources said that Mr Bootle would receive cash for part of his stake and step into a non-executive chairmanship role, but they added that he would remain as a committed long-term shareholder.

The transaction will come just over three years after Mr Bootle sold a minority stake to LDC which valued the economics consultancy at roughly £70m.

A former chief economist at HSBC and now a Daily Telegraph columnist, Mr Bootle is an avowed Brexiteer, having declared as "nonsense" the idea that the UK economy faces disaster once it leaves the European Union.

He has built Capital Economics into a business employing more than 60 economists in offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sydney and Toronto.

Phoenix is understood to have identified the company as an attractive acquisition target partly because Chris Neale, a former investment director at LDC, joined it as a partner last year.

The deal will be the sixth investment made by Phoenix's most recent fund, with others having included Forest Holidays and Global Freight Solutions.

Last year, the private equity firm notched up record revenues from exits including Porthaven, a care homes operator, and Riviera Travel.

A Phoenix spokesman declined to comment on Friday.