Fastway Couriers has been bought by MML Growth Partners in a deal which sees Gerry Riordan and Andy Hennessy selling their shares in the company.

MML Growth Partners Ireland is a private equity fund backed by Irish and multinational interests, including  Enterprise Ireland, AIB, Cigna Corporation and the European Investment Bank.

Fastway Couriers was founded as a franchise in Ireland in 2001, having been started in New Zealand in 1983. It has over 300 franchisees across Ireland and clients include Littlewoods Ireland, ASOS, Boohoo, MissGuided and Sports Direct.

Fastway's Parcel Connect is Ireland’s largest pick-up and drop-off network with more than 850,000 users.

Fastway's chief executive Bobby O’Keeffe (pictured) commented: “We are delighted to receive this investment and welcome MML into the Fastway Ireland team.  We see it as a tremendous validation of our business.  MML was our preferred investment partner due to their proven capability of working with growth oriented businesses.  The MML team are flexible and creative in their approach and we believe they are the right people to help guide and support us to even greater successes over coming years.”

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Neil McGowan, Director and Co-head of Investments with MML Growth Capital Partners Ireland, said that MML is excited to partner with O'Keeffe and his senior team. "Fastway has a very strong reputation and is growing very quickly against the backdrop of a rapidly changing and growing eCommerce retail space," sais McGowan. "We have been enormously impressed with the team at Fastway and believe they are very well placed to drive the business to its maximum potential.”

Fastway Group was advised by Mazars Corporate Finance. “Fastway is an excellent Irish success story and it attracted a lot of interest from both domestic and international private equity,” said Mazars partner John Bowe. “Irish Assets with strong growth profiles are in high demand and private equity are actively looking at the market. MML is a really a good fit for Bobby O’Keeffe and the senior team and it will be exciting to see how they support Fastway on the next phase of its development.”