IK Investment Partners (“IK”) is pleased to announce that the IK Small Cap II Fund has reached an agreement to acquire a majority stake in You Sure Investments B.V. (“You Sure” or “the Company”) from Synergia Capital Partners (“Synergia”). The transaction is subject to AFM clearance. Financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed.
You Sure is a leading Dutch insurance distribution platform, providing insurance to small businesses and individuals. Operating mainly in the Property and Casualty (“P&C”) segment, You Sure acts both as an insurance broker and a Managing General Agent (“MGA”), and currently serves over 60,000 customers.
Headquartered in Ridderkerk, You Sure employs over 130 people across seven offices in the Netherlands. The Company was founded in 2011 by Ger Knikman and Joep van den Eijkel, who have been active in the insurance industry for over 30 and 40 years, respectively, and have worked together since 2005. You Sure partnered with Synergia in March 2019 and following the sale to IK, the co-founders will be reinvesting in the business to support further growth.
The Company has significantly expanded its footprint over the last nine years through strategic acquisitions, a strong customer focus and its effective IT platform. To date, 35 insurance portfolios have been acquired and integrated into You Sure’s proprietary platform, which the Company plans to continue with IK’s support.
The transaction represents the 11th investment from IK’s €550 million Small Cap II Fund.
Ger Knikman, CEO of You Sure commented: “We have thoroughly enjoyed working with Synergia, and with their support we have achieved our three-year plan in just 18 months. As we embark on the next stage of our growth, we are delighted to partner with IK. With their established presence in the Netherlands and track record of delivering long-term value, we look forward to proceeding with our strategic pipeline of acquisitions while delivering strong organic growth.”
Sander van Vreumingen, Partner at IK and advisor to the IK Small Cap II Fund, said: “You Sure is a strong insurance platform that has shown impressive growth under the leadership of Ger and Joep. We are attracted by the Company’s focus on quality and customers’ relationships driven by its proprietary digital platform. With the sector about to embark on a phase of consolidation, we are excited to partner with You Sure and help the business grow further and deliver even more for its customers.”
Leo Schenk, Managing Director at Synergia, commented: “We have had a fantastic journey with You Sure over the last 18 months and sincerely enjoyed working with Ger, Joep and the team. With a strong platform, ambitious growth strategy and their knowledge of the insurance business, they have a strong future ahead of them with IK.”
For further questions, please contact:
Maitland/AMO
James McFarlane
T: +44 (0) 20 7379 5151
jmcfarlane@maitland.co.uk
IK Investment Partners
Nastasja Vojvodic
T: +44 (0) 20 7304 4300
nastasja.vojvodic@ikinvest.com
About IK Investment Partners
IK Investment Partners (“IK”) is a Pan-European private equity firm focused on investments in the Benelux, DACH, France, Nordics and the UK. Since 1989, IK has raised more than €13 billion of capital and invested in over 135 European companies. IK supports companies with strong underlying potential, partnering with management teams and investors to create robust, well-positioned businesses with excellent long-term prospects. For more information, visit www.ikinvest.com
About IK Small Cap II
The €550 million IK Small Cap II Fund (“IK Small Cap II” or “the Fund”) closed in 2018 and invests in growing businesses across IK’s four core sectors: Business Services, Consumer/Food, Engineered Products and Healthcare. Dedicated investment teams in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Hamburg, London, Paris and Stockholm look to support businesses with an Enterprise Value of between c. €30 million and c. €100 million across the Benelux, DACH, France, Nordics and the UK. For more information, visit www.ikinvest.com/IK-Funds/ik-small-cap-ii-fund
Founded in 2003 near Aix-en-Provence, Syclef is a leading French company specializing in the installation and maintenance of industrial and commercial refrigeration systems. Today, Syclef employs a workforce of nearly 800 people, following both significant organic and external growth in recent years. Since 2015, Syclef has accelerated its buy-and-build strategy with the acquisition of 15 companies. Together with Ardian, the group intends to continue this ambitious consolidation process in a market still very fragmented.
Syclef’s customer base, which is primarily composed of large and medium-size food retailers as well as companies in the food & beverage industry, relies on Syclef to manage its complex and critical refrigeration systems. The group has a direct sales approach which enables it to customize its offer and provide a bespoke service to its customers. Syclef operates a decentralized organization structure with a network of 30 independent companies throughout the country.
The group’s commercial strategy is supported by a focus on environmentally friendly innovation such as natural refrigeration fluids. This is part of its overall objective of reducing its customers’ energy consumption and environmental impact.
Marie Arnaud Battandier, Managing Director within the Ardian Expansion team, said: “Syclef’s management team has done a stellar job to put it in leadership position in the French market. In the coming years, we want to further catalyze the company’s growth by taking advantage of its expert positioning, its local strategy and its approach towards environmentally friendly innovation in this growing market.”
Hervé Lohéac, Chairman of Syclef, added: “We are very proud of the progress we have made with Latour Capital, which has allowed us to structure our external growth strategy over the last five years. Now, we are pleased to continue our journey with Ardian at our side, forming a partnership that will provide us with the right tools to further grow and develop both organically and externally. Our decentralized organization model and employee ownership are both key factors of our success, thanks to the involvement of our colleagues. This dynamism, combined with our ambitious training policy ensure our reactivity, our high maintenance standards and our ability to deliver high quality services to our clients.”
Philippe Leoni and Maxime Gutton, Partners at Latour Capital concluded: “We want to express our heartfelt thanks to the Syclef team. We are thrilled to have supported the strong development and transformation of the group with, among others, the introduction of a new senior management team and the structuration of support functions. This new organization allowed the group to triple its size in five years thanks to the acceleration of organic growth and the implementation of an active external growth strategy, with 15 acquisitions.”
Founded in 2003, Syclef is a French leader in the installation and maintenance of refrigeration systems. The group is specialized in medium and large refrigeration installations, in industrial refrigeration (logistics platforms, storage warehouses, food processing…), commercial refrigeration (supermarkets, convenience stores…) and air conditioning. The group benefits from a key player position in the energy transition through the use of innovative “eco-responsible” technologies such as natural refrigerant fluids.
Ardian is one of the world’s leading private equity firms with $100 billion under management and/or advisory in Europe, America and Asia. The company, which is majority owned by its employees, has always placed entrepreneurship at the heart of its approach and offers its international investors top-tier performance.
Through its commitment to sharing the value created with all stakeholders, Ardian participates in the growth of companies and economies around the world.
Based on its values of excellence, loyalty and entrepreneurship, Ardian benefits from an international network of 700 employees in 15 offices in Europe (Frankfurt, Jersey, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), North America (New York, San Francisco), South America (Santiago) and Asia (Beijing, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul). The company manages the funds of 1,000 clients through its five investment pillars: Funds of Funds, Direct Funds, Infrastructure, Real Estate and Private Debt.
Latour Capital is a French independent management company with a strong entrepreneurial and operational culture. With €1.5 billion under management and 20 investment professionals, the company is an active investor, involved alongside the management teams of its portfolio companies. The firm invests primarily in companies displaying a strong growth potential in France and abroad.
ARDIAN
LATOUR CAPITAL
PRESS CONTACTS
ARDIAN – Headland
Gregor Riemann
griemann@headlandconsultancy.com +44 (0)7920 802 627
Since 2016, Nevion has enjoyed a positive development with expanded gross margins, key new product launches, and success with several new strategic customers in both Europe, North America and Asia. The transaction is expected to close in early October 2020. Nevion was the last portfolio company remaining in Fund II and the process to liquidate the fund will commence in due course.
Read Sony’s full press release here.
ProductLife Group (PLG), a specialist provider of regulatory and compliance services for the life sciences industry, acquires Axpharma from Galiena Capital and refinances its debt alongside securing the means to achieve the next steps of its ambitious buy-and-build strategy.
Founded in 2001 by Florence Postel and accompanied by Galiena Capital as majority shareholder since 2015, Axpharma is a prominent pharmacovigilance service provider in Europe. Its team of experts enjoys a strong reputation for providing highly dependable services in the areas of case management, medical writing, medical literature monitoring, pharmacovigilance responsibility delegation, and around-the-clock medical information. Its clients include pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, medical device and cosmetics companies, primarily in Europe.
This acquisition falls perfectly in line with PLG’s growth acceleration and transformation plan. It will support the Group’s ambition to become the leading global provider of regulatory and compliance services in life sciences, covering regulatory affairs, clinical safety, pharmacovigilance, and quality. Pharmacovigilance services, in particular, are currently facing strong and growing international demand from life sciences companies, and PLG’s capabilities in the field will be strongly bolstered via the Axpharma deal.
ProductLife Group is ideally positioned to capitalise on this opportunity thanks to its global full-service contract model (on-shore and off-shore resourcing), its strategic use of smart technology and its best-in-class institutional team, recently reinforced with the appointment of Candice Bosson as group vice-president of human resources & talent management, and of Paolo Guerra, as new medical device lead.
Commenting on the Axpharma acquisition, PLG CEO Xavier Duburcq said, “Our strategic priority is to reinforce PLG’s ability to address the needs of today’s biopharma and medical product industry, drawing upon decades of experience in management of scientific and regulatory aspects of medicine. The merger of PLG and Axpharma offers tremendous potential to further invest in automation and artificial intelligence, as part of the aim to offer to our clients reliable, innovative, and cost-effective solutions that are always one step ahead of what the industry expects.
“I have known Axpharma for some years, and our positive work cultures make a great match. Working with the company’s well-respected and similarly-motivated team will bring exciting opportunities for us all. This acquisition also includes Audithem, an emerging company providing auditing services in pharmaceutical good practices, which will support PLG’s ambition to grow in the Quality and Compliance area,” he continued.
Speaking for both Axpharma and Audithem, Managing Director Sophie Brisset-Jaillet, said, “We are delighted at this meeting of minds and goals and we’re excited at the prospect of being part of PLG, a larger group with an excellent reputation and a broader reach. Together there is so much more we can do which can only benefit our clients and our employees. This is an exciting step for our companies. Our teams will now be able to work together in a fluid and efficient manner so that we can continue the good work we do making it even better and stronger.”
Fabrice Voituron, Managing Partner at 21 Invest, said, “The strengthening of ProductLife Group’s organization together with its good commercial momentum today result in the acceleration of the buy-and-build strategy, in spite of the context. Indeed, the Axpharma opportunity embodies the start of a new phase of growth, demonstrating PLG’s willingness to widen its expertise and expand its geographical reach notably in the United States and Europe. Supported by a new acquisition financing line, the Group has the means to support its ambitions and is expected to make further announcements in the next few months.”
Although ProductLife Group, in common with its peers around the world, must manage its plans within the constraints of the continuing pandemic, the organisation has identified strong growth markets and maintained strong performance, as demand for its services has remained buoyant. Indeed, the organisation has seen significant commercial successes in 2020, including some notable COVID-19 safety projects and a significant deal to manage the regulatory and quality activities of a large generic-drug organisation.
– 06/10/2020
Ghent, Belgium: 6 October 2020 – Sensolus, provider of IoT (Internet of Things)-based asset tracking solutions, has closed a financing round of € 3.5 million. The Belgian firm enables companies to track non-powered assets in supply chains and industrial manufacturing, operating in various industries in more than 15 countries. The financing round is led by btov Partners’ Industrial Technologies Fund in addition to existing investors Annie Vereecken, Capricorn ICT Arkiv and Quest for Growth. The funding will further accelerate the company’s international growth and help realizing its product roadmap.
Logistics and supply chain processes depend on transport carriers such as pallets, boxes, containers, returnable transport packaging and trailers. Currently, most of those non-powered assets are not connected to the internet, resulting in lost and unused assets, stock shortages or under- and overcapacity. Sensolus solves these problems and provides a cost-effective end-to-end IoT solution to track these transport carriers in real-time and optimize the underlying process flows.
The solution consists of wireless trackers that are installed as simply as a sticker, last up to 7 years without charging and communicate with the internet in real-time without requiring any other infrastructure. These wireless trackers collect crucial location, activity and sensor data, which Sensolus combines with existing process data to generate supply chain metrics, to alert on anomalies and to detect patterns which can lead to actionable insights for optimizing processes. Multiple industry leaders (e.g. Airbus, Volvo, AB InBev, SUEZ, T.C.R.) rely on Sensolus’ technology to get real-time visibility in their daily operations and save substantial costs.
The capital is raised to accelerate Sensolus’ growth in its existing market segment and to open up new segments in Europe and US. Moreover, the company will expand its solution to connect more types of assets which are omnipresent in the global supply chain.
Kristoff Van Rattinghe, CEO and co-founder of Sensolus is happy about the investment: “It is great to welcome the international investor btov Partners with their Industrial Tech Fund. We are entering a new era of the connected supply chain we will be connecting millions of non-powered assets in the years to come.”
Today, more than 100.000 non-powered assets are connected to the Sensolus SaaS (Software as a Service) platform. Van Rattinghe is confident that this is just the beginning: “IoT technology has become mature and sufficiently affordable to directly connect all new types of non-powered assets such as boxes and pallets, of which billions of units are rotating invisibly in our world. On the other hand, digitization of processes is a must for our customers to remain cost-effective and competitive in their market. We have exciting years ahead of us.”
The interplay between cloud as well as edge intelligence on the tracker makes the Sensolus solution unique. It allows capturing and analyzing the behavior of many different assets in a reliable, energyefficient way and in a wide variety of verticals Sensolus is active in. This cloud/edge combination makes the complex and broad nature of low-power asset tracking available as a plug-and-play solution. Thus, it scales to tracking large fleets of assets without losing control of the operational risk.
Benedikt Kronberger, partner at btov’s Industrial Technology Fund says: “Sensolus’ diverse team possesses significant domain expertise and great technological knowhow in the fields of both hardware as well as software development. Sensolus’ offering, with its low overall total cost of ownership, a long battery life as well as superior analytics capabilities convinced us to join the strong existing investor consortium. Moreover, through its patented technology, the company is ideally positioned to further consolidate its position as a market leader in the fast-growing industrial IoT market for asset tracking and process optimization applications.”
Marc Lambrechts, board member at Sensolus and investment manager at Capricorn Partners says: “From the start, we have been charmed by the capabilities of the Sensolus team to deliver scalable, reliable and mission critical end-to-end solutions to top tier industrial clients. With this additional investment Sensolus will be able to expand further in the journey from collecting quality data to actionable insights.”
This strategic acquisition, the first since 21 Invest took a majority stake in ProductLife Group in 2019 and appointed new CEO Xavier Duburcq, is part of the Group’s aim to widen its expertise and global reach.
ProductLife Group (PLG), a specialist provider of regulatory and compliance services for the life sciences industry, acquires Axpharma from Galiena Capital and refinances its debt alongside securing the means to achieve the next steps of its ambitious buy-and-build strategy.
Founded in 2001 by Florence Postel and accompanied by Galiena Capital as majority shareholder since 2015, Axpharma is a prominent pharmacovigilance service provider in Europe. Its team of experts enjoys a strong reputation for providing highly dependable services in the areas of case management, medical writing, medical literature monitoring, pharmacovigilance responsibility delegation, and around-the-clock medical information. Its clients include pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, medical device and cosmetics companies, primarily in Europe.
This acquisition falls perfectly in line with PLG’s growth acceleration and transformation plan. It will support the Group’s ambition to become the leading global provider of regulatory and compliance services in life sciences, covering regulatory affairs, clinical safety, pharmacovigilance, and quality. Pharmacovigilance services, in particular, are currently facing strong and growing international demand from life sciences companies, and PLG’s capabilities in the field will be strongly bolstered via the Axpharma deal.
ProductLife Group is ideally positioned to capitalise on this opportunity thanks to its global full-service contract model (on-shore and off-shore resourcing), its strategic use of smart technology and its best-in-class institutional team, recently reinforced with the appointment of Candice Bosson as group vice-president of human resources & talent management, and of Paolo Guerra, as new medical device lead.
Commenting on the Axpharma acquisition, PLG CEO Xavier Duburcq said, “Our strategic priority is to reinforce PLG’s ability to address the needs of today’s biopharma and medical product industry, drawing upon decades of experience in management of scientific and regulatory aspects of medicine. The merger of PLG and Axpharma offers tremendous potential to further invest in automation and artificial intelligence, as part of the aim to offer to our clients reliable, innovative, and cost-effective solutions that are always one step ahead of what the industry expects.
“I have known Axpharma for some years, and our positive work cultures make a great match. Working with the company’s well-respected and similarly-motivated team will bring exciting opportunities for us all. This acquisition also includes Audithem, an emerging company providing auditing services in pharmaceutical good practices, which will support PLG’s ambition to grow in the Quality and Compliance area,” he continued.
Speaking for both Axpharma and Audithem, Managing Director Sophie Brisset-Jaillet, said, “We are delighted at this meeting of minds and goals and we’re excited at the prospect of being part of PLG, a larger group with an excellent reputation and a broader reach. Together there is so much more we can do which can only benefit our clients and our employees. This is an exciting step for our companies. Our teams will now be able to work together in a fluid and efficient manner so that we can continue the good work we do making it even better and stronger.”
Fabrice Voituron, Managing Partner at 21 Invest, said, “The strengthening of ProductLife Group’s organization together with its good commercial momentum today result in the acceleration of the buy-and-build strategy, in spite of the context. Indeed, the Axpharma opportunity embodies the start of a new phase of growth, demonstrating PLG’s willingness to widen its expertise and expand its geographical reach notably in the United States and Europe. Supported by a new acquisition financing line, the Group has the means to support its ambitions and is expected to make further announcements in the next few months.”
Although ProductLife Group, in common with its peers around the world, must manage its plans within the constraints of the continuing pandemic, the organisation has identified strong growth markets and maintained strong performance, as demand for its services has remained buoyant. Indeed, the organisation has seen significant commercial successes in 2020, including some notable COVID-19 safety projects and a significant deal to manage the regulatory and quality activities of a large generic-drug organisation.
San Francisco, 6 October 2020
| GP Bullhound acted as the exclusive financial adviser to AllyO, a leading HR SaaS and AI company, on the sale of its business to HireVue, the global leader in virtual interviewing and assessments technology, majority owned by the Carlyle Group.
AllyO, based in Palo Alto, California, provides a SaaS AI solution to engage and qualify job seekers, automate recruiting processes, and deliver actionable insights to hiring managers. The company’s platform targets enterprises and was primarily backed by Sapphire and Bain Capital Ventures. “AllyO is a natural extension to HireVue’s solutions and we are thrilled to become a part of it,” said Sahil Sahni and Ankit Somani, Co-founders of AllyO. “Uniting AllyO’s continuous, personalized candidate engagement with HireVue’s video interviewing and assessments will increase hiring velocity and talent quality for companies, allowing candidates to connect on their own terms to more fully showcase their potential.” Jonathan Cantwell, Partner at GP Bullhound, stated: “We are proud to have helped AllyO find its ideal strategic partner in HireVue and complete a successful deal for the stakeholders. The combination creates an undisputed leader in the recruitment space. We look forward to seeing their growth and success for years to come.” This represents GP Bullhound’s 21st transaction in the last year, of which 12 SaaS transactions, and is a further testament to the firm’s expertise in the HCM software sector, having previously advised TextRecruit in its sale to iCIMS, Zugata in its sale to CultureAmp, and Multiposting in its sale to SAP, among others. About GP Bullhound GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999, the firm today has offices in London, San Francisco, Stockholm, Berlin, Manchester, Paris, Hong Kong, Madrid and New York. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com. For enquiries, please contact: Jonathan Cantwell, Partner and Head of Software jonathan.cantwell@gpbullhound.com Brandon Overmyer, Vice President |
MIAMI, FL – (October 6th, 2020) Boyne Capital Partners (“Boyne”) is pleased to announce that Alex Villanueva has been promoted to Vice President.
Alex joined Boyne in 2018 as part of the portfolio management team where he focuses on post-acquisition strategy, operational support and infrastructure building for the investment portfolio.
Adam Herman, Boyne’s Chief Operating Officer, said, “Alex is a great example of our strategy to find talented professionals with varying business backgrounds that can bring different perspectives to our portfolio companies and management teams. Equally important to us is providing the team the opportunity to grow their careers as our firm continues grow. Alex has done a great job and earned this promotion. Congrats!”
Prior to joining Boyne, Alex founded a transportation company which provided innovative eco-friendly transit solutions to local communities in the Washington D.C. metro area. Prior to his entrepreneurial venture, Alex was Senior M&A Analyst at Global Imaging Systems, a subsidiary of Xerox Corporation specializing in business technology solutions, where he supervised the execution of the acquisition process for platform investments. He began his career at Ernst & Young’s Audit & Assurance practice.
Alex received his BS in Finance and MS in Accounting from the College of William and Mary. He is a Certified Public Accountant in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
About Boyne: Boyne Capital is a Florida-based private equity firm focused on investments in lower middle market companies. Founded in 2006, Boyne has successfully invested in a broad range of industries, including healthcare services, consumer products, niche manufacturing, and business & financial services among others. Beyond financial resources, Boyne provides industry and operational expertise to its portfolio companies and partners with management to drive both company performance and growth. Boyne specializes in providing the capital necessary to fund corporate growth and facilitate owners and shareholders’ partial or full exit. For additional information, please visit www.boynecapital.com.
6th October 2020 – An investment subsidiary (“Investindustrial”) of Investindustrial VII L.P. has signed an agreement to acquire the CSM Ingredients business (“CSM Ingredients”), the carve-out of a division of CSM Bakery Solutions Limited and its subsidiaries (“CSM Group”), a supplier of bakery solutions held by investment vehicles affiliated with Rhône Capital. CSM Ingredients comprises the European and International activities and assets of CSM Group dedicated to bakery ingredients. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approval and is expected to close by Q1 2021.
CSM Ingredients is a manufacturer and distributor of bakery ingredients mainly to the artisanal traditional trade (pastry and bakery shops) and industrial channels, with a wide product portfolio focused primarily on bread ingredients, pastry mixes, bakery fats, fillings, glazes, toppings and icings. Key brands include Artisal, Arkady, Braims, Craigmillar, Marguerite, Masterline, MeisterMarken and Ulmer Spatz.
CSM Ingredients generates annual revenues of approximately €500 million with 8 manufacturing facilities, including one in China and one joint venture in Tunisia. The main markets in Europe are Germany, Italy, France, the UK and Benelux, with a growing presence in China and Asia.
Investindustrial has a deep sector experience in the food & beverage production sector with numerous past investments, and current investments in fruit-based ingredients company Italcanditi and chocolate maker Natra. Italcanditi recently announced its third add-on acquisition of a niche ingredients company since Investindustrial acquired a majority stake in 2019. The Italian market, in addition to being the second largest country in terms of sales, is of particular interest for CSM Ingredients for potential acquisition-led growth given the many niche producers currently lacking scale to fully access global markets.
In order to capture the expected opportunity set in China and Italy, CIICF, a newly formed strategic partnership with China Investment Corporation and UniCredit, will be investing alongside Investindustrial VII.
Andrea C. Bonomi, Chairman of the Investindustrial Industrial Advisory Board, commented: “CSM Ingredients is a leading player across Europe, with a growing international presence, over 400 salespeople and strong coverage of the region. This is a unique opportunity to become a long-term owner of a sizeable pan-European platform in the stable but still fragmented food ingredients sector. It is an ideal platform from which to pursue M&A-led growth and organically diversify further into higher value add ingredients and higher growth regions, including Italy and China.”
UBS (M&A) and Deloitte (Debt) acted as financial advisors while Slaughter and May provided legal advice to Investindustrial on the transaction.
PRESS RELEASE
About Investindustrial
Investindustrial is a leading European group of independently managed investment, holding and advisory companies with €11 billion of raised fund capital. With ESG principles deeply embedded into the Firm’s core approach, Investindustrial has a 30-year history of providing mid-market companies capital, industrial expertise, operational focus and global platforms to accelerate sustainable value creation and international expansion. Certain companies of the Investindustrial group are authorized by, and subject to regulatory supervision of the FCA in the United Kingdom and the CSSF in Luxembourg. Investindustrial’s investment companies act independently from each other and each Investindustrial fund. Additional information is available at www.investindustrial.com.
About CSM Bakery Solutions Limited
(the parent company from which CSM Ingredients is being acquired)
CSM Bakery Solutions is a global supplier of bakery ingredients, products and services for retail and food service markets as well as artisan and industrial bakeries. CSM serves more than 45,000 customers in 100-plus countries and offers a broad portfolio of well-recognised brands providing specialised ingredients (dry mixes, fillings, icings, glazes, mélange, toppings, batter, frozen dough and more) and finished products (cakes, donuts, muffins, brownies, cookies, specialty bread, viennoiserie and more). CSM’s mosaic of heritage bakery brands includes some of the industry’s most trusted names: Brill, Henry & Henry, MeisterMarken, Multifoods, and Waldkorn, to name but a few. Additional information is available at www.csmbakerysolutions.com.
For further information please contact:
UK Media Maitland/AMO
David Stürken Jonathan Cook
Mob: +44 (0)7990 595 913 Mob: +44 (0)7730 777 865
Email: dsturken@maitland.co.uk Email: jcook@maitland.co.uk
Investindustrial Carl Nauckhoff
Senior Principal & Head of Investor Relations Tel: +44 (0)20 7664 2138
Email: cnauckhoff@investindustrial.com
Investindustrial Advisors Limited is registered in England with its registered address at 16 Palace Street, London SW1E 5JD and company number 01316019. Investindustrial Advisors Limited is authorised and regulated by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority as an Alternative Investment Fund Manager (Financial Services Register number: 170924).
BOSTON, LONDON, and Tel Aviv District, ISRAEL – TA Associates, a leading global growth private equity firm, today announced that it has completed a significant growth investment in Priority Software Ltd., a leading global provider of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software.
TA joins existing investor Fortissimo Capital, a leading private equity firm based in Israel and focused on special situations and growth opportunities, as an institutional investor in Priority Software. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Founded in 1986, Priority Software provides end-to-end cloud-based (SaaS) and on-premise business management solutions for organizations of all sizes to improve business efficiency and the customer experience. The company’s Priority PRO product provides comprehensive ERP software for medium to large organizations encompassing demand planning, manufacturing operations, financial management, human capital management, procurement and supply chain management. Priority Software also provides business management software for smaller companies that focuses on financial management, reporting and accounting. The company has more than 10,000 customers and over 300,000 end users across multiple end markets, including manufacturing, construction, healthcare and pharma, services, and retail and wholesale. Priority Software has more than 200 employees located across five offices in Israel, the U.S., the UK and Belgium.
“TA’s extensive experience investing in the enterprise software space and in partnering with growing companies like Priority Software made the firm an attractive investment partner,” said Andres Richter, CEO of Priority Software. “We’ve identified opportunities to accelerate our growth and further expand Priority Software’s market penetration both nationally and internationally, and we believe that TA will be a valuable partner for us alongside Fortissimo to help us realize our ambitions.”
“Priority Software is considered by many to be a market leader in the Israeli ERP space, and we believe that the company has significant untapped potential,” said Stefan Dandl, a Senior Vice President at TA Associates who has joined the Priority Software Board of Directors. “Additionally, there is significant opportunity for Priority Software to expand internationally in its addressable market through acquisitive and organic growth. We look forward to partnering with the Priority Software and Fortissimo teams in these growth efforts.”
“We have been following Priority Software for several years and have been impressed by the quality of the company’s management team and the growth they have achieved to date,” said Naveen Wadhera, a Managing Director and Co-head of the EMEA Technology Group at TA Associates who has joined the Priority Software Board of Directors. “The ERP market continues to see strong growth globally, driven by a need for operational efficiency and transparency, coupled with increasing adoption of cloud-based solutions. We believe that Priority Software’s flexible, innovative and high-quality products make it well-positioned to capitalize on these opportunities, and we are pleased to become an investment partner alongside Fortissimo as the company enters its next stage of growth.”
“As a firm focused on creating value from growth, Fortissimo is proud to have partnered with the Priority Software team and been a part of the company’s rapid growth over the last six years,” said Yuval Cohen, Managing Partner at Fortissimo Capital. “We continue to believe in Priority Software’s growth potential in Israel as a result of its leadership position, loyal customer base and superior technology and its potential to continue driving growth worldwide. We are excited to welcome TA as a new partner to further accelerate Priority Software’s growth.”
About Priority Software
Priority Software provides flexible, end-to-end business management solutions for organizations of all sizes in a wide range of industries, from a fully featured ERP platform serving multinational corporations, to small and growing businesses. Recognized by top industry analysts and professionals for its product innovation, Priority Software improves business efficiency and the customer experience, providing real-time access to business data and insights in the cloud, on premise and on-the-go. With offices in the U.S., the UK, Belgium and Israel, and a global network of business partners, Priority Software enables more than 10,000 companies in 40 countries to manage and grow their business. For more information, visit www.priority-software.com.
About TA Associates
TA Associates is a leading global growth private equity firm. Focused on targeted sectors within five industries – technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer and business services – TA invests in profitable, growing companies with opportunities for sustained growth, and has invested in more than 500 companies around the world. Investing as either a majority or minority investor, TA employs a long-term approach, utilizing its strategic resources to help management teams build lasting value in high quality growth companies. TA has raised $33.5 billion in capital since its founding in 1968 and is committing to new investments at the pace of over $2 billion per year. The firm’s more than 90 investment professionals are based in Boston, Menlo Park, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong. More information about TA Associates can be found at www.ta.com.
About Fortissimo Capital
Fortissimo Capital is a private equity fund, established in 2004, that invests primarily in Israeli-related technology and industrial companies to expedite growth. Fortissimo raised $1.6 billion across five funds. Fortissimo Capital is a special situations and growth capital Israeli-related private equity fund focused primarily on maturing technology and industrial companies that are at a point of inflection. Fortissimo’s investment strategy is to achieve capital appreciation through taking a leading role and active approach in Israeli-related global businesses that require immediate and significant change, or stimulation of growth and by building business fundamentals to facilitate sustainable long-term growth and value creation. More information about Fortissimo Capital is available at www.ffcapital.com.
