H.I.G. Capital Closes H.I.G. Europe Real Estate Fund Well Above Target

H.I.G. Europe

LONDON – February 19, 2019 – H.I.G. Capital (“H.I.G.”), a leading global alternative asset management firm with over $30 billion of equity capital under management, is pleased to announce the closing of H.I.G. Europe Realty Partners II (the “Fund”). The Fund closed with aggregate capital commitments of €673 million* ($760 million), well above its target. The Fund will principally make value-add investments in the small and mid-cap real estate sector in Europe.

Sami Mnaymneh and Tony Tamer, Co-CEOs of H.I.G., commented: “We are delighted with the success of H.I.G. Europe Realty Partners II. The Fund will continue to build on our local, on the ground pan-European presence and is already 16% committed. We continue to find compelling opportunities to invest in the region.”

Riccardo Dallolio, Managing Director and Head of H.I.G. Europe Realty Partners, commented: “This closing validates H.I.G. Europe Realty’s differentiated strategy. The Fund will invest in Europe across the capital structure and asset classes with a particular focus on its target market of small and mid-cap real estate opportunities. It will utilize H.I.G.’s hands-on, value-added and operationally focused approach to generate substantial asset appreciation.”

Added Jordan Peer, Head of H.I.G. Capital Formation, “The Fund was supported by a premier group of real estate institutional investors across the U.K., Germany, Nordics, Switzerland, Spain and Italy, as well as from international investors across the U.S., Asia and Middle East. We are grateful for these long-standing partners for their commitment to multiple H.I.G. real estate strategies, globally. Our Limited Partners consist of consultants, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, foundations, insurance and financial institutions and public and private pensions.”

About H.I.G. Capital
H.I.G. is a leading global private equity and alternative assets investment firm with over $30 billion of equity capital under management.** Based in Miami, and with European offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, and U.S and Latin American offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Stamford, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/ value-added approach:

  1. H.I.G.’s equity funds invest in growth investments, management buyouts, recapitalizations and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses.
  2. H.I.G.’s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. is also a leading CLO manager, through its WhiteHorse family of vehicles, and manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance.
  3. H.I.G.’s real estate funds invest in value-added properties, which can benefit from improved asset management practices.

Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 300 companies worldwide. The firm’s current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $30 billion. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at www.higcapital.com.

* Includes commitments from the Fund’s general partner and related parties, as well as a funded co-investment.
** Based on total capital commitments managed by H.I.G. Capital and affiliates.

 

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BDC takes minority stake in SaaS software and digital solutions provider bee2link

Bridgepoint

Xavier Cotelle, founder and CEO of bee2link – a publisher of SaaS software and digital solutions for automobile players – has announced that Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC), the smid-cap division of the international private equity group, Bridgepoint, has taken a minority shareholding. The terms of the transaction are confidential.

Supported by BDC, Xavier Cotelle and his team will continue to develop bee2link, focusing particularly on the company’s European expansion. Xavier Cotelle and the management team reinvested significantly in the transaction and will continue to manage bee2link.

bee2link is a high growth company supporting the digital transformation of the automotive retail sector. A pioneer in SaaS digital platforms and applications publishing, bee2link has enjoyed a favorable environment since its creation in 2012 and draws on the experience of its managers in automotive retail, dealerships, management/finance and ICT. Its transversal solutions – Applications open to third-party systems (APIs) – seek to digitize business processes and the customer journey and target a client base of manufacturers (OEM), groups and automobile dealerships.

Thanks to the excellent results of its solutions, bee2link has equipped the leading manufacturers in France since 2013 and is also present in Belgium and Switzerland since 2018.

bee2link is growing steadily and has ambitions to become a leading European player within five years by: (i) capitalizing on its success with leading automobile manufacturers and deploying its solutions in new European subsidiaries, (ii) expanding through both internal and external growth and entering new automobile market segments, and (iii) bolstering its position as a key market supplier through its strong technical expertise, recently strengthened by the use of artificial intelligence.

Xavier Cotelle, founder and CEO of bee2link said: “We entrusted SODICA Corporate Finance, the mergers and acquisitions arm of the Crédit Agricole Group, with finding a leading international partner to accelerate our European expansion project. Bridgepoint, through its investment portfolio of market leaders, stood out for its sector expertise and the operating quality of its team. Our shared values, essential to both our companies, convinced us they were the right choice for this project. This partnership will be a winning force, allowing us to roll-out our success in France and across Europe.”

Olivier Nemsguern, Managing Partner of BDC in France added: “In a rapidly changing automobile market, bee2link is a pioneer in the digitalization of automotive retail businesses. Its solutions cover the entire value chain and are extremely popular with leading global manufacturers. We’re delighted to partner with bee2link’s management team, at the cutting-edge of digital innovation in the automobile industry. With our international network and additional financial resources, our aim to assist the company in accelerating its European expansion”.

    

About Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC)

Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC) focuses on transactions ranging between €30 million and €200 million.

Backed by a team of 27 professionals in Europe (including nine in Paris), Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC) is one of the very few investors in the “Smid-cap” segment able to support the international development of mid-cap companies, thanks to support from nine Bridgepoint investment offices as well as operational support teams based in New York, San Francisco and Shanghai.

www.bridgepoint.eu

Advisers in this transaction included:

For the company and shareholders: SODICA Corporate Finance

For BDC: Alantra; Mayer Brown; Deloitte; Eleven Strategy; Mckinsey; PwC.

Unitranche financing was provided by Idinvest.

 

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Redis Labs Raises $60 Million Series E Financing to Bring Instant Experiences Everywhere

Franciso Partners

Francisco Partners Leads Round; David Golob and Eran Gorev Join Redis Labs Board of Directors

Mountain View, Calif.,—Redis Labs ( https://redislabs.com/), the home of Redis and provider of Redis Enterprise, today announced it has raised $60 million in Series E financing led by a new investor, www.franciscopartners.com, a leading global technology-focused private equity firm. The round included participation by the company’s existing investors, Goldman Sachs Private Capital InvestingBain Capital VenturesViola Ventures, and Dell Technologies Capital. With this investment, Francisco Partners’ Chief Investment Officer David Golob will join the Redis Labs Board of Directors and Operating Partner Eran Gorev will join as a board observer.

Redis Labs was founded in 2011 by Ofer Bengal (CEO) and Yiftach Shoolman (CTO) around the promise of open source Redis, to deliver instant experience to modern applications at any scale, by building their datasets with native data structures and serving their applications requests directly from memory. In July 2015, Salvatore Sanfilippo, the creator of Redis, joined the company as leader of open source development. The company has now raised $146 million in total funding to-date. With these funds, the company plans to accelerate its global go-to-market execution, invest further in the enthusiastic Redis community, and continue its leadership in delivering the highest performing, most efficient database platform for modern applications.

Redis Labs’ commercial product, Redis Enterprise, is the world’s fastest database, leveraging modern in-memory technologies such as NVMe and Persistent Memory to offer cost-effective deployment over multiple public clouds and on-premise data centers. Besides its native data structures, it features a variety of data modeling techniques, such as Streams, Graph, Document and Machine Learning, with a real-time search engine. The performance and flexibility of Redis has made it consistently one of the fastest-growing and most popular databases, including becoming the first to be launched more than one billion times on Docker Hub in 2018. Additionally, through strategic partnerships with Pivotal, Red Hat and others, the company has been able to drive further enterprise adoption and success with Redis Enterprise.

“The impact of the Redis platform is being experienced everywhere as enterprises look to modernize or build new applications,” said Ofer Bengal, co-founder and CEO at Redis Labs. “This financing enables us to accelerate our strategy to deliver the fastest and most efficient database to the world and enable instant experiences for any modern application.”

“Customers and partners alike tell us that Redis Labs has built the most robust and capable database solution for real-time computing across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments,” said Matt Spetzler, partner and co-Head of Europe at Francisco Partners. “We are thrilled to be partnering with Redis Labs’ team as the company scales up globally to meet the needs of the Internet economy.”

About Redis Labs

Modern businesses depend on the power of real-time data. With Redis Labs, organizations deliver instant experiences in a highly reliable and scalable manner. Redis Labs is the home of Redis, the world’s most popular in-memory database, and commercial provider of Redis Enterprise that delivers superior performance, matchless reliability and unparalleled flexibility for high-speed transactions, recommendation engines, data ingest, fraud mitigation, real-time indexing, session management and caching.

Redis Labs, ranked as a leader in top analyst reports on NoSQL, in-memory databases, operational databases, and database-as-a-service, is trusted by seven Fortune 10 companies, three of the four credit card issuers, three of the top five communication companies, three of the top five healthcare companies, six of the top eight technology companies, and four of the top seven retailers.

Redis has been voted the most loved database, rated the most popular database container,, and #1 cloud database.

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BDC takes minority stake in SaaS software and digital solutions provider bee2link

Bridgepoint

Xavier Cotelle, founder and CEO of bee2link – a publisher of SaaS software and digital solutions for automobile players – has announced that Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC), the smid-cap division of the international private equity group, Bridgepoint, has taken a minority shareholding. The terms of the transaction are confidential.

Supported by BDC, Xavier Cotelle and his team will continue to develop bee2link, focusing particularly on the company’s European expansion. Xavier Cotelle and the management team reinvested significantly in the transaction and will continue to manage bee2link.

bee2link is a high growth company supporting the digital transformation of the automotive retail sector. A pioneer in SaaS digital platforms and applications publishing, bee2link has enjoyed a favorable environment since its creation in 2012 and draws on the experience of its managers in automotive retail, dealerships, management/finance and ICT. Its transversal solutions – Applications open to third-party systems (APIs) – seek to digitize business processes and the customer journey and target a client base of manufacturers (OEM), groups and automobile dealerships.

Thanks to the excellent results of its solutions, bee2link has equipped the leading manufacturers in France since 2013 and is also present in Belgium and Switzerland since 2018.

bee2link is growing steadily and has ambitions to become a leading European player within five years by: (i) capitalizing on its success with leading automobile manufacturers and deploying its solutions in new European subsidiaries, (ii) expanding through both internal and external growth and entering new automobile market segments, and (iii) bolstering its position as a key market supplier through its strong technical expertise, recently strengthened by the use of artificial intelligence.

Xavier Cotelle, founder and CEO of bee2link said: “We entrusted SODICA Corporate Finance, the mergers and acquisitions arm of the Crédit Agricole Group, with finding a leading international partner to accelerate our European expansion project. Bridgepoint, through its investment portfolio of market leaders, stood out for its sector expertise and the operating quality of its team. Our shared values, essential to both our companies, convinced us they were the right choice for this project. This partnership will be a winning force, allowing us to roll-out our success in France and across Europe.”

Olivier Nemsguern, Managing Partner of BDC in France added: “In a rapidly changing automobile market, bee2link is a pioneer in the digitalization of automotive retail businesses. Its solutions cover the entire value chain and are extremely popular with leading global manufacturers. We’re delighted to partner with bee2link’s management team, at the cutting-edge of digital innovation in the automobile industry. With our international network and additional financial resources, our aim to assist the company in accelerating its European expansion”.

    

About Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC)

Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC) focuses on transactions ranging between €30 million and €200 million.

Backed by a team of 27 professionals in Europe (including nine in Paris), Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC) is one of the very few investors in the “Smid-cap” segment able to support the international development of mid-cap companies, thanks to support from nine Bridgepoint investment offices as well as operational support teams based in New York, San Francisco and Shanghai.

www.bridgepoint.eu

Advisers in this transaction included:

For the company and shareholders: SODICA Corporate Finance

For BDC: Alantra; Mayer Brown; Deloitte; Eleven Strategy; Mckinsey; PwC.

Unitranche financing was provided by Idinvest.

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Colisée partners with Armonea Group NV to create the fourth largest elderly care group in Europe

ik-investment-partners

Colisée, a leading player in the elderly care segment in France, Italy and Spain, has signed an agreement to acquire Armonea Group NV, a leading independent senior care organisation in Belgium also active in Spain and Germany. Colisée is supported by the IK VIII Fund and its advisor IK Investment Partners. Financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed and completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals.

Founded in 2008 from the merger of Restel Residences and Group Van den Brande, Armonea is the leading senior care organisation in Belgium, Spain and Germany with more than 17,000 beds under management. The Company manages nursing homes, service flats & residencies. Owned by Verlinvest and Group Van den Brande, Armonea is headquartered in Belgium and employs c. 6,500 FTEs.

The acquisition of Armonea is at the core of Colisée’s strategy to build a European leader in the elderly care segment.

The combination of Armonea and Colisée is based on a complementary geographic profile as well as shared values and vision that will enable synergies at a group level. The combined Group will become the fourth largest European player in the elderly care segment with c. €1bn of revenues.

”This is the combination of two recognised players in their core geographies, with a clear alignment in terms of culture and shared values. Both strive to offer the highest quality of care to their residents. We are very pleased to welcome Armonea’s management team and employees in a combined group totalling c.270 facilities and more than 26,800 residents in five major European countries,” said Christine Jeandel, CEO of Colisée.

”We are delighted and very proud to support Colisée in building the fourth largest European player, thus actively participating in the reshaping of a consolidating industry. We look forward to partnering with an enlarged, experienced and talented management team led by Christine Jeandel,” added Dan Soudry, Managing Partner at IK.

The Group will refinance its existing debt with the support of Barclays, Natixis, SG and CIC. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals.

Parties involved 
Colisée: Christine Jeandel, Damien Delacourt, Alexis Jungels, Brigitte Siad
IK Investment Partners: Dan Soudry, Rémi Buttiaux, Diki Korniloff, Guillaume Veber, Vincent Valkiers
Buy-side M&A advisors: Lazard (Francois Guichot-Perere, Emmanuel Plantin), Natixis Partners (Ludovic Tron), Case (Damien Segond, William Gobbi)
Buy-side Strategic DD: LEK (Serge Hovsepian, Arnaud Sergent)
Buy-side Financial DD: 8A (Pascal Raidron, Katia Wagner)
Buy-side Legal advisor: White & Case (Thierry Bosly, Muriel Alhadeff, Raphael Richard)
Financing banks: Natixis (Arnaud Brogi), Barclays (Thibery Gleizes), CIC (Brice Bourrely), SG (Patrick Sandray)
Legal advisors financing banks: Latham & Watkins (Xavier Farde)
Sell-side M&A advisors: Rothschild (Franck Demeoen, Jean-Francois Limpens), PJT (Alberto Fernandez, Kiara Mitchinson)

For further questions, please contact: 

Colisée
Marie-Gabrielle de Marchis
Phone: +33 6 69 40 32 17
mg.demarchis@nouvellesaison.com

Armonea
Koen Peeters
Phone: +33 1 70 38 25 54
koen.peeters@armonea.be

IK Investment Partners
Dan Soudry, Partner
Phone: +33 1 44 43 06 60

Mikaela Murekian
Director Communications & ESG
Phone: +44 77 87 573 566
mikaela.murekian@ikinvest.com

About Colisée
Colisée is a key player in the global health care and old-age dependency sector, and has developed a real expertise in elderly people care and well-being. Its network includes 119 facilities in France, Italy and Spain and home-based services agencies in France. In those two business segments, Colisée employs more than 8,000 people. For more information, please visit www.groupecolisee.com

About Armonea
Armonea is the largest independent senior care organisation in Belgium. Every day our 6,500 employees help more than 9,000 seniors enjoy their age in the way that suits them best. In its (almost) 40 years of existence Armonea gained a great deal of expertise in dementia, including with a specialised residential care center in Uccle. Through our dementia knowledge center Anahata, we share this knowledge and experience with our 74 residential care centers in Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia. Armonea also provides stays in residences or assistance homes. Armonea is also active in Spain and Germany. More information about Armonea and our residential care centers on www.armonea.be

About IK Investment Partners
IK Investment Partners (“IK”) is a Pan-European private equity firm focused on investments in the Nordics, DACH region, France, and Benelux. Since 1989, IK has raised more than €9.5 billion of capital and invested in over 125 European companies. IK funds support 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

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BDC takes minority stake in SaaS software and digital solutions provider bee2link

Bridgepoint

Xavier Cotelle, founder and CEO of bee2link – a publisher of SaaS software and digital solutions for automobile players – has announced that Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC), the smid-cap division of the international private equity group, Bridgepoint, has taken a minority shareholding. The terms of the transaction are confidential.

Supported by BDC, Xavier Cotelle and his team will continue to develop bee2link, focusing particularly on the company’s European expansion. Xavier Cotelle and the management team reinvested significantly in the transaction and will continue to manage bee2link.

bee2link is a high growth company supporting the digital transformation of the automotive retail sector. A pioneer in SaaS digital platforms and applications publishing, bee2link has enjoyed a favorable environment since its creation in 2012 and draws on the experience of its managers in automotive retail, dealerships, management/finance and ICT. Its transversal solutions – Applications open to third-party systems (APIs) – seek to digitize business processes and the customer journey and target a client base of manufacturers (OEM), groups and automobile dealerships.

Thanks to the excellent results of its solutions, bee2link has equipped the leading manufacturers in France since 2013 and is also present in Belgium and Switzerland since 2018.

bee2link is growing steadily and has ambitions to become a leading European player within five years by: (i) capitalizing on its success with leading automobile manufacturers and deploying its solutions in new European subsidiaries, (ii) expanding through both internal and external growth and entering new automobile market segments, and (iii) bolstering its position as a key market supplier through its strong technical expertise, recently strengthened by the use of artificial intelligence.

Xavier Cotelle, founder and CEO of bee2link said: “We entrusted SODICA Corporate Finance, the mergers and acquisitions arm of the Crédit Agricole Group, with finding a leading international partner to accelerate our European expansion project. Bridgepoint, through its investment portfolio of market leaders, stood out for its sector expertise and the operating quality of its team. Our shared values, essential to both our companies, convinced us they were the right choice for this project. This partnership will be a winning force, allowing us to roll-out our success in France and across Europe.”

Olivier Nemsguern, Managing Partner of BDC in France added: “In a rapidly changing automobile market, bee2link is a pioneer in the digitalization of automotive retail businesses. Its solutions cover the entire value chain and are extremely popular with leading global manufacturers. We’re delighted to partner with bee2link’s management team, at the cutting-edge of digital innovation in the automobile industry. With our international network and additional financial resources, our aim to assist the company in accelerating its European expansion”.

    

About Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC)

Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC) focuses on transactions ranging between €30 million and €200 million.

Backed by a team of 27 professionals in Europe (including nine in Paris), Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC) is one of the very few investors in the “Smid-cap” segment able to support the international development of mid-cap companies, thanks to support from nine Bridgepoint investment offices as well as operational support teams based in New York, San Francisco and Shanghai.

www.bridgepoint.eu

Advisers in this transaction included:

For the company and shareholders: SODICA Corporate Finance

For BDC: Alantra; Mayer Brown; Deloitte; Eleven Strategy; Mckinsey; PwC.

Unitranche financing was provided by Idinvest.

JINKO POWER, ARDIAN and WHITE SUMMIT CAPITAL reach agreement to construct and operate Solar Photovoltaic Plant in Spain

Ardian

Madrid, 19th February 2019 –  Jinko Power, a global renewable energy company, Ardian Infrastructure, one of the European leaders of the Infrastructure sector and White Summit Capital AG, a Switzerland-based firm specializing in private infrastructure, have reached an agreement to jointly construct and operate “La Isla”, a 182.5 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant near Seville, Spain.
The project was previously wholly owned and developed by Jinko Power International, a sister company of Jinko Solar, the solar panel manufacturer. The plant is currently in development and construction is expected to be completed during the second half of 2019.
Once in operation, La Isla will be one of the first grid-parity/zero-subsidy projects in Europe and one of the largest solar PV plants in Spain. It will be able to generate clean energy to cover the annual consumption of 100,000 households.
La Isla, representing a total investment of €125 million, will create 350 direct jobs in the region during its construction phase.
Juan Angoitia Grijalba, Managing Director at Ardian Infrastructure, said: “This investment demonstrates Ardian’s continuing commitment to the development of our renewable energy portfolio. With this acquisition, we are cementing our presence in Spain, a country with high potential in the renewables space. This builds on our sector expertise, with Ardian Infrastructure now managing circa 2GW of renewable energy, through technologies including wind, solar, hydro and biomass.”
Amaia del Villar, Principal at White Summit Capital, said: “We are delighted to have successfully completed this landmark transaction for White Summit Capital. Together with our partners, we are proud to be spearheading the new renewable energy paradigm.”

ABOUT JINKO POWER

Jinko Power is a global renewable energy company which develops and operates projects in Asia, Europe, Latam and the Middle East, and will be the industrial partner for La Isla.

ABOUT ARDIAN

Ardian is a world-leading private investment house with assets of US$90bn managed or advised in Europe, the Americas and Asia. The company is majority-owned by its employees. It keeps entrepreneurship at its heart and focuses on delivering excellent investment performance to its global investor base.
Through its commitment to shared outcomes for all stakeholders, Ardian’s activities fuel individual, corporate and economic growth around the world.
Holding close its core values of excellence, loyalty and entrepreneurship, Ardian maintains a truly global network, with more than 550 employees working from fifteen offices across Europe (Frankfurt, Jersey, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), the Americas (New York, San Francisco and Santiago) and Asia (Beijing, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul). It manages funds on behalf of around 800 clients through five pillars of investment expertise: Fund of Funds, Direct Funds, Infrastructure, Real Estate and Private Debt.

ABOUT WHITE SUMMIT CAPITAL AG

White Summit Capital AG is a Switzerland based firm specialised in private infrastructure. White Summit has partnered with Ardian to support the investment needs of La Isla and will act as asset manager for the project.

PRESS CONTACTS
ARDIAN
Headland
Viktor Tsvetanov
vtsvetanov@headlandconsultancy.com
Tel: +44 020 3435 7469

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Viking Venture invests in Studentvikarie

Viking venture

Viking Venture, the Nordic Software Investor, is happy to announce it’s latest investment in the Swedish digital marketplace company Studentvikarie AB. Studentvikarie AB which was founded in 2015, uses advanced technology to match the need for temporary teachers in education with motivated and competent students.

– Our vision is to provide high quality temporary teachers and high quality education in schools even when the regular teacher is absent, says co-founder and CEO Gustav Bild. Studentvikarie has undergone rapid growth in Sweden reaching 48 mSEK revenues in 2018. We are happy to welcome Viking Venture as investor in order to help us to continue our growth both in Sweden and abroad.

– The strong Studentvikarie team has impressed us with their advanced platform, their deep market understanding and consistent rapid growth. We think they are ideally positioned to be the number one player in Sweden and new geographical markets, commented Eivind Bergsmyr, partner at Viking Venture and newly elected chairman of the board of Studentvikarie.

Viking Venture holds 40% of the shares of Studentvikarie after the investment while founders Kristoffer Persson and Gustav Bild continue as major shareholders together with the rest of the management team.

– We are happy to announce our 47th investment since 2001 and the first software investment headquartered in Sweden, says Erik Hagen, Managing Partner of Viking Venture. Viking Venture is the leading investor in Nordic growth stage software companies. Our large portfolio of software companies creates an efficient ecosystem for sharing of best practice among companies.

 

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New standing pouch factory marks strategic turning point for HAK

NPM Capital

HAK´s new factory with a fully automatic and high-quality standing pouch line became operational in late 2018. The canned vegetables manufacturer, which is an NPM Capital portfolio company, introduced beans in standing pouches that were filled externally in late 2015. The company can now scale up to larger volumes and numerous product-market combinations thanks to the new line in Giessen, the Netherlands, which produces standing pouches for the entire product gamut ranging from one-person portions to solutions for large-scale professional use.

The official opening of this line marks a key turning point for HAK on the strategic course it has been following since 2012 based on the mission of: helping people eat more vegetables and legumes. By offering vegetables in jars, standing pouches and supermarket refrigerated sections, HAK can now provide products that are suitable for every type of consumer anytime and anyplace.

HAK has until now had the beans and bean dishes filled in the standing pouches by an external supplier. The introduction of the new fully automatic line gives HAK cost and efficiency advantages and enables it to optimally safeguard quality and control food safety. It also provides it with greater flexibility in terms of the diversity of its products. HAK currently produces more than 95% of its products.

The beans in standing pouches have within a short period of time become hugely popular among a primarily young target group (20-35) and modern diners. HAK has sold more than 12 million standing pouches, representing revenue of around €15 million, since their introduction in 2015. The HAK standing pouches have now also been successfully introduced in Belgium and Germany.

Also read ‘HAK aims to get the Dutch eating more vegetables by introducing eleven new standing pouches’

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Proposed merger between Widex and Sivantos receives final clearance from European Commission

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eqt

  • Merger creates company with combined revenues of more than EUR 1.7bn
  • Transaction expected to close in early March 2019
  • Truly global footprint through comprehensive sales and distribution platform

Singapore and Lynge, Denmark – February 14, 2019: The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the merger between Sivantos Pte. Ltd. (“Sivantos”), owned by EQT funds, and Widex A/S (“Widex”), owned by T&W Medical A/S. Sivantos offers a diverse portfolio of technologically advanced hearing aid products across brands like Signia, Audio Service, Rexton and others. Widex’ portfolio of products includes a range of sophisticated hearing aid technology with a focus on the high-end segment.

The Commission concluded the merger would raise no competition concerns. The merger has already been approved in all other relevant jurisdictions.

“Our goal at Widex has always been to develop the best possible hearing aids to improve the life of those with hearing needs. The merger with Sivantos brings us one step closer to that goal by building a company with one of the strongest research and development resources in the business and the sales channels to ensure our innovative products reach as many people as possible,” said Jan Tøpholm, Chairman of Widex A/S.

“The merger between Widex and Sivantos is a transformative combination and unique opportunity to drive innovation through one of the most dynamic R&D teams in the industry to benefit the more than 700 million people with hearing needs,” said Marcus Brennecke, Global Co-Head of EQT Private Equity.

The newly created company will be a global leader with a presence in more than 125 markets, combined revenues of more than EUR 1.7 billion and more than 10,000 employees worldwide. All Widex and Sivantos brands will continue to operate with separate sales forces and organizations following the combination.

The transaction remains subject to final and customary closing conditions. The parties expect the transaction to close in early March 2019.

This press release is translated into multiple languages for information purposes. In case of a discrepancy, the English version shall prevail. To read this press release in Danish, follow this link.

Contacts
Widex | Andrew Arnold (Corporate Communications): +45 25 65 75 47
Sivantos | Gert van Santen (Corporate Communications): +49 152 028 743 20
EQT | Press office: press@eqtpartners.com, +46 8 506 55 334

About Sivantos Group
The business operations of the former Siemens AG hearing aid division have been combined into the Sivantos Group since early 2015. Sivantos can look back on 140 years of German engineering and countless global innovations. Today Sivantos is one of the leading hearing aid manufacturers worldwide, with brands like Signia, Audio Service, Rexton and others. With its around 6,000 employees, the group recorded revenues of 1100 million euros in the fiscal year 2017/2018 and an adj. EBITDA of 262 million euros. Sivantos’ international sales organization supplies hearing care specialists and sales partners in more than 120 countries. Particularly high value is placed on product development. The owners of Sivantos are the anchor investors EQT along with the Strüngmann family as a co-investor. Sivantos GmbH is a brand license holder of Siemens AG.

More info: www.sivantos.com

About Widex
With more than 60 years’ experience developing state-of-the-art hearing technology, Widex (headquartered in Lynge, Denmark) provides hearing solutions that are easy to use, seamlessly integrated in daily life and enable people to hear naturally. One of the world’s leading hearing aid producers, Widex employs around 4,250 people across sales, manufacturing, operations, distribution and R&D in 38 countries, and its products are sold in 105 countries. The current strategy, introduced in 2018, aims at doubling the business in five years. Widex is owned by the Tøpholm and Westermann families, descendants of the founders.

More info: www.widex.com

About EQT
EQT is a leading investment firm with approximately EUR 50 billion in raised capital across 28 funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia and the US with total sales of more than EUR 19 billion and approximately 110,000 employees. EQT works with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth, operational excellence and market leadership.

More info: www.eqtpartners.com

 

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