Good morning Eurohubsters, Craig McGlashan here with the Dealflow.
We have a flurry of deals to tell you about today, so let’s not waste any time and dive straight in.
Quick off the mark. Bain Capital has also wasted no time in making some M&A plays for one of its latest acquisitions.
While announcing the completion of Bain’s purchase of a 55 percent stake in House of HR (HOHR), the firm also said that it has acquired Dutch company Agium and has signed a promise to acquire French company ABMI. They make it 16 acquisitions in 2022 for HOHR.
Agium was acquired by HOHR’s subsidiary company Redmore. Agium is headquartered in Delft and offers risk, technology, business, legal and financial services for financial service providers, business service providers and governments. The company achieved revenues of €19.3 million in 2021 and employs 190 people.
HOHR’s purchase of ABMI is expected to complete in the fourth quarter. The company, headquartered in Guyancourt, is a consulting and engineering services group.
HOHR, headquartered in Roeselare, Belgium, is a provider of HR services in European staffing markets. It offers end-to-end temporary recruiting and outsourcing services. The group supplies staffing primarily to small and medium-sized enterprise clients.
Human resources has been a hot topic in private equity this year. To read about some of the deals focused specifically on healthcare recruitment, head over to our US colleagues at PE Hub for a roundup by Aaron Weitzman.
We Salute you. Moving to tech, LLR Partners portfolio company Salute Mission Critical announced on Tuesday the acquisition of AMS Helix, an Edinburgh-based digital infrastructure services provider that offers project management and sustainability services to data centre, telecommunications and edge customers throughout the EMEA region.
Salute is a global data centre services provider headquartered in Franklin, Wisconsin. LLR completed a growth investment in Salute in February 2021. The acquisition expands Salute’s European and UK presence and positions the company for accelerated international growth, according to Salute.
Read more about the deal here.
Powering on. Both Monday’s and Tuesday’s Dealflows had plenty of energy deal coverage and we can add a little more to that today.
Utrecht-headquartered private equity firm Rivean Capital has raised around €1 billion for a continuation fund to recapitalise its stake in Esdec Solar Group from an older fund, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
We wrote back in July about Blackstone investing in Esdec, a rooftop solar hardware firm based in Deventer in the Netherlands. At that time, Esdec’s annual sales were nearly €500 million, compared to €30 million when Rivean bought the firm in 2018.
For more on the energy sector, check out Obey Martin Manayiti’s in-depth piece on PE Hub on how inflationary pressures have brought investors back to oil and gas, even as huge stimulus boosts the renewable energy movement.
Back on the market. One private equity firm could potentially be exiting from a financial services investment.
Mark Bourke, CEO of Portugal’s Novo Banco, told Reuters that the bank should “be ready when and if the IPO opportunity arises to take advantage of it”.
Dallas, Texas-headquartered PE firm Lone Star owns a 75 percent stake in the firm.
Share the wealth. On top of that potential deal, PE Hub Europe has been reporting on a lot of finance deals of late, and there was more on that front this week.
CBPE-backed Perspective Financial Group announced it has completed its 10th acquisition of 2022 with the purchase of Goldwyns Wealth Management.
Goldwyns, based in Southend-on-Sea, is a firm of financial planners and wealth managers with a network of offices throughout the UK. The deal adds £70 million ($79 million; €80 million) in assets under management to Perspective and raises its number of local offices in the UK to 23.
Perspective is a financial planning and wealth advisory business that employs over 180 staff. The company is headquartered in Chorley and has been backed by CBPE since December 2019.
CBPE invests in UK mid-market businesses with an enterprise value of up to £150 million. It was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in London.
Farming data. We’ve seen a bit of an uptick in the agricultural sector this week.
Berkshire Partners portfolio company FoodChain ID announced that it has acquired Lexagri International. Lexagri verifies, harmonises, structures and distributes global agricultural data. The company’s services are designed to enhance the performance, quality, safety and traceability of agricultural products.
“Lexagri’s services are focused on data enhancement, and their data harmonisation processes transform raw, untreated agricultural data into standardised, validated, and accessible data sets,” said Brad Riemenapp, CEO of FoodChain ID, in a statement.
The Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, France-headquartered company’s offering includes Homologa, the largest pesticide database in the market, according to FoodChain ID.
Read the full deal coverage here.
Growing out. Moving the other way in agriculture, Mutares announced that it has signed an agreement to sell its portfolio company Royal de Boer to Turntide Technologies.
Royal de Boer is a manufacturer of barn equipment such as feed fences, cubicles, ventilation and manure systems. The company operates one production plant in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. Mutares bought the company from GEA Farm Technologies in 2020.
“I am happy to announce our fourth exit this year where we have again exceeded our target of a 7-10x ROIC,” said Johannes Laumann, CIO of Mutares, in a statement. “The exit strategy for Royal de Boer follows the best owner principle, and we are very happy to place Royal de Boer in an environment where the company can further grow.”
Mutares is a private equity firm based in Munich.
Turntide Technologies makes intelligent, sustainable motor systems and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.
That’s it from me – I’ll speak to you again tomorrow.
Cheers,
Craig