A deal in the precious stone sector by Blackstone opens today, before we have the latest on the take-private tussle for Finnish construction company Caverion between Bain Capital and Triton Partners.
Elsewhere, Silver Lake took a minority stake in a software company owned by Hellman & Friedman. We also have a sale by Ambienta as well as an exit by Abry Partners and Castik Capital, and a series of add-ons by a portfolio company of Aksìa Group.
Gems
Blackstone has acquired International Gemological Institute (IGI), an independent lab for testing and grading gemstones and fine jewellery, from Shanghai Yuyuan Tourist Mart, a subsidiary of Fosun, and Roland Lorie, who belongs to IGI’s founding family.
The private equity firm bought IGI for around $530 million, according to several news outlets.
IGI is based in Antwerp, Belgium. The company has a global footprint of 29 labs and 18 schools of gemology across 10 countries.
“We are bringing the best of Blackstone to the business – our operational expertise, capabilities in technology, and global track record in building successful businesses to help the company expand its global footprint,” said Mukesh Mehta, a senior MD in Blackstone Private Equity Group.
Take-privates
Regular readers will know that we’ve been following the take-private battle between Triton Partners and Bain Capital for Finnish construction company Caverion in depth.
The Caverion board switched its support to Triton from Bain back in early April, but Bain stayed in the race and on Friday afternoon announced that its tender offer, coupled with the shares its consortium already secured, meant it controlled 29.1 percent of the shares and voting rights in Caverion.
Bain has set a threshold of more than 50 percent of the shares in Caverion for its tender offer to complete. It will announce the final result of the offer this Wednesday, 24 May.
Triton’s consortium reached 29.9 percent of Caverion’s shares in mid-April, according to its latest update. It extended its tender offer deadline to 31 July last week.
Speaking of deadlines, Network International, a Dubai-headquartered but London-listed payments company, has been in discussions with Brookfield Asset Management over a £4 per share takeover. It has extended the deadline for Brookfield to make a firm intention to make an offer from 19 May to 1 June. Network is also subject to a bid from CVC Advisors and Francisco Partner Management that earlier in May was extended to 1 June.
In the cloud
Silver Lake has agreed to acquire a €600 million minority stake in TeamSystem, a provider of business software products to companies and accountants in Italy and Spain, from Hellman & Friedman (H&F).
TeamSystem is based in Pesaro, Italy. The company reported a turnover of around €700 million in 2022.
H&F will remain the majority shareholder in TeamSystem. It first invested in TeamSystem in 2016.
TeamSystem’s customers increased from 200,000 to around 1.8 million after H&F’s initial investment, according to a release.
Vision
Ambienta has completed the sale of its portfolio company Next Imaging, a distribution platform of imaging and machine vision services, to Demos I.
Next Imaging platform includes iMAGE-S, an Italian company acquired in 2018, and 1stVision, a distributor in North America acquired in 2020.
Next Imaging was part of the investment portfolio of Ambienta II.
Employee engagement
Abry Partners and Castik Capital have sold 100 percent of the share capital in Reward Gateway, a global SaaS employee engagement platform, to Edenred. The sale amounts to £1.15 billion ($1.43 billion; €1.32 billion) and values Reward Gateway at 20x EV/EBITDA 23e.
Reward Gateway is currently held by funds managed by private equity firms Abry Partners and Castik Capital. The acquisition will be fully paid in cash by Edenred, to be financed by a €1 billion bridge loan to be later refinanced on the debt capital markets as well as by €300 million from available cash at hand.
Headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux in France, Edenred is a digital platform for employee benefits services and payments.
Abry and Castik acquired London-based Reward Gateway in 2021 and the sale to Edenred follows several years of double-digit revenue growth, according to a statement.
Multi-deal
Scarabelli Irrigazione, backed by Aksìa Group, via Aksìa Capital V has completed the acquisition of Europlast, FGR, and Samcla ESIC SL.
Europlast and FGR are Italian companies active in the design and construction of moulds, moulding of plastic materials and drippers in particular, in the extrusion of drip tapes, hoses and pipes for precision irrigation.
Samcla is a Spanish company that develops and manufactures monitoring, remote control, and automation systems for irrigation purposes. The company is based Barcelona.
Europlast and FGR’s acquisitions are part of Scarabelli’s plan to internalise the production of key and strategic components such as drippers and drip tapes, according to a release.
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