Caverion weighs latest Triton offer; Permira tips outsourcing trend in financial services

Good morning Eurohubsters, Craig McGlashan here with the opening Dealflow of the week.

I hope you had a good weekend. We open up the week with the latest development in the battle between Bain Capital and Triton Partners for control of Finnish construction firm Caverion. Elsewhere, Nina Lindholm looks at Permira’s acquisition of Acuity Knowledge Partners and the future of outsourcing in financial services.

We also have deals involving IK Partners and Aurelius Growth Investments, and we take a look at the latest private equity report from Bain & Company.

Upped bid. We’ve been covering the bidding battle between Bain Capital and Triton Partners for Finnish construction firm Caverion in depth on PE Hub Europe (see here to get up to speed) and that story has taken yet another twist.

The Caverion board said this morning that it was taking a look at an improved offer from Triton that came in late last week, as well as Bain’s improved offer from 24 January – which the board unanimously recommended to shareholders.

That Bain offer was for €8 per share now, or €8.50 per share nine months after the tender offer closes.

But on Friday, Triton increased its previous offer of €8 per share to €8.95 per share. It also entered negotiations with some shareholders about purchasing their shares, with those already agreed set to increase Triton’s shareholding in Caverion to approximately 13.8 percent, excluding treasury shares. Bain’s updated offer from January also lowered its acceptance level from 90 percent to two thirds, likely because Triton had started buying up Caverion shares.

The Caverion board said it expects to give its view on the two tender offers – including a potential change in recommendation – on 9 March at the latest. In response to the upped Triton offer, Bain said it would consider alternatives and will also extend its offer period.

I have the sense that this story has a long way to run, so watch this space. In the meantime, for more take-private news, check out our coverage of Providence Equity bidding for conference firm Hyve Group and Apollo making a play for engineering firm John Wood Group.

Outsourcing finance. Financial services has been one of the busiest sectors we’ve covered over the last few months and a big part of its future could be in outsourcing, Permira principals Chris Pell and Daniel Tan told PE Hub Europe’s Nina Lindholm.

London-headquartered Permira will acquire a majority stake in Acuity Knowledge Partners from Equistone Partners Europe.

Permira has noted certain trends within financial services, outsourcing being a big one. “Particularly within the financial services sector and big global corporates, firms are getting more comfortable with using global specialised providers, and outsourcing non-core parts of their operations is one part of it,” said Pell.

Read the full interview to find out about Permira’s plans for growing Acuity.

Integration. IK Partners-backed Nomios Group has secured a majority stake in Aditinet, an Italian system integration and professional services firm specialising in cybersecurity.

Aditinet, headquartered in Rome, has annual revenues of €40 million.

Aditinet’s Paolo Marsella, CEO and founder, and Alberto Mez, CFO, will remain minority stakeholders and will continue to head the company and the integration within the Nomios, a release stated.

Read our full coverage to learn about the combined firm’s total revenues.

Mixed flavours. Aurelius Growth Investments portfolio company Better Taste Group has acquired Caseda Gastro Services.

Caseda operates two production centres in  Pfungstadt and Frankfurt and is a catering provider to schools, kindergartens and company cafeterias in the Rhine-Main metropolitan area of Germany. Its operations “strategically align” with Better Taste’s existing coverage in south-western Germany, according to a statement.

The deal is Better Taste’s fourth add-on since Aurelius took control.

Read more on the deal here.

There’s been plenty of food-related deals in European private equity lately. For more, check out this round-up by PE Hub Europe’s Irien Joseph.

Resilience. And finally, Bain & Company has struck an optimistic note about the health of the private equity industry in its 1th annual Global Private Equity Report, released this morning.

Despite a “derailment of dealmaking in mid-2022” as central banks upped interest rates to tackle inflation, global private equity “remains well positioned for further long-term growth”, according to a statement accompanying the report.

Looking specifically at Europe, deal value dropped by 28 percent in 2022 versus 2021, although it was up 22 percent compared with the 2017 to 2021 average.

You can read the full report here.

That’s it from me – I’ll be back with you again tomorrow.

Cheers,

Craig