Good morning Eurohubsters, Nina Lindholm here with the middle of the week Dealflow.
Today we have another instalment in our 2023 outlook series, as Core Equity Holdings’ Thomas De Waen talks about his expectations for the new year and explains the firm’s slightly different operating model. We also have a bunch of tech deals with THL acquiring a digital asset management platform, IK Partners selling a software company and Investcorp buying a DevOps services provider.
Cautiously optimistic. In the third of our outlook Q&As for 2023, I spoke with Thomas De Waen, managing director and co-founder at Core Equity Holdings.
While De Waen is optimistic about Core Equity’s operating model, which is to have a concentrated portfolio of less than five companies, he looks towards next year with some reservation.
“The debt market of today is incompatible with the private equity market of yesterday,” he told me. “One of those two will have to adjust.”
Read the whole interview here to learn more about how Core Equity Holdings selects companies for its portfolio, and why De Waen expects the next year to be a transitional for the PE industry.
Make sure to also check out Craig McGlashan’s Q&A with Riverside’s Karsten Langer and mine with Partners Group’s Bilge Ogut.
In a cloud. Moving on to the first of the tech deals I mentioned. Thomas H Lee Partners made a majority investment in Bynder, a digital asset management platform. The deal is valued at $350 million, according to sources close to the matter.
Bynder, headquartered in Amsterdam, helps companies manage photos, videos, and other promotional materials with the use of its cloud-native platform.
“Bynder is the pure-play market leader in a category that we believe has become foundational for executing digital marketing at scale,” said Cliff Longley and Jeff Swenson, managing directors at Thomas H Lee. “Its technology helps brands of all sizes deepen relationships with their customers and drive revenue growth.”
Check out our full coverage of the deal here.
Smart information. Next up we have another cloud-related deal, but in a form of an exit. IK Partners signed an agreement to sell Quanos Solutions, a developer of software and technology for smart information, to Keensight Capital.
Headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany, Quanos provides industrial aftersales and digital technical documentation software. The company offers a product portfolio that enables customers to realise “substantial” cost and time savings and increase operational efficiency, according to IK and Keensight.
To find out what Keensight has planned for Quanos’ growth, check out our full coverage here.
Mission critical. We have one more tech deal to look at, and this time the target is based in the city I’m spending my holidays in. Investcorp made a “significant” investment to become a majority shareholder in Eficode, a provider of DevOps consulting and managed services.
Helsinki-based Eficode is present in 10 countries around the world, including Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the US, and employs approximately 600 professionals. Eficode is the partner of choice for companies such as Volvo, P&G, Nokia and The Royal Bank of Scotland, among others.
“Eficode’s services are becoming increasingly important to companies in all industries as they go through digital transformation,” said Daniel Lopez-Cruz, head of European private equity at Investcorp. “Eficode provides mission-critical services that enable companies to meet the digital expectations of their customers, take their R&D capabilities to the next level, improve efficiency and cost management, and maintain their competitive edge.”
If you’re interested to learn how Eficode grew its revenues in the last four years, take a look at our full coverage on the deal here.
That’s it for me. I’ll be back with you tomorrow with our penultimate Dealflow of the year.
Cheers,
Nina
If you do not receive this within five minutes, please try to sign in again. If the problem persists, please email: 
