Good morning Eurohubsters, Craig McGlashan here with the middle of the week Dealflow.
We’ve got yet another deal in the logistics sector to tell you about this morning, this time involving EQT, an outlook interview with the founders of the Riverside Company, a bicycle tyre company changing private equity hands and finally a hire by Tikehau Capital.
Logistically speaking. Logistic deals are turning into the theme of the week. Yesterday we wrote about Hg selling cloud-based transportation management software platform Transporeon and took a deeper look at Cube Infrastructure Managers’ purchase of temperature-controlled logistics companies Müller Transporte and Dispam.
Sticking with that subject, EQT Private Equity launched a voluntary takeover offer for va-Q-tec in partnership with the company’s founders. Joachim Kuhn and Roland Caps together hold approximately 26 percent in the company’s current share capital.
The offer price is €26.00 per va-Q-tec share, a premium of 98 percent to the unaffected three-months volume weighted average price as of (and including) 9 December.
Würzburg, Germany-based va-Q-tec is a provider of tech products in the field of thermal insulation and temperature-controlled logistics. The company develops, manufactures and sells thin vacuum insulation panels and phase change materials.
Read more on the deal here, including on how EQT plans to combine va-Q-tec with one of its portfolio companies.
Outlook. As dealmaking slows towards the end of the year, we’ll be asking top private equity professionals for their reflections on 2022 and outlook for 2023.
MK Flynn, editor-in-chief of our affiliate site PE Hub, asked Béla Szigethy and Stewart Kohl, the co-CEOs of The Riverside Company, for their views.
You can check out the whole Q&A session on PE Hub Europe here, but I just wanted to share this tasty morsel with you. When asked ‘what’s keeping you up at night’, Kohl answered:
“Read any newspaper, and you’ll end up curled up in the basement in a foetal position surrounded by stacks of canned foods. We’ve never seen such an anticipated, signalled recession and greater volatility.
“We think the biggest risk is continued challenges with availability and cost of labour, though it should improve through the year. And on the positive side, we have been significant investors in companies that use technology to make labour more efficient and available, which is one of our super investment theses.”
We’d love to get your thoughts on the year past and the year ahead. If you’re interested in contributing, drop me a note at craig.m@pei.group
And if you’d like to read the Riverside piece, it’s here.
On your bike. Telemos Capital bought a majority stake in Vittoria, a producer of performance bicycle tyres and related accessories. Wise Equity, which bought a majority stake in Vittoria in 2020, invested alongside Telemos and Vittoria’s management team.
Brembate, Italy-based Vittoria manufactures bicycle tires, with an annual production of more than 7 million tires and 900,000 high performance tubulars and cotton tires. In 2015, the company launched the only tyres in the world with graphene and, according to Vittoria, it has partnered with some of the “most important” pro-teams in the world.
Read about Telemos’ plans for Vittoria here.
Agri hire. Tikehau Capital hired Laurent-David Charbit as co-head of its private equity regenerative agriculture practice.
Charbit moves to the investment management firm from multinational consumer goods company Unilever, where he spent 12 years. He will be based in London, where Tikehau’s head of private equity, Emmanuel Laillier, moved a few weeks ago. Laillier told PE Hub Europe at the time that the firm would look to increase its UK headcount.
“We strongly believe that our regenerative agriculture practice strategy is well positioned to accelerate the paradigm shift towards a more resilient agri-food sector, in close collaboration with stakeholders across the food value chain,” said Laillier in a statement announcing Charbit’s move. “Ultimately, it is about restoring the health of the soil to ensure there is a healthy and sustainable food supply chain for all.”
Tikehau’s regenerative agriculture strategy launched earlier this year in partnership with Unilever and AXA. It seeks to raise more than €1 billion.
Charbit “brings strong transaction sourcing capabilities to the role, as well as an established network with direct access to the market and its clients”, the statement added.
That’s it from me – I’ll be back with you tomorrow.
Cheers,
Craig
If you do not receive this within five minutes, please try to sign in again. If the problem persists, please email: 
