We’re back on the aquaculture sector this morning as we take a look at the latest news on Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s pursuit of listed Norwegian company Frøy.
In other take-private news, Cap10 has completed its acquisition of Sureserve.
Elsewhere, we cover hospitality as The Riverside Company enters an agreement to sell Guestline to Access Group, a portfolio company of Hg, TA Associates and GIC.
We then round things out with a deal in the legal sector, with Aurelius set to acquire TM Group. We’ve got the deal size on that one for you.
Adding to the haul
Goldman Sachs Asset Management has made progress in its take-private move for Frøy, a provider of services to Norwegian salmon farmers.
Companies owned by its infrastructure funds have acquired shares in the company equivalent to 17.24 percent of the total outstanding, according to an announcement on the Oslo Stock Exchange this morning.
Goldman had already agreed with NTS, a wholly owned subsidiary of salmon producer SalMar, to buy NTS’ entire holding in Frøy, which is about 72 percent of the company. That means Goldman now owns or has rights to nearly 90 percent of the company.
Goldman is offering Nkr76.50 a share, giving a total consideration of all Frøy’s shares of around NKr6.6 billion ($638 million; €579 million).
Frøy has more than 900 employees and a fleet of 80 vessels, according to a statement. Its services include the transport, sorting and counting of fish, net cleaning, disease treatment and maintenance of salmon farming sites.
Goldman received approval in late June from the Norwegian Competition Authority and received an exemption from the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries to buy NTS’ stake
The firm is still waiting for approval from competition authorities in Ukraine before the deal can complete.
For more on private equity interest in the fishing sector, check out Nina Lindholm’s interview with Earth Capital about its investment in Ace Aquatec.
Social housing
Sticking with take-privates, and Cap10 has completed its acquisition of Sureserve Group, valuing the equity of the company at £214 million ($277 million; €251 million).
The deal is rather novel as it is the first acquisition by Cap10, a pan-European private equity firm based in London.
Sureserve provides energy and compliance services to the UK social housing sector. It offers inspection, compliance, maintenance and installation in services in heating, insulation and renewable energy.
The firm posted a 23 percent increase in revenues and 41 percent increase in EBITA for the six months ended 31 March, compared to the same period a year earlier.
If you want to read about the glut of take-private attempts that appeared earlier this year – as well as some of the novel financing techniques that sponsors were using – have a read of my roundup piece.
Hospitality
Private equity firms looking to invest in the travel and hospitality sectors as they rebound from the covid pandemic has been a big topic on PE Hub Europe since we launched a year ago. Nina Lindholm has a round-up of some of those deals here.
We can now add another one to that list, as The Riverside Company has signed a definitive agreement to sell Guestline, a UK-based provider of mission critical software for the hospitality sector, to Access Group. Access is a portfolio company of Hg, TA Associates and GIC.
“The sale of Guestline marks the sixth exit achieved by the Riverside Europe team over the past 18 months, and again demonstrates our ability to support leading mid-market businesses through organic and inorganic growth initiatives,” said Karsten Langer, managing partner at Riverside Europe, in a statement. “Despite the challenges of Brexit and covid-19, Guestline’s revenue and earnings more than doubled during our investment period.”
Riverside invested in Guestline in March 2016. Guestline completed the add-on acquisition of Newbridge in 2022.
Access is a provider of software to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and mid-market companies.
Conveyancing
Aurelius is set to acquire TM Group, a UK-based provider of property search aggregation services, from Dye & Durham in a transaction valued at up to £91 million (€106.9 million; $117.41 million).
TM Group is based in Swindon. The company generated revenues of £62 million in 2022.
“TM Group’s services are essential to the UK conveyancing process, providing the business with a good level of demand within a market with high barriers to entry,” said Tristan Nagler, partner at Aurelius. “This corporate carve-out transaction from Dye & Durham is further evidence of our deliverability in a challenging M&A market.”
Dye & Durham will receive around £50 million in cash at closing, with up to £41 million in potential additional earn-out payments between 2023 and 2026, for total consideration of up to £91 million, subject to certain adjustments.
Dye & Durham is a provider of cloud-based legal practice management software. The company is based in Toronto, Canada.
It’s been a busy week for private equity in the legal sector.
Yesterday, we wrote about board of DWF Group, a UK legal and business services provider, being in talks with Inflexion Private Equity Partners about a possible cash offer for the listed business.
On Monday, we covered Law Business Research (LBR), a portfolio company of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, acquiring MBL Seminars, a provider of compliance-led learning and development products for professional services firms.
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