We open today with Hg acquiring a majority stake in Nomadia, a European SaaS provider of smart mobility services.
For our take-private fans, we have a slew of updates. Bain Capital has made a second non-binding offer for the Swiss software and cloud tech provider SoftwareOne. Goldman Sachs Asset Management has made further progress with its take-private move for Frøy, as the Ukrainian authorities have approved the share sale. EQT won shareholder approval for its move for Dechra. And finally, Silver Lake announced the tender offer results for Software AG.
We’ll then take a look at the second aircraft safety deal of the week, as Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP) sells SK AeroSafety to Bridgepoint.
To finish off, we take a look at private capital investment activity in Spain with the help of a report by SpainCap, an association for venture capital and private equity firms in Spain.
Mobility
Hg has acquired a majority stake in Nomadia, a European SaaS provider of smart mobility services.
Paris-based Nomadia’s management team and former majority owners will continue as investors in the company as part of the transaction.
Hg will support Nomadia’s investment in R&D and product innovation, including in AI, IoT and machine learning, according to a release.
“We were impressed by the quality of their products, the strength of their clients’ feedback, and the impact of their mission: to enable mobile workforces to gain productivity while increasing safety standards and reducing CO2 emissions,” said Alexandre Flavier, partner at Hg.
Hg will also support Nomadia’s international growth, both organically and via acquisitions, to strengthen its market position in Europe, the release said.
Take-private roundup
There’s been a flurry of activity in take-privates at the end of the week.
Bain Capital has sent a second indicative, unsolicited and non-binding offer to acquire Switzerland’s SoftwareOne, the company’s board confirmed yesterday. The share price is in the range of SFr19.50-SFr20.50 per share, subject to various conditions. Bain’s first offer, announced in June, was for SFr18.50 a share, which valued the total equity of the company at about SFr2.93 billion ($3.24 billion; €2.99 billion).
Meanwhile, another company that Bain portfolio company Rocket Software had been interested in at one point – Germany’s Software AG – has been the target of Silver Lake. The private equity firm announced yesterday that in its final tender offer results it had secured 84.29 percent of Software AG’s shares, subject to the closing of the tender offer. The closing is pending regulatory approvals and is expected in the fourth quarter. Silver Lake’s offer is €32 per share, giving Software AG a valuation of around €2.4 billion.
EQT’s bid for UK veterinary pharmaceuticals business Dechra is moving forward after shareholders voted to approve the takeover yesterday. Then today, Spanish and German authorities gave the move the go-ahead, so EQT is now waiting antitrust approval or the expiry of applicable waiting periods in the EU, US, Austria and Brazil, and foreign direct investment approvals in Australia.
Subject to those going through, Dechra expects the deal to become effective towards the end of 2023 or early 2024.EQT and Dechra agreed terms on the take-private, which gives the company an enterprise value of £4.88 billion ($6.27 billion; €5.63 billion) in early June.
Sticking with regulatory approvals, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine yesterday waived through Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s move for Frøy, a provider of services to Norwegian salmon farmers. That was the last regulatory approval needed, so the parties expect the deal to close on or about 14 August.GSAM’s offer was for NKr76.50 per share, giving a total consideration of the outstanding shares of around NKr6.6 billion ($656 million; €589 million).
Safety announcement
Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP) has sold SK AeroSafety, a global provider of maintenance, repair and overhaul services for aircraft safety equipment, to Bridgepoint.
Bridgepoint invested in SK via its Bridgepoint Development Capital IV (BDC) fund. The investment in Wokingham-based SK AeroSafety is the 11th platform investment by BDC IV and its fifth in the UK.
“The company is uniquely positioned to benefit from the structural trends occurring in the sector including airline fleet growth and the transition from in-house maintenance to outsourced services as airlines look to manage costs,” said David MacKenzie, partner at BDC.
LLCP invested in SK in 2019. SK is LLCP’s 17th exit since March 2020.
Aerospace safety has been popular as of late. Earlier in the week, Advent International-backed Cobham entered talks to sell AeroComms to Thales. AeroComms, based in Paris, is a supplier of safety cockpit communication systems. The company is expected to generate around $200 million in revenues in 2023.
When in Spain
Let’s fly over to the Iberian Peninsula. SpainCap, an association for venture capital and private equity firms in Spain, released figures on private capital investments in the country during the first half of the year.
According to the first estimates obtained by SpainCap through the European Data Cooperative (EDC) platform, the investment volume in Spain reached €3.005 billion in the first half of the year. This is 46 percent less than in the same period in 2022, the report said.
However, the number of investments reached a second-best historical record of 469. From the second quarter of 2023 onwards, investment activity has picked up again, according to the report.
“This first half of the year, marked by the prudence of fund managers and investors, will give way to a more active second half of the year in terms of investment and the reactivation of the middle market and large market segments,” said Oriol Pinya, president of SpainCap. “Despite 2023 being a year full of challenges, SpainCap continues to work for positive impact investing, diversity and transparency.”
International fund managers maintain their interest in Spain. In the first half of the year, international private capital funds contributed with 75 percent of the total value invested in Spanish companies with 105 investments, the report said. Domestic private fund managers invested €659 million in 273 deals.
Large and mid-market segments have suffered the most in the economic climate, according to the report. The segments closed the first half of the year with a value of €800 million with a total of 38 investments. In comparison, 427 investments were closed with a size of up to €10 million.
Some recent activity in the Spanish market include Bridgepoint buying a majority stake in Windar Renovables, CPP Investments picking up waste management operator FCC Medio Ambiente for €965 million and Boreal and Cadillac Fairview acquiring a warehouse in Madrid.
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