Good morning Eurohubsters, Craig McGlashan here with the Dealflow.
A healthy mix of deals hit our screens this morning. First up we look at KKR’s global life sciences platform Gamma Biosciences entering a deal with Biotage, Inflexion taking a majority stake in an operations management consultancy from Gyrus Capital, and an exit by ARX Equity Partners from a Czech firm.
We also look at a deal in the world of theatre involving Providence Equity Partners, Silver Lake and Mercury Capital, and an update on news of private equity interest in a German industrial firm.
Bioprocessing. KKR’s global life sciences platform Gamma Biosciences has agreed to sell its operating company Astrea Bioseparations to Swedish life sciences company Biotage, in exchange for newly issued Biotage shares.
The move will create a “global chromatography leader”, according to a statement. Cambridge, UK-headquartered Astrea supplies chromatography resins, adsorbents and columns to drug developers and manufacturers.
Gamma acquired Astrea (formerly called Prometic Bioseparations) in late 2019 and has since grown the company organically and via acquisitions.
Astrea’s enterprise value will be $190 million to be paid at closing in Biotage shares and up to $45 million in milestone-based cash payments after the closing of the deal. Gamma will also inject around $25 million of capital into Astrea. Following the deal, Gamma is expected to be the largest shareholder in Biotage, with around 17 percent of shares outstanding.
“We are thrilled with this example of Gamma’s playbook for transforming promising next-generation bioprocessing companies into high-growth strategic assets, and we see significant potential for the combined Biotage platform, as well as the remaining assets within Gamma’s portfolio,” said Kugan Sathiyanandarajah, managing director and head of Europe for KKR’s health care strategic growth strategy, and Anuv Ratan, director at KKR, in a statement.
Operations management. Inflexion has agreed to buy a majority stake in Swiss operations management consulting firm dss from Gyrus Capital. Gyrus and dss management will retain a significant minority.
dss focuses on high-risk industries where safety, operations and culture transformation are mission critical. It aims to help its clients reduce risk and improve sustainability.
Electric exit. Central European private equity firm ARX Equity Partners has completed its sale of Czech electro-mechanical engineering company TES Vsetin. A private equity consortium of Genesis Capital and Avallon has bought the firm.
Headquartered in Vsetin, TES primarily works in the manufacturing of system components for electrical machines and also designs and manufactures its own proprietary machines, including generators and electric motors.
ARX bought the business in 2019 from an affiliate of Advent International in a deal that ARX said eliminated the company’s high debt levels.
Taking the stage. Providence Equity Partners-backed Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) has agreed to merge operations with Jujamcyn Theaters. No financial details of the transaction were disclosed.
ATG is a theatre organisation headquartered in London and Woking. The firm has offices in New York and Dusseldorf. The firm owns and operates 58 venues across the UK, the US, and Germany.
Jujamcyn is a theatrical producing and theatre-ownership company based in New York. The firm’s five Broadway theatres are the St James, Al Hirschfeld, August Wilson, Eugene O’Neill, and Walter Kerr.
TEG also has a minority investment in ATG. Silver Lake has a majority stake in TEG and Mercury Capital holds a minority stake. Silver Lake is a private equity firm based in Menlo Park, US and Mercury Capital is a Sydney-based private equity firm.
Providence is a private equity firm focused on media, communications, education, and information investments.
This isn’t the only deal we’ve seen with a showbiz angle of late. We’ve also reported on DUBAG Group acquiring media services provider Eurovision Services from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
We’re now looking for readers to send in their best Eurovision Song Contest private equity headlines – the cornier the puns, the better.
Send them over to me at craig.m@pei.group. The best entries will get a shoutout in the Dealflow.
Take-private. Yesterday we mentioned a Bloomberg report about a series of private equity firms having been interested in taking Norma group, a German maker of host clamps and pipe connections, private.
We asked the three for comment, but PAI and Triton declined, while Carlyle didn’t get back in time for today’s Dealflow. We’ll keep you posted on further developments.
That’s it from me – I’ll be back with you again tomorrow.
Cheers,
Craig
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