Triton ups stake in Caverion as board mulls bids; CapMan bullish on Nordic M&A; Healthcare and pro services roundup

UPDATE: Good morning Eurohubsters, Craig McGlashan here with the final Dealflow of the week.

It’s been a busy week here at PE Hub Europe HQ, with plenty of source meetings, deals to write and the start of our coverage marking International Women’s Day. As usual for a Friday we’ll sum up what we’ve seen and done.

First, we take a look at a fresh development in the tussle between Bain Capital and Triton over Finnish construction firm Caverion, then I report on some of the thoughts expressed on Nordic M&A at an event I attended last night.

We also look at some deals in the events sector as that segment makes a post-covid comeback, plus a roundup of some of the busiest sectors this week – professional services and healthcare.

And finally, I round-up the week’s women in private equity coverage.

Heating up.

First we have some news to share on the battle between Bain Capital and Triton Partners to buy listed Finnish construction firm Caverion.

Last night, the Triton consortium announced that its latest offer of €8.95 per share had a few more takers. It has entered agreements to buy – subject to regulatory approvals – shares that will take its holding to approximately 22.8 percent of all the outstanding shares in Caverion.

Today, Caverion issued an update on a group of Caverion shareholders – Elo Mutual, Ilmarinen Mutual, Mandatum Life Insurance and Varma Mutual – that together own about 15.4 percent of Caverion’s shares. They had previously said they would accept Bain’s latest offer, which was for €8 per share immediately or €8.50 nine months after its tender offer closes.

But the shareholders’ irrevocable undertakings had the caveat that they could be revoked if another bid of at least €8.95 came in – and since the Bain consortium “has not matched or exceeded the consideration offered in said improved competing tender offer” from Triton, the Caverion board understands that the irrevocable undertakings are no longer in effect.

The Caverion board had previously recommended the latest Bain offer, but last night said it would issue a new recommendation in the coming days. It also said it was working with Triton “to understand its willingness and ability to lower its more than 90 percent acceptance condition”.

Bain already lowered its threshold from 90 percent to two-thirds when amending its bid a few weeks ago and then to 50 percent on 8 March.

On the Bain side, the board had asked for it to share information “on the relevant agreements or commitments between the Caverion shareholders that are members of the Bain Consortium and the other consortium parties that may influence the willingness or ability of said Caverion shareholders to accept Triton’s offer in a situation where the Bain Consortium’s offer would have expired or otherwise fallen away”.

Optimism.

Sticking with that region, I was at the Nordic M&A Forum in London last night, where speakers were pretty optimistic on the outlook for deals in the region.

Pia Kåll, managing partner at CapMan Buyout, said on one of the panels that she was expecting a very good private equity vintage this year.

She said there were “a lot of investment opportunities” and that buyouts had continued across sectors in the lower mid-market. On a slightly more downbeat note, she said that large buyouts – her firm’s exit route – were more difficult because of financing issues, but good deals can find dry powder in private equity or a corporate exit.

CapMan’s buyout portfolio companies were also performing well, she added.

In person.

Speaking of events, that sector is warming up after the lean years of the covid pandemic.

Charterhouse Capital Partners has sold its portfolio company Tarsus Group, an international B2B events group, to Informa for an enterprise value of $940 million, in a combination of cash and shares.

Tarsus is headquartered in London and has operations in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Charterhouse acquired Tarsus in 2019.

“We are strong believers in the continued recovery of the trade show industry,” said Robert Leeming, partner at Charterhouse, in a statement. “Informa is very well placed to capitalise on such growth prospects, and we look forward to being supportive shareholders in the coming years.”

Read more on that exit here.

Other recent conference action includes Providence Equity attempting to take UK-based exhibition and conference organiser Hyve Group private. You can read our latest coverage on that here.

Professionally speaking.

The busiest sector we covered this week was professional services, with deals across a range of subsectors.

Waterland Private Equity secured an investment in Moore Kingston Smith, a multi-disciplinary professional services firm.

Moore Kingston Smith is the London firm within the Moore UK network that offers a wide range of accountancy and advisory services to clients.

Enventa Group, backed by Main Capital Partners, acquired syska, a bookkeeping and accounting software provider.

Syska, headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, offers a solution for accounting to SMEs and has a customer base of over 3,000 clients across the DACH region.

LDC secured a majority stake in Horsefly, an artificial intelligence-based talent analytics platform, from Mercia Asset Management.

LDC will support Will Crandle, founder and CEO of Horsefly, to accelerate its growth organically, both in the UK and internationally, according to a release.

Advent International will sell Tag, a global omnichannel marketing production company, to Dentsu Group.

Tag is headquartered in London. The firm’s end-to-end platform provides digital, personalised marketing.

In good health.

Healthcare was another busy sector.

Late in the week, HIG Capital bought Polygon, a Rome and Milan based provider of healthcare maintenance services in Italy and Spain. The company installs and looks after biomedical and diagnostic imaging equipment, to the tune of 500,000 managed devices and 970,000 interventions per year.

Check out more on that deal here.

Switching to consumer healthcare, and ARCHIMED has acquired WiQo, an Italian company whose biggest product is PRX-T33, a needle-free chemical stimulation treatment for skin rejuvenation.

You can find out more about the deal and ARCHIMED’s plans for the company here.

Earlier in the week, WebMD Health, owned by KKR and Temasek-backed Internet Brands Company, acquired Grupo SANED, a provider of scientific communication and medical education services.

WebMD’s acquisition of Grupo SANED is a significant expansion for its flagship global brand Medscape, according to a release.

The acquisition follows Medscape’s acquisition of other country specific clinical and health information providers including MGP, Coliquio and MediQuality.

Find out more on the merger plans here.

For a more in-depth look at a European healthcare deal, take a look at my interview with Thoma Bravo vice-president David Tse. We chat about the company’s investment in healthcare analytics provider LOGEX, as well as the wider challenges in growing such a company in the fragmented European healthcare market.

Women’s day.

Finally, we’ll be continuing our series of interviews with senior women dealmakers next week. But in case you’ve missed our coverage so far, then check out Irien Joseph’s Q&A with Blackstone’s Natacha Jamar and my interview with Sullivan Street’s Zeina Bain.

That’s all from me. I’ll be spending the weekend watching Scotland (hopefully) beat Ireland in the Six Nations. I’ll speak to you again on Monday.

Cheers,

Craig

Editor’s note: This article originally misstated Bain’s offer threshold as two-thirds, instead of the new value of 50 percent.