Good morning Eurohubsters, Craig McGlashan here with the Dealflow.
It’s Valentine’s Day, but I have a bad cold so instead of smelling roses and munching chocolates, I’m sniffing decongestants and swallowing paracetamol.
That’s not the case for much of the private equity industry, however, with plenty suitors out wooing and matches being made.
We’ve got a deep dive look at Verdane and FSN’s joint investment in Polytech, KPS making a move for a UK luxury yacht maker and some take-private attempts in the tech and industrial sectors.
Oh, and in honour of DUBAG buying Eurovision Services, we’re launching another headline competition.
Partnering up. PE Hub Europe’s Nina Lindholm spoke to Verdane’s co-founder and managing partner, Bjarne Kveim Lie, and FSN Capital’s principal, Kasper Sørensen, about their firms’ recent hook-up on Polytech.
The pair announced an investment of approximately €135 million in Polytech, a global firm providing rotor-blade technical products for wind turbines, in mid-January. Polytech, headquartered in Bramming, Denmark, has been part of Verdane’s portfolio since 2016, and in early 2021, Verdane established a continuation vehicle, into which Polytech was transferred.
“For us, bringing on FSN as a partner isn’t bringing in a partner into a six-year-old investment – they’re coming in as a partner into an investment we’ve had for a couple of years,” said Lie.
The length of the holding period creates an alignment around the investment horizon, according to Lie, which would have been “complicated”, had the investment been six years old.
Check out the full interview to learn about how the investment partnership will work, the firms’ add-on and tuck-in plans and their thoughts on the wider wind turbine industry.
Deal ahoy! What could be more romantic on Valentine’s Day than a story about a yacht company? I’m not sure if KPS Capital Partners timed it that way, but regardless, the firm has just announced that it’s entered a definitive agreement to take a controlling equity interest in Princess Yachts, a global manufacturer of luxury motor yachts headquartered in Plymouth, England.
“KPS’ investment will accelerate Princess’ growth trajectory and fund numerous investments for its future,” said Ryan Harrison, a partner of KPS mid-cap investments, in a statement.
Existing shareholders will retain ownership in the firm, which has 3,200 employees and five manufacturing facilities in Plymouth.
In tune. DUBAG Group has acquired Eurovision Services from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Based in Geneva, Switzerland, Eurovision Services is a media services provider for media organisations and sports federations around the world. It has offices in North America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia, and employs around 250 people.
EBU is an alliance of public service media organisations, made up of 112 member organisations from 54 countries, and 30 associate members from a further 19 countries, as of 2022. It created Eurovision Services in 2018.
It’s a slightly tenuous link, but given the EBU runs the Eurovision Song Contest, it feels like the right time to have another punny private equity headline contest (like what we did with Pink Floyd a few months ago).
So send your funniest Eurovision/private equity crossover headlines to craig.m@pei.group and the best ones will get a shout out in the Dealflow.
Tech private. Teddy Sagi, the majority shareholder of UK tech firm Kape Technologies, has made an offer of $3.44 per share to take the firm private, valuing it at around $1.51 billion.
“The last decade has witnessed the rapid growth of digital services with the expansion of e-commerce,” said Sagi in a statement. “Kape has, with our support as the majority shareholder, transformed through several strategic acquisitions, into a truly global leader in the digital privacy and security space. Having weighed the pros and cons of a public listing under the current macro uncertainties and thin stock market trading as well as new growth avenues, we are firm in our view that Kape’s next chapter in its corporate journey should be within the private arena.”
The Kape board responded that it would write to shareholders with its view on the offer in due course and in the meantime urged them to take no action.
Kape is a digital security software provider. It has around 7.4 million paying subscribers and is listed on London’s AIM market.
Sagi’s move comes of course concurrently with another big take-private move, by several of Europe’s richest families to take the Rothschild & Co bank into private hands.
Elsewhere, Norma Group, a maker of host clamps and pipe connections listed on Germany’s SDAX, was subject to several take-private offers by private equity firms in the last few months, including Carlyle, PAI and Triton, according to a Bloomberg report.
We’ll be asking those private equity firms for comment.
That’s it from me – I’m heading off for a hot date with some chicken soup. I’ll be back with you again tomorrow – and hopefully clear of this cold.
Cheers,
Craig
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