14.12.2006

New owner for Alimak Hek

European private equity firm Triton is to acquire Alimak Hek the leading mast climber and hoist supplier .

Triton, which has offices in Frankfurt, London and Stockholm, has entered into an agreement with current owners, Ratos and 3i to acquire the Group in a SK2.2 billion ($318/€242/£162 million) deal that is expected to be completed next month.

Triton focuses on investing in market-leading companies in the Nordic and German speaking areas of Europe and has more than €1.7 billion of invested funds.

Alimak Hek, which was created in 2002 from the merger of Alimak and Hek into the Intervect group, has revenues of SK1.6 billion ($230/€177/£119 million) and employs 880.

When it was acquired by Ratos it was loosing SK3 million ($436,000/€330,000/£222,000) a year, but last year generated profits of SK240 million ($35/€26.5/£18 million) on revenues some 40 percent higher.

Products include construction hoists, mast climbing work platforms, transport platforms, material hoists and industrial lifts.

The company has manufacturing facilities in Sweden, Netherlands, USA and more recently in China.

Petter Arvidson, president and CEO of the Alimak Hek Group says: “Alimak Hek has enjoyed a tremendous development over the past four years, including re-structuring, organic growth, two major acquisitions in the US and in Australia, as well as the start up of manufacturing in China. The company now has a very strong platform for further profitable growth”.

Vertikal Comment

While this is simply a change of shareholder for Alimak-Hek, it does consolidate the ownership with a single owner rather than two. As such the investor might just be a little more ready to interfere than when there were two.

German based Triton is one of the more private of private equity companies, so little can be said of their modus operandi. However they have propably bought in near the top of the market and will most likely to remain as an investor for at least five to seven years.

The effect on the employees and customers is likely to be mininmal. In a way this is likely to assure the business of at least five years stability and support.