Tag: EQT

Telefónica Finalises the Sale of 25 Data Centres for €600M

15 April 2019 – Expansión

The telecommunications giant Telefónica is expected to complete the sale of a portfolio of 25 data centres located in the USA, Europe and Latin America after Easter, as it continues its efforts to reduce its debt.

One of the best-positioned candidates in the bid to acquire the assets is Asterion Industrial Partners, a fund founded by Jesús Olmos, former Director of KKR, in November, which has already fought off competition from the infrastructure fund Brookfield, amongst others.

Two other investment vehicles have also reportedly expressed significant interest in acquiring the portfolio, namely, EQT and I-Squared Capital, as have two companies in the sector, the US firms Digital Realty and Equinix.

Of the portfolio of assets, eight centres are located in Spain, three in Brazil, three in Colombia, three in Ecuador, two in Peru, two in Chile, two in Argentina, one in Miami and one in Mexico.

With this new divestment, which is expected to generate proceeds of around €600 million, Telefónica will succeed in reducing its debt below €40 billion.

Original story: Expansión (by D.B., M.Á.P., I.C. and R.C.)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Hotelbeds Wants To End The Online Agency Duopoly

5 October 2017 – Expansión

The Mallorcan firm Hotelbeds wants to take on the titans of the world of online agencies and break the de facto duopoly, which is effectively dominated by Expedia and Priceline, the parent company of Booking. The company, controlled by the private equity firm Cinven and the fund Canada Pension Plan Investment (CPPI), owns the largest bedbank in the world and after its purchase of Tourico and GTA, is constituting itself as a “clear alternative” to connect hotels and intermediaries, explains Joan Vilà, the Chief Executive of Hotelbeds Group, speaking to Expansión.

“We have undertaken these acquisitions in record time and have almost doubled our size with the purchase of GTA and Tourico. We were already market leaders in terms of our bedbank and our new size puts us in the Champions League of major companies around the world”, says Vilà.

Cinven and CPPI acquired their stakes in the company a year and a half ago, after reaching an agreement with the German group TUI for almost €1,200 million. Since then, the firm has acquired Tourico – based in Orlando and Tel Aviv – and GTA – the commercial name for the Kuoni Group’s travel business, in which the fund EQT owned a stake – for a combined value of €1,300 million.

These acquisitions will allow the group to double in size, with an annual turnover of €7,000 million and a total workforce of 8,300 employees, of which 5,300 belong to the Bedbank division.

For Vilà, the scale of the integrated group will allow the controlled hotels to gain more autonomy. Currently, Hotelbeds works with 100,000 hotels and 64,000 intermediaries (travel agents, tour operators and airlines).

Integration process

Following these operations, the company is now working on its integration plan, which it expects to complete over the next 18 months. “We have decided to use the Hotelbeds platform. Within 18 months we will be working as a single company”.

In terms of strengthening the company’s inorganic growth, Vilà explained that, although he does not rule out making new purchases, the company is focused on the integration process for the time being. The group has not yet decided whether it will work under a single brand. “In the B2B business, the presence of the brand is very important and all three are very well-known”.

In terms of the leadership team, Joan Vilà will continue in his role as the CEO, with Carlos Muñoz as the Director General of Bedbank and responsible for managing the integration of the three businesses, and Andrés García responsible for the financial area of the resulting group. Moreover, Hotelbeds has announced the appointment of José Antonio Tazón as a senior non-executive director on the Board of Directors and as the Chairman of the Advisory Committee.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Empark’s Owners Engage JP Morgan To Sell The Giant For €850M

19 May 2017 – Expansión

Empark is back on the market. The Portuguese controlling shareholders of the car park company have engaged JP Morgan to find a buyer for an entity worth around €850 million, on the basis of the prices and valuations of other similar transactions in the sector. Empark is the leading car park company in Spain with 500,000 parking spaces in the Iberian Peninsula, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The firm’s gross operating profit (EBITDA) amounts to €65 million and its debt, which the company has been restructuring over the last year, amounts to €475 million.

Following the most recent changes, Empark’s shareholder structure is still dominated by the Portuguese investors Silva & Silva, which own 78% of the company. The second largest shareholder is the Chinese conglomerate Haitong, with a 14% stake.

The company’s control vehicle is dominated by the founding families, who participate in the management of the group. The main executives of Empark are José Augusto Tavares, Pedro Mendes (Executive President) and Antonio Moura.

The last attempt to sell the company was made in 2015. Then, the company progressed to the stage of selecting a buyer, Vinci Park (Ardian), but the operation did not come to fruition. Vinci Park reported the breakdown in its negotiations to buy Empark in July of that year after finalising its due diligence work, which produced unsatisfactory findings. Ultimately, the company was concerned about Empark’s high exposure to town halls which, following the local elections held that year, were considering “re-municipalisation”.

Sources close to the fund Ardian say that they are not interested in the operation at the moment. The infrastructure investment giant put Indigo (formerly Vinci park) up for sale this year for around €3,000 million. The sale of Empark is quite complex, given that the shares of the car park company serve, in turn, to secure the shareholders’ personal loans.

According to sources close to the operation, the Portuguese shareholders have dragged the other shareholders into the sale and have been given until the beginning of October to find a buyer. They are keen to leverage the ‘drag along clause’ set out in the company’s shareholder agreements (which means that when a third party makes an offer to purchase the company by buying all of its share capital, then the shareholder that has the ‘drag along right’ may force the other shareholders to sell their stakes to the buyer).

Sources in the sector believe that if Pedro Mendes and his partners do not find an investor with a reasonable offer in time, Haitong may push ahead with the operation by itself or with one of Empark’s creditor banks. Deutsche Bank is one of the company’s latest lenders. The German bank manages the fund RREEF Infrastructure.

One of the possible candidates to analyse the purchase operation is the fund First State, which acquired España Parkia from the Nordic fund EQT and Mutua Madrileña in 2016 for just over €300 million. The US fund Alinda is also very active in Spain. It has made an offer to buy Isolux’s car park portfolio. Another candidate could be the Chinese firm Haitong

Original story: Expansión (by C. Morán)

Translation: Carmel Drake

EQT To Sell Parkia To First State For €300M+

24 June 2016 – Expansión

The Nordic fund EQT has brought forward the process to select offers for the purchase of its 66.8% stake in Parkia, one of the leaders in the Spanish car park market. According to sources, the likely buyer is the Australian fund First State. The consideration paid could amount to more than €300 million for 100% of the company.

EQT, advised by BBVA, may announce the completion of the operation today. Parkia’s other shareholder is Mutua Madrileña, which controls 33.2% of the car park company. The Spanish insurance company may also sell its stake to First State if it considers the price to be attractive enough. According to the terms of the bid, interested parties must submit two offers: one for the shares owned by EQT and another for 100% of the company.

After undertaking a preliminary process to select certain bids a few weeks ago, several groups passed through to the final round. As well as First State, the other finalists included Saba, Empark, Indigo (controlled by the fund Ardian) and Interparking. Provided there are no last minute changes, EQT will opt to award the shares to the Australian fund. In theory, the definitive deadline for the receipt of offers had been extended until the middle of July, but EQT decided to bring forward the transaction.

Valuation

Throughout the sales process, interested investors have indicated a valuation range for the whole company of between €300 and €350 million, which represents between 15x and 17x of forecast EBITDA for 2016 (c. €20 million).

First State is known in Spain because it acquired a stake in the Galician regasification firm Reganosa which had belonged to the savings banks. First State is the asset management arm of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, one of the largest banks in Australia. The sale of Parkia represents a turning point in the car park sector, which has received renewed interest from investors thanks to improvements in activity.

Original story: Expansión (by C. M. / D. B. / M. P. L.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Saba & Ardian Bid For Spain’s 3rd Largest Car Park Group

17 May 2016 – Expansión

A dozen “Spanish and international” candidates have submitted bids for the purchase of Parkia, the third largest car park group in Spain, owned by the Nordic fund EQT. Market sources say that the candidates include major companies in the sector, such as Saba, Indigo (controlled by the investment fund Ardian), Interparking and Empark, as well as financial groups specialising in infrastructures, such as Infravía.

Some sources also include Globalvía on the list of interested parties, but a spokesperson for the concessionaire said yesterday that they are not going to submit a bid for Parkia. Sabadell is also expected to submit a bit, thanks to its partnership with the funds Altamar and Firmium, through which it plans to invest more than €150 million in car parks in Spain.

The exact amount of the bids has not been revealed, but sources state that the perceived competitiveness and facilities available to investors to leverage the transaction have helped to boost the price. Sources in the know indicate a valuation range for the whole company of between €300 million and €350 million, which would represent between 15x and 17x of the forecast EBITDA for 2016, which is expected to amount to €20 million.

EQT must decide “in the next few days”, say the sources, which bidders will make the cut and proceed to the next phase of the process, which will involve a period of due diligence (audit of the assets), in which the potential buyers will analyse the company in detail so as to prepare their binding offers.

The plan is to select between “three and five” investors from the initial interested parties, who will participate in the definitive bid. The aim is to complete the process by the end of July.

Although the operation is moving ahead, the role of Mutua Madrilña – the co-owner of Parkia with 33.2% of the capital – is still uncertain. In theory, the Spanish insurance company plans to retain its stake in the car park manager, but that will depend on the conditions that EQT ends up agreeing, say sources. Mutua declined to comment on the deal. (…).

Parkia owns 58 car parks, with a total supply of 27,000 parking spaces and an average concession life of 30 years. The company’s revenues amounted to €33 million last year. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by M. Ponce de León, D. Badía and C. Morán)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cinven Offers €1,300M To Outbid EQT In Auction For Hotelbeds

27 April 2016 – Expansión

The private equity firm Cinven, which has invested heavily in Spain over the last two years, may take a leap forward if its bid for the Hotelbeds group goes ahead. TUI AG put the company up for sale at the end of 2015.

Sources close to the sales process indicate that Cinven has put an offer on the table, which values the tourism company at €1,300 million. The Nordic fund EQT is also participating in the bidding and sources do not rule out the possibility of other interested groups participating in what now seems to be the final stretch of the sales process of the Hotelbeds Group.

The company, a subsidiary of the Germany group TUI AG, works with 75,000 hotels all over the world and offers rooms to tour operators and travel agents around the globe. Hotelbeds, which receives more than 25 million hotel bookings per year, is one of the companies that emerged from the tourism sector thanks to new technologies and it has high growth projections.

Entry into the hotel segment

This would be Cinven’s first major foray into the hotel segment, but it would represent a return to the tourism business. Cinven, a fund headquartered in London, was created in 1977; it went on to acquire Amadeus in 2005, together with BC Partners.

The tourism sector’s technology provider, which was acquired from the major European airlines, was then delisted. In 2010, Cinven and BC Partners returned the company to the stock exchange and sold their shares.

Since its creation, Cinven has made acquisitions amounting to more than €70,000 million, specialising, above all, in investments with a significant technological component and always with holdings that exceed €100 million. (…).

Meanwhile, Hotelbeds has been on the market since last Autumn. Financial sources valued it at around €1,000 million. TUI had hoped to complete the sales process during the first three or four months of the year, and so a final agreement could be very close. Nevertheless, the emergence of the fund EQT in the process will intensify the Hotelbed operation.

Similarly, financial sources do not rule out that other funds may be preparing their own competitive offers.

Diversified portfolio

EQT, of Swedish origin, has assets under management of €29,000 million and its investment portfolio is very varied. In Spain, it holds stakes in two companies, Islalink and Parkia, which operate in the telecommunications and car park sectors, respectively.

EQT opened an office in Madrid in the middle of last year with the aim of looking for new investments in the Spanish and Portuguese markets. The fund hired a specialist team led by Fernando Conte, the former Chairman of Iberia and the tourism group Orizonia.

At the beginning of February, EQT bought the Swiss tourism group Kuoni for more than €1,100 million and, according to sources in the sector, it plans to integrate that business with the Hotelbeds Group.

For TUI AG, the sale of this company will mean saying goodbye to the online sector to focus on its traditional businesses: hotels and cruises. During the year to 30 September 2015, TUI AG generated revenues of more than €20,000 million, with an EBITDA of €1,069 million, up by almost 23%. Its shares closed at €13.09 on the stock exchange yesterday, up by 0.47%.

Original story: Expansión (by M.Á.Patiño and Y.Blanco)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Car Parks: Isolux Joins Forces With Oak Hill

28 January 2015 – Expansión

Cash inflow of €100 million / The group, which is in the middle of an IPO, has granted its new partner the option to buy its car park business from 2019.

Isolux has strengthened its car park subsidiary, one of the outstanding loose ends in its business, which will become more attractive through this transaction, as the company continues with its plans to go public in mid-February. Specifically, the Spanish group has signed an agreement with the fund Oak Hill Capital Partners to jointly develop the business.

The investment firm has injected €100 million into the company in the form of a loan, which is fully intended to increase the company’s portfolio of assets. In return, Isolux has granted Oak Hill an option to take ownership of the car park subsidiary from 2019.

The agreement transforms Isolux Infrastructure into one of the most active competitors in the Spanish parking sector. The car park business map has undergone a profound transformation in the last year, due to: the divestment processes that are underway (the sale of the market leader, Empark); the merger of companies (Mutua Madrileña and EQT have created a joint venture); and the award of large public concessions (Saba has acquired car parks from the Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, as well as some of those previously owned by Aena).

Currently, Isolux is one of the largest operators in the sector, with almost 24,000 parking spaces; it generated revenues of €14 million to September last year and a gross operating profit (EBITDA) of €8 million during the same period.

The agreement with Oak Hill, signed last year, ends a period of uncertainty for this branch of Isolux’s activity, which it had put up for sale after other attempts to form strategic alliances had fallen through. At the beginning of 2013, the Spanish group signed a preliminary agreement with the French fund Edifice Capital for the investment of €150 million between 2013 and 2014. The resources were going to be used to purchase new car parks with the aim of reaching 50,000 spaces in total. Surprisingly, the French firm did not keep to its word and withdrew from the project.

(….)

Original story: Expansión (by C. Morán)

Translation: Carmel Drake