BrazilBain and Big Four advise on APi's acquisition of SK FireSafety
US-listed APi Group has acquired SK FireSafety Group, a European company that offers critical safety products and solutions in the active fire safety market.
APi Group is a business services provider of safety, specialty and industrial services in over 200 locations, primarily in North America. The acquisition of SK FireSafety Group, a Netherlands headquartered group with around 650 people generating revenues of $146 million, significantly expands the firm’s European footprint.
“This acquisition establishes a European platform for further organic growth and acquisition expansion. The business has been resilient during the Covid-19 pandemic and we look forward to welcoming them into our family of companies and helping accelerate our growth,” said Russ Becker, Chief Executive Officer at APi Group.
The deal comes shortly after APi Group added three businesses to its stable in the US; two safety-service businesses in Georgia and Massachusetts, and a speciality-services company in Wisconsin. While the financial terms of the SK FireSafety deal have not been disclosed, known is that the four deals altogether were worth $300 million.
APi Group has been on a M&A path since it was acquired a year ago J2 Acquisition Group, which paid $2.9 billion in a deal that effectively took APi public. Commenting on future opportunities, Becker said: “Our pipeline of incremental M&A opportunities is robust and we expect to continue to explore opportunistic acquisitions as we move into 2021.”
SK FireSafety Group, which has operations in the Benelux and Nordics, was previously majority owned by Apax Partners, which purchased its stake in 2014. Under the wings of the French private equity group, SK FireSafety managed to emerge as the leader in the “first fifteen minutes of an emergency” segment.
Ewald Draaijer, the CEO of SK FireSafety, said: “It has been a real pleasure to work with the Apax Partners team over the past six years. They dedicated time, resources and trust to assist the management team in the implementation of our growth strategy and actively helped the group to become fast growing and highly profitable.”
Dealmakers
The transaction was supported by dealmakers from across the professional services landscape. Seller Apax Partners received strategy consulting and commercial due diligence advisory from Bain & Company (Marc Lino, Erik Pot, Shishir Sinha, Wies van Eeden), while KPMG Corporate Finance provided financial advisory (Danny Bosker, Tijn Bastiaans, Joost Frenaij, Arnoud Runia, Matthijs Snels, Job Oomens, Robert Goossens, Annabelle Truijen).
KPMG also advised on the debt financing, with expertise provided by Maurice Jongmans, Adriaan Vorster, Tim van den Ende and Julian Sie, and delivered the financial due diligence, provided by Ewald van Hamersveld, Wouter Moet, Ilya Golubev, Sjoerd Verhoogt, Jean-Francois Outrequin and Matthijs van den Neste.
Tax advisory was provided by Deloitte (Jos Boerland, Anne Renger Sijens, Maiken Rooker), and legal support by Allen & Overy (Karine Kodde, Karine Kodde, Dominique Coumans, Rens Bondrager, Otto Quist, Heleen van de Weijer, Magalie Zindel).
Meanwhile, at the other side of the deal table, PwC provided financial due diligence (Hans Dullaert, Nick de Leeuw) and tax advisory (Hans Seeling, Leonie de Haas). The strategic and legal consultants to Api Group were at the time of writing not known.
