Equistone acquires Dutch BOAL Group

Munich/ Naald­wijk — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) have acqui­red a majo­rity stake in BOAL Group. The Dutch company deve­lops and produ­ces high-quality alumi­num roof and side wall systems for glass and foil green­hou­ses. The sellers are the mana­ging direc­tor Ronald Boers and the foun­der Mari­nus Boers, both of whom will conti­nue to hold mino­rity shares. BOAL’s manage­ment team will also parti­ci­pate in the company. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The acqui­si­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

BOAL Group, head­quar­te­red in Naald­wijk, the Nether­lands, has 48 years of expe­ri­ence in the design and manu­fac­ture of alumi­num roof and side­wall systems for green­hou­ses. This makes the Group one of the leading suppli­ers in the market. In addi­tion, BOAL supplies the cons­truc­tion, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and trans­port indus­tries with extru­ded alumi­num profiles. The manu­fac­ture of the high-quality products is based on many years of expe­ri­ence, tech­ni­cal exper­tise and inno­va­tive strength. Produc­tion takes place at the company’s three Dutch sites ’s‑Gravenzande, Maas­dijk and De Lier, as well as in Shep­s­hed in the UK. BOAL curr­ently employs appro­xi­m­ately 370 people and gene­ra­ted sales of around 155 million euros in 2017.

Toge­ther with Equis­tone, BOAL aims to further streng­then its market-leading posi­tion in the green­house indus­try. The focus is on conti­nuous product inno­va­tion, geogra­phic growth and expan­ding the posi­tion in the market for roof systems for film green­hou­ses. Proven part­ner­ships with exis­ting custo­mers for green­house systems as well as alumi­num profiles remain unaf­fec­ted and are to be continued.

“BOAL Group’s impres­sive posi­tion in the market is a prime start­ing point for the next phase of growth,” said Dr. Marc Arens, Part­ner at Equis­tone. “Toge­ther with the outstan­ding manage­ment team, Equis­tone will build on BOAL’s strengths and consis­t­ently pursue its growth stra­tegy. In doing so, we are focu­sing on geogra­phic expan­sion, inno­va­tion and enhan­cing the Group’s exis­ting product portfolio.”

Ronald Boers, Mana­ging Direc­tor of BOAL Group, comm­ents: “The green­house indus­try is growing rapidly and BOAL Group will bene­fit enorm­ously from this deve­lo­p­ment. Equis­tone is the ideal part­ner for our ambi­ti­ons — toge­ther we will conti­nue to drive our growth plans. In doing so, we build on long-term stra­te­gic part­ner­ships with our custo­mers as well as many years of expe­ri­ence and exper­tise in the extru­sion of high-quality alumi­num profiles for the green­house indus­try and other markets.”

On the part of Equis­tone, Dr. Marc Arens, Roman Emanuel Hegglin and Moritz Treude are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The mid-market inves­tor was advi­sed by h&z (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Finan­cial), Allen & Overy (Legal), PwC (Tax), ERM (Envi­ron­men­tal), GCA Altium (Dept Advi­sory), Shear­man & Ster­ling and Stek Advo­ca­ten (Finan­cing, Legal). BOAL Group was advi­sed by William Blair (M&A), Roland Berger (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Financial/ Tax), Hout­hoff (Legal), Tauw (Envi­ron­men­tal), Oaklins (Finan­cial), Van Doorne (Legal) and Yeald (Manage­ment). The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in April 2018.

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of Europe’s leading equity inves­tors with a team of more than 35 invest­ment specia­lists in six offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­ding, equity has been inves­ted in more than 140 tran­sac­tions, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 40 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion at the hard cap.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.equistonepe.de