Exit: NORD Holding sells Parador to HIL

Hanover/ Coes­feld — NORD Holding Unter­­neh­­mens-Betei­­li­­gungs­­­ge­­sel­l­­schaft mbH, Hano­ver, has sold its subsi­diary Para­dor GmbH, Coes­feld (www.parador.de), to HIL Limi­ted, a subsi­diary of the Indian group CK Birla. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

Para­dor is a leading premium brand for hard floor cove­rings, with loca­ti­ons in Coes­feld (West­pha­lia) and Güssing, Austria. The company deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and distri­bu­tes lami­nate, parquet, LVT/PU floo­ring and panels/strips/accessories world­wide. Follo­wing the successful carve-out from the Hüls Group in 2016, Para­dor, under the leader­ship of NORD Holding, has, among other things, expan­ded its contract busi­ness over­seas — by setting up a joint venture in China — estab­lished a digi­tal point-of-sale in the dealer network and increased and flexi­bi­li­zed the depth of added value in LVT/PU produc­tion by instal­ling a lami­na­ting line. With approx. 500 employees, Para­dor achie­ves a Net sales of approx. € 150 million.

“We are proud that we were able to successfully support the company manage­ment, led by CEO Lubert Winne­cken, in the complex carve-out from the Hüls Group. Para­dor has further streng­the­ned its leading posi­tion as a premium brand during our invol­vement and will be able to drive inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion even more stron­gly as part of the CK Birla Group,” explains Eber­hard von Strenge (photo), Member of the Execu­tive Board of NORD Holding. “Excel­lent deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and strong custo­mer rela­ti­onships make Para­dor a great addi­tion to our product offe­ring at HIL and bring us closer to our stated goal of being the one-stop store for buil­ding mate­ri­als and products. The syner­gies of the comple­men­tary port­fo­lios will streng­then the global busi­ness of our brands and open up the great poten­tial of the Indian market to Para­dor,” adds CEO Dhirup Choud­hary, HIL Limited.

The tran­sac­tion was advi­sed by the invest­ment bank William Blair, Frank­furt.

About NORD Holding
With its 49-year history, NORD Holding is one of the leading equity inves­tors for the upper middle market. The focus of its acti­vi­ties is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the take­over of group divisions/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. Inves­tors in NORD Holding are seve­ral North German savings banks, insu­rance compa­nies and profes­sio­nal pension funds.
In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. This gives the port­fo­lio compa­nies the oppor­tu­nity to deve­lop and exploit their growth poten­tial without exter­nal time pres­sure. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with over 25 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king count­ries. Through its fund of funds divi­sion, NORD Holding has also inves­ted € 1.5 billion in other Euro­pean invest­ment compa­nies and thus offers its part­ner compa­nies an inter­na­tio­nal network.