Silverfleet: 7days expands to Scandinavia with practice

Munich, London, Paris — Follo­wing its invest­ment in the West­pha­lian company 7days at the begin­ning of the year, the Euro­pean private equity firm Silver­fleet Capi­tal is start­ing to imple­ment its buy & build stra­tegy: With the support of Silver­fleet Capi­tal, the specia­list for work­wear in the health­care sector is taking over the Danish company Praxis Herning A/S, thus opening up addi­tio­nal sales markets. The private sellers of the majo­rity shares also include the two mana­ging direc­tors Jesper Rasmus­sen and Søren Wort­mann, who will conti­nue to remain on board in their func­tions and take a retroac­tive stake. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Praxis was foun­ded in 1995 and is based in the Danish textile capi­tal Herning. The company specia­li­zes in the design, produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of clot­hing for health­care profes­sio­nals. The product port­fo­lio includes tops such as t‑shirts or polo shirts, pants and shoes. Praxis prima­rily serves custo­mers from the Scan­di­na­vian region (Sweden, Norway, Finland) in addi­tion to Denmark.

Foun­ded in 1999, 7days from Lotte near Osna­brück is one of Europe’s leading specia­lists in medi­cal work­wear. A parti­cu­lar focus of the product range, which compri­ses more than 2,000 artic­les, is on furnis­hing medi­cal and dental prac­ti­ces in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, France, Belgium and the Nether­lands. Simi­lar to Praxis, 7days markets its items online via webshop and news­let­ter as well as via catalog.

Joachim Braun, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal and respon­si­ble for 7days, says: “7days and Praxis are ideal part­ners based on their focus, stra­tegy and busi­ness philo­so­phy. Both stand for high-quality mate­ri­als and work­man­ship as well as opti­mal comfort at an attrac­tive price-perfor­­mance ratio. The tie-up is the first step in our growth stra­tegy for 7days, which aims to streng­then our dome­stic market posi­tion as well as tap into other regi­ons and addi­tio­nal custo­mer segments.”

“With Praxis, we have found the perfect part­ner for ente­ring the Scan­di­na­vian market,” say Cars­ten Meyer and Ulrich Dölken, the mana­ging direc­tors of 7days. “We are now a big step closer to our goal of further expan­ding our market leader­ship in Europe. We are very plea­sed to bring Jesper and Søren on board, as both our busi­ness model and our busi­ness culture are a perfect fit.”

Jesper Rasmus­sen, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Praxis: “It is great to now become part of the 7days Group with our company Praxis. 7days is a strong part­ner with whom we want to leverage many more market and sales poten­ti­als from now on.”

The Silver­fleet team entrus­ted with the tran­sac­tion includes Munich-based invest­ment experts Joachim Braun, Benja­min Hubner and Jan Kux.
7days was advi­sed by McDer­mott (Legal Corpo­rate, Germany), Moalem Weitemeyer Bendt­sen (Legal Corpo­rate, Denmark), Latham & Watkins (Legal Tax), Shear­man & Ster­ling (Legal Finan­cing) and Deloitte (Finan­cial & Tax Denmark).

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years and curr­ently mana­ges around €1.2 billion with its 30-strong invest­ment team in Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a U.K. manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a U.K. provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, a British opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses; 7days, a West­pha­lian supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth through its “buy to build” invest­ment stra­tegy. As part of this stra­tegy, Silver­fleet is acce­le­ra­ting the growth of its subsi­dia­ries by inves­t­ing in new products, produc­tion capa­city and employees, instal­ling successful retail formats or making follow-up acqui­si­ti­ons. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods. Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the UK and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (1).