Deutsche Private Equity acquires stake in TKD Group

Munich — Funds advi­sed by the Munich-based inde­pen­dent invest­ment company Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) have acqui­red a majo­rity stake in TKD Group (“TKD”) from the foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors. A large part of the invest­ment, which is in the three-digit million range, will flow directly back into the opera­ting struc­ture in order to acce­le­rate growth.

TKD offers large compa­nies with inter­na­tio­nal loca­ti­ons a rental model for mobile devices such as smart­phones and tablets from various renow­ned manu­fac­tu­r­ers. The leased mobile devices are sustain­ably inte­gra­ted into a circu­lar economy that ensu­res that depart­ments such as purcha­sing, IT and finance are quickly and easily reli­e­ved and the customer’s ESG requi­re­ments are met. ESG stands for Envi­ron­men­tal, Social and Governance.

By using the company’s own “Soft­ware as a Service” plat­form TKD.360, custo­mers’ employees can order end devices inclu­ding mobile phone profiles them­sel­ves after acti­va­tion, manage them and flexi­bly replace them with the latest models after a fixed term. The mobile devices are auto­ma­ti­cally confi­gu­red accor­ding to the company’s secu­rity speci­fi­ca­ti­ons and sent to the employee’s work­sta­tion in a perso­na­li­zed manner. This means they are ready for imme­diate use. The compa­nies not only bene­fit from CO2-neutral use and thus improve their sustaina­bi­lity stra­tegy, but also reli­eve their IT depart­ment and receive a trans­pa­rent cost over­view of the mobile users through the monthly billing of the devices used in the rental model, which is digi­tally trans­mit­ted to the finance department.

“In recent years, working closely with our manage­ment team, we have succee­ded in deve­lo­ping a range of products and services that are fully tail­o­red to custo­mer needs. With Deut­sche Private Equity, we now have a strong part­ner at our side who not only reco­gni­zes the poten­tial of our coope­ra­tion with key play­ers in the device-as-a-service market, but also values it. In addi­tion, DPE will make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to our tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment and thus drive the expan­sion of our plat­form,” say Ulrich Wink­ler and Oliver Torlée, the foun­ders of TKD.

Andreas W. Schmid, Part­ner at DPE, explains: “We are very impres­sed by TKD’s solu­­tion-orien­­ted appli­ca­ti­ons, which provide custo­mers with the best possi­ble support for admi­nis­tra­tive and IT chal­lenges. We see signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial not only natio­nally, but also inter­na­tio­nally, as well as an attrac­tive value lever in the finan­cing of the devices and look forward to working with TKD.”

Advi­sors TKD: Houli­han Lokey (M&A sell side), FGS (tax) and Fresh­fields (legal)

Advi­sors to DPE: Roland Berger (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Finan­cial), PwC (Tax & ESG), Gütt Olk Feld­haus (Legal), MCF (Debt Advi­sory) and Hogan Lovells (Finan­cial Coun­sel).

About TKD

TKD offers large compa­nies a rental model for mobile devices such as smart­phones and tablets
Renting as part of a circu­lar economy is CO2-neutral and reli­e­ves the burden on custo­mers’ purcha­sing, IT and finance depart­ments. TKD has been based in Langen­feld near Düssel­dorf since 2014 and now has more than 100 employees. Over the past two years, TKD has focu­sed on sustaina­bi­lity and ISO certi­fi­ca­tion and is now one of the one percent most sustainable compa­nies in Germany (accor­ding to ecova­dis Sustaina­bi­lity Rating, Febru­ary 2024). This compe­ti­tive advan­tage has enab­led TKD to conti­nuously drive forward the expan­sion of its busi­ness. As a result, TKD now mana­ges a total of more than 150,000 mobile devices for over 1,000 major custo­mers with inter­na­tio­nal locations.

About Deut­sche Private Equity

Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company that supports medium-sized compa­nies on their growth path as a part­ner inves­tor. Over the past 15 years, DPE has become one of the largest growth inves­tors in the DACH region and curr­ently mana­ges total assets of over €3 billion. The core of DPE’s invest­ment stra­tegy is in the areas of digitalization/software, health­care, indus­trial tech­no­logy, B2B services, energy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. Within these sectors, DPE focu­ses on estab­lished compa­nies that hold a strong market posi­tion with a leading product or service offe­ring and offer signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial for the future. DPE focu­ses on medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and gene­rally invests 50 to 200 million euros of equity per company. www.dpe.de