Equistone acquires majority in BUKO Infrasupport and BUKO Waakt

Amster­dam / Munich — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt (“BUKO”), two leading provi­ders of outsour­ced traf­fic and secu­rity manage­ment solu­ti­ons in the Nether­lands. Equis­tone will work with current share­hol­der Scheybe­eck Parti­ci­pa­ties, the Burger family’s family office, as well as the exten­ded manage­ment team that will take a reverse stake in the company as part of the transaction.

It was important for Scheybe­eck Parti­ci­pa­ties to find a highly expe­ri­en­ced part­ner who could support the compa­nies’ growth ambi­ti­ons with strong finan­cial back­ing and a large inter­na­tio­nal network. BUKO CEO Robert Emme­rich will conti­nue to lead both compa­nies as Mana­ging Direc­tor. The part­ner­ship with Equis­tone will focus prima­rily on further expan­ding the market presence in the Nether­lands as well as targe­ted expan­sion into neigh­bor­ing count­ries, supported by strong market dyna­mics. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion authorities.

BUKO was foun­ded in 1962 in the Nether­lands and consists of three busi­ness units: BUKO Infra­sup­port, BUKO Trans­port and BUKO Waakt. BUKO Trans­port is not part of this tran­sac­tion. BUKO Infra­sup­port specia­li­zes in offe­ring end-to-end outsour­cing solu­ti­ons in tempo­rary traf­fic manage­ment. With its compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of services — from the design, plan­ning, permit­ting, provi­sion and coll­ec­tion, as well as the manage­ment of requi­red road signage and safety equip­ment for on-site road works — Infra­sup­port parti­cu­larly serves contrac­tors and autho­ri­ties invol­ved in utility-rela­­ted, urban and rural road works. BUKO Waakt is a provi­der of tempo­rary secu­rity solu­ti­ons with a focus on camera surveil­lance, intru­sion detec­tion systems as well as access control systems, which are used espe­ci­ally on cons­truc­tion sites of resi­den­tial and public buildings.

The two busi­ness units BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt combine strong exper­tise with a custo­­mer- and result-orien­­ted approach, high-quality equip­ment and a convic­tion for the highest safety stan­dards. In this way, the company is making an important contri­bu­tion to ensu­ring the prescri­bed safety measu­res around road and cons­truc­tion projects and to meeting the incre­asing safety regu­la­ti­ons in the best possi­ble way. With seve­ral thousand projects comple­ted each year and its firmly estab­lished long-stan­­ding and trus­ting custo­mer rela­ti­onships, the company is conside­red one of the largest provi­ders of custo­mi­zed traf­fic and secu­rity solu­ti­ons in the Nether­lands. It curr­ently employs more than 350 people and gene­ra­tes annual sales of around 70 million euros.

The part­ner­ship with Equis­tone is expec­ted to further drive the company’s contin­ued growth and deve­lo­p­ment. The main focus here is on making opti­mum use of the strong market momen­tum, prima­rily driven by further invest­ments in infra­struc­ture asso­cia­ted with digi­tiza­tion and the energy tran­si­tion, as well as in road main­ten­ance, and on incre­asing the company’s geogra­phi­cal presence.

“I am very plea­sed to part­ner with Equis­tone, espe­ci­ally due to their indus­try exper­tise gained in their nume­rous invest­ments in rele­vant port­fo­lio compa­nies, their presence in the rele­vant regi­ons, and their part­­ner-like and excep­tio­nally strong team. I look forward to taking the growth of our company to the next level while main­tai­ning our family culture,” said Robert Emme­rich, CEO of BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt.

“BUKO is alre­ady excel­lently posi­tio­ned — Equis­tone wants to take advan­tage of this in a targe­ted manner and support BUKO in further streng­thening its service offe­ring as well as its market posi­tion in the Nether­lands through orga­nic growth,” explains Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Part­ner in Equistone’s Amster­dam office. “In addi­tion, Equis­tone will focus on incre­asing the market pene­tra­tion of certain regi­ons in the Nether­lands and will also explore the possi­bi­lity of expan­ding into neigh­bor­ing count­ries through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons,” added Tanja Berg, invest­ment direc­tor at Equistone.

The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Tanja Berg (photo) and Josh Aalbers.

Advi­sor Equistone:
PwC (Finan­cial, Tax, IT, and Debt Advi­sory), DC Advi­sory (M&A), Roland Berger and Munich Stra­tegy (Commer­cial), Vesper and Clif­ford Chance (Legal).

Consul­tant BUKO:
Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (M&A), Deloitte (finan­cial, tax advi­sory), Strategy& (commer­cial) and De Brauw Blackstone West­br­oek (legal).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in the Nether­lands, Germany, Switz­er­land, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily 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 incep­tion, equity has been inves­ted in more than 170 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around six active invest­ments in Bene­lux. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. In addi­tion, the “Equis­tone Reinvest­ment Fund” was recently laun­ched, from which it is possi­ble to reinvest in mino­rity posi­ti­ons follo­wing sales of port­fo­lio compa­nies from the main funds. www.equistonepe.com