Permira funds acquire majority stake in Westbridge Advisory

Fran­furt a. M. — Perm­ira, the global invest­ment firm, and inves­tor GENUI have announ­ced that funds advi­sed by Perm­ira are acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in West­bridge Advi­sory. The Fran­k­­furt-based firm is a leading Euro­pean energy and sustaina­bi­lity advi­sor to insti­tu­tio­nal real estate clients: West­bridge advi­ses its clients on energy procu­re­ment, impro­ving their carbon foot­print and thus meeting long-term sustaina­bi­lity targets. Outside Germany, the company has offices in London, Zurich and Warsaw. While the foun­ders of the company will signi­fi­cantly re-invest toge­ther with Perm­ira as part of the tran­sac­tion, GENUI will sell its shares. Comple­tion of the acqui­si­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted by the end of the first quar­ter of 2025. Foun­ded in 2015, West­bridge has estab­lished itself as the go-to energy and sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment advi­sor for more than 600 clients in the real estate sector. The company’s reve­nue and profi­ta­bi­lity are growing at double-digit rates. The busi­ness is bene­fiting from an incre­asing demand for green energy and CSR/ESG compli­ance consul­ting in the real estate sector. Westbridge’s services range from energy procu­re­ment consul­ting to ESG data manage­ment and green buil­ding certi­fi­ca­ti­ons. Perm­ira will support the company in its orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth plans. This applies in parti­cu­lar to the inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion in the energy and sustaina­bi­lity consul­ting market. “We are very much looking forward to writing the next chap­ter of our success story toge­ther with Perm­ira. Toge­ther we will conti­nue to inter­na­tio­na­lize our busi­ness and invest in our future growth,” said Yama Mahasher, CEO of West­bridge. “A big thank you to the team at GENUI who have successfully supported us on our growth path
since 2021. We are passio­nate about helping our clients solve their energy and sustaina­bi­lity issues. With Perm­ira as our new part­ner, we will conti­nue to drive the green trans­for­ma­tion of the real estate sector.” Florian Kreu­zer, Head of Permira’s busi­ness in the DACH region, commen­ted: “We are deligh­ted to be inves­t­ing in West­bridge along­side the foun­ders. This invest­ment once again under­lines our focus in the DACH region to support visio­nary entre­pre­neurs in their growth and expan­sion plans. Thanks to Westbridge’s important role in impro­ving the carbon foot­print of the real estate sector, this tran­sac­tion also fits well with Permira’s new climate invest­ment focus. I am perso­nally very exci­ted to join Yama and his team in crea­ting a Euro­pean cham­pion for energy and sustaina­bi­lity consul­ting in the real estate sector.” The sustaina­bi­lity trend in the real estate sector holds enorm­ous growth poten­tial. As a pioneer in this consul­ting field, West­bridge supports its clients in achie­ving complex sustaina­bi­lity goals. 

We will support Yama and the entire West­bridge team with further exper­tise in tech­no­logy and services as well as our inter­na­tio­nal network to jointly develop
new markets,” added David Brück­mann, Mana­ging Direc­tor in Permira’s Services sector. “West­bridge is an excel­lent fit with our invest­ment stra­tegy in the Services sector, which focu­ses on compa­nies with recur­ring reve­nue, strong custo­mer reten­tion and resi­li­ent growth.”
“It has been a plea­sure for our team and GENUI entre­pre­neur Andreas Jacobs, as Chair­man of the Advi­sory Board, to support West­bridge in not only growing its busi­ness and foot­print, but also further incre­asing the company’s important envi­ron­men­tal impact,” said Max Odefey of GENUI. “We are proud that West­bridge has become the market leader during GENUI’s owner­ship. Sales have increased seven-fold and a number of stra­te­gic, value-enhan­cing acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic expan­si­ons have been reali­zed. We wish the outstan­ding West­bridge team and the new majo­rity owner Perm­ira all the best for the contin­ued successful growth story.”