News & Analysis

IK sells remaining holding in Intrum Justitia

The European buyout firm has completed its exit from the listed Stockholm-headquartered credit management group that it first acquired in a 1998 take private.

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Industri Kapital (IK), the European buyout firm with Nordic roots, has sold the remainder of its holding in the Stockholm-listed credit management services group Intrum Justitia AB.
 
The firm’s 1997 fund has sold 9,102,686 shares, representing an 11.7 percent stake in the company, to Swedish and international institutional investors at a price of SEK 61,75 (€6.6; $8.1) per share. This represents a total transaction value of SEK 562 million (€60 million; $73 million). Sources close to the deal say that the firm has made a return of approximately three times its original investment.
 
Intrum Justitia operates in 22 European countries and offers services including debt collection and surveillance, ledger services, and purchased debt services.
 
IK acquired a 50 percent stake in the company in a take private from the London Stock Exchange in March 1998. The company’s founders, the Göransson family, held the remaining stake.
 
Anne Rannaleet, a partner at IK, told PEO: “Intrum Justitia started as a number of regional credit companies. These had never been consolidated in a proper way to take advantage of the know how and products of the other companies, and turn it from a regional company into a European one.”
 
She added that the firm also felt that London was not the most appropriate place to list the company, because it didn’t attract much analyst attention.
 
Since the take private, Intrum Justitia has made operational changes as well as a number of strategic add-on acquisitions. Its revenues have grown from SEK 1,155 million in 1997 to SEK 2,849 million in 2004.
 
The company re-listed on the Stockholm Exchange in May 2002 for SEK 47 per share. IK retained a 25 percent stake, but sold a smaller number of shares earlier this year.
 
“We found we could reduce our holding without disturbing the share price, and so saw it as a good opportunity to exit our remaining stake,” says Rannaleet.
 
In other news, Industri Kapital has confirmed that it has signed an agreement to acquire Bonna Sabla, the French prefabricated concrete products company, from AXA Private Equity and other shareholders, for an enterprise value of approximately €235m.