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Antwerp, March 9, 2023 – ETC Group, a leading global provider to the telecom network and technology infrastructure industry, announced today that it will acquire Amadys, taking over a majority stake in the business from Equistone Partners Europe, one of Europe’s leading mid-market private equity investors with Amadys’ management team re-investing in the combined group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Funds advised by Equistone acquired a majority stake in Amadys in December 2019. Since then, Amadys has recorded strong growth driven by supportive underlying market trends including investments in fiber and other telecom infrastructure, as well as accelerating investment in the energy transition.
Throughout Equistone’s investment period, Amadys has strengthened its position in the Benelux region and has established, amongst others the DACH region, Central Europe and the UK as new key geographies through strategic add-on acquisitions.
Founded in 1993 by Cédric Varasteh, ETC is a provider of passive and active telecommunications equipment and tools, with leading technical and logistics solutions for network deployment, upgrades, and maintenance. ETC is majority owned by Cinven, the international private equity firm, with significant minority stakes held by Carlyle Europe Technology Partners (“CETP”) and the Founder, Cédric Varasteh.
Through its 30 years of extensive industry experience, ETC supports technologies including FTTH, FTTx, HFC, Wi-Fi, 5G/mobile, and data centres. ETC has more than 1,200 employees across more than 40 locations that span 14 countries including the US, France, UK, Germany, Portugal and Poland and supports more than 14,000 customers worldwide including major American and European operators and telecommunications service providers. The Group’s comprehensive portfolio of more than 55,000 products from nearly 1,000 industry-leading suppliers, along with its value-added supply chain solutions, supports carriers to deliver seamless high-speed internet, video, data, and voice services to residential, business, and mobile users.
The combination of ETC and Amadys is highly complementary and is expected to provide opportunities for both organisations to leverage enhanced product offerings and capabilities, as well as to realise synergies across the combined business. The unification will also further enhance the management team, bringing together two highly entrepreneurial groups. The combined company’s distribution capabilities will support customers’ active and passive equipment needs for network deployments, upgrades, and maintenance during a time of increasing demand for high-speed connectivity across their combined footprint.
Cédric Varasteh, Founder and Chairman of ETC, said: “Amadys is an exceptional business which we are very pleased to be integrating into ETC. The combination will further strengthen both companies materially, including across key areas such as product innovation, scale, and geographic reach. We believe that the impact will significantly benefit both customer bases. We are looking forward to working with Amadys’ impressive team. We have much to learn from each other and I’m thrilled about the opportunities that lay ahead as we bring these two great businesses together.”
Hein Wilderjans, CEO and Co-Founder of Amadys, added: “After a highly successful partnership with Equistone over the last years, we are excited to be working with ETC in the next stage of Amadys’ development. Since 2016, we have grown almost exponentially, across revenue, employee count and product capabilities. We are looking forward to what we can achieve with ETC’s investment in this new capacity as a combined organisation. As our customers know, the central priority of our business has been the commitment to providing the best end-to-end solutions in the market and that will only continue with ETC.”
Hubert van Wolfswinkel, Partner at Equistone, commented: “We as Equistone are at our best when we can support a truly entrepreneurial, ambitious management team in their quest for growth and internationalisation. The Amadys team had a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve in this phase of the company’s development, and we are proud to have worked with them to accomplish and exceed that, resulting in very strong growth and a highly successful investment. In addition, on a personal level it has been a real pleasure to work with Hein and the team. We wish them all the best on the next stage of their journey with ETC, which we believe makes an excellent combination.”
Thomas Railhac, Partner at Cinven commented: “This is an important milestone in ETC’s growth strategy, with Amadys providing broadened access to key markets, leverageable operational capabilities, and customer diversity. Amadys has grown extremely quickly over the past eight years, and we expect that growth path to continue under ETC’s management. Much like the recent acquisition of BTV Multimedia, Amadys will bolster ETC’s position as a leader in the sector, driving customer-service and value.”
The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals.
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