Livingstone advises Platform-Investment of Deutsche Beteiligungs AG on its add-on acquisition of IMD Group
Livingstone advised Deutsche Infrastruktur Netzgesellschaft mbH (DING), a portfolio company of DBAG Expansion Capital Fund (DBAG ECF), on the add-on acquisition of IMD Infrastrukturanlagen Montagedienstleistungen GmbH (IMD Group), a provider of installation and construction services for utilities and FTTX-operators.
IMD Group is a family-owned German Mittelstand company, which emerged in 2004 from an MBO out of ABB Group in Lehrte/Ahlten and has nine further branches in Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia. With approximately 200 employees, the Group of companies offers installation and maintenance services in all supply areas (gas, water, power, district heating) as well as for FTTX-networks with an extensive fleet of vehicles and machinery. The customer portfolio includes telco providers, energy suppliers, municipalities, commercial enterprises, construction companies and private customers. The special service portfolio of IMD Group also includes installed fiber-optic lines, which are leased to customers on a long-term basis with a full service and maintenance package. In 2019, the Group of companies generated sales of around EUR 26 million.
Andreas Ahmann, Managing Director of IMD Group, commented: “DING’s long-term strategy to expand the regional competences from our ten locations into a strong corporate group together with our new partners was very convincing to me as an entrepreneur and is a great opportunity not only for IMD Group but especially for our outstanding employees. I will, of course, remain with the Company in the coming years and will continue to be available to our customers and employees also in the future.”
The demand for high-performance internet connections and thus, also the need for fiber-optic connections, is continuously increasing. However, so far, only seven percent of all households in Germany are connected to fiber-optic networks – the EU average is three times as high. In recent years, DBAG has already made a significant contribution to the expansion of fiber-optic networks in Germany by investing in various companies in this sector. Based on this know-how and expertise, Deutsche Beteiligungs AG and DBAG ECF have formed Deutsche Infrastruktur und Netzgesellschaft mbH (DING) in late 2019, which is forming a full-service provider and general contractor for the expansion of (fiber-optic) infrastructure networks with an almost nation-wide presence due to its Group-members STG Group, Bochum, Leinberger Bau, Büdingen, Iska Schön, Holzkirchen and now IMD Group.
“The acquisition of IMD Group is already the third successful add-on acquisition in a very short time following the acquisition of the STG Group and the foundation of DING. We will keep our growth-rate and acquisition pace high and continue to grow the group of companies with complementary companies and develop DING into an important, nationwide player in the field of telecommunications and line network construction”, explained Christoph Lüthe, Managing Director of DING.
Christian Grandin, Partner at Livingstone Düsseldorf, added: “This acquisition is the tenth transaction in the telecommunications infrastructure sector advised by our Düsseldorf team, with four of them conducted in the second half of 2019 alone. We are pleased that the DBAG team led by Ragnar Geerdts and the DING team once again relied on our expertise in this sector and had us support them from the initial contact through project management to signing.”
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