Livingstone advises Platform-Investment of Deutsche Beteiligungs AG on its add-on acquisition of Iska Schön GmbH
Livingstone advised the DBAG Expansion Capital Funds (DBAG ECF) and its platform investment Deutsche Infrastruktur und Netzgesellschaft mbH (DING-Holding) throughout its extensive buy-and-build process within the fibre-optic network infrastructure sector and is happy to announce the successful closing of the add-on acquisition of Iska Schön GmbH (ISKA).
Munich based Iska Schön GmbH is a typical family-owned German Mittelstand company, which has been founded in 1961. The Company currently employs c. 200 employees and is active in all kinds of civil engineering including construction of underground cable network infrastructure, sewage construction as well as hydraulic and pipeline construction. The Company works with the most common cable deployment methods and has an extensive, modern fleet of vehicles and machinery. Network operators, telco-providers, utility providers, municipalities, commercial enterprises, construction companies and private customers are among ISKA’s clients.
Within the sector of telecommunication and carrier networks, the service offering includes the construction, maintenance and servicing of fibre-optic and wired networks, pipe and cable networks (incl. power lines), among others. ISKA is a full-service provider of turnkey solutions for its customers including planning, deployment and documentation of new networks.
– For myself as an entrepreneur the long-term strategy of DBAG and DING-Holding was very compelling. This is not only a great opportunity for ISKA as a company, but also for our outstanding employees opening up the possibility to provide our reknown regional competencies to a growing nation-wide customer base throughout teaming up with our new partners. The management team including Thorsten Schatz and Hermann Gruber as well as myself will stay within our roles in the company also in the future and are looking forward to continue our successful relationship and business operations with our clients, partners and employees, said Mike Schön, Managing Director of Iska Schön GmbH.
The demand for high-speed internet connections – and thus, the need for fibre-optic links – is increasing continuously. However, only seven per cent of German households are currently connected to fibre-optic networks – the EU average is three times as high. DBAG ECF has been building various successful groups of companies within this segment is recent years and has thus played a pivotal role in realising growth potential by providing the necessary capital and its long-standing experience in the expansion of fibre-optic networks.
– Our investment into ISKA is already the second successful add-on-acquisition within only a couple of months following the initial platform investment into STG-Group at the end of 2019, and underlining our ambitions in the Bavarian region. This rapidly growing group of companies will be enriched by additional add-ons, which will be complementary in terms of their regional focus as well as their customer type. We are looking forward to build an important and leading nation-wide player within the fibre-optic and wired network infrastructure, added Ragnar Geerdts, Managing Director of DBAG.
– Our team in Düsseldorf has been successful in realizing already nine transactions within the broadband/fibre-optic infrastructure industry, four of these within the second half of 2019. We are glad that we were able to share our know-how and expertise within the telecommunications and broadband infrastructure industry with Ragnar Geerdts and his team at DBAG ECF throughout the support of this transaction. We are looking forward to continue advising DBAG ECF and DING-Holding in the future with the proposed buy-and-build strategy as well, commented Johannes Faber, Director at Livingstone Düsseldorf.
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