Alantra advised Seafort Advisors on the sale of Avedo Group to Ströer
SECTORTechnology
ServiceM&A
Alantra advised Seafort Advisors, a German private equity fund, and the Management team on the sale of 75% of the shares in Avedo Group, a leading telesales and dialogue-marketing specialist, to Ströer SE & Co. KGaA. Alantra’s Frankfurt team provided M&A advisory services to the sellers. The previous management team headed by founder and CEO Torsten Krause will hold a significant stake in the Company and lead Avedo’s operating business moving forward. The transaction was signed on July 6th, 2017 and is subject to approval of the relevant anti-trust authorities.
Alantra has structured a tailor-made and limited auction process introducing one of the best performing and independent customer service companies in Germany to a selected number of international strategic investors only. Avedo’s transaction represents the third successful corporate finance advisory deal in the call center space advised by Alantra following the acquisition of Competence Call Center by Silverfleet Capital (2013) and the sale of Spanish Konecta to PAI Partners (2015).
By acquiring Avedo and moving into the area of performance-oriented dialogue marketing, Ströer Group has added an additional channel to its portfolio and, in doing so, has expanded its own sales activities. “This accretive acquisition is a logical and necessary step in the expansion of our sales activities,” said Christian Schmalzl, Co-CEO of Ströer. “We are increasing Ströer’s relevance to its customers and focusing on performance-based sales models. In addition, we expect to leverage considerable synergies in the systematic development of our sales units across all relevant product groups.”
Avedo Group’s business is mainly focused on telesales and dialogue marketing, offering its services primarily on a CPO (cost per order) basis. The Company records over 30 million leads annually and offers expertise in twelve industries, in particular telecommunications, energy, IT, tourism, multimedia and e-commerce. With double-digit annual growth rate, Avedo is one of the fastest growing providers in the industry expecting to generate total sales of over € 60 million in 2017. The Company employs some 1,850 employees at six different locations in Germany.
Seafort Advisors is an independent, collaborative private equity company and was founded in 2012 with headquarters in Hamburg. Seafort Advisors invest in medium-sized and technology-oriented companies in the DACH Region and Europe.
As a leading digital multi-channel media company, Ströer Group offers individualized and fully integrated premium communications solutions. The Company delivers them through the advertising media based on out-of-home media and online advertising formats. With consolidated revenue of c. € 1.1billion and an operational EBITDA of € 285 million for the full year 2016, the M-DAX listed company is one of the largest providers of outdoor and online advertising in Europe.
