Zurich – Waterland Private Equity (“Waterland”) is selling its majority stake in Netrics, Switzerland’s leading modern workplace and cloud service provider, to Bregal Unternehmerkapital. The strategic focus on digitizing companies using state-of-the-art technologies will continue under the new ownership structure. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the year; financial details will not be disclosed.
Over the past years, Waterland has supported Netrics in its strategic orientation to become the leading partner for the digitalization of companies using cloud and modern workplace technologies. In collaboration with the founders, Waterland initiated the merger of Tineo, nexellent and Netrics as well as the subsequent buy-and-build strategy with the acquisitions of BlueStone Consulting and PageUp. Today, Netrics is a leading player in the Swiss market with over 140 experts and more than 600 customers. The management team will continue to build on this strategy in the new ownership structure and drive it further.
“Waterland was the best possible partner for our strategic realignment,” emphasizes Netrics CEO Pascal Kocher. “Now it’s ‘mission accomplished‘. We are continuing to drive the Group and our strategy forward and want to consistently implement our further development as a leading partner for digital transformation, always at eye-level with our customers.”
Gregor Hengst, Managing Partner at Waterland, says: “Every business is becoming a digital business, and complexity is constantly increasing. This calls for highly professional enablers like Netrics, with whose founders and management team we have developed this shared vision from the beginning. Today, Netrics is ideally positioned to exploit the huge potential in the digital transformation market.” Philippe Moser, Principal at Waterland, emphasizes: “Thanks to the excellent collaboration with the entrepreneurs and the determined implementation of the buy-and-build strategy in the joint partnership, we were able to establish the leading player in the Swiss market.”
About Waterland
Waterland is an independent private equity investment company that supports entrepreneurs in achieving their growth targets. With substantial financial support and industry expertise, Waterland enables its portfolio companies to accelerate growth both organically and through acquisitions. Waterland has offices in the Netherlands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (London, Manchester), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copenhagen), Norway (Oslo), Spain (Barcelona) and Switzerland (Zurich). It currently manages around fourteen billion euros in equity capital.
Waterland has consistently achieved above-average performance with its investments since it was founded in 1999. The company is ranked fourth globally in the HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Performance Ranking 2022 and seventh among global private equity firms in the Preqin Consistent Performers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capital Report 2022.
Media contact
Kurt Rossi, Farner Consulting, kurt.rossi@farner.ch
About Netrics:
As a partner for digital transformation, Netrics focuses on the topics of cloud and modern workplace. Netrics enables modern, location-independent and secure working through the targeted use of future-oriented technologies and with consideration of the human aspects, thus creating great experiences for employees and customers. The Netrics Group is active throughout German-speaking Switzerland with around 140 experts and a local presence in Bern, Biel/Bienne, Thun and Zurich. Since December 2022, the Netrics Group has also been offering comprehensive consulting services in the areas of collaboration, process digitalization, digital skills development and change management with AliceBlue AG from Basel.
Netrics is ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 9001 and ISO 20000 certified. In addition, Netrics services are audited in accordance with the ISAE 3402 Type 2 standard.
