• SureWerx owns 18 well-established brands across 27 product categories
• SureWerx is positioned to benefit from tailwinds in the safety equipment market
• Partners Group aims to transform SureWerx through targeted value creation initiatives that will drive improved product offering, customer engagement, and stakeholder benefits

Partners Group, a leading global private markets firm, has, on behalf of its clients, acquired SureWerx (or “the Company”), a leading supplier of personal protective equipment, safety gear, and tool solutions across North America, from The Riverside Company.

Co-headquartered in Vancouver, BC, and Chicago, IL, SureWerx is a leading supplier of technical safety equipment and safety tools that help improve employee wellbeing, working conditions, and productivity. SureWerx owns 18 well-established safety brands across 27 product categories, including welding safety head protection, safety footwear and traction aids, arc flash apparel, detectable warning equipment, and abrasive and cutting tools. The Company serves diverse end-markets, including infrastructure and utilities, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and warehousing, where customers typically purchase multiple product categories and regularly replenish stock, generating strong recurring demand. SureWerx has around 350 employees across 12 distribution centers, with the majority of its sales in the US and Canada. SureWerx is positioned to benefit from tailwinds in the safety equipment market, such as increasing regulatory requirements on worker safety, a proliferating culture of safety across industries and geographies, and new use-case scenarios for innovative safety equipment.

Partners Group will work with SureWerx management to build on its leading position in the North American safety market. Key value creation initiatives include making strategic acquisitions of targeted product lines, launching an operational excellence program, expanding the Company’s e-commerce capabilities, and transforming sales and product development processes. Chris Baby, Chief Executive Officer of SureWerx, will continue to lead the Company.

Derek Lim, Managing Director, Private Equity Goods & Products Industry Vertical, Partners Group, says: “SureWerx is a leading technical safety equipment supplier with a stable of strong brand names and a history of successful product innovation for its customers and end-users across multiple distribution channels. Industrial safety has been a thematic focus area of ours for over four years, and we have conviction in SureWerx’s growth potential due to its broad product portfolio, end-market diversification and compelling industry tailwinds. SureWerx’s products play an important role in ensuring worker safety, which fits with our commitment to invest in companies that achieve positive stakeholder impact. We are excited to partner with Chris and the team to execute on our shared value creation growth initiatives.”

Chris Baby, Chief Executive Officer, SureWerx, comments: “Our brands have a long history of high performance and technical superiority, which clearly differentiate them from competitors. At SureWerx, we incorporate input from end-users during our internal product innovation and manufacturing review processes, which allows us to develop unique and tailored solutions. We are now looking to cement our market leading position and institutionalize our vision. Partners Group’s operational expertise and financial resources make the firm an ideal long-term partner to help us achieve our goals.”

Henry Elefter, Member of Management, Private Equity Goods & Products Industry Vertical, Partners Group, adds: “SureWerx is a key player in the safety PPE industry, which is characterized by cycle resilience and growth due to regulations on worker safety. There is an increasing focus on established brands due to the high cost of product failure. The Company offers a compelling value proposition for its distributor partners, including flexible fulfillment, which ensures long-term, sticky customer relationships. We look forward to working with management on our value creation plan that aims to further build the business on its foundation of success.”

Latham and Watkins represented Partners Group on the transaction.

In November 2021, Segulah acquired a majority stake in Levinsgruppen, a leading regional provider of electrical installation, climate control systems and turnkey industrial automation services, to support the company in its next growth phase. Since then, eight acquisitions have been completed tripling the Group’s combined revenues to around SEK 750m and expanding geographical presence to the attractive greater Stockholm region.

To address the market’s increased demand for qualified services within security solutions, electrical installation, and automation, SELATEK has been created with the ambition to take larger contracts with a focus on sustainability and technology. Through organic growth initiatives in a structurally growing market, continued acquisitions and synergies between the companies, the Group is expected to grow significantly during the next couple of years. The companies within the SELATEK Group will operate under their locally anchored and unique brands, with the previous owners and key employees remaining in their respective operational roles. The strategy is to drive Group initiatives and, with a focus on sustainability and technology, offer the market specialist competence within the technology areas security solutions, electrical installation and automation.

“SELATEK’s strategy is built on that locally strong companies with a unique brand will continue to develop with support from the Group and its subsidiaries. By taking pole position in the rapidly evolving technological development within our focus areas we will offer our customers unique expertise and high-quality deliveries. Energy efficiency solutions, power transmission and charging infrastructure are areas where SELATEK already today makes a difference.” says Magnus Löfgren, CEO of SELATEK.

For further information, please visit www.selatek.se, www.segulah.com or contact:

Magnus Löfgren                                             Marcus Planting-Bergloo
CEO, SELATEK                                                 CEO, Segulah VI Advisor AB
+46 702 09 66 14                                              +46 702 29 11 85
magnus.lofgren@selatek.se                         planting@segulah.se

HEXPOL has completed the previously announced acquisition of the shares in McCann Plastics LLC from the McCann family. The company is specialized in niche thermoplastic compounds, with special focus on roto molding applications.

The acquisition is fully in line with HEXPOL’s M&A strategy of acquisitions within polymer compounds. Furthermore, the acquisition complements our current operations in the US and strengthens our market position.

“The acquisition of McCann is fully in line with our growth strategy with acquisitions within polymer compounds and strengthens our market position in the US. We welcome all employees of McCann to the HEXPOL Group”

Georg Brunstam, CEO HEXPOL Group

“I am convinced that McCann Plastics with HEXPOL as owner will become even stronger. It will give the company and the employees more resources to grow with new markets and customers while at the same time, improve the production efficiency even further”

Michael McCann

During the last few years, McCann has invested substantially in capacity and technology to enable the company’s further growth and to meet the increased demand of its products.

“McCann has a strong position within its market niche that complements and widens our customer offer. The company is well invested with high competence in specialized thermoplastic compounds. We are looking forward to continued growth with McCann being part of HEXPOL”

Jan Wikström, President HEXPOL Thermoplastic Compounding

McCann has during the last 12 months delivered sales of some 72 MUSD with a profitability level just below that of the HEXPOL Group. McCann has operations in two locations in Ohio, USA with some 100 employees in total. The main end customer segments are general industry, agriculture and the fast growth segment of specialized cooling boxes.

The acquisition price amounts to 120 MUSD on a cash and debt free basis and is funded by a combination of cash and existing bank facilities. All regulatory approvals and contractual terms for the transaction have been met and the acquisition has been completed. The business will be consolidated from 1 December.

For more information, please contact:

Peter Rosén, Deputy CEO and CFO
+46 (0)40 25 46 60
HEXPOL is a world-leading polymers group with strong global positions in advanced polymer compounds (Compounding), gaskets for plate heat exchangers (Gaskets), and plastic and rubber materials for truck and castor wheel applications (Wheels). Customers are primarily systems suppliers to the global automotive and engineering industry, construction industry, the energy, oil and gas sector, medical equipment manufacturers and OEM manufacturers of plate heat exchangers and forklifts. The Group is organised in two business areas, HEXPOL Compounding and HEXPOL Engineered Products. The HEXPOL Group’s sales in 2021 amounted to 16,005 MSEK. The HEXPOL Group has approximately 5,100 employees in fourteen countries. Further information is available at www.hexpol.com.

This report has been prepared both in Swedish and English. In case of any divergence in the content of the two versions, the Swedish version shall have precedence.

Tags:

• EQT Infrastructure enters exclusive negotiations to acquire a majority stake in Trescal, a global leader in calibration laboratories, from OMERS
• Trescal provides essential and regulated calibration services via a network of more than 380 laboratories, for testing and measurement equipment in transport, healthcare, telecom, and other sectors
• EQT Infrastructure will support the continued development of Trescal and its pursuit of growth opportunities in current and new markets, drawing on EQT’s global footprint, industrial DNA and extensive experience in the Company’s key end-markets such as telecom and healthcare

EQT is pleased to announce that the EQT Infrastructure V (“EQT Infrastructure”) fund has entered exclusive negotiations to acquire a majority stake in Trescal (the “Company”) from Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (“OMERS”), which will remain a minority investor alongside EQT Infrastructure.

Headquartered in Paris, France, Trescal is a global leader in calibration laboratories providing essential and regulated calibration services for testing and measurement equipment in a diverse range of critical end-markets such as transport, healthcare, telecom and other sectors. Formerly part of Air Liquide and established as an independent company in 2007, Trescal is today one of the world’s largest owners and operators of third-party calibration laboratories with a global network of more than 380 facilities spanning 29 countries. The Company employs 4,400 people and has an annual turnover of around EUR 450 million.

Trescal provides mission-critical and regulated calibration testing to ensure that the quality of essential products meets the most stringent requirements. The demand for its solutions are underpinned by clear industry trends including the increasing number and complexity of testing and measurement instruments, as well as more stringent quality and regulatory standards. Investment in Trescal provides strong resilience towards macroeconomic headwinds due to the mandatory, time-based rather than volume-based service, the recurring nature of its offering, and its loyal customer base.

EQT Infrastructure will support the continued development of Trescal and its pursuit of growth opportunities in current and new markets, drawing on EQT’s global footprint, industrial DNA, and extensive experience in the Company’s key end-markets such as transport, telecom and healthcare. Moreover, EQT will support Trescal in further digitizing its operations, employing EQT’s in-house expertise and global track record of developing strong companies within the technology sector.

Christoph Balzer, Partner within EQT Infrastructure’s Advisory Team, said: “EQT Infrastructure has followed Trescal for a long time. We are deeply impressed by the management team’s achievements in  creating a global leader in calibration laboratories with a differentiated one-stop-shop offering to serve its customer’s requirements. We believe EQT’s track record of building global companies, industrial DNA, and value-add approach strongly positions us to support the Company in its next phase of growth.”

Thomas Rajzbaum, Managing Director and Head of EQT’s French Infrastructure Advisory Team, added, “Trescal provides mission-critical services to its industrial customers in essential end-markets that are experiencing increasingly stringent requirements. We look forward to further strengthening Trescal’s market position through increased investment in the breadth of its laboratories’ capabilities and footprint, commercial excellence, sustainability and cutting-edge digitization.”

Guillaume Caroit, CEO of Trescal, said: “We at Trescal are very keen to welcome EQT as our new owner and look forward to benefiting from the capabilities and experience EQT offers. We are confident that together with EQT Infrastructure we have the right partner to drive the next phase of our global growth, further cement our leading market position, and continue to best serve our clients.”

The acquisition of Trescal is EQT Infrastructure’s third investment in France after the European operator of nursing home facilities Colisee, and the French water services management company SAUR.

The transaction is subject to the consultation process or information of the Employee Representative Bodies, as well as antitrust and potential foreign investment clearances. It is expected to close in H1 2023.

With the acquisition of Trescal, EQT Infrastructure V is expected to be 80-85 percent invested (including closed and/or signed investments, announced public offers, if applicable, and less any expected syndication), subject to customary regulatory approvals.

Contact

EQT Press Office, press@eqtpartners.com, +46 8 506 55 334

About EQT

EQT is a purpose-driven global investment organization with EUR 114 billion in assets under management within two business segments – Private Capital and Real Assets. EQT funds own portfolio companies and assets in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas and support them in achieving sustainable growth, operational excellence and market leadership.

More info: www.eqtgroup.com
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About Trescal

Trescal is a global leading operator of calibration laboratories. It offers an array of industries a single-source solution for calibration, measurement, repair, qualification, validation and asset management across the globe. Its technicians and experts carry out accredited and non-accredited calibrations for all measured variables and measuring instruments in all technical domains, whether physical, electrical or mechanical. Trescal’s 4,400 team members perform more than 3.3 million operations per year, including 27,000 repairs across 150,000 types of instruments and 20,000 brands. 

More info: www.trescal.com