EQT to sell Melita to Goldman Sachs Alternatives

Under EQT’s ownership, Melita strengthened its position as a leading digital infrastructure owner and operator through strategic investments in its network and customer experience, while building a successful international Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity business

Today, Melita is the only operator in Malta providing both nationwide Gigabit fixed and nationwide 5G mobile services, and is well-positioned to expand its footprint in the fast-growing IoT connectivity sector

EQT is pleased to announce that the EQT Infrastructure IV fund (“EQT”) has signed an agreement to sell Melita (“the Company”) to Goldman Sachs Alternatives.

Founded in 1992, Melita is today a leading digital infrastructure owner and operator in Malta with a fully invested fiber-powered fixed network as well as a nationwide 5G mobile network with its own towers, backhaul and small cell footprint. With the largest data center in Malta, Melita delivers a full suite of digital services, including Gigabit broadband and 5G mobile connectivity, premium TV offerings, and data center solutions to households and businesses across the country.

Since EQT acquired Melita in 2019, the Company has made substantial investment in its infrastructure and enhanced its operations and service offering. For example, it has successfully developed Generative AI tools to support customers with billing, sales and technical queries which had a positive impact on customer satisfaction. The Company has also expanded internationally, establishing its presence in the rapidly growing IoT connectivity market via its proprietary platform and agile, customer-centric go-to-market approach.

Sustainability has been a core focus for Melita, becoming the first EQT portfolio company to have its near-term targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. The Company is investing in solar farms to produce renewable energy and has already replaced almost half of its car fleet with electric vehicles. It also established the Melita Foundation which supports impactful community initiatives.

Ulrich Köllensperger, Partner in the EQT Value-Add Infrastructure Advisory team, said: “Building on EQT’s long track record of investing in digital infrastructure, we supported Melita through strategic investments including in its 5G coverage and an upgrade of its fiber-powered network. We are proud of the rapid progress of Melita’s IoT business which, in just a few years since inception, has grown significantly and through add-on acquisitions, established a promising new business line with a pan-European reach. We believe the Company is well-positioned for further growth and would like to thank Harald and the entire team for their dedication and wish them continued success.”

Harald Rösch, CEO of Melita, said: “Thanks to EQT’s support, the past five years have been transformational, enabling us to make substantial progress across all aspects of our business and becoming the first operator in the European Union to deploy both a nationwide Gigabit broadband network and a nationwide 5G network. This transaction reflects the achievements of our entire team and the loyalty of our customers. With Goldman Sachs Alternatives’ support and expertise, we are excited to continue our journey sustainably, investing in our infrastructure, enhancing our services in Malta and driving further innovation.”

The transaction is subject to conditions including regulatory approvals.

EQT was advised by UBS (financial), Milbank and Camilleri Preziosi (legal).

Contact
EQT Press Office, press@eqtpartners.com

About

About EQT
EQT is a purpose-driven global investment organization with EUR 246 billion in total assets under management (EUR 134 billion in fee-generating assets under management), within two business segments – Private Capital and Real Assets. EQT owns portfolio companies and assets in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Americas and supports them in achieving sustainable growth, operational excellence and market leadership.

More info: www.eqtgroup.com
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Ardian invested in Autopista Trados M-45 in 2011 alongside Abertis, a leading international motorway operator headquartered in Spain.
• Trados operates a stretch of the M45 shadow-toll road in Madrid, which connects the South and South-East of the Spanish capital.
• More than 85,000 vehicles per day use the length of M45 shadow-toll road operated by Trados, an increase of 50% since Ardian’s initial investment.

World’s largest independent infrastructure alternative investment manager expands credit, digital infrastructure, and technology investment capabilities

NEW YORK & ALEXANDRIA, Va. – November 12, 2024 – Stonepeak, a leading alternative investment firm specializing in infrastructure and real assets, today announced that it has agreed to acquire Boundary Street Capital, LP (“Boundary Street”), a leading specialist private credit investment manager focused on the digital infrastructure, enterprise infrastructure software, and technology services sectors in the lower middle market. Boundary Street currently has more than $700 million of capital commitments.

Stonepeak’s credit business (“Stonepeak Credit”) has been actively investing in private and secondary infrastructure credit since 2018. Its experienced team of credit professionals takes a disciplined approach to investing across the capital structure as they seek to create a diverse portfolio in the infrastructure and real assets sectors, including digital infrastructure, energy and energy transition, and transport and logistics.

Stonepeak has long been at the forefront of investing in the infrastructure assets underpinning the global megatrend of digitalization currently being driven by data proliferation and the increased adoption of AI. This transaction further strengthens Stonepeak Credit’s digital infrastructure investing capabilities and supports its expansion into complementary sub-sectors, including enterprise and infrastructure software, cloud and managed services, technology-enabled services, advanced mobility, and earlier stage digital infrastructure platforms. With the addition of Boundary Street’s platform and team of experienced professionals who have deep credit and technology sector expertise, Stonepeak will seek to offer a more comprehensive set of credit and credit-linked capital solutions to businesses taking advantage of the strong tailwinds in the digital infrastructure and technology services sectors across multiple stages of the growth lifecycle.

Jack Howell, Co-President of Stonepeak, said, “We continue to see compelling investment opportunities within the credit space, especially as it relates to digital infrastructure, which has long been one of Stonepeak’s most active sectors. Over the last several years, we’ve made thoughtful investments to further build out our credit platform, including the addition of Michael Leitner as a Senior Managing Director in 2023. As we have built out the broader credit organization and successfully deployed capital across the capital stack into world-class infrastructure portfolio companies, the team has continued to excel. The acquisition of Boundary Street is a natural next step in the growth of the firm and the evolution of Stonepeak Credit. We are excited for what this transaction means for our limited partners and look forward to having the Boundary Street team onboard.”

Michael Leitner, Senior Managing Director at Stonepeak, added, “Boundary Street has assembled an exceptional team who have been investing in digital infrastructure and related technology services businesses since the mid-2000s. By combining Stonepeak’s expertise and resources with the Boundary Street team’s complementary experience and skillsets, we will have the ability to broaden our investment aperture and execute more efficiently on the opportunities we’re seeing in AI-driven businesses, including cloud services, enterprise and infrastructure software, and digital services, while bringing a more comprehensive breadth of offerings to our constituent borrowers and limited partners.”

Rashad Kawmy, Partner and Co-Founder at Boundary Street, said, “We are thrilled to be partnering with Stonepeak to achieve the full scale of our vision for Boundary Street, and to continue being a strong partner to all of our stakeholders. As an early mover investor in digital infrastructure, Stonepeak knows the space extremely well and their expertise will be additive to our strategy. With the benefits of Stonepeak’s scale, resources, and shared passion for digital infrastructure, we will be even better positioned to continue making sound and thoughtful credit investments and helping grow tomorrow’s greatest technology businesses and digital infrastructure platforms. Our focus on both real asset intensive business models as well as those with exceptionally strong and defensible intellectual property foundations will continue in partnership with Stonepeak.”

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2024 subject to customary and regulatory approvals.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as legal counsel to Stonepeak. Hogan Lovells served as legal counsel to Boundary Street.

About Stonepeak

Stonepeak is a leading alternative investment firm specializing in infrastructure and real assets with approximately $70 billion of assets under management. Through its investment in defensive, hard-asset businesses globally, Stonepeak aims to create value for its investors and portfolio companies, with a focus on downside protection and strong risk-adjusted returns. Stonepeak, as sponsor of private equity and credit investment vehicles, provides capital, operational support, and committed partnership to grow investments in its target sectors, which include communications, energy and energy transition, transport and logistics, and real estate. Stonepeak is headquartered in New York with offices in Houston, London, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Abu Dhabi. For more information, please visit www.stonepeak.com.

About Boundary Street Capital

Boundary Street is a private credit investment manager focused on providing flexible capital solutions specifically to lower middle market technology and telecommunications businesses and backed by a team of investment professionals with decades of experience investing in these sectors. Boundary Street seeks to invest credit in durable, recurring revenue businesses providing the mission critical services that will drive economic growth, bridge the digital divide, and keep families and businesses connected. To learn more, visit www.boundarystreetcapital.com.

Contacts
Kate Beers / Maya Brounstein
corporatecomms@stonepeak.com
+1 (646) 540-5225

BUKO Traffic & Safety (“BUKO”), a leading provider of outsourced traffic and safety management solutions in the Netherlands and the UK, has acquired BVT Bremer Verkehrstechnik GmbH (“BVT”). The acquisition marks BUKO’s expansion into Germany, a key strategic growth market, and follows the company’s expansion into the UK market earlier this year through the acquisition of Road Traffic Solutions Ltd. (RTS). The parties have agreed not to disclose details of the transaction.

Headquartered in Barendrecht, the Netherlands, BUKO Traffic & Safety employs over 450 people and successfully oversees thousands of projects annually. A leading provider of outsourced traffic and safety management solutions in its home market of the Netherlands, the company consists of the two business units BUKO Infrasupport and BUKO Waakt. Founded in 1991, BUKO Infrasupport specialises in temporary traffic management solutions. With its comprehensive portfolio of services – from design, planning, approval, deployment and collection, as well as onsite management of road signage, safety equipment required for roadworks and also an innovative range of digital traffic management solutions – BUKO Infrasupport primarily serves contractors and public authorities, active in utility-related and urban/rural roadworks. BUKO Waakt provides temporary remote security solutions with a focus on camera surveillance, intrusion detection systems and access control systems, which are used principally on construction sites.

Since funds advised by Equistone acquired a majority stake in BUKO in February 2023, the company has pursued a growth strategy focused on building its presence in its home market and targeted expansion into neighbouring countries supported by strong market dynamics. In March 2024, BUKO established a foothold in the attractive UK market with the acquisition of RTS, a temporary traffic and event management solutions specialist, operating from seven locations and employing 175 people.

By establishing a presence in Germany, the acquisition of BVT represents the next milestone in BUKO’s growth strategy. Headquartered in Stuhr (near Bremen), BVT provides high-quality temporary traffic management services to a diverse customer base of contractors, local authorities and event organisers. In recent years, BVT has grown into a go-to partner for customers in the region by combining a focus on low-speed traffic situations with a strong service proposition. BVT currently operates from three locations and has 75 employees.

“We are excited to partner with BVT for our entry into the German market. There is a strong fit between BVT and BUKO in terms of strategic focus, culture and shared ambitions for the future.”, says Robert Emmerich, CEO at BUKO. “This partnership marks our entry into Germany, and we are determined to significantly expand our presence over the coming years.”

“After successfully entering the UK market earlier this year, BVT represents an ideal partner for BUKO as it now enters the German market. We are excited to help BUKO realise its international growth ambitions via a targeted buy-and-build strategy which will enable the company to replicate its exceptional track record in the Netherlands in new markets,” says Tanja Berg, Director in Equistone’s Munich office.

The Equistone team includes Hubert van Wolfswinkel, Tanja Berg and Josh Aalbers. BUKO was advised on the transaction by PwC (Financial & Tax), De Angelis (Legal), Roland Berger (Commercial) and Rautenberg (M&A).

October 16, 2024 – OMERS, along with other shareholders Altice, Allianz and AXA IM Alts, is pleased to announce that XpFibre, one of our digital assets in France, has successfully raised €5.8 billion of credit facilities, marking one of the largest multi-sourced transactions in the European digital infrastructure market to date.

XpFibre is the largest independent Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) operators in France delivering high speed internet to approximately 25% of the French territory in terms of homes passed.

The financing has been structured to achieve an Investment Grade rating by S&P and DBRS, facilitating both European institutional term loan and US Private Placement investor participation as part of a global, cross-border private placement process. The re-financing attracted large liquidity from long-term institutional creditors in addition to a group of leading infrastructure bank lenders.

Alastair Hall, Head of Europe, OMERS Infrastructure, said: “This refinancing is a vote of confidence in the strength of XpFibre. As the company’s rollout phase nears completion, now is the right time to put in place a capital structure that reflects XpFibre’s highly resilient business model, predictable cash flow and robust financial profile as well as supporting its continued rollout to customers. Congratulations to everyone involved.”

About OMERS Infrastructure OMERS Infrastructure manages infrastructure investments globally on behalf of OMERS, the defined benefit pension plan for municipal employees in the Province of Ontario, Canada, and third-party investors through its Strategic Partnership Program. OMERS Infrastructure manages approximately C$36 billion, including capital invested on behalf of OMERS and third parties, in approximately 30 investments located in North America, Western Europe, India and Australia, and across sectors including energy, digital and transportation. OMERS Infrastructure has employees in Toronto, New York, London, Amsterdam, Singapore and Sydney.

OMERS Infrastructure & digital

Digital, as one of OMERS Infrastructure’s priority sectors alongside Energy and Transportation, is a significant and growing focus area for our business globally. Digital investments have been a priority for the OMERS Infrastructure team for most of the last decade with OMERS inaugural transaction, the acquisition of an interest in XpFibre in France (announced in Q4 2018). The XpFibre platform has grown from c.1.5m homes passed and 0.3m homes connected at the end of 2018 to over 7.0m homes passed and c.3.8m homes connected today. Since the acquisition of XpFibre, OMERS exposure to the sector has expanded to new sub-sectors and geographies through investments in Deutsche Glasfaser, a German broadband business, Waveconn, an Australian telecom towers platform (a new business we combined after the acquisitions of TPG’s towers business and the company Stilmark), and Beanfield, a Canadian broadband company.