Deal in Focus: IK buys Optimum from Mentha

IK Investment Partners recently acquired a majority stake in printing and labelling company Optimum Group for an undisclosed sum. Optimum, a group of printing companies, specialises in the field of UV flexo and digital printing. The group employs more than 200 people and primarily serves customers in the food, retail, logistics and chemicals industries. It projected €11m in EBITDA from €50m in revenues for 2017.

The purchase price was slightly less than €100m, approximately 9x the company's €11m EBITDA, according to a source close to the situation.

Leverage was expected to be in the range of 4-4.5x for senior offerings with unitranche up to 5x, according to unquote" sister publication Debtwire. The source told unquote" that the final financing arrangement was an all-senior club deal.

Going pan-European
IK won the deal amid competition from Bencis Capital Partners and a strategic bidder backed by Accent Equity, according to the source. IK partner Remko Hilhorst says its international network was key to winning the bid: "Optimum has clear international ambitions; it plans to expand into France, Germany and the Nordic region, and IK's network can support that. We met management several times during the process to ensure we were aligned on that."

Under Mentha's ownership, the company made several bolt-on acquisitions within the Benelux region. The strategy began with the acquisition of Etiket Nederland in February 2014, a label printing company with 12 production sites and 60 employees. Mentha drew capital from MCF IV, a €94.2m buyout fund that held a final close in March 2015.

In 2015, Optimum snapped up Vila Etiketten. Then in 2016, it acquired printer Max Aarts and W&R Etiketten Service. In June, it moved into Belgium by buying Express Printing Business (EPB), according to unquote" sister publication Mergermarket.

Specialised labels
Under IK's ownership, Optimum is looking to expand its technological capabilities and market coverage in the food, beverage, chemicals, pharmaceutical and logistic sectors. Hilhorst gives an example from the food sector of how Optimum's business model means it can respond to unique demand situations: "Food is a big part of the Optimum portfolio because the demands of clients can be very specialised. For example, something seasonal like barbecue food, if there's good weather suddenly you have demand for 500 labels and Optimum has the flexibility and specialisation to meet that," he says.

The company will continue the acquisitive growth strategy started by Mentha, but with a more international focus. "We will most likely expand by acquisition because there are a lot of synergies between companies in this sector, like centralising purchasing," Hilhorst says. "Greenfield is less attractive because it's generally two years until you reach a decent level of utilisation of the printing presses."

However, the integration will mostly be administrative in the short term rather than technical, says Hilhorst: "The production software is actually not uniform across all production sites because they are specifically tailored. We do have systems overlying that but currently separate systems is the best way to organise production. It is something we will revisit as the group continues to expand."

People
IK Investment Partners – Remko Hilhorst (partner).
Optimum Group – Bart de Boer (CEO).

Advisers
Vendor – Rothschild (M&A).

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• Topics
• Buyouts
• Exits
• Benelux
• Industrials
• Netherlands
• IK Investment Partners
• Secondary buyout
• Mentha Capital
• Bencis Capital Partners