Equistone sells Caseking to Gilde

Oscar Geen
17 July 2018

Tweet
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google plus
Send to

Equistone Partners Europe has sold German PC components retailer Caseking to Gilde Buy Out Partners.

Gilde drew equity from its fifth buyout fund to finance the buyout. Gilde Buy Out Fund V held a final close on €1.1bn in November 2015.

Equistone made the divestment from its fourth fund, which closed on €1.5bn in 2013 and was 95% deployed by September 2017. Equistone Partners Europe Fund IV recorded a TVPI of 1.91x in December 2017, according to Unquote Data.

The sale ends a four-year holding period for Equistone, which acquired the business from Afinum Management and subsequently made a series of bolt-on acquisitions resulting in turnover increasing from €96m in 2014 to €239m in 2018.

The buy-and-build strategy was launched under Caseking's previous owners with the purchase of UK-based Overclockers. Equistone then supported the acquisitions of Hungary-based Kelly-tech in July 2013, Portugal-based Globaldata in February 2017, Norway-based Trigono in November 2017 and finally Finland-based Jimm's PC Store in early 2018.

Caseking was marketed by sell-side adviser William Blair based on an EBITDA of €20m for 2018, according to Unquote sister publication Mergermarket.

Previous funding
Afinum bought Caseking from its founders in August 2010, drawing equity from its €230m buyout fund Afinum Fünfte Beteiligungsgesellschaft. It sold the business to Equistone in March 2014.

Company
Caseking was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Berlin. It runs an online shop for PC components and gaming accessories. It employs 400 people across its operations in Germany, the UK, the Nordic region, southern and eastern Europe, and Taiwan.

People
Equistone Partners Europe – Alexis Milkovic, Leander Heyken (partners).
Caseking – Kay Kostadinov, Toni Sonn (founders).

Advisers
Vendor – William Blair (M&A); P+P Pöllath + Partners (legal); KPMG (financial due diligence, tax); PwC (commercial due diligence).