Ambienta sells Lakesight to trade for €140m

The GP generated a return of 10x invested capital and an IRR of 50% on the divestment.

The sale ends a holding period of almost eight years for Ambienta, which acquired the first business in the buy-and-build strategy that would become Lakesight with equity from its first fund.

Ambienta I is a €218m vehicle that closed in 2009 and had an average equity ticket size of €10-30m. The GP closed its second fund on €323.5m in 2013, and held a dry close for its third on its €635m hard-cap in May this year.

Unquote reported in June that Ambienta had appointed Lincoln International to sell Lakesight.

TKH has acquired 100% of Lakesight and said that the purchase price and EBITDA multiple are in line with the valuation of technology companies. The average multiple for a TMT business in the DACH region was 12.2x in Q1 2018, according to the Unquote and Clearwater International multiples heatmap.

TKH said that Lakesight's services are crucial in ensuring quality standards, improving energy and material efficiency, and reducing transportation-related emissions and pollution, thus delivering durable environmental benefits. The Dutch-listed business generated €151m EBITA from €1.48bn revenues in 2017.

Ambienta declined to comment on the sale.

Previous funding
The Italian GP acquired a 70% stake in Tattile in November 2012. The acquisition was made in order to create Lakesight Technologies, a European buy-and-build platform, which currently comprises three companies: Brescia-based Tattile, acquired by Ambienta in 2012; German company Mikrotron, bought by Lakesight in 2015; and Konstanz-based Chromasens, acquired by the company in 2017.

Company
Lakesight is a vision technology company that primarily serves the industrial and mobility markets. The mobility division makes cameras for intelligent traffic systems. It employs 169 people and generates a turnover of €45m.

People
TKH Group – Alexander van der Lof (CEO).
Lakesight Technologies – Peter Tix (CEO).

Advisers
Equity – Lincoln International (corporate finance).

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