IK sells SportGroup to Equistone

The exit will see the GP's €2.1bn Industri Kapital 2000 Fund sell its stake in SportGroup, nine years after the company was acquired.

The company was one of two remaining businesses in the 15 year-old fund's portfolio, leaving only Danish professional apparel business Kwintet – acquired in 2005 – in Industri Kapital 2000's portfolio, according to unquote" data.

Equistone will be SportGroup's third private equity owner. ECM Equity Capital Management established the company as a buy-and-build platform in 2002, before selling it to IK.

IK had continued ECM's buy-and-build approach, making bolt-on acquisitions in Sweden, France, and the US, as well as in the Asia-Pacific region.

Previous funding
IK acquired SportGroup from ECM in a 2006 secondary buyout financed by Nordic Mezzanine and Dresdner Kleinwort.

Company
Founded as a buy-and-build project by ECM in 2002, SportGroup is an Augusburg-headquartered developer, manufacturer and installer of artificial outdoor sport and recreational surfaces. Its products include artificial turfs for football pitches and running tracks.

The group is made up of 19 companies in nine countries with 1,000 employees and revenue of around €300m in 2014.

People
Detlef Dinsel is a managing partner at IK. Frank Dittrich is the CEO of SportGroup.

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• Topics
• Consumer
• DACH
• Buyouts
• Secondary buyout
• Germany
• IK Investment Partners
• ECM Equity Capital Management
• Equistone Partners Europe
• Unq2015May