Silverfleet acquires Competence Call Center from Ardian

Kimberly Romaine
02 December 2013

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Silverfleet Capital has purchased Competence Call Center Holding (CCC) from Ardian in a secondary buyout, four years after the vendor took the business’s reins.

Silverfleet and founder Thomas Kloibhofer will together hold a majority stake in CCC, while management will retain a significant minority. The new owners plan to grow the business organically in its existing markets and through acquisitions to expand into new countries.

The price was undisclosed, though the GP's two most recent deals in the services sector averaged €118m, according to unquote" data: Ipes (€60m) and Orizon (€176m). The firm states a preference for building up established businesses with an entry enterprise value of €75-500m.

Silverfleet provided more than 50% of the enterprise value in equity, while senior debt was provided by Bank of Ireland and DZ Bank.

Company
Founded in 1998 in Vienna, the business expanded into Berlin in 2001 and opened in one new country per year between 2005 and 2008. In 2012 it opened in Paris.

Today the business offers services in 28 languages and operates from 11 locations in Austria, France, Germany, Romania, Switzerland, Slovakia and Turkey. Clients include Samsung and Air Berlin.

CCC manages incoming & outgoing calls, e-mail, fax and letter correspondence, live chat, social media and other digital services for its clients. Today the business employs 4,500 employees and forecasts €100m in revenues for 2014.

Previous funding
Ardian acquired a 68% stake in CCC in October 2009, according to unquote" data.

The stake was acquired from founder Kloibhofer, who initially remained on as CEO. He shared that role with Christian Legat until earlier this year, when a management reshuffle saw Legat take over as CEO and Kloibhofer become a member of the supervisory board. At the time of the 2009 buyout, the business employed 1,400 people and posted revenues of €40m.

People
Guido May led the deal for Silverfleet, assisted by Joachim Braun, Andreas Holtschneider, Klaus Maurer and Falko Westphalen. Christian Legat is CEO of CCC, while Ulf Herbrechter is COO and Dr Veronika Weiss is CFO. Ardian's Marc Abadir and Dirk Wittneben will step down from CCC's supervisory board at closing.

Advisers
Equity – Blue Corporate Finance, Lars Veit (Corporate finance); Clifford Chance, Burc Hesse (Legal); Sherman & Sterling, Winfried Carli (Legal); PwC, Erik Hummitzsch (Financial due diligence); Klaus Schmidt (Tax); Oliver Wyman, Denis Burger (Commercial due diligence); n+1, Robert von Finckenstein (Debt); Willis, Tony Burns (Insurance due diligence).