Nordic heading for fourth exit of 2011

It may mark the fourth exit this year for the GP: In April it sold its remaining shares in Falck; in May it sold Nycomed and just days after that it floated FinnvedenBulten.

The €9.6bn sale of Nycomed to Takeda was one of the largest M&A deals this year so far, trumping even SiverLake's sale of Skype to Microsoft. Nordic had initially acquired a stake in the pharma giant in a 1999 buyout, before selling it in an SBO to DLJ and Blackstone just three years later. Then in 2005 it re-invested in the business via a tertiary buyout.

Nordic acquired Atos in early 2005 from Fisher Scientific International Inc. At that time, the business posted revenues of SEK 260m and employed 180 staff. The business, under Nordic's stewardship, Atos has expanded aggressively through Europe. It entered the Iberian and Swiss markets and increased its presence in Germany through two add-on acquisitions in 2007. Further bolt-ons were made in 2008 (the Netherlands) and France last year. As a result of this growth, Atos now employs 290 people and posted revenues last year of EUR 64m, nearly 3x those when Nordic acquired its controlling stake.

Despite private equity's penchant for replacing management, Atos' CEO Tommy Hedberg has remained at the helm since before Nordic's involvement.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Nordics
• UK / Ireland
• Exits
• Sweden
• Nordic Capital