Altor acquires Swedish home appliance maker Aarke

The founders, Jonas Groth and Carl Ljungh, will remain significant owners and continue in their new operational roles as CEO and CPO. Groth and Ljungh mandated Clearwater to find a financial sponsor to help expand the business, Mergermarket reported in October last year.

Aarke, founded in 2016, has grown rapidly in the last few years. Its sales exceeded SEK 200m (€19.7m) in 2020, up from SEK 85m in 2019, and SEK 20m in 2018, according to the financial website allabolag.se. It had an EBIT of SEK 29m (€2.8m) in 2019.

The GP invested via Altor Fund V, which held a first and final close in February 2019 on its €2.5bn target and hard-cap. The vehicle invests primarily in Nordic mid-market companies with enterprise values of €100-250m and revenues of €50-500m, deploying equity tickets of €50-150m.

In addition to the deal, Pernilla Ekman, the former CEO of Zound Industries, will become chairman of the board of Aarke, while Stefan Ytterborn, founder of POC and Cake, will join the board.

Company
Founded in Stockholm and based in 2016, Aarke is a retailer of home carbonation machines and related products. It sells its products in 30 countries via its global distributor network and its website.

The company had sales of SEK 200m (€19.7m) in 2020.

People
Altor – Andreas Källström Säfweräng (partner).
Aarke – Carl Ljungh, Jonas growth (co-founders).

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