Top Headlines This Week

• 🔐 Proofpoint acquires Hornetsecurity for $1.8bn

• 🎒 Brookfield nears €780m Generator Hostels acquisition

• 🧊 Samsung to buy FläktGroup from Triton for €1.5bn

• 🧪 BASF lines up IPO of €9.8bn-revenue agri-chemicals unit

Deals, Deals, Deals

UK & Ireland 🇬🇧🇮🇪

🥗 Listed food services group Greencore closes deal to acquire peer Bakkavor for £1.2bn.

📦 DHL to acquire significant minority stake in Evri, one of the UK’s largest dedicated parcel delivery companies, from Apollo.

🧾 The sale of UK-based regulatory compliance software specialist FundApps has launched. Expected to generate £40m ARR this year.

🛡️ GTCR acquires UK insurance broker JMG Group in partnership with existing investor Synova. Founded in 2020, JMG is now a Top 30 UK broker.

🏥 Bain Capital is assessing an offer to acquire Craneware, the Edinburgh-based healthcare software firm listed on the LSE with market cap of £780m.

🕶️ EssilorLuxottica, maker of Ray-Ban, is closing in on a deal for UK ophthalmology chain Optegra, which is marketed off EBITDA of nearly £70m.

🌐 CityFibre, the UK-based broadband network operator, is in talks with Octopus Group to acquire All Points Fibre subsidiary. Deal contingent on CityFibre securing £1bn debt and £500m shareholder funding.

📡 General Atlantic acquires minority stake in UK telecoms group Wireless Logic. Deal values the company at £3.5bn.

🛏️ Brookfield Asset Management nears deal to acquire Generator Group’s European hostels business for €780m enterprise value.

🎁 Tenzing invests in Tillo, a UK-based B2B digital gift card marketplace.

🏠 Sureserve, backed by Cap10 Partners, to acquire Kinovo, a property services provider, for £56m.

🏨 Irish hotel group Dalata reportedly accelerates sale process with private equity firms circling, according to The Sunday Times. Likely €2bn+ valuation.

💰 FirstCash, the US pawn store giant, to acquire the UK’s largest pawn operator H&T Group for c.£350m enterprise value, marking its entry into the European market.

📞 Virgin Media O2 and Daisy Group to merge B2B units. The new company will have £1.4bn pro forma revenue, with Daisy holding 30%.

🏥 CareTrust REIT closes acquisition of Care REIT, adding 132 care homes, two healthcare facilities and £52m annual rental revenue.

🏢 Cork-based Org Group acquires Venturi Group, a Manchester IT recruitment company with £40m in revenue.

📅 Cronofy, a UK-based embedded scheduling software provider, secures £15m investment from BGF.

🚬 Japan Tobacco International (JTI) acquires controlling stake in Flavour Warehouse, UK’s largest independent vape firm.

🛰️ Woolpert (backed by MSD Partners) acquires Bluesky International, the UK’s largest aerial survey firm and preferred government supplier.

💊 Apiary Capital makes significant investment in performance.io, a digital performance marketing agency for the pharma industry.

📱 Influencer marketing platform Whalar raises capital at $400m valuation, with backers including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Neal H. Moritz, and Shopify.

🌍 BT Group to separate its international division into a standalone entity, according to the Financial Times.

Central & Northern Europe 🇩🇪🇸🇪🇵🇱🇨🇭🇳🇴🇦🇹

🌽 Towerbrook Capital Partners is seeking a buyer for Austria-based bio-refinery Austrocel Hallein, which could fetch a valuation of €500m based on 2024 EBITDA of €54m at market multiples, Bloomberg reported.

❄️ Samsung Electronics is to acquire German HVAC solutions provider FläktGroup from Triton for €1.5bn.

🏋️ Gymondo, a German online fitness and nutrition platform, is being prepared for sale by Oakley Capital. The business is forecast to generate around €20m EBITDA in 2025.

⚙️ ABB, the Swedish-Swiss electrical equipment maker, is considering a sale of its robotics unit, valued at over €3.5bn, as an alternative to a spinoff.

🏍️ KTM, the Austrian motorcycle manufacturer currently in self-administration, has attracted interest from PE firms including Blackrock, Fortress, King Street, and Oak Hill, according to OÖNachrichten.

🪖 Rheinmetall, the German defense and automotive group, is looking to divest its automotive supplier division, per Boersen-Zeitung.

⚡ Proofpoint, the California-based cybersecurity firm, has acquired Germany’s Hornetsecurity for a reported $1.8bn, based on forecast $200m ARR in 2025.

🌿 BASF is preparing a potential listing of its agricultural chemicals unit, which posted €9.8bn in 2024 sales, according to Handelsblatt.

⛽ Phillips 66 is selling a 65% stake in its Germany and Austria retail marketing business, including 970 retail sites, to Energy Equation Partners and Stonepeak for €2.5bn.

💼 IK Partners is to acquire Lohoff, a German provider of occupational pension administration solutions.

📊 Castik Capital is marketing AddSecure, a Swedish IoT services provider that generated €70m EBITDA in 2024.

🦾 Vaaka Partners has acquired a majority stake in Axitare, a Finnish medical device company making robotic medicine dispensers for elderly home use.

🔋 TenneT, the Dutch state-owned grid operator, is in talks to sell a minority stake in its German division. The sale could raise up to €12bn, Reuters reported.

📈 Alvotech, an Icelandic biotech firm, is planning an IPO in Sweden later this month.

🏌️ Takomo, a Finnish golf gear maker, raised €20m from Mandatum and Rite Ventures after scaling 10x in two years to €30m revenue in 2024.

🌳 OroraTech, the German wildfire intelligence firm using satellite networks, has extended its Series B to €37m, led by BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund.

🚧 TotalEnergies has sold a 50% stake in PGB, Poland’s largest biogas producer, to HitecVision for an enterprise value of €190m.

Western & Southern Europe 🇫🇷🇪🇸🇮🇹🇵🇹🇳🇱🇧🇪

💼 Italian conglomerate De Agostini is in the market with its asset management arm Dea Capital Alternative Funds, which manages €6bn and could be worth over €50m, Il Sole 24 Ore reported.

✈️ Advanced Logistics for Aerospace (ALA), a listed Italy-based supply-chain solutions provider for the aerospace sector with a market cap of €344m, is to be acquired by HIG Capital.

🅿️ Macquarie is launching the sale of Spanish car parks company Empark Aparcamientos y Servicios, which it acquired for €1bn in 2017, Betaville reported.

🚗 Crest Capital Partners is running a process to sell Portuguese car parts distributor Dualparts Group, which generated around €15m EBITDA and €100m revenue in 2024.

🛡️ JC Flowers is to acquire 100% of wefox Italy from Germany-based insurance tech company wefox for over €200m.

🍓 Ardian has hired Evercore to arrange the sale of Frulact, a dairy ingredients manufacturer with €270m turnover and around €45m EBITDA. Based on sector multiples, the business could fetch €600–800m.

⚡ Italian oil group Eni has signed an exclusivity agreement with Ares for the sale of a 20% stake in its energy supply unit Plenitude, at an enterprise value of over €12bn.

💊 Italian pharma logistics group Phse, backed by Aurora Growth Capital, has acquired 100% of peer SatCargo. Phse targets revenue of €125m in 2025.

🛒 Carrefour, the French supermarket giant, is considering an offer for Dinosol Supermercados, a privately-owned chain in the Canary Islands with €1.5bn revenue, El Economista reported.

🧑‍💼 Italdesign, the Italy-based automotive design and engineering firm, could be sold off by parent Volkswagen. The company posted €330m revenue in 2024, Il Sole 24 Ore reported.

🔥 Riello, the Italian manufacturer of heating equipment owned by Carrier Global Corporation, is in the market and could attract a bid from Chinese group Midea, Corriere Veneto reported.

☁️ Tinubu, a French cloud software provider for the specialty insurance sector, announced a $45m growth capital raise from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital.

🗼 Altice, the French telco, is set to relaunch the XpFibre auction at an equity value above €4bn.

🏠 Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez has urged Criteria Caixa to acquire a 20% stake in steelmaker Celsa after the deal appeared to fall through.

📲 Digital marketplaces operator Adevinta is mulling the sale of its Spanish operations (Infojobs, Fotocasa, and Coches.net) while owners Blackstone and Permira aim to break up the group. The unit could sell for over €2bn, Reuters reported.

🧬 Azafaros, a Dutch biotech company developing disease-modifying therapeutics, has raised €132m in an oversubscribed Series B led by Jeito Capital.

📰 Alain Weill, owner of French weekly news magazine L'Express, is considering an IPO by 2027. The title posted around €26m revenue in 2024 and could be valued at 5–10x revenue.

📺 Telefonica is drafting plans for a transaction that would give it full control of VMO2, its joint venture with Liberty Global. The business was previously valued at up to £31.4bn.

💻 Azulis Capital has acquired a minority stake in French IT services firm Acensi, which posted €221m revenue in 2024.

🍷 Viva Wine Group, a Dutch wine distributor, is to acquire an c.89% stake in Delta Wines, a pan-European distributor with €186m revenue, for €57m.

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