Zug/ Ever­ett (Washing­ton) — Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (BU), a leading private equity firm in the DACH region and Nort­hern Italy, today announ­ced the sale of EA Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik (EA), a leading German supplier of elec­tro­nic test and measu­re­ment equip­ment, to US-based Fortive Corpo­ra­tion (Fortive) (NYSE: FTV). The tran­sac­tion is based on an enter­prise value of €1,585 million and is subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory appr­ovals; it is expec­ted to close early in the first quar­ter of 2024.

EA was foun­ded in 1974 and is head­quar­te­red in Vier­sen, Germany. The company designs and manu­fac­tures programma­ble power supplies, elec­tro­nic loads and bidi­rec­tional power supplies used to test elec­tro­nic compon­ents in various indus­trial and R&D appli­ca­ti­ons. With over 400 employees, EA is a leading provi­der of tech­ni­cally advan­ced elec­tro­nic test and measu­re­ment equip­ment, specia­li­zing in the high-power segment of the market as well as high-growth end markets such as e‑mobility, battery storage, rene­wa­ble energy and hydrogen.

BU had acqui­red EA from the company’s foun­ders in 2019 as part of a succes­sion plan through its second fund, BU II. As part of the BU invest­ment, the manage­ment team was signi­fi­cantly streng­the­ned, EA’s inter­na­tio­nal sales and marke­ting acti­vi­ties and R&D team were greatly expan­ded, and seve­ral tech­no­lo­gi­cally leading new product lines were laun­ched. BU has also inves­ted substan­ti­ally in produc­tion capa­city at the Vier­sen site and expan­ded it signi­fi­cantly. The number of employees has increased by 250 in recent years, more than doubling. As a result, sales have increased by an average of appro­xi­m­ately 40% annu­ally since 2020.

“We are very grateful for BU’s support over the past years. Toge­ther, we have made signi­fi­cant progress on our jour­ney from a Euro­pean tech­no­logy leader to a global market leader,” says Markus Schy­boll, CEO of EA. “We are very plea­sed to be joining forces with Fortive — toge­ther we will further acce­le­rate our growth and expand our inter­na­tio­nal reach even more. We want to conti­nue to be our custo­mers’ part­ner of choice when it comes to elec­tri­fi­ca­tion and achie­ving carbon neutra­lity in our world.”

Florian Schick, co-foun­der and mana­ging part­ner of BU (photo © Bregal), adds: “We are very proud of the fanta­stic perfor­mance of EA’s manage­ment team and employees and are happy to have found a good new home for EA. Toge­ther, we stron­gly inter­na­tio­na­li­zed the company, achie­ved leading market posi­ti­ons in seve­ral fast-growing end markets, and more than tripled sales during our holding period. This tran­sac­tion is a true success story and a prime exam­ple of BU’s invest­ment approach to forging strong part­ner­ships with leading, foun­der-led compa­nies and helping them signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate their growth.”

About Bregal Entre­pre­neu­rial Capital

Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (BU) is a leading private equity firm with offices in Zug, Munich and Milan. As part of a family busi­ness that has grown over gene­ra­ti­ons, BU’s funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies head­quar­te­red in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and nort­hern Italy, cove­ring a wide range of indus­tries. In its efforts to be the part­ner of choice for entre­pre­neurs and family busi­nesses, BU speci­fi­cally focu­ses on part­ner­ships with market leaders and “hidden cham­pi­ons” with a strong manage­ment team and great growth poten­tial. Since its estab­lish­ment in 2015, the funds mana­ged by BU have inves­ted over €2.7 billion in this frame­work in more than 100 compa­nies with over 20,000 employees. In close part­ner­ship with entre­pre­neurs and fami­lies, their compa­nies are further deve­lo­ped, inter­na­tio­na­li­zed and digi­ta­li­zed — so that sustainable values are crea­ted on a respon­si­ble basis in the inte­rests of the next gene­ra­tion. www.bregal.ch

About Fortive

Fortive is a provi­der of essen­tial tech­no­lo­gies for networked work­flow solu­ti­ons in a number of attrac­tive end markets. Fortive’s stra­te­gic segments include well-known brands with leading posi­ti­ons in their markets. The company’s busi­nesses encom­pass the design, deve­lo­p­ment, service, manu­fac­ture and marke­ting of engi­nee­red products, soft­ware and services and have leading brands, inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and strong market posi­ti­ons. Fortive is head­quar­te­red in Ever­ett, Washing­ton, and employs more than 18,000 people in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­tu­ring, sales, distri­bu­tion, service and admi­nis­tra­tion in more than 50 count­ries world­wide. www.fortive.com