ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS
News
Photo: Marc Thiery, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Deutsche Private Equity (© DPE)

Deutsche Private Equity acquires stake in TKD Group

Photo: Marc Thiery, Mana­ging Part­ner and Co-Foun­der of Deut­sche Private Equity (© DPE)
More news
27. June 2024

Munich — Funds advi­sed by the Munich-based inde­pen­dent invest­ment company Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) have acqui­red a majo­rity stake in TKD Group (“TKD”) from the foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors. A large part of the invest­ment, which is in the three-digit million range, will flow directly back into the opera­ting struc­ture in order to acce­le­rate growth.

TKD offers large compa­nies with inter­na­tio­nal loca­ti­ons a rental model for mobile devices such as smart­phones and tablets from various renow­ned manu­fac­tu­r­ers. The leased mobile devices are sustain­ably inte­gra­ted into a circu­lar economy that ensu­res that depart­ments such as purcha­sing, IT and finance are quickly and easily reli­e­ved and the customer’s ESG requi­re­ments are met. ESG stands for Envi­ron­men­tal, Social and Governance.

By using the company’s own “Soft­ware as a Service” plat­form TKD.360, custo­mers’ employees can order end devices inclu­ding mobile phone profiles them­sel­ves after acti­va­tion, manage them and flexi­bly replace them with the latest models after a fixed term. The mobile devices are auto­ma­ti­cally confi­gu­red accor­ding to the company’s secu­rity speci­fi­ca­ti­ons and sent to the employee’s work­sta­tion in a perso­na­li­zed manner. This means they are ready for imme­diate use. The compa­nies not only bene­fit from CO2-neutral use and thus improve their sustaina­bi­lity stra­tegy, but also reli­eve their IT depart­ment and receive a trans­pa­rent cost over­view of the mobile users through the monthly billing of the devices used in the rental model, which is digi­tally trans­mit­ted to the finance department.

“In recent years, working closely with our manage­ment team, we have succee­ded in deve­lo­ping a range of products and services that are fully tail­o­red to custo­mer needs. With Deut­sche Private Equity, we now have a strong part­ner at our side who not only reco­gni­zes the poten­tial of our coope­ra­tion with key play­ers in the device-as-a-service market, but also values it. In addi­tion, DPE will make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to our tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment and thus drive the expan­sion of our plat­form,” say Ulrich Wink­ler and Oliver Torlée, the foun­ders of TKD.

Andreas W. Schmid, Part­ner at DPE, explains: “We are very impres­sed by TKD’s solu­­tion-orien­­ted appli­ca­ti­ons, which provide custo­mers with the best possi­ble support for admi­nis­tra­tive and IT chal­lenges. We see signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial not only natio­nally, but also inter­na­tio­nally, as well as an attrac­tive value lever in the finan­cing of the devices and look forward to working with TKD.”

Advi­sors TKD: Houli­han Lokey (M&A sell side), FGS (tax) and Fresh­fields (legal)

Advi­sors to DPE: Roland Berger (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Finan­cial), PwC (Tax & ESG), Gütt Olk Feld­haus (Legal), MCF (Debt Advi­sory) and Hogan Lovells (Finan­cial Coun­sel).

About TKD

TKD offers large compa­nies a rental model for mobile devices such as smart­phones and tablets
Renting as part of a circu­lar economy is CO2-neutral and reli­e­ves the burden on custo­mers’ purcha­sing, IT and finance depart­ments. TKD has been based in Langen­feld near Düssel­dorf since 2014 and now has more than 100 employees. Over the past two years, TKD has focu­sed on sustaina­bi­lity and ISO certi­fi­ca­tion and is now one of the one percent most sustainable compa­nies in Germany (accor­ding to ecova­dis Sustaina­bi­lity Rating, Febru­ary 2024). This compe­ti­tive advan­tage has enab­led TKD to conti­nuously drive forward the expan­sion of its busi­ness. As a result, TKD now mana­ges a total of more than 150,000 mobile devices for over 1,000 major custo­mers with inter­na­tio­nal locations.

About Deut­sche Private Equity

Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company that supports medium-sized compa­nies on their growth path as a part­ner inves­tor. Over the past 15 years, DPE has become one of the largest growth inves­tors in the DACH region and curr­ently mana­ges total assets of over €3 billion. The core of DPE’s invest­ment stra­tegy is in the areas of digitalization/software, health­care, indus­trial tech­no­logy, B2B services, energy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. Within these sectors, DPE focu­ses on estab­lished compa­nies that hold a strong market posi­tion with a leading product or service offe­ring and offer signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial for the future. DPE focu­ses on medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and gene­rally invests 50 to 200 million euros of equity per company. www.dpe.de

Subscribe newsletter

Here you can read about the latest transactions, IPOs, private equity deals and venture capital investments, who has raised a new fund, how Buy & Build activities are going.

Get in touch

Contact us!
fyb [at] fyb.de