Deals

3i divests Swedish IT business

Global private equity firm 3i has sold its 49% stake in Atea, an IT infrastructure provider, to Norway’s Ementor, which paid a total of €113m for the business.

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3i has sold its stake in Atea, a Swedish IT group, to Ementor, a Norwegian IT business, as part of a Skr1.05 billion (€113 million) transaction.
 
Ementor bought 3i’s 48.7 percent stake, along with a 48.7 percent holding owned by WM-data, a Danish IT and services provider, and management’s 2.6 percent stake.
 
3i originally invested in Atea in August 2001 when the company spun out from its parent WM-data.
 
During 3i’s period of ownership, Atea acquired seven companies with combined annual sales exceeding Skr3 billion, including Sweden’s Martinsson and Novosys of Finland.
 
Atea, based in Sweden, provides IT-product sourcing, infrastructure solutions and managed services in the Nordic region. The company employs 1,300 personnel and has a reported turnover of over Skr7.9 billion (€850 million).
 
3i has sold more in Sweden over the past 12 months than it has invested. In March, the firm generated a gain of €44 million and an IRR of 90 percent on its partial exit of clothing brand Gant through a €241 million flotation on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in March of this year.
 
Last August, 3i led a private equity consortium in the sale of pharmaceutical company Arexis to Biovitrum for an undisclosed amount, and in June, Industrial Kapital paid €140 million in the secondary buyout of home decoration business SIA Group.