BRUSSELS, Belgium, July 9, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Fortis Private Equity, together with the management team, acquired all shares of the Velleman Group through a Management Buy-Out. The Velleman Group is one of the European leaders in the development and distribution of electronics related products and components. The transaction value was not disclosed.The transaction was concluded on July 2nd and is set to be closed in August after notification to the competent authorities. The shareholders of the Velleman Group were advised by Deloitte Corporate Finance in Belgium and by the law firm Laga & Philippe.
"We are delighted to acquire along with Fortis the control of Velleman Group, which is a successful distributor of a large range of electronic components and consumer electronics. We now intend to continue the international development of Velleman by building on its market-leading positions and by further broadening its product range," said Dirk Vlerick, CEO Velleman Group.
Brigitte Boone, CEO of Global Private Equity at Fortis, stresses the growing importance of buy-outs in its investment strategy: Also in the Belgian market the buy-out technique tends to become a commonly recognized financial structure, enabling selling shareholders, managers and financial investors to realise their respective goals. It provides an effective tool for family-owned businesses to organise the generational succession issue, for corporates to divest from non-strategic activities and focus on their core business and for management teams to take up an entrepreneurial challenge, backed by financial investors. At Global Private Equity we keep up with this trend and are keen to expand our buy-out portfolio. The MBO of Velleman fits perfectly in this investment strategy. Earlier this year we realised the MBO of De Kaasbrik and other transactions are actively being investigated.
The Velleman Group (www.velleman.be) has been a major distributor of a wide variety of electronic components and consumer electronics for more than 30 years. Velleman distributes more than 12,000 different products from 34 brands and serves a network of over 1,500 retail shops and distributors in more than 70 countries. Consolidated turnover in 2003 was over EUR 25 million. The headquarters of the Velleman Group are based in Gavere, near Ghent.
Global Private Equity is part of Merchant Banking, a division of Fortis. Global Private Equity is active in privately negotiated equity investments in companies. It provides venture, development and buy-out capital to a broad spectrum of companies in both traditional and innovative sectors. Global Private Equity manages all the Private Equity assets of Fortis Bank and acts as a gatekeeper for Fortis as a whole. Total assets under management amount to EUR 700 million. In Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Spain, Global Private Equity operates via dedicated teams focusing on direct investments. Complementary to these investments, it manages a diversified Fund of Funds-portfolio, made up of top quartile European and North American buy-out and venture capital funds.
Fortis is an integrated financial services provider active in the fields of banking and insurance. With a market capitalization of EUR 23.6 billion (30/06/2004) and around 53,000 employees, Fortis ranks in the top 20 of European financial institutions. More information is available on www.fortis.com
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