News

Fank­furt a. Main — IK Invest­ment Part­ners (“IK”) has announ­ced that the IK VIII Fund has signed an agree­ment to sell its invest­ment in SCHOCK GmbH (“SCHOCK” or “the Company”) to Triton Fund V, advi­sed by Triton (“Triton”). The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the transaction.

SCHOCK has a leading global market posi­tion in the design and produc­tion of high-quality quartz compo­site kitchen sinks with a diverse base of more than 2,000 custo­mers in over 70 coun­tries. The company stands for inno­va­tive, high-quality products and has a strong focus on sustaina­bi­lity. This is under­li­ned, among other things, by the recently laun­ched Green Line product line, whose sinks are made from over 99 percent natu­ral, rene­wa­ble or raw mate­ri­als. In addi­tion to the compre­hen­sive range of kitchen sinks with over 200 models in 40 diffe­rent colors, SCHOCK also offers faucets, shower trays and rela­ted access­ories. The company, based in Regen, Bava­ria, employs more than 500 people and produ­ces exclu­si­vely in Germany.

Since IK’s invest­ment in 2016, SCHOCK has pursued a success­ful stra­tegy based on the three main elements of gaining new custo­mers, inter­na­tio­na­liz­a­tion and conti­nuous product inno­va­tion. As a result, the company achie­ved signi­fi­cant orga­nic growth and more than doubled its opera­ting profit. At the same time, substan­tial funds were inves­ted in the expan­sion of produc­tion capa­ci­ties, opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency and product development.

As part of the tran­sac­tion now agreed, IK is selling its shares to the invest­ment company Triton, which will further deve­lop the company as an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner toge­ther with the exis­ting manage­ment team headed by Ralf Boberg.

Ralf Boberg, CEO of SCHOCK, stated, “We are very grate­ful to the IK team for their guid­ance and support over the past four years. During this time, we have inves­ted in our inno­va­tive and sustainable product range and streng­t­he­ned our brand and repu­ta­tion in the market for high-quality, dura­ble and contem­porary sinks. We look forward to working with Triton to build on this foun­da­tion and conti­nue our growth trajectory.”

Mirko Jablon­sky, Part­ner at IK and advi­sor to the IK VIII Fund, said: “It has been a privi­lege for us to work with SCHOCK as a market leader in an attrac­tive segment of the kitchen indus­try. The uncom­pro­mi­sing focus on quality and the undis­pu­ted ability to inno­vate while setting new tech­no­lo­gi­cal stan­dards will enable SCHOCK to win new custo­mers and expand its product range and market presence. We wish Ralf Boberg and the team every success with their new shareholder.”

Ruth Linz, Co-Head Consu­mer at Triton, commen­ted: “We are plea­sed to accom­pany the next phase of the company’s deve­lo­p­ment at SCHOCK with our invest­ment. The oppor­tu­nity to work with such a strong brand, which also has excep­tio­nal growth poten­tial, does not come around often — we see oppor­tu­nities here parti­cu­larly in the US and through targe­ted M&A acti­vi­ties. We look forward to part­ne­ring with SCHOCK and taking the company to the next level of growth.”

Parties invol­ved:

IK Invest­ment Part­ners: Detlef Dinsel, Mirko Jablon­sky, Daniel-Vito Günther
Seller M&A advi­sor: William Blair (Phil­ipp Mohr, Dirk Felsmann)
Seller legal advi­sor: Latham & Watkins (Henning Schnei­der, Nils Röver)
Seller commer­cial advi­sor: EY Parthe­non (Björn Reineke)
Seller finan­cial advi­sor: EY (Hinrich Grun­waldt, Sandra Krusch)
Seller ESG advi­sor: EY (Robert Seiter)

About IK Invest­ment Partners

IK Invest­ment Part­ners is a Euro­pean private equity firm with an invest­ment focus on the Nordic coun­tries, the DACH region, France, Bene­lux as well as the UK. Since 1989, IK has laun­ched funds with a cumu­la­tive equity volume of more than 13 billion euros and inves­ted in more than 145 Euro­pean compa­nies. The IK Funds support compa­nies with signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial and their manage­ment teams in deve­lo­ping busi­ness models for the future, streng­t­he­ning the compa­nies’ market posi­tion and thus crea­ting outstan­ding long-term deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. www.ikinvest.com

About Triton

Triton was foun­ded in 1997 with the goal of working with boards, mana­gers and employees to build better compa­nies. We are entre­pre­neurs who invest capi­tal where we see an oppor­tu­nity to create long-term value. We are aware that the decisi­ons we make affect people’s lives. The 46 compa­nies curr­ently in our port­fo­lio play an important role in their respec­tive loca­ti­ons in Nort­hern Europe. They employ around 101,000 people and gene­rate combi­ned annual sales of around €18.2 billion. In 2018, we raised €5.2 billion for our latest private equity fund, Triton V. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.triton-partners.com

About SCHOCK

SCHOCK is the inven­tor of the granite sink and has been the global tech­no­logy and quality leader in this field for more than 40 years. The paten­ted combi­na­tion of quartz with high-quality acry­lic crea­tes a premium product that is three times harder than natu­ral granite and is also supe­rior in many product proper­ties to sinks made of other mate­ri­als. The SCHOCK range inclu­des sinks for every kitchen style and taste type. Custo­mers in over 70 coun­tries rely on SCHOCK products, which are produ­ced exclu­si­vely at the company head­quar­ters in Regen in the Bava­rian Forest. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.schock.de