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Private Equity | TMT

Majority stake in ESC has been acquired by Capital A

The Smet family has sold a majority stake in ESC to private equity firm Capital A.

Founded in 1999, ESC is a leading Belgian IT service partner offering ERP, cloud, infrastructure, network and e-commerce solutions. The company’s core offering comprises Microsoft (MS) solutions, such as Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC), Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE) and Power Platform (PP), in-house developed business software, and is supplemented by solutions from other partners such as Fujitsu, Exact and Barracuda Networks. Via its offices in Nazareth and Lochristi, Belgium, ESC serves approximately 1,000 SMBs, mainly located in the Flanders region, with a focus on clients active in the building materials, production, distribution, beverage, non-profit and healthcare sectors. A clear cloud-first strategy guarantees that the company is well advanced in its future-proof SaaS offering, which ensures visibility and predictability of recurring revenue streams.

Capital A is a new investment company with a long history. The Capital A team was responsible for mid-market private equity within ABN AMRO since 1982 and previously carried the name ABN AMRO Participations. In 2018, the then investment team continued independently as Capital A. The focus and approach has always remained the same. Capital A invests in companies in Belgium and the Netherlands with a clear growth profile (autonomous or acquisitive). Its participation consists mainly of large minority or small majority stakes. The firm’s mission is to shape a new growth phase for the companies, together with their management teams.

Oaklins’ team in Belgium acted as the exclusive financial advisor to the Smet family, the shareholders of ESC. The team in the Netherlands supported the transaction.

Parties
“We are very pleased with the services delivered, the expertise brought to the table and the results achieved by Oaklins. As a trusted IT services partner, we highly value the quality of the services we deliver to our clients and identified the same values with Oaklins. Furthermore, we highly appreciated the joint team approach with Oaklins’ TMT experts in Belgium and the Netherlands, and how they managed to leverage their comprehensive address book and track record in our sector and executed a streamlined and competitive sale process. We are delighted that they matched us with the right partner to progress on our current growth trajectory.”

Carine and Phillipe Smet

Shareholders, ESC

Talk to the deal team

Bart Delusinne

Managing Director
Brussels, Belgium
Oaklins KBC Securities

Frederik van der Schoot

Managing Partner
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Oaklins Netherlands

Alexander Gryson

Director
Brussels, Belgium
Oaklins KBC Securities

Jan-Pieter van Doorn

Director
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Oaklins Netherlands

Nicolas Ockier

Associate Director
Brussels, Belgium
Oaklins KBC Securities

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