European mid-market private equity firm Hg Capital announced it will acquire a majority stake in the share capital of EidosMedia, an Italian company whose digital publishing solutions power many of the world’s leading news-media operations,
Sellers to Hg Capital are italian mid-market private equity firms Aksìa Group sgr and Wise sgr, who owned a 60% stake in the company, while EidosMedia’s management, who owned a 40% stake, will reinvest in the company (download here the press release).
Founded in 2000 and led by ceo Gabriella Franzini, EidosMedia reached 40 million euros in revenues in 2014 with 14 millions in ebitda. The company has been valued about 10x FY 2014 ebitda and Wise and Aksìa’s funds cashed 2.6x the invested capital. Aksìa Capital III and Wise Equity III funds had invested in EidosMedia in 2010, when the company had 27 million euros in revenues and 9 millions in ebitda.
Advisors to the sellers was Lazard, Accinni Cartolano e Associati law firm and Studio Spadacini as fiscal advisor. Hg Capital was instead supported by Credit Suisse.
EidosMedia offers flexible software solutions to some of the world’s largest media and financial services companies such as Financial Times, The Washington Post, Le Monde, News Corp ‘s newspapers, Il Sole 24 Ore, La Stampa and il Corriere della Sera, and to some primary financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Moody’s.
In Italy Hg Capital controls also Teamsystem, the Italian leading group that produces and distributes management software for businesses and professionals. Teamsystem is studying an ipo for next year. However some informal offers have been proposed to Hg Capital from private equity firms in the last few months so a dual track process is on its way (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
