Baumarktforschung Deutschland
Our sector approach to investment means that typically we can rely on a high level of industry knowledge to support our acquisitions. But repeating the success of a business model in two different countries is not always easy. The BMF Deutschland deal in many ways mirrored an earlier highly-successful investment in Scandinavia, Byggfakta. But market conditions had changed dramatically and that affected the return we achieved in Germany.
Consolidation and growth
When we invested in Baumarktforschung Deutschland GmbH (BMF) and Auftragsdienst der Deutschen Industrie Verlags GmbH (ADI) in September 2000, the merger created the second largest German company in the pre-tender construction information sector.
BMF and ADI provided pre-tender information on new-build and refurbishment projects to the construction and related industries in Germany. The sector was growing and consolidating at the time and our previous experience told us that the deal offered an attractive market opportunity.
Experience in a highly-specialised sector
It was our second investment in this highly-specialised sector. That not only gave us a good grasp of the sector dynamics, it also provided the merged BMF and ADI with a new Executive Chairman, Sture Wigart, who we had previously backed us when we acquired Byggfakta Scandinavia AB in 1996.
Thanks to the experience of our German team, we were able to transact the deal in German and under German law.
When it became clear that vendor price expectations would leave us unable to pursue an aggressive, acquisition-led build up, we sold our investment to a group of private investors in July 2001, achieving a satisfactory return for our investors.