Apax exits IEE to Chinese investors
Apax Partners has agreed to sell Electronics & Engineering (IEE), a Luxembourg-based developer of specialized sensing systems, to a consortium comprising Chinese strategic investors and an international financial investor.
Apax acquired IEE in 2004 from global steel and mining company ArcelorMittal as part of a management buyout also supported by Luxempart and BGL Investment Partners. Over the last eight years, IEE's revenues increased to EUR160 million ($208 million) from EUR70 million, and EBITDA tripled.
"We are extremely proud to have contributed to the emergence of a world-class high-tech company and to have provided our support in good times as well as in bad", said Bertrand Pivin, a partner at Apax. "We worked hand in hand with management that was visionary in launching IEE's Chinese operations back in 2006. Today, IEE is the leading provider of sensor-based electronic safety systems in the Chinese automotive market."
Founded in 1989, IEE has operations in Europe, the US and Asia. The company manufactures automotive safety sensing systems for occupant detection and classification.
The deal is another example of Chinese companies' desire to expand overseas. Private equity firms are often the sellers, and sometimes the partners, in such deals.
Notable transactions in 2012 included CITIC Private Equity supporting Sany Heavy Industry's acquisition of Putzmeister, a German manufacturer of high-tech concrete pumps, and Weichai Power's investment in Kion, a German forklift truckmaker backed by KKR and Goldman Sachs.
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