Cinven and Ontario Teachers’ to invest in combination of group.ONE and dogado group

Private equity heavyweight Cinven has teamed with the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan to combine SME website hosting and marketing services group.ONE and Dogado Group.

Sweden-based Group.ONE, which Cinven bought in 2019, provides mass hosting and software products to about 1.6 million customers across Europe through brands including one.com, Hostnet and WP Media.

Dogado provides similar services in Germany, Austria and Switzerland for more than 380,000 customers through brands including dogado, Metanet and Herold.

Cinven and Ontario Teachers’ said they believe the combination will benefit from structurally growing, resilient end-markets and an extensive M&A pipeline in a fragmented but consolidating market.

Get the week’s top news delivered directly to your inbox – Sign up for our newsletter

Cinven partner Thomas Railhac said, “group.ONE has performed very strongly under Cinven’s ownership since its original investment in the business in 2019 and we are delighted to be continuing to support group.ONE’s growth strategy through this transaction.

“The combination of group.ONE and dogado will create a leading pan-European player in the online presence market, with significant opportunity for further growth, both organically and through buy and build.

“This is a sector we know well through Cinven’s successful investments in HEG and one.com.”

Cinven made the deal using its seventh flagship fund, which raced to a €10bn hard cap close in 2019 after less than four months in the market.

Cinven is currently believed to be eyeing up to $12bn for its eighth flagship fundraise. The firm picked up a €260m commitment from NYSCRF in October.

Source: AltAssets

Can’t stop reading? Read more