US-American Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. LP (KKR) is set to sell the majority stake that it bought in Välinge Innovation in spring 2016 to Danish Kirkbi. Under the terms of an agreement signed by the two companies at the end of December 2017, Kirkbi will hold 49.8% of the shares in Välinge in future; the other 50.2% will stay in the hands of Pervanovo Invest and owned by Darko Pervan. The transaction is to close over the next two months once conditions have been met, and thus will likely be completed by the end of February.
Controlled by the Kirk Kristiansen family, Kirkbi claims to focus on long-term investments. Its current portfolio includes a 75% stake in Lego Group and 29.8% of the shares in Legoland’s operator Merlin Entertainments. Kirkbi’s industrial holdings are pooled in the long-term investments division. Up until now, these holdings have included ISS (10%) and Falck (27.7%), Nilfisk and Minimax Viking, in which Kirkbi owns 29.4% of the shares.
Välinge Innovation presently employs about 130 workers and generated revenues of about €120m in the 2017 financial year, according to preliminary figures. The EBITDA margin hence reached more than 50%. Välinge Innovation had employed about 100 workers and generated revenues of some €86m and EBITDA of some €46m in the 2015 financial year before KKR came on board. The EBITDA margin thus soared to 53.5 %. The number of employees was put at 115 and its revenues at roughly €100m in the 2016 financial year. To date most of its revenues come from awarding production and distribution licences for flooring and furniture technologies developed in-house as well as resulting licence fees.