Investment firm buys Stark Group

Investment firm CVC Capital Partners is to acquire Stark Group, a distributor of heavy building materials in northern Europe.

CVC expects the purchase of Stark to be completed by the second quarter of 2021, but has not disclosed financial details of its agreement to buy the Denmark-based firm.

Stark has grown in recent years, following its own strategy of acquiring materials firms within the regions it serves; it currently operates predominantly in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Germany.

In the financial year 2018/2019 (ending 31 August 2019), the company reported record sales of DKK17.2 billion (€2.3 billion), representing an increase of 4.5% on the previous year.

Stark has been owned by an affiliate of the US-based investment firm Lone Star Funds since April 2018.

Søren P Olesen, CEO of Stark Group, said, “We are excited to partner with CVC to continue the journey we started together with Lone Star. We have enjoyed this collaboration, which has been instrumental in supporting us to achieve strong growth over recent years.”

He added, “We continue to see plenty of opportunities for further development and expansion both in respect of further organic growth and through accretive bolt-on acquisitions in the attractive markets in which we operate. We know CVC very well from the past and look forward to benefitting from their industry expertise, strategic insights and appetite to play an active role in future market consolidation. I could not imagine a better owner to support Stark Group going forward.”

Christoffer Sjøqvist, senior managing director at CVC, said, “We have followed Stark Group closely for many years and have been impressed with the quality of the business and its people. We are delighted to be supporting the company going forward and look forward to working closely with Søren P Olesen and his team to continue to grow Stark Group”.