H2 Equity Partners agrees to sell Halex to Bencis Capital Partners after a successful turnaround, followed by rapid organic growth & several add-on acquisitions

H2 Equity Partners (“H2”) is pleased to announce that it has agreed to sell Halex Holding GmbH and its subsidiaries (“Halex” or the “Company”) to Bencis Capital Partners (“Bencis”), a mid-market private equity investor that supports strong and successful businesses in the Benelux and Germany.

Halex is a German industrial group – comprising of two businesses – that provides metal hardening and heat treatment services for a variety of end markets, and that manufactures complex steel dies for the aluminum extrusion industry.

Sven Killmer, Roberto Lucato and Timo Röskes, the central management team of Halex, comment: “We would like to thank H2 for their contribution and support during the past 4.5 years and are excited to pursue Halex’ organic and external growth plan.”

Gert Jan van der Hoeven, Managing Partner of H2, comments: “During H2’s ownership period, Halex has benefited from the turnaround of the central support functions, strong organic growth and performance improvement of the individual sites supported by growth enhancing investments, and several attractive add-on acquisitions. The company has transformed itself into a market leading player with strong management and best-in-class systems and processes. The company’s profits have increased fourfold in the past five years. We are confident that Bencis is the right partner for Halex in terms of supporting further development and growth.”

Cedric De Dycker, Investment Manager at H2, comments: “Halex has witnessed an impressive development and we look back on a number of intense and fun years with the Company. We would like to express our gratitude to the central management team and to the local managing directors for their commitment and for the fruitful collaboration. With its innovative technologies, leadership in quality, strategically located footprint and strong entrepreneurial culture, Halex is well positioned to capture further organic growth and continue its buy-and-build program.”

H2 has been advised by Lincoln International (corporate finance), Morrison & Foerster (legal), Houthoff (legal), Loyens & Loeff (tax), PWC (commercial, financial and tax), and ERM (environmental).

About Halex
Halex is a German industrial group comprising of two businesses:
Härtha Hardening – a metal hardening and heat treatment business, with a comprehensive portfolio of highly value-added services for mission critical components used in various end markets such as automotive, machine tooling, construction, aerospace and medicine.
Halex Extrusion Dies – the development and manufacturing of complex steel dies for the aluminum extrusion industry.
The Company operates 12 sites in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Romania and employs a staff of circa 460 FTEs.

Terry Musson

The Amberon Group is a market leading traffic management provider to the utilities and Local Authority markets. Amberon was established in May 2002 with our first depot in Paignton, South West England. Our founding core principles remain at the heart of everything that we do and our continued desire to achieve our purpose; to provide the best service in the Traffic Management sector. This has been the foundation for our success and has cemented our position as the market leader in TM.

During the initial transaction we never felt under any pressure & instantly recognised we would become part of the family. H2 took the time to listen to our views & business strategy, it was obvious from the very beginning that they would be the perfect partner for us.

The guys at H2 have enabled us to continue the momentum & have provided the expertise & knowledge to help us continue on the journey to constantly improve our service offering.

Working with H2 during the last 2 years has given us additional support not just financially but the advice & expertise has helped analytically & strategically.

The ambition and the drive H2 have is extremely infectious & continues to assist the group to overachieve.

It’s enormously reassuring to know H2 will always be at the end of the phone to offer advice but heartening to know they have the trust in us to deliver.