Julian Bärenfänger

Business Services

Background

Business Services is currently IK Partners’ largest sector focus and a notable area of strength. Backed by more than 30 years’ worth of experience and continued success in this area, our investment strategy focuses on defined subsectors, selected based on a combination of strong growth and fundamentals, as well as shifts in the market landscape. Within these subsectors, we look for companies that are: operating in large, diverse and fragmented markets; experiencing increased demand for efficiency; and driven by technology-enabled growth trends.

Why We Invest

Companies operating in fragmented markets present us with the opportunity to drive consolidation via carefully defined buy-and-build strategies and create competitive advantage by scaling up. Where there is demand for efficiency, we find significant value generation potential to reduce costs and optimise processes. Companies backed by technology and driven by technology-enabled growth trends provide us with scope to improve customer service and the quality of the offering as well as generate sizeable market share gains vs traditional low-tech incumbents.

How We Add Value

We work alongside management teams within this sector to add value in the areas of:

• Salesforce Efficiency
• Digital Transformation
• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Development of Recurring Revenue Streams

Our Track Record

We have a well-established track record of investing in successful companies across the full spectrum of the Business Services sector. To date, we have invested in 50 companies and deployed €3.0 billion of capital.