The Belgian-Dutch investment company Waterland Private Equity Investments (Waterland) will provide growth capital to the Intelligent Group, the Belgian market leader in developing and providing hosting services.
Intelligent was founded in 1999 by Jonas Dhaenens under the Combell brand and has grown to become the most important provider of hosting services in Belgium in recent years, with a strong presence in the Netherlands. The company is primarily known for its strong hosting brands Combell and Unitt. Combell focuses on a diverse offering of hosting services ranging from domain names, e-mail and webhosting to managed hosting server applications and related products, both for SMEs and large enterprises. Unitt focuses exclusively on complex managed cloud solutions, tailor made to the requirements of the customer. Unitt concentrates primarily on e-commerce, high-traffic websites, Software-As-A-Service platforms and business critical applications.
In order to accelerate its European growth strategy, Intelligent recently decided to reinforce its capital structure. For that purpose the company has taken Waterland on board as a financial partner. Waterland will provide Intelligent with additional capital and support the management team where necessary with the continued growth of the group.
Jonas Dhaenens, CEO Combell: “Over the last years the European hosting market has grown strongly thanks to an increasing demand by our customers for an impeccable online presence, as well as the increasing trend to outsource hosting and cloud services to specialized providers such as Intelligent. The long term partnership with Waterland provides us with additional firepower to accelerate our ambitious growth program„
Cedric Van Cauwenberghe, Partner at Waterland Private Equity Investments: “For Waterland, the investment in Intelligent fits perfectly with our strategy to invest in growing, high-quality companies that are aiming to acquire leading positions in their sector„
About Waterland Private Equity Investments
Waterland is an independent Belgian-Dutch private equity investment group that supports entrepreneurs in realizing their growth ambitions. With substantial financial resources and committed industry expertise, Waterland enables its portfolio companies to achieve accelerated growth both organically and through acquisitions.
Waterland acts as an active shareholder in its portfolio companies, playing a key role in their strategic and operational development, growth and performance. With its experienced, entrepreneurial investment team, Waterland aims to help ambitious entrepreneurs obtain a strong market position in today’s increasingly competitive business environment. As of today, Waterland has invested in 57 platform companies and has made an additional 250 add-on acquisitions to expand those platforms.
Waterland has since its foundation in 1999 consistently achieved top tier investment performance. It ranks as the number 2 most consistent performing buyout fund manager worldwide in the 2015 Preqin Consistent Performers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capital Report, February 2015, and as the number 2 global private equity firm in the fifth annual HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Performance Ranking compiled by Prof. Gottschalg of HEC Paris Business School, January 2015.
Waterland has offices in Belgium (Antwerp), the Netherlands (Bussum), Germany (Munich and Düsseldorf) and Poland (Warsaw), and currently manages € 4 billion of investor commitments.
(Quelle)