21 Invest takes majority stake in Trime

21 Invest signed a binding agreement in November 2022 to acquire a majority stake in Trime from Wise Equity, which sold the 90% holding it had taken in 2019 through its fourth fund. The sale followed a competitive process launched in June and led to exclusive negotiations in October, on an asking price above eleven times EBITDA. Chairman Andrea Fontanella and chief executive Paolo Tacconi reinvested and stayed in charge. Based at Cassinetta di Lugagnano near Milan, Trime builds the equipment that lights and powers worksites where there is no mains supply. Its lighting towers are trailers carrying masts that raise floodlights over construction sites, mines, roadworks and events, and since 2017 it has added mobile generators under the Tekno Proget name, applying to power generation the same work on renewable sources. It manufactures at four plants in Italy, employs 200 people and sells in more than 30 countries through its own branches in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States. It expected revenue of €50–100M in 2022, more than 90% of it abroad, and had posted an EBITDA of €5–25M in 2020. Around 40% of its sales came from hybrid, electric and solar models. That proportion is the measure of a shift under way across the market: diesel towers are being replaced by machines that consume less, emit less and run quietly, which matters on urban sites with noise restrictions and where fuel must be delivered by road. Demand is also supported by site safety rules, since proper lighting reduces accidents on work carried out at night. Under Wise Equity the company had grown through acquisitions, buying the American distributor FTG Equipment Solutions, with 20 million dollars of sales, and the European generator manufacturer BBG in September 2021. DC Advisory acted as financial adviser to Wise Equity and to the minority shareholders.