PAI Partners takes majority stake in Infra Group

PAI Partners acquired a majority stake in Infra Group in October 2023, at an enterprise value of €1–10bn, in the company’s fifth leveraged transaction. ICG, the previous majority shareholder, and Andera Partners both reinvested alongside it, as did the management team led by Tom Vendelmans. The process, run by Amala Partners, was narrowed to a few financial bidders, with CVC Capital Partners competing until the final stage. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup arranged a term loan B of around 600 million euros, excluding committed capital expenditure lines, representing leverage of 4.5 times EBITDA. Infra Group builds and maintains the networks that run under streets. It designs the work, obtains the permits, digs the trenches, lays the electricity cables, water and sewerage pipes, gas mains, district heating and telecom lines, then maintains them and repairs them when they fail. It generated revenue of €450–900M and employed more than 3,000 technicians across Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany. Working across several disciplines rather than one is what distinguishes it. In a number of countries regulators require that a street be opened once rather than repeatedly, which favours contractors able to lay electricity, water and fibre in the same trench, and lets a client award a whole programme to a single company. The group had grown by acquisition, completing around thirty since 2019 and doubling in size twice: from its Belgian base it reached 350 million euros of revenue by the time ICG took control in 2021, then 750 million by 2023. The market remains divided among local contractors, each holding its own crews and its own relationships with the utilities in its region, which is what makes consolidation the route to scale. Demand rests on the electrification of heating and transport, which obliges network operators to reinforce cables sized for lower loads, and on the replacement of copper telephone lines by fibre, both programmes extending over years. Natixis Partners advised PAI Partners, while Amala Partners ran the sale for the shareholders.

In the past, Infra Group was acquired by ICG in 2021 as part of its expansion strategy.