Mid Europa Partners (Mid Europa), a private equity investor in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), is to invest in JS Hamilton and partner with its founder, Jan Olszowski, who will remain involved in the business.
The transaction is subject to customary clearance by anti-trust authorities and is expected to close in Q3 2018.
JS Hamilton is the leading Testing, Inspection and Certification (TIC) company in Poland engaged in food, non-food, fuel and environmental testing as well as cargo and engineering inspection. The Company operates 13 laboratories across Poland and CEE serving customers in Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.
Olszowski, the Founder of JS Hamilton, says: “I am delighted to join forces with Mid Europa as we enter the next phase of ambitious growth in Poland and across Central Europe. Mid Europa’s experience and expertise will support the Company’s management as it continues to improve the quality of service, further broadens our service portfolio and seeks to reach new customers through further national and international expansion.”
Pawel Padusinski, Partner and Co-Head of Mid Europa’s Warsaw office, says: “We have been impressed by JS Hamilton’s ability to continuously outpace market growth thanks to its unique offering. As a clear ‘national champion’ in Poland, the Company represents an ideal entry platform into the fast growing and resilient TIC sector in Poland as well as the broader Central European region. We look forward to partner with Jan and the management team, supporting JS Hamilton’s organic and inorganic growth strategy by leveraging our deep understanding of the adjacent laboratory testing sector from our investments in Alpha Medical and Diagnostyka.”
Matthew Strassberg, Co-Managing Partner of Mid Europa and Co-Head of its Warsaw office, adds: “Our partnership with the Founder of JS Hamilton represents our 9th platform investment in Poland where we have made equity commitments of approximately EUR1 billion to date. We look forward to contributing our extensive experience in supporting buy-and-build strategies and our strong pan-CEE capabilities to enable the Company to continue its growth and to further expand across multiple markets of Central Europe.”
The transaction was executed by Csanad Daniel, Bence Horvath, Pawel Malicki and Aleksandar Dragicevic.
Mid Europa was advised by White & Case (legal), OC&C (commercial), EY (financial & tax) and Fera (IT).
