The Kempen European Private Equity Fund, the private equity investment fund of Kempen Capital Management (Kempen), has acquired a direct interest in GSRI.
GSRI, originally a French company founded in 1997, offers inspection, diagnostic, and advisory solutions to optimise the management and maintenance of existing infrastructure projects during their entire life cycle.
The participation of the Kempen European Private Equity Fund is a co-investment with investment company Sparring Capital, www.sparringcapital.com, and the original founders. The management team of GSRI has also invested with its own resources. As a result, the interests of the various investors are equally represented.
Sven Smeets, Managing Director of Kempen Private Markets, says: “We are pleased to announce our investment in GSRI. GSRI is a unique company with significant knowledge and experience in innovative infrastructure management. The company inspects and captures the state of repair and maintenance of infrastructure assets, such as water mains, sewer systems, bridges, roads, and power plants. Their analysis allows for much more effective and efficient planning and execution of preventive maintenance works. Our objective is to ensure that GSRI can grow further on an international scale through a targeted buy-and-build strategy, and to focus on targeted acquisitions within the industry.”
Bram Bikker, Director of Kempen Private Markets, adds: “GSRI has a solid client base consisting of water supply companies, municipalities, (semi)government institutions, and utility companies. Yet another important group of clients are concessionaires, such as electricity companies, airports, railway companies, motorways, and toll road operators. In many European countries, the infrastructure is obsolete, presenting interesting opportunities for GSRI’s international growth. We see significant opportunities in granting our clients access to such a company.”
This is the second participation of the fund in 2021 after acquiring an interest in the British software company Eque2 in February of this year. This is the eighth direct private equity deal of the Kempen European Private Equity Fund and the second deal for the fund in France.
