Sefbo

Creation of the leading provider of services to private housing cooperatives in Norway During Valedo’s ownership, Sefbo has achieved double-digit annual organic growth figures and expanded its presence from a local provider in the Oslo region to a national service provider through more than 30 add-on acquisitions. Moreover, Sefbo’s transformed service offering has been developed from exclusively offering technical services to offering a comprehensive range of services for private housing cooperatives, including financial management services as well as specialist and digital services. In total, Sefbo’s sales grew by 6x in the four years it was majority owned by Valedo. In addition to a strong financial performance under Valedo’s ownership, Sefbo showed strong customer and employee satisfaction. Background Sefbo was established in 2019 through a merger of three Oslo-based companies offering technical services to housing cooperatives. In connection with the creation of Sefbo, Valedo joined as a partner and investor. Valedo had followed and analysed the Nordic market for real estate services for several years and had identified services to housing cooperatives as an attractive niche. The niche was considered attractive due to the Norwegian market being highly fragmentated and showing healthy underlying market growth with limited cyclicality and increasing customer demand for new services following the long-term outsourcing trend, presenting an attractive opportunity to create a new type of integrated full-service national provider. In addition, the business model, with a substantial share of recurring and contracted revenues, was considered attractive. Prior to Valedo’s investment in Sefbo, there existed no sizeable full-service providers in Norway, and customers were therefore required to engage multiple suppliers for maintenance and administration services, resulting in increased costs and complexity for the customers. What has been accomplished During Valedo’s ownership, Sefbo developed from consisting of three local providers of technical services in the Oslo region to become a full-service integrated national market leader. Through double digit annual organic growth, significant investments in digital tools for improved customer satisfaction and over 30 add-on acquisitions, Sefbo increased its revenue by six times and operating profit by more than five times in four years. Additionally, the organisation was strengthened and professionalised through the recruitments of, among other, a CEO, CFO, CTO and COO. The number of FTEs increased from around 100 to over 600. Divestment of Sefbo Following inbound interest from PHM Group (a group with similar offering focused on the Northern European market), bilateral discussions in early 2023 led to an offer for Sefbo being presented in July 2023, taking into consideration the strategic position as well as the synergy potential between PHM Group and Sefbo. This led to the transaction being consummated in September 2023.