US-based GPS telematics firm Fleet Complete has bought Dutch peer ITmobile in its second acquisition to gain scale since being sold to private equity. The combined group will have more than 7,000 customers, 230 employees, and around 140,000 subscribers across five countries.
US-based GPS telematics firm Fleet Complete has bought Dutch peer ITmobile in its second acquisition to gain scale since being sold to private equity.
The deal was funded through equity investment from Fleet Complete and ITmobile’s management teams, as well as PE firm Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) which took control of the former in 2014. Financial details were not disclosed.
ITmobile was founded in 2000 and serves nearly 1,000 customers, primarily in the Benelux region. The combined group will have more than 7,000 customers, 230 employees, and around 140,000 subscribers across five countries.
Fleet Complete CEO Tony Lourakis said: “We are excited about the transaction and look forward to working closely with our ITmobile team in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg to accelerate our collective growth and Fleet Complete’s European expansion.”
The global commercial telematics market is set to grow from about US$20bn in 2015 to US$47.58bn by 2020, at a compound annual growth rate of 18.9%, according to a recent MarketsandMarkets report.
Demand for telematics devices is coming from both consumers and enterprises, and MarketsandMarkets analysts expect Europe to be its largest market by size. They expect Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific to experience an increase in market traction during the next four years, with Latin America also tipped for a high growth rate.
A Fleet Complete spokeswoman said the Northern American telematics market alone is only about 20% penetrated. She said 80% of that market is forecast to be penetrated by 2020.
The group competes with larger players in the sector such as British MSS operator Inmarsat by focusing its standard suite of products on the small business and mid-market.
It made its last acquisition at the start of 2015, when it bought Canadian telematics firm FieldWorker Mobile Technology Solutions.
MDP acquired Ontario-based Fleet Complete on 2 September 2014 when it was known as Complete Innovations (CI).
Its investment represented CI’s second institutional financing since its inception in 2000, providing liquidity to shareholders, primarily for its prior institutional investor Symmetric Capital, as well as capital for growth.
MDP MD Doug Grissom and additional representatives from the PE firm joined the group’s board as part of the deal.
CI hired Evercore as exclusive financial adviser, and Dentons Canada and Choate, Hall & Stewart as legal counsel.
MDP mandated Kirkland & Ellis and Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt as legal advisers.
