Ista International: Expansion with private equity

Until April 2003, this specialist for the billing of energy and water, from Essen in Germany, was part of the Viterra AG, or rather the E.ON group. At that point, it was acquired by CVC, over the course of a very competitive auction, for a purchasing price of 860 million euros. Since the beginning of 2005, Viterra Energy Services is trading as ista International GmbH.

During CVC's involvement, the company turnover rose from roughly 460 million euros in 2002 to about 600 million euros in 2006. Furthermore, the turnover outside of Germany improved from 27 percent to nearly 50 percent, over the same period. Apart from organic growth, another main reason for these results was the acquisition of five foreign companies. CVC assisted ista in the process. Three further, smaller acquisitions were made within Germany, several million euros were spent on all acquisitions, in total.

Furthermore, ground-breaking investments were made into a new generation of radio-frequency metering devices, and several entirely new products were developed (integrated billing, smoke-detectors).

At the time of CVC's entry, the company employed a staff of 3,700 people, world-wide. At the end of 2006, this number had risen to 4,500.

CVC sold its interest in ista in March of 2007, to Charterhouse Capital Partners and for a sum of about 2.4 billion euros. Even after this transaction, CVC has remained a minority shareholder of ista.