The Carlyle Group Acquires 80% of Transics N.V.

London – Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group today announces it has acquired Transics N.V., a specialist provider of advanced fleet management solutions for the European road transport industry.

The Carlyle Group is acquiring the company in partnership with the founders and co-Chief Executive Officers, Walter Mastelinck and Ludwig Lemenu.

Transics N.V. was founded in 1991 and designs, develops and markets fleet management solutions for the road transport industry including on-board computers, software programs and associated services. Transics is headquartered in Ypres, Belgium and has a team of approximately 100 employees. Transics is the market leader in the Belgium, French and Dutch markets and currently has more than 800 customers in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Germany and Poland.

Transics plans to grow the business further through geographic expansion in Europe, particularly in Germany, Spain, Sweden and Central Europe, and by increasing the range of services it offers to its customers.

Walter Mastelinck, co-CEO, Transics said, "We are delighted to be partnering with Carlyle to take Transics through our next phase of growth. We believe Carlyle will be able to support us in our plans as we seek to expand the company’s presence across Europe and Carlyle’s understanding of our business both from a transportation and a technology perspective will be invaluable to the company."

Vladimir Lasocki, Director, The Carlyle Group said, "Transics is a very attractive company to Carlyle because of its solid market position and growth profile. Transics has successfully established a leadership position in key European countries. We believe that Transics has the potential, thanks to its outstanding team and quality products, to extend its leadership throughout Europe in the coming years. This will enable the company to continue to expand faster than the overall fleet management solutions market, which is already growing at double-digit rates today. "

Carlyle is acquiring Transics through its European technology fund, Carlyle Europe Technology Partners. This is the third investment from the fund, which is dedicated to small buyout transactions and growth capital investments in European technology companies with an enterprise value of €25 million to €250 million. Other investments in the fund include UC4, an IT scheduling and workload automation software company headquartered in Austria, and NP Aerospace, a composite materials company based in the UK. The European technology team is co-headed by David FitzGerald and Wolfgang Hanrieder.

The Carlyle Group was advised by Fortis Corporate Finance and Frost & Sullivan (commercial), DLA Piper (legal) and KPMG (accounting). The debt financing was provided by Dexia.