With more than 600 employees, Transporeon connects industrial and commercial companies with truck forwarding companies throughout Europe.
(Photo: imago images/Arnulf Hettrich)
Frankfurt, Dusseldorf The German logistics IT company Transporeon operates a cloud-based online marketplace based on the eBay model. Instead of household goods, however, transport services are traded there.
Three years after the move, owner Hg – formerly known as Hg Capital – has now started a sale process, according to people familiar with the transaction. The company can be valued at 1.3 to 1.7 billion euros. Hg declined to comment.
According to experts, the deal could be one of the first major transactions in an imminent wave of consolidation among the freight exchanges. In addition to Transporeon, the market leaders in Germany include the Rocket Internet holding Instafreight, Forto managed by the Heilemann brothers, the Berlin start-up Sennder and the family-run Erkrath freight exchange Timocom – albeit with different business models.
According to data from Fraunhofer SCS, 350 logistics start-ups are now offering their services in German-speaking countries. Only a few of the providers are still in the black.
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In view of the slump in the valuations of technology companies, young companies are now finding it much more difficult than they were a year ago when it comes to raising new venture capital for their expansion. In other sectors, the first examples show that companies are no longer receiving fresh investor money, but are being bought up. For example, fast food delivery service Gorillas is currently in negotiations to be taken over by rival Getir.
Freight exchanges do not have volatile end customer business, but business with other companies that is considered stable. However, experts expect that a few large platforms will prevail in the long term and that the smaller providers will be bought up by the larger ones.
Logisticians, software companies and investors are interested
Unlike gorillas, Transporeon is not a crisis, but a company that can show increasing operating profits. According to financial circles, the company expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) of around 70 million euros for next year, after 60 million this year. Potential buyers expect to pay 20 to 30 times operating profit to win the bid.
A few days ago, information packages about Transporeon were sent to interested parties who had prevailed in the first qualifying round in the summer. The first bids are due in November, with Goldman Sachs acting as sales advisor.
The fact that Hg decided to start an auction in the current environment, where it is difficult for financial investors to find outside capital for acquisition financing, shows how convinced the investor is of the attractiveness of Transporeon. Compared to financial investors, companies with good credit ratings find it easier to obtain loans for acquisitions.
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Transporeon is not only considered interesting for other financial investors, such as EQT, Astorg, KKR, Cinven, Advent or Francisco Partners. Logisticians such as Kühne+Nagel, industrial companies such as Honeywell or software developers such as Hexagon or Wisetech are also among the potential buyers.
Hg bought Transporeon from Texas Pacific Group (TPG) in 2019 and has held more than 80 percent of the shares since then. Not only the online platform is for sale, but the entire TP Group.
The company managed by Stephan Sieber and Peter Maluck includes foreign companies in Russia, Poland, Singapore and the USA, among others, as well as the logistics consultancy TIM Consult, the tendering platform Ticontract and the company Control, which specializes in freight invoice verification and was acquired two years ago for around 36 million euros -Pay.
Fewer empty runs, less CO2
According to the most recent annual report for 2020, the TP Group achieved an EBITDA of EUR 37.6 million with annual sales of EUR 98.3 million. The bottom line, however, was that the group – as in 2019 – was in the red. In particular, the regular depreciation, which corresponded to around ten percent of the balance sheet total, pushed the Transporeon mother into the red with 61.2 million euros.
The Ulm-based company with more than 600 employees networks industrial and trading companies with trucking companies throughout Europe. A total of 1000 shippers with almost 90,000 forwarders are connected worldwide. According to the company, the platform can help reduce CO2 emissions by up to ten percent by reducing empty truck journeys.
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