Euro Hosting Wars Vol.3. Can group.one catch up to team.blue?

One last time before the summer break, let’s talk about M&A in European web hosting.

We were going to stop at 2 articles (The European Web Hosting M&A Lay of the Land and the Deep Dive on team.blue)… but then two things happened:

Firstly, group.one UK Holdco accounts came out… We couldn’t resist but take a peek - and share with you what we learnt. 

Secondly, group.one’s arch-rival team.blue sold a 20% stake to CPP, locking in a €4.8B valuation (c.19x 2024E EBITDA).

For those not familiar with group.one:

• A European provider of online presence, cloud hosting and digital marketing services. 2M+ customers in 12 countries and pro forma revenues of €303M

• Group.one’s predecessor, One.com was acquired by British private equity firm Cinven in 2018 from Accel KKR. At the time, it had revenue of €60M

• Cinven had developed a taste for hosting rollups after having developed Host Europe Group into a €1.7B EV business acquired by GoDaddy in early 2017

• In 2023, Cinven transferred the asset from Fund 6 to Fund 7 while welcoming a second institutional shareholder, the giant Canadian pension fund OTPP (C$248B net assets as at YE 2023). Pro forma ownership is Cinven 47%, OTPP 28%, management / founders 25%

Read on to learn:

• How Cinven adapted its playbook after hitting the wall early on

• group.one shelled out €650M+ on dogado. Was it worth it?

• What group.one’s governance and capital stack looks like with Ontario Teachers onboard

• A break-down of group.one’s P&L

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