Houlihan Lokey Advises LIFTKET

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that LIFTKET, a portfolio company of Afinum, has sold a majority stake to Ardian. This transaction closed on June 15, 2023.

Founded in 1948 by Dietrich Hoffmann, LIFTKET is a global leader in advanced lifting (electric chain hoists) and motion control technology. On the company premises near Leipzig, approximately 300 employees currently develop, produce, and sell electric chain hoists for the entertainment, industrial, and renewables end markets as well as tailor-made solutions for niche applications. The group operates internationally and serves more than 800 customers worldwide.

Afinum is an independent financial investor wholly owned by its management with offices in Munich, Zurich, and Hong Kong, specialising in the acquisition of shareholdings in financially sound and successful mid-market companies in the German-speaking region as well as in neighbouring countries in Europe. The exit reflects the sixth highly successful exit for the Afinum 7 fund and the highest absolute capital gain in Afinum history.

Afinum built an outstanding management team, which executed the strategic plan involving internationalisation and add-on strategy with the acquisitions of ChainMaster in 2018, Movecat in 2019, and Hoystek in 2020. Consequently, LIFTKET evolved from a more regional business with a single location in Germany to a resilient international platform with additional locations in Canada, Great Britain, India, and Germany. During Afinum’s holding period, the number of employees increased by more than 30%, and the production output of electrical chain hoists advanced significantly to an installed base of approximately 500,000 worldwide today.

Ardian is a world-leading private investment house managing or advising $150 billion across Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East on behalf of governments, institutions, pension funds, and high-net-worth investors.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to the shareholders of LIFTKET Group. The deal team assisted in marketing the transaction, managing the transaction process, and negotiating the financial aspects of the transaction on their behalf. This deal represents another successful transaction for Houlihan Lokey in the industrial technology space.