Fund VI and co-investors acquired KPC from the family of Founder Kurt Poulsen and its CEO, Bo Knudsen. They will retain a minority interest in the entity formed from the merger of KPC with CASA, the real estate developer and turnkey contractor owned by the Fund since last year. The terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed.

The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority has cleared the merger which establishes a platform that in 2021 generated revenue of DKK 5.3 billion (EUR 700 million) and EBIT in excess of DKK 600 million, on a pro forma basis. CASA’s CEO Torben Modvig will head the companies post-merger, leading almost 500 employees at offices in Aarhus, Copenhagen, Herning and Horsens. Bo Knudsen will serve as a senior adviser.

“We’ve assembled a platform with the financial health, scale and expertise to access the best opportunities arising from Denmark’s attractive rental housing market. There are excellent medium- to long-term prospects in CASA-KPC’s target markets for those who can deliver mid-priced rental housing through development or refurbishment. It’s a strong theme in our pan-European residential strategies of our most recent funds, which also include a separate investment in the Dutch residential developer VanWonen,” says Saul Goldstein, Founder and CEO of ActivumSG.

Elevated property prices and rising mortgage rates are lifting demand for rental accommodation in Denmark, which is experiencing low unemployment and wage growth. In addition, increased urbanization, declining household sizes and greater flexibility required by tenants are underpinning longer-term demand, particularly in larger cities. Denmark’s stock of rental housing has not kept pace, however, creating an environment which supports rents and makes rental housing investment attractive to  international institutions.  

“The platform has an outstanding management team in place to oversee the integration of these two businesses, which excel operationally and have entrepreneurial flair. As a market-leading platform CASA-KPC is perfectly positioned to win the bigger and longer-term urban development projects, drive sustainability in new projects, diversify its activities and build better relationships with clients and suppliers,” says Stefan Mohr, Head of European Corporate Transactions at ActivumSG.