As at 15 February 2019, Berk Partners acquired a substantial minority interest in Molenmaker Techniek, a company established in Sneek. Molenmaker Techniek designs, produces and maintains hydraulic systems, in particular for civil engineering.

Background and activitiest
Molenmaker Techniek was founded in 2005 by Otbert Molenmaker and has grown into a leading company in its market in 15 years. The company focuses on designing, creating and maintaining hydraulic systems in the broadest sense of the word. This includes bridge and lock controls, special cylinders, aggregates and ship’s hydraulics. In addition, the design and production of special machines for production automation is also an activity of the company. The systems are supplied with or without electrical controls at the customer’s request.

Market
The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management announced last year that it is launching a project for major maintenance on various bridges, locks and tunnels – which date from the 1950s and 1960s. Failures and disruptions cause disruption, traffic jams and economic damage. The impact of this is increasing due to the growth of mobility. The ministry will rejuvenate and renew old bridges and locks, focusing on the application of innovative techniques so that signals of possible defects arrive earlier. Given the size of the maintenance task, from 2020 onwards the ministry will allocate 350 million euros for the refurbishment instead of the current 150 million euros per year.

Given the strong position of Molenmaker Techniek in this market, a part of the projects mentioned above can be obtained by Molenmaker Techniek.

Transaction
The transaction concerns a so-called pre-exit. Otbert Molenmaker remains director / owner and Berk Partners acquires a substantial minority interest. Molenmaker foresees interesting growth opportunities in the market, both organically and via buy-and-build. Berk Partners wants to realize these growth opportunities together with Otbert Molenmaker and jointly sell Molenmaker Techniek to a strategic party in approximately 5 years.