Alder divests Aidon – a leading provider of smart metering solutions

Alder Fund I AB (“Alder”) and the minority shareholders of Aidon Oy (“Aidon” or the “Company”) have agreed on a sale of the Company to Gridspertise S.r.l (“Gridspertise”), a global technological company supporting Distribution System Operators worldwide with digital transformation of electricity grids. Gridspertise is jointly owned and controlled by CVC Capital Partners and Enel Group, and is headquartered in Italy.

Aidon is a leading provider in the Nordics of solutions for the smart grid and for smart metering. Its systems provide value to customers by enabling reliable metering and distribution of energy as well as efficient maintenance processes of distribution networks. Aidon is headquartered in Finland and has branches in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

Alder invested in Aidon in August 2013. During Alder’s ownership, Aidon has grown from a position as a local Finnish company to a strong Nordic platform with a leading technology base. The Company has transformed from a focused hardware supplier to provide solutions including hardware, software, and services. Substantial investments have been made in developing the technology offering, the organisation, and in building strong partnerships with customers.

Smart grids are critical to the energy transition, enabling visibility, optimization of networks and integration of renewable energy production. Aidon’s technology is in use in about five million energy metering points across the Nordic countries.

“We are proud of Aidon’s transformation during our ownership, where Aidon has developed into the leading Nordic company in its field of advanced solutions for smart metering and smart grids. We believe that Aidon, with support of its new owner, has strong potential to become the foremost player in Europe in this domain.”, says Dag Broman, Partner at Alder.

The transaction was closed in November 2023.

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For more information, please contact:

About Alder

Alder is a Nordic investment fund with the goal of creating the best possible conditions for long-term development of environmentally sustainable technology and services companies. With a mix of industrial and financial expertise and with the interest in entrepreneurship as a driving force, Alder creates profitable growth in close companionship with our companies.

Alder invests in Insort, a leader in advanced machine vision solutions for food processing applications

Alder, a Nordic investment fund focusing on developing environmentally sustainable companies, has closed an investment in Insort GmbH (“Insort” or the “Company”). Alder has, as a new majority owner of Insort, partnered with the founder and management to support the growth journey of the Company.

Insort, established in 2011, pioneered the adoption of the Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) technology within the food processing industry and has stayed at the forefront of developing solutions for food sorting and inspection. The advanced HSI-technology provides detailed chemical profiles of products and offers a depth of information beyond that of traditional visual sensors. Over the past decade, Insort has developed several HSI-based product solutions catering to various food types and the Company has continuously gained market share. Insort is headquartered in Kirchberg an der Raab, Austria, and has operations in Europe and North America. Insort has a track record of profitable organic growth and generated over 15 MEUR in revenues in 2022.

Insort operates in a growing market, supported by structural growth drivers such as automation and increasing requirements for food safety and efficiency. Insort supports environmental sustainability through reducing food waste and its solutions promote improved food quality and food safety for consumers. As the new majority owner, Alder will support Insort in continuing its growth journey within current and new applications and geographies, both organically and through acquisitions.

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“We are very happy to announce this investment for Alder in Insort, which provides customers with a unique and highly capable technology that generates improved food safety, reduced food waste and efficient production processes. Insort is a an exciting investment for Alder with strong organic growth potential and it will be a strong platform for further acquisitions.”

says Dag Broman, Partner at Alder

“Since foundation in 2011, we at Insort have achieved great success in establishing ourselves as a leading player with new technology in the sorting and inspection markets. After growing into several food segments and geographies, we are now ready to take a major next step in our growth journey by partnering with Alder for further expansion.”

says Matthias Jeindl, Founder and CEO of Insort

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For more information, please contact:

About Insort GmbH

Founded in 2011, Insort GmbH is one of the global technology leaders in vision solutions for the food industry. Insort GmbH focuses on the development, manufacturing and marketing of digital sorting and control systems based on their proprietary Chemical Imaging Technology (CIT®). CIT® is a hyperspectral imaging technology designed for maximum performance, which enables the classification of food products based on their chemical composition and is used inline and in real time.

In a very short time, Insort has managed to establish itself globally in the highly competitive digital sorting market with its successful machine series under the name Sherlock. The company currently employs ~60 people at 3 locations (Austria, USA, Canada).

For more information, visit insort.at

About Alder

Alder is a Nordic investment fund with the goal of creating the best possible conditions for long-term development of environmentally sustainable technology and services companies. With a mix of industrial and financial expertise and with the interest in entrepreneurship as a driving force, Alder creates profitable growth in close companionship with our companies.

Alder har rest sin tredje fond, med en internationell investerarbas och söker en CFO som kan utveckla bolagets finansfunktion och som vill bidra till en mer hållbar framtid.

Som CFO leder du och utvecklar finansfunktionen tillsammans med bolaget. Du kommer ha en central roll med nära samarbete med partnergruppen och övriga investeringsorganisationen samt med externa parter såsom Alders externa fondadministratör, revisorer, jurister och investerare. Rollen spänner över många områden från redovisning och fondrapportering till legala frågor och skatt. Du rapporterar till partnerteamet och tjänsten är placerad i centrala Stockholm.

Mer information och ansökan

Alder invests in EWGroup, a leading provider of land and soil remediation services

Stockholm – September 13^th, 2023 – Alder, a Nordic investment fund focusing on the development of sustainable companies, has closed an investment in EWGroup AB (“EWGroup” or the “Company”). Alder will become majority owner of EWGroup and will partner with management to continue the growth journey of the Company.

EWGroup, founded in 2013, is a one-stop-shop for the full treatment cycle of contaminated materials. The Company focuses on land and soil remediation, primarily treating borrow material generated by the construction industry. The Company is headquartered in Norrköping, Sweden with 45 employees and has a track record of profitable organic growth, achieving revenues of 200+ mSEK in 2022.

EWG operates in a growing and resilient market with strong support from industry and macro trends and increased environmental awareness for sustainable business practices. Demand for recycling services for construction waste and its residual products extensively exceeds current supply. The environmental benefits are related to increased treatment and recycling rate of inbound waste to minimize the use of scarce and finite resources.

As the new majority owner, Alder will provide capital, experience, and support to enable EWGroup to continue its growth journey through geographical expansion and further developments of the company’s capabilities to address existing and new treatment technologies to increase circularity and reuse.

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“Since the first meeting, the EWGroup team has impressed us with their strong company culture, advanced offering, and novel thinking around circularity in a traditional industry. Construction and renovation are sectors accounting for most of the GHG emissions in the world. We look forward to growing the Company in partnership with management, building on the strong foundation accomplished so far”

says Arash Raisse, Partner at Alder

“Partnering with Alder will allow us to work with a partner that shares our values and can help us reach EWGroup’s full potential. We have built a close relationship with Alder during the process and were impressed by their industry insight and previous company development experience. For us it was key to have a partner with a shared vision for what we aim to achieve”

says Max Lindqvist, CEO and minority owner and Per Lindqvist, founder of EWGroup

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For more information, please contact:

About EWGroup

EWGroup started as a family-owned company established in 2013 with headquarters in Norrköping focusing on land and soil remediation, primarily treating borrow material generated by the construction industry being a one stop shop for the full treatment cycle. Operates through 4 strategically located facilities near urban centres and infrastructure projects and employs ~45 employees. Customers are municipals, commercial end users and transportation operators.

For more information, visit EWGroup.se

About Alder

Alder is a Nordic investment fund with the goal of creating the best possible conditions for long-term development of sustainable technology and services companies. With a mix of industrial and financial expertise and with the interest in entrepreneurship as a driving force, Alder creates profitable growth in close companionship with our companies.

Alder Fund I AB (“Alder”) and the minority shareholders of Satel Oy (“Satel” or the “Company”) have agreed on a sale of the Company to Topcon Positioning Systems (“Topcon”), a global designer, manufacturer and distributor of precision measurement and workflow solutions for the global construction, geospatial and agriculture markets. Topcon Positioning Systems is headquartered in California, USA.

Satel is a Finnish global radio technology company at the forefront of developing and manufacturing a variety of mission-critical multi-technology connectivity modules for industrial and sustainable autonomous systems. Its radio frequency technologies are relied on by precision positioning, environmental monitoring, smart farming and land-surveying ecosystems, amongst other demanding industries.

Alder invested in Satel in November 2014. During Alder’s ownership, Satel has focused its growth efforts on applications and customers with the highest requirements for reliability, accuracy and security. Substantial investments have been made to develop the technology offering, the organisation and to build strong partnerships with a global customer base through designed-in, modularised connectivity solutions. As a result, Satel has developed strongly, strategically and financially, since 2014. Satel’s contributions to the enabling of low carbon technologies have had far-reaching environmental benefits. With a taxonomy eligibility of 97% of turnover, Satel’s positive environmental handprint has developed in tandem with its growth.

“We are proud of the leading position that Satel has built in the field of communication technology, the strong team in Salo (Finland) and the excellent relations with the Company’s global network of specialist value-added distributors and OEM customers. It has been a privilege to work with this management team and Board, and Satel can now, with Topcon as its new owner, accelerate the implementation of the Company’s vision of mission critical connectivity, tightly integrated and tailored to the most demanding applications and conditions”,

says Henrik Blomé, Partner at Alder.

The transaction was closed in June 2023.

For more information, please contact:

About Alder

Alder is a Nordic investment fund with the goal of creating the right conditions for sustainable technology companies to accelerate growth and strategic development. All our companies deliver an environmental benefit. Our investment focus is on established companies with profitable growth and sales of between 100 and 750 million SEK. Alder invests primarily as majority owner in companies that are established in the Nordic countries but can also invest selectively in the rest of Europe, especially in the German speaking countries.

An interview with Alder Sustainability Manager, Eva Normell

Eva Normell joined the Alder team as Sustainability Manager in 2021. Here we talk to Eva about how she keeps on top of the ever-changing field of sustainability reporting regulations and ask what companies need to consider when working with them.

Can you tell us about your role at Alder?

Eva: My role as Sustainability Manager is to support the Alder team with the knowledge and tools to find companies that are aligned with our values and ambitions. I also work closely with our portfolio companies to help them integrate sustainability into strategy and leverage their positive impact while also reducing the environmental footprint of operations. We want to be part of driving the European Green Deal and be a role model for what’s needed to make business part of a resilient future.

What are some of the new and forthcoming EU sustainability reporting policies and regulations that companies like Alder need to be aware of?

Eva: Over the last couple of years, the EU has released several new sustainable finance regulations in line with the EU Green Deal. The SFDR and the EU Taxonomy lie at the cornerstone of this effort, and they are both super ambitious and are changing the dynamics of sustainable finance.

How do you prepare Alder and its companies to comply with these regulations?

Eva: We prepare in many ways. The first step is to keep track of how the regulations and guidelines evolve. We are aligned with the SFDR from January 2023, as required, but the regulations are so new that they are a bit like a moving target.

Since 2021 we have been working on our companies’ EU Taxonomy journey – understanding and adapting to determine their eligibility and alignment and to describe the contribution they make to sustainability using this new language. We have performed a thorough GHG inventory to become serious participants in the “race to zero” and learn more about our emissions throughout the entire value chain, including scope 3. We also track data across all our companies to regulary report on Principle Adverse Impacts (PAI).

New for this year, we have chosen to implement a common Sustainability Management platform that automates the collection, processing and visualisation of sustainability data using SustainLab’s tools, which will make things much easier to access understand and track in the coming years.

”Focus on value creation and what you want to achieve!”

What are the main challenges of regulation alignment?

Eva: For many companies, the obvious challenges are usability, lack of availability of ESG data, data gathering problems, and inconsistent use of terminology. But I see the bigger challenge being that we can get so caught up in the details of data gathering and number crunching that we forget what’s important. We fail to focus on improving how we work, reducing and improving resource use, cutting emissions and leveraging and supporting companies with positive environmental impact to take faster and bigger steps.

Other challenges are securing enough in-house ESG expertise, awareness and training, and integration of sustainability into business models and strategies. One particular challenge for Alder with the EU Taxonomy is that it is trying to definitively define sustainability, but it is actually not comprehensive. At Alder, we look deeper into the mechanics of a sustainable economy and find companies playing critical roles in monitoring, communicating and controlling resource use, efficiency and safety. Many of these areas are not yet included in the taxonomy, but they are important to enable their customers to be sustainable. We hope that the taxonomy will not limit the definition of sustainability so that we don’t see the economy in all its richness and inventiveness because it is just this that we really need for the transition.

All these new requirements may seem daunting to many companies, but what are the benefits or opportunities they pose?

Eva: They are a great way to create trust. For example, since all our funds are categorised as Article 9 according to SFDR, our investors have a guarantee that we are serious and that sustainable investments are our main objective. When it comes to the Green Deal, there is an opportunity to be part of a unified language and approach, which will hopefully create a whole new level of understanding. These more transparent ways of measuring sustainable activities, aim to avoid greenwashing, so that investors can be sure they are contributing to real change.

Do you have any advice for other companies about how to keep on top of new directives and regulations?

Eva: Focus on value creation and what you want to achieve! You can’t avoid the groundwork, so do it in a way that you can manage moving forward. Start measuring, even if it is not perfect, so you have a baseline. And perhaps most importantly, be brave! Don’t let the regulations put you off, we need to make bold changes to create a resilient future. The regulations provide a valuable framework for sustainability efforts, but they should just strengthen your work and not dictate what you want to achieve.

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Alder avyttrar sitt innehav i Autocirc Industriutveckling AB – en branschledare med en cirkulär affärsmodell för återvunna reservdelar till fordon.

SIX MONTH FULL-TIME POSITION SPRING OR FALL 2023

Stockholm-based internship at private equity firm Alder, focusing on the development of environmentally sustainable companies with high growth potential.

How to apply

Please send your application including a curriculum vitae, cover letter and grade transcript to erika.ankarberg@alder.se, on the 15th of October 2022 at the latest. We encourage you to send your application as soon as possible as we will start interviewing candidates prior to the deadline. For more information, please contact Erika Ankarberg by email.

Vi hoppas att du känner dig utvilad, inspirerad och redo för vad resten av året har att erbjuda.

Hösten är den perfekta tiden för nytänkande och sätta nya intentioner och mål. Precis så vill vi ta chansen att inspirera dig med ett kort videoklipp från vår Executive Training in Resilience Thinking som vi höll tillsammans med våra portföljbolag och Stockholm Resilience Center under två intensiva och intressanta dagar i maj. Under dessa två dagar fick våra portföljbolag möjlighet att ytterligare stärka den långsiktiga hållbarheten och konkurrenskraften i sina strategier genom att lyssna på framstående talare och diskutera sätt att ytterligare förbättra deras genomslag i en serie workshops.

De senaste två dagarna har Alderteamet deltagit i en Executive Training in Resilience Thinking tillsammans med Stockholm Resilience Centre. Vi har haft förmånen att lyssna på framstående talare, däribland Carl Folke (medgrundare och ordförande för Stockholm Resilience Centre och chef för Beijerinstitutet, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien), Johan Kuylenstierna (ordförande i Klimatpolitiska rådet), Per-Anders Enkvist (grundare och VD för Material Economics), Henrik Henriksson (VD för H2 Green Steel, tidigare vd för Scania), Lisen Schultz (utbildningsdirektör på Stockholm Resilience Centre) och Hans Beyer (Hållbarhetschef på SEB).