Tag Archives: acquisition

IPMI & Member News

Member News: FLASH Acquires Parkonect to Accelerate Access to 21st Century Parking Technology

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FLASH Acquires Parkonect to Accelerate Access to 21st Century Parking Technology

Acquisition creates an advantage for real estate owners to modernize their assets in a rapidly diversifying mobility ecosystem via digital, connected experiences with Legacy PARCS systems

June 16, 2021 (Austin, TX and Chicago, IL) – FLASH, the leader in flexible technology solutions for urban real estate, acquires Parkonect. This acquisition empowers real estate owners with wider access to 21st century parking technology that fits wherever their asset is along its digital transformation and mobility expansion.

Parkonect and FLASH are the only cloud-born, mobile-first parking technology companies delivering Parking Access and Revenue Control that continuously add new features and third-party integrations with over-the-air updates. Both companies help properties thrive in today’s rapidly shifting mobility ecosystem by facilitating connectivity and mobility in parking assets via real-time intelligence and digital commerce tools.

“FLASH is committed to deploying technology that empowers real estate owners to unlock the full value of their urban real estate, and that includes assets with legacy infrastructure as well as those looking to modernize their parking systems,” says Dan Sharplin, Executive Chairman and CEO of FLASH. “The acquisition of Parkonect lets the industry know that we believe access to flexible, agile parking solutions, no matter what PARCS system is in the ground, is vital for differentiating your asset in highly competitive urban core markets.”

“When Parkonect launched ten years ago, we set out to create an IoT, cloud-based platform that augmented the current parking technology layer. As a real estate developer, I knew first-hand how valuable this approach was to the traditional rip-and-replace model,” said Harlan Karp, CEO and founder of Parkonect. “Our future-ready system allowed asset owners to take a relatively risk-free step towards modernization, while proving out their investment. With FLASH, I look forward to continuing to deliver world-class solutions that allow asset owners to make lasting improvements to asset value.”

Parkonect will continue to advance its distinct product line and roadmap offering both Parkonect and FLASH customers more options for 21st century parking and asset management solutions. For current Parkonect customers, pricing and service will remain unchanged.

Karp continues, “We are thrilled to be a part of FLASH’s growing brand because we can focus on our passion – solve parking’s greatest challenges – with the added benefits of their world class operations, sales and marketing teams.”

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About Flash
 FLASH is an innovator in the urban mobility space, helping businesses rethink one of their most valuable assets: the parking garage. Our award-winning cloud-born platform is custom configurable, secure, reliable, and grows alongside you as business or consumer demands evolve. Visit www.flashparking.com to learn more.

Media Contacts:
Rob Duda
Peppercomm for FLASH
Senior Vice President, Automotive & Transportation Strategist
rduda@peppercomm.com

Karin Maake
FLASH
Senior Director of Brand & Communications
karin.maake@flashparking.com

IPMI & Member News

Member News: EasyPark Group Completes Acquisition of ParkMobile

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EasyPark Group Completes Acquisition of ParkMobile

This acquisition brings together the parking and mobility technology leaders in Europe and North America to accelerate innovation and global expansion.

EasyPark Group Completes Acquisition of ParkMobile

Atlanta, GA – June 1, 2021 – EasyPark Group, the European fast-growing mobility company, announced today the completed acquisition of PARK NOW Group, including North American-based ParkMobile. The closing of this transaction immediately expands EasyPark Group’s global footprint into the North American market, where ParkMobile is the #1 parking app with 25 million users and a presence in over 450 cities, including eight of the top ten.

EasyPark Group is backed by private equity firms Verdane Capital and Vitruvian Partners and currently operates in 2,200 cities across 20 countries throughout Europe and Australia. This acquisition brings together two successful companies and enables the expanded Group to grow further and become a global pacesetter within digital parking, electrical vehicle charging, and mobility services.

“Over the past 12 years, ParkMobile has emerged as the innovation leader in North America for contactless parking and mobility payments,” says Jon Ziglar, CEO of ParkMobile. “We are incredibly excited for this next chapter as we join forces with EasyPark Group to accelerate growth and expand our global footprint.”

“This is a historic milestone in the industry, and we are very excited to embark on this journey. Most of all, I am proud to be leading such a strong organization with talented employees. With global coverage and scale, as well as an integrated portfolio, we will be able to make cities more livable by driving the development of new, smart, and integrated digital services”, says Johan Birgersson, CEO of EasyPark Group.

“Together we have a huge potential, and as one united company we will be able to offer even more value to drivers, businesses, cities, and parking operators all around the world.”

ParkMobile has been part of BMW and Daimler’s mobility joint venture PARK NOW Group since March 2019. The PARK NOW Group European brands are also part of this acquisition. That includes PARK NOW, RingGo, Parkmobile Europe, and Park-line. The integration of these companies will be realized in several steps concerning commercial offerings, internal organization, and ways of working.

“We are now entering a discovery and integration phase where we will make sure to draw from the strength, knowledge, and spirit of both PARK NOW Group and EasyPark Group, to build our future success. Together we have a huge potential, and as one united company we will be able to offer even more value to drivers, businesses, cities, and parking operators all around the world”, says Birgersson.

The parties have agreed not to disclose the terms of the transaction.

About ParkMobile

ParkMobile - New LogoParkMobile, LLC provides smart parking and mobility solutions in North America, using a contactless approach to help millions of people easily find, reserve, and pay for parking on their mobile devices. The company’s technology is used in thousands of locations across the country, including 8 of the top 10 cities as well as college campuses, airports, and stadiums. People can use ParkMobile solutions to quickly pay for on-street and off-street parking without having to use a meter or kiosk. Additionally, ParkMobile offers parking reservations at stadium venues for concerts and sporting events. Reservations are also available in metro area garages, allowing people to drive into the city without having to worry about finding parking. ParkMobile has been named to the Inc. 5000, Deloitte Fast 500, the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Top Workplaces, and the Technology Association of Georgia’s Most Innovative Companies. For more information, visit ParkMobile.io or @ParkMobile on Twitter.

About Easypark Group

EasyPark is a leading, fast-growing parking tech company that helps drivers find and manage parking and charge their electrical vehicle. Our unique and cutting-edge technology also helps businesses, cities, parking operators and property owners with administration, planning, and data-driven management in over 2,200 cities across 20 countries. We make urban life easier, one parking spot at a time. Visit https://www.easyparkgroup.com/ to find out more.

IPMI & Member News

Member News: Blink Charging Acquires Blue Corner, Expanding European EV Charging Footprint

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Blink Charging Acquires Blue Corner, Expanding European EV Charging Footprint

– Acquisition adds 7,071 charging ports to Blink’s portfolio across four countries in Western Europe

Miami Beach, FL – May 11, 2021 – Blink Charging Co. (Nasdaq: BLNK, BLNKW) (“Blink” or the “Company”), a leading owner, operator, and provider of electric vehicle (EV) charging equipment and services, today announced that it acquired the European EV charging operator Blue Corner N.V., based in Antwerp, Belgium, and its portfolio of 7,071 charging ports and a robust European charging network. The acquisition was made with a combination of cash and stock for €20 million (or approximately $24 million) and gives Blink complete operational control of Blue Corner and its EV charging assets. The acquisition is part of Blink’s broader strategic international expansion plans and provides the Company a significant infrastructure footprint in the region. Blue Corner chargers are located across Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France.

Blink’s European expansion allows the Company to capitalize on the robust European EV industry immediately. “EVs enjoy a much higher market share in Europe. This brings increased utilization for EV charging stations. In addition, the historically higher price of fuel makes driving an EV a stronger value proposition for drivers,” stated Blink Founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael D. Farkas.

The European EV market is growing faster than the United States. Sales of plug-in electric vehicles in Europe rose 137% to 1.4 million vehicles last year, whereas U.S. sales rose 4% to 328,000, according to ev-volumes.com. The surge in EV adoption will increase demand for EV charging infrastructure. In addition, European regulations are further accelerating widespread EV adoption regulatory support for zero-emission vehicles.

“We are very excited about this acquisition and the opportunity it provides Blink to have a significant presence in Europe quickly. As a key contributor to the expanding EV landscape, we are continuously looking for opportunities to strategically increase our global assets while also making EV charging more accessible. International expansion is fundamental to our rapid growth and will accelerate the success we are already achieving in the region,” stated Farkas. “Our aggressive international strategy complements a series of significant domestic wins and new contracts that have exponentially expanded our network in the US.”

“Blue Corner’s mission is to build a sustainable society and be ready for tomorrow’s driver. Since Blink shares this philosophy, it was a logical step to join forces. I am convinced that Blue Corner, as part of Blink Charging, can acquire a strong market presence throughout Europe. This acquisition allows us to significantly strengthen both our financial and organizational structure,” shared Peter Buyckx, Managing Director of Blue Corner.

To facilitate Blink’s European expansion, the Company also announced the formation of Blink Holdings B.V., a new Dutch company in Amsterdam, which will drive the growth of Blink’s European presence. The existing Blue Corner operations, management team, and personnel will remain unchanged following the acquisition.

Blink formally entered the European market in September 2019 with Blink Charging Hellas, a joint venture between Blink Charging Co. and Eunice Energy Group. The partnership began with the first deployment of Blink electric vehicle charging stations in Greece as part of the green energy electrification of the Rio-Antirrio “Charilaos Trikoupis” Bridge. Significant subsequent announcements have been made, including a partnership of Blink Charging Hellas and Nissan Nik. I. Theocharakis S.A and the purchase of 45 dual-port Blink charging stations by Public Power Company (PPC S.A.) for deployment across Greece. This tender by PPC S.A. was the first following the utility’s public announcement to enter into the Greek EV charging market with 10,000 charging stations. Also, in September 2019, Blink announced its first deployments of EV charging stations in Israel through its wholly-owned subsidiary Blink Charging Ltd.

ABOUT BLINK CHARGING

Blink Charging Co. (Nasdaq: BLNK, BLNKW) is a leader in electric vehicle (EV) charging equipment and has deployed over 23,000 charging stations, many of which are networked EV charging stations, enabling EV drivers to easily charge at any of the Company’s charging locations worldwide. Blink Charging’s principal line of products and services include its Blink EV charging network (“Blink Network”), EV charging equipment, and EV charging services. The Blink Network uses proprietary, cloud-based software that operates, maintains, and tracks the EV charging stations connected to the network and the associated charging data. With global EV purchases forecasted to rise to 10 million by 2025 from approximately 2 million in 2019, the Company has established key strategic partnerships for rolling out adoption across numerous location types, including parking facilities, multifamily residences and condos, workplace locations, health care/medical facilities, schools and universities, airports, auto dealers, hotels, mixed-use municipal locations, parks and recreation areas, religious institutions, restaurants, retailers, stadiums, supermarkets, and transportation hubs. For more information, please visit https://www.blinkcharging.com/.

ABOUT BLUE CORNER

Blue Corner started in 2011 as one of the pioneers of charging points for electric vehicles. Based on its sustainable mission, the supplier and manager of EV charging facilities wants to make electric driving easy and accessible for everyone. Blue Corner focuses on smart and comprehensive 360° solutions with subscriptions for professionals, the general public and partners. Its rapidly growing network has over 7,000 charging points spread across Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France. Blue Corner’s public charging card makes a total of 250,000 charging points accessible in the rest of Europe. The company has 30 employees and is headquartered in Antwerp. www.bluecorner.be

Blink Media Contact: PR@BlinkCharging.com

Blink Investor Relations Contact: IR@BlinkCharging.com

IPMI & Member News

Member News: LAZ Expands Parking Enforcement & Meter Management Business with Purchase of Serco Parking Services

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LAZ parkingLAZ Expands Parking Enforcement & Meter Management Business with Purchase of Serco Parking Services

LAZ Parking Chairman and CEO Alan B. Lazowski announced Wednesday that LAZ has acquired Serco Parking Services, the parking enforcement, and parking meter management services of Serco Inc., a leading public services provider. The deal closed May 1. 

Based in Los Angeles, CA, Serco Parking Services works exclusively with government agencies. It is the largest private provider of outsourced on-street parking enforcement and meter management solutions in the U.S. Services include parking enforcement, collection and maintenance of parking meters, and traffic control. Muhammad Mansoor, a highly respected and experienced professional in the industry, especially within the California market, heads Serco Parking Services. Serco’s current customers include major US Cities including San Francisco, West Hollywood, Inglewood in California, and Montgomery County in Maryland. Mansoor and his leadership team have a combined 165 years of experience in the parking industry and are among the 230 Serco employees joining LAZ as part of the deal.

“Bringing Serco Parking Services under the LAZ umbrella reaffirms LAZ’s position as one of the premier parking management services in the nation,” Lazowski said. “It expands our meter and parking enforcement business, especially on the West Coast. But this deal is about more than acquiring new contracts. It’s about acquiring talent and expertise. With the continued involvement of Muhammad and his team, this will be a seamless transition.”

The acquisition increases the number of metered spaces LAZ manages nationally by 40,000 and brings total meter revenue collected annually to nearly $300 million, more than doubling the amount collected by LAZ previously.

The purchase also creates significant opportunities to grow existing business lines and expand geographically. Drexel Hamilton, LLC, a 100 percent veteran-owned investment bank, provided acquisition assistance.

Serco recognized that our parking services will have much better growth opportunities with a company that specializes in parking,” said David Cummins, Senior Vice President at Serco Inc.  “To our employees joining LAZ Parking, we are pleased that you are joining one of the largest and fastest-growing parking companies.  We want to thank you for all your dedicated and hard work over the years and wish you all the best as you start your new chapter with LAZ Parking.”

About LAZ Parking  

LAZ Parking, founded in Hartford, CT in 1981, is one of the largest and fastest-growing parking companies in the United States, operating over 1.2 million parking spaces across the country in over 3,125 locations in 36 states and 441 cities. With four decades of experience providing parking management, transportation, and mobility services, LAZ works seamlessly across a variety of market segments, including hospitality and valet, office buildings, medical, airport and transportation, campus, government and municipal, retail, events, residential buildings, and shuttle services. Additional information can be found at www.lazparking.com.

Contact: Mary Coursey,   860-232-9600

IPMI & Member News

Member News: FAAC acquires TIBA Parking Systems and becomes the leader in the North American market for parking management systems

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FAAC acquires TIBA Parking Systems and becomes the leader in the North American market for parking management systems

An acquisition of 135 million dollars for 60 million dollars in turnover and 130 employees, the largest in the history of the Italian multinational from a financial point of view. With this transaction, FAAC strengthens its position in the parking management systems segment, achieving leadership in the largest market in the world, North America, and placing itself among the top players at a global level.

FAAC, an Italian multinational leader in the sector of automation and vehicle and pedestrian access control, announces the signing of a binding agreement through which it will acquire from the Israeli private equity fund TENE Capital, the Afcon group and a series of minority shareholders, all the shares of the TIBA group, a leading international company in the sector of supplying turnkey systems for managing parking sites with revenue collection.

In particular, the TIBA group designs, manufactures, distributes and supports flexible, reliable and cutting-edge solutions for every need for the management of off-street revenue parking. It has its headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, where its important research and development center is also based, but produces most of its revenues in the North American market, where it has managed to achieve a leadership position in a few years of activity with over 20% market share. It is expected to close 2020 with over 60 million dollars in turnover, reporting an average annual growth of 30% in the last 5 years. The sales strategy of the TIBA group, based mainly on an indirect model that leverages the collaboration with a proven network of Value Added Resellers, is a perfect complement to the predominantly direct sales model of FAAC in North America, operated through its business unit HUB Parking Technology.

“The acquisition of TIBA – comments FAAC CEO Andrea Marcellan – has a significant value for us, as it allows to intensify investments in a business segment which is in our view strategic as it will enable us to strengthen our position in the largest and most profitable market in the world. This will allow us to rebalance in our portfolio the centrality of the historical business of access automation and mature European markets. Important synergies have already been identified in the short and medium term which are very significant from a commercial, operational and product point of view. “

“Another large transaction for the group – declared the Chairman Andrea Moschetti – in a very difficult year for the entire business community, however strongly desired as absolutely synergistic with our strategic vision and with the mission we have been assigned, that is to continue to grow with a primary role at a global level in providing cutting-edge solutions for a sustainable mobility, respecting people, the environment and the most rigorous ethical standards.”

The transaction, which will involve a disbursement of 135 million dollars, in addition to the net cash acquired, was financed in part by own means and in part by leverage.

“There could not have been a better time to start using leverage, – points out the CFO Ezechiele Galloni – today’s conditions in the debt market are unprecedented and extraordinarily favorable, and the exchange rate we managed to set for the conversion of the funds in dollars is much more advantageous than initially estimated. Overall, the group continues to stand financially very solid, indeed with the mentioned leverage transaction we improve the capital structure, thus far very unbalanced on the equity side, and the potential for further recourse to debt remains largely untapped. ”

With this acquisition, FAAC adds a further step to its important track record of growth recorded over the years both through organic development and M&A activity (21 acquisitions in the last 10 years – last one, the biggest one as far as acquired sales, not more than 6 months ago), reaching today estimated consolidated revenues of over 620 million Euro and a staff of over 3,400 employees. Founded in 1965 by Giuseppe Manini in Bologna, FAAC is today an international group led by a well-tested and highly motivated management team, operating in 5 continents in 27 countries with over 50 companies and 8 main production sites.

The transaction is subject to the usual closing conditions and the closing of the transaction is expected by mid-January 2021.

About FAAC

FAAC is an Italian multinational at the forefront in providing solutions for the automation and control of pedestrian and vehicular access for residential and industrial applications.

The Group’s business is organized into 3 main divisions: Access Automation, Parking Management and Access Control. Customer orientation, quality, innovation, operating efficiency are the inspiring principles of FAAC’s way of doing business and every day FAAC aims to provide customers and users with cutting-edge solutions to make their life easier and safer. The headquarters is in Zola Predosa, Bologna, but has industrial and sales offices in 5 continents and 27 countries.

About the sellers

TENE Capital is a leading Israeli private equity fund that manages a portfolio of approximately one billion dollars invested in companies with high growth potential and a strong technological and export vocation.

Afcon is active in infrastructure and construction, technology development and implementation, automation control, communications, trade, as well as designing and building systems-intensive construction projects. Afcon is part of Shlomo, a leading Group in Israel which invests in industrial and commercial markets, including vehicles, transportation, shipyards, ports, logistics, real estate, hotels and insurance.

For more information on the transaction, please contact the FAAC Press Office:

Marco Falangi
Ex-Press Comunicazione
335-8467272