An entrance to the APCOA car park in Schillerplatz, Stuttgart
Barely had we finished a long conversation with Philippe Op de Beeck, the CEO of the Stuttgart-headquartered APCOA, then the news arrived that the company was to be bought 100% by the US group Strategic Value Partners (SVP). The deal is expected to close within the next three months.
APCOA describes itself as Europe’s leading parking infrastructure operator, and its parking houses are certainly very visible in downtown locations and major transport hubs, like airports and railway stations. It operates more than 1.8 million parking spaces across 13,000 sites in over 400 cities, generating about €900m in annual revenues.
SVP has already been a minority shareholder in APCOA since 2014. For the takeover of APCOA, SVP is buying out the shares of majority shareholder Centerbridge and other minority shareholders.
APCOA has 5,000 employees, and was founded more than 50 years ago. For the last several years, the company has been making big strides into transforming its car parks into urban hubs, creating the physical and digital infrastructure for mobility, logistics, EV charging and other services for auto-mobility, in particular pushing to decrease the number of vehicles in cities searching for parking. It sees itself as very much at the heart of the digital and physical ‘Smart City’ ecosystem.
The Greenwich, Connecticut-based SVP has more than $18bn of AUM, 200 employees, and since its founding in 2001 has invested $45bn, including nearly $18bn in Europe.
