DIF Capital Partners (“DIF”), a leading global independent infrastructure investment manager, announced the acquisition of a 71% stake in Plugit Finland Oy (“Plugit”), a leading EV charging infrastructure company in Finland, through DIF CIF II (the “Fund”). IMPROVED acted as the exclusive financial advisor to DIF in this landmark cross-border transaction. The IMPROVED team was able to leverage its deep understanding of the market dynamics, business models and valuations in the E-Mobility and EV charging domain, as well as its expertise in asset-heavy financing models in charging infrastructure deployment, to support DIF Capital Partners on this acquisition.
Founded in 2012, Plugit has become one of the largest EV charging infrastructure companies operating in the Finnish market. It has an installed base of ca. 4k charge points, has provided services to ca. 300 business customers to date and employs ca. 60 people. Plugit delivers and operates charging infrastructure projects for businesses and public sector organisations. It provides complete turnkey solutions, including design, hardware provision, operations, maintenance and end-to-end software. Plugit also offers a fully-funded Charging-as-a-Service (“CaaS”) product, where it funds the upfront capex and owns the EV charging infrastructure that it installs in return for fixed availability based lease payments from customers.
Supported by DIF, Plugit will expand its CaaS product and plan to build out the infrastructure it funds and owns. The CaaS product addresses a key obstacle for Plugit customers as it removes the hurdle of them having to fund high capex amounts upfront and enables customers to transfer technology and operational responsibilities to an experienced player in the sector. The management team will continue to remain invested in the company.
The E-Mobility and EV charging market is maturing, presenting a high growth investment case for institutional investors, delivering stable and longer-term returns. As such, institutional investors are increasingly taking positions in the EV charging domain, to scale reliable EV charging solutions to the masses and accelerate electrification of transport.
