M&A activity and foreign investment in lessors

However, it’s the business fit that matters. “The acquisition supports our ambitious growth strategy,” said 3 Step IT chairman Jarkko Veijalainen, adding that the acquisition is in accordance with the strategy: “We are planning to extend our services offerings in Finland, and Nevtor was the perfect opportunity for us to expand our value chain. We are going to bravely start executing a new way to provide IT services in Finland, and we will most certainly get the opportunity to launch new services abroad as well.”

For 3 Step IT’s existing customers, the acquisition means that the company can provide them with a more comprehensive IT acquisition and asset management offering, including purchasing, management and asset renewal services.

Commenting on the acquisition, Carmen Ene, CEO of 3 Step IT (pictured above) stated: “I am very pleased that we can use Nevtor’s excellent expertise to strengthen our service offering. I believe that our experience in IT lifecycle management, combined with Nevtor’s strong utilization of automation in desktop management and high-level expertise in cloud and application management, provides an excellent opportunity to further benefit our customers.”

Ari Hietamäki, CEO of Nevtor, added: “Digitalization and cloud services have had a significant impact on the business environment, and on customer needs in particular. Together with 3 Step IT we can respond to these challenges even better because our services already complement each other perfectly.”

Buying into the Nordic markets

An example of foreign investment into the Nordic leasing market can be seen in specialist information and communications technology lessor CHG-MERIDIAN’s acquisition in 2014 of Norway-based Acento Group, thereby demonstrating the value foreign lessors place on the domestic Nordic markets.

Acento has a strategically important sales and marketing network, with branches in Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden, and the acquisition provides CHG with direct market access to this network at a single stroke. “This purchase is a well-timed step forward in our international expansion strategy,” said the CEO, Jürgen Mossakowski (pictured above). “The Nordic market has huge potential for us. We will unlock further impetus for growth by gaining customers that operate globally and by supporting customers from our branches in Northern Europe in the future.”

CHG sees Northern Europe as offering huge potential for the group’s international expansion, citing the region as a growing economic area characterized by great competitiveness, a high export rate, and stable government finances and budgets. Industry experts reckon that there is still the potential for double-digit annual growth in the efficient management of technology investments.

“Until now, the finance solutions available in the Nordic markets have predominantly been conventional products offered by banks and manufacturers,” said Dr Mathias Wagner, Chief Sales Officer International (CSO), who is responsible for foreign subsidiaries. “Integrated solution concepts for the entire technology lifecycle – such as those successively developed by CHG-MERIDIAN and Acento in recent years – do offer a great potential for us.”