- The Sofia-headquartered regional provider of construction, engineering, upgrade, and maintenance services to telecoms, private enterprises, and governments, Telelink Infra Services, part of Telelink Group, raises €8M from the BlackPeak Southeast Europe Growth Equity Fund.
- Currently servicing the UK, German, and CEE markets, Telelink Infra Services will use the investment to maintain the pace of its growth through organic and M&A activities in Western Europe and CEE.
- The board of directors of Telelink Infra Services will be joined by Steve Robertson, CEO of BT Openreach. He comes with over 40 years of experience in telecoms infrastructure. Dinna Temelkova also steps in as the newly appointed Executive Director of the company, part of Telelink Group.
“The digital era forces an unprecedented need for transformation in our society, continuously accelerating its rate and impact, challenging all of us to adapt and change the way we work and live. Our partnership with BlackPeak Capital will help us expand our services offering, expand our staff of qualified engineers, and acquire competitors to enable us to stay closer to the needs of our clients,” said Lyubomir Minchev, majority shareholder in Telelink Infra Services and Founder of Telelink.
This investment in Telelink Infra Services marks the third deal of the recently closed €126M fund of BlackPeak. Prior to these, they invested in Verino and euShipments – Bulgarian companies with ambitions for CEE expansion and commitment to become carbon neutral.
“BlackPeak Capital is a growth equity fund focused on investing in established companies with tickets of between 5 and 15 M EUR in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Telelink fits well with BlackPeak Capital’s strategy as it is a high-growth, established company, which can continue to grow both organically and through acquisitions. The company operates in 5 markets, with 80% of its revenues generated from the UK and Germany, providing services to the leading telecoms in Western Europe. With our help, they are looking to further expand their geographic presence,” explains Simona Stiliyanova, Marketing and ESG Director of BlackPeak Capital.
According to the team of BlackPeak, the continued trend for digitalization of the telecom, railway, and other public and private infrastructure in Europe, puts Telelink Infra Services in a good position for growth.
“Telelink Infra Services will be looking to strengthen its delivery capacity through the acquisition of regional and Western European strategic targets with expertise in the wireless and fixed telecom, as well as railway critical infrastructure. The focus is currently on the UK, German, Romanian, Serbian, Polish and Czech markets,” Kiril Ivanov, Investment Director of BlackPeak Capital, comments on the future plans of the new portfolio company.
ESG in the context of the telecom sector
Telelink Infra Services designs, builds, and maintains technological infrastructure and focuses on communication connectivity, power supply systems, video surveillance, and automation in office and industrial buildings. Launched in 2001, as part of Telelink Group, Telelink Infa Services was incorporated as a separate entity in 2017. The reorganization aimed to focus the different offerings of Telelink Group into individual corporate structures with dedicated management teams and strategies. Today, the company is headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, and operates in 5 countries – Bulgaria, the UK, Germany, the Republic of North Macedonia, and Albania, while the team outnumbers 400 employees.
Being committed to making a positive economic, social, and environmental impact, BlackPeak Capital conducts extensive ESG due diligence as part of its investment process.
“We work with ERM (Environmental Resources Management), the largest global sustainability consultancy to measure the ESG impact of companies. The report on Telelink Infra Services hasn’t revealed any material ESG issues, but like every infrastructure company, they have an impact on the environment. As a next step we will be working to measure the GHG emissions of all our portfolio companies, setting relevant science-based goals for reduction of their impact,” Stiliyanova adds.