Clairfield advises Touhula on the sale to AcadeMedia (STO:ACAD) – Clairfield continues as the leading Nordic ECEC financial advisor

Touhula is a high social impact company as it runs high-quality early education and care operations through 113 daycare centers across 40 municipalities. Touhula’s 2,000 professionals provide early education and childcare services for around 8,000 children. The company has revenues of approximately EUR 100 million. Prior to the transaction Touhula was owned by its board members, management, and employees such as heads of units, and in total the company has over 100 shareholders.

AcadeMedia serves around 200,000 children, pupils, and adult students in various countries. The company operates around 800 units and has over 20,000 employees.

Together Touhula and AcadeMedia form one of the largest Nordic private daycare groups. Following the transaction, AcadeMedia’s pre-school division will have operations in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands. AcadeMedia’s shares are listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.

Clairfield International acted as exclusive financial advisor to Touhula.

“I am truly happy with the transaction with international AcadeMedia and how Nordhaven (Clairfield in Finland) planned the overall sell-side process to fit our needs – and executed it with high professionalism. We were able to check the interest in Touhula from different types of potential partners in an intelligent manner, which enabled us to make the best decision. With Nordhaven’s valuable help we were able to find the best home for us – and to come to attractive deal terms,” says Sari Saari, CEO of Touhula.

“Getting Touhula to its current strong standing was a long journey. At this point, we wanted the company to have a solid long-term owner who through its expertise brings benefits to Touhula’s employees, customers, and other stakeholders, and who has broad shoulders to continue developing Touhula further. Nordhaven tailored a sales process for us that was broad but still light, and where a strong atmosphere of trust was created with the counterparty, which in turn enabled the parties to find good, practical solutions to all deal issues. Nordhaven consistently worked in a professional and committed manner, and working with them was also really enjoyable,” says Harri-Pekka Kaukonen, chair of the board of Touhula.