Sumitomo pays $450 million for the Nordic parking lot operator Q-Park

Q-Park Nordics, Stockholm, Sweden-based largest parking lot operator, announced that it was acquired by the Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp.

The deal was made for 100% of the shares in Q-Park Operations B.V. for about 400 million euros ($450 million) with the actual owner, USA investment fund KKR. Q-Park Operations B.V. is the holding company for parking facilities in Sweden, Norway and Finland, (“Q-Park Nordics”) from Q-Park Operations Holdings B.V., which is under management of the infrastructure team in U.S. investment fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

The deal allows KKR to retain Q-Park operations outside the Nordic region. The buyout firm bought the entire Q-Park group in 2017 for about 2.9 billion euros enterprise value.

Later edit: after the acquisition, Q-Park was re-named Aimo Park.

Q-Park Nordics, led by CEO Peder Ståhlberg, is the largest provider of parking facilities in Sweden, Norway and Finland with about 20% market share in these respective countries, operating about 370,000 parking lots.

The group has been boosting its offering by adding EV charging equipment and cashless app payment options and introducing services such as car maintenance, positioning itself to be a choice location for car sharing operators and private electric carS.