Sweden's EQT closed a £9.4 billion ($12.72 billion) takeover of Intertek Group, pulling one of Britain's oldest testing and certification houses into private hands after weeks of negotiation. Intertek's board accepted the all-cash offer late Wednesday, ending a multi-round bidding process that saw EQT lift its price three times since March. The deal ranks as Europe's second-largest private equity buyout this year and the largest targeting critical infrastructure since Blackstone's £7.1 billion Intertrust close in 2022.
Intertek operates 1,000 laboratories across 100 countries, certifying everything from lithium-ion battery safety to pharmaceutical cold chains. Revenue hit £3.1 billion last year, with 42% derived from regulated industries—food safety, medical devices, energy transition materials. EQT is paying 18.6x trailing EBITDA, a 31% premium to Intertek's three-year sector average and 22% above the April 4 unaffected share price. The firm is funding the acquisition through EQT X, its €22 billion flagship fund raised in 2022, alongside co-investment from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation.
The takeout removes one of the few pure-play quality-assurance platforms still trading publicly. Intertek's closest peers—SGS and Bureau Veritas—trade at 14.2x and 15.8x EBITDA respectively. EQT is betting that regulatory expansion in battery supply chains, pharmaceutical logistics, and ESG compliance will drive double-digit EBITDA growth through 2028, absent public-market quarterly reporting. The firm plans to accelerate Intertek's push into Asia-Pacific testing corridors, where the company holds 19% market share versus 34% in Europe. EQT's parallel $3.6 billion bid for Japan's Kakaku.com, announced Monday, signals a coordinated buildout of certification and consumer-data infrastructure across both regions. Worth noting: EQT has retained Skadden, Slaughter and May, and Nishimura & Asahi across both deals, the same triad it deployed on the $10.4 billion Santen Pharmaceutical carve-out last year.
Allocators should track EQT's refinancing calendar. The Intertek acquisition loads £6.8 billion in senior debt onto a business generating £620 million in free cash flow, implying 11 years of payback at current run rates. If inflation in laboratory wages or energy costs compresses margins by 200 basis points, covenant headroom tightens by late 2025. Separately, watch for asset sales in Intertek's non-core consumer electricals division, which contributed 9% of revenue but 3% of EBITME last year. EQT historically divests subscale segments within 18 months of close to delever and redeploy into higher-margin adjacencies.
The deal closes in Q3 2025, subject to UK Competition and Markets Authority clearance. Intertek's founders built the firm in 1885 to test grain shipments at the Port of Liverpool. One hundred forty years later, the same quality-assurance model now sits inside the largest buyout fund in Scandinavia, priced at 3.0x book value.