IMAP Netherlands advises Rolloos on its sale to Top Side

With the financial support of Écart Invest, Top Side Industries Group has purchased itself in industrial machine control specialist Rolloos Holding. Top Side entrepreneurs Joost Lasschuit and Bram Masselink want to expand Rolloos and strengthen its market position with new products and services. Rolloos was assisted during the management buy-in by M&A advisors from IMAP Netherlands.

Rolloos Holding* is a family business that was founded in the 1940s and is now run by the founder's grandsons, Arie and Hans Rolloos. The company is the market leader in the assembly and supply of measuring and control equipment, which are used to monitor and make onshore and offshore industrial processes safer. Rolloos' customers mainly come from the oil and gas industry, steel industry, construction, infrastructure, earthmoving and the logistics sector.

Top Side Industries Group consists of entrepreneurs Joost Lasschuit and Bram Masselink. They are known for the founding of Lyceo, the largest provider of exam training in the Netherlands, but both are in possession of an Aerospace Engineering degree at TU Delft. Because the technical element was missing at Lyceo, Lasschuit and Masselink sold their shares in 2013, and with the help of venture capital firm Écart Invest, founded Top Side. Because both the entrepreneurs and the investment firm in The Hague were looking for challenges in the field of engineering and engineering, they bought in from Rolloos via a management buy-in. At the family business that is now being run by the third generation, it became clear that the fourth generation had no interest in taking over the engineering company. Arie and Hans Rolloos therefore had to look for successors or buyers outside the family. They have now found it in Top Side: "Although their last name is not 'Rolloos', it feels like a genuine fourth generation", according to the two owners, who took over the company from their father in 2000 (Hans Rolloos Sr.).
Growth and innovation opportunities

Buyers Lasschuit and Masselink talk about their motives behind the takeover: "The management buy-in helps us realize our ambition to become a major player in the oil & gas sector." Given the developments in this sector, see Écart and the two entrepreneurs - who together with Arie and Hans Rolloos will form the new management team - sufficient growth and innovation opportunities. Together they will continue the expansion of Rolloos as a world player in the field of machine security, weighing technology and nuisance security solutions, and the services and product range of the company will be further expanded.

Rolf Metz, director at Écart Invest, is also pleased with the deal: "Both the participation in Top Side and the acquisition of Rolloos are in line with the policy of Écart to acquire a substantial interest in larger SME companies with a strong market position. "

* Rolloos Holding consists of the operating companies Rolloos Systems and Top Side Offshore Technology.