Opportunity
Carve out a strategic global business from thyssenkrupp AG, establish it as an independent company, and partner with management to build a pure-play champion.
Approach
Stand up a fully independent company at pace, partnering with senior leadership and employees to deliver a complex multi-year transformation: assemble a world-class leadership team, deploy best-in-class industrial practices, sharpen the service and modernization business, and invest behind a new generation of products and digital capabilities.
Impact
Helped create a faster-growing, more profitable, and resilient business, which now generates revenue of over €9.2 billion and €1.3 billion adjusted EBIT.
When thyssenkrupp AG began evaluating strategic options for its Elevator Technology division in 2019, Advent was a natural partner. We brought deep sector knowledge, a track record of complex carve-outs, and decades of on-the-ground presence in Germany. Our team had closely followed the business for many years and had built strong relationships across the thyssenkrupp executive and supervisory boards.
We saw an orphan strategic asset of real scale. Global megatrends – urbanization, an aging population, the digitalization of buildings and the steady growth of urban mobility – were converging to create a generational demand environment for vertical mobility. Services and modernization businesses offered a recurring and profitable revenue stream, providing strong resilience. As one of the four global leaders in the elevator and escalator industry, TK Elevator (TKE) had the scale, the heritage, and the customer base to pursue its own strategy as an independent company, with substantial value creation potential.
In July 2020, a consortium led by Advent and Cinven acquired the business for €17.2 billion. At the time, it was the largest European private equity buyout since 2007, and one of the most complex corporate carve-outs in the industrial sector’s history.
“Since acquiring TKE in 2020, we partnered closely with management and employees to navigate a complex carve-out and build a highly resilient, focused business. Significant investment in technology, innovation, and product development has enabled TKE to emerge as a leader in urban mobility.”
Ranjan Sen
Managing Partner, Advent
A carve-out of rare scale
Corporate carve-outs at this scale depend on trust and credibility. Advent has invested in Germany since the 1990s, and our long-standing relationships with local stakeholders, our track record as a responsible owner of industrial assets, and our ability to offer the seller a local presence together with a reinvestment opportunity, were central to the consortium being entrusted with the business.
The complexity did not end at signing. Standing up a fully independent company — with a new entrepreneurial culture, a distinct global brand in TK Elevator, and an enhanced senior leadership team — had to be delivered in the middle of a global pandemic, with roughly 50,000 employees and 1,000 service locations continuing to serve customers in over 100 countries without missing a beat.
Partnering with management on a multi-year transformation
Working hand-in-hand with management and employees, and with the support of Advent’s Portfolio Support Group, TKE has executed over 100 transformation initiatives across more than 70 countries, involving over 100 project managers and hundreds of colleagues. The value creation program has touched every part of the business and has delivered a step change in performance, resulting in an adjusted EBIT increase of more than 50%* over the last three years.
A key pillar of the transformation was leadership and culture. The launch of a new global brand, TK Elevator, gave the company a fresh identity as an independent business. Anchored by Chief Executive Officer Uday Yadav, a new performance culture focusing on customer centricity has taken root across the company, with continuous improvement and safety at its core.
The service and modernization business, which sits at the heart of the company, was the key area of focus. Every new installation seeds a long-duration service relationship, which funds reinvestment in products and people, and wins the next installation. A comprehensive and proprietary improvement program, Branch Excellence, combined with the acceleration of digital AI-based operating tools has shifted the revenue mix towards this highly attractive, recurring part of the business. As a result, the aftermarket share has grown by more than 10 percentage points since carve-out.
TKE’s operating footprint has also been transformed. A state-of-the-art production facility was opened in Esslingen, in September 2025, concentrating TKE’s German engineering capabilities. Building beyond its European origins and strong presence in North America, the company has strengthened its market position across rapidly growing economies such as India and the Middle East. This is exemplified by its joint venture with ALAT, the industrial subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, establishing the first global elevator and escalator manufacturing hub in the Kingdom.
Another critical value creation driver has been sustained investment behind product and digital innovation. One of the clearest expressions of this is EOX, TKE’s first digitally native elevator platform. Belt-driven, energy-efficient, and designed for the low- and mid-rise category that represents the largest share of the global market, EOX was developed and brought to market in record time. It now accounts for the majority of units TKE sells in Europe and is accelerating the roll-out across the US. Alongside MAX, the company’s IoT service platform, it positions TKE at the frontier of the industry’s digital transition.
The next chapter
The business Advent acquired generated revenues of EUR €7.9 billion. Despite the backdrop of a pandemic, global energy shocks, supply chain disruption, and a sharp contraction in the Chinese construction market, TKE has grown revenues to more than EUR €9.2 billion with best-in-class margins across its European peers.
TKE today is well positioned to become a global industrial leader with a strengthened management team, an enhanced product portfolio, a meaningfully larger and more profitable service and modernization business, and a clear runway for further growth in both mature and emerging markets.
For Advent, the company reflects the thesis we developed almost a decade ago: that inside a great industrial conglomerate sat a business that, given the right partnership, could take its place among the leaders of its industry. We are proud of what the company has achieved alongside management and are excited for the next chapter ahead with KONE.
* Refers to rolling quarterly LTM figures indexed to December 2022; adjusted for effects of year-over-year movement of foreign exchange rates.
