Century City-based global private equity firm OpenGate Capital recently completed its sale of Fiven to Kymera International.

The sale – the terms of which were not disclosed – comes after a five-year partnership between Fiven – a leading manufacturer of silicon carbide grains and powders – and OpenGate, which acquired the company in 2019 following its carve out from Saint-Gobain. Kymera is a global supplier of specialty materials.

Josh Adams, a partner at OpenGate, said under the firm’s ownership, Fiven’s profitability doubled from just under 20 million euros  in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to north of 40 million euros by the end of their partnership.

“OpenGate is very value creation oriented,” Adams said. “(Our) objective is to grow the bottom line significantly across gross margin and EBITDA margin.”

With that in mind, Adams notes this particular deal is quite representative of OpenGate’s typical investment model which specializes in complex corporate carve outs.

Forging a path toward growth for Fiven over the last few years involved fine tuning product pricing and sales mix, implementing an environmental, social and governance roadmap and developing independent partnerships across the industry following Fiven’s corporate carve out, according to OpenGate.

Fiven Chief Executive Falk Ast thanked OpenGate for its guidance in expanding Fiven’s reach.

“Our close collaboration with OpenGate propelled Fiven’s position as a global leader within the industry, and we are excited about the company’s future with Kymera,” Ast said in a statement.

In addition to the growth OpenGate guided Fiven to achieving, Adams noted that “seeing (Kymera’s) strategic appetite for the business really gave us comfort knowing this was the right time to exit.”

Fiven further detailed industry strides made under OpenGate’s ownership.

“In recent years, we have evidently streamlined and improved our processes to better serve our customers with SIKA products in established applications such as metallurgy, refractories and abrasives,” according to Fiven’s website. “Moreover we have also successfully launched new products for emerging applications in the field of electronics, photovoltaics, passive armor and energy-efficient or emissions-control technologies.”

Fiven, which is based in Norway, sells its products throughout Europe, South America and North America.

This deal is the second completed sale of the year for OpenGate. The firm’s first 2024 transaction was the sale of SMAC, a French waterproofing and facades business, in late April.