Historic deal in Ostrava: K2 has purchased a 50% stake in the Sluno Group
Ostrava, December 5th, 2022. The acquisition marks a historic milestone for the business in Ostrava. It constitutes one of the most important recent deals in Czech IT. K2 CAPITAL has purchased a 50% stake in Sluno.
K2 and Sluno have shared many similarities over the years. They were founded in Ostrava, and both decided to focus on software, information technologies and improving corporate process management as soon as in 1991. Both companies are owned exclusively by Czech owners, employ hundreds of employees and provide solutions to Czech companies. Recently, they have been expanding their activities abroad. Yet another common feature is that they have been performing very well in the long term.
Starting from December 1st, the two large Ostrava companies have merged financially after more than thirty years of operation. K2 has purchased a fifty per cent stake in the Sluno group; K2 attributes its success to developing corporate information systems designed primarily for manufacturing and wholesale companies. However, it has recently expanded into e-commerce. K2 considers the merger with the Sluno Group to be beneficial primarily in warehouse management, deployment of robots and expansion of implementation capacities.
As of December, the previous CEO, Miroslav Krupa, has become the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Sluno Group parent company, U & SLUNO a.s. He would be paired with Tomáš Szkandera, CEO of K2 Software. Jiří Novák, the former exclusive owner and Chairman of the Board of Directors, will become a member of the Supervisory Board, accompanied by Marek Kučera, a member of the Supervisory Board of K2 CAPITAL and CEO of K2 connect solution.
Two stories, one vision
“We have started our cooperation quite casually. We were looking for partners capable of assisting us with the development. However, as we proceeded, it became apparent that we shared common business and ethical values and were complementary in many ways. After that, getting connected financially was a further step,” says Petr Schaffartzik, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the K2 Group. At the same time, he emphasises that the Sluno brand will continue to operate under its name; it is now a K2 partner company.
“When I became the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sluno four years ago, I realised that it would be advantageous to gain a strategic partner in the future. Thus, we could provide further impetus for the future of our company. I approached a consulting agency, and we started looking for potential partners together. Admittedly, we did not consider K2 in this respect. However, our company’s director Miroslav Krupa and K2 Software’s director Tomáš Szkander had started separate talking about how we could support each other in business or implementation. It became clear that we understood each other quite nicely and could, therefore, strengthen our cooperation,” adds Jiří Novák, who has owned the Sluno Group since August 2021.
Sluno has gained a strong reputation, especially in the retail environment. Its customers include the Albert, Makro, Tesco, Tamda, Hornbach and COOP retail chains. The company expanded its activities in 2020 to include automation employing autonomous and RPA robots.
“Sluno excels in the field of robotisation, and we would like to gradually incorporate their know-how into the products we offer to our existing customers. However, the company’s values have been the driving force behind the whole process as they endeavour to create a company culture based on employees, just like us. For this reason, we must take gradual steps in the coming months. I am really very proud that K2 has never become a typical corporation in the last thirty years. Moreover, I firmly believe that our success can be attributed to this fact,” concludes Luděk Vydra, majority owner and one of the founders of the K2 Group, which has, over the 31 years of its existence, matured into a company employing more than three hundred people, gaining an annual turnover of more than half a billion Czech crowns.
