M&A-Activity in the European Fleet Space

After months of silence, the European fleet management industry witnessed three major deals in October – signaling a potential shift in market dynamics. YellowFox has found a new owner with Peter Möhrle. TACHOfresh was bought by Kienzle. And last but not least: Verizon Connect sold its international commercial operations to Geotab, while retaining its U.S. business and core technology platform. Three very different activities – with very different backgrounds. I have been thinking about those acquisitions and what they mean for our industry – and while I don’t have all the answers, I thought it would be worth sharing the questions and thoughts that went through my mind.

Let’s start with YellowFox. This has been one of the most anticipated deals for the German market this year, as YellowFox is one of the top 3 players in the large German market. They had been bought by ECM, a German Private Equity company in 2021 – and now after less than 5 years sold to a family office – the Peter Möhrle Holding. The linked press-release is in German only, as I was not able to find any official communication in English. The winner in a quite competitive process was a surprise, as most people I have talked to about this expected YellowFox to be sold to another PE-investor – rather than a family office. That said, YellowFox is a rather German-centric company – so having a German family office as owner is probably a good fit for both.

There are rumors out there on the value of the transaction – even though the mentioned value and multipliers were not officially announced anywhere. If they were accurate (which I can neither confirm nor deny, as the information is not public as mentioned), they would be rather on the high side in my book and a sign that either YellowFox was seen as an extra-valuable asset – or that the market and valuations are picking up steam again. As a consequence, this will make many owners of fleet assets think about their belongings again – and if it is the right time to bring them to market.

For YellowFox, the most interesting question will be if there are any changes in their strategy coming from this. Will they finally try to enter markets outside of Germany with force? Will they consider further M&A to strengthen their position against the international players? Are there synergy-effects that Peter Möhrle or one of their present or future assets are bringing to the table? All questions that at least I cannot answer right now – but will be interesting to observe for the future.

Next in line is TACHOfresh being acquired by Kienzle. To be very honest, this also came as a surprise to me. So far and in my mind, Kienzle in the fleet space was mainly about tachographs (with a focus on hardware) – and active as a reseller of Geotab products. Maybe that was a wrong perception – or maybe they changed their focus, as their press release sounds quite different from that:

Our goal is to evolve from a hardware and software retailer to the number one manufacturer-neutral solution provider for telematics fleet customers in Europe. With TACHOfresh, we are adding a key product to our portfolio that will enable us to meet individual customer requirements in one of the most important areas even more specifically in the future

Jan Kaumanns, CEO of Kienzle Beteiligungs GmbH

Now that is – a nice challenge Mr. Kaumanns is setting for his company. To be even in the league of market leaders in Europe – you need around a million vehicles under contract. Targa Telematics is believed to be number one in Europe – and they claim on their website to have more than 4 million assets under contract – the majority probably being in Europe, but not all of them actually being connected vehicles.

Kienzle also acquired a company called Ubinam (German only again, sorry) earlier this year and with all of their assets combined, they are now at 130.000 vehicles in Europe, also according to the original press release. In order to get to the top, they have a long way to go – so are we going to see a shopping marathon similar to what AddSecure has tried? Do they have some kind of aggressive geo-expansion playbook in mind? A pivot into a different sector with lots of growth potential? Or do they have a different plan all-together how to grow by a factor of let’s say 10x?

The pivot from a hardware-centric player and reseller to a SaaS-company that they are apparently undertaking is less of a surprise. Software is eating the world is known for more than a decade now, the arrival of powerful generative AI has only accelerated this trend – and software and SaaS-players are valued way higher than more traditional hardware companies. So this is understandable – I just had not noticed it happening with Kienzle before.

Also on this acquisition, I don’t have all the answers – but will be interesting to watch their further moves, as I find their growth-ambition to be a super-challenging target.

Then of course there was the announcement that Geotab would acquire the international fleet management business from Verizon Connect. So to make this clear: Geotab bought the international sales and customer facing operations, while Verizon kept the actual business and core technology platform. This raises a lot of questions for both participants in this transaction.

Let’s start with Verizon Connect. They have now parted ways with their international business, leaving only their US-operation. They have kept all other functions so far. If I take a look at their recent press releases, the page looks abandoned, with not a single press release published in 2025 – not even news from this transaction. They also did NOT announce this deal to the stock market – which they would have been required to do if it was considered “material”. Does this mean anything? I can only speculate – just like I can only wonder about the future of the rest of the Verizon Connect business. It has been 9 years now since Verizon did the big acquisitions of Fleetmatics and Telogis – did their plans materialize? Is this a strategic decision to focus on their core geographic market – or a decision to leave the fleet management space? I cannot know those answers – but did I mention that it will be interesting to watch this space?

About Geotab, the first surprise for me is that they are doing market-share driven acquisitions now in the first place. So far, Geotab has acquired 4 companies that I am aware of – Strategic Telekom Solutions (2015), FleetCarma (2018), BSM Technologies (2019) and Intendia (2019). FleetCarma and Intendia were clearly driven by technology capabilities Geotab wanted to acquire. STS and BSM did include a commercial part – but both times full companies were acquired, not just the commercial parts including customers. Also, it has been a long time since Geotab has acquired Intendia in 2019 – is this now an opportunity that arose that was too good to pass on for Geotab – or a change in strategy, where we can expect more acquisitions to follow? How will they be able to cope with the usual challenges associated with integrating a competitors customer base – the tedious work required to move over a large vehicle installed base to their core platform? Will they be able to keep the majority of the acquired customers – or will churn start to take its toll? You know what is coming now – I don’t know the answers – but I am burning to find out how things develop for them.

As the previous sections illustrate, we live in interesting times. How will the last quarter of the year go with regards to acquisitions in the fleet space in Europe? I have the feeling, the YellowFox-transaction has stalled out other processes a bit, it has raised a lot of tension in the market and lots of players were hoping to get in on the deal. At the same time, sellers were waiting for it to be over, so they can sell their assets in a less disturbed environment. As I have mentioned above, valuations appear to be interesting again – and players on the market like Kienzle have voiced big growth ambitions – while the global market leader in fleet management Geotab appears to open up for M&A again. I think this mix will lead to some transactions completing that have been stalled so far – and next year will be even more interesting when companies have drawn their conclusions from this situation.

I don’t want to end this rather long article without a brief mention of my own involvement in this space. If you are in the fleet management industry wanting to acquire or sell a company and need any assistance – want to discuss market movements, products, technology, customer-demands – or how to move forward with your M&A-activity in general, please get in touch and let’s talk! During my 18 years in the industry, I have been on both sides of the M&A-table a couple of times now, first as CTO for Webfleet and now as an independent advisor and would love to help you in your journey.