PKA, the pensions administrator that runs three Danish pension funds, has sold electrical components company KK Group to Scandinavian investment firm Solix, crystallising private equity investment profits from what it says may have been one of the three best investments it has ever made.

A PKA spokesman said the pensions provider could not disclose the price it was paid for its controlling interest in the company.

However, the firm said it made more than DKK1bn (€134m) in terms of ongoing dividends, as well as the sale of the investment in the KK Group, which it first bought in 1983.

Michael Nellemann Pedersen, investment director at PKA, said: “We have made an outstanding return, and there is no doubt that KK is a top candidate to join PKA’s top three best investments over time.”

PKA got the original sum it invested in the business back more than 100 times, he said.

“Of course, there have been many challenges on the way, but we are proud that PKA – together with the company’s managers and staff, as well as Maj Invest – have transformed KK from a local electronics business to a leading global and innovative business for sustainable-energy products,” he said.

Nellemann Pedersen said now the time had come for others to continue KK’s development.

Solix is buying the KK Group from PKA, investment fund Maj Invest – which has been a co-owner since 2010 – and KK Group’s chief executive Tommy Jespersen, as well as its finance director Johnny Haahr.

Jespersen and Haahr have been running the company since 2004.

The KK Group is one of the world’s main suppliers of electrical components for the wind-power industry, with the company’s products involved in equipment producing more than 60% of total off-shore wind power capacity.

PKA manages total assets of DKK250bn on behalf of three labour-market pension funds in the social and healthcare sectors.

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