Insights · Construction safety
Mapping a succession landscape for a construction-safety group
How an Austrian construction-safety services group got an evidenced view of its acquisition options, and a digital platform to sit behind it.
- Client
- An Austrian construction-safety services group (not named)
- Sector
- Construction safety
- Region
- Austria
- Timeline
- Ongoing
- Services
- Succession landscape, Target diligence, Digital platform
The client is not named at the client’s request. Sector, geography and scope are given as far as the engagement terms allow.
The challenge: a fragmented market and no map of it
Construction-safety services in Austria is a market of owner-operated firms, many of them approaching a succession decision at the same time. For a group intending to grow by acquisition, the constraint is not capital. It is that no reliable picture exists of who is actually available, on what terms, and with which qualifications intact.
Public succession exchanges carry a fraction of it. The rest is held informally, which means an acquirer either works from rumour or does the mapping itself.
The approach: build the landscape, then diligence the shortlist
ASE built the landscape rather than buying a list. Candidate firms were identified, screened against the qualifications that actually transfer in this sector, and ranked. Where a target carried a specific regulatory authorisation, whether that authorisation survives a change of ownership was treated as a first-order question rather than a legal detail to resolve later.
The two leading candidates were diligenced in depth. Alongside the landscape work, a digital platform was specified and delivered so the group has an operating system to absorb an acquisition into, rather than a spreadsheet and good intentions.
The results: a ranked shortlist and somewhere to put the target
The landscape was delivered in 2026 with a ranked set of candidates and the diligence behind the ranking written down. Both leading candidates were assessed on the same criteria, so the comparison is defensible to a board rather than a matter of preference. The platform goes live in September 2026, on a subscription commercial model with change control attached.
The direct-approach route was chosen deliberately: the public succession exchange for the region returned nothing usable, which is itself a finding worth having before spending time on it.
2
Targets diligenced in depth
Delivered
Platform
Specified and in service
Delivered
0
Usable candidates from the public succession exchange
Delivered
This note covers Succession landscape and digital platform, recorded in the firm’s track record.