CVC hires former Philips exec

CVC Capital Partners has hired Ivo Lurvink as a partner in its Amsterdam office, according to a statement from the firm.

Lurvink, who most recently was head of group investments and global head of group acquisitions and divestments at ING, will join the firm on April 1. It is understood that Lurvink will be taking a lead role in deal-making in the Benelux region.

Lurvink joined ING in 2007. Prior to this he worked at Credit Suisse First Boston and Booz Allen & Hamilton, as well as holding a number of senior leadership positions at Royal Philips Electronics.

His appointment comes as CVC is exploring a joint bid with KKR to acquired Philips Lighting, a division of the Eindhoven-based technology company.

It is understood that the negotiations are in a very early stage. According to Dutch business paper Het Financieele Dagblad, the enterprise value for the corporate carve out could be €9.5 billion, PEI reported earlier.

A spokesperson for CVC said Lurvink was hired on the strength of “his extensive experience across the board, his excellent network of relationships [and] that includes Philips.”

“We don’t hire a partner for a specific deal, it’s a long term commitment to work with us to invest in the Benelux region, and particularly the Netherlands,” the spokesperson said.

Once Lurvink joins there will be four in CVC’s Amsterdam office. At the end of 2014 Hugo van Berckel, a well-known CVC dealmaker in the Netherlands, died following an illness.

Under Van Berckel’s stewardship, Dutch supermarket C1000 was carved out from Ahold and sold to Jumbo. He was also on the board of Raet, VolkerWessels and Van Gansewinkel Group, which CVC sold last September. Van Berckel had been awarded best private equity manager in the Dutch M&A Awards.