Storskogen acquires Singapore fire safety firm to expand in Asia
What's the deal? Swedish industrial group Storskogen has acquired a majority stake in Safi Equipment and Services, a Singapore-based provider of fire safety solutions. Safi, which has operated for more than 40 years, provides installation and maintenance services for commercial, retail, and industrial buildings. It employs roughly 90 people.
The deal, completed on May 15, 2026, slots Safi into Storskogen's Infrastructure Services vertical within its Services business area. Storskogen said it expects the acquisition to have a marginally positive impact on earnings and EBITA margin.
Safi's management team — led by Gerald Tan and Darryl Lim — will stay on and remain significant minority shareholders. The family of founder Ker Siang Chew will also retain a minority stake.
Why now? Storskogen is pushing to build a stronger presence outside Sweden. It already has around 900 employees and roughly SEK 1B in net sales across its Asian business units. The acquisition deepens that footprint in a sector where tightening regulatory requirements are expected to drive long-term demand for fire safety services.
The deal also complements Storskogen's existing fire safety operations. SoVent Group, another company in the Services business area, operates in an adjacent sector and "has developed strongly since joining Storskogen," the company said.
What could go wrong? Safi is a small business — 90 employees — and the deal's financial impact is described as only "marginally positive." Regulatory tailwinds in fire safety are real but not guaranteed to materialise on any specific timeline. And expanding in Southeast Asia through bolt-on acquisitions carries integration risk, especially across cultural and regulatory environments.
The signal: This is textbook buy-and-build strategy — a large, listed industrial group snapping up a profitable niche operator with recurring revenue and a defensible market position. Storskogen, with roughly SEK 33B in group net sales and 10,000 employees, has made this playbook its identity: acquire small-to-midsize businesses in fragmented, regulation-driven industries and let existing management keep running them.
The deal reflects a broader trend of European conglomerates hunting for growth in Asia's fragmented services markets, where ageing infrastructure and rising compliance standards create steady demand.
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