The impact of Private Equity growth on Dutch Housing Corporations in the Property Maintenance Sector

In this research, the effects of the growth of private equity in the property maintenance market is investigated, regarding the change in the experienced value creation by housing corporations. The rational behind this research is because the rise of private equity in the market causes movements in the way the property maintenance companies work and what housing corporations expect from the property maintenance companies. With the imposed required sustainability levels and the housing shortage in the Netherlands, there is a huge amount of work that needs to be done to tackle these problems. This made the property maintenance sector prone to get entered by private equity firms. During the research, housing corporations were interviewed to test their experienced differences between acquired and non-acquired maintenance partners. All interviewed housing corporations indicated that they have not experienced any differences between their property maintenance partners that have been acquired by private equity and those that remained family-owned businesses, yet. However, they all have an opinion about the trend. This research discusses these opinions, what they expect from their maintenance partners in the future and how maintenance companies can cope with the trend as it unfolds.