Flex IT and T1A Combine to Own Corporate Device Supply

Eurazeo has combined Flex IT and T1A into a circular IT group with about €150 million of 2025 revenue, betting the constraint is getting hold of retired corporate laptops. Altor Fund IV sold Flex IT on 7 September 2026, and the Dutch distributor now sits inside the same group as the Danish collector Eurazeo bought in May.

Angelo Bul, Flex IT’s chief executive and now boss of the combined company, has spent a year arguing that buyers for a clean second-life laptop are not the scarce resource. Corporate machines that get shredded, or left in a cupboard, are.

A Collector and a 13,000-Reseller Channel Now Share One Ledger

The combination of Flex IT and T1A is a completed trade, not a letter of intent. T1A Group, founded in Denmark in 2001, takes corporate IT at the end of first use, wipes it to a certified standard, and refurbishes what can be sold again. Flex IT, founded in 1991 and based in Leiden, already sold new and refurbished hardware through a network of about 13,000 resellers, and runs certified refurbishment in Toruń, Poland, plus rental and demo work.

Altor’s 7 September 2026 notice put Flex IT’s 2025 sales at about €120 million and the combined group at about €150 million, a 25 percent lift in reported scale. Both firms hold R2v3 certificates, and the group now lists certified processing in Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland. Dansk Vækstkapital supported the Flex IT purchase; Eurazeo’s Planetary Boundaries Fund remains the majority backer that took control of T1A in May 2026. Peter Hemicke, T1A’s founder, becomes executive chairman and stays a co-investor.

The press line is that the two firms sat at opposite ends of one chain. Flex IT’s own site already advertised buy-back and IT asset disposition beside distribution, so the Dutch side was not a pure seller. What Eurazeo paid for is time. Hemicke has said collection at certified grade took T1A twenty-five years to build, and that Flex IT spent longer still on European selling. T1A is 25 years old in 2026; Flex IT is 35.

HOW THE TWO FIRMS FIT

No purchase price was disclosed. The operating bet is that a laptop taken from a company in one country can be processed at the nearest certified site and sold where it clears the best price, under one chain of custody and one warranty.

Eurazeo Bought the Inbound Side in May

The sequence is the wager. Eurazeo did not start with a distributor and hope inbound supply would follow. The Planetary Boundaries Fund took a majority stake in T1A first, then funded Flex IT 102 days later, after Altor Fund IV agreed to sell.

Erwann Le Ligné and Wilfried Piskula, managing partners and co-heads of the fund, used the May close to say they wanted a European champion in sustainable IT, built by organic growth and by buying other plants. The May notice named Germany, the Benelux, the United Kingdom and France as the next maps. Flex IT is the Benelux distribution piece of that map, with a Polish factory attached.

The fund completed a first close of €300 million on 3 March 2025. T1A was its third deal and its first in Denmark. The May notice also set the environmental case in the fund’s own language: avoided carbon from skipping new manufacture, water saved against a new build, and less pollution if e-waste is handled instead of dumped.

THE BET IN DATES

1. 22 May 2024: Eurazeo launches the Planetary Boundaries Fund as an impact buyout vehicle.
2. 3 March 2025: The fund announces a first close of €300 million.
3. 12 February 2025: Flex IT names Angelo Bul chief executive, succeeding Andreas Mayer.
4. 28 May 2026: The fund takes a majority stake in T1A; Hemicke stays as a co-investor.
5. 7 September 2026: Altor Fund IV sells Flex IT; Bul becomes chief executive of the combined group.

Hemicke’s May comment was that T1A had been looking for a partner that understood circular IT and still wanted growth. The September deal is that growth arriving as a bought channel rather than a hired sales force.

Why Corporate Laptops Still Sit in Cupboards

Demand is not the empty side of the ledger. Flex IT wrote in February 2026 that around 15 percent of European companies already use refurbished IT, with another 15 percent planning to. Cognitive Market Research, cited in that same note, put Europe’s refurbished IT market at USD 1,572.78 million in 2025, more than 30 percent of a global market it put at USD 5,242.6 million, and pencilled in a compound growth rate of over 10 percent from 2025 to 2033.

Context, the channel data firm, recorded a 7 percent rise in refurbished PC sales through distribution in the fourth quarter across Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and France. About 40 percent of those sales sat in the €200 to €300 band. The €300 to €400 tier was 23 percent, up from 15 percent a year earlier. Jacky Chan, Context’s ESG specialist, said second-life computing was moving into the mainstream and that the United Kingdom had become Europe’s fastest-growing market after volumes there doubled in 2025.

The EU Right to Repair rules have been fully in force since July 2026, which Flex IT flagged as a spare-parts and repairability tailwind. Memory-chip tightness has also pushed new-device prices up, which is ordinary arithmetic for a second-life seller. None of that fills a warehouse if the laptops never leave the first owner.

THE SUPPLY GAP IN FOUR FIGURES

• European uptake: About 15 percent of companies already buy refurbished IT, and another 15 percent say they plan to, per Flex IT’s February 2026 note.
• Europe’s 2025 market: USD 1,572.78 million, more than 30 percent of the USD 5,242.6 million global total in the Cognitive Market Research figures Flex IT used.
• T1A throughput: The May Eurazeo notice said T1A refurbishes more than 250,000 data-carrying units a year.
• WEEE capture: Recycling Europe said on 16 January 2026 that only around 40% of WEEE is currently reported as recycled, against a 65 percent collection target.

Bul’s September comment is the operating brief for the new group, and it is blunter than the market tables.

The hard part of circular IT has never been finding a buyer for a good second-life laptop. It is getting hold of the laptop in the first place. Far too much corporate hardware is still scrapped, or left in a cupboard for three years, without anyone ever asking whether it could be used again. Together with T1A we can now take responsibility for the whole life of a client’s equipment, from the day it arrives to the day it leaves and beyond. That is what makes reuse the normal choice rather than the virtuous one.

Angelo Bul, Chief Executive, combined Flex IT and T1A group

A quiet close on 7 September fits that diagnosis. The deal moved through ESG wires and PE notices with almost no public argument, because certified refurbished stock is already inventory in the European channel. The remaining fight is with IT managers who still treat end-of-life as a shredding job or a locked closet.

Leiden Already Ran the Outbound Machine

Flex IT did not arrive as a startup bolted onto a collector. The Leiden company started in 1991 as a Dutch repair shop and now sells across Europe from 11,200 m2 of warehouse space at Zaalbergweg 9. It calls itself the only European provider covering refurbished, demo, new, ITAD and rental from one group. Refurbished units carry warranties of up to three years. In 2025 it joined HP’s Certified Refurbished programme as an official refurbishment partner.

Bul took the Flex IT job on 12 February 2025 after Andreas Mayer left. He had been an executive vice president at Nordic distributor Dustin and, before that, a general and country manager at ZTE. Altor owned the platform through Fund IV until this week’s sale. Earlier, in 2022, Flex IT bought German demo specialist MKCL, a deal then-chief executive Leon Timmermans tied to vendor work, including Lenovo.

That history is why Hemicke’s “different discipline” line lands. A 13,000-reseller book, a Polish refurb line, HP papers, rental and demo are not a side project a Danish ITAD house builds in a year. They are also why Altor had something to sell: Flex IT already made money moving kit, including new kit, through the same trucks that now have a larger inbound contract to feed them.

WHAT FLEX IT ALREADY SOLD

• Refurbished stock: Graded, wiped, warrantied machines aimed at the channel and at end users who will take second-life hardware.
• New hardware: The group still distributes new devices, so circular is a line, not the whole catalogue.
• Demo and rental: Short-cycle kit for vendors and for buyers who do not want to own the asset.
• Buy-back and ITAD: Flex IT already offered recovery and disposition, which is why “opposite ends of the chain” is a matter of emphasis, not a blank space on the Dutch side.
• Auctions: A separate Flex IT Auctions channel sits beside the stock feed it offers resellers.

T1A’s weight in the new ledger is inbound volume. Eurazeo’s May notice said the Dane refurbishes more than 250,000 data-carrying units every year, laptops, servers and network gear taken from corporate parks. That is the cupboard-emptying muscle the fund did not want to grow from a standing start in Leiden.

The Certification That Follows the Device

R2v3 is the paper both sides wave at a security officer who would otherwise insist on shredding. Sustainable Electronics Recycling International writes the R2 Standard for responsible reuse and recycling, and version three is the current bar. Certified plants have to document chain of custody, wipe or destroy data, watch downstream vendors, and sort equipment with reuse ahead of recycling when reuse is practical.

For a corporate seller, the certificate is a substitute for watching the truck. For a reseller in the 13,000-strong book, it is why a second-life laptop can carry a warranty without looking like grey-market leftover. Hemicke’s September line depends on that paper trail holding when a device leaves a Danish office and lands with a buyer in another country.

Reuse still loses a lot of European electronics before any certified dock sees them. Recycling Europe, the recyclers’ body, said on 16 January 2026 that only around 40% of WEEE is currently reported as recycled, with collection still short of the EU’s 65 percent target. Maria Vera Duran, its policy director, said Europe was losing materials to poor collection and weak markets. A combined ITAD-and-channel group lives on the devices that never become that uncounted scrap.

Who Captures the Residual Value Now?

Altor is the seller that got paid. Fund IV exits a distributor it had scaled into about €120 million of 2025 sales, into a French impact buyout fund that wanted the channel. Eurazeo is the buyer placing a second cheque on the same thesis it wrote in May: own a profitable circular plant, then buy the route to market.

Hemicke keeps a founder’s stake and the chair, which is how EPBF has structured the Danish side from the start. Bul keeps the operating job, which puts a distributor, not a collector, in day-to-day charge of the combined P&L. Dansk Vækstkapital, the Danish fund-of-funds built with pension capital, is on the ticket as support, not as majority owner.

The 13,000 resellers get a larger, more predictable feed of graded stock if T1A’s corporate contracts actually move. They also face a supplier that now has less reason to leak the best lots to someone else’s catalogue. Corporate IT teams that already wanted one vendor for take-back, wipe, and replacement can stop splitting the job. WEEE recyclers who live on shredded feedstock are the quiet other side of the same flow: every laptop that goes back into the channel is a laptop that never arrives as scrap.

OEMs sit in the middle. Flex IT is an HP Certified Refurbished partner and still sells new kit, so the group is not a pure second-life house. Vendor refresh cycles, including AI-PC upgrades, can dump high-spec machines into the inbound side, which helps T1A, while the same cycles can keep “new” as the default on the outbound side, which helps the new-hardware line and hurts reuse volume. The combined group can live with either mix. The fund’s circular case lives only with the second life.

Cupboard Stock Is the Integration Test

The industrial logic is tidy on a slide. A device comes off a corporate contract in one country, goes through a certified line in Denmark, the Netherlands or Poland, and goes back out through Leiden’s reseller book under warranty. The 102 days between the T1A close and the Flex IT close show how fast EPBF was willing to buy the missing piece once it owned inbound supply.

What the slide does not move is the cupboard. Bul’s own numbers still have most European companies outside refurbished buying. Recycling Europe’s 40 percent recycled figure, set against a 65 percent collection target, is the same problem counted as waste. Flex IT already offered ITAD; adding T1A’s 250,000-unit habit only pays if more first owners sign the collection contract instead of shredding on site or waiting three years.

Hemicke put the geographic claim in one sentence, and that is the test the new group has to pass in the contracts it signs next.

What we can do now is take a device out of a company in one country and put it back to work in another, under warranty, with the chain of custody intact.

Peter Hemicke, Executive Chairman, combined Flex IT and T1A group

The warranty and the chain of custody are already on the certificates. The open item is whether corporate hardware still sits in cupboards after a collector and a 13,000-reseller channel share a ledger.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Does R2v3 Certification Require?

R2v3 is version three of SERI’s Responsible Recycling standard, and it became the required bar for SERI-accredited plants on 31 March 2023. Certified facilities must prefer reuse over recycling when reuse is practical, keep a documented chain of custody, and stay on the hook for downstream vendors they use. Data sanitization is expected to follow NIST SP 800-88 methods, with device-level records rather than a batch note, and the published certificate has to state which processes the plant is actually allowed to run.

Who Is Angelo Bul, the Combined Group’s Chief Executive?

Flex IT named Bul chief executive on 12 February 2025, succeeding Andreas Mayer, who stayed on for a handover. He joined from Dustin, the Nordic IT distributor, where he was an executive vice president, and he earlier ran country and general-manager roles at ZTE. Lars Pettersson, speaking for Flex IT’s board at the time, said Mayer had professionalised the company and that Bul’s channel experience was the reason for the appointment.

When Did Eurazeo Take Control of T1A?

The Eurazeo Planetary Boundaries Fund acquired a majority stake in T1A Group on 28 May 2026. That close was the fund’s third investment and its first in Denmark, and Peter Hemicke remained a co-investor. The same notice said T1A would keep expanding in Germany, the Benelux, the United Kingdom and France by growing its own shops and by buying other plants.

What Is Dansk Vækstkapital’s Role?

Dansk Vækstkapital is Denmark’s long-running fund-of-funds, set up with pension money to back private equity and venture funds rather than to run factories itself. In this trade it supported Eurazeo’s purchase of Flex IT as a minority backer. The companies have not named which Dansk Vækstkapital vintage sat on the ticket, and they have not described it as the majority owner.

Does the Combined Group Sell Only Refurbished Devices?

No. Flex IT still distributes new hardware and runs demo, rental and ITAD lines beside refurbished stock, and it says it is the only European house covering those five domains from 11,200 m2 of warehouse space. Warranties on refurbished machines run up to three years. T1A’s corporate collection and certified refurbishment feed that mix; they do not replace the new-device catalogue.