Q-matic was sold by private equity firm 3i, Litorina Kapital and its founding families.

“We are eager to continue developing Q-matic together with a professional owner by expanding into new markets and customer segments,” Q-matic’s chief executive, Åke Stråberg, said. “We are present in an industry with solid growth prospects across geographies for several years to come.”

Altor partner Fredrik Strömholm added: “We see Q-matic as an excellent platform for a continued international expansion and look forward to further developing the business into a truly multi-national company within queue management solutions.

“Altor also had a strong angle by securing the complementary, simultaneous acquisition of QM Group, a leading queue management company in the UK with strengths in the retail and finance sectors.”

Altor director Andreas Hiller said: “Åke Stråberg has built an impressive management team and we truly look forward to support the company in its further product, service and market development.”

Ernst & Young, led by Jesper Almstrom, managed a financial due diligence review of the target business for Altor while the commercial review was handled by Fredrik Wilhelmsson.

Wilhelmsson said Q-matic is a global leader and has a very strong track record of fast profitable growth. “We needed to establish that the company had both the market potential and growth strategy to continue this momentum for many years to come.

“Altor’s decision to start the commercial review early both made for an effective process and helped win the transaction,” he added.

Q-matic develops, manufactures and markets queue management systems that are mainly sold to the public sector, healthcare institutions, financial organisations and retailers. Since it was founded in 1981, Q-matic has installed more than 25,000 queuing systems.

The company’s systems are currently sold in 102 countries through nine subsidiaries and 52 distributors. It has some 200 employees.

Headquartered in Mölndal, Sweden, the company has subsidiaries in the US, Canada, China, Denmark France, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands and the UK>.

Altor invests in medium sized companies in the Nordic region with its previous investments including Lindorff, AGR Group, Relacom, Ferrosan, Meyn, Aalborg Industries, PaloDEx, Navico, Byggmax, Nimbus Boats, SPT Group, PIAB, Dustin, Helly Hansen, Dansk Cater and Wrist Group.