Biggest shake-up our industry has seen in years just landed. On April 29, 2026, KONE agreed to acquire TK Elevator (TKE) in a cash-and-share deal valuing TKE at €29.4 billion (~$34.4 billion).
A few things that jumped out at me:
- It would create the world's largest elevator and escalator company — bigger than Otis and Schindler. Combined: 100,000+ employees, 100+ countries, and around €20.5 billion in annual revenue.
- TKE's private-equity owners (Advent and Cinven) get €5B in cash plus up to 270M new KONE shares.
- KONE is projecting €700M in annual synergies.
But it is far from done:
- It still needs shareholder and regulatory approval, and it's walking straight into heavy EU antitrust review (plus the US and UK). Remember — Brussels effectively killed an earlier KONE–TKE attempt. Analysts expect asset sales may be required, especially in Europe.
- Schindler has already said it will challenge the deal before competition authorities.
- Earliest realistic close is Q2 2027.
Curious what everyone here thinks:
- Field techs / service folks — if your branch suddenly flips from TKE to KONE (or vice-versa), what happens to parts, tooling, and service contracts day to day?
- Do you think regulators let it through, block it, or force big divestitures?
- Long term — is consolidation good (R&D scale, standardization) or bad (less competition, higher prices) for buildings and for us?
Drop your take below.
_Sources: KONE & TKE press releases (2026-04-29), CNBC, Euronews, Axios, ElevatorWorld.
