Disclaimer: Unless noted otherwise, views and analysis expressed here are the author's own and based on public sources. The article is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional for investment decisions.

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Fancy another Anthropic S-1 breakdown? Just kidding! As the AI mania hits fever pitch, even good old GM is seeking to recast itself as an AI play. Belron - the windscreen replacement firm of the “Carglass repair, Carglass replace” jingle fame - needs no such makeover. 

As one of our generation’s standout compounders, for now, Belron looks safe from AI disruption. It rakes in $2B+ EBITDA by fixing 13 million windscreens a year; one every 2.4 seconds. Since onboarding Private Equity in 2017, Belron has eked sales and adjusted EBIT CAGRs of 9% and 29%, respectively. Belron’s longer-term track record - its majority owner D’Ieteren took over in 1999 - is not too shabby either: 

Belron is not just fast-growing, but eye-wateringly profitable and capital-efficient too. 

Its working capital contracted in 7 of the last 10 financial years. Its capex / sales ratio is a puny 2%. In 2025, Belron reported adjusted EBIT and EBITDA margins of 23% and 28%, respectively. Actually, forget the adjustments: like clockwork, Belron converts 20% of sales into operating cash flow. Whichever profitability metric you analyse, Belron is up 3-4x in less than a decade. 

At the heart of Belron’s fortunes is a four-letter acronym: ADAS, or Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. From the mid-2010s, carmakers began fitting windscreen-mounted cameras for features like automatic emergency braking and lane-keeping. Then regulators made them compulsory, most decisively the EU. Because fitting a new windscreen moves the camera, even if very slightly, it has to be re-aimed or “recalibrated”. These regulatory headwinds have propelled the global vehicle glass repair, replacement and recalibration (VGRRR) market to $40B+, growing at 7%.

Belron is the Kingpin of VGRRR, with a market share that exceeds those of the next 3 players… combined (Boyd Group, Driven Brands and Cary Group). All told, in 2025, 84% of Belron’s revenues came from VGRRR, with the remainder from recalibration (8%), “value-added products” (i.e. wiper blades, 2%) and other (6%). 

As Belron is starting up to brush against the regulatory ceiling in some jurisdictions, notably the US, there are limits to its growth. That doesn’t seem to faze Carlos Brito, the former CEO of AB InBev who took over the reins from Gary Lubner in 2023. Mr. Brito has sharpened Belron’s marketing and doubled down on high-margin wiper blades, whose “attachment rate” now stands at 25%, double the 2017 levels. 

To sum up, Belron is a rare breed: a highly profitable, growing, and AI-proof services compounder. But what makes it so special? After sifting through reams of research on Belron - with loads more incoming as the company gears up for a 2027 IPO - we decided against publishing yet another “primer”. Instead, this writeup brings out the 4 most interesting chapters of Belron’s stunning rise, including: 

If you’re looking for more factual information on Belron, check out D’Ieteren’s 2025 Investor Day (video, pdf).  

Kudos to this week’s sponsor Legacy Partners: an investor in search funds, Independent Sponsors and HoldCos. RollUpEurope is proud to partner with Chris and Florian. Get in touch with them today!

One last thing before we dig into the story: will we see you at the Independent Sponsors Summit in Munich on 11 November? The industry’s biggest gathering in Continental Europe. Last few seats left: get yours today here.

Our research into Belron was greatly aided by East 72 Dynasty Trust, a listed Australian investment fund and a shareholder in D'Ieteren, a listed Belgian HoldCo that owns 50.3% of the company. Other investors include CD&R, Hellman & Friedman, GIC, Blackrock, and the management.  

East 72’s core hypothesis is that the company was overlooked by investors due to “being Belgian, family controlled and a complex structure”. Not unfair - but the math around D’Ieteren’s investment in Belron is now too compelling to ignore. 

According to East 72, between 1999 and 2009, D’Ieteren spent roughly €620M to amass a c.90% stake in Belron. It fully recouped the investment in 2017 by selling 40% to the Private Equity firm CD&R. Add the €6B in cumulative dividends, and the residual 50.3% stake worth €10-15B ahead of an IPO… 

….and you’re looking at a 30-bagger! 

But first, two words about D’Ieteren (full history here, per The Brussels Times). Founded in 1805 as a wheelwright and carriage-building workshop in Brussels, over the next two centuries, D’Ieteren had a go at building custom car bodies and later importing Studebaker and VW automobiles, before morphing into a fully-fledged HoldCo.

Today, D’Ieteren can be best described as an automotive HoldCo. Beside a 50.3% stake in Belron, it owns Belgium’s VW distributor; 91% in Parts Holding Europe (a French vehicle parts distributor; 40% in TVH (a parts distributor for material handling, construction, industrial and agricultural equipment); some real estate… and, oddly, 100% of Moleskine. 

Not that these other units matter that much. 

Even though Moleskine, TVH and VW distribution business have all struggled recently, D’Ieteren’s share price is up more than threefold since Covid. The reason is Belron, which represents two-thirds of PbT and - depending on who you ask - between 70% and 90% of NAV (source). Investors barely blinked when Belron loaded billions of debt to its balance sheet, to finance a €4.3B dividend, cash that helped D’Ieteren’s chairman buy out his cousin.

Belron’s history has followed a similarly non-linear trajectory, neatly summarised here. In short:

SAB’s counterparty buyer was Dicobel, a JV between two Belgian investment companies, D’Ieteren and Cobepa (which, in turn, was a shareholder in D’Ieteren). Cobepa fully exited Belron a decade later, crystallising a 4x+ MOIC (€1.7B equity value). 

In the first decade under Dicobel’s ownership (2000-2010), Belron prospered, with revenues surging more than threefold and EBIT more than fivefold. All along Belron was looking for a US market entry point. 

In 1998, it merged its US operations with those of Safelite, the No.1 player. The following year, Belron sold its 45% stake and in 2000, Safelite filed for Chapter 11. In 2007, Belron re-entered the US, this time acquiring all of Safelite.  

The good times didn't last though… 

It’s hard to believe now, but there was a period when Belron struggled to grow. Between 2010 and 2014 its sales flatlined, while adjusted EBIT fell by a third (from €256M to €165M). The slow recovery of the European VGRRR market in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis prompted the management to scour for new business lines. McKinsey rode to the rescue, overseeing the 2015-16 strategic review, which was presented at the D’Ieteren 2017 Investor Day. 

The big idea? Expanding into adjacent markets whose TAMs dwarfed VGRRR, then worth “only” €8B. Out of more than 300 ideas Belron picked 3: car damage repair (ADRR), home repair (HDRR) and claims management:

In 2016-17 Belron made a string of small acquisitions to populate these new business lines, for example:

By 2018, Belron reported €102M in car body repair revenues and €82M in home repair, making up about 5% of total revenue. Unfortunately, profits from these new pursuits remained elusive, triggering a €21M impairment on the Italian car body repair business built around Eurocar (sold in 2020), and the eventual shutdown (or disposal) of other businesses.  

By 2019, Belron had seemingly lost all interest in “ADRR” and “HDRR”. Once again, windscreen repair was the future. What happened?