Exit: SAP acquires Signavio from consortium of investors

Wall­dorf, Germany — SAP SE is acqui­ring Signa­vio GmbH from a consor­tium consis­ting of Apax Part­ners, Deut­sche Tele­kom Capi­tal Part­ners, Summit Part­ners, GP Bull­hound and the foun­ders, repor­tedly paying about 1 billion euros. — Wilkie Farr & Gallag­her LLP advi­ses the consor­tium on the sale of Signa­vio GmbH to SAP SE.

Signa­vio, foun­ded in 2009, is a leading provi­der of SaaS-based busi­ness process analy­sis and decis­ion manage­ment soft­ware that enables orga­niza­ti­ons to design, imple­ment, analyze and manage complex proces­ses, decis­i­ons and work­flows. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the 2nd quar­ter of 2021.

The inves­tors were invol­ved as follows: The Ameri­can finan­cier Summit Part­ners, which has been with Signa­vio since 2015, still held around 8.1% of the company at the exit. Deut­sche Tele­kom Capi­tal Part­ners — now better known as DTCP — held 6.6%. The Ameri­can inves­tor Apax, which, like DTCP, inves­ted in Sgna­vio in 2019, was last on board with 40.6%. Which, at best, has now raised over 400 million. Last but not least, GP Bull­hound also held a stake in Signa­vio (0.4%).

Signa­vio foun­der Gero Decker last held around 15.2% of Signa­vio. On paper, this means around 152 million euros. Signa­vio co-foun­­der Nico­las Peters, who will work at the soft­ware startup until the summer of 2020, most recently held around 9.3% of the company. Co-foun­­der Willi Tsche­sch­ner (CTO) most recently held around 9.5% of the company’s shares. Co-foun­­der Torben Schrei­ter, who worked at Signa­vio until 2016, came to 2.8% shortly before the exit.

Will­kie advi­sed the consor­tium consis­ting of lead inves­tor Apax Part­ners, Deut­sche Tele­kom Capi­tal Part­ners, Summit Part­ners, GP Bull­hound and the foun­ders (“Consor­tium”) on the sale of Signa­vio GmbH (“Signa­vio”) to SAP SE (“SAP”). The consor­tium announ­ced that it has ente­red into an agree­ment to sell Signa­vio, a leader in busi­ness process intel­li­gence and process manage­ment, to SAP.

Advi­sor to the consor­tium: Will­kie Farr & Gallagher
under the leader­ship of part­ner Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), consis­ted of part­ners Simon F. Spen­cer (IP, New York), Eugene L. Chang (IP, New York), William H. Rooney (Anti­trust, New York), Michael L. Katz (Corpo­rate, New York), Dr. Markus Lauer (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), coun­sels Miriam Steets, Wolf­gang Münchow, Daniel Zakrzew­ski, Dr. Moritz Vetter­mann (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Ludger Kempf (Tax, Frank­furt), Matthias Schr­a­der (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt), Matthias Töke (Finance, Frank­furt) and Jona­than Konoff (Anti­trust, New York), asso­cia­tes Aurel Hille (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Cesare Vannuc­chi, Jane Hentz, Ilie Manole, Andreas Sand­ber­ger, Philip Thür­mer (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Dr. Nadine Kramer, Martin Waskow­ski (both HR, Frank­furt), Chris­tian Schmidt (Tax, Frank­furt), Chris­to­pher Cleri­hew, Stefa­nie Lech­ler (both Finance, Frank­furt), Ahmad El- Gamal (Trade & Export, Washing­ton), Scott Wallace (Tax, London).

About Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP
Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 750 lawy­ers with offices in New York, Washing­ton, Hous­ton, Palo Alto, San Fran­cisco, Chicago, Paris, London, Frank­furt am Main, Brussels, Milan and Rome.