DBAG portfolio company Sero acquires Semecs

Frank­furt am Main — Sero GmbH (Sero), a company in the port­fo­lio of DBAG Fund VII, acqui­res Solid Semecs B.V. Like Sero, the Dutch company is a deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring service provi­der for EMS (Elec­tro­nic Manu­fac­tu­ring Services, complete contract manu­fac­tu­ring of elec­tro­nic assem­blies, devices and systems) and opera­tes on the market as Semecs. DBAG Fund VII will invest around 16 million euros in the purchase, of which 3.6 million euros will be inves­ted by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG).

The aim of the tran­sac­tion, which was agreed at the end of last week, is to broa­den the custo­mer base, open up new custo­mer sectors and expand produc­tion capa­ci­ties with a site in Eastern Europe. The seller is the Dutch company Rade­ma­ker Beheer B.V. The family behind the company is prima­rily invol­ved in machi­nery for large bake­ries; Semec’s acti­vi­ties are accor­din­gly outside its core busi­ness. The purchase is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties; the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by mid-year.

DBAG Fund VII, which was advi­sed by DBAG, had inves­ted in Sero in Novem­ber 2018 as part of a manage­ment buyout. DBAG had co-inves­­ted around eleven million euros along­side the fund. It holds 21 percent of the shares in Sero. The current tran­sac­tion is the seven­te­enth corpo­rate acqui­si­tion struc­tu­red by a company from the DBAG port­fo­lio within the past twelve months. The objec­tive is predo­mi­nantly to acce­le­rate the perfor­mance of the respec­tive port­fo­lio compa­nies, for exam­ple by broa­de­ning the product range and regio­nal coverage or by conso­li­da­ting the market.

Semecs (www.semecs.com) assem­bles prin­ted circuit boards for a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons and also specia­li­zes in common assem­bly, cali­bra­tion and test­ing services. The company, head­quar­te­red in Uden, Nether­lands, employs 480 people, 450 of whom work at the produc­tion site in Vráble, Slova­kia, which was built in 2012. For the current year, the company expects sales of around 72 million euros.

The elec­tro­nic compon­ents produ­ced by Semecs in predo­mi­nantly small quan­ti­ties are used, for exam­ple, to control air-condi­­tio­­ning systems or the motors of e‑bikes, are found in elec­tro­nic elec­tri­city meters and mobile insu­lin pumps, and are instal­led in the LED light­ing or engine control systems of cars. Around 70 percent of sales are gene­ra­ted with indus­trial custo­mers; the remai­ning share is accoun­ted for by appli­ca­ti­ons in medi­cal tech­no­logy and products for the auto­mo­tive industry.

is where Semecs differs from Sero: Sero is an estab­lished produc­tion part­ner to the auto­mo­tive supply indus­try and gene­ra­tes around 85 percent of its sales there. With a high degree of auto­ma­tion, the company specia­li­zes in high-volume orders. Semecs, on the other hand, deals with orders above medium quan­ti­ties and a higher propor­tion of manual acti­vi­ties. Both compa­nies will bene­fit equally from the combi­na­tion of manu­fac­tu­ring opera­ti­ons invol­ving the Slova­kian site, ther­eby achie­ving a higher degree of flexi­bi­lity for diffe­rent order sizes and better posi­tio­ning in the acqui­si­tion of new busi­ness. The acqui­si­tion of Semecs thus broa­dens Sero’s custo­mer base and market access for the company, which employs around 220 people in Rohr­bach, Rhineland-Palatinate.

The newly formed group opera­tes in an attrac­tive market: for the core segments of indus­try, medi­cine and auto­mo­tive, growth rates above the alre­ady attrac­tive growth of the EMS market as a whole are expec­ted in the coming years.

“The compe­ten­cies of the two compa­nies comple­ment each other perfectly,” said Jannick Hune­cke, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board on the occa­sion of the tran­sac­tion. He added: “Toge­ther they can better serve the attrac­tive market and opti­mally combine their capa­bi­li­ties in produc­tion, so that with the company acqui­si­tion we are streng­thening and acce­le­ra­ting the further deve­lo­p­ment of our origi­nal investment.”

Sero CEO Dr. Bernd Welzel high­ligh­ted the stra­te­gic importance of the tran­sac­tion for Sero: “The company crea­ted from the two EMS specia­lists ensu­res a strong and compe­ti­tive presence in Europe with a broad range of manu­fac­tu­ring service offe­rings across diffe­rent market segments — this opens up a variety of oppor­tu­ni­ties for us and under­lines our expan­sion policy.” Semecs Mana­ging Direc­tor Jan-Fred­rik Kalee added, “We bring a well-trai­­ned team to an attrac­tive loca­tion with a reco­gni­zed good quality assu­rance process and look forward to working with them.”

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­­tio­­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.