DBAG: Successful start to the new financial year with three exits

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) reports a very successful start to the new finan­cial year 2022/2023. Having recently focu­sed in parti­cu­lar on adding attrac­tive compa­nies to its invest­ment port­fo­lio and rapidly expan­ding its market posi­tion through acqui­si­ti­ons, DBAG agreed three dispo­sals in the first quar­ter of 2022/2023 and a fourth in Febru­ary 2023. “It is parti­cu­larly plea­sing that these dispo­sals relate to the two growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and IT services and soft­ware, as well as an invest­ment from Italy,” comm­ents Tors­ten Grede, DBAG Board Spokes­man (photo 1st from left). “This means that the stra­te­gic decis­i­ons of broa­de­ning our sector focus and expan­ding geogra­phi­cally into Italy are now bearing fruit. Even in the current chal­len­ging capi­tal market envi­ron­ment, tran­sac­tions are taking place. This is eviden­ced by both our recent study published in coope­ra­tion with FINANCE and our successful dispo­sals,” Grede continued.

By selling its invest­ment in Cloudf­light in a chal­len­ging market, DBAG was able to realize more than four times the capi­tal inves­ted. The sale of the invest­ment in Heytex marks the successful conclu­sion of DBAG Fund V. DBAG Fund V is thus one of the most successful funds of its vintage for private equity invest­ments in Europe. In addi­tion, the dispo­sal of the invest­ment in Pmflex also marked the first dispo­sal in Italy and was comple­ted in Janu­ary 2023. DBAG was thus able to realize more than twice the capi­tal inves­ted after a holding period of just over two years. Finally, the sale of the stake in BTV Multi­me­dia was agreed in Febru­ary, reali­zing around three times the capi­tal invested.

The good start to the fiscal year is supported by posi­tive capi­tal market influen­ces. This affec­ted the entire breadth of our port­fo­lio, i.e. both busi­ness models with an indus­trial focus and busi­ness models in growth sectors. The chan­geo­ver to the 2023 budgets, which is custo­mary in the first quar­ter, also resul­ted in a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to earnings. Due to the value reco­very period, this also alre­ady takes into account the dispo­sal of BTV Multi­me­dia. In total, the net asset value increa­ses to 620.8 million euros. This is seven percent more than at the begin­ning of the fiscal year.

The Fund Consul­ting segment deve­lo­ped accor­ding to plan and gene­ra­ted earnings before taxes of 3.5 million euros (prior-year quar­ter: 3.7 million euros). Profit before tax in the Private Equity Invest­ments segment reached 38.4 million euros (prior-year quar­ter: ‑11.9 million euros). Over­all, DBAG closes the first three months of finan­cial year 2022/2023 with conso­li­da­ted net income of 41.6 million euros (prior-year quar­ter: ‑8.2 million euros).

Results for a single quar­ter cannot be extra­po­la­ted to the full fiscal year. Due to DBAG’s busi­ness model, the results of indi­vi­dual peri­ods, even directly conse­cu­tive ones, may differ significantly.

The company’s key perfor­mance indi­ca­tors in the first quar­ter of 2022/2023 are within the corri­dor of the fore­cast published at the begin­ning of Decem­ber 2022; it is ther­e­fore unch­an­ged. In its fore­cast, DBAG assu­mes that the valua­tion condi­ti­ons on the capi­tal markets at the end of the current finan­cial year will not differ signi­fi­cantly from those at the time the fore­cast was prepared.

About Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of Germany’s most renow­ned private equity compa­nies. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­­tio­­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The indus­try focus is on manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services, soft­ware and health­care sectors. Since 2020, DBAG has also been repre­sen­ted in Italy with its own office in Milan. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to appro­xi­m­ately 2.6 billion euros.