Management buy-out: S‑UBG acquires stake in LD DIDACTIC

Aachen — S‑UBG AG, the region’s leading invest­ment company for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses, toge­ther with Mana­ging Direc­tor Martin Petzl, acqui­res 100 percent of the shares in the LD DIDACTIC (LD) group of compa­nies from the pan-Euro­­pean alter­na­tive invest­ment group AURELIUS as part of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO). LD offers inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons and teaching tools for digi­tal teaching in science and technology.

The LD DIDACTIC Group, based in Hürth near Colo­gne, was foun­ded in 1850 by Ernst Leybold and acqui­red by AURELIUS in 2009. It deve­lops, produ­ces and sells teaching systems and educa­tio­nal tech­no­logy (EdTech) for science and tech­no­logy teaching. Under the brands ELWE, Feed­back and LEYBOLD, the group serves schools, voca­tio­nal schools and univer­si­ties. These include RWTH Aachen Univer­sity, the city of Colo­gne, Hürth Compre­hen­sive School and Witt­gen­stein Voca­tio­nal College in Bad Berleburg.

The Group sells its products and solu­ti­ons in Germany as well as through a dealer network and selec­ted part­ners in other Euro­pean and non-Euro­­pean count­ries. It employs appro­xi­m­ately 160 people and has 5 loca­ti­ons in Germany, England and Hungary.

Expan­sion of sales activities

“We have successfully emer­ged from the pande­mic and are seeing an over­all increase in demand for products for digi­ti­zed teaching,” says Martin Petzl, who has led the company since 2020 and spear­hea­ded the MBO. “I am plea­sed to have found a relia­ble regio­nal part­ner in S‑UBG, which supports us in further expan­ding our port­fo­lio and our sales and placing new products on the market. In the area of tech­no­logy, our focus is on auto­mo­tive and elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring, energy tran­si­tion as well as energy trans­mis­sion and SMART GRID, respec­tively. In the area of natu­ral scien­ces, we are focu­sing on the further virtua­liza­tion and digi­tiza­tion of the expe­ri­ment port­fo­lio as well as on sustaina­bi­lity topics such as climate change.”

“LD is making a valuable contri­bu­tion to society world­wide with nume­rous solu­ti­ons for modern, digi­tal educa­tion,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher (photo), CEO of S‑UBG. “We are convin­ced that Martin Petzl and his team will conti­nue to drive LD’s success in the years to come.”

Promi­sing market development

The market for science expe­ri­men­ta­tion equip­ment grew by about 16 percent from 2020 to 2022 to reach 2.2 billion euros. Average growth of around 7 percent per year is expec­ted up to 2027. Experts expect above-average growth in the emer­ging markets in Africa and Asia in parti­cu­lar. The incre­asing digi­tiza­tion of teaching and expe­ri­men­ta­tion is seen as a driver. Accor­ding to fore­casts, the share of digi­tal science expe­ri­ment solu­ti­ons is expec­ted to increase by 150 percent by 2027.

About the S‑UBG Group

For more than 35 years, the S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in provi­ding equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­­no­­logy-orien­­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchengladbach.
S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. She deve­lops invest­ment models for medium-sized compa­nies, both in open and silent form, and she looks back on many years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment of expan­sion finan­cing models, share­hol­der chan­ges as well as succes­sion arran­ge­ments (MBO/MBI) and exclu­si­vely enters into mino­rity shareholdings.

The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­­kas­­sen-Finan­z­­gruppe. Further infor­ma­tion: www.s‑ubg.de; www.techvision-fonds.de