Deutsche Beteiligungs AG acquires majority stake in UNITY AG

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in UNITY AG — Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft für Unter­neh­mens­füh­rung und Infor­ma­ti­ons­tech­no­lo­gie (UNITY AG), a leading inter­na­tio­nal consul­ting firm specia­li­zing in tech­no­logy consul­ting and digi­ta­liza­tion processes.
A fund advi­sed by DBAG acqui­res a control­ling stake in UNITY AG.
The previous share­hol­der, UNITY Inno­va­tion Alli­ance, which in turn is owned by its foun­ders and employees, acqui­res an almost equal econo­mic stake.
In addi­tion, UNITY AG employees are also inves­t­ing directly in UNITY AG as part of the transaction.
This results in a constel­la­tion of strong part­ners through the capi­tal share ratios.
The tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties, is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the third quar­ter of 2024.
The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the terms of the sale. Holi­stic consul­ting approach for sustainable success UNITY AG, which was named as one of the 14 most important manage­ment consul­tancies in Germany in the renow­ned Lünen­donk® List 2024, offers compre­hen­sive services to clients such as AIRBUS, GEA, Luft­hansa Tech­nik, Merce­­des-Benz, Miele and the Univer­sity Hospi­tal of Cologne.
From 14 loca­ti­ons, almost 400 employees enable UNITY AG custo­mers to successfully posi­tion them­sel­ves in the age of digi­ta­liza­tion and sustaina­bi­lity — in 2023, a total output of more than 72 million euros was generated.
Tradi­tio­nal, isola­ted consul­ting approa­ches fall short due to the complex chal­lenges of digi­tal transformation.
This is UNITY AG’s core area of expertise.
It offers its custo­mers the expe­ri­ence of hundreds of successful projects paired with the inno­va­tive power of conti­nuous further deve­lo­p­ment of its areas of exper­tise and consul­ting approaches.
The strong growth of UNITY AG also charac­te­ri­zes this strategy.
In recent years, the company has grown by an average of 13 percent per year, clearly outper­forming the over­all market in Germany (approx. seven percent). UNITY AG is an ideal addi­tion to DBAG’s port­fo­lio The invest­ment decis­ion stems from the fact that the digi­ta­liza­tion market is largely resi­li­ent to macroe­co­no­mic effects.
The demand for consul­ting services is charac­te­ri­zed by struc­tu­ral growth and ther­e­fore offers attrac­tive deve­lo­p­ment opportunities.
These can be further inten­si­fied through the imple­men­ta­tion of stra­te­gic M&A transactions.
As a manage­ment consul­tancy, UNITY AG fits seam­lessly and comple­men­ta­rily into DBAG’s IT services and soft­ware port­fo­lio, which accounts for around 17 percent of the over­all portfolio.
The invest­ment in UNITY AG will bene­fit from this sector exper­tise and DBAG’s network.
Both are fed by current (akqui­net, AOE, Cloudf­light, freiheit.com) and former (in-tech, Solva­res) invest­ments. “UNITY AG is an ideal addi­tion to our port­fo­lio. The company impres­ses with its inno­va­tive and inte­gra­tive consul­ting approach, which goes far beyond pure IT consul­ting. UNITY AG supports custo­mers as a spar­ring part­ner along the entire value crea­tion process. This turns them into digi­tal cham­pi­ons and also enables them to take the deman­ding chal­lenges of digi­ta­liza­tion into their own hands. Toge­ther with the foun­ders, board members and part­ners of UNITY AG, this forms the basis for the growth path that we have jointly defi­ned and that will be pursued in the coming years,” says Jannick Hune­cke, Member of the Manage­ment Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (Photo: DBAG).
Values and manage­ment systems guaran­tee success UNITY AG orga­ni­zes its services within seven service units, inclu­ding Cyber Secu­rity, IT Trans­for­ma­tion and Sustainability.
The range of services is value-orien­­ted and is based on “Inno­vate”, “Inte­grate”, “Trans­form” and “Realize”.
These values are the foun­da­tion of the consul­ting approach and ensure successful project implementation.
The UNITY AG manage­ment system plays a central role in the corpo­rate stra­tegy, focu­ses action on a concrete target image and serves as a compass in consulting.
By conti­nuously analy­zing new trends, UNITY AG is able to anti­ci­pate and iden­tify dyna­mic and tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments at an early stage.
The high quality of the manage­ment system is regu­larly confirmed by exter­nal certi­fi­ca­ti­ons, inclu­ding the inter­na­tio­nally valid DIN EN ISO 9001:2015 and DIN EN ISO/IEC 27001:2017 for infor­ma­tion secu­rity management.
Future-orien­­ted consul­ting for digi­tal change “We are looking forward to great growth oppor­tu­ni­ties thanks to our brand core of ‘inno­va­tion, digi­ta­liza­tion and trans­for­ma­tion’. This can be further lever­a­ged through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. DBAG’s diverse M&A expe­ri­ence also helps us here. In this respect, we are very much looking forward to the colla­bo­ra­tion and the oppor­tu­nity to work toge­ther on our stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment,” says
Chris­toph Plass, foun­der and CEO of UNITY AG, explains further: “We have found the ideal inves­tor in DBAG. Its proxi­mity to SMEs and its sector exper­tise repre­sent real added value for UNITY AG. In addi­tion to these tech­ni­cal factors, the ‘cultu­ral fit’ also played a decisive role for us — we not only share a common vision, but also the same values.”
Dr.-Ing. Frank Thie­le­mann, long-stan­­ding CEO of UNITY AG, adds: “In recent years, we have reali­zed a very successful orga­nic growth story. The indus­try and custo­mer port­fo­lio that we have built up is an excel­lent basis, also for our orga­nic growth in the coming years. The conti­nua­tion of this path — coupled with the addi­tio­nal oppor­tu­ni­ties of acqui­si­ti­ons with our strong inves­tor DBAG — will lead to a more ambi­tious growth path.”
UNITY AG is commit­ted to active transformation.
In this respect, the corpo­rate stra­tegy is geared towards linking all rele­vant econo­mic and ecolo­gi­cal factors in order to conti­nuously increase custo­mer and employee satisfaction.
This claim is under­li­ned by various awards.
These include the fifth “Best of Consul­ting” award from Wirt­schafts­Wo­che, the “Top Company” award from the employer rating portal kununu and the “Very Good Employer” award from the inter­na­tio­nal rese­arch and consul­ting insti­tute Great Place to Work®.
In addi­tion, nume­rous certi­fi­ca­ti­ons and member­ships in the ESG context, such as the UN GLOBAL Compact, the German Sustaina­bi­lity Code, the ecova­dis® award and the ÖKOPROFIT® certi­fi­ca­tion, demons­trate UNITY AG’s high level of ESG commit­ment. About DBAG Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), which has been listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of the most renow­ned private equity compa­nies in Germany. 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. As part of its stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with ELF Capi­tal Group, DBAG is adding private debt capi­tal to its range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs.