Agency platform PARITEE acquires majority stake in the LHLK Group

Frank­furt a. M. — The Norwe­gian agency plat­form Pari­tee, which also includes the multi-award-winning UK agency Brands2Life, is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in the LHLK Group. The LHLK Group includes LHLK and PRpe­tuum, two large commu­ni­ca­ti­ons agen­cies from Germany with a turno­ver of 11 million euros and around 100 employees in Munich, Berlin and Frank­furt am Main, which will now become part of Paritee’s EMEA plat­form. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been completed.

By acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in the LHLK Group, the agency plat­form Pari­tee, in which the Scan­di­na­vian private equity fund Explore Equity also holds a stake, is conti­nuing its Euro­pean growth trajec­tory and gaining a strong presence in the German market. The exis­ting manage­ment team of the LHLK Group will remain on board. The foun­der and CEO, Dirk Loesch, joins the inter­na­tio­nal board of the Pari­tee Group. 

As a result of the majo­rity take­over, the Pari­tee Group now gene­ra­tes net sales of EUR 60 million with more than 400 employees at ten loca­ti­ons. This tran­sac­tion was an important step for the further expan­sion stra­tegy in conti­nen­tal Europe. 

Advi­sor PARITEE: Mayer Brown 

The German Mayer Brown team from Frank­furt led by Dr. Fabio Borggreve (Part­ner, Private Equity and Corpo­rate & Secu­ri­ties) (for Corpo­rate) and Dr. Thomas Dieker (Coun­sel, Tax) (for Tax) advi­sed Pari­tee on all German aspects of the complex cross-border plat­form tran­sac­tion. The members of the team by prac­tice: Corpo­rate & Secu­ri­ties: Dr. Tobias Reiser, Marcel Pascal Hörauf (both Coun­sel), Inga Vale­rie Rupp, Luisa Sophie Schif­fe­rens (both Asso­ciate); Tax: Volker B. Junge (Part­ner); Banking & Finance: Odilo Wall­ner (Coun­sel), Max Birk (Senior Asso­ciate); Employ­ment & Bene­fits: Dr. Hagen Köcke­ritz (Part­ner), Björn Voll­muth (Coun­sel), Konstan­tin Kühn (Asso­ciate); Real Estate: Duc Hieu Le (Asso­ciate); IP: Konstan­tin von Werder (Coun­sel).

A Selmer team advi­sed on the Norwe­gian aspects of the tran­sac­tion for Paritee:
Camilla Magnus (lead), Rammiya Arumu­gam and Mia Nguyen.

main­fort Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft Steu­er­be­ra­tungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH advi­sed the sellers: Dr. Andreas Strie­gel (lead), Heiner Neuhaus, Elahe Shekeba.

Aios GmbH acted as finan­cial advi­sor to the sellers: Merten Kroe­han (lead), Matthias Giese, Sabrina Schattenberg.