Author: Tatjana Anderer

Hano­ver — The fitness studio groups all inclu­sive Fitness and FIT STAR will be joining forces in future. The plan­ned merger of the two chains in fall 2025 — subject to anti­trust appr­oval — will create one of the largest fitness provi­ders in Germany and the largest in Bavaria. 

all inclu­sive fitness with a focus on expansion

With the acqui­si­tion, the NORD Holding subsi­diary all inclu­sive Fitness is expan­ding its network by 20 addi­tio­nal studios and incre­asing Group turno­ver by around EUR 40 million. The number of loca­ti­ons grows to 160, the member­ship base to around 610,000 and the number of employees to around 2,750. The declared goal of beco­ming the leading provi­der in the Premium Value segment in the medium term and opera­ting 250 clubs with over one million members nati­on­wide by 2028 is thus a decisive step closer.

“This merger is a mile­stone for our vision of provi­ding people at every stage of life with access to high-quality fitness while conti­nuing to grow as a company,” says Stephan Schulan, CEO of all inclu­sive Fitness. “We are not only expan­ding our network, but also crea­ting new trai­ning offers and inspi­ring commu­nity experiences.” 

Relia­bi­lity for members

For the appro­xi­m­ately 140,000 members of FIT STAR, ever­y­thing will remain the same for the time being: Prices, opening hours, teams, trai­ning offers and the Ladies Areas will remain unch­an­ged. At the same time, they will bene­fit from an expan­ded port­fo­lio in future — inclu­ding inno­va­tive formats such as Hyrox, func­tional trai­ning and commu­nity events. The inte­gra­tion of the FIT STAR brand is plan­ned by the second quar­ter of 2026. From then on, all studios will be mana­ged under the joint all inclu­sive Fitness brand. Until then, the exis­ting clubs will conti­nue to operate under the FIT STAR name. 

“It is important to us that our members can rely on conti­nuity — with a breath of fresh air in the offe­ring at the same time,” empha­si­zes Andreas Bauer, former Mana­ging Direc­tor and foun­der of FIT STAR. “We are actively support­ing the tran­si­tion and are deligh­ted that we will be opera­ting toge­ther under the umbrella of all inclu­sive Fitness in the future.” 

Maxi­mi­lian Frey, Moritz Stolp and Niklas Thoma accom­pa­nied the tran­sac­tion on behalf of NORD Holding.

About all inclu­sive Fitness
all inclu­sive Fitness is one of the leading provi­ders in the premium value segment in Germany. The group was formed in 2020 from the merger of Jumpers Fitness and all inclu­sive Fitness. In 2025, all studios were brought toge­ther under the unified all inclu­sive Fitness brand to create a strong market presence. With 160 studios and around 610,000 members, all inclu­sive Fitness is now prima­rily repre­sen­ted in southern and western Germany. More than 2,750 employees ensure that members not only bene­fit from state-of-the-art equip­ment at central loca­ti­ons, but also expe­ri­ence a fami­liar and plea­sant trai­ning atmo­sphere. — www.ai-fitness.de

About NORD Holding

With over 50 years of history and assets under manage­ment of € 4.0 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity and asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund investments. 

The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved in over 13 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king countries.

The Fund Invest­ments divi­sion targets the micro and small cap segment of SME-orien­ted private equity funds in Europe. The focus here is on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor inves­tor. — www.nordholding.de

Frank­furt a. M. — Ank-Kaiser Sani­täts­haus GmbH (“Ank-Kaiser”) is conti­nuing its buy & build growth stra­tegy in Germany, estab­li­shing itself as one of the top 10 medi­cal supply retail groups in Germany. Sani­täts­haus Hage­nauer, with bran­ches in Plank­stadt and Schwet­zin­gen in Baden-Würt­tem­berg, is now streng­thening its presence in the Rhine-Neckar region and is opera­ting as a comple­men­tary branch of Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing. 

In Octo­ber 2024, a fund advi­sed by Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners acqui­red Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing GmbH (“M&R”) via its port­fo­lio company Ank-Kaiser. M&R is a leading regio­nal chain of medi­cal supply stores in Baden-Würt­tem­berg and Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate, offe­ring a full range of medi­cal, reha­bi­li­ta­tion, after­care and health­care products through its now eleven medi­cal supply stores. 

Simon W. Geib, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Ank-Kaiser Sani­täts­haus GmbH: “We warmly welcome Sani­täts­haus Hage­nauer to the Ank-Kaiser family. With its many years of expe­ri­ence, the local team offers a compre­hen­sive and inno­va­tive range of products and services rela­ting to health, care and mobi­lity in sport, work and ever­y­day life as well as state-of-the-art analy­sis and measu­re­ment tech­no­logy such as biome­cha­ni­cal analy­ses and foot pres­sure measu­re­ments. By combi­ning with M&R, we are adding indi­vi­dual large-scale ortho­pae­dics and reha­bi­li­ta­tion tech­no­logy to the port­fo­lio of the bran­ches in Plank­stadt and Schwetzingen.”

“With this acqui­si­tion, the Ank-Kaiser Group is conti­nuing its roll-up stra­tegy and further expan­ding its posi­tion as a top 10 medi­cal supply chain and nati­on­wide profes­sio­nal health­care part­ner with compre­hen­sive medi­cal care at 31 loca­ti­ons in Germany,” says Chris­toph D. Kauter, Mana­ging Part­ner and foun­der of Beyond Capi­tal Partners.

About Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing
Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing offers ortho­pae­dic, sports and reha­bi­li­ta­tion tech­no­logy products and services and is available to its custo­mers as a profes­sio­nal health­care part­ner at eleven loca­ti­ons in Baden-Würt­tem­berg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
https://mayer-rexing.de

About Ank-Kaiser Sanitätshaus
Ank-Kaiser Sani­täts­haus is the leading medi­cal supply group in Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate, focu­sing on medi­cal supply and reha­bi­li­ta­tion tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for its custo­mers. The Ank-Kaiser Group has expan­ded over the past deca­des and now has 31 loca­ti­ons in Germany, offe­ring compre­hen­sive medi­cal care as a full-range provider.
https://www.ank-sanitaetshaus.de

About Beyond Capi­tal Partners
Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners is an invest­ment company that acqui­res majo­rity stakes in profi­ta­ble medium-sized compa­nies from the DACH region with a focus on the asset-light sectors of services, IT, soft­ware, health­care, life­style and enter­tain­ment via the funds it advi­ses. This tran­sac­tion bene­fits from the support of the Euro­pean Union under the InvestEU fund.
— https://beyondcapital-partners.com

Hamburg — The X1F Group has acqui­red the accan­tec group as part of its growth stra­tegy. The accan­tec group has been opera­ting for over 20 years as a specia­li­zed consul­tancy and IT service provi­der for busi­ness intel­li­gence, data science and enter­prise soft­ware solu­ti­ons with a parti­cu­lar focus on SAP, Micro­soft, Jedox, SAS and IBM. 

Head­quar­te­red in Hamburg and with bran­ches in Frank­furt am Main, Colo­gne, Heidel­berg and Berlin, the accan­tec group employs over 70 BI experts who are active in deman­ding BI and data science projects. In addi­tion to archi­tec­ture design, advan­ced analy­tics and data warehousing, the range of services also includes the deve­lo­p­ment of cloud plat­forms on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure as well as compre­hen­sive mana­ged services — espe­ci­ally for custo­mers from regu­la­ted indus­tries such as banking, insu­rance, phar­maceu­ti­cals and healthcare. 

With this acqui­si­tion, X1F is expan­ding its service port­fo­lio in a stra­te­gi­cally rele­vant growth area.

The X1F Group unites specia­li­zed IT and consul­ting units under one roof to provide compa­nies with holi­stic support in their digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion — from stra­tegy to tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion, with a clear focus on quality, inno­va­tion and sustainability.

Advi­sor: As exclu­sive M&A advi­sor, Sanco­via initia­ted the tran­sac­tion and provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to the X1F Group throug­hout the entire process.

About SANCOVIA

We are an owner-mana­ged, exclu­sive and inde­pen­dent M&A mid-market consul­tancy with ten offices in Zurich, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Munich, Ravens­burg, Leip­zig, Madrid, Amster­dam, London and Warsaw. We have a unique hands-on part­ner approach, seeing oursel­ves as a part­ner to the entre­pre­neur and remai­ning at their side until the desi­red success has been achieved. 

We speak the language of entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors and provide the top quality services that you would other­wise only get from large consul­tancies and the Big 4 for our medium-sized clients throug­hout Europe. —www.sancovia.com

Munich — The biotech­no­logy start-up Evla­Bio GmbH, which deve­lops inno­va­tive thera­pies for the treat­ment of left ventri­cu­lar hyper­tro­phy in chro­nic kidney dise­ase, has raised € 21 million in its seed finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by the French VC firm Kurma Part­ners, with AdBio Part­ners (Paris, Barce­lona), Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund, NRW.Venture (NRW Bank) and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds as co-inves­tors. The finan­cing round is one of the largest of its kind in the DACH region in recent years. 

Evla­Bio aims to acce­le­rate the comple­tion of precli­ni­cal deve­lo­p­ment and the tran­si­tion to IND-enab­ling studies. — The start-up’s treat­ment approach origi­nally comes from Lead Disco­very Center GmbH (LDC), a company foun­ded in 2008 by the tech­no­logy trans­fer orga­niza­tion Max Planck Inno­va­tion, and was deve­lo­ped in colla­bo­ra­tion with KHAN Tech­no­logy Trans­fer Fund I GmbH & Co. KG (KHAN‑I).

Evla­Bio, with offices in Düssel­dorf and Zurich, is a life science start-up specia­li­zing in the deve­lo­p­ment of a first-in-class thera­peu­tic for the treat­ment of left ventri­cu­lar hyper­tro­phy in pati­ents with chro­nic kidney disease.

An ARQIS team led by part­ner Dr. Mauritz von Einem, who regu­larly advi­ses start-ups, provi­ded Evla­Bio AG with compre­hen­sive legal support during this finan­cing round. The mandate came about through a perso­nal cont­act with the foun­der of Evla­Bio. Adves­tra advi­sed on Swiss law with a team led by Dr. Alex­an­der von Jeinsen. 

Advi­sor Evla­Bio GmbH: ARQIS (Munich)

Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Part­ner, Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal, Lead), Johan­nes Landry (Tran­sac­tions, Düssel­dorf), Lisa-Marie Niklas (HR Law, Düssel­dorf), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), of Coun­sel: Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal), Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping (Düssel­dorf), Dennis Reisich (both Tax), Dr. Roua Schmitz (HR Law, Venture Capi­tal), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Hanna Caesar (HR Law, Düssel­dorf), Anselm Graf (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal, Rolf. Roua Schmitz (HR Law), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Hanna Caesar (HR Law, Düssel­dorf), Anselm Graf (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal), Rolf Tichy (IP), Asso­ciate: Giulia Kögel (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capital).

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firm that opera­tes inter­na­tio­nally. Around 80 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German, Euro­pean and Japa­nese commer­cial law. With its focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR Law, Japan, Data Law, Risk and Regu­la­tory, the firm is geared towards provi­ding its clients with compre­hen­sive advice. The law firm was foun­ded in 2006 and has offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo as well as a talent hub in Berlin. www.arqis.com.

Frank­furt a. Main — The leading medium-sized inter­na­tio­nal phar­maceu­ti­cal company Ethy­ph­arm S.A.S., Saint-Clou­d/France has signed a purchase agree­ment for the rights to the Euro­pean Arga­tro­ban busi­ness of Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Corpo­ra­tion, Osaka/Japan and other compa­nies of the Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Group. Arga­tro­ban mono­hy­drate is a selec­tive anti­throm­bin agent used in the treat­ment of hepa­rin-indu­ced throm­bo­cy­to­pe­nia type II (HIT type II). Due to the company struc­tures, the comple­xity of the rights to the product and the invol­vement of other opera­tio­nal inter­me­dia­ries for the manu­fac­ture of the Arga­tro­ban active ingre­di­ent, the tran­sac­tion was carried out by way of an asset deal. 

Ethy­ph­arm is a leading mid-sized inter­na­tio­nal phar­maceu­ti­cal company with strong Euro­pean roots that manu­fac­tures and supplies essen­tial medi­ci­nes with a focus on hospi­tal care, central nervous system (severe pain and addic­tion) and inter­nal medi­cine. The acqui­si­tion streng­thens Ethy­phar­m’s port­fo­lio of essen­tial medicines. 

In addi­tion to Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Corpo­ra­tion, the sellers were its subsi­dia­ries Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Europe Ltd, London/United King­dom and Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma GmbH, Düsseldorf.

Advi­sor Ethy­ph­arm: Schad­bach Rechtsanwälte

Kai Schad­bach, LL.M. (Photo © Schad­bach Rechts­an­wälte, lead), Konstan­tin Warno­wizki and Sören Brost (all M&A), Dr. Petra Weipert and Annette Kuhlen-Leis (both employ­ment law) and Dr. Marco Brand (commer­cial law).

About Schad­bach Attor­neys at Law

Schad­bach Rechts­an­wälte is a natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firm based in Frank­furt am Main. Our clients are predo­mi­nantly medium-sized compa­nies and inter­na­tio­nal groups of compa­nies who value our firm’s exper­tise in corpo­rate law as well as our contrac­tual and tran­sac­tional expe­ri­ence, e.g. in the M&A and private equity market. In addi­tion to corporate/M&A, other areas of advice include (inter­na­tio­nal) commer­cial law, direc­tors’ and offi­cers’ liabi­lity and proce­du­ral law. — www.schadbach.com

Aachen — Follo­wing a successful final closing, the Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) II now has a fund volume of more than € 50 million. TVF II is the fourth gene­ra­tion of venture capi­tal funds1 mana­ged by the TVF Manage­ment GmbH team. The fund invests in the most promi­sing tech start-ups in various verti­cals from the pre-seed and seed phase onwards. The focus is on teams from the Rhineland/NRW and Eure­gio Meuse-Rhine (Netherlands/Belgium) regions. 

Public and private inves­tors back high-growth tech start-ups

The TVF relies on a strong inves­tor ecosys­tem. In addi­tion to NRW.BANK, Spar­kasse Aachen and other regio­nal savings banks, this also includes nume­rous entre­pre­neu­rial private inves­tors from the fund’s network. — New inves­tors include Helaba (Landes­bank Hessen-Thürin­gen) and entre­pre­neurs such as Erich Borsch (Co-Foun­der Aixigo), Jürgen and Leo May (JM Holding), Alex­an­der Stoff­ers (next audit, Co-Foun­der Modell Aachen) as well as Dr. Reik Winkel and Dr. Chris­tian Augus­tin (foun­ders of indu­rad GmbH). 

Focus on early-stage companies

Since 2007, the expe­ri­en­ced TVF team has finan­ced and deve­lo­ped over 40 inno­va­tive start-ups in the fields of biotech, soft­ware, semi­con­duc­tors, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, deep tech, medtech and new mate­ri­als. Since the launch of TVF II in 2023, five start-ups have alre­ady been financed: 

membion GmbH: The company from Roet­gen (near Aachen) has deve­lo­ped an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy for waste­wa­ter treat­ment. This can save up to 75 percent instal­la­tion space and over 90 percent energy compared to the current stan­dard. In Decem­ber 2023, TVF II inves­ted five million euros toge­ther with the DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF).

Viva­lyx GmbH: Viva­lyx has crea­ted the liquid “Omni­sol” — a type of synthe­tic blood — to better preserve organs that are remo­ved for trans­plan­ta­tion. In combi­na­tion with its own “Flow­s­tore” trans­port system, it is possi­ble to trans­port organs over much longer distances and peri­ods of time without dama­ging them. In April 2024, TVF II inves­ted around EUR 7 million with co-inves­tors to tackle the appr­oval proces­ses in the USA (FDA) and Europe (CE).

Black Semi­con­duc­tor GmbH: The semi­con­duc­tor start-up from Aachen has deve­lo­ped an important tech­no­logy for connec­ting micro­chips based on graphene. This makes data trans­mis­sion more powerful and energy-effi­ci­ent, which is beco­ming incre­asingly important for data centers, espe­ci­ally in view of the growing compu­ting requi­re­ments of AI. Toge­ther with leading inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal funds and IPCEI funding from the state of North Rhine-West­pha­lia and the Fede­ral Repu­blic of Germany, the DeepT­ech company recei­ved around 250 million euros. 

IonKraft GmbH: A spin-off from the Insti­tute of Plas­tics Proces­sing (IKV) at RWTH Aachen Univer­sity, IonKraft has deve­lo­ped a coating process for plas­tic contai­ners that inhi­bits diffu­sion into, out of and through them, makes them resistant to chemi­cals and protects the contents. This elimi­na­tes the need for multi-layer solu­ti­ons, replaces PFAS-contai­ning layers and ensu­res recy­cla­bi­lity. To acce­le­rate the company’s growth, TVF II inves­ted EUR 3.5 million toge­ther with co-inves­tors in Novem­ber 2024. 

Plan­ted GmbH: Plan­ted offers a SaaS plat­form for CSRD report­ing and ESG moni­to­ring to support service compa­nies in achie­ving their sustaina­bi­lity goals. Custo­mers are also able to auto­ma­ti­cally offset their emis­si­ons through their own climate protec­tion projects (refo­re­sta­tion). In Decem­ber last year, TVF II and co-inves­tors inves­ted a total of EUR 3.8 million in the Colo­gne-based company. 

From foun­da­tion to startup to inde­pen­dent company

TVF focu­ses on the early finan­cing phases of start­ups and is often the first insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor. It sees itself as a go-to VC in the incre­asingly successful startup ecosys­tem in the Rhine­land and the border region in Belgium and the Nether­lands. The pool of inno­va­tions in this focus region is large: a start-up ecosys­tem has deve­lo­ped around inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons and univer­si­ties as well as with an estab­lished consul­ting and invest­ment network, which, with the NRW start-up capi­tal Aachen, is one of the leading ones in Germany. As a part­ner of the Gate­way Factory, which has just recei­ved milli­ons of euros in funding, the TVF is actively invol­ved in the further expan­sion and success of the Aachen-Düssel­dorf-Colo­gne start-up region. 

The fund will run until 2035. “We have the stay­ing power to support compa­nies until they are strong enough for inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, Mana­ging Part­ner of the Tech­Vi­sion Fund. “With our current resour­ces, we are excel­lently posi­tio­ned to enable further deep tech teams to become successful compa­nies. We are always at the side of the start-ups, not only as finan­ciers, but also as entre­pre­neu­rial spar­ring part­ners and strategists.” 

1 The prede­ces­sor funds were the Seed Fonds Aachen I + II and the still active Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I.

Marn­heim — The startup for breed-speci­fic dog food Hey Holy has closed a Series A finan­cing round of EUR 5.7 million. The round was led by VC Five Seasons Ventures, which specia­li­zes in Food­Tech. Exis­ting inves­tors Slingshot Ventures, Feast Ventures and a family office in the consu­mer segment also parti­ci­pa­ted, along with seve­ral busi­ness angels from the industry. 

Hey Holy intends to use the fresh capi­tal prima­rily to expand the team, extend the product range and expand the digi­tal brand presence. Hey Holy’s goal is to estab­lish breed-speci­fic nutri­tion as the new stan­dard in the pet market. 

Florian Kozok, Jules Michels and Marie Hille­brand from the law firm V14 advi­sed the startup for breed-speci­fic dog food Hey Holy on a Series A finan­cing round in the amount of EUR 5.7 million.

www.heyholy.com

Consul­tant: V14

Florian Kozok, Jules Michels, Marie Hillebrand

About V14

V14 is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media. — www.v14.de

Munich — The invest­ment company Liberta Part­ners is support­ing the expan­sion of the NOBIX Group: With the acqui­si­tion of Huth Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons GmbH, an IT system house based in Kehl and specia­li­zing in tax consul­tants and medium-sized compa­nies, the Group is further expan­ding its DATEV & VoIP exper­tise and streng­thening its presence in southwest Germany.

Huth Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons supports tax firms and medium-sized compa­nies in the areas of IT infra­struc­ture, DATEV solu­ti­ons and modern VoIP tele­phony. Foun­der Sebas­tian Huth remains on board as Mana­ging Direc­tor and brings his many years of expe­ri­ence to the group. 

“The acqui­si­tion is a typi­cal exam­ple of our buy-and-build stra­tegy in the IT segment: focu­sed, effi­ci­ently imple­men­ted and with a high stra­te­gic fit. We value part­ner­ship-based tran­sac­tions that streng­then our plat­form in a targe­ted manner and enable sustainable growth.” — Nils von Wietz­low (photo), Part­ner at Liberta Partners.

The NOBIX Group, which is actively supported by Liberta Part­ners, unites specia­li­zed IT and digi­ta­liza­tion part­ners under one roof — with a focus on mana­ged services, appli­ca­ti­ons and infra­struc­ture for SMEs.

“The inte­gra­tion of Huth Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons is a logi­cal step in our buy-and-build stra­tegy. The specia­liza­tion in law firms and compa­nies in the region, coupled with a deep under­stan­ding of appli­ca­ti­ons and VoIP exper­tise, ideally comple­ments the exis­ting NOBIX port­fo­lio,” says Julius Wölfer, Corpo­rate Deve­lo­p­ment Mana­ger at Liberta Partners.

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners is an entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment company based in Munich. Since 2016, Liberta has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial — with a focus on sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and active further deve­lo­p­ment. —www.liberta-partners.com

About the NOBIX Group

The NOBIX Group is a medium-sized system house group with a focus on mana­ged print, infra­struc­ture and secu­rity solu­ti­ons as well as appli­ca­ti­ons such as DATEV and docu­ment manage­ment. The group has around 220 employees at seven loca­ti­ons in southern Germany and unites specia­li­zed IT compa­nies under one roof. — https://nobix-group.de

Berlin — Berlin-based start-up Peec AI has secu­red EUR 7 million in growth capi­tal in a rapid finan­cing round just five months after the company was foun­ded. The finan­cing round was led by early-stage inves­tor 20VC. Other inves­tors include TS Ventures, Antler, Fore­word VC, Identity.VC, Combi­na­tion VC and S20. 

The startup is deve­lo­ping an AI-supported search analy­sis plat­form for marke­ting teams to better under­stand and opti­mize brand presence in Large Language Model (LLM)-based search systems such as ChatGPT or Perple­xity. Florian Kozok, Jules Michels and Marie Hille­brand from the law firm 

Peec AI has achie­ved a considera­ble level of reve­nue in the past four months: EUR 650,000 in annual recur­ring reve­nue (ARR) with a current monthly increase of around EUR 80,000. Due to this rapid growth, the startup was able to conclude pre-seed finan­cing of EUR 1.8 million back in April. The seed invest­ment of EUR 5.2 million follo­wed just a few weeks later. — V14 advi­sed the Berlin-based startup Peec AI on both finan­cing rounds tota­ling EUR 7 million within a short period of time. 

The fresh capi­tal will be used for product deve­lo­p­ment, talent deve­lo­p­ment and inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

Consul­tant Peec AI: V14

Florian Kozok, Jules Michels, Marie Hillebrand

About V14

V14 is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media.

Frank­furt / Vienna / Wetz­lar / Monheim am Rhein — multi­weigh GmbH (“multi­weigh”), a global market leader in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of tech­no­lo­gi­cally advan­ced combi­na­tion scales with a focus on the food indus­try, is streng­thening the port­fo­lio of Adeleon Invest GmbH (“Adeleon”). The sellers of the 100% stake — consis­ting of the Düssel­dorf-based invest­ment company INVICTO Holding (“INVICTO”) and the foun­der of multi­weigh Frank Schmehl — were exclu­si­vely advi­sed in the sales process by MP Corpo­rate Finance, a leading inter­na­tio­nal M&A consul­tancy specia­li­zing in the Euro­pean indus­trial sector. 

Tech­no­logy leader for precise weig­hing technology

multi­weigh GmbH, foun­ded in 2001 and based in Wetz­lar, Hesse, deve­lops and produ­ces modern combi­na­tion scales, control elec­tro­nics and soft­ware on an area of 5,000 m². The systems are used world­wide in the food indus­try, for exam­ple for salads, cheese, snacks, frozen vege­ta­bles, muesli, pet food and selec­ted non-food appli­ca­ti­ons. The products are charac­te­ri­zed by their modu­lar design, direct drive tech­no­logy, top perfor­mance in terms of hygiene and main­ten­ance-free opera­tion, as well as precise weig­hing results. Since 2017, the food tech player with an inter­na­tio­nal track record has been part of the port­fo­lio of INVICTO Holding, an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in small-cap tran­sac­tions in Germany. With this tran­sac­tion, INVICTO — toge­ther with Frank Schmehl, the foun­der and previous share­hol­der of multi­weigh — is selling 100% of the shares to Adeleon Invest. 

Long-term growth stra­tegy with Adeleon Invest

Adeleon Invest is a family-run and long-term orien­ted invest­ment company based in Monheim am Rhein, which specia­li­zes in sustainable part­ner­ships in the DACH and Bene­lux regi­ons with a total of nine subsi­dia­ries and over 600 employees. Toge­ther with foun­der Frank Schmehl, who will conti­nue in his role as CEO as part of the tran­sac­tion, Adeleon aims to take multi­weig­h’s alre­ady strong market posi­tion as an inter­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy leader for high-quality food proces­sing machi­nes to a new level. 

MP Corpo­rate Finance further expands its sector expertise

For MP Corpo­rate Finance, the comple­ted sale marks the 63rd successfully advi­sed tran­sac­tion in the Elec­tro­nics, Tech & IoT sector. The M&A team led by Roman Göd, Foun­ding and Mana­ging Part­ner and expert for the elec­tro­nics sector at MP, once again demons­tra­tes its in-depth indus­try know­ledge and global inves­tor network in order to target suita­ble stra­te­gic and finan­cial inves­tors. Roman Göd comm­ents: “We are deligh­ted that with Adeleon Invest we have gained a long-term orien­ted part­ner who consis­t­ently supports multi­weig­h’s growth stra­tegy. The successful tran­sac­tion in this curr­ently very dyna­mic market envi­ron­ment once again confirms our exper­tise in the inter­na­tio­nal place­ment of leading tech­no­logy compa­nies in the indus­trial SME sector.” 

Frank Schmehl, foun­der and CEO of multi­weigh, adds: “MP was a relia­ble and profes­sio­nal part­ner throug­hout the entire process. The struc­tu­red approach, the high level of indus­try exper­tise and the inter­na­tio­nal network were decisive for the successful comple­tion of the transaction.”

Ferdi­nand von Hammer­stein from INVICTO Holding comm­ents: “Thanks to MP, we were able to achieve an excel­lent result. The clarity of commu­ni­ca­tion, the high level of relia­bi­lity and the targe­ted approach in a dyna­mic process envi­ron­ment are parti­cu­larly noteworthy.”

About MP Corpo­rate Finance

MP Corpo­rate Finance is the leading inter­na­tio­nal M&A consul­tancy specia­li­zing in the indus­trial sector. As an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner, MP supports medium-sized compa­nies and manage­ment teams, private equity decis­ion-makers as well as entre­pre­neu­rial confi­dants in complex tran­sac­tions on both the sell and buy side and provi­des support in the context of capi­tal procu­re­ment, buy-and-build stra­te­gies, carve-outs or throug­hout the entire private equity life­cy­cle. MP was foun­ded in Vienna in the 1990s by Roman Göd and Gregor Nischer as the first Euro­pean M&A firm with a sector-focu­sed advi­sory approach. Today, the company employs more than 85 expe­ri­en­ced hands-on experts at five loca­ti­ons world­wide — in Vienna, Frank­furt, London, Istan­bul and Chicago — making it the largest indus­trial M&A team in Europe. With its unique sector focus, MP has successfully advi­sed on more than 700 indus­trial tran­sac­tions invol­ving invest­ment compa­nies, SMEs and corpo­ra­ti­ons. — www.mp-corporatefinance.com

Basel, Switz­er­land / Munich, Germany — NUCLIDIUM, a clini­cal-stage radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal company deve­lo­ping a proprie­tary copper-based ther­ano­stic plat­form, announ­ced the closing of its Series B finan­cing round of CHF 79 million (EUR 84 million). The round was led by Kurma Growth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund, Ange­lini Ventures, Welling­ton Part­ners and Neva SGR (Intesa Sanpaolo Group), with parti­ci­pa­tion from DeepT­ech & Climate Fonds (DTCF), Bayern Kapi­tal, Vives Part­ners, Eura­zeo, NRW.BANK and High­Light Capi­tal, as well as exis­ting investors. 

The proceeds will be used to advance the clini­cal deve­lo­p­ment of NUCLI­DI­UM’s copper-61/cop­per-67 (61Cu/67Cu) ther­ano­stic pipe­line in various onco­logy indi­ca­ti­ons. In paral­lel, the company will expand its produc­tion and manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties through a global manu­fac­tu­ring network. 

NUCLI­DI­UM’s diffe­ren­tia­ted plat­form combi­nes tumor-targe­ting mole­cu­les with copper isoto­pes — copper-61 for diagno­stics and copper-67 for therapy — to over­come current limi­ta­ti­ons in radio­ther­ano­stics, such as subop­ti­mal clini­cal effi­cacy and manu­fac­tu­ring comple­xity. Diagno­stic results from initial clini­cal studies in these indi­ca­ti­ons show better lesion detec­tion and tumor-to-back­ground ratios compared to clini­cally appro­ved tracers. Initial data was recently presen­ted at SNMMI 2025 by Dr. Gary Ulaner, MD, PhD, demons­t­ra­ting a favorable safety profile and poten­ti­ally impro­ved imaging perfor­mance of 61Cu-Nuri­Pro™ compared to current PET imaging stan­dards, suggest­ing great clini­cal poten­tial and broa­der poten­tial for the ther­ano­stic pairing of 61Cu/67Cu. Early thera­peu­tic data from the two lead compounds Nuri­Pro™ and Trace­NET™ show good tumor-to-back­ground ratios in meta­sta­tic prostate cancer and neuro­en­do­crine tumors, inclu­ding breast cancer. 

“NUCLIDIUM is ente­ring the next clini­cal phases with its compounds for the diagno­sis and treat­ment of meta­sta­tic prostate cancer, neuro­en­do­crine tumors and breast cancer,” said Leila Jaafar, PhD, CEO and co-foun­der of NUCLIDIUM. “Our copper-based radio­ther­ano­stics are desi­gned for seam­less use in hospi­tal work­flows, care and waste manage­ment, making these thera­pies more acces­si­ble worldwide.” 

With this finan­cing, NUCLIDIUM will further expand its global produc­tion and manu­fac­tu­ring network for diagno­stics and thera­peu­tics, grow its inter­na­tio­nal team and streng­then its stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with hospi­tals and acade­mic centers, initi­ally in Europe and North America.

In connec­tion with the finan­cing round, Dr. Daniel Parera, Part­ner at Kurma Part­ners, Dr. Regina Hodits, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ange­lini Ventures, and Liliana Nord­bakk, Life Scien­ces Part­ner at Neva SGR, will join the Board of Direc­tors of NUCLIDIUM.

Consul­tant NUCLIDIUM:

The Series B finan­cing was supported by VISCHER AG and Walder Wyss, Switz­er­land, as legal advisors.

About NUCLIDIUM

NUCLIDIUM AG is a clini­cal-stage biotech­no­logy company pionee­ring the deve­lo­p­ment of next-gene­ra­tion copper-based radio­phar­maceu­ti­cals for the diagno­sis and treat­ment of cancer. Through the use of copper isoto­pes — copper-61 for diagno­stics and copper-67 for therapy — NUCLIDIUM is crea­ting a diffe­ren­tia­ted plat­form that has the poten­tial to over­come exis­ting limi­ta­ti­ons in radiotheranostics. 

The company’s opera­ti­ons in Switz­er­land and Germany combine inno­va­tive chemis­try, deep clini­cal exper­tise and stra­te­gic manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties to provide scalable, acces­si­ble and clini­cally supe­rior ther­ano­stic solu­ti­ons to pati­ents world­wide. NUCLI­DI­UM’s mission is to increase the reach and effi­cacy of radio­ther­ano­stics while addres­sing criti­cal unmet medi­cal needs in onco­logy and women’s health.

Home

Bietig­heim-Bissin­gen — Dürr AG has ente­red into an agree­ment with a subsi­diary of Stellex Capi­tal Manage­ment LLC (Stellex) on the sale of its envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness with an enter­prise value of € 385 million. This compri­ses the areas of exhaust air puri­fi­ca­tion tech­no­logy and sound insu­la­tion systems and forms the Clean Tech­no­logy Systems Envi­ron­men­tal divi­sion within the Dürr Group. With this sale, the mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring company is comple­ting the simpli­fi­ca­tion of the Group struc­ture announ­ced a year ago and under­li­ning its stra­te­gic focus on the auto­ma­tion of produc­tion proces­ses. At the same time, the Group is acqui­ring a stake of around 25% in Envi­ron­men­tal Technology. 

The enter­prise value of the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness is around € 385 million. After deduc­ting the costs for the acqui­si­tion of the reverse take­over and other tran­sac­tion-rela­ted costs, the Dürr Group expects net proceeds of around € 250 million. This is to be used to streng­then the Group by redu­cing debt. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual appr­oval requi­re­ments and is expec­ted to take place in the fourth quar­ter of 2025. 

Dürr had announ­ced in mid-2024 that it was exami­ning stra­te­gic opti­ons for the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness, inclu­ding a possi­ble sale. The sale that has now been agreed will enable the Group to achieve its goal of a leaner struc­ture with just three divi­si­ons instead of five. At the same time, the company is now focu­sing consis­t­ently on its core busi­ness with auto­ma­ted and sustainable produc­tion tech­no­lo­gies. Dürr had alre­ady sold the Danish filling tech­no­logy company Agram­kow in the previous year as part of the simpli­fi­ca­tion of the Group struc­ture. In addi­tion, the busi­ness with the auto­mo­tive indus­try was bund­led in the new Auto­mo­tive divi­sion at the begin­ning of 2025. 

With its owner Stellex, the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness is well posi­tio­ned to expand its leading posi­tion and has the resour­ces to support the expec­ted growth. In 2024, the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness gene­ra­ted sales of € 407 million and employed around 1,300 people, inclu­ding around 450 in Germany. The head­quar­ters are loca­ted in Bietig­heim-Bissin­gen, and the busi­ness is opera­ted at 16 loca­ti­ons in 12 count­ries worldwide. 

Dürr’s envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy systems are used in various end markets and sectors, for exam­ple in the chemi­cal indus­try, auto­mo­tive produc­tion and odor removal.

Concen­tra­tion on the core business 

Dr. Jochen Weyrauch, CEO of Dürr AG: “The envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness has grown stron­gly in recent years and has estab­lished itself as a global market leader. Howe­ver, it lies outside our stra­te­gic core busi­ness around auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy. The new owner, Stellex, ther­e­fore offers better oppor­tu­ni­ties for further growth in envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. The sale will make the Dürr Group leaner and shar­pen its stra­te­gic focus. We will use the proceeds from the sale to streng­then our company.”

Kart­hik Achar, Part­ner at Stellex: “We are deligh­ted to become the new owner of Dürr’s Clean Tech­no­logy Systems Envi­ron­men­tal divi­sion. We see the divi­sion as a leading global provi­der of envi­ron­men­tal filtra­tion and air pollu­tion control solu­ti­ons, which are key tech­no­lo­gies for a wide range of indus­trial and adja­cent markets. The long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships are proof of the company’s tech­ni­cal expertise.” 

New fore­cast for net finan­cial status and review of the
Admi­nis­tra­tive structures

Based on the expec­ted net proceeds from the sale, Dürr AG is adjus­ting its forecast
for the net finan­cial status as at Decem­ber 31, 2025 to € ‑250 to ‑300 million.
The previous fore­cast was € ‑500 to ‑550 million. — The dispo­sal of Envi­ron­men­tal Tech­no­logy and the sale of Agram­kow, which will be comple­ted in 2024, will reduce the Dürr Group by around 10% in terms of sales. Against this back­drop, the company is curr­ently revie­w­ing its admi­nis­tra­tive struc­tures. The aim is to adapt the admi­nis­tra­tive area to the new size of the company and at the same time make it more efficient. 

Advi­sor Dürr AG: Blätt­chen & Partner 

Blätt­chen & Part­ner provi­ded Dürr Systems AG with econo­mic advice on the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in the sale of the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy business.
— www.blaettchen.de

About Dürr AG

Rheinau/ Nidderau/ Ulm/ Munich — The Gimv port­fo­lio company E.GRUPPE, a leading provi­der of elec­tro­tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons for indus­trial and energy custo­mers, is expan­ding its range of services and regio­nal coverage with the acqui­si­tion of the LET Group.

The E.GRUPPE was foun­ded in 2021. The aim is to build a leading elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring company with a focus on energy and auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy and a high degree of verti­cal inte­gra­tion: from consul­ting and plan­ning to engi­nee­ring, produc­tion, instal­la­tion, service and main­ten­ance of custo­mer-speci­fic elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring systems. 

With over 50 years of market expe­ri­ence, the LET Group, with the compa­nies LET Lüdde­cke, LET Services, ESV Erfur­ter Schalt­schrank­bau and IMB Energy Systems, will now supple­ment the E.GRUPPE’s exis­ting service and product port­fo­lio with addi­tio­nal tech­ni­cal exper­tise such as unin­ter­rup­ti­ble power supplies. In addi­tion, the acqui­si­tion will deepen exis­ting exper­tise in distri­bu­tion and control cabi­net cons­truc­tion as well as auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy. Follo­wing the take­over, the E.GRUPPE will unite 365 employees at 10 loca­ti­ons and thus achieve signi­fi­cant coverage in central and southern Germany. The aim is to offer custo­mers a broad range of services and products with exten­sive exper­tise in custo­mi­zed elec­tro­tech­ni­cal systems in energy and auto­ma­tion technology. 

The manage­ment team of the LET Group comm­ents on the growth poten­tial within the E.GRUPPE: “The merger with the E.GRUPPE is an important step for us to further drive our growth and to be able to offer our custo­mers even more compre­hen­sive elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring. LET stands for tech­no­lo­gi­cal excel­lence and uncom­pro­mi­sing relia­bi­lity in complex, syste­mic solu­ti­ons for our deman­ding custo­mers. As part of a strong group, we gain addi­tio­nal oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand our regio­nal presence, further deve­lop our services and tap into new poten­tial. At the same time, we are crea­ting a stable, future-orien­ted envi­ron­ment with long-term pros­pects for our employees.”

Maja Marko­vic, Part­ner at Gimv’s Sustainable Cities Plat­form in the DACH region (photo © Gimv), adds: “With the acqui­si­tion of the LET Group, we as E.GRUPPE are crea­ting a leading provi­der of custo­mer-speci­fic elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring in the growing and attrac­tive market with incre­asing requi­re­ments due to elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, digi­ta­liza­tion and the expan­sion of rene­wa­ble ener­gies. Toge­ther with the manage­ment and employees, we are conti­nuing the E.GRUPPE’s growth trajec­tory in order to bundle exper­tise and offer a compre­hen­sive, future-orien­ted port­fo­lio of solu­ti­ons along the elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring value chain.”

The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding appr­oval by the compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties. Further finan­cial details are not disclosed.

About Gimv

Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with over 45 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity, listed on Euron­ext Brussels and a member of the Euron­ext BEL ESG Index. Gimv curr­ently has a port­fo­lio of more than EUR 1.6 billion, consis­ting of around 61 port­fo­lio compa­nies with a total turno­ver of EUR 4.5 billion and more than 20,000 employees. 

Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them sustain­ably on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the five invest­ment plat­forms Consu­mer, Health­care, Life Scien­ces, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities is mana­ged by a dedi­ca­ted and compe­tent team based in Gimv’s home markets — Bene­lux, France and DACH — and supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts. www.gimv.com

About E.GRUPPE

The E.GRUPPE aims to bundle tech­ni­cal exper­tise, exploit growth poten­tial in a targe­ted manner and offer custo­mers compre­hen­sive, future-orien­ted elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring from a single source. Through orga­nic growth and the inte­gra­tion of specia­li­zed and regio­nally estab­lished compa­nies, a leading group of compa­nies has emer­ged in the highly frag­men­ted elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring sector. The E.GRUPPE offers its compa­nies and employees long-term growth and deve­lo­p­ment pros­pects — and crea­tes the basis for sustainable joint success. You can find more infor­ma­tion about E.GRUPPE at www.egruppe.com/

About LET Group

The LET Group, head­quar­te­red in Ulm, is a provi­der of compre­hen­sive elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring solu­ti­ons for indus­trial and energy custo­mers. The company specia­li­zes in switch cabi­net and distri­bu­tion board cons­truc­tion as well as solu­ti­ons for unin­ter­rup­ti­ble power supplies and impres­ses with its tech­ni­cal exper­tise and highly available system compon­ents deve­lo­ped in-house. The LET Group compri­ses the four compa­nies LET Lüdde­cke, LET Services, ESV Erfur­ter Schalt­schrank­bau and IMB Energy Systems, which are repre­sen­ted at a total of seven loca­ti­ons with around 200 employees. The group supports its custo­mers along the entire process chain — from plan­ning, produc­tion and commis­sio­ning through to service and main­ten­ance — and thus offers relia­ble, custo­mer-speci­fic solu­ti­ons from a single source. Further infor­ma­tion about the LET Group can be found at www.let-gruppe.de/

Colo­gne — Oppen­hoff has advi­sed Compa­gnie de Saint-Gobain on the sale of Müns­ter­land-based Saint-Gobain Brüg­ge­mann Holz­bau GmbH, inclu­ding all opera­ting proper­ties, to Köster Holding SE. — Saint-Gobain Brüg­ge­mann, which specia­li­zes in the manu­fac­ture of timber modu­les and the cons­truc­tion of turn­key buil­dings in timber cons­truc­tion, employs 190 people and has successfully comple­ted nume­rous resi­den­tial and commer­cial buil­dings as well as educa­tio­nal buil­dings in timber cons­truc­tion since its foun­da­tion in 1957. 

As an inter­na­tio­nal leader in sustainable cons­truc­tion, Compa­gnie de Saint-Gobain deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes mate­ri­als and services for the cons­truc­tion sector and indus­trial markets. Saint-Gobain is present in 80 count­ries worldwide. 

Köster Holding SE, head­quar­te­red in Osna­brück, is one of the leading cons­truc­tion compa­nies in Germany with around 2,000 employees at over 20 loca­ti­ons. The company offers complete solu­ti­ons for cons­truc­tion projects in the fields of buil­ding cons­truc­tion, civil engi­nee­ring and turn­key construction. 

The Oppen­hoff team, led by Myriam Baars-Schil­ling (Corporate/M&A), compri­sed Sebas­tian Gutmann, Dr. Maike Mestmä­cker, Dr. Matthias Klefisch (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Stefa­nie Minzen­may, Julia Höyng, Anto­nia van Dam (all Real Estate), Dr. Gunnar Knorr, Martin Bran­den­bur­ger-Nonnast (both Tax), Dr. Daniel Dohrn, Dr. Agnès Rein­hold (both Anti­trust), Jörn Kuhn, Moritz Coché and Dr. Johan­nes Kaes­bach (all Employment).

The tran­sac­tion was hand­led in-house at Compa­gnie de Saint-Gobain by Matthias Zenner (Head of Legal and Compli­ance) and Eva Beutin (in-house lawyer).

Oppen­hof­f’s M&A team, which has recei­ved nume­rous awards in indus­try hand­books, has been advi­sing natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies on tran­sac­tions and corpo­rate law matters for deca­des. Most recently, the team advi­sed the MRH Trowe Group on the acqui­si­tion of Heubeck AG, the SCHELL share­hol­ders on the sale to Para­gon Part­ners and the Sicame Group on the take­over of Kronen­berg Frei­lei­tungs­ar­ma­tu­ren GmbH. 

About Oppen­hoff

The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for groups, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 100 lawy­ers advise on all important areas of commer­cial and tax law.
Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a part­ner­ship regis­tered in the part­ner­ship regis­ter of the Essen Local Court with the regis­tra­tion number PR 1850 and its regis­tered office in Colo­gne. A list of the part­ners autho­ri­zed to repre­sent the firm is available at https://www.oppenhoff.eu/de/

Munich/ Ravens­burg — The Munich-based edtech start-up Edurino has secu­red 17 million euros in its Series B. The team plans to use the fresh capi­tal for inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, new products and a stron­ger retail presence. The round is led by Ravens­bur­ger Next Ventures as lead inves­tor and summi­teer, the invest­ment company of series foun­der Sven Schulz. 

In addi­tion to exis­ting inves­tors such as b2venture, DN Capi­tal, Tengel­mann Ventures, FJ Labs, Emerge, G‑FUND and Jens Bege­mann, busi­ness angels such as Stefan Winners and Frede­rik Vollert also parti­ci­pa­ted. Edurino intends to use the new capi­tal in parti­cu­lar to expand its digi­tal plat­form, double the number of trading part­ners and expand into new markets — inclu­ding an immi­nent market entry in the UK. 

The start-up is pursuing three key growth targets: the further deve­lo­p­ment of the plat­form with new lear­ning content and hybrid products, the inter­na­tio­nal roll­out — inclu­ding to the UK — and doubling its presence in bricks-and-mortar retail by the end of 2025.

EDURINO was foun­ded in Munich in 2021 by Irene Klemm and Fran­ziska Meyer to give child­ren a respon­si­ble, playful intro­duc­tion to the world of digi­tal educa­tion. The plat­form combi­nes educa­tio­nal games, ergo­no­mic input tools and anima­ted charac­ters that teach clas­sic school and future skills such as reading, logi­cal thin­king, coding and envi­ron­men­tal know­ledge. EDURINO has alre­ady sold over one million products. 

Ravens­bur­ger sees the Edurino concept as a pionee­ring combi­na­tion of analog play and digi­tal educa­tion. Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ravens­bur­ger Thomas Bleyer says: “Edurino has succee­ded in buil­ding a meaningful bridge between analog play and digi­tal educa­tion. With its clear educa­tio­nal concept and child-friendly imple­men­ta­tion, the team not only impres­ses child­ren and parents, but also us as a part­ner. We see Edurino as having the poten­tial to help shape digi­tal early educa­tion world­wide in the long term.”

Sven Schulz, foun­der of Summi­teer, empha­si­zes: “Edurino combi­nes pedago­gi­cal exper­tise with state-of-the-art tech­no­logy to create a lear­ning plat­form that inspi­res child­ren and convin­ces parents. We see Edurino as having great poten­tial to make a lasting impact on the educa­tio­nal land­scape and look forward to actively shaping this jour­ney as a partner.”

Consul­tant Ravens­bur­ger and b2venture: V14, Berlin

Dr. Clemens Waitz, Falko Brüg­ge­mann, Alexis von Krue­de­ner and Simo­nié Schlombs from the law firm V14 advi­sed Ravens­bur­ger and b2venture on the finan­cing of Edurino.

Dr. Clemens Waitz
Falko Brüggemann
Alexis von Kruedener
Simo­nié Schlombs

About V14

V14 is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media.

About Ravens­bur­ger Next Ventures

“Next Ventures” is Ravens­bur­g’s program for inno­va­tion projects and start-up invest­ments. The Group provi­des a double-digit million euro sum for this purpose and invests in up to four projects per year. The focus is on busi­ness areas that fit thema­ti­cally with Ravens­bur­ger. Inte­res­ted start-ups and foun­ding teams can cont­act the invest­ment team via nextventures@ravensburger.com. “Next Ventures” is part of the company’s stra­tegy to grow through inno­va­tion, invest­ment and inter­na­tio­nal orien­ta­tion. — www.ravensburger-group.com/nextventures

About Ravens­bur­ger

Ravens­bur­ger AG is an inter­na­tio­nal group of compa­nies with seve­ral renow­ned toy brands. Its mission is: “We inspire people to disco­ver what is really important.” The company’s most important brand, the Ravens­bur­ger blue triangle, is one of the leading Euro­pean brands for games, puzzles and crea­tive products as well as for German-language books for child­ren and young people. Toys bearing the blue triangle are sold world­wide. In addi­tion, the inter­na­tio­nal brands BRIO and Think­Fun expand the Group’s product range. Since its foun­da­tion in 1883, Ravens­bur­ger has been a family busi­ness charac­te­ri­zed by tradi­tion and estab­lished values. In 2024, 2,483 employees gene­ra­ted a turno­ver of 790 million euros. Ravens­bur­ger has its own facto­ries in Ravens­burg, Poli­cka (Czech Repu­blic) and Banská Bystrica (Slova­kia).

About Summi­teer

Summi­teer is an invest­ment company foun­ded by entre­pre­neur and former Akasol CEO Sven Schulz that invests in start-ups and growth compa­nies with scalable, sustainable and inno­va­tive busi­ness models. Summi­te­er’s mission is to create sustainable value with the compa­nies in its port­fo­lio, support­ing the prospe­rity of our society while play­ing an active role in shaping an envi­ron­men­tally friendly future. — www.summiteer.com

Munich/ Grün­wald — Ston­e­peak, a leading alter­na­tive invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in infra­struc­ture and real estate, has acqui­red an appro­xi­m­ately 50% stake in IFCO Group (“IFCO”), a leading global provi­der of reusable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons for fresh food, from a wholly-owned subsi­diary of the Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Autho­rity (“ADIA”). The tran­sac­tion was carried out toge­ther with the exis­ting majo­rity share­hol­der Triton Part­ners, which will retain co-control over IFCO. — POELLATH provi­ded legal and tax advice to IFCO’s manage­ment on the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in connec­tion with the sale. 

IFCO, based in Pullach (Germany), is a leading global provi­der of reusable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons for fresh food and supports custo­mers in over 50 count­ries in the circu­lar economy. With over 400 million contai­ners in circu­la­tion, IFCO supports more than 2.5 billion ship­ments annu­ally. Its reusable crates help preserve fresh­ness, reduce costs and food waste, and mini­mize envi­ron­men­tal impact compared to single-use packaging. 

Ston­e­peak is a leading invest­ment firm focu­sed on infra­struc­ture and real assets with appro­xi­m­ately USD 73 billion under manage­ment. The firm invests in resi­li­ent compa­nies around the world, targe­ting long-term value and high risk-adjus­ted returns. Ston­e­peak provi­des capi­tal, opera­tio­nal support and stra­te­gic part­ner­ships, parti­cu­larly in areas such as trans­por­ta­tion, digi­tal infra­struc­ture, energy tran­si­tion and real estate. The company is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in major cities around the world. 

Advi­sor to IFCO Group on the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in connec­tion with the sale: POELLATH 

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, M&A/PE)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax)
Michael Schwarz (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax)
Ida Süss (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, M&A/PE)
Nata­lie Tafel­ski (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, M&A/PE)

Bad Birnbach/ London (UK) — Foto­Fin­der Group wins GHO Capi­tal Part­ners as new majo­rity share­hol­der. Foto­Fin­der Group starts a new chap­ter toge­ther with GHO Capi­tal Part­ners. GHO, a Euro­pean specia­list inves­tor in the Global Health­Care sector, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Foto­Fin­der. EMZ Part­ners remains on board as a mino­rity share­hol­der. — Henge­ler Muel­ler advi­sed GHO compre­hen­si­vely on the tran­sac­tion in an inte­gra­ted team with Slaugh­ter and May (Harry Bacon, Alee­zeh Liaqat). 

Since its foun­da­tion in 1991 by Andreas and Rudolf Mayer, Foto­Fin­der has deve­lo­ped into one of the worl­d’s leading provi­ders of inno­va­tive skin imaging solu­ti­ons. The port­fo­lio includes tech­no­logy for the early detec­tion of skin cancer using total body mapping and AI-supported dermo­scopy as well as solu­ti­ons for hair analy­sis and aesthe­tics. With the acqui­si­tion of Derm­Lite 2024, Foto­Fin­der has added market-leading analog dermo­sco­pes to its product port­fo­lio and crea­ted a unique offering. 

“I am proud of what we have built toge­ther over more than 30 years,” says Andreas Mayer, CEO of the Foto­Fin­der Group. “We have taken important steps with EMZ, espe­ci­ally the acqui­si­tion of Derm­Lite. The part­ner­ship with GHO now marks a new mile­stone. Their indus­try expe­ri­ence and inter­na­tio­nal network will give us a tail­wind to conti­nue our growth, drive inno­va­tion and further expand our inter­na­tio­nal presence.” 

Klaus Maurer, Senior Part­ner at EMZ Part­ners, also empha­si­zes this: “Since our entry, Foto­Fin­der has consis­t­ently expan­ded its market leader­ship. Toge­ther with GHO and the strong manage­ment team, we have crea­ted the best condi­ti­ons to take advan­tage of the next growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. We look forward to conti­nuing to support Foto­Fin­der as a share­hol­der in the future.”

Ken Eich­mann and Stuart Quin, part­ners at GHO Capi­tal, empha­size: “Foto­Fin­der is a pioneer in the field of skin imaging and has set stan­dards with the highest level of inno­va­tion. We see great poten­tial to utilize the syner­gies between Foto­Fin­der and Derm­Lite to further deve­lop the plat­form globally. We are very much looking forward to working with Andreas Mayer, John Bott­jer and the entire team.”

Rising skin cancer rates, an ageing popu­la­tion and growing aware­ness of the need for regu­lar skin checks are incre­asing the demand for precise diagno­stic tools world­wide. Foto­Fin­der offers solu­ti­ons that speed up diagno­ses, opti­mize work­flows and improve care — making an important contri­bu­tion to early detection. 

“We look forward to conti­nuing on this path toge­ther with our teams in Bad Birn­bach and Aliso Viejo as well as our part­ners and custo­mers,” empha­si­zes Andreas Mayer. “GHO has all the prere­qui­si­tes to accom­pany the Foto­Fin­der Group into the next phase of inter­na­tio­nal expansion.” 

The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted in the coming weeks.

About EMZ Partners

EMZ is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment firm with offices in Paris and Munich. Over the last 25 years, EMZ has backed more than 160 compa­nies with invest­ments of more than €5 billion. EMZ covers the small and mid-cap segments with invest­ments between €15 million and €150 million. EMZ is owned by its partners.
EMZ views manage­ment teams as the primary drivers of value crea­tion and places them at the center of its invest­ment stra­tegy. Our approach supports mana­gers, foun­ders and family share­hol­ders in their growth projects. The part­ner­ships we enter into with them are based on the alignment of inte­rests and balan­ced and trust-based gover­nance. — https://emzpartners.com/

About GHO

GHO Capi­tal is a leading Euro­pean private equity inves­tor specia­li­zing in health­care, buil­ding leading global health­care compa­nies that deli­ver better, faster and more acces­si­ble health­care. — https://ghocapital.com/

Henge­ler Muel­ler team for GHO Capital

Corporate/M&A: Dr. Martin Ulbrich (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Ingo Berner (Berlin, both lead), Dr. Katha­rina Hesse (all part­ner), Dr. Okan Isikay (both Düssel­dorf), Dr. David Negen­born (Munich, both senior asso­ciate), Oleg Gold­schmidt (Düssel­dorf), Elmar Willem­sen (Berlin), Leon­hard Kappen­ha­gen, Van Nguyen (both Düssel­dorf, all associate),

Tax law: Dr. Markus Ernst (Part­ner, Munich), Jan Adami (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt),
Anti­trust law: Dr. Anja Balitzki (Coun­sel, Düsseldorf),
Finan­cing: Dr. Henning Hilke (Part­ner), Dr. Tobias Chowd­hury (Coun­sel, both Frankfurt),
Employ­ment law: Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Part­ner), Musa Müjdeci (Senior Asso­ciate, both Frankfurt),
IP/IT: Dr. Andrea Schlaffge (Coun­sel, Nina Macken­stedt, Johan­nes Jäkle (both Asso­ciate, all Düssel­dorf), Andrea Schlaffge (Coun­sel), Nina Macken­stedt, Johan­nes Jäkle (both Asso­ciate, all Düsseldorf),
Public Commer­cial Law/Healthcare: Dr. Susanne Koch (Coun­sel), Dr. Sandra Plötz (Senior Asso­ciate), Tanja Peschen (Asso­ciate, all Düsseldorf),
FDI: Jan Schül­ting (Senior Asso­ciate, Düsseldorf).

About Henge­ler Mueller

Henge­ler Muel­ler is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with offices in Berlin, Brussels, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, London and Munich. With around 354 lawy­ers, 93 of whom are part­ners, the firm specia­li­zes in provi­ding legal advice in complex tran­sac­tions, conten­tious dispu­tes and special situa­tions. Henge­ler Muel­ler’s clients include major commer­cial enter­pri­ses as well as leading inves­tors and family busi­nesses in Europe and worldwide.

Tübingen/ Riet­heim-Weil­heim — The health­care inves­tor SHS Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Acker­mann Instru­mente GmbH. The aim of the invest­ment is to further expand Acker­man­n’s core busi­ness and to estab­lish a leading global medi­cal tech­no­logy group through targe­ted part­ner­ships with other compa­nies in the region. 

Rolf Acker­mann will remain a mino­rity share­hol­der. Peter Grassl will conti­nue to lead Acker­mann Instru­mente GmbH as Mana­ging Direc­tor and conti­nue on the growth path. 

Acker­mann Instru­mente, based near Tutt­lin­gen, is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality surgi­cal instru­ments with a focus on endo­scopy, implan­to­logy and gene­ral surgery. Verti­cally inte­gra­ted in-house produc­tion ensu­res high product quality, cost effi­ci­ency and full control along the value chain. Thanks to its strong regu­la­tory exper­tise and opera­tio­nal flexi­bi­lity, Acker­mann has estab­lished itself as a relia­ble part­ner for medi­cal profes­sio­nals and MedTech compa­nies. Conti­nuous sales growth and a diver­si­fied and growing custo­mer base make the company an attrac­tive part­ner to bene­fit from the global trend towards mini­mally inva­sive surgi­cal proce­du­res — espe­ci­ally in emer­ging markets. 

SHS sees great poten­tial in Acker­man­n’s scalable busi­ness model and in the company’s inter­na­tio­nal growth stra­tegy. In the coming years, Acker­mann will conti­nue to streng­then its core busi­ness, expand its market presence and drive inno­va­tion in a targe­ted manner. 

In an incre­asingly conso­li­da­ting Euro­pean MedTech market, driven by MDR requi­re­ments and corpo­rate succes­sion, Acker­man­n’s global distri­bu­tion chan­nels provide an attrac­tive plat­form for stra­te­gic part­ner­ships and acqui­si­ti­ons in the region and beyond. SHS aims to build a leading medtech group with other compa­nies in the region and beyond to realize distri­bu­tion syner­gies based on Acker­man­n’s global distri­bu­tor network and econo­mies of scale rela­ted to the Medi­cal Device Regu­la­tion (MDR)

“SHS is the right part­ner for company succes­sion in medi­cal tech­no­logy,” says Rolf Acker­mann, former majo­rity share­hol­der of Acker­mann Instru­mente GmbH. “A trust­wor­thy address with a deep under­stan­ding of the indus­try and a long-term approach — that’s what convin­ced us.” 

“With SHS, we have the oppor­tu­nity to posi­tion Acker­mann as a plat­form for buil­ding a powerful medi­cal tech­no­logy group,” says Mana­ging Direc­tor Peter Grassl. “The combi­na­tion of regu­la­tory pres­sure from the MDR, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion poten­tial and possi­ble econo­mies of scale makes this step stra­te­gi­cally sensi­ble for many companies.” 

Dr. Corne­lius Maas, Part­ner at SHS Capi­tal, adds: “Acker­mann is a hidden cham­pion of German medi­cal tech­no­logy — exactly the kind of company we part­ner with. The team has built a highly profi­ta­ble, inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting company that offers a compel­ling value propo­si­tion to users and indus­try part­ners alike. We look forward to shaping the next chap­ter of growth toge­ther, both orga­ni­cally and through targe­ted part­ner­ships and acquisitions.” 

About Acker­mann Instru­mente GmbH

For over seven deca­des, the Acker­mann Group has been deve­lo­ping, manu­fac­tu­ring and distri­bu­ting solu­ti­ons of the highest quality for a wide range of surgi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons, parti­cu­larly in the fields of open and mini­mally inva­sive surgery, but also liga­ture and spinal implants. — In addi­tion to our strong brands, as an OEM manu­fac­tu­rer we are behind a large number of unique products and are proud of our global market leadership. 

True to our INNOVATING TRADITION vision, our goal has always been to offer our custo­mers and users indus­try-leading added value not only through conti­nuous inno­va­tion in our products and proces­ses, but also to never lose sight of our roots and to preserve the craft­sman­ship perfec­ted over gene­ra­ti­ons as an estab­lished family business.

This enables us to create a respon­si­ble home for our employees and improve clini­cal outco­mes every day in over 100 count­ries around the world. — www.acker­mann­sur­gi­cal.com

About SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH

SHS, an indus­try inves­tor, is a private equity firm foun­ded in 1993 that makes invest­ments in health­care compa­nies in Europe. The focus of invest­ments is on expan­sion finan­cing, share­hol­der chan­ges and succes­sion situa­tions. “Buil­ding Euro­pean Health­care Cham­pi­ons” is the invest­ment philo­so­phy accor­ding to which SHS finan­ces and deve­lops port­fo­lio compa­nies. The Tübin­gen-based inves­tor is taking both mino­rity and majo­rity stakes.

SHS funds’ natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors include pension funds, funds of funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, stra­te­gic inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and the SHS manage­ment team. The equity or equity-like invest­ment of the AIF amounts to up to € 50 million. Volu­mes in excess of this can be reali­zed with a network of co-inves­tors. When making invest­ment decis­i­ons, SHS places strong empha­sis on conside­ring ESG aspects and is ther­e­fore commit­ted to the UN PRI guide­lines. SHS is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which was laun­ched in 2022 and has a volume of around € 270m. — www.shs-capital.eu

Munich — The uvex group (uvex), a leading global family-owned company in the field of protec­tion and safety products for work, sport and leisure, announ­ces that Warburg Pincus, a pioneer among growth-orien­ted private equity firms, will acquire a majo­rity stake in the company. The share­hol­der fami­lies Winter and Grau will retain a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake and will conti­nue to actively shape the company’s growth trajec­tory. — Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Warburg Pincus on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Uvex Winter Holding GmbH & Co KG (“uvex”)

Since its foun­da­tion in 1926 by Phil­ipp M. Winter, who began manu­fac­tu­ring safety eyewear in his “Opti­sche-Indus­trie-Anstalt”, uvex has deve­lo­ped into one of the worl­d’s leading specia­lists in the field of occu­pa­tio­nal safety and sport. The guiding prin­ci­ple “protec­ting people” is both a mission and a respon­si­bi­lity. uvex deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes high-quality and inno­va­tive products and services to protect people at work, during sport and in their leisure time. 

The uvex group posi­ti­ons itself as an inno­va­tion leader in the premium segment and its products meet the highest quality stan­dards, offe­ring the best wearing comfort through unique tech­no­lo­gies and inspi­ring design. With Warburg Pincus as a new part­ner, the uvex group will conti­nue to drive inter­na­tio­nal growth, selec­tively expand its premium range and deve­lop new busi­ness areas. The group will also conti­nue to acce­le­rate growth through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and thus build on its previous successes
.

Michael Winter, Mana­ging Part­ner and CEO of the uvex group, comm­ents: “100 years of the brand promise ‘protec­ting people’ is a commit­ment. As a respon­si­ble family busi­ness in its fourth gene­ra­tion, we want to shape the next phase of the company’s deve­lo­p­ment with a strong growth part­ner in order to further increase the resi­li­ence of our group in the future and remain the first choice for our custo­mers. We are convin­ced that we have found such a growth part­ner in Warburg Pincus
.”

Tobias Weid­ner (photo © Warburg Pincus), Mana­ging Direc­tor at Warburg Pincus, says: “We congra­tu­late the Winter and Grau fami­lies, who have built uvex into a successful company with an excel­lent brand over the past 100 years. We look forward to working with them and conti­nuing on this path toge­ther. Our goal is to deve­lop uvex into the global market leader for protec­tive equip­ment and to make uvex premium products acces­si­ble to more people worldwide.” 

The tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual regu­la­tory approvals.

Since its foun­da­tion in 1926, uvex has deve­lo­ped into one of the worl­d’s leading specia­lists in the field of occu­pa­tio­nal safety and sport. The company deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes high-quality and inno­va­tive products and services to protect people at work, during sport and leisure acti­vi­ties. uvex is repre­sen­ted by 49 bran­ches in 23 count­ries, has over 3,000 employees and produ­ces in its own factories. 

Advi­sor Warburg Pincus: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Dr. Philip Goj, Dr. Chris­toph Jerger (all lead, all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Alex­an­der Längs­feld (Debt Finance), Dr. Michael Ehret (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Johan­nes Rowold, Dr. Sophia Probst, Fried­rich Focke, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Licht, Dr. Sabrina Seitz, Carl Grupe, Dr. Pablo Tretow (all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Barbara Dunkel (Debt Finance)

Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Ian Barratt, Thomas Raftery (both Debt Finance), Rhys Davies (Sustaina­bi­lity); Asso­cia­tes: Lara Stein­bach (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion), Brent Tan, Phil Rigley (both Debt Finance)

About Kirk­land

With around 4,000 lawy­ers in 22 cities in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms for high-cali­ber legal services. The German team specia­li­zes in private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law, finan­cing and tax law. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.kirkland.com.

Munich — INTARIA AG, a leading provi­der of audit and tax advi­sory services for medium-sized clients in Germany, has ente­red into a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Moore Belgium, Moore DRV from the Nether­lands and Moore King­s­ton Smith from the UK. In this context, Moore Belgium has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in INTARIA, wher­eby the INTARIA part­ner­ship will conti­nue to manage the German busi­ness as entrepreneurs. 

In the coming years, the service port­fo­lio is to be expan­ded through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and mergers and the geogra­phi­cal coverage within Germany is to be streng­the­ned. INTA­RIA’s clear objec­tive in taking this step is to build a group that will provide custo­mers from the SME sector with a full range of services as a trus­ted part­ner. The merger will also enable them to bene­fit from inte­gra­ted support across borders for their Euro­pean issues. 

Moore Belgium, Moore DRV, Moore King­s­ton Smith and INTARIA have alre­ady been coope­ra­ting for some time in the Moore Global network and now want to signi­fi­cantly inten­sify this coope­ra­tion as a Euro­pean group of natio­nal cham­pi­ons in order to offer clients from the Euro­pean upper midmar­ket a seam­less inter­na­tio­nal offe­ring and to tackle the dyna­mic chal­lenges in the audi­ting and tax consul­ting indus­try with combi­ned forces. In addi­tion, a declared goal of Moore Belgi­um’s invest­ment in INTARIA is to acce­le­rate INTA­RIA’s growth as one of the German market leaders in the SME sector. Among other things, the Belgian company’s expe­ri­ence in inor­ga­nic and orga­nic growth will serve as a driving force. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the opera­tio­nal manage­ment and respon­si­bi­lity for the busi­ness in Germany will remain in the hands of the INTARIA part­ners, who will also retain a signi­fi­cant share­hol­ding. INTARIA has appoin­ted addi­tio­nal part­ners who, toge­ther with the exis­ting team, will drive forward the imple­men­ta­tion of the ambi­tious growth strategy. 

Focus on acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic growth levers

In view of the dyna­mi­cally deve­lo­ping market envi­ron­ment, the future closer part­ner­ship with Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith offers INTARIA the oppor­tu­nity to diffe­ren­tiate itself stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally from the local compe­ti­tion as part of a Euro­pean group of leading provi­ders for SMEs and to find answers to the rapidly chan­ging client requi­re­ments. Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith are the three largest Moore Global network members in Europe and are on a dyna­mic growth path, which has been supported for seve­ral years by the Euro­pean invest­ment company Water­land with capi­tal and compre­hen­sive know-how. INTARIA expects a wide range of addi­tio­nal growth poten­tial within this network for the bene­fit of custo­mers and employees. For exam­ple, INTARIA will be able to offer its more than 1,100 clients addi­tio­nal services, such as advice on digi­tal analy­tics or subsi­dies, as a result of the closer coope­ra­tion and thus further streng­then its posi­tion as a flexi­ble solu­tion part­ner. At the same time, as part of the growth stra­tegy, indus­try exper­tise is to be built up and expan­ded in order to be able to support clients with addi­tio­nal exper­tise in future challenges. 

In addi­tion, INTARIA will gain access to the latest tech­no­lo­gi­cal tools and AI-based solu­ti­ons that Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith, and in the future INTARIA, are jointly deve­lo­ping to be at the fore­front of digi­tal deve­lo­p­ments in the profes­sion. In this way, INTARIA will be able to bene­fit from the use of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies for grea­ter process digi­tiza­tion and streng­then its compe­ti­ti­ve­ness. At the same time, the focus will remain on the quality and inde­pen­dence of its advi­sory services and its close proxi­mity to clients in day-to-day business. 

“INTARIA has deve­lo­ped stron­gly in recent years and has grown steadily. Our clients appre­ciate the quality and our DNA ‘From SMEs for SMEs’. By part­ne­ring with Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith, with whom we share values and goals, we will advise the Euro­pean upper mid-market even more compre­hen­si­vely and across natio­nal borders, while paving the way to signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate INTA­RIA’s natio­nal growth,” explains Thomas Zieg­ler, Mana­ging Part­ner of INTARIA (photo © INTARIA).

Fabian Galler, also Mana­ging Part­ner, adds: “Our almost 200 employees are the foun­da­tion of our successful deve­lo­p­ment. By conti­nuously expan­ding the team over the years, we have been able to create a culture charac­te­ri­zed by cohe­sion, quality aware­ness and expert know-how. Based on these values, we want to acce­le­rate our growth course and are convin­ced that the constel­la­tion as a new strong player will give us all addi­tio­nal clout in the market.”

Peter Verschel­den, Execu­tive Chair­man of Moore Belgium, comm­ents: “I am deligh­ted with this new part­ner­ship with INTARIA. As a company we share the same values, appre­cia­tion for our employees and the same vision for how we want to advise our custo­mers. This part­ner­ship enables us both to serve our clients with the same high quality stan­dards across natio­nal borders. Germany is an important econo­mic market for many clients within our Group and vice versa. I look forward to conti­nuing to grow together.” 

About INTARIA

INTARIA is a leading tax consul­tancy and audi­ting firm with offices in Munich, Rosen­heim and Traun­stein. Active in southern Bava­ria, a region with a strong SME sector, the company curr­ently employs more than 190 people. Foun­ded in 1993, the company has been trading as INTARIA since its renaming in 2019 and has steadily expan­ded its range of services and increased its work­force. INTARIA offers compre­hen­sive services such as tax consul­ting, audi­ting, legal advice, corpo­rate finance, IT and ESG consul­ting. The company is mana­ged by eight part­ners, inclu­ding mana­ging part­ners Thomas Zieg­ler and Fabian Galler. 

About Moore Belgium, Moore DRV, and Moore King­s­ton Smith

Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith are leading inde­pen­dent member firms of the global Moore network. Toge­ther, they stand for excel­lent consul­ting quality and compre­hen­sive exper­tise in the areas of audi­ting, tax consul­ting, accoun­ting, manage­ment consul­ting and digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion — with a parti­cu­lar focus on medium-sized and family-run companies.
Moore Belgium, based in Antwerp, is the largest inde­pen­dent audi­ting and consul­ting firm in Belgium. With around 1,900 employees at 11 loca­ti­ons, the company offers tailor-made solu­ti­ons in the areas of audit, tax, corpo­rate finance, accoun­ting and data & IT advisory.
Moore DRV, based in Rotter­dam, supports entre­pre­neurs and SMEs in the southern Nether­lands with over 1,500 employees at more than 25 loca­ti­ons. The focus is on perso­nal advice in the areas of tax, audit, consul­ting and IT services. 

Moore King­s­ton Smith, head­quar­te­red in London, is one of the leading mid-market consul­tancies in the UK and Ireland. Over 1,500 employees at 10 loca­ti­ons in the UK and 7 support compa­nies, non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons and inter­na­tio­nal clients with compre­hen­sive services — from audit and tax advice to outsour­cing and ESG consul­ting. The three compa­nies combine a regio­nal presence with an inter­na­tio­nal perspec­tive and support their clients in achie­ving sustainable growth and successfully maste­ring complex challenges.

Düssel­dorf — The health tech start-up hello­med has raised a seven-figure late-seed finan­cing round. A seven-figure sum was inves­ted in the company in the finan­cing round by busi­ness angels and well-known family offices. The finan­cing round was imme­dia­tely follo­wed by an increase in share capital. 

The venture capi­tal (VC) team led by Düssel­dorf-based HEUKING part­ner Dr. Patrick Müller has provi­ded legal advice to the health tech start-up hello­med Group GmbH on a late seed financing.

Foun­ded in 2022, Berli­ner GmbH is regis­tered in the Char­lot­ten­burg commer­cial regis­ter. It offers IT, marke­ting, HR, consul­ting and logi­stics services for phar­macies in the health­care sector and alre­ady descri­bes itself as the market leader for phar­macy solu­ti­ons in the field of profes­sio­nal care. 

With the hello­med-OS-APP, prescrip­ti­ons can be conve­ni­ently trans­mit­ted online or reques­ted from the doctor. The tablets are then blis­te­red fully auto­ma­ti­cally in the clean room. Finally, the blis­ter packs are triple-checked — by means of a medi­ca­tion check using photo optics and by phar­macists. The pre-sorted pills are sent directly to the pati­ents at monthly or fort­nightly inter­vals. The app provi­des the care provi­ders with infor­ma­tion about the current medi­ca­tion status, the so-called range and auto­ma­tic follow-up prescrip­tion requests. 

HEUKING regu­larly advi­ses start-ups and VC inves­tors in various VC finan­cing rounds.

Advi­sor hello­med Group GmbH: HEUKING

Dr. Patrick Müller, LL.M. (Univer­sity of the West of England, Bris­tol), (lead), Düsseldorf,
Caro­line Frohn­wie­ser, Hamburg,
Laura Jochem, LL.M. (Univer­sity of East Anglia, Norwich), (all venture capi­tal), Düsseldorf

Paris/ Frank­furt a. M. — With the active support of Ardian Expan­sion and Latour Capi­tal, Groupe RG — a leader in the distri­bu­tion of perso­nal protec­tive equip­ment (PPE) for over 35 years — announ­ces the acqui­si­tion of Cotral Lab, the worl­d’s leading manu­fac­tu­rer of custom hearing protec­tion and reco­gni­zed provi­der of prescrip­tion safety eyewear, and Comu Systems, a specia­list in tacti­cal and criti­cal communications.

This acqui­si­tion is part of a clear stra­tegy to conti­nuously increase added value for custo­mers, improve the Group’s exper­tise and conso­li­date its role as an inde­pen­dent, specia­li­zed multi-brand distri­bu­tor. “This acqui­si­tion perfectly comple­ments Groupe RG’s range of custo­mi­zed PPE. We remain first and fore­most a distri­bu­tor serving all our manu­fac­tu­rer part­ners and provi­ding objec­tive advice to our custo­mers. We want to ensure the quality of our recom­men­da­ti­ons and the diver­sity of our offer. Cotral Lab streng­thens our tech­ni­cal product port­fo­lio and our service in a highly specia­li­zed segment,” says Pierre Manchini, Presi­dent of Groupe RG. 

Cotral Lab will remain an inde­pen­dent company. The sales team will main­tain its inde­pen­dence and current struc­ture, and products will conti­nue to be distri­bu­ted prima­rily through direct chan­nels to end-user companies. 

Groupe RG’s philo­so­phy remains unch­an­ged: to act as a broker of exper­tise, able to bring toge­ther manu­fac­tu­r­ers, profes­sio­nals and end users to pursue common goals — better protection,
more inno­va­tion and sustainable construction.

About Groupe RG

With a turno­ver of almost 600 million euros, around 1,500 employees and 70 bran­ches and subsi­dia­ries in France and Europe, Groupe RG is the leading specia­li­zed PPE distri­bu­tor in France and a major player in Europe. Its strong orga­nic growth, combi­ned with a dyna­mic acqui­si­tion stra­tegy, under­pins its ambi­tion to become the leading specia­list in PPE distri­bu­tion and rela­ted services in Europe. Since 2019, the Group has comple­ted 14 acqui­si­ti­ons in France, Bene­lux, Spain, Italy, Tuni­sia, Slova­kia and Ireland. www.groupe-rg.com

About Cotral Lab

With more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence, Cotral Lab has estab­lished itself as a global leader in the design, manu­fac­ture and distri­bu­tion of custo­mi­zed hearing protec­tion for profes­sio­nals. The inte­gra­tion of Comu Systems has enab­led Cotral Lab to diffe­ren­tiate itself in the tacti­cal market by offe­ring commu­ni­ca­tion systems for criti­cal envi­ron­ments. In addi­tion, the company has expan­ded its exper­tise by laun­ching a third busi­ness line focu­sed on visual protec­tion, offe­ring CONFIDENTIAL prescrip­tion safety eyewear speci­fi­cally desi­gned for expo­sed workers. With these three core acti­vi­ties, Cotral Lab has equip­ped nearly 2.5 million users in more than 30,000 compa­nies on 4 conti­nents. The company, which is growing by more than 15% per year, curr­ently employs around 350 people and has a turno­ver of 60 million euros, 25% of which is gene­ra­ted by exports. — www.cotral.fr

Düssel­dorf — Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer has advi­sed The Storytel­ling Company, a port­fo­lio company of Holland Capi­tal Manage­ment B.V., on the acqui­si­tion of Berlin-based visual design studio flora&faunavisions. With this tran­sac­tion, The Storytel­ling Company is expan­ding its exis­ting core areas — Brand Expe­ri­en­ces, Event Expe­ri­en­ces and Tech­no­logy Solu­ti­ons — to include Expe­ri­ence Design. 

The Storytel­ling Company deve­lops and imple­ments expe­ri­ence centers, visual instal­la­ti­ons and inno­va­tive brand and event expe­ri­en­ces. The company covers the entire range of services — from stra­te­gic consul­ting, concept and content deve­lo­p­ment, soft­ware, expe­ri­ence design and tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion to global event management. 

Holland Capi­tal Manage­ment B.V. has been inves­t­ing in fast-growing small and medium-sized compa­nies in the Nether­lands and Germany for more than 40 years. With offices in Amster­dam and Düssel­dorf, Holland Capi­tal focu­ses on the health­care, tech­no­logy and agrif­ood tech sectors. 

flora & fauna­vi­si­ons is an award-winning, inter­di­sci­pli­nary design studio based in Berlin. The studio concei­ves, stages, designs and reali­zes large-scale, narra­tive-driven immersive exhi­bi­ti­ons, stage produc­tions, brand expe­ri­en­ces and origi­nal IPs for inter­na­tio­nal clients, part­ners and a global audience. 

Advi­sors to The Storytel­ling Company: Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer, Düsseldorf

Dr. Michael Gläs­ner (Coun­sel, lead), Dr. Oliver Duys (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Stef­fen Hörner (Tax, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Johan­nes Niege­mann, Lena Tubes (both Corporate/M&A), Tatiana Güns­ter (Tax, Frankfurt).

About Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer

Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer (HSF Kramer) was formed in June 2025 from the merger of Herbert Smith Freeh­ills and Kramer Levin, estab­li­shing itself as one of the worl­d’s leading global commer­cial law firms. With over 6,000 employees, inclu­ding around 2,700 lawy­ers, in 26 offices, HSF Kramer offers compre­hen­sive legal advice in all major regi­ons of the world. HSF Kramer is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to assist clients in reali­zing their ambi­tious projects and, in parti­cu­lar, to support them in complex tran­sac­tions and legal disputes. 

Berlin — ProSiebenSat.1 has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Studio Bummens. Olga Balan­dina-Luke, Dr. Jesko von Mirbach, Dr. Clemens Waitz, Dr. Jan Heerma and Mario Tepe of the law firm V14 advi­sed Studio Bummens on this transaction. 

Studio Bummens is one of the leading German podcast publishers and is known for a variety of successful formats with the best-known and most popu­lar podcas­ters in the German-spea­king world. The company, run by Konstan­tin Seiden­stü­cker, Tobias Bauck­hage and Jon Hands­chin, is respon­si­ble for “Baywatch Berlin” with Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, Thomas Schmitt and Jakob Lundt, “Apoka­lypse & Filter­kaf­fee” with Micky Beisen­herz, “Copa TS” with Tommi Schmitt, “G Spot” with Stefa­nie Giesin­ger and “Einfach mal Luppen” with Toni Kroos and Felix Kroos, among others. Studio Bummens brings with it an outstan­ding talent network that enri­ches the ProSiebenSat.1 portfolio. 

ProSiebenSat.1 is thus setting another stra­te­gic mile­stone to streng­then its posi­tion in the fast-growing podcast busi­ness. With this step, the media group is further expan­ding the podcast produc­tion busi­ness of its in-house podcast unit Seven.One Audio and ensu­ring even closer inte­gra­tion of produc­tion and marketing. 

Consul­tant Studio Bummens: V 14

Olga Balan­dina-Luke (Photo © V 14)
Dr. Jesko von Mirbach
Dr. Clemens Waitz
Dr. Jan Heerma
Mario Tepe

Amster­dam / Munich / Marl — Marl-based Elbfrost, a leading food distri­bu­tor and logi­stics service provi­der, wants to become a supra-regio­nal supplier cham­pion and is brin­ging a new majo­rity share­hol­der on board: the leading invest­ment company NPM Capi­tal — head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam and also active in German-spea­king count­ries since the begin­ning of the year — is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in Elbfrost. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted within the third quar­ter of 2025, subject to regu­la­tory approvals. 

Foun­ded in 1990, Elbfrost has deve­lo­ped from a local company into a regio­nal market leader for frozen and dry products with over 210 employees. The company is head­quar­te­red in Marl, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, and opera­tes four stra­te­gi­cally loca­ted distri­bu­tion centers in western and eastern Germany. Elbfrost offers 1,400 prima­rily frozen items from the product groups meat, fish, poul­try, game, fruit, vege­ta­bles, vege­ta­rian foods as well as potato and dough products, supple­men­ted by an exten­sive range of conve­ni­ence products. On the custo­mer side, the company has focu­sed on commu­nal cate­ring: univer­si­ties, schools, cate­ring compa­nies, company canteens and public autho­ri­ties as well as compa­nies in the cate­ring sector such as hospi­tals and reti­re­ment homes are among its regu­lar customers. 

Elbfrost brought the invest­ment company Bencis on board as a part­ner around three years ago. During their time toge­ther, important initial steps were taken towards an inten­si­fied growth stra­tegy, inclu­ding the acqui­si­tion of A+K Kälte-Team GmbH from the Ruhr region. With the newly concluded part­ner­ship, NPM Capi­tal, toge­ther with the manage­ment, is taking over the previous shares in the frozen food specia­list and intends to usher in the next growth phase towards a leading supra-regio­nal role. 

NPM Capi­tal is a leading invest­ment company based in Amster­dam that has been successfully inves­t­ing in fast-growing medium-sized compa­nies since 1948. It is part of SHV Holding, one of Euro­pe’s largest priva­tely mana­ged family busi­nesses with roots in the Nether­lands and acti­vi­ties in over 60 count­ries. As a result, NPM Capi­tal has a parti­cu­larly stable and secure capi­tal base and can operate with a long-term invest­ment hori­zon. The focus is on sustainable value crea­tion in the areas of digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies, health­care, educa­tion, indus­try, food and sustainable tech­no­lo­gies. NPM Capi­tal sees itself not only as an inves­tor, but also as an active part­ner that stra­te­gi­cally supports compa­nies in growth phases — be it in expan­sion, digi­ta­liza­tion or succes­sion solu­ti­ons. The invest­ment in Elbfrost is part of NPM Capi­tal’s invest­ment area Feeding the World, which focu­ses on sustaina­bi­lity and inno­va­tion in the global food supply chain. The opening of an office in Munich and the first successful tran­sac­tion marks an important step for NPM Capi­tal in rolling out the successful invest­ment philo­so­phy of a family inves­tor in German-spea­king count­ries in the future. 

“We will provide Elbfrost with long-term support in scaling its busi­ness. With its opti­mi­zed product port­fo­lio, effi­ci­ent proces­ses and broad custo­mer base, the company is ideally posi­tio­ned to take advan­tage of the growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the German food­ser­vice sector,” explains Alexis Milko­vic (photo © NPM Capi­tal), Head of NPM Capi­tal’s Munich office, Part­ner and Coun­try­head. In addi­tion to him, two other invest­ment profes­sio­nals are alre­ady working on site: Phil­ipp Gauß as Invest­ment Direc­tor and Vincent Falcke as Asso­ciate. “We want to expand the team further and are alre­ady working on the next tran­sac­tions,” says Milkovic. 

About NPM Capital

NPM Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company that helps medium-sized and large compa­nies in the Bene­lux and DACH region to realize their ambi­ti­ons and build the compa­nies of the future. With offices in Munich, Amster­dam and Ghent, NPM Capi­tal focu­ses on family busi­nesses and compa­nies with strong manage­ment teams. The current port­fo­lio compri­ses 24 invest­ments, both majo­rity and mino­rity stakes, in themes that are shaping the future: Sustainable Future, Digi­tal & Tech­no­logy, Feeding the World and Healthy Life & Lear­ning. For more infor­ma­tion visit www.npm-capital.com

About Bencis

Bencis is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm that supports owners and manage­ment teams in achie­ving their growth objec­ti­ves. With offices in Amster­dam, Brussels and Düssel­dorf, Bencis has been inves­t­ing in strong and successful compa­nies in the Nether­lands, Belgium and Germany since 1999. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.bencis.com.

The ARQIS team, led by part­ner Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze, regu­larly acts for Bencis, in parti­cu­lar also on the entry into Elbfrost 2022.

Advi­sor Bencis: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Deal Team: Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Mana­ging Asso­ciate), Tim Meyer-Meisel (Asso­ciate, all Tran­sac­tions), Part­ners: Thomas Chwa­lek (Tran­sac­tions), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Coun­sel: Malte Grie­pen­burg (Tran­sac­tions), Jens Knip­ping (Tax), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial, Munich), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (HR Law), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Tim Brese­mann (Real Estate), Marina Bume­der (HR Law, Munich), Rolf Tichy (IP, Munich), Asso­cia­tes: Ivo Erte­kin, Stef­fen Schu­bert (both Tran­sac­tions), Rebecca Gester (Commer­cial, Munich), Senior Legal Specia­list: Qing Xia (Tran­sac­tions)

MARCK (Düssel­dorf): Dr. Georg Schmitt­mann (Anti­trust Law)

POELLATH (Munich): Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte, Dr. Michael de Toma (Consul­ting Management)

Dussel­dorf — Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advi­sed HSBC Conti­nen­tal Europe on the sale of its cust­ody busi­ness in Germany to BNP Pari­bas S.A., a German bank., Germany Branch. The cust­ody busi­ness in Germany focu­ses on dome­stic cust­ody, clea­ring and safe­kee­ping services for German insti­tu­tio­nal clients. 

This tran­sac­tion is part of the global simpli­fi­ca­tion stra­tegy announ­ced in Octo­ber 2024.

Advi­sor HSBC Conti­nen­tal Europe: Norton Rose Fulbright

The inter­na­tio­nal team was led by London part­ner Emma de Ronde (Corporate/M&A, London) and Düssel­dorf part­ner Anne Fischer (Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf).
Other team members — the part­ners: Dr. Tim Scha­per (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg), Clau­dia Poslu­schny (Employ­ment Law, Munich), Dr. Chris­toph Ritzer (Data Protec­tion Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Frank Herring (Banking Law, Frank­furt), as well as the asso­cia­tes: Alex­an­der Mathes (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Michaela Bach­meier (Employ­ment Law, Munich), Vero­nika Koch (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Nico­las Krämer (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Tobias Teich­ner (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg) and Elea­nor Jones (Corporate/M&A, London) and Michael Bola­wole (Project Manage­ment, London).

The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory approvals.

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 3,000 lawy­ers in over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the USA, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal companies. 

We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice in all major sectors. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal, regu­la­tory, compli­ance and gover­nance. This enables us to provide our clients with prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face.
Where­ver we operate, we act in accordance with our busi­ness prin­ci­ples of “Quality, Unity and Inte­grity”. We provide legal advice of the highest stan­dard and main­tain this level of quality in every contact. 

Düssel­dorf — Lant­män­nen has signed an agree­ment with Volvo Cons­truc­tion Equip­ment (Volvo CE) to divest Swecon, an autho­ri­zed distri­bu­tor of Volvo CE in Sweden, Esto­nia, Latvia, Lithua­nia and Germany. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the second half of 2025. 

A HEUKING team led by Düssel­dorf part­ners Dr. Martin Imhof and Astrid Lued­tke advi­sed Lant­män­nen on the German parts of the tran­sac­tion, which were imple­men­ted by a sepa­rate purchase agreement.

Lant­män­nen is a Swedish agri­cul­tu­ral coope­ra­tive and Nort­hern Euro­pe’s leading company within agri­cul­ture, machi­nery, bioen­ergy and food products. Lant­män­nen coope­ra­tes with 17,000 Swedish farmers, employs 12,000 people, opera­tes in over 20 count­ries and has an annual turno­ver of SEK 70 billion. 

Swecon has been a divi­sion of the Lant­män­nen Group since it was foun­ded 25 years ago. Swecon’s net sales amoun­ted to SEK 10 billion in 2024. The tran­sac­tion includes Swecon’s entire busi­ness area with around 1,400 employees, i.e. sales of products and services, rental of machi­nes, after­mar­ket services and custo­mer service as well as offices and work­shops. The tran­sac­tion also includes the company Entrack. 

Volvo CE sees the invest­ment in Swecon as a stra­te­gic step to further expand sales in core markets: Germany as the largest cons­truc­tion equip­ment market in Europe, Sweden as Volvo CE’s home market as well as Esto­nia, Latvia and Lithua­nia. Toge­ther with Volvo CE’s current sales orga­niza­tion, this acqui­si­tion also means that Volvo CE will directly manage the majo­rity of its sales in Europe. Thus, distri­bu­tion will become part of Volvo CE’s core busi­ness in Europe. 

Consul­tant Lant­män­nen: HEUKING

Dr. Martin Imhof (corpo­rate law / M&A — lead),
Astrid Lued­tke (IP / data protec­tion — lead),
Dr. Chris­tiane Vikto­ria Göb-Krumme (corpo­rate law / M&A),
Dr. Melina Brune (corpo­rate law / M&A),
Chris­toph Hexel (employ­ment law),
Chris­toph Nöhles, LL.M. (Boston Univer­sity), (Real Estate Law),
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (King’s College London), (Merger Control / FDI), all Düsseldorf,
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax),
Simon Pommer, LL.M. (Tax), both Hamburg