ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt a. Main — US-based DISA Global Solu­ti­ons, a leading provi­der in the areas of employee scree­ning and compli­ance, has acqui­red all shares in SIGNUM Consul­ting. With this first inter­na­tio­nal acqui­si­tion DISA Global Solu­ti­ons under­lines its inter­na­tio­nal growth stra­tegy. DISA now offers back­ground checks in 145 count­ries. DISA Global Solu­ti­ons was advi­sed by Oppen­hoff on this transaction.

Foun­ded in 1986 in Hous­ton, Texas, DISA provi­des person­nel selec­tion and compli­ance services. DISA helps employ­ers make infor­med work­force decis­i­ons and ensu­res the highest level of work­place safety.

SIGNUM Consul­ting was foun­ded in 1998 and supports inter­na­tio­nally orien­ted large and medium-sized compa­nies in the areas of pre-employ­ment scree­ning and risk/compliance manage­ment in more than 100 countries.

Advi­sor DISA Global Solu­ti­ons: Oppenhoff
The Oppen­hoff team, led by Dr. Markus Rasner (photo © Oppen­hof), included Marcel Marko­vic (both private equity), Anja Dombrow­sky (labor law), Dr. Jürgen Hartung (IT and data protec­tion law), Dr. Wolf­gang Kotzur (finan­cing) and Dr. Gunnar Knorr (tax).

Oppen­hoff regu­larly advi­ses US compa­nies on the imple­men­ta­tion of their inter­na­tio­nal M&A stra­tegy, such as Mobi­leum on the acqui­si­tion of SIGOS, SDC Tech­no­lo­gies on the acqui­si­tion of COTEC and Simpson Tech­no­lo­gies on the acqui­si­tion of Webac Maschinenbau.

About Oppen­hoff

Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a full-service law firm and finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for corpo­ra­ti­ons, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 100 attor­neys advise on all major areas of busi­ness and tax law.

News

Munich — MCon Group AG sells the MCon Mana­ged Services divi­sion to CONVOTIS GmbH. The Mana­ged Services busi­ness unit, which includes MCon’s German and Moroc­can subsi­dia­ries, provi­des Infra­struc­ture-as-a-Service services for custo­mers in nume­rous indus­tries, inclu­ding the auto­mo­tive indus­try. An M&A team led by Heuking Part­ner Dr. Mathias Schrö­der provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to MCon Group AG on the sale of the MCon Mana­ged Services divi­sion to the CONVOTIS Group.

The MCon Group was foun­ded in 2010 in St. Gallen. MCon Group AG’s opera­ti­ons are based on three busi­ness pillars: digi­tal, data-driven solu­ti­ons to add value to sales and after-sales busi­nesses, profes­sio­nal services to design and imple­ment digi­tal solu­ti­ons, and IT infra­struc­ture and hosting, backed by 24/7 support. The company has also been active in Asia for more than ten years, parti­cu­larly with a strong presence in China.

The CONVOTIS Group is a leading provi­der of inno­va­tive and high-quality busi­ness solu­ti­ons and mana­ged IT services in the DACH region. With its three busi­ness units Busi­ness Solu­ti­ons, Digi­tal Plat­form Solu­ti­ons and Mana­ged IT Services, CONVOTIS sees itself as a stra­te­gic IT part­ner for its custo­mers in incre­asing growth and effi­ci­ency through digitization.

Legal Coun­sel MCon Group AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Mathias Schrö­der, LL.M., Fabian Becker, LL.M., Peter M. Schäff­ler (all Corpo­rate Law, M&A), Munich

News

Frank­furt a. Main — The inde­pen­dent German private equity firm ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”), as mana­ger of the fund German Equity Part­ners V (“GEP V” or “the Fund”), today announ­ced the sale of its majo­rity stake in the Berlin-based soft­ware deve­lo­per PikeTec GmbH (“PikeTec”) to Synop­sys, Inc. a global leader in elec­tro­nic design auto­ma­tion (EDA) and semi­con­duc­tor IP based in the US. A dyna­mi­cally growing soft­ware company, PikeTec specia­li­zes in embedded soft­ware test­ing and func­tional veri­fi­ca­tion with a focus on the auto­mo­tive indus­try. The parties to the agree­ment have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction.

With the successful closing of the tran­sac­tion, funds mana­ged by ECM have alre­ady reali­zed the second successful exit this year after the sale of the Derma­to­lo­gi­kum Group.

Further deve­lo­p­ment of the orga­niza­tion and intro­duc­tion of a subscrip­tion-based busi­ness model
Since the entry of GEP V in 2019, the soft­ware specia­list foun­ded in 2007 by Dr. Eckard Bring­mann, Andreas Krämer and Dr. Jens Lüde­mann has deve­lo­ped signi­fi­cantly and successfully initia­ted the adapt­a­tion of its busi­ness model from a clas­sic licen­sing to a soft­ware subscrip­tion busi­ness model (“SaaS”). With ECM’s support, PikeTec has pushed ahead with its inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and has ente­red into successful sales part­ner­ships, parti­cu­larly in the fast-growing Asian markets of India and China. This success is under­pin­ned by signi­fi­cant reve­nue growth as well as a signi­fi­cant increase in the share of recur­ring soft­ware reve­nue. In addi­tion, PikeTec has increased the number of its employees by more than 50 percent during this time and has adapted its orga­niza­tio­nal struc­tures to the dyna­mic growth of the company, thus laying the foun­da­ti­ons for further expan­sion in the future.

Global and loyal customers

With a team of around 60 soft­ware deve­lo­pers and engi­neers, the company is now one of the leading provi­ders of test­ing soft­ware. PikeTec combi­nes the deve­lo­p­ment of stan­dard test soft­ware with Test­ing-as-a-Service services to provide a unique test auto­ma­tion offe­ring. The company’s Time Parti­tion Test­ing (TPT) test­ing tool enables embedded soft­ware programs to be tested more accu­ra­tely and effi­ci­ently than with other methods. PikeTec’s focus is on early soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment stages such as model and soft­ware-in-the-loop. The soft­ware specialist’s core market is the auto­mo­tive indus­try, with OEMs and Tier 1 suppli­ers as its main custo­mers. With its tools, PikeTec serves custo­mers in around 20 count­ries worldwide.

Andreas Krämer, co-foun­der of PikeTec, said: “We thank ECM for the successful coope­ra­tion over the past four years. With ECM’s support, we have deve­lo­ped PikeTec’s busi­ness model into a soft­ware subscri­ber model, driven inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, espe­ci­ally in Asia, and crea­ted the neces­sary orga­niza­tio­nal condi­ti­ons for further growth. Thanks to ECM’s excel­lent inter­na­tio­nal network, we were able to find the right stra­te­gic part­ner in Synop­sys for our further deve­lo­p­ment. We look forward to shaping and chan­ging the future of virtua­liza­tion, simu­la­tion and testing.”

Florian Kähler, Mana­ging Part­ner of ECM (Photo © ECM), added: “It has been a great plea­sure to work with PikeTec’s foun­ders Dr. Eckard Bring­mann, Andreas Krämer and Dr. Jens Lüde­mann on an equal footing. Since the begin­ning of our part­ner­ship in 2019, we have supported the manage­ment team in conti­nuing and acce­le­ra­ting PikeTec’s successful growth trajec­tory and in driving the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the company. We thank the manage­ment team for the trust they have placed in us and wish the team and the company every success for the future along­side the new part­ner Synopsys.”

Advi­sor GEP V on this transaction: 

Houli­han Lokey (M&A), Milbank (legal and struc­tu­ring), Roland Berger (commer­cial) and Ebner Stolz (finance & tax) advi­sed. Florian Kähler, Jan-Luca Bell and Bene­dikt Müller were respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion at ECM.

About ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”)

ECM is a trus­ted part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies and entre­pre­neurs in German-spea­king Europe. Since 1995, ECM has laun­ched the GEP I‑V equity funds with a total volume of more than €1 billion and is curr­ently inves­t­ing from the fifth fund GEP V (€325 million). The funds invest prima­rily in leading medium-sized compa­nies with attrac­tive growth poten­tial in the course of succes­sion plan­ning, part­ner­ship invest­ments and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.ecm-pe.de

About PikeTec GmbH (“PikeTec”)

PikeTec was foun­ded in Berlin in 2007 by Dr. Eckard Bring­mann, Andreas Krämer and Dr. Jens Lüde­mann. Today, the company is one of the leading provi­ders of specia­li­zed test­ing soft­ware with a team of around 60 soft­ware deve­lo­pers and engi­neers. PikeTec deve­lops the test tool TPT and also offers engi­nee­ring services. PikeTec advi­ses compa­nies in the field of test­ing safety-rele­vant embedded systems, performs test mode­ling, execu­tion and evalua­tion for exter­nal custo­mers and is also active in test tool deve­lo­p­ment and inte­gra­tion. The TPT test tool is compa­ti­ble with various safety stan­dards and is used in all soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment phases (MiL, SiL, PiL, HiL). www.piketec.com

News

Berlin — Maga­zino, a robo­tics specia­list from Munich, has sold all its shares in Jung­hein­rich. The listed Hamburg-based company Jung­hein­rich is taking over the Munich-based robo­tics specia­list Maga­zino in full. In addi­tion to its exis­ting share­hol­ding, which has been in place since 2020 and will be increased to 21.7 per cent in 2022, Jung­hein­rich will acquire all the shares held by the foun­ders as well as the previous co-share­hol­ders, inclu­ding Fiege Logis­tik and Körber. The tran­sac­tion became effec­tive imme­dia­tely upon signing this week. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. YPOG advi­sed the foun­ders of Maga­zino on this transaction.

For Jung­hein­rich, the complete take­over of Maga­zino is another stra­te­gi­cally important step towards streng­thening its auto­ma­tion exper­tise. Foun­ded in 2014, Maga­zino employs around 130 people and has one of Europe’s largest deve­lo­p­ment teams in mobile robo­tics. The company offers a powerful tech­no­logy plat­form that enables the opera­tion of logi­stics robots even in a mixed human-machine envi­ron­ment. Robots are thus able to intel­li­gently navi­gate in the warehouse and speci­fi­cally grab and trans­port requi­red objects. Magazino’s system and robots are alre­ady in use in the warehou­ses of various indus­trial custo­mers, online retail­ers and logi­stics service provi­ders. Moreo­ver, the control soft­ware for robots in complex logi­stics envi­ron­ments is alre­ady inte­gra­ted in Jungheinrich’s EAEa. This is a fully auto­ma­ted low-lift truck that was presen­ted for the first time at this year’s Logi­MAT intra­lo­gi­stics trade show.

Maga­zino is to conti­nue to grow as an inde­pen­dent company within the Jung­hein­rich Group and, above all, to utilize the Group’s global sales and service network. The company will conti­nue to be mana­ged by the two co-foun­ders Frede­rik Brant­ner and Lukas Zanger as well as Dr. Moritz Tenorth.

Jung­hein­rich is thus streng­thening the field of auto­no­mous mobile robots as a future field of intra­lo­gi­stics, promo­ting the further expan­sion of its soft­ware exper­tise and being comple­men­ted by one of the largest deve­lo­p­ment teams for mobile robots in Europe with some 130 experts.

About Maga­zino

Maga­zino offers solu­ti­ons for proces­ses that previously could not be auto­ma­ted. They design intra­lo­gi­stics that are more flexi­ble and effi­ci­ent than ever before. To this end, they are deve­lo­ping and buil­ding the next gene­ra­tion of intel­li­gent logi­stics robots. With their ACROSAI tech­no­logy, they work toge­ther with people — simply, safely, stably and with a quality that no one before Maga­zino has ever achieved.

About Jung­hein­rich

As one of the world’s leading intra­lo­gi­stics solu­tion provi­ders, Jung­hein­rich has been driving the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive and sustainable mate­rial flow products and solu­ti­ons for 70 years. As a pioneer in its indus­try, the listed family-owned company is commit­ted to shaping the warehouse of the future. In fiscal 2022, Jung­hein­rich gene­ra­ted sales of €4.76 billion with some 20,000 employees. The global network compri­ses 12 produc­tion sites as well as service and sales compa­nies in 42 count­ries. The share is listed in the MDAX.

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. http://www.ypog.law

News

Sazuburg/ Stuttgart/ Plochin­gen — Menold Bezler advi­sed the share­hol­ders and foun­ders of LogBATT GmbH based in Plochin­gen in the context of a majo­rity share­hol­ding of Lager­max Group from Salz­burg in LogBATT GmbH.

Foun­ded in 2017 by Phil­ipp Helmle and Eduard Schön­meier, LogBATT deve­lops logi­stics solu­ti­ons for lithium-ion batte­ries, espe­ci­ally in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, and now employs around 35 people. The two foun­ders conti­nue to hold shares in the company and remain active in the management.

The owner-mana­ged family company Lager­max is a provi­der of trans­port solu­ti­ons. With over 60 loca­ti­ons in 14 Euro­pean count­ries and around 3,800 employees, the Group is one of Austria’s largest compa­nies for freight forwar­ding, car trans­port and logistics.

Menold Bezler advi­sed the share­hol­ders of LogBATT on the legal and tax aspects of the transaction.

Advi­sor LogBATT GmbH: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)

Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Thomas Futte­rer, Domi­nik Nast, Nicole Brandt, LL.M. (all Corporate/M&A), Nico Haldy (Part­ner), Clemens Mauch (both Tax), Robert Elhardt (Part­ner, Labor Law), Dr. Markus Kleinn (IP)

About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a part­ner­ship-struc­tu­red commer­cial law firm based in Stutt­gart. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Sidney, Austra­lia — Zimmer­mann has become the first Austra­lian fashion label to be valued at more than $1 billion follo­wing its majo­rity acqui­si­tion by private equity firm Advent Inter­na­tio­nal. The label’s foun­ders, sisters Simone and Nicky Zimmer­mann, have retai­ned a mino­rity stake in the brand and said the company will conti­nue to be run by them and current management.

Advent Inter­na­tio­nal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Zimmer­mann from Italian private equity firm Style Capi­tal. Finan­cial terms were not disc­lo­sed, but two people fami­liar with the matter told Reuters the deal values the brand at 14 times its core earnings, or about $1.15 billion (A$1.76 billion).

Zimmer­mann has sales of $260 million and a core profit margin of more than 30%, the indi­vi­du­als said.

Advent’s invest­ment would allow Zimmer­mann to acce­le­rate expan­sion over­seas, inclu­ding Asia and the Middle East, and streng­then its distri­bu­tion network, inclu­ding e‑commerce, Advent, Zimmer­mann and Style Capi­tal said in a joint statement.

The Sydney busi­ness is not expec­ted to be affec­ted by the acqui­si­tion. Rajan Sen of Advent Inter­na­tio­nal said in a state­ment, “We look forward to support­ing the manage­ment team led by CEO Chris Olli­ver and Nicky and Simone Zimmermann.”

The label, known for its high-end swim and resort wear, began in 1991 with a stall in Sydney’s Padding­ton market. There are now 58 Zimmer­mann bouti­ques world­wide, inclu­ding 22 in Austra­lia and 22 in the U.S., and is repre­sen­ted in major depart­ment stores.

News

Munich — The start up Flyby closes a seed finan­cing round in its holding company Kalaan GmbH (herein­af­ter “Kalaan”) with the parti­ci­pa­tion of inves­tors, busi­ness angels and friends & family. A total of 15 parties parti­ci­pa­ted in the seed finan­cing round, inclu­ding inves­tors from the United Arab Emira­tes, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Flyby deve­lops soft­ware and hard­ware to opti­mize last mile deli­very. Flyby has deve­lo­ped a digi­tal deli­very box (photo) and fully inte­gra­ted soft­ware for this purpose. The use of the paten­ted digi­tal smart­box enables a signi­fi­cant increase in effi­ci­ency of the last mile, among other things through fully digi­tal mobile displays and geo track­ing. Flyby will initi­ally be active in Dubai, United Arab Emira­tes, with market entries plan­ned in other count­ries, inclu­ding Germany, and the USA.

Wall­berg & Cie provi­ded legal advice to Kalaan on the finan­cing round, in parti­cu­lar draf­ting and nego­tia­ting the docu­men­ta­tion for the finan­cing round. As the inves­tors had mainly issued conver­ti­ble loans prior to the finan­cing round, the main objec­tive of the finan­cing round was to ensure the stable conver­sion of debt into equity. Due to the inter­na­tio­nal circle of inves­tors and foun­ders, various cross-border legal aspects had to be considered.

“It is remar­kable how much inter­na­tio­nal inte­rest Flyby has attrac­ted within a very short time: As a result, the circle of inves­tors was unusually inter­na­tio­nal for a seed finan­cing round. It was a great plea­sure to legally accom­pany this inter­na­tio­nal and extre­mely promi­sing project toge­ther with the foun­ders,” says tran­sac­tion expert Dr. Sabel.

About Kalaan

Kalaan, based in Munich, was foun­ded in 2020. The concep­tion, deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of the paten­ted digi­tal smart box was accom­pa­nied from the begin­ning by an inter­na­tio­nal team of engi­neers, soft­ware deve­lo­pers and marke­ting experts. The inter­na­tio­nal foun­ding team has strong roots in the market of the United Arab Emira­tes, which is ideally suited for market entry due to the high density of deli­very services. Due to the considera­ble rele­vance of the last mile for the profi­ta­bi­lity of deli­very services world­wide, Kalaan’s valua­tion at the time of the seed finan­cing round is alre­ady in the double-digit million range.

Consul­tant Flyby: Wall­berg Law Tax Advi­sory GmbH & Cie. KG

Dr. Simon Sabel, Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate Law

About Wall­berg & Cie.

Wall­berg Law Tax Advi­sory GmbH & Cie. KG is a specia­li­zed legal and tax consul­tancy based in Munich. The foun­ders combine their enthu­si­asm for legal and tax advice with a strong tech­no­lo­gi­cal and digi­tal DNA. The focus of Wall­berg & Cie. lie in the areas of corpo­rate law, tax law and law of the digi­tal world with a focus on digi­ta­liza­tion, tran­sac­tions and inter­na­tio­nal aspects. The exper­tise of Wall­berg & Cie. is regu­larly in demand for complex projects, espe­ci­ally in finan­cing rounds.

News

Metzin­gen — Neura Robo­tics GmbH has raised EUR 50 million in fresh capi­tal in a finan­cing round. The Euro­pean inves­tor consor­tium is compo­sed of Lingotto (invest­ment arm of Italy’s Agnelli family), Vsquared Ventures, Prim­e­pulse and HV Capi­tal. LUTZ | ABEL compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the emer­ging deept­ech robo­tics startup on the complex finan­cing round.

The Baden-Würt­tem­berg tech­no­logy startup Neura Robo­tics GmbH stands out in parti­cu­lar for merging AI and robo­tics. In this way, robots reco­gnize their envi­ron­ment and can act auto­no­mously. They see, hear and have a sense of touch. Thus, through the use of AI, smart sensors and soft­ware systems, the cogni­tive robots are able to inter­act and learn with the envi­ron­ment. This opens up nume­rous comple­tely new, compre­hen­sive fields of appli­ca­tion outside of tradi­tio­nal industry.

The company was one of the first to bring AI to commer­cial robo­tics solu­ti­ons. It defi­nes a new market segment called “cogni­tive robo­tics,” which aims to simplify human-robot inter­ac­tion without programming. The concept is for the robot to under­stand voice commands and learn by observing.

The company has a wide range of colla­bo­ra­tive robots and mobile robo­tics solu­ti­ons. The MAiRa and LARA cobots offer a range of payload and range confi­gu­ra­ti­ons. The MAV and MiPA mobile robo­tics solu­ti­ons provide AMR-like mobi­lity and a mobile mani­pu­la­tor solution.

Robots built on the Neura Robo­tics plat­form can see, hear and feel. In combi­na­tion with refle­xive proces­sing of sensory infor­ma­tion, these abili­ties are essen­tial for auto­no­mous and anti­ci­pa­tory action. The company expects these robots to help solve the problem of the gene­ral shortage of skil­led workers over the next decade.

The foun­der and CEO of NEURA, David Reger, has built up the company toge­ther with a team of AI and robo­tics specia­lists after foun­ding it in Metzin­gen in 2019 and has now been able to win over the inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor consor­tium for the impres­sive finan­cing round. The capi­tal increase will enable the company to streng­then its inno­va­tive edge. There are plans to invest in the deve­lo­p­ment of the company’s own produc­tion infra­struc­ture in order to accom­mo­date the growing volume of orders (alre­ady in excess of EUR 400 million, accor­ding to the company). In addi­tion, expan­sion into Japan and the USA is being driven forward.

Advi­sor Neura Robo­tics GmbH: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB

Phil­ipp Hoene (lead), Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch LL.M. (both Part­ner Venture Capi­tal / M&A), Ute Schenn (Part­ner Commer­cial), Corne­lius Renner (Part­ner IP)

Sonn­tag & Part­ner for tax consul­ting Dr. Johan­nes Zausig (Part­ner, Tax Consultant)

Advi­sor to inves­tors (Vsquared, Lingotto and Prim­e­pulse): GvW Graf von Westphalen
Titus Walek (Part­ner), Jan Hüni­ken (Asso­ciate Part­ner), both Venture Capi­tal / M&A); Dr. Joachim Mulch (Part­ner, IP/Commercial), Kars­ten Kujath (Part­ner, Labor Law), Dr. Frank Tsche­sche (Part­ner, Tax)

For IP: Patent Attor­ney Matthias Seyboth in coope­ra­tion with Elliot Papa­ge­or­giou (Part­ner — China IP), Vivian Desmonts (Part­ner — China Corpo­rate), Gowling WLG

Consul­tant Foun­der: Diss­mann Orth
Dr. Chris­tian Brehm (Attor­ney at Law, Tax Consul­tant), Dr. Armin Hergeth (Attor­ney at Law, Tax Consultant)

About LUTZ | ABEL

With around 100 lawy­ers and offices in Munich, Hamburg, Stutt­gart and Berlin, the commer­cial law firm LUTZ | ABEL provi­des advice on all aspects of commer­cial law.

News

Ulm, Germany — NVision Imaging Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH has successfully closed a Series A finan­cing round with a volume of more than USD 30 million. Both exis­ting and new inves­tors, inclu­ding promi­nent venture capi­tal inves­tors from the U.S., Israel, Luxem­bourg, Portu­gal and invest­ment compa­nies from German Landes­ban­ken, parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round to support NVision Imaging Tech­no­lo­gies in the deve­lo­p­ment of meta­bo­lic imaging systems for adap­tive cancer treatment.

NVision Imaging Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH is an award-winning deep-tech startup based in Ulm, Germany, with more than 50 employees from more than 10 count­ries. Foun­ded in 2015, the company lever­a­ges advan­ces in quan­tum physics to enable the first routine, conve­ni­ent, and afforda­ble use of magne­tic reso­nance imaging (MRI) to assess pati­ents’ early response to cancer therapy at the meta­bo­lic level. NVision plans to deploy its pola­ri­zer systems in more than 50 cancer centers world­wide by 2025.

POELLATH has been NVision’s perma­nent legal advi­sor since the begin­ning. In this Series A finan­cing round, POELLATH advi­sed NVision with the follo­wing Munich team:

Dr. Michael Inhes­ter (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/ Venture Capital)
Andreas Kühnert, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Co-Lead, M&A/ Venture Capital)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Taxes)
Andreas Gesell (Asso­ciate, Tax)
Leonid Guggen­ber­ger (Asso­ciate, M&A/ Venture Capital)

News

Esch­born — Rödl & Part­ner has provi­ded compre­hen­sive finan­cial and tax advice to Viess­mann Refri­ge­ra­tion Solu­ti­ons (VRS) on the closing of a joint venture with Epta S.p.A. (Epta), a family-owned company and leading provi­der of commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion solu­ti­ons for the retail, HoReCa and food & beverage sectors, head­quar­te­red in Milan, Italy. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be appro­ved by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties in the fourth quar­ter of 2023.

The new part­ner­ship will enable Viess­mann to streng­then its growth course and market posi­tion. The newly formed joint venture between Epta and VRS aims to jointly create a leading commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion supplier in Central and Nort­hern Europe. The merger includes all of VRS’s commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion acti­vi­ties in Germany, Poland, the Czech Repu­blic, Slova­kia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Baltic States, as well as Epta’s busi­ness acti­vi­ties in Germany, Poland, Denmark, Finland and Norway. With over 1,600 employees, both compa­nies gene­rate total sales of over 400 million euros.

Viess­mann was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by a Rödl & Part­ner team specia­li­zing in corpo­rate tran­sac­tions, led by part­ner Jochen Reis. He is respon­si­ble for compre­hen­sive support in finan­cial matters throug­hout the entire tran­sac­tion process. This included the prepa­ra­tion of a finan­cial fact­book and assis­tance with finan­cial issues during contract nego­tia­ti­ons. Tax advice was provi­ded by an inter­na­tio­nal M&A tax team led by part­ner Florian Kaiser. Tax part­ner Timo Huhtala provi­ded support from the Finnish office in Helsinki.

About the Viess­mann Group 

The Viess­mann Group says it is one of the world’s leading suppli­ers of sustainable heating, cooling, water and air quality solu­ti­ons. In 2022, the family-owned company, foun­ded in 1917, employed 14,500 people and gene­ra­ted group sales of around 4 billion euros.

About Epta

The multi­na­tio­nal company, head­quar­te­red in Milan, says it is the Euro­pean market leader for commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion tech­no­logy in the food retail sector. Epta employs more than 6,000 people, has seve­ral produc­tion plants in Italy and abroad, and has a world­wide distri­bu­tion network with over 40 dedi­ca­ted sales and tech­ni­cal centers. In Germany, the company employs almost 500 people and most recently gene­ra­ted sales of more than 150 million euros.

Advi­sor Viess­mann Group: Rödl & Partner

Jochen Reis (Photo © Roedl), Part­ner, Head of TVS Esch­born, Over­all Project Manage­ment — Financial
Simon Nieder­mann, Mana­ger, Esch­born — Financial
Maresa Hoeter, Senior Asso­ciate, Esch­born — Financial
Florian Kaiser, Part­ner, Nurem­berg — Tax
Timo Huhtala, Part­ner, Helsinki — Tax
Mimoun Houbani, Asso­ciate Part­ner, Esch­born — Tax
Lukas Fischer, Mana­ger, Nurem­berg — Tax
Jendrik Dohr, Asso­ciate, Nurem­berg — Tax

News

Aachen — Aachen-based deep tech startup Elevear secu­res a seed invest­ment from Tech­Vi­sion Fonds, a leading early-stage venture capi­tal inves­tor in the Rhine­land. With the fresh capi­tal, the team plans to bring its inno­va­tive and paten­ted audio tech­no­lo­gies to market and acce­le­rate the company’s growth.

Elevear deve­lops, inte­gra­tes and licen­ses audio tech­no­lo­gies for heara­bles, wire­less head­pho­nes with intel­li­gent addi­tio­nal func­tions — one of the largest growth markets curr­ently. The goal is to improve comfort and natu­ral commu­ni­ca­tion to take the listening expe­ri­ence to the next level. Custo­mers are manu­fac­tu­r­ers of head­pho­nes and hearing aids.

“The market for heara­bles is growing steadily, and manu­fac­tu­r­ers are looking for compel­ling unique selling points,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, mana­ging direc­tor of TVF. “Elevear’s tech­no­lo­gies help manu­fac­tu­r­ers rapidly inte­grate inno­va­tive features into their products without having to invest in years of deve­lo­p­ment within the company itself.”

Stefan Liebich, CEO of Elevear, under­lines the new colla­bo­ra­tion: “We are very plea­sed that TVF shares our vision for the tech­no­logy and its market poten­tial. We are now in an excel­lent posi­tion to support our ongo­ing custo­mer projects and their upco­ming product laun­ches, as well as expand our team and tech­no­logy portfolio.”

Inno­va­tion in a dyna­mic market environment
Elevear sells its tech­no­lo­gies and soft­ware algo­rithms to inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers of head­pho­nes and hearing aids through a licen­sing model. Manu­fac­tu­r­ers thus bene­fit from inno­va­tive diffe­ren­tia­tors with fast time to market and low inter­nal deve­lo­p­ment costs for new products.

The market entry is in the heara­bles segment, which shows dyna­mic growth of 36 percent p.a. with a market size of USD 35 billion in 2021. The term “heara­ble” descri­bes an intel­li­gent head­phone that combi­nes basic func­tions such as music play­back and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons with audio-based infor­ma­tion services and other inno­va­tive features.

In detail: Audio expe­ri­ence without distur­bing factors
Curr­ently, Elevear offers three products that can be used initi­ally in heara­bles and later in hearing aids. The products are inte­gra­ted as soft­ware directly onto the chips that manu­fac­tu­r­ers build into the headphones.

  1. Occlear™ tech­no­logy compen­sa­tes for the so-called “occlu­sion effect”: this leads to a muffled percep­tion of one’s own voice and unplea­sant back­ground noise when wearing termi­na­ting head­pho­nes in or on the ears. Occlear™ solves this problem and increa­ses comfort and accep­tance when wearing hearables.
  2. In quiet envi­ron­ments, there is often a stron­gly percep­ti­ble back­ground noise from the Heara­ble itself. Idle Noise Reduc­tion redu­ces the noise floor of minia­ture micro­pho­nes to the level of expen­sive studio micro­pho­nes, drama­ti­cally impro­ving audio quality while redu­cing hard­ware costs.
  3. Steady­head tech­no­logy compen­sa­tes for head rota­tion for all audio regard­less of the audio source. This trans­forms the 3D audio expe­ri­ence in head­pho­nes and ensu­res that the user’s head move­ments are instantly compen­sa­ted for in the audio scene. The user has the feeling of immersion in the scene.

From rese­arch to product

Behind the DeepT­ech spin-off of RWTH Aachen Univer­sity, foun­ded in 2021, is a manage­ment team of expe­ri­en­ced deve­lo­pers and indus­try experts: foun­ders are Dr.-Ing. Stefan Liebich, Johan­nes Fabry and Raphael Bran­dis. They have been working toge­ther for many years at the Insti­tute for Commu­ni­ca­tion Systems (IKS) at RWTH Aachen Univer­sity and specia­lize in the field of audio signal proces­sing. The foun­ding team is comple­men­ted by indus­try expert Elfed Howells, who has more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence in the audio and consu­mer elec­tro­nics indus­try. Toge­ther, the team has alre­ady won nume­rous awards.

About TVF
The Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) is the leading early-stage VC fund in the Rhine­land. TVF is the third venture fund mana­ged by the S‑UBG Group team and invests regio­nally in tech­no­logy start­ups with a fund volume of €55 million. As one of the most expe­ri­en­ced inves­tors, TVF supports foun­ding teams with proxi­mity, network and exper­tise, paving the way for them to become the next inter­na­tio­nal indus­try leader. In addi­tion, TVF offers unique access to the “old economy” through the S‑UBG Group, provi­ding young start­ups with access to their first poten­tial custo­mers in the crucial early stages. The network includes over 150 successful port­fo­lio compa­nies from 30 years of invest­ment experience.
TVF — Brain | Cash | Proximity

About Elevear

Elevear is an Aachen-based startup that deve­lops inno­va­tive audio tech­no­lo­gies for heara­bles and sells them to manu­fac­tu­r­ers via a licen­sing model. Occlear™ compen­sa­tes for the occlu­sion effect that makes one’s voice sound muffled and boomy — a common problem with closed-back head­pho­nes and hearing aids. Combi­ned with Elevear’s Idle Noise Reduc­tion, which elimi­na­tes the annoy­ing inher­ent noise of heara­ble micro­pho­nes, Occlear™ ensu­res that users perceive their own voice and their surroun­dings natu­rally — just as if they were not wearing head­pho­nes. As soft­ware-only solu­ti­ons, both tech­no­lo­gies are compa­ti­ble with common heara­bles and do not require specia­li­zed hard­ware. With Steady­head, Elevear has also been offe­ring a solu­tion for spatial audio with low-latency head track­ing since this year.
https://elevear-tech.com

News

Munich — Kirk­land & Ellis has advi­sed the lenders of LEONI AG’s €750 million RCF faci­lity on the German auto­mo­tive supplier’s land­mark restructuring.

The LEONI restruc­tu­ring is by far the largest procee­dings under the German Act on the Stabi­liza­tion and Restruc­tu­ring of Compa­nies (StaRUG) since it came into force in Janu­ary 2021 and a mile­stone in the German restruc­tu­ring landscape.

LEONI is a global provi­der of products, solu­ti­ons and services for energy and data manage­ment in the auto­mo­tive and other indus­tries. The value chain includes wires, opti­cal fibers, stan­dar­di­zed cables, special cables and assem­bled systems as well as intel­li­gent products and smart services.

Advi­sor to lender: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Dr. Marlene Ruf (Photo © Kirk­land & Ellis), Dr. Leo Plank (both lead, both Restruc­tu­ring), Dr. Achim Herfs (Capi­tal Markets), Wolf­gang Nardi, Dr. Alex­an­der M.H. Längs­feld (both Debt Finance), Dr. Michael Ehret (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Ann-Kath­rin Zieg­ler, Dr. Johan­nes Lappe, Paul Päfgen, Nino Goglidze (all Restruc­tu­ring), Sieg­fried Bütt­ner (Capi­tal Markets), Fabrice Hipp (Debt Finance), David Linne­mann (Tax)

About Kirk­land

Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading firms for high-cali­ber legal services, with appro­xi­m­ately 3,500 lawy­ers in 19 cities in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The Munich team advi­ses with a focus on private equity, M&A, corpo­rate law, capi­tal markets, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and tax law. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.kirkland.com.

News

Munich — ZF Fried­richs­ha­fen AG has sold its stake in ASAP Holding GmbH toge­ther with other share­hol­ders to a subsi­diary of the Indian company HCL Tech­no­lo­gies, Inc. sold. ZF was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Gütt Olk Feld­haus. ZF Fried­richs­ha­fen AG acqui­red a 35% stake in ASAP Holding GmbH in 2019.

HCL Tech­no­lo­gies, head­quar­te­red in Noida, India, is a publicly traded global services and consul­ting company with appro­xi­m­ately 220,000 employees and reve­nues of $11.48 billion in fiscal 2022.

ZF is a globally active tech­no­logy group and supplies systems for mobi­lity in passen­ger cars, commer­cial vehic­les, and indus­trial tech­no­logy. In 2022, ZF gene­ra­ted sales of €43.8 billion with appro­xi­m­ately 165,000 employees world­wide. The company is repre­sen­ted at 168 produc­tion sites in 32 countries.

As deal coun­sel, Gütt Olk Feld­haus coor­di­na­ted the sale process from a legal perspec­tive. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and the satis­fac­tion of other closing conditions.
As a deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for well-known auto­mo­tive manu­fac­tu­r­ers and suppli­ers (OEM), the ASAP Group offers deve­lo­p­ment services in the areas of elec­trics, soft­ware, consul­ting & service, vehicle deve­lo­p­ment and testing.

Legal advi­sors to ZF Fried­richs­ha­fen AG: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich

Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead Part­ner), Thomas Becker, LL.M. (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Commercial), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner, Dr. Marcel Schmidt (both Senior Asso­cia­tes, Corporate/M&A)

Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law, Munich: Ingo Sappa (Labor Law)

Blom­stein, Berlin: Dr. Max Klasse, Dr. Roland Stein, Dr. Leonard Frei­herr von Rummel, LL.M.; Asso­cia­tes: Vanessa Kassem, LL.M., Jasmin Mayerl (all antitrust/foreign trade law)

 

News

Schro­ben­hau­sen — SD Thesau­rus GmbH, Munich, has submit­ted a manda­tory offer and delis­ting offer to the share­hol­ders of the listed Bauer Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft, Schro­ben­hau­sen. — NETWORK advi­sed BAUER Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft in connec­tion with the tran­sac­tion and prepared a fair­ness opinion for the Manage­ment Board and the Super­vi­sory Board.

Tran­sac­tion

SD Thesau­rus GmbH has published on March 31, 2023 a noti­fi­ca­tion of the acqui­si­tion of control over BAUER Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft pursu­ant to the German Secu­ri­ties Acqui­si­tion and Take­over Act. Subse­quently, on April 18, 2023, SD Thesau­rus GmbH announ­ced its decis­ion to make a public delis­ting offer to the share­hol­ders of BAUER Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft in accordance with the Stock Exch­ange Act as a conse­quence of the acqui­si­tion of control toge­ther with the manda­tory offer. On May 12, 2023 SD Thesau­rus GmbH offe­red the share­hol­ders of BAUER Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft a purchase price of EUR 6.29 per share, corre­spon­ding to an equity value of EUR 270.7 million.
By the report­ing date, the Offer had been accepted for a share of appro­xi­m­ately 14.91% of the share capi­tal and voting rights of BAUER AG. The delis­ting of the Company became effec­tive at the end of June 20, 2023. NETWORK advi­sed BAUER Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft in connec­tion with the tran­sac­tion and prepared a fair­ness opinion for the Manage­ment Board and the Super­vi­sory Board.

The Bauer AG

BAUER Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft is a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of services, equip­ment and products for soil and ground­wa­ter, with a large number of subsi­dia­ries in around 70 count­ries. The Group opera­tes in three segments: Cons­truc­tion, Equip­ment and Resour­ces. As of Decem­ber 31, 2022, the BAUER Group employed around 11,900 people.

About Network Corpo­rate Finance

Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have estab­lished oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms. www.ncf.de

 

News

Berlin — Ukraine-based Preply today reached a mile­stone in its finan­cing history by secu­ring an addi­tio­nal $70 million in equity and debt finan­cing. As a result, Preply’s Series C is now at $120 million. With nearly 500 employees from 60 natio­na­li­ties in 30 count­ries world­wide, Preply has become a global e‑learning power­house, connec­ting 35,000 tutors with the world’s largest commu­nity of live language learners.

The lion’s share of the $70 million capi­tal increase came from Hori­zon Capi­tal, a U.S. private equity firm that invests in fast-growing tech­no­logy and export-orien­ted compa­nies, with addi­tio­nal parti­ci­pa­tion from Reach Capi­tal, Hoxton Ventures and other exis­ting inves­tors. The new inves­tor compo­si­tion provi­des a valuable balance of later-stage growth funding expe­ri­ence and EdTech exper­tise to support the next step of Preply’s jour­ney. This includes Owl Ventures, which led the Series C 2022.

Preply’s sales have increased tenfold in the last three years. This is due in no small part to the fact that signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ments have been made to the product expe­ri­ence for both tutors and students. The B2B sector is also growing rapidly, with over 200 new contracts last year. Compa­nies like Data­dog, GroupM and Bain take advan­tage of the world’s largest selec­tion of live foreign language tutors to make tangi­ble impro­ve­ments in their employees’ commu­ni­ca­tion skills. This simul­ta­neously impro­ves self-confi­dence and produc­ti­vity levels within the supported teams.

In addi­tion, last month Preply part­ne­red with ETS (Educa­tion Test­ing Service) to offer perso­na­li­zed prepa­ra­tion for the TOEFL iBT®. This is a stan­dar­di­zed proce­dure for deter­mi­ning the level of English that is reco­gni­zed by over 11,500 insti­tu­ti­ons world­wide. This offer is a novelty on the market, offe­red in this form only by Preply.

35,000 tutors to be equip­ped with AI technology

While human-led lear­ning is always the focus at Preply, AI is incre­asingly being used to support it. AI is helping to scale language lear­ning and improve the teaching of a new language in unpre­ce­den­ted ways. This is a natu­ral exten­sion of Preply’s approach to harnes­sing machine lear­ning to perfectly match tutors and students, for example.

Preply has deve­lo­ped a wizard that enables tutors to create a series of exer­ci­ses, grammar expl­ana­ti­ons, conver­sa­tion hangers and the like. Tutors use this assistant both during and between cour­ses to faci­li­tate home­work crea­tion and lesson plan­ning. This allows them to focus ideally on more chal­len­ging class­room tasks that require more human input

In addi­tion, Preply actively evalua­tes data from lear­ning progress and lear­ning patterns to iden­tify areas that lear­ners struggle with. The goal is to deve­lop perso­na­li­zed course plans and summa­ries that are tail­o­red to a learner’s exact needs, while provi­ding the tuto­ring commu­nity with helpful insights into what makes for the best cour­ses and lear­ning outcomes.

Dmytro Boro­day, Part­ner at Hori­zon Capi­tal, commen­ted, “We are exci­ted to part­ner with Preply’s visio­nary co-foun­ders and their excep­tio­nal manage­ment team. Preply is one of the fastest growing EdTech compa­nies in the world and a leader in live language learning.”

“Preply is the clear leader in live language lear­ning, an area for which we bring exten­sive expe­ri­ence,” said James Kim, Part­ner at Reach Capi­tal,“AI has enorm­ous poten­tial to improve tutor effec­ti­ve­ness and lear­ner expe­ri­ence, and Preply is a global leader in buil­ding AI into the lear­ning journey.”

Kirill Bigai, co-foun­der and CEO of Preply, says, “It is a great achie­ve­ment that we were able to attract this injec­tion of capi­tal while still owning a lot of head­room and the majo­rity of previous invest­ments; the result of rigo­rous capi­tal effi­ci­ency and a sharp focus on perfor­mance. The addi­tio­nal funding will enable us to expand our leader­ship posi­tion in the market through AI-assis­ted tuto­ring. Thus, we offer a lear­ning expe­ri­ence that rapidly beco­mes a game chan­ger. Although our team is of course global today, for a company foun­ded in Ukraine, with much of its rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment still taking place in Ukraine, it is truly a mile­stone to be cele­bra­ted. A mile­stone that reflects the resi­li­ence and deter­mi­na­tion of the Ukrai­nian tech sector and all Ukrainians.”

Pawel Chud­zinski, foun­ding part­ner of Point Nine, is one of Preply’s German inves­tors. He is plea­sed with the current deve­lo­p­ments: “We are very proud to have been part of the Preply story since one of the first funding rounds. The team around Preply has built a very special ed-tech company with a lot of vision and entre­pre­neu­rial skills. Preply is a global leader and growing rapidly. With its unique posi­tio­ning and inno­va­tion, Preply still has a great deal of oppor­tu­nity to grow sustain­ably and rapidly in the perso­na­li­zed lear­ning market and improve the lives of tutors and learners.”

An insight into German language lear­ning trends

German is the 4th most popu­lar language globally on Preply, with a 36% increase year-over-year. The follo­wing points provide an inte­res­t­ing insight into the signi­fi­cance of the German language on the plat­form: 36% of German Preply users learn English, follo­wed by German (20%), Spanish (10%) and French (6%). German is the most popu­lar language in Germany after English, due in part to immi­gra­tion and foreign students. German Preply users use the plat­form prima­rily to prac­tice their conver­sa­tion skills (31%); other popu­lar reasons include advan­cing one’s career (27%) and a plan­ned move abroad (17%).
Although born in Germany, 43% of all German tutors curr­ently teach from abroad, with Spain, Austria, Turkey, and the United States among the most common count­ries of resi­dence. — The tutor who taught the most German students in 2022 super­vi­sed 239 diffe­rent students.

About Preply

Preply is an online language lear­ning market­place that connects tutors with hundreds of thou­sands of lear­ners in 180 count­ries around the world. More than 35,000 tutors teach over 50 languages, supported by a machine lear­ning algo­rithm that recom­mends the best tutor for each lear­ner. Foun­ded in 2012 in the U.S. by three Ukrai­ni­ans, Kirill Bigai, Serge Lukya­nov and Dmytro Volos­hyn, Preply has grown from a three-person team to a company with nearly 500 employees of 60 diffe­rent natio­na­li­ties. With offices in Barce­lona, New York and Kiev, employees work in 30 count­ries world­wide in Europe, the USA, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

About Hori­zon Capital

Hori­zon Capi­tal is a leading growth capi­tal firm opera­ting in Europe and backed by more than 40 inves­tors from the US, UK and Europe, with a capi­tal base of over $630 billion and over $1.4 billion in total assets under manage­ment (AUM). The company is an active value-crea­tion part­ner, inves­t­ing in visio­nary entre­pre­neurs who lead fast-growing compa­nies. The main focus is on tech­no­logy, e‑commerce and inno­va­tive indus­tries. Hori­zon Capi­tal is known for its strong team, leader­ship, value crea­tion and track record.

About Reach Capital

Reach Capi­tal is a leading global venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in the future of lear­ning and work. The company part­ners with entre­pre­neurs who specia­lize in crea­ting tech solu­ti­ons across the lear­ning conti­nuum, from early child­hood to work­force deve­lo­p­ment. With $574 million across five funds, Reach Capi­tal is actively inves­t­ing in early-stage EdTech compa­nies that are trans­forming the global educa­tion landscape.

 

News

Frank­furt, London and Munich — Biosynth, a port­fo­lio company of KKR has acqui­red cela­res GmbH. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP advi­sed Biosynth on this transaction.

cela­res GmbH focu­ses on the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of poly­mer-based drug carri­ers and biocon­ju­ga­ted drugs. Foun­ded in 2003, the Berlin-based company is a leader in the field of biocon­ju­ga­tion and half-life exten­sion by chemi­cal modi­fi­ca­tion, as well as the synthe­sis of specialty poly­mers for drug deli­very. cela­res offers high-quality, custo­mi­zed services, inclu­ding feasi­bi­lity studies, up-scaling and process deve­lo­p­ment, as well as the deve­lo­p­ment and vali­da­tion of the requi­red analy­ti­cal methods. In addi­tion, cela­res offers GMP produc­tion of biocon­ju­ga­tes and func­tion­a­li­zed poly­mers used as exci­pi­ents in drug formulation.

Biosynth is a criti­cal mate­ri­als supplier with global rese­arch, manu­fac­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion faci­li­ties secu­ring the supply chains of the life science indus­try. Biosynth supplies the phar­maceu­ti­cal and diagno­stic sectors. Where chemis­try meets biology, products meet services and inno­va­tion meets quality, Biosynth is “at the Edge of Inno­va­tion”. With a unique rese­arch product port­fo­lio of more than one million products and compre­hen­sive manu­fac­tu­ring services, Biosynth has exper­tise and capa­bi­li­ties in complex chemi­cals, pepti­des and key biolo­gi­cal products — all from one trus­ted part­ner. Biosynth, head­quar­te­red in Staad, Switz­er­land, is owned by KKR, Amper­sand Capi­tal Part­ners and manage­ment, among others.

Consul­tant Biosynth: Gibson Dunn
Led by London part­ner Wim De Vlie­ger and Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Jan Schu­bert, the team included London coun­sel Jakob Egle and asso­cia­tes Dr. Mattias Prange, Lena Pirner (both Frank­furt) and Romain Tourenne (London).
In Munich, part­ner Kai Gesing and asso­cia­tes Yannick Ober­acker and Chris­toph Jacob advi­sed on IP issues, and part­ner Dr. Mark Zimmer advi­sed on employ­ment law issues. Part­ner Attila Borsos (Brussels) and Asso­ciate Alana Tink­ler (London) advi­sed on anti­trust issues and aspects of foreign direct investment.

Gibson Dunn regu­larly advi­ses Biosynth and KKR.

About Gibson Dunn

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,800 lawy­ers in 20 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn offices are loca­ted in Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, San Fran­cisco, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.gibsondunn.com.

News

Bremen/ Munich — Funds advi­sed by the Munich-based inde­pen­dent invest­ment company DPDeut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) have inves­ted in atacama Soft­ware GmbH (“atacama” or the “Group”). The foun­ders of atacama, Dr. Jürgen Deit­mers and Rene Lenga, retire from day-to-day busi­ness and become members of atacama’s advi­sory board. Michael Jansen, former Mana­ging Direc­tor of the subsi­diary atacama KV Soft­ware GmbH (“akv”), is appoin­ted CEO of atacama along­side CFO Rainer Dona­lies. The mana­ging direc­tors of apenio GmbH & Co. KG (“apenio”), Sebas­tian Fraas and Daniil Liber­man, as well as Sebas­tian Zebbi­ties, mana­ging direc­tor of atacama blooms GmbH & Co. KG (“blooms”), will also be appoin­ted to the group’s manage­ment board and will remain respon­si­ble for their previous areas. All parties have agreed to invest along­side DPE and to keep the purchase price of the tran­sac­tion confidential.

atacama is a leading provi­der of health­care soft­ware, consis­ting of three opera­ting subsi­dia­ries (i) akv, (ii) apenio and (iii) blooms. The Group employs around 90 people and is head­quar­te­red in Bremen, Germany.

akv offers web-based solu­ti­ons for the case manage­ment of statu­tory health insu­r­ers in the dental and care sectors, which opti­mize inter­nal case proces­sing and signi­fi­cantly increase effi­ci­ency in case proces­sing. In colla­bo­ra­tion with blooms, the company offers its custo­mers a unique AI-based dark proces­sing appli­ca­tion that reco­gni­zes and auto­ma­ti­cally proces­ses case-rela­ted docu­ments, provi­ding a future-proof solu­tion for auto­ma­ting labor-inten­sive work. Over 70 statu­tory health insu­rance compa­nies work with akv soft­ware solu­ti­ons on a daily basis.

Blooms supports akv and other part­ners with the AI solu­tion AVIDOC‑R in auto­ma­ting proces­ses in health insu­rance through digi­tiza­tion and seman­tic analy­sis of complex docu­ments. Further, blooms provi­des sister company apenio and other soft­ware vendors with an AI-powered, nursing science foun­da­tion for docu­men­ta­tion and auto­ma­tic gene­ra­tion of reports and calcu­la­ti­ons such as PPR 2.0.

apenio offers an intel­li­gent soft­ware solu­tion for pati­ent docu­men­ta­tion and care plan­ning in hospi­tals. The soft­ware provi­des a complete over­view of the patient’s condi­tion inclu­ding docu­men­ta­tion for diffe­rent special­ties (geria­trics, pallia­tive medi­cine, pedia­trics, inten­sive care, etc.). The apenio soft­ware is used in over 75 hospi­tals, seve­ral nursing homes and more than 75 nursing schools and univer­si­ties in Germany and Austria.

“In recent years, toge­ther with our manage­ment team, we have been able to signi­fi­cantly improve our offe­ring and streng­then the trus­ting rela­ti­onship with our custo­mers. With DPE, we have now found an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner who under­stands and appre­cia­tes our colla­bo­ra­tion with key play­ers in the German health­care market and will further expand our plat­form by support­ing tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment,” said Jürgen Deit­mers and Rene Lenga, the two foun­ders of atacama.

Dr. Frank Müller, mana­ging part­ner of DPE (photo © DPE), explains, “We were impres­sed by atacama’s solu­tion-orien­ted appli­ca­ti­ons, which have been conti­nuously impro­ved and enhan­ced with new modu­les over the years to help the group’s custo­mers opti­mize and simplify their daily tasks.” Andreas Schmid, part­ner at DPE, added: “The group’s soft­ware appli­ca­ti­ons, which are targe­ted at health insu­rance compa­nies, hospi­tals and other service provi­ders, meet the urgent need to auto­mate labor-inten­sive work and actively support the ongo­ing digi­tiza­tion of the German health­care system.”

Consul­tant atacama:

miura Advi­sors (M&A sell side), Pinsent Masons (legal) and FIDES (finance and tax).

Consul­tant DPE: 

strategy& (Commer­cial Due Dili­gence), PwC (Finan­cial, Tax & ESG Due Dili­gence), GOF (Legal) and Cowen (Debt Advisory).

About atacama

For 25 years, the teams of the atacama group have been provi­ding trans­pa­rency and effi­ci­ency in the health­care sector with inno­va­tive indus­try soft­ware. As a holding company, atacama | Soft­ware GmbH unites under its umbrella atacama | KV Soft­ware GmbH & Co. KG and apenio GmbH & Co. KG, two specia­li­zed subsi­dia­ries that have estab­lished leading profes­sio­nal and tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons in the markets of payers and service provi­ders. More than 70 health and long-term care insu­rance compa­nies use the atacama | GKV Suite for their case manage­ment. More than 75 hospi­tals, seve­ral nursing faci­li­ties and over 75 nursing schools and univer­si­ties use the know­ledge-based solu­tion apenio for digi­tal pati­ent and resi­dent docu­men­ta­tion. The company port­fo­lio is comple­men­ted by atacama blooms GmbH & Co. KG as an inno­va­tive newco­mer with the AI-based solu­ti­ons apenio NKS for intel­li­gent care and inter­ope­ra­bi­lity and AVIDOC‑R for docu­ment reco­gni­tion and process auto­ma­tion. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: https://www.atacama.de

About DPE Deut­sche Private Equity

DPE Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company that supports medium-sized compa­nies on their growth path as a part­ner­ship inves­tor. Over the past 15 years, DPE has become one of the largest growth inves­tors in the DACH region and curr­ently mana­ges total assets of over €3 billion. The core of DPE’s invest­ment stra­tegy is in the areas of digitalization/software, health­care, indus­trial tech­no­logy, B2B services, energy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. Within these sectors, DPE focu­ses on estab­lished compa­nies that hold a strong market posi­tion with a leading product or service offe­ring and offer signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial for the future. DPE focu­ses on medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and invests 10 to 200 million euros per tran­sac­tion. https://www.dpe.de

News

London — The majo­rity of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors (limi­ted part­ners, LPs) are posi­tive about the pros­pects for private equity in North America and Europe in 2023 and 2024 and expect them to be strong vinta­ges, accor­ding to Coller Capital’s latest Global Private Equity Baro­me­ter. When it comes to the outlook for private equity in the Asia-Paci­fic region, inves­tors’ opini­ons tend to be balanced.

For private equity, most inves­tors believe that the health­care and phar­maceu­ti­cal sectors will offer attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties over the next two years. Three-quar­ters say the same about IT and busi­ness services. There are clear diffe­ren­ces on energy, where more LPs favor rene­wa­ble energy than fossil hydrocarbons.

In terms of invest­ment stra­te­gies, the majo­rity of inves­tors see good oppor­tu­ni­ties in the next two years for mid-market and special situa­tions funds. Three-quar­ters of LPs also expect good oppor­tu­ni­ties in secon­dary market invest­ments, seeing an incre­asing number of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors using this market to reba­lance their port­fo­lios. Fewer LPs see oppor­tu­ni­ties with fund mana­gers (gene­ral part­ners, GPs) for large and mega buyouts — a signi­fi­cant change from their opinion five years ago. Inves­tors are also concer­ned about the amount of debt invol­ved in buyout deals. Half think the current percen­tage is too high.

“Inves­tor appe­tite for private credit funds shows no signs of abating,” said Michael Schad, part­ner and head of Coller Credit Secon­da­ries. “In that regard, it’s inte­res­t­ing to see that they expect to see a grea­ter concen­tra­tion of capi­tal on larger fund mana­gers in private debt over the next few years.”

Inves­tor beha­vior during due dili­gence and travel

Over the past two years, inves­tors have increased their audit effort, with this apply­ing to a higher propor­tion among Euro­pean LPs than among those from North America and Asia Paci­fic. Due dili­gence for fund expo­sures is a major reason why LP travel has retur­ned to levels not seen since the begin­ning of the pande­mic. Inves­tors are also likely to return to trave­ling to confe­ren­ces and annual gene­ral meetings, although a rather small number of them plan to return to their previous busi­ness travel patterns. In the invest­ment process itself, three-fifths of inves­tors see nego­tia­ting terms as a chall­enge, but fewer see evalua­ting mana­gers or acces­sing funds as a chall­enge. They differ in their assess­ment of the importance of incen­ti­ves for a first degree.

Importance of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence for Private Equity

Inves­tors are open to the bene­fits of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) for the private equity tran­sac­tion process. Three-quar­ters of LPs believe it could be a useful tool for initia­ting tran­sac­tions. Three-fifths of LPs believe it could be useful for deal evalua­tion or post-tran­sac­tion enga­ge­ment with port­fo­lio companies.

Anti-ESG move­ment in the USA

The importance of envi­ron­men­tal, social and gover­nance (ESG) stan­dards in private equity conti­nues to be taken seriously by insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, despite the “anti-ESG move­ment” emana­ting from Repu­bli­can gover­nors in the US. Three-quar­ters of LPs do not expect this to impact the importance that fund mana­gers place on ESG. Euro­pean LPs are ahead of their global peers when it comes to estab­li­shing ESG teams in their compa­nies: three-quar­ters of Euro­pean LPs have alre­ady hired their own ESG staff. The reverse is true for North Ameri­can LPs, with the same percen­tage indi­ca­ting they have no plans to hire specia­li­zed ESG staff.

Perfor­mance of buy-and-build portfolios

Across all private equity port­fo­lios, LPs are posting record returns, with two-fifths gene­ra­ting annual net returns of 16 percent or more over the life of the port­fo­lios. Perfor­mance differs by stra­tegy, parti­cu­larly between buy-and-build invest­ments and those more focu­sed on orga­nic growth. Two-thirds of LPs repor­ted that their buy-and-build port­fo­lios outper­for­med. Inves­tors also provi­ded infor­ma­tion on where they think the best invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for private equity will come from: About three-fifths of LPs said that invest­ments in family and start-up busi­nesses, as well as company sales and spin-offs, will provide the best oppor­tu­ni­ties over the next two years.

Chan­ges in the private markets

Two-fifths of inves­tors plan to increase their target allo­ca­tion to private credit and infra­struc­ture in the next year. In the private debt markets, two-thirds of LPs expect grea­ter concen­tra­tion of capi­tal among larger GPs over the next three to five years. For private equity, fewer LPs expect to increase their average expo­sure to indi­vi­dual GPs than when we surveyed them five years ago. Howe­ver, LPs are making room for new mana­gers in their port­fo­lios, with the majo­rity making a commit­ment to a new private equity mana­ger and more than half adding new private credit and venture capi­tal managers.

Capi­tal calls and venture capi­tal down rounds

Some LPs are cautious about the expec­ted level of funds drawn down by their GPs over the next two years compared to the last two years, with two-fifths of them expec­ting less capi­tal to be drawn down. Caution also prevails with regard to their venture capi­tal port­fo­lios: Three quar­ters expect more down rounds in their port­fo­lios here due to falling valuations.

 

Coller Capital’s Global Private Equity Baro­me­ter is a unique snapshot of global private equity trends. Twice a year, it provi­des an over­view of the plans and opini­ons of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in this asset class in North America, Europe and the Asia-Paci­fic region (inclu­ding the Middle East). It has been published semi-annu­ally in summer and winter since 2004.

The latest baro­me­ter reflects the views of 110 insti­tu­tio­nal private equity inves­tors world­wide, surveyed from Febru­ary 13 to March 31, 2023. The results are globally repre­sen­ta­tive of all LPs in terms of inves­tor loca­tion, type of inves­t­ing orga­niza­tion, total assets under manage­ment and length of expe­ri­ence with private equity investments.

About Coller Capital

Coller Capi­tal, foun­ded in 1990, is one of the world’s leading inves­tors in the secon­dary market for private asset clas­ses and is conside­red an inno­va­tor in complex secon­dary market transactions.

The company provi­des liqui­dity solu­ti­ons to private market inves­tors world­wide, acqui­ring invest­ments in private equity, private credit and other private market assets. Head­quar­te­red in London with offices in New York, Hong Kong, Beijing and Seoul, Coller’s multi­na­tio­nal invest­ment team has a global reach.

In Janu­ary 2021, the company placed the “Coller Inter­na­tio­nal Part­ners VIII” fund with capi­tal commit­ments (inclu­ding co-invest­ments) of just over $9 billion from more than 200 of the world’s leading insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. — In Febru­ary 2022, the firm placed the Coller Credit Oppor­tu­ni­ties I fund with $1.45 billion in capi­tal commit­ments (inclu­ding co-invest­ments) from more than 40 insti­tu­tio­nal investors.

In March 2023, Coller Capi­tal announ­ced the crea­tion of a global Private Wealth Secon­da­ries Solu­ti­ons (PWSS) busi­ness to provide high net worth indi­vi­du­als with expan­ded access to private capi­tal markets.

News

Berlin — LIQID closes the fourth gene­ra­tion of its private equity offe­ring with a record volume of 200 million euros. This makes the fund Europe’s largest private equity fund of funds for high net worth private inves­tors. The bank-inde­pen­dent wealth mana­ger LIQID is coming ever closer to its goal of demo­cra­tiz­ing high-yield asset clas­ses. The fifth gene­ra­tion of its private equity offe­ring has alre­ady been launched.

Compared to the prede­ces­sor fund, the fourth gene­ra­tion of LIQID Private Equity has grown by another third. “Expe­ri­en­ced retail inves­tors have an ever-incre­asing inte­rest in alter­na­tive asset clas­ses. The rene­wed record volume of our private equity fund shows: Aware­ness of the advan­ta­ges of private equity — after all, the highest-yiel­ding asset class (https://www.dasinvestment.com/vermoegensverwalter-thomas-huenicke-v-bank-private-equity-fuer-normalanleger/) of the past three deca­des — is also growing outside the realm of major inves­tors and the finan­cial elite,” says Moritz von Rhein, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Head of Private Markets at LIQID. Conse­quently, LIQID has alre­ady laun­ched the fifth gene­ra­tion of its private equity offe­ring. With the new fund, the wealth mana­ger conti­nues to offer expe­ri­en­ced private inves­tors the oppor­tu­nity to invest in private equity on the same terms as smart money inves­tors, family offices and large foun­da­ti­ons. Retail inves­tors can invest through the LIQID fund offe­ring just like top insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors with indus­try giants such as KKR, EQT, Perm­ira and Bridgepoint.

Digi­tal, modern and cost-transparent

The Berlin-based Wealth­Tech, foun­ded in 2016, is thus pursuing a clear mission: “We want to provide finan­cial support to people who want to make a diffe­rence — in other words, the successful entre­pre­neurs, decis­ion-makers and doers,” empha­si­zes CEO and LIQID foun­der Chris­tian Schnei­der-Sickert. “Our clients use busi­ness as a vehicle to create prospe­rity for all. They are aware of their corpo­rate respon­si­bi­lity and deserve the invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties of tomor­row. We make exactly that possi­ble: with a digi­tal, modern and cost-trans­pa­rent offe­ring that is other­wise only available to high-net-worth indi­vi­du­als in the family office.”

LIQID’s appro­xi­m­ately 8,000 custo­mers include entre­pre­neurs, physi­ci­ans and free­lan­cers, as well as execu­ti­ves from diverse indus­tries, not just the finan­cial sector. Curr­ently, the assets under manage­ment are around 2.5 billion euros. More than 2,500 inves­tors are inves­ted in the Private Markets segment alone. In addi­tion, LIQID offers nume­rous other wealth manage­ment products such as custo­mi­zed capi­tal market stra­te­gies and the recently laun­ched Money and Inte­rest Market programs.

Private equity drives democratization

“Even if the demo­cra­tiza­tion of high-yield asset clas­ses is gaining noti­ceable momen­tum: The entry barrier, which the regu­la­tor curr­ently defi­nes at 200,000 euros, is still too high for most private inves­tors. We at LIQID are ther­e­fore very plea­sed about the upco­ming chan­ges in Euro­pean regu­la­tion. These aim to further demo­cra­tize the market and make the bene­fits of alter­na­tive asset clas­ses more widely acces­si­ble,” says Moritz von Rhein, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Head of Private Markets. He sees great poten­tial espe­ci­ally in private equity: “In terms of demo­cra­tiza­tion, private equity is seve­ral years ahead of other alter­na­tive asset clas­ses.” This is another reason why LIQID conti­nues to actively work on opening the door to other asset clas­ses besi­des private equity, which were previously reser­ved for insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. With success: 150 million euros were inves­ted in venture capi­tal by inves­tors at LIQID in the past two years.

About LIQID

LIQID, based in Berlin, is a bank-inde­pen­dent wealth mana­ger focu­sed on the needs of sophisti­ca­ted entre­pre­neurs, decis­ion-makers and doers. The company’s invest­ment stra­tegy is based on the smart money prin­ci­ples of profes­sio­nal inves­tors such as family offices and endow­ment funds.

For a frac­tion of the invest­ment previously requi­red, LIQID provi­des access to invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties that were previously only available to very large fortu­nes. In addi­tion to indi­vi­dual wealth manage­ment start­ing at EUR 100,000, this includes profes­sio­nally cura­ted port­fo­lios from the world’s leading private equity, venture capi­tal and private real estate funds start­ing at EUR 200,000.

LIQID curr­ently mana­ges around 2.5 billion euros for its custo­mers. Among others, the company is backed by HQ Trust, the multi-family office of the Harald Quandt family, LGT, a private bank owned by the Prin­cely Family of Liech­ten­stein, and Project A, a Berlin-based venture capi­tal fund.

News

Munich — Wahtari GmbH (herein­af­ter “Wahtari”) has foun­ded nLine GmbH (herein­af­ter “nLine”) and raised an invest­ment from HELU Kabel GmbH (herein­af­ter “HELUKABEL”) in nLine.

The subject of the nLine is the opti­cal quality control of cables, wires, steel cables, pipes and hoses. As part of the invest­ment docu­men­ta­tion, it is agreed, among other things, that Wahtari will provide its self-deve­lo­ped AI soft­ware and tech­ni­cal know-how to nLine for the cables, wires, steel cables, pipes and hoses segment and that HELUKABEL will open its world­wide distri­bu­tion network to nLine. In this way, the aim is to quickly achieve global reach for nLine, inclu­ding in the area of support. nLine products are alre­ady in demand world­wide, inclu­ding in the USA. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the volume of the transaction.

The Wall­berg team consis­ting of foun­ders Manuel Brühl, Dr. Arno Malcher and Dr. Simon Sabel provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to Wahtari on the project. In parti­cu­lar, the distinc­tive inter­face compe­tence of Wall­berg & Cie. in the areas of tax, IT law and tran­sac­tions came into full play when assis­ting Wahtari. In addi­tion to tax struc­tu­ring and corpo­rate law, ques­ti­ons of legally secure licen­sing of the AI soft­ware are central.

“The key chall­enge was to license Wahtari’s AI soft­ware, which can be used compre­hen­si­vely and in a wide variety of indus­tries, to nLine accu­ra­tely and stably, but at the same time flexi­bly for diffe­rent scena­rios in a very speci­fic narrowly defi­ned market,” says AI expert Dr. Malcher. “In this case, of course, clean tax struc­tu­ring is always crucial, espe­ci­ally also to avoid dry-income effects,” adds tax expert Brühl. “The fasci­na­ting thing about this tran­sac­tion is that here a very young and extre­mely inno­va­tive company is attrac­ting the invest­ment of a long-estab­lished hidden cham­pion, thus also taking a strong step in the field of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion,” says tran­sac­tion expert Dr. Simon Sabel (photo).

Wahtari, based in Munich, Germany, deve­lops and markets AI-based image reco­gni­tion systems for precise quality control and auto­ma­tion tasks. The company supplies the coor­di­na­ted hard­ware and soft­ware compon­ents from a single source in order to fully exploit the poten­tial of AI tech­no­logy. For their custo­mi­zed complete solu­ti­ons, Wahtari’s experts combine state-of-the-art tech­no­lo­gies and in-depth know­ledge of IT secu­rity, soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment as well as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence with versa­tile indus­try expe­ri­ence. They rely on both conven­tio­nal image reco­gni­tion algo­rithms and Deep Learning.

The HELUKABEL Group, head­quar­te­red in Hemmin­gen, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, is a leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of cables, wires and cable access­ories. Foun­ded in 1978, the family-owned company has deve­lo­ped broad exper­tise and in-depth know-how in many indus­tries and key tech­no­lo­gies over the years. Products and solu­ti­ons from HELUKABEL can be found today in a wide variety of appli­ca­ti­ons: from mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring and indus­trial auto­ma­tion to oil, gas and chemi­cals, buil­ding services, infra­struc­ture, mobi­lity and rene­wa­ble energy supply. With 63 loca­ti­ons and around 2,200 employees in 39 count­ries, the company is a relia­ble and respon­sive part­ner for its custo­mers worldwide.

Advi­sor Wahtari: Wall­berg Law Tax Advi­sory GmbH & Cie. KG StB
Manuel Brühl, Taxes
Dr. Arno Malcher, IT Law, Commercial
Dr. Simon Sabel, Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate Law
Deloitte Legal Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH: Michael Schnei­der (Part­ner Corporate/M&A) Deloitte GmbH Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft: Georg Trisch­ber­ger (Part­ner Tax)

About Wall­berg & Cie.
Wall­berg Law Tax Advi­sory GmbH & Cie. KG is a specia­li­zed legal and tax consul­tancy based in Munich. The foun­ders combine their enthu­si­asm for legal and tax advice with a strong tech­no­lo­gi­cal and digi­tal DNA. The focus of Wall­berg & Cie. lie in the areas of corpo­rate law, tax law and law of the digi­tal world with a focus on digi­ta­liza­tion, tran­sac­tions and inter­na­tio­nal aspects. The exper­tise of Wall­berg & Cie. is regu­larly in demand for complex projects, espe­ci­ally in the area of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. https://www.wallberg.law

News

Frank­furt a. Main — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, has sold its majo­rity stake in Cubes Holding GmbH (“d&b”) to Provi­dence. Since 2016, Ardian has guided the company, which focu­ses on profes­sio­nal loud­spea­k­ers and audio systems for the event sector, and its manage­ment team led by CEO Amnon Harman on a dyna­mic path of strong orga­nic growth and geogra­phic expan­sion. The manage­ment will again parti­ci­pate in the tran­sac­tion and conti­nue the successful deve­lo­p­ment of the company.

Foun­ded in 1981 and head­quar­te­red in Back­nang, Germany, d&b is one of the world’s leading provi­ders of profes­sio­nal audio tech­no­logy and AVLM solu­ti­ons for unique multi­sen­sory expe­ri­en­ces. d&b audio­tech­nik, the manu­fac­tu­ring divi­sion of the company, is inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed as a leader in sound rein­force­ment systems in fixed and mobile appli­ca­ti­ons, and is also known for its design quality, service stan­dards, system inte­gra­tion prin­ci­ples, and pionee­ring tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments. d&b solu­ti­ons, the service-orien­ted busi­ness unit, offers compre­hen­sive and flexi­ble audio, video, light­ing and xR exper­tise in the areas of system plan­ning, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance as well as mana­ged services.

With Ardian’s support, d&b has excel­led, achie­ving a double-digit compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2016, despite the tempo­rary market down­turn in the events sector caused by the COVID 19 pande­mic. The number of employees has tripled from around 350 to more than 1,000 since Ardian joined the company. Key to this successful momen­tum were inno­va­tions, the expan­sion of the product and solu­ti­ons port­fo­lio, and the deve­lo­p­ment of exis­ting and new markets, parti­cu­larly in the Ameri­cas and Asia-Paci­fic regi­ons. The stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the company was driven by both orga­nic growth and targe­ted acquisitions.

“The global growth trend for events, concerts and large-scale events has contin­ued unch­an­ged after a forced pause due to the COVID 19 pande­mic. This is accom­pa­nied by the incre­asing profes­sio­na­liza­tion and digi­tiza­tion of these events and thus a growing demand for profes­sio­nal event tech­no­lo­gies. As one of the world’s leading system provi­ders for audio tech­no­logy and inte­gra­ted audio, video, light­ing and media solu­ti­ons (AVLM) with a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of hard­ware and soft­ware tech­no­lo­gies, we are excel­lently posi­tio­ned to gain further market share. Ardian has proven to be a relia­ble entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner over the past years. Thanks to its unst­in­ting support, parti­cu­larly during the pande­mic, we were able to exploit this market crisis for inno­va­tion and emerge from it stron­ger than before. We look forward to conti­nuing our successful course with Provi­dence and further expan­ding our global posi­tion as a leader in profes­sio­nal audio tech­no­logy and inte­gra­ted AVLM solu­ti­ons,” said Amnon Harman, CEO of D&B GROUP.

“We would like to thank Amnon Harman and his team for their outstan­ding work, unwa­ve­ring commit­ment and, above all, the trust they have placed in us over the past years. d&b has an outstan­ding corpo­rate culture that is embo­died by each and every employee. All of this has been essen­tial to the growth, but even more so to the stra­te­gic trans­for­ma­tion and inter­na­tio­nal posi­tio­ning of the Group. We are proud to have accom­pa­nied this jour­ney toge­ther with the d&b team,” explain Dr. Alex­an­der Fried­rich, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout and Stefan Kappis, Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout.

“Our invest­ment is a testa­ment to the high quality and exper­tise of the d&b team, as well as the unique company culture that has allo­wed d&b to set indus­try stan­dards and regu­larly exceed custo­mer expec­ta­ti­ons for over 40 years. d&b is the gold stan­dard in the indus­try for crea­ting memo­rable expe­ri­en­ces for audi­en­ces because of its inno­va­tion, global presence, custo­mer rela­ti­onships and long history of success,” said Robert Sudo, Mana­ging Direc­tor, Providence.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Consul­tant ARDIAN:

Ardian: Dr. Alex­an­der Fried­rich, Stefan Kappis, Chris­tian Koch, Stefa­nie Arndt

M&A: Macqua­rie Capi­tal (Florian Geiger / Sung-Duk Kim / Anthony Yous­safi) & Gold­man Sachs (Tobias Köster / Tibor Kossa / Fred­rik Weege)

Legal: Milbank (Dr. Norbert Rieger / Dr. Matthias Schell / Dr. Thomas Ingenhoven)

Finan­cial: PwC (Peter Grönin­ger / Daniel Haas)

Commer­cial: McKin­sey & Co. (Dr. Isabel Huber / Salva­dor Martinez)

ESG: Indefi Dr. Alex­an­der Fried­rich, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout(Emmanuel Parmentier)

Consul­tant PROVIDENCE:

Provi­dence: Andrew Tisdale, Robert Sudo, Daniel Zwicky

M&A: Alan­tra (Wolf­ram Schmerl), UniCre­dit (Michal Leho­cky, Marcel Kus)

Legal: White & Case (Dr. Stefan Koch), Allen & Overy Dr. Alex­an­der Fried­rich, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout (Vanessa Xu)

Tax: EY

About D&B

The d&b Group is a provi­der of profes­sio­nal audio tech­no­logy and AVLM solu­ti­ons for unfor­gettable multi­sen­sory expe­ri­en­ces. d&b audio­tech­nik, the manu­fac­tu­ring divi­sion of the company, is inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed as a leader in sound rein­force­ment systems in fixed and mobile appli­ca­ti­ons, and is also known for its design quality, service stan­dards, system inte­gra­tion prin­ci­ples, and ground­brea­king tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments. d&b solu­ti­ons, the service-orien­ted busi­ness unit, offers compre­hen­sive and flexi­ble audio, video, light­ing and xR exper­tise in the areas of system plan­ning, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance as well as mana­ged services.
Since the company was foun­ded in 1981, d&b’s head­quar­ters have been loca­ted in Back­nang, near Stutt­gart. With loca­ti­ons in major cities around the world, the global d&b team numbers more than 1000 employees.
www.dbgroup.de
www.dbaudio.com
www.dbsolutions.com

About ARDIAN

Ardian is a leading global inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm. The company mana­ges or advi­ses on appro­xi­m­ately US$150 billion in assets for more than 1,400 inves­tors world­wide. Thanks to its exten­sive exper­tise in private equity, real assets and credit, Ardian offers a wide range of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as custo­mi­zed invest­ment solu­ti­ons — tail­o­red to inves­tors’ needs: Ardian Custo­mi­zed Solu­ti­ons enables insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to access best-in-class mana­gers across all asset clas­ses through a custo­mi­zed port­fo­lio. Ardian Private Wealth Solu­ti­ons also offers a range of services speci­fi­cally geared to high net worth indi­vi­du­als. Ardian is parti­ally owned by its employees and places great empha­sis on their deve­lo­p­ment, as well as a culture of colla­bo­ra­tion based on an active exch­ange of know­ledge and expe­ri­ence. The more than 1,050 employees at 16 office loca­ti­ons in Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East, follow the prin­ci­ples of respon­si­ble inves­t­ing. Ardian’s mission is to make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society through its invest­ments and to create value that lasts. Ardian aims to deli­ver excel­lent returns in line with high ethi­cal stan­dards and social respon­si­bi­lity. At Ardian, ever­yone is dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding successful compa­nies for the long term.

ardian.com

News

Munich — The owner-mana­ged private equity company EOS Part­ners GmbH (“EOS”) has acqui­red be-solu­ti­ons GmbH (“be-solu­ti­ons”), a certi­fied IT services company based in Munich. The sellers were Simon Berger, Markus Eichin­ger and Felix Zöbisch. The closing of the tran­sac­tion took place at the begin­ning of June 2023. — POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to EOS in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the imple­men­ta­tion of a manage­ment participation.

be-solu­ti­ons will be contin­ued under the umbrella of accom­pio GmbH (form­erly: IT Solu­ti­ons Holding), which curr­ently includes mod IT Services GmbH and profi­com GmbH in addi­tion to the newly acqui­red be-solu­ti­ons GmbH. EOS had acqui­red both IT compa­nies in 2021 and 2022, respec­tively, and was also legally advi­sed by POELLATH on manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in both transactions.

Foun­ded in Munich in 2000, be-solu­ti­ons is an IT services company provi­ding client / server infra­struc­ture, mana­ged services, IT service / help­desk, and commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and confe­ren­cing solu­ti­ons. The company’s 30-strong team of experts provi­des its custo­mers with solu­tion-orien­ted, vendor-inde­pen­dent support in all IT matters, from consul­ting and imple­men­ta­tion to opera­tion and user support in day-to-day business.

EOS is a long-term orien­ted invest­ment company focu­sing on medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region that have unique selling propo­si­ti­ons, sustainable custo­mer rela­ti­onships and high growth poten­tial. EOS supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in streng­thening their product and service port­fo­lios, which is often linked to further invest­ments such as bolt-on acquisitions.

Consul­tant EOS: POELLATH
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Investments/Private Equity)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Investments/Private Equity)
Jan Lukas Jung­claus, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Invest­ments /Private Equity)

News

July 10, 2023 — Rolls-Royce has acqui­red Team Italia Marine, an Italian group specia­li­zing in the inte­gra­tion of navi­ga­tion systems and marine auto­ma­tion for the yacht market. Through this stra­te­gic tran­sac­tion, Rolls-Royce’s Power Systems busi­ness unit will streng­then its leading posi­tion in the global yacht market and expand its MTU product port­fo­lio for bridge-to-propel­ler solu­ti­ons with state-of-the-art inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons for the yacht indus­try. Rolls-Royce was advi­sed by DLA Piper on this transaction.

The acqui­si­tion will enable Rolls Royce to signi­fi­cantly expand its port­fo­lio of inno­va­tive custo­mer solu­ti­ons and products and streng­then its role as a leading supplier in the Italian market. Team Italia Marine, on the other hand, bene­fits from Rolls-Royce Power Systems’ world­wide sales network.
DLA Piper advi­sed Rolls-Royce’s M&A and legal teams, consis­ting of Denise Kurtu­lus, David Sagan, Chris­tian Glöck­ler, Nicola Camuffo and, on the legal side, lawy­ers Ben Hors­ley and Knut Sönnichsen.

Advi­sor Rolls-Royce: DLA Piper

Lead part­ners: Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Benja­min Para­mes­wa­ran, photo (Hamburg) and Chris­tian der Corpo­rate Part­ner (Hamburg) and Chris­tian Iann­ac­cone (Milan). Ornella Vastola, Gior­gia Grande and Fulvio Miano also advi­sed in the Corpo­rate area. Also invol­ved were part­ner Fabri­zio Morelli and attor­ney Fran­ce­sca De Novel­lis for the employ­ment prac­tice; part­ner Elena Varese and Valen­tina Mazza and Caro­lina Battistella for the IP prac­tice; part­ner Giulio Corag­gio and Gior­dana Babini and Enila Elezi for the IT and data protec­tion prac­tice; part­ner Carmen Chier­chia for the regulatory/environmental prac­tice; part­ner Davide Rossetti for the litigation/export prac­tice; and part­ner Valen­tina Marengo and Chiara Scia­raffa for the real estate practice.

KPMG advi­sed Rolls-Royce on the finan­cial aspects of the tran­sac­tion with a team consis­ting of part­ner Klaus Riccardi and mana­ger Luca Marchetti and on the tax aspects with a team consis­ting of asso­ciate part­ner Feder­ico Quaiotti and senior mana­ger Lorenzo Schippa.

Mazars supported Team Italia with a team led by part­ner Massi­mi­liano Vento and consis­ting of lawy­ers Andrea Gambar­della, Luca Batti­l­ana and Dr. Davide Mauro for the corpo­rate aspects and lawy­ers Matteo Polla­roli and Chiara Fava­loro for the labor aspects of the transaction.
Giacomo Iannelli of Mazars’ Deal Value Crea­tion team advi­sed the sellers on the manage­ment and orga­niza­tio­nal aspects, while Advi­sor Carlo Conti covered the finan­cial aspects of the tran­sac­tion and Audi­tor Leonardo Gabbia­nelli the tax aspects on behalf of the sellers.

In addi­tion, the notary Ciro De Vivo was involved.

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is one of the world’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.dlapiper.com

News

Hamburg — The owner family of the Hamburg-based BORCO-Marken-Import Matthie­sen GmbH & Co. KG has sold its company, one of the largest German importers and at the same time produ­cer and marketer of spirits, to the Stock Spirits Group. Stock Spirits Group, which was acqui­red by CVC Capi­tal Part­ners in Novem­ber 2021, is one of the largest produ­cers and market­ers of alco­ho­lic bever­a­ges in Central Europe. The purchase agree­ment was signed at the begin­ning of June 2023. The acqui­si­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

A corre­spon­ding purchase agree­ment was signed in June 2023. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. It is plan­ned that all jobs approx. 140 in the company as well as the name BORCO will be preser­ved. In the past fiscal year, BORCO gene­ra­ted sales of around 140 million euros. The acqui­si­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

The Hamburg-based company BORCO has been family-owned since its foun­da­tion in 1948. BORCO will conti­nue its normal opera­ti­ons and the teams and cont­acts for custo­mers and busi­ness part­ners will also remain unchanged.

Stock Spirits is tradi­tio­nal Euro­pean spirits producer

Stock Spirits Group is one of the largest produ­cers and market­ers of alco­ho­lic bever­a­ges in Central Europe. Foun­ded in 1884 in Trieste, Italy, the company curr­ently has subsi­dia­ries in seven Euro­pean count­ries. Stock Spirits’ current core markets are Poland, Germany, the Czech Repu­blic, Italy, Slova­kia, and Bosnia and Herze­go­vina. Stock Spirits’ port­fo­lio includes over 70 brands, many of which hold market-leading posi­ti­ons in their respec­tive markets. The company employs appro­xi­m­ately 1,200 people and gene­ra­ted sales of appro­xi­m­ately 400 million euros (2022). In Novem­ber 2021, Stock Spirits was acqui­red by CVC Capi­tal Partners.

Jean-Chris­to­phe Coutures, CEO of Stock Spirits, explains, “BORCO has been a leading and respec­ted spirits produ­cer in Germany and Austria for many years. The acqui­si­tion of BORCO is of great importance for our expan­sion stra­tegy in the field of alco­ho­lic bever­a­ges in Europe. At the same time, I am convin­ced that this heralds another successful stage in BORCO’s history. We will build on our strengths: BORCO will bene­fit from better deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties inclu­ding access to our port­fo­lio, and Stock Spirits will gain access to the attrac­tive German market and BORCO’s strong distri­bu­tion network for our selec­ted brands.”

Advi­sor to the Matthie­sen family of owners: Henge­ler Henge­ler Muel­ler for Mueller

M&A: Thomas Meurer (Part­ner), Dr. Katha­rina Hesse (Part­ner, both Lead), Maxi Ludwig, Susanne Marie Struth (both Asso­cia­tes, all Düsseldorf),

Tax Law: Dr. Gunther Wagner (Part­ner, Munich), Dr. Sebas­tian Hein­richs (Coun­sel, Frankfurt),

Employ­ment Law: Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Vicki Treib­mann (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Mona Geimer (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt).

The family tribe Uwe Matthie­sen was advi­sed by Dr. Ulf Renzen­brink (Renzen­brink & Part­ner) and the family tribe Bernd Matthie­sen by Dr. Lorenz Holler and Dr. Tobias Polke (VOIGT WUNSCH HOLLER Part­ner­schaft von Rechtsanwälten).

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Bird & Bird has advi­sed Nürn­berg­Messe, one of the world’s 15 largest exhi­bi­tion compa­nies, on the forma­tion of a joint venture with Messe München. This is the largest merger to date of two flag­ship trade shows in Germany.

In the newly foun­ded joint venture, Nürn­berg­Messe and Messe München are combi­ning the two inter­na­tio­nally most important trade fairs for the beverage and liquid food indus­try with Brau­Be­viale in Nurem­berg, the leading capi­tal goods fair for the beverage indus­try in Europe, and drink­tec from Munich, the world’s leading trade fair for the beverage and liquid food indus­try, thus streng­thening their now joint posi­tion on the world market.

Both trade shows will conti­nue to be inde­pen­dent brands, keep their names and remain as events at their respec­tive loca­ti­ons in Munich and Nurem­berg — under the joint umbrella of YONTEX. Accor­ding to Peter Ottmann, CEO Nürn­berg­Messe Group, the two exhi­bi­tion compa­nies are thus taking advan­tage of a unique oppor­tu­nity for both exhi­bi­tion compa­nies to posi­tion them­sel­ves jointly and combine forces on the world market.

Stefan Münch, Bird & Bird Client Rela­ti­onship Part­ner at Nürn­berg­Messe, comm­ents: “Bird & Bird has been advi­sing Nürn­berg­Messe for many years in various count­ries, inclu­ding China, Germany and Greece. Having alre­ady assis­ted them with the acqui­si­tion of T4M — Tech­no­logy for Medi­cal Devices in 2021, we are proud to have been selec­ted by Nürn­berg­Messe as a trus­ted legal advi­sor and indus­try expert for this important joint venture between the two largest Bava­rian exhi­bi­tion centers.”

Consul­tant Nürn­berg­Messe: Bird & Bird

Part­ner Dr. Marc Seeger and Asso­ciate Jan Medele (both Lead), Asso­cia­tes Henrike Camph­au­sen and Felix Spind­ler, LL.M. (all Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Thomas Hey, Asso­ciate Linus Boberg, LL.M. (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Jörg Witting, Asso­ciate Maren Stei­ert (both Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Joseph Fesen­mair, Coun­sel Niklas Fels, LL.M. and Clarissa Otto (all IP, Munich), Senior Coun­sel Elie Kauf­man, LL.M., Asso­ciate Amelia Weber (both Finance, Frank­furt), Asso­ciate Gökhan Kosak (Commer­cial, Munich), as well as Asso­ciate Aubrey Tao (Corporate/M&A), Part­ner Chris­tine Yiu, Asso­cia­tes Leon Li and Olivia Zhao (all IP, Shanghai)

News

Berlin — Berlin-based payment plat­form Payrails has secu­red a $14.4 million seed funding round for its end-to-end opera­ting system that covers the entire payment proces­sing value chain. The funds will go toward a “product road­map to solve custo­mers’ complex payment chal­lenges and increase go-to-market capa­city to serve the strong custo­mer pipe­line.” So it will promote growth.

The new round of funding, which builds on the $6.4 million seed round comple­ted last year, was led by new inves­tor EQT Ventures. Gene­ral Cata­lyst also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round, along with exis­ting inves­tors Andre­es­sen Horo­witz and HV Capi­tal.

The start-up was foun­ded by Orkhan Abdul­layev, Emre Talay and Nico­las Thou­zeau (photo © Payrails). They previously worked toge­ther in Deli­very Hero’s fintech services divi­sion, where they lear­ned first­hand the issues fast-growing compa­nies can face in today’s digi­tal payments land­scape. Payrails was foun­ded to elimi­nate these pain points and simplify the payments environment.

“We are very proud of what we have built and look forward to the jour­ney ahead. As payment proces­sing beco­mes more complex as orga­niza­ti­ons scale, the need to evolve the payment stack and leverage multi­ple proces­sors to improve perfor­mance is beco­ming an indus­try stan­dard. Leading compa­nies under­stand the stra­te­gic importance of opti­mi­zing payments and are looking for flexi­ble solu­ti­ons that can be adapted to their needs. With EQT Ventures, Gene­ral Cata­lyst, Andre­es­sen Horo­witz and HV Capi­tal, we have found strong part­ners with deep expe­ri­ence in FinTech and payment systems who believe in our long-term vision of enab­ling large global plat­forms to build end-to-end payment solu­ti­ons while we deve­lop the next-gene­ra­tion payment opera­ting system,” said Orkhan Abdul­layev, CEO and co-foun­der of Payrails.

“Enter­prise custo­mers need a high-quality, relia­ble payment product that can manage complex cash flows, incre­asingly in a multipro­ces­sor envi­ron­ment. Deve­lo­ping a scalable product to meet these requi­re­ments is some­thing like the SAP of payments. This requi­res both depth and expe­ri­ence in deve­lo­ping simi­lar products, and so the Payrails team is ideally posi­tio­ned to meet this chall­enge — the posi­tive feed­back from its live custo­mers is testa­ment to this. We have a passion for payments and for teams that deve­lop cross-gene­ra­tio­nal solu­ti­ons. Payrails addres­ses one of the biggest chal­lenges in payments, and we look forward to being part of Payrails’ jour­ney,” said Kaushik Subra­ma­nian, Part­ner at EQT Ventures.

News

Amsterdam/ Munich/ London — Egeria Capi­tal Manage­ment (“Egeria”) announ­ced that it has ente­red into a condi­tio­nal agree­ment to sell Good­Life Foods (the “Company”) to IK Part­ners (“IK”).

Good­Life Foods, head­quar­te­red in Breda, the Nether­lands, is a leading Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer of frozen snacks and meal compon­ents such as spring rolls, appe­ti­zers, burgers and cheese and vege­ta­ble bites. The company offers a wide range of bran­ded and private label products that it sells to retail, food­ser­vice and indus­trial custo­mers throug­hout Europe. Good­Life employs over 700 people in six produc­tion faci­li­ties in the Nether­lands, Belgium and Denmark.

Good­Life was crea­ted through the spin-off of Izico from Wessa­nen in 2014 and has evol­ved into a fully inte­gra­ted, leading Euro­pean plat­form for frozen appe­ti­zers. Under Egeria, the company acqui­red six compa­nies in three diffe­rent count­ries, follo­wed by years of strong orga­nic growth.

Under the exis­ting manage­ment team, Good­Life has grown in strength, and through its part­ner­ship with IK, the company will conti­nue to expand its product port­fo­lio with trendy frozen bites. Good­Life also plans to further acce­le­rate growth within and outside its core regi­ons through orga­nic initia­ti­ves and buy-and-build.

Dirk Van de Walle, CEO of Good­Life Foods, said, “We look forward to the next chap­ter working with the team at IK, which has vast expe­ri­ence in the food sector and can support us in our ambi­tious plans to inter­na­tio­na­lize through orga­nic initia­ti­ves and mergers.”

Remko Hilhorst, Mana­ging Part­ner at IK and advi­sor to the IK IX Fund, said, “We are impres­sed with GoodLife’s track record to date and its ability to conti­nuously evolve its product port­fo­lio to meet the needs of its clients. The company has a diver­si­fied offe­ring with further growth poten­tial to be tapped in the coming years. We look forward to working with Dirk and the team to grow the company on a solid foundation.

Sander van Keken, Part­ner at Egeria, stated, “It was a real plea­sure to work with Dirk, Kamiel, Willem and the entire Good­Life orga­niza­tion. We are proud that under our leader­ship Good­life has evol­ved from an outsour­ced company focu­sed prima­rily on the Bene­lux to a Euro­pean company with a much broa­der range of frozen snacks.”

About Egeria

We are prag­ma­tic and ratio­nal inves­tors who do not shy away from chal­lenges. We always perform at our best when we can add value through colla­bo­ra­tion and growth. We are a value-added part­ner every step of the way — with entre­pre­neurs, manage­ment teams or our large network of indus­try experts.

Our roots are in private equity, which remains the core of our busi­ness today. We have a passion for working with ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs and execu­ti­ves to accom­pany our port­fo­lio compa­nies on their growth and deve­lo­p­ment path — orga­ni­cally as well as through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. We focus on compa­nies with growth and deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in BENELUX and DACH with enter­prise values up to €350 million.

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About IK Partners

Our unique approach allows us to selec­tively deploy our funds in compa­nies that have demons­tra­ted signi­fi­cant deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in exis­ting and inter­na­tio­nal markets in the busi­ness services, health­care, consu­mer and indus­trial sectors. Our fund offe­ring enables us to support compa­nies at all stages of their invest­ment jour­ney, trans­forming natio­nal cham­pi­ons into inter­na­tio­nal leaders.

By part­ne­ring with us, execu­ti­ves can bene­fit from our pan-Euro­pean invest­ment execu­tion capa­bi­li­ties and access support from our in-house opera­ti­ons, capi­tal markets and ESG teams. These teams are fully inte­gra­ted at every stage of the invest­ment process and help acce­le­rate the growth of our port­fo­lio companies.

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Munich/ Sindel­fin­gen — Finan­cial inves­tor Marondo Capi­tal has acqui­red foun­der Peter Hartmann’s majo­rity stake in SPH AG, a leading specia­list in digi­ta­liza­tion and ERP solu­ti­ons for the fashion indus­try in Germany. OMMAX advi­sed Marondo Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of SPH AG. SPH AG has grown conti­nuously and profi­ta­bly over the last few years, offe­ring the leading and holi­stic service port­fo­lio (IN: OMNICHANNEL and IN:FASHION), the MS Dyna­mics ERP solu­tion in the fashion industry.

SPH AG, head­quar­te­red in Sindel­fin­gen, Germany, is an IT and consul­ting company that has been a force in digi­tiza­tion and ERP solu­ti­ons for the fashion, sports and life­style indus­tries since 1975. The company offers manu­fac­tu­r­ers and retail­ers an inno­va­tive soft­ware solu­tion based on Micro­soft Dyna­mics 365.

OMMAX advi­sed Marondo on commer­cial due dili­gence, analy­zing SPH’s busi­ness model, market dyna­mics, commer­cial perfor­mance compared to key compe­ti­tors, as well as its busi­ness plan and further value crea­tion potential.

Dr. Stefan Elßer, Foun­ding Part­ner of Marondo Capi­tal GmbH, empha­si­zes: “The steady growth of the company and the proven manage­ment have convin­ced us to conti­nue on the chosen growth path in the future. The deep under­stan­ding of the fashion indus­try, the Micro­soft Dyna­mics 365 exper­tise, coupled with the inno­va­tive approa­ches, under­line the opti­mal condi­ti­ons to become the market leader in Europe.”

Isabella Calde­ron Hoyos, Part­ner at OMMAX, commen­ted, “It was a plea­sure to work with Marondo and SPH AG manage­ment during the commer­cial due dili­gence process.”

About Marondo Capital

Marondo is an inno­va­tive invest­ment company for fast-growing, tech­no­logy-focu­sed, next-gene­ra­tion SMEs in DACH in clas­sic German engi­nee­ring disci­pli­nes, such as the indus­trial sectors of medi­cal tech­no­logy, health­care tech­no­lo­gies, soft­ware & IT, envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­lo­gies, new mate­ri­als, and Indus­try 4.0. In addi­tion to substan­tial expan­sion capi­tal, Marondo offers liqui­dity solu­ti­ons for exis­ting share­hol­ders. https://www.marondo.com

About OMMAX

 

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