ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt — Mitsu­bi­shi HiTec Paper Europe GmbH (MPE) has sold MPE Flens­burg GmbH (MPEF). The buyers are various funds advi­sed by Quan­tum Capi­tal Part­ners. A multi­di­sci­pli­nary and multi-site Deloitte team led by Corporate/M&A Part­ner Andreas Jent­gens and Coun­sel Marc Oliver Stock advi­sed Mitsu­bi­shi HiTec Paper Europe GmbH (MPE) on the sale of MPE Flens­burg GmbH (MPEF). The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

MPE is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Mitsu­bi­shi Paper Mills (MPM), a company that not only manu­fac­tures and deve­lops prin­ting paper, prin­ting plate mate­ri­als and prin­ting systems for offset and other prin­ting proces­ses, but also supplies media for almost all recor­ding formats, such as pres­sure-sensi­tive, ther­mal, magne­tic, elec­tro­gra­phic, silver halide photo paper and inkjet paper. In addi­tion, MPM is expan­ding its opera­ting busi­ness to include func­tional mate­ri­als such as highly func­tional filters and is incre­asingly focu­sing on rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment in new busi­ness areas.
MPEF is active in the produc­tion of specialty papers with a focus on ther­mal and barrier papers and opera­tes one paper machine and two coating lines with a total capa­city of 35,000 tons per year. The Flens­burg mill has more than 300 years of company history and is known for its tech­no­lo­gi­cal know-how, product speci­fi­ca­ti­ons and quality paper used for various appli­ca­ti­ons such as event tickets, lottery tickets, trans­por­ta­tion, food stamps, cash regis­ter receipts, pack­a­ging and more.

Deloitte provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to MPE in the sale. Thanks to the inter­di­sci­pli­nary coope­ra­tion of Deloitte Legal’s legal advi­sors with the experts from Deloitte’s Corpo­rate Finance Advi­sory Team, led by Clau­dius Thiell, follo­wing the “one-stop-shop” approach, the tran­sac­tion was comple­ted effi­ci­ently and successfully. With this tran­sac­tion, the Deloitte team once again demons­tra­ted its finan­cial lead advi­sory and legal & SPA advi­sory capa­bi­li­ties and its exper­tise in execu­ting cross-border M&A transactions.

Advi­sor Mitsu­bi­shi HiTech Paper Europe GmbH: Deloitte Legal Germany
Andreas Jent­gens, photo (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A; © Deloitte), Marc Oliver Stock (Coun­sel, Lead, Corporate/M&A), Jana Hupfer (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Linda Korn (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Nicola Werry (Part­ner, Data Protec­tion), Juliane Franze (Senior Asso­ciate, Data Protec­tion), Marco Engel­mann (Coun­sel, Real Estate), Susan Lange (Senior Asso­ciate, Real Estate), Rebecca Gulden (Asso­ciate, Real Estate), Claus Wilker (Coun­sel, Employ­ment), Katha­rina Zicker­mann (Coun­sel, Antitrust).

About Deloitte Legal and Deloitte

Deloitte Legal refers to the legal advice prac­ti­ces of the member compa­nies of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted, its affi­lia­tes or affi­lia­tes that provide legal services.
Deloitte provi­des indus­try-leading audit and assu­rance, tax, consul­ting, finan­cial advi­sory and risk advi­sory services to nearly 90% of Fortune Global 500® compa­nies and thou­sands of private compa­nies. Legal services in Germany are provi­ded by Deloitte Legal. Our people deli­ver measura­ble, long-term results that help build public confi­dence in the capi­tal markets, help our custo­mers trans­form and grow, and lead the way to a stron­ger economy, a more equi­ta­ble society, and a sustainable world. Deloitte builds on more than 175 years of history and opera­tes in more than 150 count­ries. Learn more about how Deloitte’s more than 415,000 employees live the mission state­ment “making an impact that matters” every day: www.deloitte.com/de

News

Stock­holm — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) is plea­sed to announce the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Unik System Design (“Unik”). Unik is a leading soft­ware provi­der with deep indus­try and subject matter exper­tise in housing and property manage­ment and legal admi­nis­tra­tion. Main will act as a stra­te­gic part­ner to the manage­ment team, support­ing Unik’s jour­ney to become a leading pure-play soft­ware-as-a-service (“SaaS”) provi­der focu­sed on an inter­na­tio­nal buy and build strategy.

Foun­ded in 1985, Unik is an inno­va­tive Danish provi­der of indus­try-speci­fic soft­ware with +240 employees and consul­tants in Vejle, Aalborg, Copen­ha­gen and Warsaw. With nearly four deca­des of expe­ri­ence, the company has posi­tio­ned itself with the most widely used soft­ware solu­ti­ons on the market, serving more than 900 custo­mers, from large private and public housing asso­cia­ti­ons to law firms and corpo­rate legal depart­ments throug­hout Denmark.

Unik is in the process of reinven­ting itself, not only to deli­ver higher levels of effi­ci­ency, auto­ma­tion and digi­tiza­tion to its ever­y­day users, but also to push the boun­da­ries of what happens when digi­tal inno­va­tion meets deep indus­try know­ledge. Over the next few years, the two new SaaS products HabiCen for housing and property manage­ment and Justi­Case for legal manage­ment will gradu­ally replace the current products Unik Bolig and Unik Advosys.

Going forward, Main Capi­tal Part­ners will actively support Unik in main­tai­ning its strong growth momen­tum by further expan­ding its product offe­ring to exis­ting custo­mers. In addi­tion to orga­nic growth initia­ti­ves, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons will be an important pillar of the stra­tegy to comple­ment the inno­va­tive product port­fo­lio and streng­then the market posi­tion both in Denmark and abroad.

Jens Find, CEO of Unik System Design, comm­ents, “In our dialo­gue with Main, we reco­gni­zed the poten­tial that this part­ner­ship could bring. After 38 years as CEO and prin­ci­pal owner, I clearly feel that this is the right decis­ion for Unik, our custo­mers and our employees. We will conti­nue with the current manage­ment and the current owners will retain a signi­fi­cant 40% stake. For us, it’s more of a part­ner­ship than a sale.”

Tonni Rasmus­sen, CTO of Unik System Design, comm­ents, “Our custo­mers rely on our inno­va­tion and indus­try exper­tise to set the stan­dard for how soft­ware can auto­mate their busi­ness proces­ses. The deve­lo­p­ment of two ground­brea­king SaaS products, HabiCen and Justi­Case, is part of Unik’s next major inno­va­tion, with a focus on impro­ved secu­rity and opera­tio­nal efficiency.”

Wessel Ploeg­ma­kers (photo © Main­Ca­pi­tal), Part­ner at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, summa­ri­zes: “Unik has been on our radar for a long time as one of the leading Danish soft­ware provi­ders, and we are plea­sed to have the oppor­tu­nity to support the company on its jour­ney to become a leading inter­na­tio­nal SaaS provi­der. We are confi­dent that our targe­ted orga­nic growth initia­ti­ves, combi­ned with a selec­tive buy-and-build stra­tegy, will create an enhan­ced value propo­si­tion for exis­ting and new customers.”

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, the DACH region, the Nordic count­ries and the United States. Main has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams in its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to achieve sustainable growth and larger, outstan­ding soft­ware groups. A leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds in Northwest Europe and North America, Main employs 60 people and has offices in The Hague, Stock­holm, Düssel­dorf, Antwerp and a branch office in Boston. Main mana­ges assets of over €2.2 billion and curr­ently has an active port­fo­lio of over 40 soft­ware companies.

News

Cologne/ Berlin — Food tech company Circus has acqui­red Berlin-based cooking robot startup Aitme. Through the acqui­si­tion, Circus secu­res access to cutting-edge tech­no­logy in kitchen robo­tics. With the acqui­si­tion, Circus also expands its team with expe­ri­en­ced experts in robo­tics and inte­gra­tes the sophisti­ca­ted cooking robots into its infra­struc­ture. The robots are expec­ted to operate cost-effec­tively with mini­mal labor and streng­then the level of auto­ma­tion in Circus’ micro-kitchens.

Former Foodora marke­ting chief Julian Stoß and Foodora CEO Emanuel Pallua have co-foun­ded Aimte. The robo­tics startup is funded with tens of milli­ons of dollars from big-name inves­tors and has deve­lo­ped a cooking robot to market since its foun­ding in 2019.

About Circus
Circus has crea­ted tech­no­logy-driven micro-kitchen hubs that intel­li­gently combine auto­ma­tion and digi­tiza­tion. The recipes for Circus’ wide culinary selec­tion are deve­lo­ped by Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence — allo­wing for a large number of perso­na­li­zed dishes at low produc­tion costs and effi­ci­ent use of resour­ces. Since laun­ching in summer 2022, Circus has alre­ady rolled out its service in Hamburg, Colo­gne, Berlin and Duis­burg and raised a total of €18 million from investors.

Imme­dia­tely prior to the Aitme acqui­si­tion, a YPOG team led by Dr. Johan­nes Janning also advi­sed Circus on a €5.5 million finan­cing round led by venture capi­ta­lists Black­Mars Capi­tal and 2bx.

Consul­tant Circus: YPOG

Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Cologne
Nina Ahlert (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Cologne
Matthias Kres­ser (Tran­sac­tion), Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax) Part­ner, Hamburg
Lukas Schmitt (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Matthias Schatz (Corpo­rate), Part­ner, Cologne
Jannis Fischer (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin

 

 

News

Munich — Funds advi­sed by DPE Deut­sche Private Equity Manage­ment III GmbH (“DPE”) have sold their stake in SERCOO Group, one of the leading German provi­ders of services for opera­tors of biogas plants and combi­ned heat and power plants and the corre­spon­ding engine tech­no­logy. The buyer was the tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment and energy service provi­der Elevion Group, which will become a leading service provi­der for biogas plants, decen­tra­li­zed coge­nera­tion and engine conver­sion as a result of the acquisition.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion. POELLATH advi­sed DPE on tax law in the context of the tran­sac­tion under the leader­ship of Dr. Michael Best.

Foun­ded in 2014 and based in Lingen (Ems), Lower Saxony, SERCOO Group is one of Germany’s leading service provi­ders in the Energy and Indus­trial Services busi­ness area, cove­ring the entire value chain of biogas plants, CHP units and engi­nes, as well as rota­ting equip­ment. In 2014, DPE acqui­red a stake in the then BU Bücker & Essing GmbH as part of a buy-and-build stra­tegy with the aim of crea­ting a leading German tech­ni­cal service provi­der in the context of the energy tran­si­tion. Within the past 9 years, eight compa­nies have been successfully acqui­red and inte­gra­ted. As a result, the Group has signi­fi­cantly increased the breadth of its product range and the depth of its value chain. Today, SERCOO Group is one of the leading one-stop-shop provi­ders in this field and thus contri­bu­tes signi­fi­cantly to the expan­sion of an inde­pen­dent and decen­tra­li­zed energy supply as well as to the sustainable reduc­tion of CO2 emissions.

Mark Sude­row (photo © DPE), Part­ner at DPE, added: “DPE belie­ves in inves­t­ing in busi­ness models that make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society. That is why we have been inves­t­ing in various compa­nies in the “Rene­wa­ble Ener­gies” sector since 2008.

DPE is an inde­pen­dent German invest­ment company and is one of the largest growth capi­tal provi­ders in Germany. DPE invests in medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and focu­ses on indus­tries with posi­tive long-term deve­lo­p­ment pros­pects. DPE was foun­ded in 2007 and has since inves­ted in 40 compa­nies that have comple­ted more than 100 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons and now employ more than 10,000 people. DPE has total assets under manage­ment of appro­xi­m­ately 3 billion euros.

Consul­tant DPE: 

PwC (M&A), Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek (Legal), Ebner Stolz (Finan­cial), Pöllath (Struc­ture) and Crescendo Part­ners (Manage­ment Coaching) advised.

News

Wall­dorf — The inves­tor group of LeanIX has sold the company to the Wall­dorf-based soft­ware group SAP. Sellers include inves­tors such as Insight Part­ners, DTCP, Capna­mic Ventures, Iris Capi­tal, Dawn Capi­tal and Gold­man Sachs. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the fourth quar­ter of 2023, subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the terms of the transaction.

LeanIX was foun­ded in 2012 by Jörg Beyer and André Christ in Bonn. The start-up is a global leader in enter­prise archi­tec­ture manage­ment (EAM) and offers a cloud plat­form that enables custo­mers to gain visi­bi­lity into their IT systems, which is also a prere­qui­site for moder­ni­zing their own infor­ma­tion technology.

With the plan­ned acqui­si­tion, SAP aims to expand its product port­fo­lio and help custo­mers more easily manage chan­ges in the busi­ness envi­ron­ment and perma­nently improve busi­ness proces­ses through LeanIX’s Saas offe­ring. In addi­tion, LeanIX recently laun­ched an AI wizard to help compa­nies leverage the poten­tial of gene­ra­tive AI to manage IT landscapes.

Advi­sors to SAP: Allen & Overy
Led by part­ner Dr. Roman A. Kasten (Corporate/Private Equity, Frank­furt) and senior asso­ciate Linda Mayer (Corporate/M&A, Munich); the team also included part­ner Dr. Heike Weber (Tax Law, Frank­furt) as well as part­ner Dr. Börries Ahrens (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg), senior asso­cia­tes Catha­rina Glugla (Data Protec­tion), Anna Kräling (IP/IT, both Düssel­dorf), Merle Herr­mann (Labor Law, Hamburg) and asso­ciate Vero­nika Gaile (Corporate/M&A, Frankfurt).

Also advi­sing were part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Veith (Corporate/M&A, Munich), coun­sel Dr. René Galle (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Dr. Stephan Bühner (FDI), Dr. Manuel Köchel (Tax, both Frank­furt), Henri­ette Hermann, (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Katha­rina Jüne­mann (IP/IT), Pascal Yves Schroe­der (Data Protec­tion, both Düssel­dorf), Mert Guel­mez (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Hendrik Slab­sche (Corporate/Private Equity, Frank­furt), the Tran­sac­tion Support Lawyer Corvin Kiesel­horst (Corporate/M&A, Munich) and Laura Thiel (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) as well as the Tran­sac­tion Offi­cers Lotte Dillen (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Sophia Merkl (Corporate/M&A, Munich).

In addi­tion, Allen & Overy lawy­ers from the USA, UK, France, Nether­lands, Turkey, Italy, Poland, Spain, Luxem­bourg, Austra­lia, Belgium and Hungary advised.

Rojs, Peljhan, Preles­nik & Part­ners, Slove­nia, acted as part­ner law firm.

Advi­sor Dawn Capi­tal: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Tobias Lovett (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Farina Weber (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

About Dawn Capital

Dawn Capi­tal is Europe’s largest specia­li­zed B2B soft­ware inves­tor. The company part­ners with inno­va­tive compa­nies that can become cate­gory-defi­ning global titans through excep­tio­nal teams, products and busi­ness models. Dawn is an early-stage inves­tor that supports Series A and B compa­nies and funds the best-performing compa­nies through growth rounds to exit. In B2B soft­ware, Dawn focu­ses on four areas: Data and Analy­tics, Secu­rity, Fintech, and the Future of Work. Previous invest­ments have included the likes of Mime­cast and iZettle, while current invest­ments include some of Europe’s leading soft­ware compa­nies such as Colli­bra, Show­pad, Data­iku, Templafy, Quan­texa, Garri­son and Tink.

 

News

Hamm/ Odense (Denmark) — Micro Matic prevai­led in a bidding process against seve­ral compe­ti­tors and acqui­res DISPTEK from the listed Dutch Aalberts Group, which is dispo­sing of the invest­ment for stra­te­gic reasons to opti­mize its own group struc­ture. A Heuking team led by part­ners Dr. Martin Imhof and Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, LL.M. provi­ded legal advice to Micro Matic on the acqui­si­tion of DISPTEK Group.

Micro Matic is the global market leader in dispen­sing solu­ti­ons for the beverage indus­try. Foun­ded in 1953, the tradi­tio­nal company is head­quar­te­red in Odense, Denmark. Today, 70 years later, Micro Matic employs around 1350 people world­wide and is repre­sen­ted by nine produc­tion sites, distri­bu­tion warehou­ses and compe­tence centers in 14 count­ries and on all conti­nents. In fiscal year 2022/2023, Micro Matic gene­ra­ted sales of €270 million with custo­mers of all sizes, from start­ups to major global beverage companies.

The DISPTEK Group compri­ses in parti­cu­lar the four compa­nies D.S.I. Geträn­ke­ar­ma­tu­ren GmbH, Taprite Inc., Disp­tek UK Ltd. and Vin Service S.r.l., which jointly pool their many years of exper­tise in the field of inno­va­tive and custo­mi­zed dispen­sing solu­ti­ons with loca­ti­ons in Germany, Italy, England and the USA. DISPTEK produ­ces and supplies, among other things, tops, keg connec­tions, pres­sure regu­la­tors, dispen­sing guns, taps, dispen­sing systems and refri­ge­ra­tion machi­nes for the beverage indus­try. The end markets include in parti­cu­lar brewe­ries, soda produ­cers, keg manu­fac­tu­r­ers, and the food service industry.

With the acqui­si­tion of the DISPTEK Group, Micro Matic is further expan­ding its global posi­tion as a leading supplier of dispen­sing systems while streng­thening its exper­tise in inno­va­tive digi­tal solutions.

Advi­sor Micro Matic: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Martin Imhof (Lead Part­ner), Düssel­dorf, Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, LL.M. (Univer­sity of San Diego), Stutt­gart, Sebas­tian Poll­meier, Düssel­dorf, Natha­lie Hemmer­ling (all Corporate/M&A), Hamburg;
Dr. Chris­tiane Vikto­ria Göb-Krumme (Commer­cial Law/M&A), Düsseldorf,
Fabian G. Gaffron, Simon Pommer, LL.M. (both tax law), both Hamburg,
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (Kings’s College London) (merger control), Astrid Lued­tke (IP/IT), Michael Below (public law/environmental law), Sandra Janberg (public law), all Düsseldorf,
Michael Kreis­ler, LL.M. (Foreign Trade and Payments Law), Berlin,
Dr. Chris­toph Gerhard (Labor Law), Frank­furt am Main,
Fabian Schmitz (Real Estate Law), Düsseldorf,
Dr. Till­mann Peter Rübben, LL.M. (Insu­rance Law), Cologne,
Chris­tina Tsiti­ri­dis (Corpo­rate Finance), Düsseldorf

Kromann Reumert:
Bent Kemplar, Copen­ha­gen, Kath­rine Hyld­gaard Gamst, Copenhagen

Gianni & Origoni:
Kath­leen Lemmens, Milan, Riccardo Fogliano, Milan

Burr & Forman:
Ches­ter J. Hosch, Atlanta

News

Aachen — Yester­day, TVF Manage­ment GmbH (TVFM) presen­ted the Tech­Vi­sion Fonds II (TVF II) at the Enter­prise Inte­gra­tion Center on the RWTH Aachen Campus. The new edition of the startup fund initi­ally compri­ses a volume of 42 million euros and is to be expan­ded over the next six to twelve months. It provi­des tech­no­logy-orien­ted start­ups with invest­ments of up to €6 million each in the Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A phases. In addi­tion to the Rhine­land, the target region for inves­tors is now the entire Eure­gio Meuse-Rhine (inclu­ding Hasselt, Maas­tricht, Eupen and Liège).

“Even though we are curr­ently expe­ri­en­cing a some­what quie­ter startup phase, the entire Rhine­land has grown and become stron­ger as a startup ecosys­tem. As soon as the econo­mic para­me­ters brigh­ten up, it will become very dyna­mic,” said Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, Mana­ging Part­ner of TVF Manage­ment GmbH, at the launch event for the new fund yester­day. “Univer­si­ties, rese­arch insti­tu­tes and nume­rous cross-border initia­ti­ves in the Rhine­land and the Eure­gio create an ecosys­tem extre­mely rich in poten­tial for startups.”

The group of inves­tors in TVF ll compri­ses the two anchor inves­tors NRW.BANK and Spar­kasse Aachen as well as other savings banks from the west of North Rhine-West­pha­lia and nume­rous private inves­tors. In the process, many new entre­pre­neurs and compa­nies from diffe­rent indus­tries (curr­ently 17) joined as investors.

Over 50 start­ups in the invest­ment balance

This is TVF’s management’s fourth startup fund since 2007, finan­cing inno­va­tive compa­nies in the life scien­ces, soft­ware, deep and medtech, and new mate­ri­als sectors. With incre­asing fund volu­mes and a steadily growing circle of fund inves­tors, TVF not only provi­des the Rhine­land start-up scene with capi­tal, but also with stra­te­gic know­ledge and a far-reaching network. “To date, we have helped more than 50 start­ups deve­lop their tech­no­logy and bring it to market,” says Bern­hard Kugel, also a mana­ging part­ner at TVFM. “We empha­size long-term support and the possi­bi­lity of further rounds of finan­cing, which we usually imple­ment with co-inves­tors.” The funds’ port­fo­lio compa­nies include well-known upstarts such as Hemo­vent, Sile­xica and Taxy.io.

Networ­king the Euro­pean startup scene

TVF ll can also provide start-up teams from neigh­bor­ing Dutch and Belgian regi­ons with capi­tal and know-how. “We want to conti­nue our successful course and also network start­ups across count­ries with busi­ness part­ners and addi­tio­nal inves­tors,” Schlei­cher said. “This is how we streng­then and drive tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tion at the Euro­pean level.”

About TVF Management

The Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) is the leading early-stage VC fund from the Rhineland/NRW region focu­sing on tech­no­logy start­ups in the pre-seed to Series A phases. TVF focu­ses on outstan­ding teams from the region inclu­ding. the borde­ring Nether­lands and Belgium. TVF Manage­ment has expe­ri­ence from four gene­ra­ti­ons of funds and curr­ently has over €100 million in assets under manage­ment. The fund is backed by potent inves­tors such as NRW.BANK, seven savings banks from western NRW, and more than 15 successful entrepreneurs.
TVF supports foun­ding teams with proxi­mity, network and exper­tise, paving the way for them to become the next inter­na­tio­nal indus­try leader. Through the S‑UBG Group network, TVF provi­des unique access to over 150 successful compa­nies in various indus­tries, and estab­lishes cont­acts between start­ups and their first custo­mers, part­ners and advi­sors. www.techvision-fonds.de

News

Washing­ton, DC — Subway is one of the most well-known fast food chains in the world. Subway has been selling its sand­wi­ches since 1965. And since then, the company has also been owned by the foun­ding fami­lies of Fred DeLuca and Peter Buck. That is about to change, accor­ding to the US news­pa­per Wall Street Jour­nal.

Accor­ding to the news­pa­per report, the finan­cial inves­tor Roark Capi­tal is about to take over the sand­wich chain. The owner of fast-food chains Arby’s and Buffalo Wild Wings will put about $9.6 billion on the table for Subway, the WSJ repor­ted, citing people fami­liar with the matter. A deal could be fina­li­zed in the near future, he said.

Subway had said in Febru­ary that the chain was looking into a sale. The sand­wich chain is hoping for a price well in excess of nine billion dollars in a sale. Subway has been owned by the foun­ding fami­lies since its incep­tion in 1965.

Subway with almost 700 stores in Germany

Subway has more than 37,000 stores in over 100 count­ries, with nearly 700 of the sand­wich chain’s stores in Germany alone. This makes it one of the fast-food chains with the most bran­ches in the world, but it is behind the giant McDonald’s. Howe­ver, the chain’s sales have decli­ned in recent years. Nevert­hel­ess, Subway had recently expres­sed a plan to build even more stores internationally.

News

Colo­gne — The EIC Fund invests in the tech start-up STABL Energy GmbH. The invest­ment was made as an equity invest­ment in a Series A finan­cing round under the Hori­zon Europe program. Oppen­hoff has again compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the EIC Fund on its invest­ments in Germany.

The EIC Fund is the special fund of the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil and thus the central invest­ment vehicle of the Euro­pean Commis­sion. It serves to imple­ment the Euro­pean Commission’s EIC Acce­le­ra­tor program, which supports inno­va­tive and sustainable Euro­pean growth compa­nies. The EIC (Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil) was estab­lished under the pilot project “Hori­zon 2020 — the Frame­work Programme for Rese­arch and Inno­va­tion” and successfully contin­ued in 2021 with the launch of the “Hori­zon Europe Programme”. With a dura­tion from 2021 to 2027 and a total budget of up to €95.5 billion, it is one of the largest funding programs for rese­arch and inno­va­tion world­wide. In 2022, the EIC Fund was the largest Euro­pean deept­ech VC fund with 71 invest­ments. Oppen­hoff has advi­sed the EIC Fund on its Germany invest­ments since 2021.

STABL Energy GmbH deve­lops energy storage systems from discarded vehicle batte­ries. The aim is to increase the use of rene­wa­ble ener­gies with the help of energy storage systems and at the same time to extend the life cycle of car batte­ries. The finan­cing round has a total volume of up to EUR 15 million.

Advi­sor EIC Fund: Oppenhoff

The Oppen­hoff team, led by Dr. Peter Etzbach (photo © Oppen­hoff), included Dr. Jonas Weise (both Corpo­rate /M&A), Georg Leche­ler, Dr. Patric Mau (both IP), Dr. Johan­nes Kaes­bach (Labor Law); Chris­tian Saßen­bach and Dr. Axel Grätz (both IT&C).

About Oppen­hoff

Oppen­hoff regu­larly advi­ses compa­nies in the venture capi­tal envi­ron­ment, most recently, for exam­ple, the EIC Fund on its invest­ment in biotech start-up CO2BioClean, on its invest­ment in tech start-up enote, on its invest­ment in tech start-up Nyris as well as on nume­rous other invest­ments in German start-ups, SellerX on its acqui­si­tion of KW-Commerce, Beyond­Build on its stra­te­gic merger of spaceOS and Equiem Holdings.
The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for groups, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 100 attor­neys advise on all major areas of busi­ness and tax law.

 

News

Switz­er­land — Rolex, by far the largest and most important Swiss watch brand, acqui­res Buch­erer, by far the largest and most important Swiss Rolex dealer. This is the message Buch­erer sent out a few days ago to the brands the Lucerne-based company sells in its own stores. This was announ­ced by the Swiss “Handels­zei­tung”.

Buch­erer patron Jörg Buch­erer has no descen­dants and ther­e­fore sought a viable, syner­gi­stic solu­tion for his empire. Accor­ding to Buch­erer, the take­over still has to be appro­ved by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties. This should be a mere forma­lity, as Buch­erer and Rolex operate in diffe­rent markets — retail and watch­ma­king. The two tradi­tio­nal houses have been working closely toge­ther since 1924, and Buch­erer sells Swiss luxury watches and offers the offi­cial repair service in over 100 specia­list stores worldwide.

The company produ­ces about one million watches a year, accor­ding to Morgan Stan­ley esti­ma­tes, gene­ra­ting sales of more than 10 billion Swiss francs. By compa­ri­son, the second and third largest brands in terms of sales, Cartier (watches) and Omega, account for less than 3 billion Swiss francs. No other luxury watch brand produ­ces anywhere near as many watches as Rolex.

News

Monheim am Rhein/ Frank­furt a. Main — The Natsana Group, a supplier of high-quality nutri­tio­nal supple­ments, has raised debt capi­tal to finance its growth stra­tegy. Network Corpo­rate Finance exclu­si­vely advi­sed the share­hol­ders and manage­ment of Natsana Group in the struc­tu­ring and nego­tia­tion of the growth finan­cing. — The debt finan­cing volume is EUR 50 million and is prima­rily used for product expan­sion and internationalization.

About Natsana

Natsana Group was foun­ded in 2019 by Marcus Thiel­king, Florian Bell, Alex­an­der Oeing and brings toge­ther the most successful brands of premium nutri­tio­nal supple­ments on Amazon in Germany. In addi­tion to Amazon, the products of the three brands are also sold via the company’s own web store and in leading drugs­to­res in Germany and Austria. — As inves­tors, they had brought on board former racing drivers Jörg Schmidt-Staade and Peter Sche­ufen as well as the Schweyer family of inves­tors (Flip­ca­pi­tal).

In 2022, a stra­te­gic coope­ra­tion agree­ment was signed with Bayer, under which Bayer acqui­red a 30 percent stake in Natsana with the aim of better serving the growing demand for high-quality nutri­tio­nal supple­ments. This coope­ra­tion was a stra­te­gic step to deve­lop a large network with world­wide part­ners for the 3 brands Natu­ral Elements, Nature Love and Feel Natu­ral. Toge­ther we will work relia­bly on the best natu­ral products and offers for our custo­mers. In a strong team that shares the same good ideas and values. This is parti­cu­larly important in an envi­ron­ment where factors such as Corona, growing infla­tion and supply bott­len­ecks are making it incre­asingly diffi­cult to main­tain consis­t­ently high quality and avai­la­bi­lity in a stable manner.

About Network Corpo­rate Finance (ncf)

Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on advi­sing on corpo­rate sales and acqui­si­ti­ons (mergers & acqui­si­ti­ons), capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cings. Our core compe­ten­cies lie in the struc­tu­ring and execu­tion of complex corpo­rate tran­sac­tions — natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal — such as company sales to stra­te­gic inves­tors and finan­cial inves­tors, IPOs or struc­tu­red corpo­rate finan­cing. We advise estab­lished entre­pre­neurs, corpo­ra­ti­ons, finan­cial inves­tors as well as young start-ups. In teams, we deve­lop indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons tail­o­red to the needs of our clients. We cover all areas of stra­te­gic corpo­rate financing.

 

News

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

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

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

Expan­sion of sales activities

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

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

Promi­sing market development

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

About the S‑UBG Group

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

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

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.

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