ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — SKW Schwarz has advi­sed the Dutch Azer­ion Group N.V. on the acqui­si­tion of Munich-based Vlyby Digi­tal GmbH. The acqui­si­tion was comple­ted at the end of Q3 2022.

Azer­ion will pay appro­xi­m­ately half of the purchase price in cash (combi­na­tion of upfront and defer­red payment) and in the form of Azer­ion common shares; 785,540 treasury shares will be trans­fer­red to the selling shareholders.

Azer­ion is a publicly traded tech­no­logy and data company head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam. Foun­ded in 2014, Azer­ion serves publishers, adver­ti­sers and game deve­lo­pers around the world with tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons to auto­mate the buying and selling of digi­tal adver­ti­sing, among other things.

Vlyby enables website opera­tors, online market­ers and digi­tal publishers to simplify and self-manage their Program­ma­tic Video Adver­ti­sing proces­ses across all devices. From its Munich base, the company serves leading German digi­tal market­ers such as United Inter­net Media, Burda Commu­nity Network, Burda­For­ward and Funke Medi­en­gruppe, among others.

SKW Schwarz had alre­ady advi­sed Azer­ion on the acqui­si­tion of Hamburg-based games deve­lo­per Whow Games in 2021.

Advi­sor to Azer­ion Group N.V.: SKW Schwarz, Munich
Dr. Sebas­tian Graf von Wall­witz, LL.M. (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Nick Nieder­ber­ger (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Raluca Calin (Project Management)

News

Rheinau/ Nidderau/ Munich — The Gimv port­fo­lio company E.GRUPPE, which alre­ady includes Klot­ter Elek­tro­tech­nik GmbH, acqui­res Control Mecha­tro­nics GmbH in Nidderau near Frank­fur­t/R­hine-Main. With this acqui­si­tion, the E.GROUP expands its range of services in indus­trial elec­tri­cal instru­men­ta­tion and control (I&C) as well as in project plan­ning and execu­tion for the auto­ma­tion of indus­trial proces­ses. The share­hol­ders and foun­ders of Control Mecha­tro­nics, Michael Kopf, Peter Gareis, Roland Lauk and Axel Hoch, acquire a stake in E.GRUPPE as part of the tran­sac­tion. Michael Kopf and Axel Hoch will also support the Group on its growth path in an advi­sory capacity.

The aim of the E.GROUP is to build up a full-service provi­der in all trades of elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring in order to offer custo­mers a holi­stic and future-orien­ted solu­tion port­fo­lio from a single source. In 2021, the Euro­pean invest­ment company Gimv took a majo­rity stake in Klot­ter Elek­tro­tech­nik GmbH (www.klotter.de), which was foun­ded in 1997. Toge­ther with the entre­pre­neur and foun­der, Werner Klot­ter, the E.GRUPPE emer­ged from this invest­ment. In addi­tion to the exis­ting busi­ness in custo­mer-speci­fic trans­for­mer station cons­truc­tion, switch­gear cabi­net and distri­bu­tion board cons­truc­tion, and buil­ding services, Control Mecha­tro­nics is parti­cu­larly streng­thening the area of auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for indus­trial proces­ses, inclu­ding auto­ma­tion projects for safety-rela­ted and certi­fi­cate-based auto­ma­tion services, such as those used in nuclear power plants or for the produc­tion of control units in the medi­cal field of proton therapy. Control Mecha­tro­nics is repre­sen­ted at three loca­ti­ons, the main plant in Nidderau, and bran­ches in Lörrach and Ravensburg.

Michael Kopf, Control Mecha­tro­nics, on the oppor­tu­ni­ties for the future: “We are deligh­ted that Control Mecha­tro­nics has found a part­ner in the E.GROUP with whom the secure and successful path taken so far can not only be contin­ued, but further expan­ded. As a medium-sized indus­trial company and expert with many years of inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence in the complete project hand­ling of auto­ma­tion chal­lenges, we will become another corner­stone of the E.GROUP. We convince through our compe­tent teams and employees. We work in part­ner­ship and sustain­ably and welcome a lasting, trus­ting coope­ra­tion at eye level. With our inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons, we will successfully meet the growing demands of the elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring indus­try toge­ther with the E.GROUP. With the merger, we not only secure Control Mecha­tro­nics’ jobs for the future, but can also serve the market nati­on­wide and conti­nue to grow successfully.”

Werner Klot­ter, co-owner of the E.GROUP and foun­der of Klot­ter Elek­tro­tech­nik GmbH, comm­ents: “With Control Mecha­tro­nics we warmly welcome another member to our group. The company, which has deve­lo­ped into a strong part­ner of auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons in Germany, is not only an ideal fit for the E.GROUP from a regio­nal point of view, but at the same time increa­ses our tech­ni­cal exper­tise and enables us to respond even better to the requi­re­ments of our custo­mers and busi­ness part­ners with further synergies.”

Maja Marko­vic (Photo © Gimv), Part­ner at Gimv and respon­si­ble for the Sustainable Cities plat­form in the DACH region, adds: “We are deligh­ted to be able to attract the entre­pre­neurs of Control Mecha­tro­nics to the E.GROUP and extend a warm welcome to the entire work­force. The acqui­si­tion marks the next stra­te­gic step on our mutually agreed growth path. The E.GROUP has set itself the goal of brin­ging toge­ther compa­nies and entre­pre­neurs from the elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring sector in order to act toge­ther as a holi­stic solu­tion provi­der in the elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring sector. The E.GROUP is well posi­tio­ned to meet the growing chal­lenges of the coming years, parti­cu­larly through the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion of infra­struc­ture and produc­tion faci­li­ties, the promo­tion of rene­wa­ble ener­gies and elec­tro­mo­bi­lity, and espe­ci­ally the steadily advan­cing tech­no­lo­gi­cal change.”

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

About E.GROUP
The E.GROUP is a dyna­mi­cally expan­ding group of compa­nies for sophisti­ca­ted and future-orien­ted elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring. The E.GROUP brings toge­ther estab­lished compa­nies and regio­nal market leaders who want to pool their exper­tise in the field of elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring and effec­tively exploit new growth poten­tial and serve custo­mers more holi­sti­cally. The aim is to create a leading group of compa­nies in the highly frag­men­ted elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring sector through orga­nic growth and the acqui­si­tion of further specia­lists and regio­nally estab­lished compa­nies. At the same time, the Group offers a wide range of growth and deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for the future of the compa­nies and its 170 employees. www.egruppe.com

About Control Mechatronics
Control Mecha­tro­nics GmbH, based in Nidderau (north of Frank­furt), is a medium-sized service and manu­fac­tu­ring company active in the field of indus­trial elec­tri­cal instru­men­ta­tion and control (I&C). With over 100 employees, the company also offers project plan­ning and execu­tion for the auto­ma­tion of indus­trial proces­ses. In addi­tion to the bran­ches in Ravens­burg and in Lörrach, Control Mecha­tro­nics GmbH has a subsi­diary, IT&E Control Solu­ti­ons GmbH, also based in Nidderau, which is active exclu­si­vely in the person­nel sector (of specia­list person­nel such as elec­tri­cal engi­neers). www.ctmt.de

About GIMV
For over 40 years, Gimv has been iden­ti­fy­ing entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and, as a Euro­pean invest­ment company, support­ing them on their way to market leader­ship. Listed on Euron­ext Brussels, Gimv curr­ently has a port­fo­lio of around EUR 1.5 billion in invest­ments in more than 60 holdings, which toge­ther realize sales of more than EUR 3.1 billion and employ 19,000 people. www.gimv.com

 

News

Landshut/Regensburg — Bayern Kapi­tal, the foun­ders and all other inves­tors, have sold their shares in TM3 Soft­ware GmbH and thus reali­zed a successful exit. The Regens­burg-based SaaS (Soft­ware-as-a-Service) company offers an inno­va­tive enter­prise resource plan­ning system to improve the perfor­mance and func­tion­a­lity of warehouse logi­stics for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses. Bayern Kapi­tal, as an inves­tor specia­li­zing in support­ing parti­cu­larly inno­va­tive high-tech start-ups, was the first inves­tor to invest in the company back in 2009. The new owner of the 100 percent company shares is Dort­mund-based proLo­gis­tik GmbH, a port­fo­lio company of enter­prise soft­ware inves­tor Elvas­ton and a successful provi­der of hard­ware and soft­ware for intralogistics.

TM3 Soft­ware was foun­ded in 2008 as a spin-off of the Univer­sity of Regens­burg and offers profes­sio­nal logi­stics soft­ware for small and medium-sized retail compa­nies, full­film­ent provi­ders and online retail­ers. The speci­ally deve­lo­ped SaaS solu­tion is based on state-of-the-art archi­tec­ture and a variety of adequate, smart func­tions for intel­li­gent warehouse manage­ment. For exam­ple, TM3 takes over the real-time control of all logi­stics proces­ses, from purcha­sing dispo­si­tion and warehouse logi­stics to ship­ping manage­ment and returns hand­ling, guaran­te­e­ing fast and flexi­ble adapt­a­tion to new custo­mer requi­re­ments. The alre­ady exten­sive stan­dard soft­ware can also be expan­ded at any time to include indi­vi­du­ally desi­gned inter­faces from the areas of stores & market­places, payment & accoun­ting, and carri­ers & ship­ping service providers.

TM3 will become the sixth member of the proLo­gis­tik Group from Dort­mund, but will conti­nue to operate as an inde­pen­dent company from the Regens­burg location.

“With TM3, we have a new weighty part­ner at our side, with whom we are also further streng­thening our compe­ten­cies in the field of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI), Big Data, auto­ma­tion and e‑commerce within the pL Group,” says Jörg Sänger, CEO of proLo­gis­tik GmbH. “TM3’s solu­ti­ons follow our stra­tegy of estab­li­shing the stan­dard SaaS WMS space as a strong pillar of our port­fo­lio of offe­rings, enab­ling our custo­mers to digi­tize their logi­stics with prono­un­ced speed and ease.”

“The scala­bi­lity of TM3’s inno­va­tive logi­stics soft­ware alre­ady convin­ced us comple­tely in 2009,” says Monika Steger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “Since our initial invest­ment, the company has seen considera­ble growth in custo­mers, sales and earnings and has deve­lo­ped into a strong part­ner for small and medium-sized compa­nies in logi­stics matters. We are proud to have supported the manage­ment team on this path and are plea­sed that the company’s loca­tion in Regens­burg will remain in Bava­ria under the new ownership.”

“We would like to express our sincere thanks to all inves­tors who have supported us in part­ner­ship on our joint growth path. A special thanks goes to our inves­tor of the first hour Bayern Kapi­tal, who alre­ady belie­ved in our vision shortly after the spin-off from the Univer­sity of Regens­burg and actively supported it as a relia­ble part­ner throug­hout the entire period. With the proLo­gis­tik Group, we have now found a group of compa­nies with great poten­tial for syner­gies for the next growth steps, in which we can opti­mally contri­bute our compe­ten­cies in smart warehouse manage­ment,” says Prof. Dr. Thomas Wölfl, Mana­ging Direc­tor of TM3 Soft­ware GmbH.

About Bayern Kapital

Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.

Examp­les of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has been invol­ved in early on include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Theva, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion and many more.
www.bayernkapital.de

About TM3 Software

Foun­ded in 2008 as a spin-off of the Univer­sity of Regens­burg, TM3 is a soft­ware company offe­ring an inno­va­tive inven­tory manage­ment system with a focus on warehouse logi­stics for medium-sized retail compa­nies, full­film­ent provi­ders and online retail­ers. With TM3’s solu­ti­ons, small and medium-sized compa­nies receive perfor­mance and func­tion­a­lity that was previously unavailable to this target group. TM3’s solu­ti­ons stream­line busi­ness proces­ses, opti­mize invent­ories and ther­eby reduce costs — sustain­ably and demons­tra­bly. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: www.tm3-software.de

News

Frank­furt a. M. / Hano­ver — QVM has acqui­red GLOBOS Logis­tik- und Infor­ma­ti­ons­sys­teme GmbH from the foun­ding share­hol­der as part of a struc­tu­red sales process. Spar­kasse Hanno­ver was advi­sed by Heuking part­ner Thomas K. W. Schrell on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of GLOBOS Logis­tik- und Infor­ma­ti­ons­sys­teme GmbH by QVM Privatkapital.

QVM acqui­red GLOBOS Logis­tik- und Infor­ma­ti­ons­sys­teme GmbH from the foun­ding share­hol­der as part of a struc­tu­red sales process. GLOBOS is a system house with the focus on manu­fac­tu­rer-inde­pen­dent consul­ting, sales and inte­gra­tion of inno­va­tive barcode systems loca­ted in Hannover/Lower Saxony. The company is a full-service provi­der of barcode systems in the DACH region. In addi­tion to hand­held scan­ners, the product port­fo­lio includes peri­phe­ral devices such as mobile termi­nals and label prin­ters. The company curr­ently employs 91 people.

Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to the finan­cing bank in the prepa­ra­tion, struc­tu­ring, nego­tia­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the entire finan­cing docu­men­ta­tion. The credit lines have a term of seven years. The purpose of the finan­cing is, in addi­tion to the finan­cing of the share acqui­si­tion, the repay­ment of exis­ting liabi­li­ties and the finan­cing of the Group’s gene­ral working capi­tal requirements.

About QVM Private Capital
QVM Privat­ka­pi­tal is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged invest­ment company that provi­des equity capi­tal to medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. The capi­tal is inves­ted by the QVM manage­ment and a fixed circle of successful entre­pre­neu­rial perso­na­li­ties. It pursues an entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach that focu­ses on the long-term deve­lo­p­ment and value enhance­ment of the compa­nies. A parti­cu­lar focus is on invol­vement in succes­sion situa­tions, growth projects and other chan­ges in the share­hol­der structure.

Advi­sors to Spar­kasse Hanno­ver: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Thomas K. W. Schrell, LL.M. (Lead)
Anja Harms (both Banking & Finance), both Frankfurt

News

Bain Capi­tal has raised more than $2 billion for its latest Tech Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund and plans to expand its busi­ness in Europe. The private equity firm has excee­ded its $1.5 billion target for the fund and expects to close soon.

Bain’s tech oppor­tu­ni­ties stra­tegy has alre­ady supported compa­nies in Europe such as UK fintech company SumUp. Inves­tors are inte­res­ted in sectors where they believe Europe is produ­cing world-leading compa­nies, such as payments and cyber­se­cu­rity, Bain Capi­tal said.

About Bain Capital

Bain Capi­tal, LP is one of the world’s leading private invest­ment firms with appro­xi­m­ately $160 billion in assets under manage­ment. Since its foun­ding in 1984, expan­sion has occur­red into various asset clas­ses, inclu­ding private equity, credit, public equity, venture capi­tal and real estate.

News

Heitersheim/ Munich — Para­gon Part­ners and the mino­rity share­hol­ders sell 100% of the shares in inpro­tec to Inter­na­tio­nal Chemi­cal Inves­tors Group. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Based in Heiters­heim, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, inpro­tec AG is a leading service provi­der for indus­trial contract drying and granu­la­tion based on spray drying, spray granu­la­tion, fluid bed coating as well as matrix encap­su­la­tion. Para­gon acqui­red a majo­rity stake in inpro­tec in 2018 and has since inves­ted more than €20 million in expan­ding its produc­tion faci­li­ties. During the past four years, inpro­tec has signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its market posi­tion as a tech­no­logy leader in large-volume granu­la­tion and drying proces­ses, further broa­dened its custo­mer base, and achie­ved profi­ta­ble busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment with double-digit annual growth rates.

Based on the special strengths of the company, the current manage­ment will conti­nue the successful corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment of inpro­tec within the ICIG network with ICIG as a future partner.

About Para­gon Partners

Para­gon Part­ners is an owner-mana­ged invest­ment company and has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries since its foun­da­tion in 2004. The invest­ment port­fo­lio spans various indus­tries and curr­ently compri­ses 14 compa­nies. Curr­ently, Para­gon mana­ges more than €1.2 billion in equity. www.paragon.de

About ICIG

Inter­na­tio­nal Chemi­cal Inves­tors Group is a priva­tely owned indus­trial group with total sales of €4 billion. ICIG focu­ses on three main plat­forms: Fine Chemi­cals under the Weyl­Chem brand, Chlo­ro­vi­nyls under the Vynova brand, and Enter­pri­ses with specia­li­zed compa­nies in fermen­ta­tion products, viscose fila­ments, acti­va­ted carbon and wood preser­va­tion chemi­cals (inclu­ding “Corden BioChem”, “ENKA”, “Carbo­Tech” and “Rütgers Orga­nics”). Since its foun­ding in 2004, ICIG has grown to include more than 20 inde­pen­dent chemi­cal compa­nies, all of which have their orig­ins in large global chemi­cal or phar­maceu­ti­cal groups. Today, the ICIG compa­nies employ around 4,500 people and operate more than 20 produc­tion sites in Europe and the United States. Addi­tio­nal infor­ma­tion can be found at www.ic-investors.com.

Clif­ford Chance advi­sed Para­gon Part­ners and the mino­rity share­hol­ders on the sale of 100% of the shares in inpro­tec to Inter­na­tio­nal Chemi­cal Inves­tors Group.

The Clif­ford Chance team was led by part­ner Dr. Mark Aschen­bren­ner (Corporate/Private Equity, Munich).

 

News

Berlin/Hamburg — Quan­tum-Systems, the leading deve­lo­per of unman­ned aerial systems (UAS), raises second round of finan­cing in 2022. In addi­tion to exis­ting inves­tor Bayern Kapi­tal, new inves­tors Peter Thiel, Project A and Sanno Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted in the funding. Quan­tum-Systems relied on the exper­tise and compe­tence of the YPOG team around Adrian Haase and Benja­min Ullrich for this finan­cing round, as it did in the first half of 2022, in the previous $30 million Series A finan­cing round.

Quan­tum-Systems is a leader in UAS deve­lo­p­ment. The elec­tric verti­cal take­off and landing (eVTOL) systems offer indus­try-leading flight endu­rance, opera­tio­nal ease of use and relia­bi­lity. The versa­tile UAS are used for secu­rity, defense, huma­ni­ta­rian and geos­pa­tial missi­ons in both the public and private sectors.

The new capi­tal will be spent on R&D invest­ments that drive the advance­ment of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, auto­nomy, edge compu­ting and robo­tics. The funding will also enable Quan­tum Systems to meet the growing demand for advan­ced UAS in the defense, agri­cul­ture, mining, cons­truc­tion and energy sectors. The UAS can be used for a variety of use cases, such as search and rescue missi­ons after natu­ral disas­ters, auto­ma­ted rail inspec­tions after severe weather, and aerial data coll­ec­tion of large-scale cons­truc­tion projects.

Consul­tant Quan­tum Systems: YPOG

Dr. Adrian Haase (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Alex­an­dra Stei­fen­sand (Tran­sac­tions), Associate

About Quan­tum-Systems

Quan­tum-Systems specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, design and produc­tion of small unman­ned aerial systems (sUAS). The company’s elec­tric verti­cal take­off and landing (eVTOL) systems are desi­gned to maxi­mize range and versa­ti­lity and provide users with a seam­less user expe­ri­ence. Through soft­ware capa­bi­li­ties such as edge compu­ting and AI-powered real-time data proces­sing, Quan­tum-Systems builds next-gene­ra­tion UAS for custo­mers in secu­rity, defense, public safety, and commer­cial and geos­pa­tial opera­ti­ons. Quan­tum-Systems was foun­ded in 2015 and is head­quar­te­red at the special airport Ober­pfaf­fen­ho­fen, 20 km west of Munich.

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. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Biele­feld ‑VR Equi­typ­art­ner has taken a mino­rity stake in Zimmer & Hälbig GmbH, a leading provi­der in the field of plan­ning instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance of refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy in the DACH region. The aim of the new part­ner­ship is to increase orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth through a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy. — Proven­tis Part­ners advi­sed Zimmer & Hälbig on this tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

The seller of the company shares is the previous sole share­hol­der Herold Albrecht, a private inves­tor who is not invol­ved in the opera­tio­nal busi­ness. Albrecht is selling Z&H due to his perso­nal life plans, but will conti­nue to contri­bute to the company after the sale through a reverse investment.

Toge­ther with VR Equi­typ­art­ner, Z&H now intends to expand its orga­nic growth, driven in parti­cu­lar by energy-rela­ted refur­bish­ments, with the help of a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy. VR Equi­typ­art­ner has alre­ady demons­tra­ted the exper­tise requi­red for this with its invest­ment in the Kälte Eckert Group, which has since been sold. In addi­tion to VR Equi­typ­art­ner, the three mana­ging direc­tors Michael Böhm, Achim Hense­ler and Heiko Panhorst as well as the indus­try expert Dr. Cars­ten Voigt­län­der also participate.
“We deli­bera­tely looked for an inves­tor who could support our growth course with expe­ri­ence and know-how, espe­ci­ally in the inor­ga­nic area,” says Z&H CEO Michael Böhm. “VR Equi­typ­art­ner has precis­ely this exper­tise, brings with it a network that is valuable for us and knows the indus­try inside out. These were clear points for VR Equi­typ­art­ner, and we look forward to further deve­lo­ping Zimmer & Hälbig toge­ther,” add the two co-mana­ging direc­tors Heiko Panhorst and Achim Henseler.

“Zimmer & Hälbig impres­ses with high project deve­lo­p­ment and manage­ment compe­tence, coupled with outstan­ding tech­ni­cal exper­tise. Stan­dar­di­zed work and trai­ning proces­ses provide a strong foun­da­tion for scalable orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth,” says Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner. “The fact that all three mana­ging direc­tors remain on board and also parti­ci­pate under­lines the confi­dence in the company’s growth poten­tial. Ther­e­fore, we are parti­cu­larly plea­sed to contri­bute our expe­ri­ence with the deve­lo­p­ment of plat­form stra­te­gies and to jointly exploit the sustainable oppor­tu­ni­ties of the energy trans­for­ma­tion in the buil­ding sector.”

Proven­tis Part­ners acted as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor to the previous sole share­hol­der Herold Albrecht and the three mana­ging direc­tors Michael Böhm, Achim Hense­ler and Heiko Panhorst.

About Zimmer & Hälbig GmbH

Foun­ded in Biele­feld in 1974, Zimmer & Hälbig GmbH (Z&H) is a leading supplier in the field of plan­ning, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance of refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy in the DACH region. With around 250 employees at its sites in Biele­feld, Leip­zig, Colo­gne and Osna­brück, the company recently gene­ra­ted a total output of over 65 million euros, with North Rhine-West­pha­lia curr­ently forming the specialist’s core market. In addi­tion to public buil­dings, the health­care sector, the indus­trial sector and the clean­room tech­no­logy sector, Z&H is also focu­sing on increased sales acti­vi­ties in the areas of energy consul­ting and energy-rela­ted reno­va­tion. As a tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment (TGA) company for non-resi­den­tial buil­dings, Z&H offers its custo­mers both the tech­ni­cal know-how for project plan­ning (consul­ting, tech­no­logy selec­tion, cons­truc­tion plan­ning) and the instal­la­tion of logi­sti­cally and tech­ni­cally deman­ding refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion systems. The company’s verti­cal range of added value extends from smal­ler instal­la­tion orders to major cross-trade projects (inclu­ding turn­key projects). Z&H’s compe­tence in project selec­tion and project plan­ning is also confirmed by its high success rate in tender participations.

About VR Equitypartner

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million.

Home

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

Legal and ESG Due Diligence:
Arqis with Lars Laeger, Thomas Chwa­lek and Fried­rich Gebert

Finan­cial and Tax Due Diligence:
Mazars with Jörg Maas and Axel Löntz

Commer­cial Due Diligence:
Munich Stra­tegy with Constan­tin Greiner

About Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A advi­sory firm whose clients include a majo­rity of mid-sized family busi­nesses, corpo­rate subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With more than 35 M&A advi­sors, Proven­tis Part­ners is one of the largest inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancies in the German-spea­king region and looks back on more than 20 years of M&A expe­ri­ence and nearly 400 comple­ted tran­sac­tions. The M&A advi­sors with offices in Zurich, Hamburg, Munich and Düssel­dorf are active in the sectors Indus­tri­als, Chemi­cals & Advan­ced Mate­ri­als, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT and Health­Care. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — enables Proven­tis Part­ners to assist clients in 30 count­ries in key markets world­wide. Mergers Alli­ance members, with over 200 M&A profes­sio­nals, provide Proven­tis Part­ners’ clients with direct access to local markets in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia.

The role of Proven­tis Partners

The consul­ting services included the selec­tion of poten­tial buyers, discus­sions and nego­tia­ti­ons with the buyer, the coor­di­na­tion of the due dili­gence as well as the struc­tu­ring and nego­tia­tion of the econo­mic terms of the execu­ted share deal. The tran­sac­tion team of Proven­tis Part­ners consis­ted of Jan Wetter (Part­ner, Zurich), and Chris­toph Stud­inka (Part­ner, Zurich) and Jonas Hessel­dieck (Analyst, Zurich).

News

Landshut/Munich — A globally unique smart­glass solu­tion that allows elec­tric wheel­chairs to be control­led by head move­ment — that’s the inno­va­tive medi­cal product that Munich-based start-up munevo laun­ched around four years ago. Since then, the young team has enab­led more and more people with severe limi­ta­ti­ons to their mobi­lity to lead a self-deter­mi­ned, mobile life. Follo­wing seed funding last year, munevo has now raised three million euros for expan­sion into the USA and other inter­na­tio­nal markets.

Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active key play­ers in the German start-up finan­cing land­scape, which provi­des equity capi­tal in parti­cu­lar to inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies with a connec­tion to Bava­ria, parti­ci­pa­ted in this round toge­ther with BayBG, be10x Capi­tal and ROCA X. Part of the round with a total of over three million euros are also other exis­ting inves­tors from the busi­ness angel envi­ron­ment.

Dise­a­ses such as para­ple­gia, multi­ple scle­ro­sis or Parkinson’s dise­ase can sever­ely limit free­dom of move­ment and inde­pen­dence. As a result of their condi­tion, suffe­rers are often depen­dent on the help of other people or on expen­sive and uncom­for­ta­ble stee­ring systems. Thus, in the course of a univer­sity course at the Chair of Busi­ness Infor­ma­tics at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich, the idea of a Google Glass app as a mobi­lity aid was born. In 2018, a clini­cal trial for “munevo DRIVE” was conduc­ted at Klini­kum rechts der Isar in Munich, follo­wed by appr­oval as a medi­cal device. Smart­glas­ses enable propor­tio­nal head control of elec­tric wheel­chairs, and many other devices can be opera­ted just by moving the head. Thus, munevo DRIVE also serves as a plat­form for soft­ware add-ons to control smart­phones, robo­tic arms that help people with daily acti­vi­ties, and smart home appli­ca­ti­ons. Demand is high and munevo, which is recei­ving a great deal of encou­ra­ge­ment from nume­rous users as well as medi­cal and scien­ti­fic profes­sio­nals and has ente­red into important coope­ra­tive agree­ments, such as with the globally active wheel­chair manu­fac­tu­rer Sunrise Medi­cal, is expanding.

The new round of finan­cing will enable munevo GmbH to meet the incre­asing demand for its control system, expand its distri­bu­tion network in the U.S. and extend its part­ner­ships in Europe.

“We are very proud that the new funding will allow munevo to grow and help many people,” said Clau­diu Leve­renz, CEO and co-foun­der of munevo. “We are very plea­sed that the venture capi­ta­lists invol­ved have given us access to the funding we need to grow the company quickly.”

BayBG Invest­ment Mana­ger Dr. Peter Graf agrees: “We alre­ady inves­ted in munevo GmbH in 2020, at that time with mezza­nine capi­tal, which convin­ced us as a tech­no­logy leader with its ground­brea­king product and inno­va­tive deve­lo­p­ments. We are certain that with the current round of finan­cing, munevo has all the prere­qui­si­tes to successfully take off internationally.”

“The mission of munevo to provide affec­ted people with more free­dom and inde­pen­dence is impres­sive. We are convin­ced that the dedi­ca­ted team will now incre­asingly achieve this in the rest of Europe and in the USA, and we are happy to support them with all our expe­ri­ence,” explains Monika Steger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapital.

About munevo

munevo GmbH was the first company to deve­lop a head control for elec­tric wheel­chairs based on smart­glas­ses, munevo DRIVE. This special control helps people with disa­bi­li­ties to achieve inde­pen­dent mobi­lity and more self-deter­mi­na­tion. The Munich-based company was foun­ded in 2018 and has been selling munevo DRIVE in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land since Janu­ary 2019.Diseases such as para­ple­gia, multi­ple scle­ro­sis or amyo­tro­phic late­ral scle­ro­sis can sever­ely rest­rict a person’s free­dom of move­ment and their asso­cia­ted inde­pen­dence. As a result of their condi­tion, affec­ted indi­vi­du­als are often depen­dent on the assis­tance of other people or on uncom­for­ta­ble stee­ring systems. The idea for munevo DRIVE arose in the course of a univer­sity course at the Chair of Busi­ness Infor­ma­tics at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich. munevo DRIVE is appro­ved as a medi­cal device and CE certi­fied. The young inter­na­tio­nal team is constantly working on further deve­lo­p­ment to create an ever­y­day assistant. www.munevo.com

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in compa­nies with a promi­sing future. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.Examples of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has supported at an early stage include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Theva, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion and many more. www.bayernkapital.de

About BayBG
With its venture capi­tal team, BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, Munich (BayBG), invests in Series A finan­cing rounds and later in tech start-ups. Curr­ently, the venture capi­tal port­fo­lio consists of over 35 tech­no­logy compa­nies. With an inves­ted volume of 340 million euros, BayBG is one of the largest invest­ment compa­nies in Germany. In addi­tion to venture capi­tal for start-ups, BayBG offers medium-sized compa­nies equity capi­tal (equity and/or mezza­nine) across all company phases and finan­cing occa­si­ons. BayBG thus enables the imple­men­ta­tion of inno­va­tion and growth projects, the opti­miza­tion of the capi­tal struc­ture or the regu­la­tion of corpo­rate succession.www.baybg-vc.de

About be10x Capital
be10x Capi­tal invests in promi­sing start­ups focu­sed on B2B, Smart Mobi­lity Solu­ti­ons, EV & Green-Energy, Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) and other high-tech products and solu­ti­ons. The foun­ding perso­na­li­ties them­sel­ves and the poten­tial of the under­ly­ing busi­ness model for scalable expo­nen­tial growth, sustaina­bi­lity and an expan­da­ble inter­na­tio­na­lity of the startup are at the fore­front of the selec­tion process. The invest­ment company be10x Capi­tal was foun­ded by Thomas Schmidt at the begin­ning of 2021 in order to actively accom­pany and support the growing and, in Thomas’ view, very high-performing startup land­scape in Germany and Europe in these segments.www.be-exponential.com

About ROCA X
A venture capi­tal fund that invests in early-stage disrup­tive compa­nies: young entre­pre­neurs with revo­lu­tio­nary ideas in tech­no­logy, at the MVP or proto­type stage, with a vision to make an impact on society and a passion to turn that desire into action. ROCA X builds a solid and much-needed bridge for start­ups between busi­ness angel support, which nurtures early-stage ideas, and upper-stage VCs, which support the growth of the startup. ROCA X is part of the Impe­tum Group, toge­ther with CITR and ROCA Investments.www.rocax.ro

News

Düsseldorf/ Frank­furt — On the way to No.1 gift certi­fi­cate in Europe, the German pioneer Wish­card Tech­no­lo­gies Group conti­nues to grow in the multi­cou­pon busi­ness and has been able to attract new inves­tors for its busi­ness model. With EMZ Part­ners and IK Invest­ment Part­ners joining exis­ting inves­tor Oakley Capi­tal, Joh. Beren­berg, Goss­ler & Co. KG and another inves­tor who support the growth targets for the coming years. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the financing.

In order to further acce­le­rate its expan­sion course, Wish­card Tech­no­lo­gies is streng­thening its manage­ment team with imme­diate effect with Dr. Andreas Betzer (photo right, ©Wish­card Tech­no­lo­gies Group). Toge­ther with COO Verena Argauer (photo left), the Pala­ti­nate native forms the new dual leader­ship at Wish­card Tech­no­lo­gies as CEO.

Wish­card, prima­rily through its Wunsch­gut­schein brand, is a leading consu­mer tech­no­logy company in the gift certi­fi­cate market in German-spea­king count­ries. The unique gift certi­fi­ca­tes can be purcha­sed at over 110,000 retail outlets and offer B2B gift solu­ti­ons for busi­ness custo­mers. Since its foun­ding in 2014, more than 60 million vouch­ers have been deli­vered to B2B and B2C custo­mers in the DACH region and Italy.

Beren­berg was foun­ded in 1590 and is today one of Europe’s leading private banks with its Wealth and Asset Manage­ment, Invest­ment Bank and Corpo­rate Banking divi­si­ons. The Hamburg-based bank is mana­ged by gene­ral part­ners and has a strong presence in the finan­cial centers of Frank­furt, London and New York.

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP has appoin­ted Joh. Beren­berg, Goss­ler & Co. KG in connec­tion with the finan­cing of an invest­ment in Wish­card Tech­no­lo­gies Group (“Wish­card”) by an invest­ment consor­tium consis­ting of EMZ Part­ners, IK Part­ners and Oakley Capital.

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 1,700 lawy­ers in 20 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn offices are loca­ted in Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, San Fran­cisco, São Paulo, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.gibsondunn.com.

News

Munich — Busi­ness law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed PROM12, an invest­ment company focu­sed on the technology/ tech-enab­led services/ soft­ware sectors, on the acqui­si­tion of Commu­nardo Soft­ware GmbH. Commu­nardo, head­quar­te­red in Dres­den, Germany, is a full-service provi­der for the modern work­place with nearly 220 employees at seven loca­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Alba­nia, gene­ra­ting reve­nues of 40 million euros.

PROM12 as a specia­list for Digi­tal Trans­for­ma­tion and IT Services supports Commu­nardo in its future deve­lo­p­ment, working closely with Communardo’s manage­ment to stra­te­gi­cally deve­lop the company for inter­na­tio­nal growth. Ilja Hauß and Dirk Röhr­born will remain as share­hol­ders. Dirk Röhr­born will conti­nue to be respon­si­ble for Communardo’s busi­ness as CEO.

The acqui­si­tion is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. GOF advi­sed PROM12 on all phases of the transaction.

Legal advi­sors PROM12: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Kilian Helm­reich (Part­ner, Lead), Adrian von Prit­t­witz (Part­ner; both Corporate/M&A), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Isabelle Vran­cken, Karl Ehren­berg (both Senior Asso­cia­tes, both Corporate/M&A)

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

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

News

Munich — Golding Capi­tal Part­ners, one of Europe’s leading inde­pen­dent asset mana­gers for alter­na­tive invest­ments, is expan­ding its product range with the first specia­li­zed energy tran­si­tion fund of funds. With the “Golding Energy Tran­si­tion 2022”, Golding wants to make an active contri­bu­tion to achie­ving the goals set out in the climate agreements.

The global invest­ment stra­tegy of the new €300 million fund is to build a broadly diver­si­fied port­fo­lio by the end of 2024, consis­ting of appro­xi­m­ately 10 target funds and up to 20 percent co-invest­ments. The focus is on Euro­pean (60 percent) and North Ameri­can (40 percent) invest­ments in solar and wind energy, energy storage tech­no­lo­gies, and other tech­no­lo­gies that enable the energy tran­si­tion and decar­bo­niza­tion. The invest­ments will be split equally between brown­field and green­field projects. Golding plans a target return of 6.0 to 7.0 percent net IRR p.a. and a first closing alre­ady for the end of 2022. Golding has many years of expe­ri­ence with infra­struc­ture assets that contri­bute to energy supply realignment. With curr­ently 5.7 billion euros of assets under manage­ment in the asset class, many energy tran­si­tion invest­ments are alre­ady part of the exis­ting portfolios.

“In times of record high infla­tion, inves­tors value the stabi­lity of infra­struc­ture invest­ments that deli­ver essen­tial services and bene­fit from the tail­winds of key socie­tal mega­trends such as the energy tran­si­tion,” says Jeremy Golding (photo/source Golding Capi­tal), foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Golding. “This is where we come in, allo­ca­ting addi­tio­nal capi­tal to key rene­wa­ble energy projects with expe­ri­en­ced target fund mana­gers with excel­lent track records.”

“Diver­si­fi­ca­tion of the globally orien­ted port­fo­lio is also a parti­cu­lar concern for our new fund. We are ther­e­fore plan­ning a total of between 100 and 150 indi­vi­dual tran­sac­tions, broadly spread across diffe­rent regi­ons, energy sources, fund mana­gers and asset life cycles. This allows us to add up to 20 percent value-add to the conser­va­tive fund profile of Core and Core Plus to take advan­tage of higher return oppor­tu­ni­ties. An attrac­tive pipe­line of target funds and co-invest­ments is available for rapid port­fo­lio expan­sion. The common deno­mi­na­tor here is, in parti­cu­lar, the UN Sustainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goals on ‘climate action’ and ‘afforda­ble and clean energy’,” explains Dr. Thilo Teck­len­burg, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Co-Head Infra­struc­ture of Golding.

“Golding Energy Tran­si­tion 2022” is struc­tu­red as a Luxem­bourg “Reser­ved Alter­na­tive Invest­ment Fund” (RAIF) in accordance with the Sustainable Finance Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion (SFDR) under Article 8+ (“light green plus”) and is open to insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors with a mini­mum subscrip­tion amount of five million euros. The term is 15 years plus of an exten­sion option.

News

Munich — OMMAX, a leading digi­tal consul­tancy focu­sing on invest­ment firms, mid-sized compa­nies and corpo­ra­ti­ons, pres­ents the results of its latest study: 83 percent of the super­vi­sory board members of German family-owned compa­nies have no digi­tal exper­tise — only a one percen­tage point impro­ve­ment on 2020. Of the 13.5 percent of new members elec­ted since 2020, only 24 percent are digi­tally literate.

The last two years of crisis and the tense econo­mic situa­tion are incre­asing the pres­sure on compa­nies to repo­si­tion them­sel­ves digi­tally. This requi­res advi­sory boards to engage more actively with the topic of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion in order to better steer compa­nies and ensure the future viabi­lity of the busi­ness model and long-term value crea­tion. This is only possi­ble with the appro­priate digi­tal compe­tence. But even in 2022, 83 percent of current super­vi­sory board members do not have the neces­sary know­ledge and experience.

On the occa­sion of the study, 919 profiles of German super­vi­sory board members of the 150 family-owned compa­nies with the highest turno­ver were analy­zed and exami­ned for digi­tal compe­tence, trans­for­ma­tion expe­ri­ence in simi­lar compa­nies or a move from a leading tech­no­logy company.

Conclu­sion: Change is happe­ning too slowly

With an average age of 60, the super­vi­sory boards of the compa­nies exami­ned for the study are not digi­tal nati­ves. This is also reflec­ted in their digi­tal presence, as a full 37 percent of super­vi­sory board members have none at all. Without being active on plat­forms like Linke­dIn or Xing, many lack insight into the digi­tal world and exch­ange on current topics and trends. This risks the long-term viabi­lity of the compa­nies and means that advi­sory boards are not fulfil­ling their role and responsibility.

A change ther­e­fore occurs prima­rily through the elec­tion of new Super­vi­sory Board members. Since 2020, 13.5 percent new members have been elec­ted to the super­vi­sory boards of the family busi­nesses analy­zed. Howe­ver, only 24 percent of them bring digi­tal exper­tise or trans­for­ma­tion expe­ri­ence in simi­lar compa­nies or have previous expe­ri­ence in a leading tech­no­logy company. As a result, the total number of members with the neces­sary exper­tise will be 17 percent in 2022 — just one percen­tage point more than in 2020.

“The results are drama­tic,” says Dr. Stefan Sambol, Part­ner and Co-Foun­der at OMMAX. “The change we have seen over the last two years is still happe­ning far too slowly. Owner fami­lies must finally wake up and act. One reason for this is that super­vi­sory board members are often selec­ted less for their compe­ten­cies than for how close they are to a company or the owners.”

Pioneers score with advan­ced gene­ra­tion change

Change is not progres­sing so slowly in all family busi­nesses. OMMAX has compi­led the top ten compa­nies that have the grea­test digi­tal exper­tise. OTTO, Haniel, Bertels­mann, Vorwerk, Axel Sprin­ger, Gies­ecke & Devri­ent, VOITH, SCHWARZ, Bechtle and BMW made it into the ranking. Here, an average of four members on the super­vi­sory boards have exten­sive digi­tal exper­tise. This means that the propor­tion of members with digi­tal exper­tise is above average at more than 20 percent. In addi­tion, the next gene­ra­tion of owners is heavily invol­ved in these compa­nies and many of the super­vi­sory board members have expe­ri­ence as entrepreneurs.

The world’s first profes­sor of global family offices, Prof. Dr. Marc-Michael Berg­feld, sees the oppor­tu­ni­ties in the gene­ra­tio­nal change. “Owners need to get the next gene­ra­tion on board now to help bridge the know­ledge gaps between gene­ra­ti­ons,” Berg­feld said. “This gene­ra­tion needs to drive the issue or they risk the viabi­lity of the busi­ness models.”

Exter­nal exper­tise enables digi­tal initia­ti­ves in the portfolio

Good examp­les of how family busi­nesses are tack­ling digi­tiza­tion can be found in the private equity sector. Compa­nies such as KKR or Advent Inter­na­tio­nal have hired indi­vi­du­als from Google, Amazon or Micro­soft with more than five years of expe­ri­ence on the owner­ship side. In so-called digi­tal value crea­tion teams, they drive digi­tal initia­ti­ves in the port­fo­lio with exter­nal part­ners to sustain­ably increase the value of the compa­nies. Owner fami­lies can take a cue from this and should restruc­ture their family office and also bring in exter­nal digi­tal exper­tise to profes­sio­na­lize funds in the area of digi­tiza­tion and better manage the port­fo­lio companies.

About OMMAX — Buil­ding digi­tal leaders

OMMAX is a fast-growing Euro­pean consul­tancy specia­li­zing in digi­tal M&A tran­sac­tions, stra­tegy consul­ting and sustainable digi­tal value crea­tion. In the last ten years, OMMAX has supported more than 200 M&A tran­sac­tions with a tran­sac­tion value of over €15 billion and more than 800 inter­na­tio­nal value crea­tion projects in the areas of digi­tal stra­tegy, opera­tio­nal excel­lence, advan­ced data analy­tics, tech and auto­ma­tion for leading private equity firms and mid-market compa­nies. As a pioneer in holi­stic data-driven stra­tegy consul­ting combi­ned with end-to-end imple­men­ta­tion of digi­tal solu­ti­ons, OMMAX is the leading consul­ting firm for the Euro­pean private equity and mid-market sectors — both for buil­ding and on imple­men­ting digi­tal solu­ti­ons. www.ommax-digital.com

News

Zurich/ London — Conver­gence Part­ners invests in the high-growth psyche­de­lic medi­ci­nes sector, parti­ci­pa­ting in Cler­ken­well Health Ltd.’s €2.4 million seed invest­ment round. The UK-based provi­der of specia­li­zed contract clini­cal rese­arch (CRO) provi­des phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies invol­ved in the deve­lo­p­ment of psychoac­tive drugs and thera­pies with much-needed infra­struc­ture and expert guidance for the conduct of all three phases of clini­cal trials. The proceeds of the finan­cing round will enable the opening of the first therapy and rese­arch center in London.

The U.K.’s health regu­la­tor MHRA recently gran­ted appr­oval for a first-of-its-kind psilo­cy­bin-assis­ted therapy trial by Cana­dian biotech company Psyence Group to support termi­nal cancer pati­ents, which will take place at the new Cler­ken­well Center.

Foun­ded in 2021, Cler­ken­well Health guides compa­nies in the design and imple­men­ta­tion of psyche­de­lic-assis­ted therapy studies in its own commer­cial centers of excel­lence. Among other things, the company helps plan studies, engage regu­la­tory agen­cies, and prepare clini­cally sound and scien­ti­fi­cally robust study proto­cols for regu­la­tory appr­oval. Cler­ken­well focu­ses on the appr­oval of drugs based on psyche­de­lic agents such as psilo­cy­bin, 3,4‑methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), lyser­gic acid diethyl­amide (LSD) and N,N‑dimethyltryptamine (DMT) .

Taking the lead in drug development

Tom McDo­nald, execu­tive direc­tor of Cler­ken­well Health, says, “Psyche­de­lic-assis­ted therapy could be ground­brea­king for mental health treat­ment. Our goal is to estab­lish the UK as the heart of the commer­cial psyche­de­lic rese­arch ecosys­tem and a hub for rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment. We will work closely with mental health experts and drug deve­lo­pers around the world to treat some of the most complex mental illnesses. We are very exci­ted to part­ner with Conver­gence Part­ners to drive our global growth.”

Psilo­cy­bin four times more effec­tive than clas­si­cal preparations 

Accor­ding to current figu­res, around 15% of people world­wide suffer from mental illnesses such as depres­sion — the number of unre­por­ted cases is proba­bly higher. Health systems are facing an avalan­che of costs: spen­ding is alre­ady around USD 2,500 billion. By 2030, the medi­cal jour­nal The Lancet expects the figure to rise to $6,000 billion — more than double. A new 2020 study from Johns Hopkins Univer­sity deter­mi­ned that psilo­cy­bin may be four times more effec­tive than clas­sic anti­de­pres­sants (SSRIs) in trea­ting depression.

“Medi­cal treat­ments based on psychoac­tive medi­ca­ti­ons combi­ned with pati­ent-cente­red psycho­the­rapy will lead to a para­digm shift in mental health care in the coming years. We believe Cler­ken­well will play a key role in brin­ging psyche­de­lic medi­ca­ti­ons to market by faci­li­ta­ting and support­ing their highly complex clini­cal trials. Tradi­tio­nal provi­ders for conduc­ting clini­cal trials are being elimi­na­ted, as are hospi­tals and univer­si­ties, due to the unique space and tech­ni­cal requi­re­ments for the therapy,” explains Daniel Koppel­kamm (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner of Conver­gence Partners.

Conti­nue mental health strategy

“Cler­ken­well fits perfectly into our holi­stic invest­ment stra­tegy in Mental Health. With our large rele­vant pharma network in Europe, Asia and the US, we will actively support Cler­ken­well in busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion,” Daniel Koppel­kamm conti­nues. Clerkenwell’s over­sub­scri­bed seed finan­cing round is worth appro­xi­m­ately EUR 2.4 million (GBP 2.1 million). Conver­gence Part­ners is one of the top inves­tors — other backers include Kodori AG, Lionhe­art Ventures and Excep­tio­nal Ventures.

About Conver­gence Part­ners AG

Conver­gence Part­ners AG (“Conver­gence”) is a Swiss Health­Tech venture capi­tal firm actively support­ing the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of its port­fo­lio compa­nies in the four largest health­care markets USA, China, India and Germany. Conver­gence is present in Switz­er­land, Germany, Spain and Hong Kong and was foun­ded in 2018 by expe­ri­en­ced health­care indus­try play­ers and venture capi­ta­lists with the goal of connec­ting EU Health­Tech inno­va­tions with great inter­na­tio­nal scale-up and exit potential.

Conver­gence focu­ses on later-stage invest­ments in digi­tal health, medi­cal devices and diagno­stics. The current focus is on Mental Health, Womens Health and Compu­ta­tio­nal Biology. Conver­gence is the venture capi­tal part­ner of “Medi­cal Valley” in Nurem­berg-Erlan­gen, Germany’s “Digi­tal Health Center of Excel­lence”. www.convergence-partners.ch.

News

Munich — XXXLutz Group makes public take­over offer for the acqui­si­tion of all outstan­ding shares in home24 SE. The XXXLutz Group was advi­sed by Kirk­land & Ellis on this public take­over offer.

In a Busi­ness Combi­na­tion Agree­ment signed on Octo­ber 5, XXXLutz and home24 agreed on the key points for future coope­ra­tion between the two compa­nies. XXXLutz has alre­ady secu­red appro­xi­m­ately 50% of the voting rights through agree­ments with share­hol­ders. In addi­tion, XXXLutz subscri­bed to a capi­tal increase from autho­ri­zed capi­tal amoun­ting to just under 10% of the share capital.

home24 is a leading e‑commerce plat­form in the home & living sector and is listed in the Prime Stan­dard segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exchange.

XXXLutz opera­tes over 370 furni­ture stores in 13 Euro­pean count­ries and employs more than 25,700 people. With an annual turno­ver of 5.34 billion euros, the XXXLutz Group is one of the three largest furni­ture retail­ers in the world.

Advi­sors XXXLutz Group: Kirk­land & Ellis
Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Dr. David Huth­ma­cher (both lead, both Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Michael Ehret (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Jörg Ruff, Dr. Phil­ipp Keinath, Victor Fiekers, (all Private Equity/M&A), Sieg­fried Bütt­ner (Capi­tal Markets), Nino Goglidze (Debt Finance)

About Kirk­land
Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading firms for high-cali­ber legal services, with more than 3,000 lawy­ers in 18 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. www.kirkland.com.

News

Munich/ Worces­ter­shire (UK) — ARQIS has advi­sed Active Capi­tal Company (ACC) on the sale of its majo­rity stake in LED specia­list Schahl­LED Light­ing (Schahl­LED) to FW Thorpe Plc (Thorpe).

ACC inves­ted in Schahl­LED in 2019 as ACC’s first direct invest­ment in Germany. Schahl­LED is a provi­der of intel­li­gent indus­trial light­ing solu­ti­ons. The company is based in Unter­schleiß­heim near Munich and is active in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and Poland. Toge­ther with manage­ment, ACC has achie­ved strong growth for the company and has become the prefer­red LED solu­tion provi­der for many play­ers in indus­try and logi­stics. The incor­po­ra­tion into the Thorpe Group marks the begin­ning of the next growth phase for Schahl­LED, espe­ci­ally for the expan­sion across Europe. The current manage­ment will remain with the company.

Thorpe, head­quar­te­red in Worces­ter­shire, UK and listed on the London Stock Exch­ange, designs, manu­fac­tures and supplies profes­sio­nal light­ing equip­ment. The acqui­si­tion of Schahl­LED builds on a successful part­ner­ship. Schahl­LED and Thor­lux Light­ing, a divi­sion of FW Thorpe Plc Group, have alre­ady been working toge­ther since 2019, distri­bu­ting Smart­Scan light­ing control products mainly in the German market.

The ARQIS team of Dr. Mauritz von Einem and Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der has advi­sed ACC on seve­ral tran­sac­tions in recent years, inclu­ding two add-on tran­sac­tions for Schahl­LED. ACC is an inde­pen­dent private equity inves­tor focu­sing on small and medium-sized compa­nies in the Nether­lands and Germany. ACC maxi­mi­zes the long-term value of its invest­ments by helping manage­ment execute value-added projects and provi­ding access to its exten­sive part­ner network.

Advi­sor ACC: ARQIS (Düsseldorf/ Munich)
Dr. Mauritz von Einem, Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der (both lead/ Transactions/ M&A); Coun­sel: Donata Lasson (Labor Law); Mana­ging Asso­ciate: Benja­min Bandur (Corporate/M&A), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (IP); Asso­ciate: Chris­toph Lutz (Corporate/M&A)

Advi­sors to Thorpe: BDO Legal
Thors­ten Schu­ma­cher, Dr. Konstan­tin Michelsen

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 80 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law and Risk, the firm is focu­sed on provi­ding holi­stic advice to its clients. www.arqis.com.

News

Munich — Sanity Group has successfully closed Europe’s largest canna­bis finan­cing round with a Series B finan­cing of EUR 37.6 million. British Ameri­can Tobacco Group led the round, which brings the total invest­ment in Sanity Group to over EUR 100 million. Green­Gate Part­ners assis­ted the Swiss venture capi­tal fund Redal­pine in exten­ding its commitment.

Sanity Group has set a new record in the growing canna­bis indus­try in Europe with a EUR 37.6 million Series B finan­cing round. This round was led by British Ameri­can Tobacco Group through BT DE Invest­ments Inc. listed. In addi­tion, other exis­ting inves­tors have again participated.

Sanity Group is Germany’s leading health and well­ness canna­bis company. Foun­ded in 2018, the company now employs about 120 people in the medi­cal, consu­mer health and scien­ti­fic fields. Sanity Group’s stated goal is to improve the over­all quality of life through medi­ci­nes, medi­cal devices and consu­mer products made from can- nabinoids.

Advi­sor Redal­pine: Green­Gate Part­ners advi­sed the Swiss venture capi­tal fund Redal­pine on the expan­sion of its invest­ment in the finan­cing round.

Green­Gate Part­ners ’ corpo­rate team specia­li­zes, among other things, in the venture capi­tal indus­try. The lawy­ers of Green­Gate Part­ners have been advi­sing Redal­pine for a long time on invest­ments and share­hol­dings in compa­nies in a wide range of industries.

News

NY (USA) — Gold­man Sachs Group has closed a $9.7 billion private equity fund, its largest since 2007, to invest in compa­nies with enter­prise values of about $750 million to $2 billion. — Inves­tors expect the best returns from the private equity asset class.

The fund is part of the Wall Street giant’s asset manage­ment busi­ness and is called “West Street Capi­tal Part­ners VIII.” It plans to invest an average of $300 million to acquire a majo­rity stake in compa­nies in the finan­cial and busi­ness services sectors, as well as in health, consu­mer, tech­no­logy and climate change.

“This fund­rai­sing builds on our 30-year history in private equity as we conti­nue to grow the busi­ness and bring our alter­na­tive offe­rings to a broa­der inves­tor base,” Julian Salis­bury, global co-head of Gold­man Sachs Asset Manage­ment, said in a state­ment. GSAM, as the busi­ness unit is known, mana­ges $2.5 tril­lion in assets, of which $176 billion is in private equity (PE).

News

Colo­gne — Oppen­hoff advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Smart Paws GmbH on the sale to Trup­a­n­ion Inc. advise Smart Paws is a fast-growing pet insu­rance provi­der with offices in Germany and Switz­er­land. The company offers products deve­lo­ped by vete­ri­na­ri­ans and tail­o­red to the needs of animals and their owners.

Trup­a­n­ion is a leading provi­der of pet insu­rance in the United States, Canada and Austra­lia with over 700,000 pets insu­red. Trup­a­n­ion is listed on NASDAQ and is head­quar­te­red in Seattle.

The Smart Paws team remains on board and beco­mes part of Trupanion’s inter­na­tio­nal organization.

Advi­sor Smart Paws GmbH: Oppen­hoff (Colo­gne)
Chris­tof Gaudig (Corporate/M&A) advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Smart Paws, repre­sen­ted by the majo­rity share­hol­der Prof. Dr. Dick White. The team also included Jan Nocke­mann (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Peter Etzbach (Corporate/M&A, Insu­rance Law) and Dr. Fee Mäder (IP).

Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a part­ner­ship company regis­tered in the part­ner­ship regis­ter of the Essen Local Court with the regis­tra­tion number PR 1850 and its regis­tered office in Colo­gne. A list of the part­ners autho­ri­zed to repre­sent the company is available at http://www.oppenhoff.eu/de/allgemeine-seiten/impressum.html. This message from Oppen­hoff is confi­den­tial and subject to attor­ney-client privi­lege. If you have recei­ved this message by mistake, please notify us imme­dia­tely and delete the message comple­tely from your system. Do not copy the message and do not make it available to anyone. All messa­ges sent or recei­ved by Oppen­hoff may be moni­to­red to ensure compli­ance with inter­nal poli­cies and rele­vant legis­la­tion. Emails are not secure and may contain errors as they may be inter­cepted, alte­red or destroyed, lost or contain viru­ses. Ever­yone who commu­ni­ca­tes with us through email accepts this risk.

News

Colo­gne — BELGRAVIA & CO. exclu­si­vely advi­sed the main share­hol­ders of SCHUMAG AG (“SCHUMAG”, www.schumag.de) on the capi­tal increase against cash contri­bu­ti­ons with allo­ca­tion to exis­ting share­hol­ders and TPPI GmbH (“TPPI”) as addi­tio­nal, new main share­hol­der. The capi­tal increase was carried out by making full use of the Autho­ri­zed Capi­tal 2021.

SCHUMAG AG is a listed company with around 450 employees whose precis­ion products are “Made in Germany” and expor­ted world­wide. SCHUMAG produ­ces highly complex precis­ion parts made of steel, which are supplied to custo­mers world­wide accor­ding to custo­mer drawings in various quan­ti­ties, even into the milli­ons. In the stan­dard parts sector, SCHUMAG manu­fac­tures products for mold and tool making.

Aachen-based TPPI GmbH, backed by Aachen-based Profes­sor Dr. Thomas Prefi, joins regio­nally ancho­red major share­hol­ders as a further major share­hol­der in SCHUMAG AG as part of the capi­tal increase. Prefi is an adjunct profes­sor at RWTH Aachen Univer­sity and co-foun­der of P3 Inge­nieur­ge­sell­schaft — the Umlaut Group, now part of Accenture.

SCHUMAG CEO Johan­nes Wienands sees the commit­ment of TPPI as a further buil­ding block for the future stra­tegy: “With Profes­sor Dr. Thomas Prefi, we are not only gaining a strong share­hol­der, but also smart capi­tal in the best sense of the word. Because he knows from his own entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence how change proces­ses have to be desi­gned and, with his network, is also a strong source of impe­tus for our most important change areas of digi­ta­liza­tion and auto­ma­tion.” The capi­tal increase is inten­ded in parti­cu­lar to imple­ment SCHUMAG AG’s growth strategy.

BELGRAVIA & CO. acted as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor to the sellers.

News

Berlin — First closing of $300 million Growth Equity III Fund for DTCP. The fund was laun­ched in March 2022 and has raised capi­tal from new and exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding Deut­sche Tele­kom and Soft­Bank Group Inter­na­tio­nal, as well as other insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, pension funds, corpo­ra­ti­ons and family offices. DTCP plans to conti­nue to raise substan­tial capi­tal for the fund and aims to complete fund­rai­sing in 2023. A YPOG team led by Jens Kretz­schmann advi­sed DTCP on the first closing.

In line with DTCP’s successful data-driven invest­ment stra­tegy, the Growth Equity III Fund invests in cloud-based enter­prise soft­ware and soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) compa­nies in cyber­se­cu­rity, Web3, AI, fintech, verti­cal SaaS solu­ti­ons, and IT appli­ca­ti­ons and cloud infra­struc­ture soft­ware. The Fund is seeking appro­xi­m­ately 25 equity invest­ments of $20 million to $25 million for early growth or expan­sion stage compa­nies, typi­cally as part of a Series B through D or late stage finan­cing round. The fund focu­ses on leading compa­nies in Europe, Israel and the USA that have a solid market posi­tion and a tech­no­lo­gi­cal edge.

Thomas Preuss, Mana­ging Part­ner at DTCP Growth, said, “Our GE III fund is a conti­nua­tion of a proven stra­tegy, and we would like to thank our exis­ting and new inves­tors for their support and trust. With one of the largest specia­list teams for cloud-based enter­prise soft­ware in Europe, we aim to conti­nue support­ing outstan­ding entre­pre­neurs and market leaders in the fast-growing cloud-based enter­prise soft­ware ecosys­tem and create attrac­tive co-invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for our investors.”

Consul­tant DTCP: YPOG

Jens Kretz­schmann (Lead, Funds), Part­ner; Andreas Korten­dick (Tax), Part­ner ; Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Part­ner; Martin Braun (Funds, Tax), Asso­ciate; Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Regu­la­tory), Senior Asso­ciate; Michael Blank (Funds), Asso­ciate; Stefa­nie Nagel (Regu­la­tory, ESG), Associate

About DTCP

DTCP is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment manage­ment plat­form focu­sed on digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. DTCP Infra invests in fiber optic networks, mobile towers and data centers. DTCP Growth invests in leading compa­nies that provide cloud-based enter­prise soft­ware. The driving force behind the company’s stra­te­gies is the belief that the conver­gence of networks and the Inter­net will create more wealth, trans­form more busi­nesses and unleash more inno­va­tion than any other deve­lo­p­ment in the history of tech­no­logy. DTCP and its part­ner compa­nies have offices in Hamburg, London, Luxem­bourg, San Fran­cisco, Seoul and Tel Aviv. https://www.dtcp.capital

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. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

News

Milan/London/Paris/Munich — Ambi­enta SGR SpA (“Ambi­enta”), one of Europe’s largest asset mana­gers focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity, has reached an agree­ment to sell its port­fo­lio company SF-Filter Group (“SF-Filter”), Europe’s leading provi­der of mobile and indus­trial filters, to funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”).

After Ambi­enta reco­gni­zed the importance of the filter indus­try in driving sustaina­bi­lity trends, the inves­tor acqui­red a majo­rity stake in SF-Filter in Janu­ary 2016. With Ambienta’s support, SF-Filter was successfully trans­for­med from an owner-mana­ged to a manage­ment-led company with an expe­ri­en­ced leader­ship team and a modern cross-natio­nal matrix organization.

SF-Filter is the leading Euro­pean distri­bu­tor of mobile and indus­trial (non-auto­mo­tive) filters for the secon­dary market: its 140,000 diffe­rent types of filters make an important contri­bu­tion to redu­cing pollutant emis­si­ons and energy consumption

Under the new owner­ship of Ambi­enta, an ERP system1 was intro­du­ced, inte­gra­ting all corpo­rate func­tions and count­ries; an online store was set up and expan­ded with the aim of cove­ring a large part of sales. The supply chain was rede­si­gned and opti­mi­zed by redu­cing the number of local warehou­ses while incre­asing the level of service to custo­mers. A consis­tent sustaina­bi­lity stra­tegy was pursued with signi­fi­cant impact on supply chain manage­ment and energy and water consump­tion, which were redu­ced by 6 percent and 31 percent, respec­tively. All econo­mic profits were inves­ted in the expan­sion of the company and invent­ories to create what is now the largest and most compe­ti­tive one-stop store for filter solu­ti­ons in Europe.

Head­quar­te­red in Bachen­bülach (Switz­er­land), SF-Filter today main­ta­ins distri­bu­tion and logi­stics centers in Germany, Austria, France and Poland, and also serves a number of export markets. The company supplies over 27,000 custo­mers in many Euro­pean count­ries with filters for oil, air, fuel, hydrau­lics, pneu­ma­tics, fluids, dust removal and air condi­tio­ning. The product range compri­ses more than 140,000 filter types, 40,000 of which are perma­nently in stock and available for deli­very at any time. Milan/London/Paris/Munich, 29 September
www.ambientasgr.com

In terms of Ambienta’s invest­ment stra­tegy, SF-Filter is an invest­ment with a focus on envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion. In 2021 alone, SF-Filter’s products clea­ned 2,169 cubic kilo­me­ters of air, equi­va­lent to a column of air 37 kilo­me­ters high over the New York City borough of Manhat­tan. The company’s filters also puri­fied 5,292 million cubic meters of water, equi­va­lent to the annual water consump­tion of about 29 million house­holds. SF-Filter’s products remo­ved 26,266 tons of pollut­ants and ensu­red their proper dispo­sal. This is the same amount of hazar­dous waste that 141,000 EU citi­zens produce each year. In terms of impact on the United Nati­ons Sustainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goals (SDGs), SF-Filter’s opera­ti­ons contri­bute to SDG 6 (clean water and sani­ta­tion) and SDG 12 (sustainable consump­tion and production).

Stefano Bacci, Part­ner at Ambi­enta, said, “SF-Filter is a prime exam­ple of Ambienta’s invest­ment philo­so­phy: a first-time invest­ment in a company with a very strong envi­ron­men­tal focus that provi­des the foun­da­tion for growth and stabi­lity. Ambi­enta has trans­for­med the company through deep orga­niza­tio­nal and opera­tio­nal actions that have ulti­m­ately led to more growth and higher profitability.”

Daniel Infan­ger, CEO of SF-Filter Group, said: “We would like to thank Ambi­enta for their strong support in the stra­te­gic realignment of our company over the past years. Toge­ther, we have adopted a whole set of measu­res that have enab­led SF-Filter Group to further conso­li­date its leading posi­tion in Europe, increase its effi­ci­ency and custo­mer focus, and create sustainable value. The company is now stron­ger than ever and, with its new part­ner Equis­tone, excel­lently posi­tio­ned for the next steps in its growth.”
The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the transaction.

Ambi­enta was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by RW Baird (M&A sell-side), by Dechert, Niede­rer Kraft Frey and Wolf Theiss on legal due dili­gence, by KPMG on finan­cial and tax due dili­gence and by Roland Berger on commer­cial due diligence.

Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Roman Emanuel Hegglin are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone.

Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Enqcor (M&A Advi­sory), Boston Consul­ting Group (Commer­cial), Alva­rez & Marsal (Finan­cial), Bär & Karrer (Legal & Tax), Latham & Watkins (Legal Germany), Howden (Insu­rance) and Houli­han Lokey (Debt Advisory).

About Ambi­enta
Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean inves­tor in envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity in private and public markets. From Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges assets of more than 3 billion euros. The focus is on inves­t­ing in private and public compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services improve resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion. In the private equity sector, Ambi­enta has made 57 invest­ments to date. In the public equity sector, Ambi­enta has laun­ched one of the world’s largest abso­lute return funds fully focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity and mana­ges a full range of sustainable products from low-risk multi-asset funds to long-only equity funds. www.ambientasgr.com

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung AG (“Neodi­gi­tal”) on the expan­sion of its Series D finan­cing round to include HDI Versi­che­rung AG (“HDI”) as a new inves­tor and part­ner in a newly formed joint venture.

Neodi­gi­tal enters into a joint venture with HDI for the deve­lo­p­ment of a common claims plat­form. In addi­tion to estab­li­shing the joint venture, Neodi­gi­tal was also able to attract HDI as an addi­tio­nal inves­tor. Neodi­gi­tal and HDI are thus pooling their exper­tise: Neodigital’s fully digi­tal, agile and highly auto­ma­ted process proces­sing comple­men­ted by the expe­ri­ence of one of Germany’s largest insu­rance compa­nies. On the one hand, the joint claims plat­form repres­ents an important step in HDI’s digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion process; on the other hand, the coope­ra­tion with one of the most important market leaders is another major mile­stone for Neodi­gi­tal in its still young company history.

The ARQIS team around Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze alre­ady supported the first closing of the Series D finan­cing round at Neodi­gi­tal in Janu­ary this year and has been advi­sing the foun­ding inves­tors since their entry.

Advi­sors to Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung AG: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze, Foto (v. Arqis) (Lead, Corporate/Venture Capi­tal), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP); Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping (Tax); Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur, Kamil Flak, Dr. Nima Hanifi-Atash­gah (all: Corporate/Venture Capi­tal), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (IP); Asso­cia­tes: Seve­rin Stef­fens (Inter­nal Management/Project Manage­ment), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus, Chris­tos Chou­de­lou­dis, (all: Corporate/Venture Capi­tal), Jasmin Stucken­b­rock (Tax), Rolf Tichy (IP), Conrad Wiza (Corporate/Venture Capi­tal), Dr. Martina Beren­brin­ker (Labor Law); Legal Specia­lists: Hannah Potter (Corporate/Venture Capital)

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 80 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law and Risk, the firm is geared towards provi­ding holi­stic advice to its clients. www.arqis.com.

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Reed Smith provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Sphera Solu­ti­ons, an ESG port­fo­lio company of Blackstone, USA, on the acqui­si­tion of riskme­thods, a supply chain risk manage­ment soft­ware company based in Munich with subsi­dia­ries in the USA and Poland. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The acqui­si­tion was made as part of a struc­tu­red sales process. During the tran­sac­tion, Sphera/Blackstone was compre­hen­si­vely assis­ted by an inter­di­sci­pli­nary team from Reed Smith in all rele­vant legal areas inclu­ding tech & data and antitrust/foreign trade law. The Reed Smith team was led by part­ners Siddesh Bale (USA) and Dr. Andreas Jürgens; part­ner Dr. Andreas Jürgens was respon­si­ble for legal advice in Germany and said “we are very plea­sed that our global team was able to successfully assist Sphera and Blackstone in this tran­sac­tion, brin­ging not only our many years of M&A expe­ri­ence but also our exper­tise in this important ESG market.”

About Sphera Solutions
Sphera says it is the leading provi­der of envi­ron­men­tal, social and gover­nance (ESG) perfor­mance and risk manage­ment soft­ware, data and consul­ting services focu­sed on envi­ron­ment, health, safety and sustaina­bi­lity (EHS&S), opera­tio­nal risk manage­ment and product steward­ship. For more than 30 years, Sphera has served over 6,700 custo­mers and more than one million users in 80 count­ries to help orga­niza­ti­ons keep their people safe, their products sustainable and their opera­ti­ons productive.

About riskme­thods GmbH
riskme­thods says it enables orga­niza­ti­ons world­wide to iden­tify, analyze and miti­gate all types of supply chain risk manage­ment (SCRM). riskme­thods’ soft­ware uses arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and machine lear­ning to protect its clients’ supply chain network. Its soft­ware plat­form coll­ects supplier data and real-time infor­ma­tion, distin­gu­is­hes criti­cal signals from “noise,” and provi­des users with visi­bi­lity across multi­ple layers of their supply chain so they can miti­gate the risk of busi­ness disrup­tion and achieve supply chain visibility.
The company’s 200+ employees in 4 offices world­wide serve more than 225 enter­prise customers.

About Blackstone
Blackstone says it is the world’s largest alter­na­tive invest­ment firm. The company’s objec­tive is to create posi­tive econo­mic impact and long-term value for inves­tors and the compa­nies in which it invests. Assets under manage­ment of $941 billion include, on a global basis, invest­ment vehic­les focu­sed on private equity,
Focus real estate, public debt and equity, infra­struc­ture, life scien­ces, growth equi­ties, non-invest­ment grade oppor­tu­ni­stic credit, real assets and secon­dary funds.

Reed Smith’s German team included:
Dr. Andreas Jürgens (Part­ner — Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt, Lead Partner)
Dr. Anette Gaert­ner (Part­ner — IP, Frankfurt)
Dr. Michaela Westrup (Part­ner — Anti­trust Law/Foreign Trade Law, Munich)
Daja Apetz-Dreier (Part­ner — Commercial/Dispute Reso­lu­tion, Munich)
Dr. Martin Bünning (Part­ner — Tax Law, Frankfurt)
Dr. Andreas Splitt­ger­ber (Part­ner- Tech & Data, Munich)
Dr. Simon Grie­ser (Part­ner — Finance, Frankfurt)
Chris­tian Leuth­ner (Part­ner — Tech & Data, Frankfurt)
Dr. Philip Schmidt (Coun­sel — Corporate/M&A, Frankfurt)
Judith Becker (Coun­sel — Labor Law, Munich)
Irmela Dölle (Asso­ciate — Tech & Data, Frankfurt)
Julia Hoeren (Asso­ciate — Commercial/Dispute Reso­lu­tion, Munich)
Elisa Saier (Asso­ciate — Labor Law, Munich)
Vincent Magotsch (Asso­ciate — Labor Law, Munich)
Dr. Maria Otter­mann (Asso­ciate — Dispute Reso­lu­tion, Munich)
Sebas­tian Bitter (Asso­ciate — Anti­trust Law, Munich)
Phil­ipp Johan­nes Berg­mann (Asso­ciate — Banking & Finance, Munich)
Anselm Reinerts­ho­fer (Asso­ciate — Banking & Finance, Munich)
Carina Park (Asso­ciate — Tax Law, Frankfurt)

Further­more, lawy­ers from the US offices as well as from London and Leeds, UK, advi­sed on this chal­len­ging transaction.

About Reed Smith

Reed Smith is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms with more than 1,700 lawy­ers in 30 offices in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.reedsmith.com

News

Munich — With the acqui­si­tion of InoNet, Euro­tech is ente­ring the DACH market for the first time, which is the world’s largest market for indus­trial IoT appli­ca­ti­ons after the USA. Both compa­nies pursue the approach of offe­ring high added value to their deman­ding B2B custo­mers with high-quality products and services. The purchase price is EUR 9.45 million plus a plan­ned earn-out of up to 300,000 Euro­tech shares.

Rödl & Part­ner compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed InoNet Compu­ter GmbH from Tauf­kir­chen on the sale of all shares to the Italian Euro­tech S.p.A. on finan­cial, tax and legal tran­sac­tion issues and led the contract negotiations.

By exploi­ting syner­gies in the area of supply chains and tapping growth poten­tial through cross-selling acti­vi­ties, Euro­tech plans to further deve­lop the future German site. Espe­ci­ally in the emer­ging global edge AI market, InoNet provi­des a solid base for Eurotech’s further expansion.

During the sale, InoNet was supported by an inter­di­sci­pli­nary team from Rödl & Part­ner for finan­cial, tax and legal sell-side advice. Part­ner Peter Längle was in charge of the over­all project manage­ment and led the M&A process inclu­ding the sales nego­tia­ti­ons. The legal advice, in parti­cu­lar the contract nego­tia­ti­ons, was provi­ded by part­ner Thomas Fräbel. Part­ner Matthias Zahn was respon­si­ble for the sell-side finan­cial support. The M&A Tax depart­ment was headed by part­ner Dr. Dagmar Möller-Gosoge.

About InoNet Compu­ter GmbH 

InoNet says it offers profes­sio­nal compu­ting solu­ti­ons for indus­try and B2B use. The focus is on the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of precon­fi­gu­red indus­trial PC solu­ti­ons as well as the design of solu­ti­ons for indi­vi­dual requi­re­ments. The company, based in Tauf­kir­chen near Munich, has been manu­fac­tu­ring indus­trial compu­ters since 1998, ensu­ring certi­fied manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses, compre­hen­sive quality manage­ment and also offers its custo­mers exten­sive main­ten­ance and service. With 80 employees, InoNet serves its more than 1,000 B2B custo­mers and gene­ra­ted reve­nues of €15.2 million in 2021.

About Euro­tech S.p.A.

Euro­tech says it is active in the design, deve­lo­p­ment and sales of edge compu­ting and Inter­net of Things (IoT) solu­ti­ons. Eurotech’s services include services, soft­ware and hard­ware for system inte­gra­tors and enter­pri­ses. With these solu­ti­ons, Euro­tech offers its custo­mers access to compon­ents and soft­ware plat­forms for IoT, edge gate­ways for plant moni­to­ring, and high-perfor­mance edge compu­ters used in areas such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI). Head­quar­te­red in Amaro, Italy, the multi­na­tio­nal company looks back on 30 years of expe­ri­ence and achie­ves an annual turno­ver of appro­xi­m­ately 70 million euros with 7 subsi­dia­ries worldwide.

Advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of InoNet GmbH : Rödl & Part­ner GmbH 

Peter Längle, Part­ner (Corpo­rate Finance), Munich — over­all project manage­ment, nego­tia­tion manage­ment, Matthias Zahn, Part­ner (Tran­sac­tion Services), Munich — sell-side support manage­ment Finan­cial, Fabio Fran­zoi, Senior Asso­ciate (Tran­sac­tion Services), Munich — Finan­cial, Andreas Schu­bert, Asso­ciate (Tran­sac­tion Services), Munich — Financial

Thomas Fräbel, Part­ner, Attor­ney (M&A Legal), Munich — Sell-Side Support Legal and Purchase Agree­ment Nego­tia­ti­ons; Juliane Krafft, Senior Asso­ciate, Attor­ney (M&A Legal), Munich — Sell-Side Support Legal; Malte Kroll, Asso­ciate, Attor­ney (M&A Legal), Munich — Sell-Side Support Legal; Lara Kiefer, Asso­ciate, Attor­ney (M&A Legal), Munich — Sell-Side Support Legal, Dr. Dagmar Möller-Gosoge, Part­ner, Tax Advi­sor (M&A Tax), Munich — Sell-Side Support Tax; Dr. Susanne Kölbl, Part­ner, Tax Advi­sor (M&A Tax), Munich — Sell-Side Support Tax

Advi­sor to the Italian Euro­tech S.P.A.: SLB LAW

Sandra Bend­ler-Pepy, Part­ner and Oliver Baumann, Partner.

About SLB LAW
SLB LAW offers clients full-service consul­ting in all core areas of busi­ness law. In addi­tion to its proven exper­tise in M&A, the firm is known for its advice in banking and capi­tal markets law as well as employ­ment law.
From its head­quar­ters in Munich, SLB mainly advi­ses medium-sized compa­nies as well as German subsi­dia­ries of inter­na­tio­nal groups. The firm is distin­gu­is­hed by its inter­na­tio­nal exper­tise. This is reflec­ted above all in the Italian Desk, which focu­ses on cross-border consul­ting for Italian compa­nies in Germany and German compa­nies in Italy. In addi­tion, SLB is a foun­ding member of the inter­na­tio­nal network Mack­rell Inter­na­tio­nal and the exclu­sive German part­ner law firm of the Grimaldi Alliance.In addi­tion to the Italian law firm Lexia Avvo­cati, SLB LAW’s Italian Desk advi­sed the Italian buyer Euro­tech S.P.A. on this cross-border tran­sac­tion. SLB LAW’s Italian Desk has proven exper­tise in the field of German-Italian transactions.

News

Hamburg — A private equity fund initia­ted by Hamburg-based family office Lennertz & Co. is acqui­ring a mino­rity stake in Super­Vista AG, which opera­tes in Germany under the “brillen.de” brand. Lennertz & Co. and some of SuperVista’s foun­ders and employees are parti­ci­pa­ting in the current finan­cing round in the double-digit million range.

With its unique digi­tal concept, the Bran­den­burg-based company combi­nes the cost effi­ci­ency of an online provi­der with the neces­sary custo­mer service of tradi­tio­nal opti­ci­ans’ stores. This enables the part­ner opti­ci­ans in the network to hold their own against the compe­ti­tion from the large opti­cal chain stores and online-only providers.

The Super­Vista concept is based on a close inte­gra­tion of online and offline, which builds on strong custo­mer acqui­si­tion through online marke­ting with the grea­test possi­ble digi­ta­liza­tion, start­ing with the offer of glas­ses, through their produc­tion to the hando­ver to the custo­mer on site. Inter­me­diary costs are elimi­na­ted enti­rely. Mean­while, the network of part­ner opti­ci­ans covers 7 count­ries with more than 1,700 stores inclu­ding the company’s own stores. The turno­ver of the Super­Vista Group was recently over EUR 200 million and conti­nues to grow in contrast to the industry.

“The Super­Vista busi­ness model is proof of how disrup­tion works in an indus­try, in this case in fruitful colla­bo­ra­tion with the many part­ner opti­ci­ans on the ground,” says Phil­ipp Lennertz, mana­ging part­ner of Lennertz & Co. “We are plea­sed to again have the oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in this great growth story in the current round of funding.” Lennertz & Co. had alre­ady held a stake in Super­Vista AG in an earlier phase and had sold its shares to the US invest­ment firm TCV, SuperVista’s current anchor inves­tor, in 2016.

Matthias Kamp­pe­ter, foun­der of brillen.de: “Our unique busi­ness model and posi­tio­ning as a discoun­ter in the ophthal­mic optics indus­try has proven to be a successful concept for diffe­ren­tia­ting oursel­ves from the major compe­ti­tors for 10 years now. The current capi­tal increase enables us to further expand our network of part­ner opti­ci­ans and our own stores throug­hout Europe.”

About Lennertz & Co.

As an entre­pre­neu­rial and owner-mana­ged family office, Lennertz & Co. is exclu­si­vely focu­sed on the success of its clients’ invest­ments. The invest­ment recom­men­da­ti­ons are in line with the perso­nal prefe­rence of the clients. They bene­fit from the inde­pen­dence of Lennertz & Co. and the exclu­si­vity of the invest­ment opportunities.

Lennertz & Co. also has a large number of autho­riza­tion certi­fi­ca­tes from the German Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity (BaFin) and is thus subject to nume­rous quali­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive requi­re­ments of both BaFin and the Deut­sche Bundesbank.
Lennertz & Co. shares its clients’ demand for fast, profound and secure decis­i­ons. In order to thoroughly examine the emer­ging oppor­tu­ni­ties in the venture and growth capi­tal, private equity and block­chain segments for its clients, Lennertz & Co. has a compe­tent team at its dispo­sal that can look back on deca­des of expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion, the advi­sory board consists of renow­ned indus­try, venture capi­tal and private equity experts such as Prof. Dr. Hein­rich von Pierer, Prof. Dr. Klaus Wuche­rer, Stefan Theis, Daniel Thung, Daniel Milleg and Florian Heinemann.

About brillen.de

brillen.de is the German brand of the inter­na­tio­nal omnich­an­nel company Super­Vista AG, which is known for the produc­tion and sale of progres­sive and single vision glas­ses in high quality at low prices. The company star­ted in Germany in 2012 with 12 employees, a few part­ner opti­ci­ans and sales of less than EUR 1 million. Today, more than 1,300 company-owned employees work for the hybrid opti­cian in more than 1,700 affi­lia­ted or company-owned opti­cal stores in curr­ently seven count­ries with sales of more than EUR 200 million (2021). The largest markets are Spain and Italy, ahead of Poland and the United Kingdom.

News

Wetzlar/Klötze — Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance one of Germany’s leading M&A consul­ting bouti­ques with a focus on medium-sized company succes­si­ons, has advi­sed Altmär­ker Solar­strom GmbH on its successful sale to Avacon Natur GmbH, a subsi­diary of one of the largest regio­nal energy suppli­ers Avacon AG and thus part of the E.ON Group. The previous sole share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Altmär­ker Solar­strom, Dirk Stehr, will devote hims­elf to new entre­pre­neu­rial chal­lenges and remain with the company as a consul­tant during the transition.

Altmär­ker Solar­strom GmbH was foun­ded in 2004 and focu­ses on plan­ning, consul­ting and instal­la­tion of turn­key photo­vol­taic systems as well as their main­ten­ance and remote data moni­to­ring. It is based in the Altmark­kreis Salz­we­del district in Saxony-Anhalt. The custo­mer base prima­rily includes commer­cial and private property owners in the imme­diate vici­nity of the company’s loca­tion, who bene­fit from the exper­tise and many years of expe­ri­ence of the solar specia­list. This includes profes­sio­nal services such as indi­vi­dual main­ten­ance solu­ti­ons, finan­cing and insu­rance support, and plant clea­ning. Altmär­ker Solar­strom curr­ently employs ten people.

Avacon Natur GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Sarstedt, repres­ents the rene­wa­ble energy divi­sion of Avacon AG, which is one of the largest regio­nal energy supply compa­nies in Germany with around 3,000 employees at 13 loca­ti­ons. Avacon offers regio­nal energy solu­ti­ons in the fields of elec­tri­city, gas, water, heating, cooling, mobi­lity and light­ing. The company also plans, builds and opera­tes modern, high-perfor­mance fiber-optic networks. Avacon is part of the E.ON Group, but at the same time also has a strong muni­ci­pal focus. More than 80 muni­ci­pa­li­ties and districts from the Dutch border to Saxony-Anhalt and from the North Sea coast to southern Hesse hold 38.5% of the shares in Avacon.

“I am plea­sed that we have found an effi­ci­ent, future-orien­ted part­ner in Avacon Natur for our custo­mers and employees, who will conti­nue the company and successfully expand it in the context of the current excel­lent market oppor­tu­ni­ties,” commen­ted Dirk Stehr, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Altmär­ker Solar. “The strong regio­nal approach on both sides was essen­tial for the solu­tion we have now found. The Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor team not only provi­ded us with profes­sio­nal support in our search for the right part­ner with their expe­ri­ence and the neces­sary indus­try know-how, but also actively supported us throug­hout the entire process with their perso­nal commit­ment and dedication.”

“The boom in the photo­vol­taic market had crea­ted a comfor­ta­ble start­ing posi­tion,” comm­ents Sebas­tian Wissig, project mana­ger at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor. “In combi­na­tion with our active and struc­tu­red process, we were able to find the perfect part­ner for Mr. Stehr, even in these chal­len­ging times for him as well as for Altmär­ker Solar­strom, and successfully complete the tran­sac­tion process in well under 12 months of project time to devote to further entre­pre­neu­rial endeavors.”

About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor GmbH, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, is one of the leading M&A consul­ting firms in the German SME sector. The team of almost 30 experts accom­pa­nies medium-sized entre­pre­neurs exclu­si­vely through the entire sales process. “Our task is to safe­guard life’s work,” is how we see oursel­ves. In doing so, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, and which protects the iden­tity of their compa­nies to a special degree. Thanks to their excel­lent access to medium-sized compa­nies, Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance have also estab­lished them­sel­ves as a strong part­ner at the side of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal major compa­nies and inves­tors in acquisitions.

www.nachfolgekontor.de, www.sonntagcf.com

About Altmär­ker Solar­strom GmbH
www.altmarksolar.de

About Avacon Natur GmbH
www.avacon.de

 

News

Frank­furt a.M. — Main Capi­tal Part­ners acqui­res Wanko Infor­ma­ti­ons­lo­gis­tik GmbH and FleetGO Group. The two compa­nies will be merged under the name FleetGO Group to form a new compre­hen­sive logi­stics soft­ware group. The manage­ment of both compa­nies took a mino­rity stake in the tran­sac­tion. McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed Main Capi­tal Part­ners on both tran­sac­tions. A team led by Norman Wasse and Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger advi­sed Main Capi­tal first on the acqui­si­tion of Wanko Infor­ma­ti­ons­lo­gis­tik GmbH and subse­quently on the acqui­si­tion of FleetGO Group.

Wanko Infor­ma­ti­ons­lo­gis­tik is a logi­stics soft­ware part­ner for route plan­ning, warehouse manage­ment and tele­ma­tics, foun­ded in 1972. FleetGO provi­des modern tele­ma­tics solu­ti­ons for compa­nies. Foun­ded in 2010, the company main­ta­ins offices in Düssel­dorf and Istan­bul in addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Hattem, the Nether­lands. Both compa­nies have a substan­tial and well-estab­lished track record as market leaders in their respec­tive sectors. They both focus on the supply chain soft­ware market in Germany and the Nether­lands respectively.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a stra­te­gic inves­tor focu­sed on enter­prise soft­ware in Bene­lux, DACH and Scan­di­na­via. The company mana­ges assets of around 2.2 billion euros.

The McDer­mott team led by part­ners Norman Wasse and Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger, which is parti­cu­larly expe­ri­en­ced with soft­ware and tech tran­sac­tions, has alre­ady advi­sed Main Capi­tal on various tran­sac­tions and finan­cings, most recently on the acqui­si­tion and finan­cing of Form­So­lu­ti­ons and Data­Plan by mach­gruppe, Audimex by Swedish port­fo­lio company Blika Solu­ti­ons, and Cryptshare AG by its port­fo­lio company Point­s­harp. Just recently, the team also advi­sed on the dual tran­sac­tion to acquire Plato and IQS.

Advi­sors to Main Capi­tal Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Norman Wasse, LL.M. (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger (Finan­cing, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Johan­nes Honzen (Real Estate Law), Dr. Chris­tian L. Masch (IT/IP, Munich), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax Law); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Lisa Schick­ling (Wanko tran­sac­tion only), Isabelle Suzanne Müller (all Corporate/M&A), Lukas Deutz­mann (Labor Law, Cologne/Düsseldorf), Fran­ziska Leub­ner (Labor Law, Munich — Wanko tran­sac­tion only), Isabella Kätzl­meier (IT/IP, Munich), Hannah Henseling (Real Estate Law), Markus Hunken­schrö­der (Finan­cing, Düssel­dorf), Johanna Grei­ßel (Tax Law — FleetGO tran­sac­tion only), Feli­ci­tas Faber (Liti­ga­tion, Munich — FleetGO tran­sac­tion only), Doro­thea Zimny (Public Law, Düssel­dorf — FleetGO tran­sac­tion only)

Addi­tio­nally invol­ved in the FleetGO tran­sac­tion were: McDer­mott Will & Emery, London/Brussels
Calum Thom, Linda Zeman (both Lead, Corporate/M&A), Gary Howes (Coun­sel, Life Scien­ces), Paul McGrath (Employ­ment; all London), Hendrik Viaene (Anti­trust and Compe­ti­tion, Brussels); Asso­cia­tes: Chris Marshall, Rosie Mist, Emmy Clode (all Corporate/M&A), Char­lotte Moor­house (Employ­ment), Sanjeet Johal (Real Estate), Sarah Gabbai (Tax; all London), Hanne­lore Wiame (Anti­trust and Compe­ti­tion, Brussels)

HSA Lawy­ers: Gert-Jan van Dalen, Eva Roel­andt (Dutch law)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,200 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: https://www.mwe.com/de/

 

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