ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Möglin­gen (Germany)/ London (UK) — Thoma Bravo, a leading soft­ware invest­ment company, has successfully comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the USU Product busi­ness. USU GmbH (“USU Product”) is the Euro­pean market leader in IT manage­ment solu­ti­ons, with the core areas of IT service manage­ment, IT asset manage­ment, IT opera­ti­ons manage­ment and know­ledge manage­ment. Thoma Bravo is now the new majo­rity share­hol­der in USU Product to acce­le­rate growth and product inno­va­tion. As a result of the closing of the tran­sac­tion, the USU Product busi­ness will operate as an inde­pen­dent unit with more than 600 employees to drive the deve­lo­p­ment, imple­men­ta­tion, support and main­ten­ance of its strong product port­fo­lio. Under the leader­ship of Dr. Benja­min Strehl, the exis­ting manage­ment team will conti­nue to run the busi­ness to ensure conti­nuity for custo­mers. Bern­hard Ober­schmidt, CEO of USU Soft­ware AG, will also be a member of the Board of Direc­tors within the new holding struc­ture of USU Product. “With the closing of the tran­sac­tion, we are now fully focu­sed on expan­ding the USU plat­form and further deve­lo­ping our solu­tion offe­ring to create more value for our custo­mers,” says Benja­min Strehl, CEO of USU Product. “We are plea­sed to announce the closing of our second tran­sac­tion in the DACH region this year,” says Irina Hemmers, Part­ner at Thoma Bravo (Photo: Thoma Bravo). “We see nume­rous oppor­tu­ni­ties to further invest in the regio­nal tech­no­logy ecosys­tem and expand our port­fo­lio. The tran­sac­tion is an important mile­stone in our part­ner­ship with USU Product. Toge­ther, we will now conti­nue to scale and inno­vate the company.” Debt finan­cing for the tran­sac­tion is being provi­ded by funds advi­sed by Morgan Stan­ley Private Credit , clients of Guggen­heim Invest­ments and HSBC Inno­va­tion Banking UK.

About Thoma Bravo

Thoma Bravo is one of the largest soft­ware inves­tors in the world with more than USD 166 billion in assets under manage­ment (as of Septem­ber 30, 2024). The company uses private equity, growth equity and credit stra­te­gies to invest in growth-orien­ted, inno­va­tive compa­nies opera­ting in the soft­ware and tech­no­logy sectors. Thoma Bravo lever­a­ges its deep indus­try know­ledge and proven stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal capa­bi­li­ties to work with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to imple­ment best prac­ti­ces in opera­ti­ons and drive growth initia­ti­ves. Over the past 20+ years, the company has acqui­red or inves­ted in more than 500 compa­nies with an enter­prise value of over $265 billion, inclu­ding both control­ling and non-control­ling invest­ments. The company has offices in Chicago, Dallas, London, Miami, New York and San Fran­cisco. www.thomabravo.com

About USU Soft­ware AG

As a leading provi­der of soft­ware and services for IT and custo­mer service manage­ment, USU enables compa­nies to master the chal­lenges of today’s digi­tal world. Global orga­niza­ti­ons use our solu­ti­ons to cut costs, become more agile and reduce risk — with smar­ter services, simp­ler work­flows and better colla­bo­ra­tion. With more than 45 years of expe­ri­ence and loca­ti­ons world­wide, the USU team brings custo­mers into the future. The USU Digi­tal Consul­ting busi­ness unit remains a wholly owned subsi­diary of USU Soft­ware AG.
http://www.usu.com

News

Munich / Zurich — Liberta Part­ners, a Munich-based multi-family holding company, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Avenir Group AG, a leading provi­der of HR outsour­cing services and digi­tal solu­ti­ons head­quar­te­red in Switz­er­land. The part­ners and key execu­ti­ves have also inves­ted signi­fi­cantly in the company. The tran­sac­tion is an important mile­stone in Avenir Group’s growth stra­tegy and enables both further geogra­phic expan­sion and the streng­thening of digi­tal capa­bi­li­ties. Avenir Group was foun­ded in 2005 and is today a trus­ted part­ner for compa­nies with a wide range of HR outsour­cing services, inclu­ding assess­ment, trai­ning, consul­ting and other HR outsour­cing solu­ti­ons. With around 140 employees, Avenir serves small and medium-sized compa­nies as well as large corpo­ra­ti­ons. Toge­ther with the manage­ment, Liberta Part­ners will focus on the acce­le­ra­ted expan­sion and further deve­lo­p­ment of Avenir Group’s digi­tal “HR hub” plat­form. In addi­tion, the company’s digi­tal compe­ten­cies will be further expan­ded to better support compa­nies in opti­mi­zing and digi­tiz­ing their HR proces­ses. The part­ner­ship with Liberta Part­ners will enable the Avenir Group to tap into new market segments more quickly and drive forward its digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. A central focus is on the deve­lo­p­ment and inte­gra­tion of new soft­ware solu­ti­ons and the expan­sion of stra­te­gic part­ner­ships with leading HR soft­ware provi­ders. In this way, the Group aims to broa­den its service port­fo­lio and streng­then custo­mer loyalty. The Avenir Group is also plan­ning to expand into the German and western Swiss markets. To this end, the exis­ting service offe­ring will be adapted to the needs of new custo­mers in these regi­ons and the geogra­phi­cal presence will be expan­ded through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. “The part­ner­ship with Liberta Part­ners opens up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for us to drive and acce­le­rate our growth. Toge­ther, we will streng­then our market posi­tion and support even more compa­nies in making their HR proces­ses more effi­ci­ent and future-proof with the help of digi­tal and AI-supported services,” says Chris­toph Kohler, CEO of Avenir Group AG. “Avenir fits perfectly with our philo­so­phy of inves­t­ing in dyna­mic compa­nies with strong growth poten­tial. We see great poten­tial in the combi­na­tion of Avenir’s compre­hen­sive and strong service port­fo­lio and our exper­tise in corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment,” adds Florian Korp, Part­ner at Liberta Part­ners.

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. The company makes targe­ted invest­ments in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries, parti­cu­larly in succes­sion situa­tions and group spin-offs, with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. These compa­nies are actively deve­lo­ped as part of the “100% Core & Care” concept and bene­fit from the entre­pre­neu­rial exper­tise of Liberta Part­ners. The Liberta Part­ners team consists of 20 employees working in the areas of M&A, Corpo­rate Deve­lo­p­ment and Legal & Admi­nis­tra­tion, supported by an active indus­try advi­sory board. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at: www.liberta-partners.com About Avenir Group AG

Avenir Group AG is a leading provi­der of HR services in Switz­er­land and specia­li­zes in provi­ding tailor-made solu­ti­ons in the areas of HR consul­ting, assess­ment, trai­ning and outsour­cing. With inno­va­tive plat­forms such as “HR-Hub” and “Zeugnis.ch”, Avenir offers forward-looking solu­ti­ons for the chal­lenges of modern HR depart­ments. Compa­nies invol­ved in the transaction:
Liberta Part­ners: Florian Korp (Photo: Liberta Part­ners), Dr. Chris­tian Szcze­syn, Baran Yagiz Atmaca Legal Team: Adves­tra (Dr. Alex­an­der von Jein­sen, Beda Kauf­mann, Göktug Gürbez, Annina Hammer) HR Tech / Digi­ta­liza­tion: Work­Tech Advi­sory (Jens Bender) Tax DD: Adves­tra (Laurent Ried­weg, Dr. Jan Selt­mann) Commer­cial DD: Telescope Advi­sory (Ludwig Prel­ler, Seve­rin Forst­ner, Stefan Kupka) Finan­cial DD: 8advisory (Patric Roth, Thomas Lagler)

News

Stock­holm — Sensire, a Finnish company backed by Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”), announ­ces the acqui­si­tion of ZONITH A/S (“ZONITH”), a Danish provi­der of person­nel secu­rity soft­ware with an inter­na­tio­nal presence. This acqui­si­tion is a first step in Sensire’s buy-and-build stra­tegy to expand its presence in the HSEQ (Health, Safety, Envi­ron­ment, and Quality) market. The stra­te­gic combi­na­tion of the two compa­nies aims to create a strong force in the wider HSEQ market in North West Europe. ZONITH, head­quar­te­red in Copen­ha­gen, Denmark, provi­des a plat­form for employee safety and lone worker protec­tion. The company’s proprie­tary plat­form inte­gra­tes wire­less indoor posi­tio­ning, GPS track­ing and smart­phone appli­ca­ti­ons to ensure the safety of employees in diffe­rent envi­ron­ments. The company prima­rily serves the Danish market, but is incre­asingly present in Norway, Sweden and other parts of Europe, working with well-known custo­mers such as Arla, the City of Copen­ha­gen and HSBC Bank. Sensire, head­quar­te­red in Joen­suu, Finland, is a leading provi­der of HSEQ soft­ware with a focus on medi­cal and food safety. Its plat­form supports custo­mers such as Attendo, Fazer and Essote with tools for condi­tion moni­to­ring, task manage­ment and docu­ment manage­ment, helping them to comply with strict regu­la­tory standards. 

Driving stra­te­gic growth

The acqui­si­tion expands Sensire’s product range by inte­gra­ting ZONITH’s person­nel secu­rity solu­ti­ons, enhan­cing the company’s value propo­si­tion to new and exis­ting custo­mers. This stra­te­gic move streng­thens Sensire’s compe­ti­tive posi­tion in the HSEQ market by opening up new oppor­tu­ni­ties in the market and provi­ding a more compre­hen­sive offe­ring to its custo­mers. With ZONITH’s estab­lished presence in Denmark and growing presence in Norway, Sweden and beyond, the acqui­si­tion furthers Sensire’s geogra­phic expan­sion stra­tegy in Northwes­tern Europe and crea­tes a more solid foun­da­tion for future inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. Custo­mers of both compa­nies will bene­fit from inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons that address new secu­rity and regu­la­tory chal­lenges and promote over­all custo­mer satis­fac­tion and loyalty. Jonas Bäck­man (photo © Main Capi­tal), Sr. Invest­ment Mana­ger at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, empha­si­zes the stra­te­gic importance of the acqui­si­tion: “The acqui­si­tion of ZONITH is a signi­fi­cant step in our part­ner­ship with Sensire, which has been in place since May 2023. This stra­te­gic combi­na­tion streng­thens the Group’s posi­tion in the Nordic market, expands the product range from food safety to medi­cal safety and person­nel safety and lays the foun­da­tion for further growth in Northwes­tern Europe.” Jp Asika­i­nen, CEO of Sensire, adds: “The acqui­si­tion of ZONITH is an important mile­stone in Sensire’s jour­ney to expand and streng­then its presence in the HSEQ indus­try in Europe. By combi­ning our exper­tise in medi­cal and food safety with ZONITH’s advan­ced solu­ti­ons for person­nel safety and lone worker protec­tion, we are uniquely posi­tio­ned to deli­ver compre­hen­sive safety and compli­ance tools to our custo­mers. This move not only expands our geogra­phic reach in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and beyond, but also increa­ses the value we provide to orga­niza­ti­ons working in highly regu­la­ted and safety-criti­cal envi­ron­ments. Toge­ther, we are crea­ting safer work­places while simpli­fy­ing compli­ance for our custo­mers.” Kris­tian Hart­vig Sties­mark, CEO of ZONITH, said: “We at ZONITH are deligh­ted to join Sensire, led by Main Capi­tal Part­ners, and we look forward to working with the Sensire team to not only expand our offe­ring to clients, but also to streng­then our geogra­phic market presence. With the exper­tise of Main Capi­tal Part­ners and Sensire, we aim to drive expan­sion and foster further growth in the Euro­pean health and safety market. 

About Sensire

Sensire is a leading provi­der of medi­cal and food safety soft­ware with appro­xi­m­ately 25 employees and head­quar­ters in Joen­suu, Finland. Foun­ded in 2007 by Jp Asika­i­nen, Sensire has a long track record of deli­ve­ring high-quality medi­cal and food safety solu­ti­ons to both the private and public sectors. With over 400 custo­mers, Sensire is one of the leading provi­ders in this field. www.sensire.com

About ZONITH A/S

ZONITH was foun­ded in 2000 and is head­quar­te­red in Copen­ha­gen, Denmark. The company offers solu­ti­ons for employees who need to protect them­sel­ves against thre­ats and violence in their working envi­ron­ment. The discreet solu­ti­ons enable fast and relia­ble aler­ting and work seam­lessly both indoors and outdoors. ZONITH’s solu­ti­ons are desi­gned to protect person­nel in various sectors such as muni­ci­pa­li­ties, regi­ons, psych­ia­try, health­care, indus­try, retail and many other areas through a flexi­ble and cost-effec­tive person­nel secu­rity system. https://ZONITH.com

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds active in Northwest Europe and North America. Main has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in soft­ware inves­t­ing and works closely with the manage­ment teams in its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to build profi­ta­ble growth and larger, outstan­ding soft­ware groups. Main employs 80 people and has offices in The Hague, Stock­holm, Düssel­dorf, Antwerp and an affi­lia­ted office in Boston. Main has appro­xi­m­ately €6 billion in assets under manage­ment and curr­ently has an active port­fo­lio of over 46 soft­ware compa­nies. Toge­ther, these compa­nies employ around 15,000 people.

News

Frank­furt — EQT has acqui­red ju:niz Energy GmbH. The acqui­si­tion of ju:niz Energy GmbH is the first tran­sac­tion in the context of EQT’s new Tran­si­tion Infra­struc­ture stra­tegy. As part of this stra­tegy, EQT will provide capi­tal as well as indus­trial and tech­no­lo­gi­cal know-how and sustaina­bi­lity exper­tise to support the growth of compa­nies and the trans­for­ma­tion to a decar­bo­ni­zed and climate-resi­li­ent future. 

ju:niz Energy GmbH, based in Germany, deve­lops, builds and opera­tes grid-connec­ted battery storage systems in accordance with the latest tech­ni­cal stan­dards. The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons and approvals. 

EQT is a global invest­ment firm with total assets under manage­ment of EUR 246 billion (EUR 134 billion in fee-earning assets), divi­ded into two busi­ness segments: Private Capi­tal and Real Assets. EQT owns port­fo­lio compa­nies and assets in the Ameri­cas, Europe and Asia Paci­fic and supports them in achie­ving sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and market leadership. 

Advi­sor EQT: Gibson Dunn

Dr. Dirk Ober­bracht, Part­ner, Dr. Jan Schu­bert, Part­ner (both Frank­furt), Asso­cia­tes Dr. Dennis Seif­arth (Munich), Simon Stöhl­ker and Lisa Holl­fel­der (both Frank­furt) as well as London Part­ners Feder­ico Fruh­beck and Alice Brogi and Of Coun­sel Cason Moore (all London).

Part­ner Dr. Georg Weiden­bach and asso­cia­tes Dr. Andreas Mild­ner and Jan Voll­kam­mer (all Frank­furt) advi­sed on anti­trust and FDI aspects, part­ner Benja­min Rapp (Frank­furt and Munich) and asso­ciate Daniel Reich (Frank­furt) on tax aspects. Part­ner Sebas­tian Schoon and asso­ciate Bastiaan Wolters (both Frank­furt) advi­sed on finan­cial aspects and part­ner Kai Giesing (Munich) on IP issues. 

About Gibson Dunn

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the world’s top law firms in indus­try surveys and by major publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,900 lawy­ers in 21 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn’s offices are loca­ted in Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, Riyadh, San Fran­cisco, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit our website.

News

Rostock/ Tübingen/ Düssel­dorf — ARQIS has provi­ded legal advice to the share­hol­ders of Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH (MTR) on the sale of a majo­rity stake to SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH. SHS acqui­res the share­hol­ding for its sixth fund gene­ra­tion (SHS IV) and thus secu­res the corpo­rate succes­sion of MTR. The two previous share­hol­ders and mana­ging direc­tors of MTR will remain asso­cia­ted with MTR through a signi­fi­cant share­hol­ding. The parties invol­ved have agreed not to disc­lose further details, such as the purchase price. Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH, with main loca­ti­ons in Rostock and Berlin, is a medium-sized company that supplies pati­ents with therapy devices for home use. MTR is one of the leading therapy and reha­bi­li­ta­tion provi­ders and, as a part­ner of 80 health insu­rance compa­nies, carried out over 140,000 treat­ments in move­ment, elec­tri­cal and compres­sion therapy in 2023. SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH, based in Tübin­gen, is a private equity fund that specia­li­zes in invest­ments in the health­care sector. SHS is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which was laun­ched in 2022 and has a volume of around 270 million euros. The share­hol­ders and MTR have been advi­sed on health­care law for many years by a team from D+B Rechts­an­wälte Part­ner­schaft mbB led by Dr. Ulrich Grau, who recom­men­ded ARQIS for this tran­sac­tion. The team led by Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze then prevai­led in a pitch. 

Advi­sor Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead Part­ner), Seve­rin Stef­fens (Mana­ging Asso­ciate, both Tran­sac­tions), Part­ners: Thomas Chwa­lek (Tran­sac­tions), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping, Dennis Reisich (both Tax), Anja Mehr­tens (HR Law), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Tim Brese­mann, Diana Pucho­wezki (both Real Estate), Daniel Schle­mann (Data Law), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial), Rolf Tichy (IP), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Pensi­ons), Asso­cia­tes: Rebecca Gester (Commer­cial), Thomas Lipsky (IP), Jasmin Grünen (Tran­sac­tions), Sabine Müller, Dr. Hendrik Völker­ding (both HR Law), Senior Legal Specia­list: Qing Xia (Tran­sac­tions) D+B (Berlin)

Dr. Ulrich Grau (lead), Nicole Jesche, Tatjana Teter­ju­kow, Fran­ziska Dick­mann (all Health Law), Dr. Sabrina Neuen­dorf (Data Protec­tion Law) About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firm opera­ting internationally.

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

News

Frank­furt am Main / Garrel — Frank­furt-based private equity firm VR Equi­typ­art­ner (“VREP”) has sold its signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in Euro­pean Conve­ni­ence Food GmbH (“ECF”), a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality frozen food products, to the French food group Lambert Dodard Chan­cer­eul (“LDC Group”). As part of the tran­sac­tion, LDC Group, one of the Euro­pean market leaders in the poul­try sector and in the produc­tion of fresh and frozen conve­ni­ence products, which is majo­rity family-owned and listed on the Paris stock exch­ange, is acqui­ring the shares of all inves­tors in full. Some members of the ECF manage­ment team will conti­nue to be invol­ved in the form of a re-invest­ment. The ECF Group was formed in 2014 through the merger of the compa­nies Karl Kemper Conve­ni­ence GmbH (“Karl Kemper”) and Eich­kamp GmbH & Co. KG (“Eich­kamp”) and has deve­lo­ped into a leading player in the out-of-home cate­ring sector. The product range compri­ses over 230 products, which are sold under the Vegeta, Karl Kemper and new leaf brands. ECF also offers custo­mi­zed deep-freeze solu­ti­ons for the food proces­sing indus­try as well as indi­vi­dual private label products. The inno­va­tive vege­ta­rian product range has been parti­cu­larly successful in recent years — in line with the social mega­trend of an incre­asingly meat-free diet. In 2023, the Group gene­ra­ted conso­li­da­ted sales of almost 80 million euros, of which around 50% was attri­bu­ta­ble to the vege­ta­rian product range. VREP became the largest single inves­tor in 2013 with a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake and, toge­ther with a group of inves­tors, merged the two medium-sized compe­ti­tors Karl Kemper and Eich­kamp under the umbrella of the newly foun­ded ECF as part of a “buy-and-build” stra­tegy. In the follo­wing years, VREP consis­t­ently supported the manage­ment team in the inte­gra­tion of both compa­nies, the realignment and strin­gent imple­men­ta­tion of the growth stra­tegy as well as a targe­ted repo­si­tio­ning of the product range, as a result of which ECF achie­ved a market-leading posi­tion and at the same time took a leading posi­tion in the growing market for vege­ta­rian and vegan frozen products. “Toge­ther with the manage­ment team and our co-inves­tors, we have achie­ved a great deal in recent years and crea­ted profi­ta­ble, sustainable growth,” explains Peter Sachse, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner (photo: VREP). “With its excel­lent product quality, the consis­tent expan­sion of the vege­ta­rian and vegan segment and an outstan­ding opera­tio­nal set-up, ECF is ideally equip­ped for this deman­ding market. I am convin­ced that we have found the ideal part­ner for ECF’s next phase of growth in the LDC Group.” Bruno Lafon, CEO of LDC Inter­na­tio­nal: “The acqui­si­tion of ECF enables us to enter the stra­te­gi­cally important German market. We are deligh­ted that in ECF we have found an ideal plat­form company for further growth, whose strength and exper­tise in the out-of-home food market will greatly enrich us. Not only are we an excel­lent stra­te­gic fit, we also share common values and visi­ons for the future.” 

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the contract.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner at a glance

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 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.vrep.de. LDC at a glance

LDC (Lambert Dodard Chan­cer­eul) is a French family busi­ness specia­li­zing in the proces­sing and distri­bu­tion of poul­try and the produc­tion of fresh and frozen deli­ca­tes­sen products. With 102 loca­ti­ons, 25,000 employees and a turno­ver of 6.2 billion euros, the LDC Group is one of the Euro­pean market leaders in the poul­try sector and is repre­sen­ted in France, Poland, Hungary, Belgium and the United King­dom. The company markets its products under the Loué, Le Gaulois, Maître CoQ, Doux, Marie, Tradi­ti­ons d’Asie, Drosed and Nature et Respect brands. Its mission: to promote food sove­reig­nty while respec­ting people and nature. The LDC Group is listed on the Paris stock exch­ange and is expe­ri­en­cing sustainable, balan­ced and control­led growth, both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons in Europe. The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team: Daniel Seifert, Chris­tof Schmitt, Chris­tian Ockenfuß 

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VREP:

M&A: Houli­han Lokey (James Scal­lan) Legal: Noerr (Dr. Martin Neuhaus, Florian Döpking) Finance and Tax: Deloitte (Stefan Götzen) Commer­cial: Roland Berger (Martin Weissbart)

News

Zurich/ Unter­kulm — The KWC Group, premium specia­list for sani­tary room equip­ment, fittings and water manage­ment systems and part of the Equis­tone Funds port­fo­lio since 2021, is selling its OEM divi­sion, Nokite EcoSmart Water Heating Systems (Guang­dong) Co. (“Nokite”), to the Swiss Franke Group. KWC is thus successfully reali­zing the final step in its stra­te­gic focus on the core area of profes­sio­nal sani­tary room equip­ment, which is aimed in parti­cu­lar at (semi-)public faci­li­ties and busi­nesses. Supported by the Equis­tone funds as majo­rity share­hol­der, KWC intends to further exploit the high market poten­tial in this area and expand the busi­ness with full concen­tra­tion. Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe acqui­red a majo­rity stake in KWC Group in April 2021. As part of its new stra­te­gic focus, the KWC Group successfully sold its KWC Medi­cal divi­sion with products for the medi­cal sector to the Alum­bra Group in Janu­ary 2024. This was follo­wed in summer 2024 by the sale of the Home divi­sion with its high-quality bath­room and kitchen fittings for the private sector to the Italian sani­tary specia­list Paini. 

With around 150 employees, Nokite is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality private label kitchen fittings, which deli­vers world­wide from China and acts as a high-quality OEM supplier. Follo­wing the successful sale to the Franke Group, Nokite will now be inte­gra­ted into the busi­ness divi­sion of the leading inter­na­tio­nal supplier of kitchen equip­ment, appli­ances and access­ories, which is aimed in parti­cu­lar at private end custo­mers. In future, KWC will focus on the profes­sio­nal busi­ness, which serves (semi-)public insti­tu­ti­ons such as airports, shop­ping centers, schools, sports and leisure faci­li­ties as well as hospi­tals and secu­rity faci­li­ties. The company has loca­ti­ons in Switz­er­land, Germany, the UK, Austria, Finland and the Middle East and curr­ently employs around 400 people. Marten van der Mei, CEO of the KWC Group, and Viktor Bern­hardt, CFO, empha­size the stra­te­gic importance of this step: “The sale of the inde­pen­dent OEM divi­sion enables us to focus our resour­ces and exper­tise enti­rely on the successful profes­sio­nal busi­ness. This area offers enorm­ous market poten­tial and we want to further expand our posi­tion as a leading provi­der for (semi-)public insti­tu­ti­ons with inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons and the highest quality.” David Zahnd, Part­ner at Equis­tone, empha­si­zes: “With the sale of Nokite, KWC has successfully comple­ted its stra­te­gic realignment and can now fully focus on expan­ding the profi­ta­ble growth of the Profes­sio­nal busi­ness.” On the Equis­tone side, Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Roman E. Hegglin were invol­ved in an advi­sory capacity. 

Advi­sor Equistone:
DC Advi­sory (M&A) and Bär & Karrer (Legal & Tax). About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are among the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with an expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment team opera­ting across Europe in a total of seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds prima­rily invest in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million.

Since its foun­da­tion in 2002, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. More infor­ma­tion at www.equistonepe.com.

News

Berlin — YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the lead inves­tors Amadeus APEX Tech­no­logy Fund and Atlan­tic Labs as well as the inves­tor NRW.Bank in the € 8.6 million pre-seed finan­cing round of the AI hard­ware start-up GEMESYS. The Sony Inno­va­tion Fund and the Sili­con Valley-based Plug and Play Tech Center also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round. Foun­ded in Bochum in 2021, the start-up offers an analog chip design based on the same
infor­ma­tion-proces­sing mecha­nisms as the human brain. This enables providers
of AI hard­ware to sell a new type of chip that trains neural networks 20,000 times more energy-efficiently
than current tech­no­lo­gies. With the new funding, GEMESYS will advance its rese­arch and expand its team,
to further deve­lop its novel chip architecture. 

Consul­tant GEMESYS: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Cologne
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Anna Eick­meier (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Pia Meven (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Laura Franke (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Project Lawyer, Cologne
Dr. Jonas von Kalben (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Boris Schin­zel (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax,
banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of
clients. These include up-and-coming tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run
medium-sized compa­nies as well as corpo­rate groups and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG
is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in
Germany. YPOG curr­ently employs more than 150 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors. www.ypog.law

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) has successfully comple­ted the capi­tal raising for DBAG ECF IV with invest­ment commit­ments of around 250 million euros — for which the DBAG team was able to convince new and exis­ting inves­tors in recent months. The volume raised by DBAG ECF IV has more than doubled compared to its prede­ces­sor fund, DBAG ECF III (DBAG ECF III: EUR 106 million fund volume). DBAG ECF IV increa­ses the assets mana­ged or advi­sed by DBAG to 2.7 billion euros. DBAG and members of the DBAG Invest­ment Advi­sory Team are invol­ved with a signi­fi­cant co-invest­ment. As the majo­rity share­hol­der, DBAG ECF IV invests in family-run medium-sized compa­nies with an initial invest­ment volume of between 10 and 40 million euros. Through add-on acqui­si­ti­ons, for exam­ple, capi­tal increa­ses of up to 60 million euros can be imple­men­ted. The fund focu­ses on manage­ment buy-outs of family-run compa­nies in the context of succes­sion situa­tions and/or capi­tal increa­ses. Carve-outs of one or more busi­ness units from larger groups are also possi­ble. In addi­tion, DBAG ECF IV gene­rally aims to acquire a majo­rity stake over a period of around five years. The fund’s invest­ment period runs until the end of 2028 and it is plan­ned to make up to five further invest­ments in addi­tion to the five exis­ting invest­ments. One of the active inves­tors in the German-spea­king Mittelstand

The initial tran­sac­tions of DBAG ECF IV were made between July 2023 and Octo­ber 2024 and contri­bute to two dedi­ca­ted mega­trends in the German-spea­king region. AOE, ProMik and UNITY AG are driving digi­ta­liza­tion and the asso­cia­ted increase in produc­ti­vity. While Avrio and TBD Tech­ni­sche Bau Dienst­leis­tun­gen are bene­fiting from the energy tran­si­tion in Germany. DBAG has expan­ded its sector focus in recent years to serve these indus­tries, which are charac­te­ri­zed by struc­tu­ral growth. Since then, the team has concen­tra­ted on compa­nies in the areas of IT services and soft­ware, health­care, envi­ron­ment, energy and infra­struc­ture as well as indus­trial services and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies, i.e. compa­nies that enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­ta­liza­tion. “Despite the chal­len­ging market situa­tion, we have mana­ged to convince exis­ting and new inves­tors. This is proba­bly even rela­ted to the macroe­co­no­mic situa­tion. After all, we have often proven in the past that our team can iden­tify and successfully deve­lop attrac­tive medium-sized compa­nies even in a chal­len­ging macroe­co­no­mic envi­ron­ment,” says Tom Alzin, Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG. DBAG ECF IV bene­fits greatly from being inte­gra­ted into the DBAG ecosys­tem. The company’s invest­ment advi­sory team draws on a very broad range of expe­ri­ence with regard to German SMEs and family-run compa­nies in parti­cu­lar. The funds advi­sed by DBAG offer these compa­nies not only succes­sion solu­ti­ons, of which around 11,000 are to be imple­men­ted in Germany alone by 2026, but also indi­vi­dual equity solutions. 

DBAG ECF IV will help DBAG to further conso­li­date its posi­tion as an inves­tor in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with attrac­tive deve­lo­p­ment potential.

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of Germany’s most renow­ned private equity compa­nies. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The sector focus is on produ­cers of indus­trial goods, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­ta­liza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the IT services and soft­ware, health­care, envi­ron­ment, energy and infra­struc­ture sectors. Since 2020, DBAG has also been repre­sen­ted in Italy with its own office in Milan. The assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to around 2.7 billion euros. As part of the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with ELF Capi­tal, DBAG is adding private debt capi­tal to its range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs. 

 

News

Berlin — POELLATH advi­ses Extan­tia Capi­tal on the launch of the Extan­tia Climate Flag­ship II fund with a fund volume of over EUR 200 million. Extan­tia Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“Extan­tia” or “Extan­tia Capi­tal”), a Berlin-based venture capi­tal inves­tor, has successfully closed its EuVECA fund Extan­tia Climate Flag­ship II at EUR 204 million, far excee­ding its target volume of EUR 150 million. With its climate tech fund, Extan­tia invests in young tech­no­logy compa­nies in the field of decar­bo­niza­tion. The invest­ment focus is on the areas of energy, indus­trial proces­ses, buil­dings, trans­por­ta­tion and tech­no­lo­gies for remo­ving CO2 alre­ady emit­ted from the atmo­sphere. Extan­tia Capi­tal uses its own sustaina­bi­lity center Extan­tia Ignite for its impact analy­ses. This brings toge­ther scien­tists, ESG and sustaina­bi­lity experts to create trans­pa­rency and science-based guidance for the climate inno­va­tion ecosys­tem. Extan­tia has also estab­lished its own impact guide­lines for the purpose of funding. Accor­ding to this, part of the fund manager’s remu­ne­ra­tion is linked to the achie­ve­ment of pre-defi­ned sustaina­bi­lity targets. The inves­tor base of the Extan­tia Climate Flag­ship II fund includes major insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF), Land­wirt­schaft­li­che Renten­bank, the Danish Export Invest­ment Fund (EIFO), the Austrian Fede­ral Pension Fund and KfW Capi­tal, as well as the Alli­anz insu­rance group, indus­trial compa­nies, well-known family offices and private indi­vi­du­als. Advi­sors: POELLATH advi­sed Extan­tia Capi­tal on all contrac­tual, tax and regu­la­tory aspects of the fund struc­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion as well as on the inves­tor nego­tia­ti­ons with the follo­wing Berlin team:

Dr. Philip Schwarz van Berk, LL.M. (London) (Part­ner, Lead, Private Funds)
Ronald Buge (Part­ner, Tax / Private Funds)
Nele Frie (Senior Asso­ciate, Private Funds)
Katha­rina Hammer (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)

www.pplaw.com

 

News

Munich — Since 2021, Parcel2Go has taken a leading posi­tion in the UK parcel deli­very system and made signi­fi­cant invest­ments in its tech­no­logy infra­struc­ture and opera­ting struc­ture. Parcel2Go (“the Company”), the parcel deli­very market­place and e‑commerce ship­ping plat­form, today announ­ced a change of owner­ship from EQT Mid Market Europe (“EQT”) and mino­rity inves­tors to a new inves­tor group. Parcel2Go was acqui­red in June 2021 and has estab­lished a leading posi­tion in the parcel deli­very market thanks to its commit­ment to custo­mer service and inno­va­tion. Since 2021, the company has expan­ded its smart send offe­ring and acqui­red new stra­te­gic custo­mers in the digi­tal part­ner solu­ti­ons space. The company has also made signi­fi­cant invest­ments in its tech­no­lo­gi­cal infra­struc­ture and opera­tio­nal struc­ture. Paul Doble, CEO of Parcel2Go, said: “Parcel2Go is an outstan­ding busi­ness and this tran­sac­tion posi­ti­ons us to deli­ver strong and sustainable perfor­mance over the coming years. We are grateful to our previous and current inves­tors for their support. We look forward to remai­ning at the heart of the UK parcel deli­very system as we embark on our next phase of growth.” Rikke Niel­sen (photo © EQT), Part­ner in EQT Private Equity’s advi­sory team, said: “We would like to thank the manage­ment team and all employees of Parcel2Go for their dedi­ca­tion and hard work over the past years. The company is well posi­tio­ned to conti­nue crea­ting real value for custo­mers, carri­ers and part­ners going forward.” The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons and approvals. 

About EQT

EQT is a purpose-driven global invest­ment orga­niza­tion with total assets under manage­ment of EUR 246 billion (EUR 134 billion in fee-earning assets), mana­ged in two busi­ness segments — Private Capi­tal and Real Assets. EQT owns port­fo­lio compa­nies and assets in Europe, Asia Paci­fic and the Ameri­cas and supports them in achie­ving sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and market leader­ship. Trans­la­ted with DeepL.com (free version)

News

Gütersloh/Paderborn/Bielefeld/Detmold — High­Light Capi­tal (HLC), a private equity fund from China specia­li­zing in the health­care and biotech sectors, has acqui­red a stake in the biotech company ITM Isotope Tech­no­lo­gies Munich SE (ITM). ITM is a leading radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal biotech company head­quar­te­red in Munich. BRANDI Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed High­Light Capi­tal on the invest­ment in biotech company ITM. With its stra­te­gic invest­ment, High­Light Capi­tal under­lines its commit­ment to finding invest­ments in high-growth compa­nies in the radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal sector. High­Light Capi­tal is a private invest­ment firm dedi­ca­ted to crea­ting long-term value by foste­ring tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tion. In selec­ting suita­ble compa­nies, HLC draws on in-depth know­ledge of chemis­try, biology and mate­ri­als science, utili­zing its own indus­try rese­arch and compre­hen­sive services. HLC curr­ently mana­ges over 3.8 billion US dollars and is repre­sen­ted in major finan­cial centers such as Tokyo, Shang­hai, Hong Kong and Boston. High­Light Capi­tal recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice on the inter­na­tio­nal private equity tran­sac­tion from a cross-loca­tion M&A team of the law firm BRANDI Rechts­an­wälte led by Güters­loh part­ner Dr. Cars­ten Chris­to­phery. Advi­sor High­Light Capi­tal, Shang­hai, China: BRANDI Rechts­an­wälte Gütersloh/Paderborn/Bielefeld/Detmold

Dr. Cars­ten Chris­to­phery, Part­ner (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Dr. Franz Tepper, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Dr. Sörren Kiene, Part­ner (Commer­cial), Gütersloh
Dr. Chris­toph Worms, Part­ner (Public Law), Paderborn
Dr. Rüdi­ger Osten, Part­ner (Commer­cial), Detmold
Jannis Riedl, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Dr. Clemens Meyer, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Feli­cia Deppe-Hietel, Asso­ciate (Public Law), Pader­born Advi­sor ITM Isotope Tech­no­lo­gies Munich SE: JFB Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH, Münsing
Dr. Justus Fritz Binder, Part­ner (Lead, Corporate/M&A)
Frank Mizera, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A)

News

Tübin­gen — SHS Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the German medi­cal tech­no­logy company Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock (MTR) with its sixth fund gene­ra­tion (SHS VI). The aim of the invest­ment is to further grow the core busi­ness and to support the nati­on­wide expan­sion that has alre­ady been initia­ted. One and a half years after final closing, SHS VI has thus inves­ted over 50% of the fund’s investa­ble capi­tal. The medium-sized company Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH was foun­ded in 1994, employs around 200 people and focu­ses on the provi­sion of therapy devices for home use. As a quality leader in Germany, MTR is a part­ner of over 80 health insu­rance compa­nies and carried out over 140,000 treat­ments in the areas of move­ment, elec­tri­cal and compres­sion therapy in 2023. Of the three appli­ca­tion areas in which MTR is active, move­ment therapy is the largest area. The conti­nuous passive motion (CPM) devices are used to help pati­ents restore joint mobi­lity after opera­ti­ons such as knee and hip repla­ce­ments or shoulder and elbow surgery. Another area is elec­tro­the­rapy. Here, elec­tri­cal impul­ses are used to stimu­late muscles, reli­eve pain or treat neuro­lo­gi­cal disor­ders. The newest area is compres­sion therapy. The focus here is on the treat­ment of lymph­oedema and venous disor­ders. Using inter­mit­tent pneu­ma­tic compres­sion (IPC) devices, sequen­tial pres­sure is applied to the affec­ted areas to improve circu­la­tion and reduce swel­ling. If a doctor prescri­bes therapy with an MTR therapy device for a pati­ent as part of the reco­very process, the costs are usually covered by health insu­rance. The therapy devices are then deli­vered to pati­ents for the requi­red reha­bi­li­ta­tion phase as part of a rental busi­ness model. The company also has the neces­sary service and trai­ning staff to make it easier for pati­ents to start therapy and use the devices or to cali­brate the device precis­ely to the indi­vi­dual requi­re­ments of each pati­ent. This service is carried out by MTR’s own staff and thus guaran­tees not only consis­t­ently high quality and pati­ent care, but also fast and indi­vi­dual deli­veries to the respec­tive pati­ents. Thanks to this high quality of service, MTR enjoys an excel­lent repu­ta­tion among prescrib­ing doctors and has been able to conti­nuously increase its supply figu­res in recent years. “Toge­ther with SHS, MTR will realize an important step on its expan­sion and growth path. We look forward to the support of SHS through their sector exper­tise and network in the health­care sector and hope to be able to successfully support even more pati­ents throug­hout Germany in their health reco­very proces­ses through close coope­ra­tion with SHS,” explains MTR share­hol­der Andreas Mark­schies. “I am very plea­sed that we have found the right part­ner for our company, who under­stands and respects our company history and will support us in achie­ving our further goals,” says MTR share­hol­der Matthias Liewehr. 

“We are deligh­ted to have the oppor­tu­nity to support the contin­ued growth of MTR. Since its foun­da­tion 30 years ago, the focus has always been on opti­mal pati­ent care, which has estab­lished MTR as a quality leader in its therapy segments. We want to conti­nue this success story toge­ther with the manage­ment and thus give even more pati­ents access to these therapy opti­ons. We will bene­fit from our exper­tise and expe­ri­ence in the home­care sector, which we have alre­ady demons­tra­ted in other invest­ments, such as our previous invest­ment in Medi­groba GmbH,” says SHS Capi­tal Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger Tobias Fuchs. About Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH (MTR)

Foun­ded in 1994, Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH is a medium-sized company for pati­ent care with medi­cal products, medi­cal tech­no­logy and medi­cal aids in the fields of move­ment, elec­tro and compres­sion therapy. The company employs a total of around 200 people at its main sites in Rostock and Berlin as well as in its nati­on­wide sales force. The focus of its acti­vi­ties is the provi­sion of medi­cal aids in the home envi­ron­ment. For many years, MTR has been a contrac­tual part­ner of almost all statu­tory health insu­rance funds, employ­ers’ liabi­lity insu­rance asso­cia­ti­ons and other service provi­ders. https://mtronline.de/ About SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH

SHS is a private equity inves­tor foun­ded in 1993 that makes invest­ments in health­care compa­nies in Europe.

The focus of invest­ments is on expan­sion finan­cing, share­hol­der chan­ges and succes­sion situa­tions. “Buil­ding Euro­pean Health­care Cham­pi­ons” is the invest­ment philo­so­phy accor­ding to which SHS finan­ces and deve­lops port­fo­lio compa­nies. The Tübin­gen-based inves­tor is taking both mino­rity and majo­rity stakes. SHS funds’ natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors include pension funds, funds of funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, stra­te­gic inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and the SHS manage­ment team. The equity or equity-like invest­ment of the AIF amounts to up to € 50 million. Volu­mes in excess of this can be reali­zed with a network of co-inves­tors. In its invest­ment decis­i­ons, SHS places strong empha­sis on the conside­ra­tion of ESG aspects and has ther­e­fore commit­ted itself to the guide­lines of the UN PRI. SHS is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which was laun­ched in 2022 and has a volume of around € 270 million. http://www.shs-capital.eu

News

Frank­furt a. M. — The Munich, Frank­furt and New York offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have advi­sed Supe­rior Indus­tries Group, a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of alumi­num wheels for the auto­mo­tive indus­try, on the successful comple­tion of the restruc­tu­ring of its Euro­pean business.

As part of the restruc­tu­ring process, the German subsi­diary Supe­rior Indus­tries Produc­tion Germany GmbH was placed under protec­tive shield procee­dings. After it was not possi­ble to restruc­ture the Werdohl site due to the econo­mic condi­ti­ons, the Supe­rior Indus­tries Group succee­ded in relo­ca­ting produc­tion from Werdohl to Poland within an extre­mely tight time­frame. During the relo­ca­tion, deli­veries to OEM custo­mers were main­tai­ned in full. In addi­tion, the majo­rity of the employees affec­ted were able to find new employ­ment by setting up a trans­fer company. 

Prior to the restruc­tu­ring, Weil had alre­ady provi­ded legal advice to the company in connec­tion with the raising of new term loan finan­cing. Both Supe­rior Indus­tries Produc­tion Germany GmbH and other German Supe­rior Indus­tries group compa­nies were origi­nally invol­ved in this. As part of the restruc­tu­ring, Weil supported the corre­spon­ding imple­men­ta­tion of all restruc­tu­ring measu­res while conti­nuing the finan­cing. Paral­lel to the relo­ca­tion of produc­tion and the realignment of the Euro­pean busi­ness, the term loan finan­cing was then exten­ded in August 2024 to redeem a USD 200 million bond issued at the level of Supe­rior Indus­tries Inter­na­tio­nal, Inc. 

The restruc­tu­ring of the Euro­pean acti­vi­ties of the Supe­rior Indus­tries Group was one of Weil’s most important restruc­tu­ring manda­tes in Europe and once again demons­tra­tes the firm’s extra­or­di­nary exper­tise in trans­at­lan­tic restruc­tu­ring cases.

Advi­sor Supe­rior Indus­tries Group: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

The Weil team was led by Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt (Munich) and included part­ners Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Michael Hickey and Jessie Chiang (both Corpo­rate, New York), coun­sel Andreas Fogel (Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Matthias Eiden (Restruc­tu­ring, Frank­furt), Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe (Liti­ga­tion, Munich), Thomas Zimmer­mann (Finance, Munich) and Gero Pogrzeba (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt) as well as asso­cia­tes Caro­lin Vetter­mann (Tax, Munich), Dr. Chris­to­pher Schlet­ter (Corpo­rate, Munich), Hans-Chris­tian Mick (Finance, Frank­furt), Silvia Lengauer (Finance, Munich), Nico­las Nöller, Melina Husic (both Restruc­tu­ring, Frank­furt) and Daniel Mati­je­vic (Liti­ga­tion, Munich).

About Weil

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers. Weil has offices in New York, Boston, Brussels, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Munich, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Washing­ton, D.C. and Sili­con Valley. In Germany, the firm has two offices and around 60 lawyers/tax advi­sors in Frank­furt and Munich. The focus here is on provi­ding specia­li­zed advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal clients on cross-border private equity and M&A tran­sac­tions, high-profile liti­ga­tion manda­tes, complex restruc­tu­rings and finan­cings as well as tax struc­tu­ring. www.weil.com

News

Stutt­gart — Menold Bezler has advi­sed Filder­stadt-based rezemo GmbH on the sale of its coffee busi­ness, inclu­ding the word mark “rezemo”, to Colo­gne-based Gliss Caffee GmbH. The two foun­ders of rezemo, Stefan Zender and Julian Reitze, have estab­lished the sustainable wooden coffee capsu­les as a well-known coffee brand in the hotel and office sector via the TV show “Die Höhle der Löwen”. Follo­wing the sale of the coffee busi­ness, the foun­ders now want to concen­trate fully on sustainable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons under the “fore­wood” brand, which are alre­ady being used as alter­na­ti­ves to plas­tic and alumi­num in the food, cosme­tics and agri­cul­tu­ral indus­tries. Gliss Caffee is a family busi­ness foun­ded by Michael Gliss that roasts and sells coffee. The certi­fied orga­nic company relies on direct, fair imports and exclu­si­vely offers its own roasts from a German orga­nic roas­ting plant. Menold Bezler advi­sed rezemo on all tran­sac­tion-rela­ted legal issues.

Advi­sor rezemo GmbH: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)

Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Thomas Futte­rer (both lead), Linda Groß, Justus Häfner, Michelle Gutjahr, Lisa Marie Jäger (all Corporate/M&A), Isabelle Hörner (Commer­cial), Caro­lin Nemec, LL.M. (IT), Kath­rin Hoyer (Coun­sel, Employ­ment), Clemens Mauch (Part­ner), Laura Bommer (both Tax). (IT law), Kath­rin Hoyer (Coun­sel, employ­ment law), Clemens Mauch (Part­ner), Laura Bommer (both tax) About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a commer­cial law firm in Stutt­gart with a part­ner­ship struc­ture and around 350 employees. More than 140 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness advice from a single source. 

Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Munich — Oakley Capi­tal, a leading pan-Euro­pean private equity inves­tor, is inves­t­ing in Konzept & Marke­ting (“K & M”) through Oakley Capi­tal Fund V. K & M is a leading inde­pen­dent Mana­ging Gene­ral Agent (“MGA”) in the German perso­nal non-life insu­rance market. Oakley will invest along­side insu­rance vete­ran Joachim Müller, former CEO of Alli­anz Commer­cial, who will over­see a buy-and-build stra­tegy as Chair­man. K & M was foun­ded in 2001 and is based in Hano­ver. In Germany, K & M opera­tes as an under­wri­ting agent for private non-life insu­rance products (property, casu­alty, liabi­lity), a growing market curr­ently valued at €28 billion. K & M deve­lops, markets and mana­ges custo­mi­zed insu­rance products on behalf of insu­rance compa­nies in an asset-light model. About K & M

The company has seen contin­ued orga­nic growth driven by high and consis­tent rene­wal rates, thanks to the company’s repu­ta­tion for custo­mer care and focus on provi­ding inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons deli­vered through seam­less digi­tal proces­ses. The German insu­rance distri­bu­tion market is highly frag­men­ted and lags behind other markets such as the UK and the US in the role that inde­pen­dent MGAs play as inter­me­dia­ries. K & M has signi­fi­cant value crea­tion poten­tial to pursue a conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy that includes insu­rance brokers and under­wri­ting with diffe­ren­tia­ted product capa­bi­li­ties at its core. Working with new Chair­man Joachim Müller, Oakley will support the K & M manage­ment team in expan­ding K & M’s product offe­ring, streng­thening the company’s distri­bu­tion func­tion and pursuing further M&A oppor­tu­ni­ties. The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the fourth quar­ter of 2024. “The German insu­rance land­scape is chan­ging signi­fi­cantly, offe­ring advan­ta­ges for inno­va­tive compa­nies like K & M to take on more of the insu­rance value chain while provi­ding better service to end custo­mers. We look forward to working with Joachim Müller to realize his growth and diver­si­fi­ca­tion stra­tegy for the company,” said Peter Dubens, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner, Oakley Capi­tal. Advi­sor Oakley Capi­tal: Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Oakley Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the Hano­ver-based under­wri­ting company Konzept & Marke­ting (K&M). www.kirkland.com
Advi­sors: Maxi­mi­lian Liegl, Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker (both lead), Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Sophia Probst, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Licht (all Private Equity/M&A)

About Oakley

We support outstan­ding mid-market compa­nies in our core sectors of tech­no­logy, consu­mer, educa­tion and busi­ness services. Oakley has raised over €8.2 billion through eight funds, backed over 40 compa­nies and comple­ted more than 150 acqui­si­ti­ons. https://www.oakleycapital.com/

 

News

Milan/London/Paris/Munich — Ambi­enta SGR SpA (“Ambi­enta”), one of Europe’s largest and leading asset mana­gers focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity, has been iden­ti­fy­ing compel­ling invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in private credit since announ­cing the first closing of the Ambi­enta Sustainable Credit Oppor­tu­ni­ties fund (“Ambi­enta Credit”) in Janu­ary this year. Ambi­enta Credit has scree­ned over 200 tran­sac­tions since the begin­ning of the year and has inves­ted in six tran­sac­tions. The strong inte­rest from compa­nies, manage­ment teams and owners vali­da­tes Ambienta’s approach of provi­ding borro­wers with insight and exper­tise on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity, coupled with prudent and market-driven credit evalua­tion. The strong commit­ment has been supported by the recruit­ment of expe­ri­en­ced profes­sio­nals with language and struc­tu­ring skills, cove­ring all major Euro­pean markets and coming from leading private credit insti­tu­ti­ons. This comple­tes the build-up of the eight-strong team. Ambi­enta Credit’s port­fo­lio curr­ently consists of estab­lished compa­nies with average double-digit EBITDA margins and average annual reve­nue growth of over 10 percent, loca­ted in various Euro­pean regi­ons (Germany, France, UK, Italy and Ireland). The tran­sac­tions cover various sectors, inclu­ding water equip­ment, rail main­ten­ance, HVAC systems (heating, venti­la­tion, air condi­tio­ning) and house­hold power supply. — All compa­nies are united by the theme of envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity as a growth driver. With an average leverage of 2.8, the port­fo­lio has an average spread over Euri­bor of around 650 basis points[1]. All invest­ments are based on the solid sustaina­bi­lity rese­arch of Ambienta’s Sustaina­bi­lity & Stra­tegy team. The team consists of scien­tists and engi­neers who specia­lize in explo­ring how envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity trends are resha­ping value chains and entire indus­tries. An exam­ple of this synergy is Ambi­enta Credit’s invest­ment in a company that is redu­cing land­fill waste through its specia­li­zed retail model, lever­aging analy­sis from Ambienta’s recent Sustaina­bi­lity Lens[2] on the topic. Ambi­enta applies its custo­mi­zed and thoughtful approach to struc­ture two-sided margin ratchets[3] at a signi­fi­cant scale. This promo­tes a commit­ment to sustainable, long-term growth and value crea­tion, which is appre­cia­ted by the port­fo­lio compa­nies. As a result, the invest­ments have a measura­ble impact on all port­fo­lio compa­nies, whether through the crea­tion of an ESG report­ing frame­work, support with mate­rial sourcing chal­lenges or the imple­men­ta­tion of KPI metrics to measure ESG perfor­mance. The port­fo­lio has contri­bu­ted to 7 out of 11 of the metrics within Ambienta’s Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Analy­sis. For exam­ple, 12 million cubic meters of water were saved, which is equi­va­lent to the annual water consump­tion of more than 200,000 people, and almost 30,000 tons of pollut­ants were avoided, which is equi­va­lent to the annual waste gene­ra­tion of 150,000 people. 

Ran Land­mann, Part­ner and Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer, and Nishan Srini­va­san, Part­ner and Head of Origi­na­tion, said: “We are deligh­ted with the success of our offe­ring to provide access to finance for mid-market compa­nies. Our enga­ge­ment with so many manage­ment teams, inves­tors and family busi­nesses proves that envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity is a consis­tent driver of growth.” Laurent Donin de Rosière, Part­ner and Head of Inves­tor Rela­ti­ons and Stra­te­gic Part­ner­ships, empha­si­zed: “The demand from limi­ted part­ners for authen­ti­cally sustainable invest­ments in the private credit sector is incre­asing, which is a very posi­tive development.”

 

About Ambi­enta

Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity inves­tor specia­li­zing in private equity, public markets and private credit. From Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges assets of more than 3 billion euros. The focus is on invest­ments in private and listed compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services improve resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion. Ambi­enta has made 75 private equity 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 whole range of other sustainable invest­ment products from low-risk multi-asset funds to long-only equity funds. Ambi­enta has also recently laun­ched a private credit stra­tegy, which — as with the other asset clas­ses — focu­ses on envi­ron­men­tal sustainability.

As a pioneer, Ambi­enta was one of the first signa­to­ries to the Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment (UN PRI) in 2012 and achie­ved Bene­fit Corpo­ra­tion (B Corp) status in 2019. In 2020, Ambi­enta became a member of the Insti­tu­tio­nal Inves­tors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), and in 2023 Ambi­enta set another posi­tive exam­ple for the indus­try by joining the Science-Based Targets Initia­tive (SBTi) as one of the few asset mana­gers to do so. www.ambientasgr.com

About Ambi­enta

Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity inves­tor specia­li­zing in private equity, public markets and private credit. From Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges assets of more than 3 billion euros. The focus is on invest­ments in private and listed compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services improve resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion. Ambi­enta has made 75 private equity 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 whole range of other sustainable invest­ment products from low-risk multi-asset funds to long-only equity funds. Ambi­enta has also recently laun­ched a private credit stra­tegy, which — as with the other asset clas­ses — focu­ses on envi­ron­men­tal sustainability.

As a pioneer, Ambi­enta was one of the first signa­to­ries to the Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment (UN PRI) in 2012 and achie­ved Bene­fit Corpo­ra­tion (B Corp) status in 2019. In 2020, Ambi­enta became a member of the Insti­tu­tio­nal Inves­tors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), and in 2023 Ambi­enta set another posi­tive exam­ple for the indus­try by joining the Science-Based Targets Initia­tive (SBTi) as one of the few asset mana­gers to do so. www.ambientasgr.com

News

Paris / Berlin — Gene­ra­tive AI is often still in its infancy. AI in radio­logy is anything but a vision of the future. The prac­ti­cal bene­fits of mediaire’s AI tech­no­logy can alre­ady be seen in over 350 hospi­tals and radio­logy prac­ti­ces across Europe. The Berlin-based start-up’s AI port­fo­lio is funda­men­tally chan­ging the way radio­lo­gists work. With this success, medi­aire has now secu­red a Euro­pean finan­cing round of €12 million, led by LBO France as lead inves­tor with the parti­ci­pa­tion of IBB Ventures and the Swiss family office Wille Finance. The finan­cing under­lines the importance of viable and vali­da­ted AI solu­ti­ons for clini­cal prac­tice. Previous medi­aire inves­tors HTGF, LIFTT and Gate­way Ventures also parti­ci­pa­ted in the over­sub­scri­bed round. mediaire’s AI solu­ti­ons are seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into diagno­stic prac­tice, reli­e­ving radio­lo­gists of routine tasks and impro­ving diagno­stic outco­mes for pati­ents. Thanks to the latest finan­cing round, medi­aire will expand its AI port­fo­lio in magne­tic reso­nance imaging (MRI) beyond the current areas of appli­ca­tion in AI-supported radio­lo­gi­cal brain, prostate and knee diagno­stics. With this next inno­va­tion step, further AI solu­ti­ons can be deve­lo­ped to enable grea­ter diagno­stic precis­ion and effi­ci­ency world­wide in the future. The finan­cing ther­e­fore repres­ents an important mile­stone for the company’s growth. “Our AI solu­ti­ons are not a dream of the future. We have alre­ady crea­ted a reality that helps doctors make infor­med decis­i­ons and provide their pati­ents with faster answers,” empha­si­zes Dr. Andreas Lemke, CEO and co-foun­der of medi­aire. “We see the posi­tive impact every day with thou­sands of radio­lo­gists, in hundreds of hospi­tals and radio­logy prac­ti­ces across Europe where our AI soft­ware is alre­ady in use. With this invest­ment, we will bring these bene­fits to many more health­care provi­ders.” “We are convin­ced that tech­no­logy can improve lives,” adds Matthes Seeling, Invest­ment Direc­tor at LBO France. “mediaire’s focus reflects our strong belief in the trans­for­ma­tive power of health­care tech­no­logy for the bene­fit of profes­sio­nals and pati­ents. The dedi­ca­ted team addres­ses a pres­sing need in the health­care sector, parti­cu­larly in the context of incre­asing global demand for fast, accu­rate and afforda­ble diagno­stics. With this invest­ment, we will actively support mediaire’s growth to achieve its ambi­tious goals and conso­li­date its posi­tion as the leading provi­der of radio­logy AI in Europe.” Dr. Ange­lika Vlachou, Part­ner at HTGF, said: “We at HTGF are very plea­sed with the deve­lo­p­ment of medi­aire over the last years and believe that the team has proven the added value for its custo­mers, the radio­lo­gists. The field of AI-based tools is evol­ving rapidly. To be successful, compa­nies need to demons­trate real product inno­va­tion that is tail­o­red to the needs of custo­mers. We look forward to conti­nuing to support the deve­lo­p­ment of mediaire.”

News

Munich / Berlin — Global arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) company Aigno­stics has closed its latest $34 million Series B funding round. The round was led by ATHOS (Munich), with invest­ments from Mayo Clinic and growth funding from HTGF. Aigno­stics also recei­ved support from exis­ting inves­tors inclu­ding Welling­ton Part­ners, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund, CARMA Fund and VC Fonds Tech­no­lo­gie, mana­ged by IBB Ventures. To date, Aigno­stics has raised over $55 million, demons­t­ra­ting inves­tor confi­dence in the company’s unique AI models and well-defi­ned commer­cial stra­tegy. Aigno­stics was foun­ded in 2018 and emer­ged in 2020 as a spin-off from Charité and the Berlin Insti­tute of Health. The AI company trans­forms complex multi­mo­dal patho­lo­gi­cal data into valuable insights. Follo­wing the closing of the latest funding round, Aigno­stics plans to deve­lop new product offe­rings for biophar­maceu­ti­cal custo­mers, drive growth in the US and deve­lop advan­ced basic models for patho­logy in colla­bo­ra­tion with the Mayo Clinic. The new funding will streng­then Aigno­stics’ capa­bi­li­ties in target funding, trans­na­tio­nal rese­arch and compa­n­ion diagno­stics (CDx) and support various stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves. “2024 was a pivo­tal year for us, which included an important stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with Bayer and the launch of our first basic model, RudolfV,” says Viktor Matyas, CEO and co-foun­der of Aigno­stics. “With RudolfV, we have gained the ability to rapidly deve­lop cost-effec­tive algo­rithms that can be trans­fer­red to the real world. With this new round of funding, we are turning our most popu­lar algo­rithms into products that will help usher in an era of truly gene­ra­lizable AI for compu­ta­tio­nal pathology.” 

About Aigno­stics

Aigno­stics is an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) company that turns complex multi­mo­da­lity patho­logy data into trans­for­ma­tive insights. By combi­ning proprie­tary access to multi­mo­da­lity clini­cal data, indus­try-leading tech­no­lo­gies and rigo­rous science, Aigno­stics deve­lops world-class products and services for the next gene­ra­tion of precis­ion medi­cine. Through colla­bo­ra­tion with its biopharma part­ners, Aigno­stics supports drug disco­very, trans­la­tio­nal rese­arch, clini­cal trials and CDx deve­lo­p­ment. Foun­ded in 2018, Aigno­stics is a spin-off of Charité Berlin, one of the largest and most renow­ned univer­sity hospi­tals in the world. Aigno­stics is funded by leading inves­tors and has offices in Berlin and New York. Further infor­ma­tion at aignostics.com.

About ATHOS

ATHOS is a single-family office (Strüng­mann Group) that supports entre­pre­neurs to posi­tively impact health and well-being. The company is a long-term majo­rity inves­tor in BioNTech. 

Advi­sor Aigno­stics: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Jonas von Kalben (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Anja Schind­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Bene­dikt Kreu­der (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Jacob Schrei­ber (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Munich

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance 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 ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 150 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in four offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. www.ypog.law

News

Israel — A HEUKING team led by part­ner Dr. Marc Scheu­ne­mann has advi­sed Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. (“Turpaz”) on the acqui­si­tion of a German food flavoring company. A wholly owned subsi­diary of Turpaz signed an agree­ment to acquire 100% of the shares in Schu­mann & Sohn GmbH (“Schu­mann”). The purchase price amounts to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 10.7 million. The tran­sac­tion was comple­ted at the time of signing and was finan­ced by a bank loan. Schu­mann, foun­ded in 1948, has expe­ri­ence and exper­tise in the field of flavors and is active in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and marke­ting of flavors and quality solu­ti­ons for the food indus­try and food supple­ments. Schu­mann opera­tes a produc­tion, R&D, appli­ca­tion and distri­bu­tion site in Karls­ruhe, Germany. Schu­mann has a broad custo­mer base, mainly in the German market. Turpaz’s entry into the German flavor market is a further step in streng­thening Turpaz’s leader­ship posi­tion and estab­li­shing its presence in Europe. Schumann’s busi­ness is highly syner­gi­stic with Turpaz’s busi­ness and is expec­ted to enable Turpaz to streng­then its product offe­ring and capi­ta­lize on cross-selling oppor­tu­ni­ties, both by expan­ding its custo­mer base and broa­de­ning its product port­fo­lio. Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. is an Israel-based company opera­ting as a chemi­cal manu­fac­tu­rer. Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. opera­tes inde­pendently and through subsi­dia­ries in Israel, the USA, Asia and Europe in four fields of acti­vity (fragran­ces, flavors, phar­maceu­ti­cals and specialty ingre­di­ents). Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exch­ange. Advi­sors to Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. HEUKING:
Dr. Marc Scheu­ne­mann, LL.M. (lead), Düsseldorf/Frankfurt,
Dr. Chris­tian Appel­baum (adver­ti­sing law),
Dr. Timo Piller (corpo­rate),
Chris­toph Hexel (employ­ment law),
Dr. Tilman Span­cken (real estate law), all Düsseldorf,
Moni­que Sandidge (employ­ment law),
Dr. Markus Collisy, Maxi­mi­lian Dehnert (both regu­la­tory), all Frankfurt

News

Frank­furt a. M. / Fürth / Forch­heim — The solec­trix Group, a port­fo­lio company of Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner, and the ASSDEV Group are joining forces to form a leading full-service part­ner for high-end elec­tro­nic solu­ti­ons. The merger combi­nes solectrix’s exper­tise in the design of inno­va­tive embedded systems with ASSDEV’s know-how in the produc­tion of complex and sophisti­ca­ted elec­tro­nic assem­blies and elec­tro­nic systems. The new group will have around 250 employees and an annual turno­ver of over 40 million euros. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to be comple­ted this year. Foun­ded in Fürth in 2005, solec­trix GmbH deve­lops high-end elec­tro­nic solu­ti­ons for appli­ca­ti­ons in medi­cal tech­no­logy, imaging, auto­mo­tive and indus­try. The service port­fo­lio includes concep­tual design, hard­ware, soft­ware and FPGA deve­lo­p­ment through to proto­ty­pes and small series produc­tion, which is carried out intern­ally by solec­trix systems GmbH at the Fürth site. VR Equi­typ­art­ner has held a mino­rity stake in solec­trix since 2021 and supports the three company foun­ders in their growth stra­tegy and in conso­li­da­ting their market posi­tion as inno­va­tion leaders. The focus here is prima­rily on the ongo­ing deve­lo­p­ment of high-quality inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and solu­ti­ons such as FPGAs, AI, camera systems and high-end hard­ware, which are incor­po­ra­ted into custo­mers’ product inno­va­tions and thus give them a compe­ti­tive edge. ASSDEV GmbH, also foun­ded in 2005 and based in Forch­heim, is a full-service part­ner for the produc­tion of highly complex and safety-rele­vant elec­tro­nic systems, which are used in parti­cu­lar in energy tech­no­logy, rail­road tech­no­logy, IoT gate­ways, tele­ma­tics and indus­try. Over 100 employees at the Forch­heim site produce complex and sophisti­ca­ted elec­tro­nic assem­blies and elec­tro­nic systems using state-of-the-art manu­fac­tu­ring and test­ing tech­no­lo­gies. The subsi­diary AST‑X GmbH deve­lops pionee­ring hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the fields of energy, mobi­lity and IoT (wire­less tech­no­lo­gies). As part of the merger, the co-foun­ders, the Leicht family, are with­dra­wing from the ASSDEV share­hol­der group, although the co-foun­der and previous Mana­ging Direc­tor Hans Hofmann will conti­nue to play a leading role in the new group and signi­fi­cantly reinvest in the company. The solec­trix foun­ding part­ners and mana­ging direc­tors Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and Jürgen Stei­nert as well as VR Equi­typ­art­ner will retain a stake in the group. The compa­nies will conti­nue to operate on the market under the names solec­trix, solec­trix Systems, ASSDEV and AST‑X. The manage­ment of the new group will consist of Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and Jürgen Stei­nert as well as Hans Hofmann. 

Hans Hofmann, Mana­ging Direc­tor of ASSDEV GmbH and AST‑X GmbH, says: “We are deligh­ted to be opening a new chap­ter in the history of both compa­nies. We have known and appre­cia­ted each other perso­nally and commer­ci­ally for many years — now what belongs toge­ther is coming toge­ther. A joint market presence and the combi­na­tion of our exper­tise is the best of both worlds and makes us a real house of compe­tence for our custo­mers.” Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, adds: “solec­trix and ASSDEV cover comple­men­tary market segments: solec­trix in the field of high-end elec­tro­nics deve­lo­p­ment and ASSDEV with high-quality EMS produc­tion and deve­lo­p­ment of indus­trial solu­ti­ons for safety-rele­vant areas. We see great poten­tial in this combi­na­tion, which bene­fits from the strong trends towards one-stop shop­ping and the growing demand for inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons. We look forward to working toge­ther with Mr. Hofmann and the employees of ASSDEV and AST‑X.” Jürgen Stei­nert, Mana­ging Direc­tor of solec­trix GmbH, empha­si­zes: “As share­hol­ders and manage­ment, we have deve­lo­ped solec­trix toge­ther with our part­ner VR Equi­typ­art­ner into a strong and successful inno­va­tion leader. Future tech­no­logy, custo­mer and employee orien­ta­tion are at the fore­front for us as a full-bloo­ded deve­lo­per. The merger with ASSDEV and AST‑X is an important step for the future of the company and the right time to combine the comple­men­tary strengths of both groups. Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and I are deligh­ted that the success story of solec­trix will conti­nue hand in hand with ASSDEV.” VR Equi­typ­art­ner at a glance

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 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.vrep.de. The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team :
Klaus Schnei­der, Zhao­hua Liao-Weißert, Ömer Kaya, Frank Wilden­berg, Dr. Clau­dia Willershausen 

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

Legal & Tax Due Dili­gence & Tax Struc­tu­ring, Finan­cing: McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter (Dr. Michael Cziesla, Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin, Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer, Ludwig Zesch) Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer, Ludwig Zesch) Finan­cial due dili­gence & company valua­tion: Baker Tilly WPG (Nils Klamar, Björn Prawetz, Max Bracht) Commer­cial due dili­gence: Blue­mont Consul­ting (Markus Frän­kel, Sascha Voll­mer­hau­sen, Kilian Hornung) Anti­trust advice: Lupp + Part­ner (Tilman Siebert)

News

Paris / Frank­furt a. M. — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment compa­nies, has announ­ced an agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in Vecos. Vecos is a leading global provi­der of tech­no­logy-enab­led smart locker solu­ti­ons with a focus on offices, educa­tion and health­care faci­li­ties. Ardian acqui­red the stake from Bencis, who have supported the growth of the company since their invest­ment in 2019. The manage­ment team around CEO Bram Kuipers will conti­nue to lead the company and will re-invest along­side Ardian as part of the tran­sac­tion. Vecos was foun­ded as an elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring company and, under the leader­ship of current CEO Bram Kuipers, has deve­lo­ped into a provi­der of end-to-end solu­ti­ons for smart locker systems. Vecos’ custo­mi­zed and easy-to-use locker system is speci­fi­cally desi­gned to help employees work more flexi­bly in dyna­mic and hybrid work envi­ron­ments. The solu­tion combi­nes hard­ware (physi­cal locks and termi­nals) with a proprie­tary Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) plat­form and supports various autho­riza­tion tech­no­lo­gies such as employee badges or a cloud-based app for employees. Faci­lity mana­gers bene­fit from a web-based user inter­face for remote manage­ment of the lockers and receive real-time data on their use via an online portal. The solu­ti­ons also offer cost opti­miza­tion poten­tial compared to conven­tio­nal mecha­ni­cal or elec­tro­nic locks. The Vecos solu­tion can be seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into the IT or work­place ecosys­tem of its custo­mers, enab­ling harmo­ni­zed manage­ment across all loca­ti­ons. Vecos has long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships with blue-chip compa­nies world­wide and has a strong presence in Europe, Asia-Paci­fic and the USA. The sustained trend towards hybrid working models in compa­nies is leading to an incre­asing demand for flexi­ble office solu­tion concepts. Vecos is ideally posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from this trend. The dyna­mic market deve­lo­p­ment supports Ardian’s invest­ment thesis: against the back­drop of the growing importance of flexi­bi­lity and adap­ta­bi­lity in the work­place, the rele­vance of Vecos’ offe­ring is incre­asing. Compa­nies are speci­fi­cally looking for solu­ti­ons with which they can tailor their office space to the new usage beha­vior of their employees. In addi­tion, Vecos addres­ses compa­nies’ efforts to achieve envi­ron­men­tal targets, for exam­ple in rela­tion to their carbon foot­print. This concern is in line with Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy. Toge­ther with Vecos’ manage­ment team, Ardian looks forward to support­ing the company on its plan­ned growth path in the coming years. “This acqui­si­tion repres­ents a signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­nity for both Ardian and Vecos. Our part­ner­ship with the Vecos manage­ment team will focus, among other things, on further acce­le­ra­ting inter­na­tio­nal growth in Europe, parti­cu­larly in Germany and France, as well as in the US. 

In addi­tion, we see great poten­tial in the appli­ca­tion of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence-based digi­tal solu­ti­ons to support opera­tio­nal proces­ses,” explains Florian Haas, Direc­tor Expan­sion at ARDIAN. “The part­ner­ship with Vecos is Ardian Expansion’s second invest­ment in the Nether­lands and under­lines our ambi­ti­ons in the region. We are exci­ted about the oppor­tu­nity to support Vecos’ manage­ment team in the next phase of growth through our Ardian plat­form,” said Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Mana­ging Direc­tor Expan­sion at ARDIAN. “Ardian is the ideal part­ner for us due to our shared values and goals. Ardian’s exper­tise in scaling busi­nesses combi­ned with its commit­ment to sustainable growth will enable us to further expand our leading posi­tion in the smart locker segment and extend our reach in key growth markets. We look forward to seizing these oppor­tu­ni­ties toge­ther to play an active role in the realiza­tion of future work­place envi­ron­ments,” said Bram Kuipers, CEO, VECOS.

Parties invol­ved in the transaction

Ardian: Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Florian Haas, Max Dolata, Stef­fen Prochazka, Janine Paus­tian, Mathieu Lebrun Bencis: Katrien Bosquet, Bo Kroe­zen M&A: Jeffe­ries (Serge Fiel­mich, Lars van Leeu­wen­stijn, Ritika Langer) Legal: Clif­ford Chance (Jeroen Thijs­sen, Simon Reitz) Commer­cial: EY Parthe­non (Georg Hoch­leit­ner, Dr. Burak Yahsi) Finan­cial: Deloitte (Egon Sach­sal­ber, Nils Nobereit)

Tax / Struc­tu­ring: EY (Anne Mieke Holland)

Tech: Arte­fact (Arnold Struik, Jur Gaarlandt)

News

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

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

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

Advi­sor PARITEE: Mayer Brown 

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

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

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

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

News

Stutt­gart / Frank­furt am Main / Hamburg — Süd Betei­li­gun­gen GmbH (SüdBG), Stutt­gart, toge­ther with VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH (VREP), Frank­furt, and the DEKOM manage­ment, is acqui­ring the DEKOM Group (DEKOM), Hamburg, as part of a succes­sion solu­tion. With over 25 years of expe­ri­ence, more than 200 employees and over 6,000 custo­mers, DEKOM is a leading inter­na­tio­nal AV inte­gra­tor with loca­ti­ons in Europe and the USA. — The joint vision is to further expand DEKOM’s leading role in the Euro­pean market for audio and video tech­no­logy, taking into account mega­trends such as ESG and AI, and to open up new growth markets. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

DEKOM is charac­te­ri­zed in parti­cu­lar by custo­mer-speci­fic solu­ti­ons, a high level of tech­ni­cal exper­tise and a unique sales approach. DEKOM acts as a one-stop store and takes on the plan­ning and design, instal­la­tion of hard­ware and soft­ware for its custo­mers and also offers licen­ses, cloud services and main­ten­ance services. The current Group CEO, Simon Härke, will conti­nue to manage the company after the tran­sac­tion and, toge­ther with seve­ral mana­gers of the foreign subsi­dia­ries, will acquire a signi­fi­cant stake in the company as part of the transaction. 

Chris­tian Gehr­lein, Mana­ging Direc­tor of SüdBG: “With DEKOM, we are parti­ci­pa­ting in an inno­va­tive and fast-growing player in the AV sector. We are parti­cu­larly impres­sed by DEKOM’s outstan­ding team in all areas, which provi­des excel­lent services for first-class custo­mers throug­hout Europe and the USA.” Stefan Hennig, Invest­ment Direc­tor SüdBG, adds: “We believe DEKOM is ideally posi­tio­ned to make colla­bo­ra­tion even better and more effi­ci­ent in the future based on ESG and tech­no­logy trends. We look forward to support­ing its further growth with our exper­tise and network.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, explains: “At a time when inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons are crucial for the success of compa­nies, we are parti­cu­larly plea­sed about our invest­ment in DEKOM. The management’s outstan­ding know-how and strong commit­ment to quality and perfor­mance as well as its ability to adapt to the dyna­mic demands of the market are impres­sive. We are ther­e­fore plea­sed to be invol­ved in a company with forward-looking solu­ti­ons and look forward to shaping the next phase of growth toge­ther with a strong manage­ment team.” Simon Härke, CEO of DEKOM AG, adds: “With VREP and SüdBG, we have the ideal support to further expand our market posi­tion and take it to the next level. I am convin­ced that with the new inves­tors we have the right part­ners at our side who share our vision and will conti­nue to deve­lop DEKOM toge­ther with us in a future-orien­ted manner.”

About SüdBG

SüdBG is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Baden-Würt­tem­berg (LBBW) and has been support­ing medium-sized compa­nies for more than 50 years with custo­mi­zed equity and equity-rela­ted solu­ti­ons in the context of succes­sion plan­ning, growth finan­cing and share­hol­der changes.

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 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.vrep.de. The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team:
Thiemo Bisch­off, Sarah Oster­mann, Vincent Mrohs, Jens Schöf­fel, Oliver Landau, Wiebke Langhans 

Consul­tancy firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VREP and SüdBG:

Legal: Orrick (Dr. Chris­toph Bren­ner, Stefan Riedl and Dr. Timo Holz­born) Timo Holz­born) Commer­cial & ESG: Inven­sity (Matthias Welge and Daniel Meyn) Finan­cial: RSM Ebner Stolz (Matthias Kran­kow­sky, Tobias Fritz, Sophie Lehnert, Louis Perrino and Felice Micheln) Tax: RSM Ebner Stolz (Wolf­gang Klöve­korn and Arnd Mönch) Anti­trust: Lupp+Partner (Tilman Siebert and Diana Proschniew­ski) Debt Advi­sor: Network Corpo­rate Finance (Diet­rich Stol­ten­burg and Domi­nik Waitschekauski)

 

News

Amsterdam/ Munich — BUKO Traf­fic & Safety (“BUKO”), a leading provi­der of outsour­ced traf­fic and safety manage­ment solu­ti­ons in the Nether­lands and the UK, acqui­res BVT Bremer Verkehrs­tech­nik GmbH (“BVT”). Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of UK-based Road Traf­fic Solu­ti­ons Ltd (“RTS”) at the begin­ning of 2024, BUKO is conti­nuing its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion by ente­ring the German market. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. TEXT BUKO Traf­fic & Safety, head­quar­te­red in Baren­d­recht, the Nether­lands, has around 450 employees and successfully carries out seve­ral thousand projects every year. With its two divi­si­ons, BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt, the company is a leading provi­der of outsour­ced traf­fic and safety manage­ment solu­ti­ons in its home market, the Nether­lands. BUKO Infra­sup­port, foun­ded in 1991, specia­li­zes in tempo­rary traf­fic manage­ment solu­ti­ons. With its compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of services — from the design, plan­ning, permit­ting, supply, coll­ec­tion and manage­ment of neces­sary road signage and safety equip­ment for on-site road­works, to inno­va­tive digi­tal traf­fic manage­ment solu­ti­ons — BUKO Infra­sup­port prima­rily serves contrac­tors and autho­ri­ties invol­ved in utility-rela­ted, urban and rural road­works. BUKO Waakt specia­li­zes in tempo­rary secu­rity solu­ti­ons with a focus on camera surveil­lance, intru­sion detec­tion systems and access control systems, which are mainly used on cons­truc­tion sites. In Febru­ary 2023, the Equis­tone funds acqui­red a majo­rity stake in BUKO. Since then, the company has been pursuing an ambi­tious growth stra­tegy, focu­sing prima­rily on expan­ding its geogra­phi­cal presence in the Dutch dome­stic market and targe­ted expan­sion into promi­sing, high-growth neigh­bor­ing count­ries. In March 2024, BUKO laid an important foun­da­tion for its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion with the acqui­si­tion of UK-based RTS, a specia­list in traf­fic and event manage­ment solu­ti­ons with seven loca­ti­ons and 175 employees. With the recent acqui­si­tion of BVT and the estab­lish­ment of a geogra­phi­cal presence in Germany, BUKO is reali­zing another stra­te­gi­cally important mile­stone in its inter­na­tio­nal growth stra­tegy. BVT is a provi­der of high-quality services in the field of tempo­rary traf­fic manage­ment. By focu­sing on “low-speed traf­fic situa­tions” toge­ther with a high level of custo­mer orien­ta­tion, BVT has deve­lo­ped into a leading part­ner for its custo­mers, which include gene­ral contrac­tors, local autho­ri­ties and event orga­ni­zers. BVT opera­tes from a total of three loca­ti­ons and curr­ently employs around 75 people. “We are deligh­ted to have ente­red into a part­ner­ship with BVT and to be ente­ring the German market as a result. There is a high level of agree­ment between the compa­nies in terms of stra­te­gic direc­tion, corpo­rate culture and a shared vision for the future. Toge­ther, we want to further expand and deve­lop BUKO’s presence in Germany over the coming years,” explains Robert Emme­rich, CEO of BUKO. 

Tanja Berg, Direc­tor in Equistone’s Munich office (photo© Equis­tone), comm­ents: “Follo­wing its successful entry into the UK market earlier this year, BUKO has now found the ideal part­ner to enter the German market with BVT. The Equis­tone funds are deligh­ted to support BUKO in its inter­na­tio­nal growth ambi­ti­ons through a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy, conti­nuing the company’s excep­tio­nal track record in the Dutch home market inter­na­tio­nally.” The Equis­tone funds team includes Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Tanja Berg and Josh Aalbers. Advi­sors to BUKO: PwC (Finan­cial & Tax), De Ange­lis (Legal), Roland Berger (Commer­cial) and Rauten­berg (M&A). About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are among the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in the Nether­lands, Germany, Switz­er­land, France and the UK.

The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­da­tion in 2002, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio of Equis­tone funds curr­ently compri­ses around 40 compa­nies across Europe. www.equistonepe.com.

News

Munich — Kirk­land & Ellis advi­ses TA Asso­cia­tes, one of the leading global private equity firms, on the closing of an inves­tor agree­ment with Nexus AG (“Nexus”) and the volun­t­ary public tender offer for all outstan­ding shares of Nexus.
The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory and foreign trade clearan­ces and other custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons. The offer implies an equity valua­tion of Nexus of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 1.21 billion. 

About Nexus AG

Nexus AG deve­lops and distri­bu­tes soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the inter­na­tio­nal health­care market. With the clini­cal infor­ma­tion system (Nexus / HIS) and the inte­gra­ted diagno­stic modu­les, we now have a uniquely broad and inter­ope­ra­ble product range that can cover almost all func­tional requi­re­ments of hospi­tals, psych­ia­tric clinics, reha­bi­li­ta­tion and diagno­stic centers within our own product fami­lies. Nexus AG employs around 2,030 people, has its own sites in nine Euro­pean count­ries and serves custo­mers in a further 71 count­ries, in some cases via certi­fied dealers. Thanks to conti­nuously growing demand for Nexus products, we have been able to build up a large custo­mer base in recent years and regu­larly report rising sales and results. www.nexus-ag.de

Advi­sor TA Associates

Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich: Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Foto (lead); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Johan­nes Rowold, Juliane Hubert, Frede­rick Eggert, Melissa Afraz (all Private Equity/M&A)
Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Sam Sher­wood; Asso­cia­tes: Adrian Kiler­cio­glu, Ben Egan (all Debt Finance) About Kirk­land
Kirk­land & Ellis, with more than 3.500 lawy­ers in 21 cities in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms for high-cali­ber legal services. The German team specia­li­zes in private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and capi­tal markets, finan­cing and tax law.

For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.kirkland.com.

News

Berlin — Raue has advi­sed the Berlin-based food start-up Hafer­ka­ter on the buy-out of its previous inves­tors and the conver­sion to respon­si­ble owner­ship. The new inves­tors do not hold any voting rights in Hafer­ka­ter; 99% of the voting rights are now held by the manage­ment and foun­ders of Hafer­ka­ter. Accor­ding to the artic­les of asso­cia­tion, at least 51% of the voting rights must conti­nue to be held by employees of Hafer­ka­ter GmbH. After payment of a limi­ted return to the new inves­tors, 100% of the profit rights remain with Hafer­ka­ter. The conver­sion to steward-owner­ship and the new invest­ments will ensure that Hafer­ka­ter can conti­nue to operate inde­pendently in the future and can no longer be sold. These struc­tures place control over company decis­i­ons in the hands of those who also manage the company and keep the focus on the core busi­ness: Porridge to go at busy trans­por­ta­tion hubs. Former inves­tors were Katjes Green­food and Zentis Ventures, who supported Hafer­ka­ter with their many years of trust and ulti­m­ately made the trans­for­ma­tion possi­ble. The new inves­tors are Purpose Ventures, Cantella, Karma Capi­tal and private inves­tors. Purpose Ventures is part of the PURPOSE network and accom­pa­nies and invests in compa­nies in respon­si­ble owner­ship and those that want to become one. Hafer­ka­ter has imple­men­ted respon­si­ble owner­ship with the help of the Purpose Foundation’s veto share model. This foun­da­tion holds one percent of the voting rights in Hafer­ka­ter and is obli­ged to use its veto power to block any chan­ges to the artic­les of asso­cia­tion that run coun­ter to the prin­ci­ples of steward-ownership. 

Advi­sor Hafer­ka­ter GmbH: Raue, Berlin
Dr. Jörg Jaecks, photo (Part­ner, Venture Capi­tal, M&A, Corpo­rate Law) About Raue

Raue is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Berlin. The firm advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public corpo­ra­ti­ons compre­hen­si­vely on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and disputes.

Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.raue.com.

News

Frank­furt a.M. / Paris (Fr) — Ardian announ­ced the closing of the first invest­ment of its Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor-focu­sed plat­form Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor. The fund acqui­res Ion Beam Services (IBS), an inno­va­tive Euro­pean provi­der of equip­ment and services to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. IBS was foun­ded in 1987 and is head­quar­te­red in France. The company specia­li­zes in equip­ment and services in the field of ion implan­ta­tion, a funda­men­tal process in semi­con­duc­tor front-end manu­fac­tu­ring. The company’s tech­no­logy and products address high-growth specialty appli­ca­tion areas in energy, connec­ti­vity, imaging and sens­ing. Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor is a unique plat­form for invest­ments in the Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor indus­try that was laun­ched last year. It combi­nes the private equity exper­tise of Ardian with the sector exper­tise of Silian Part­ners in an exclu­sive part­ner­ship. The invest­ment provi­des addi­tio­nal capi­tal for the imple­men­ta­tion of IBS’s ambi­tious growth stra­tegy and provi­des for the succes­sion of the company’s foun­der and current CEO Laurent Roux, who is reti­ring. The semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is one of the key sectors in the digi­tal and sustainable trans­for­ma­tion of the global economy. Due to the fore­seeable contin­ued importance of the mega­trends of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, hyper­con­nec­ti­vity, elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, mobi­lity and indus­trial auto­ma­tion, as well as the constantly growing number of intel­li­gent and networked devices, fore­casts predict that the sector will double in size to a volume of one tril­lion US dollars by 2030. IBS’s exper­tise is helping to support the deve­lo­p­ment of these future areas. With Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor, a unique plat­form for invest­ments in the Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor indus­try was laun­ched last year, which combi­nes the private equity exper­tise of Ardian with the sector exper­tise of Silian Part­ners as part of an exclu­sive part­ner­ship. Silian Part­ners’ seaso­ned profes­sio­nals have more than 140 years of combi­ned invest­ment expe­ri­ence and contri­bute to the plat­form with their sector network, stra­te­gic exper­tise and opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence. Toge­ther, Ardian and Silian Part­ners offer inno­va­tive and flexi­ble capi­tal solu­ti­ons as well as stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal exper­tise to accom­pany strong tech­no­logy compa­nies on their way to beco­ming global market leaders in their respec­tive segments. This gives Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor a unique posi­tio­ning in Europe, a global leader in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try for mobi­lity and indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. This is supported by a rich ecosys­tem of rese­arch centers and compa­nies in deve­lo­p­ment, equip­ment and mate­ri­als, as well as govern­ment funding initia­ti­ves such as the €43 billion Euro­pean Chips Act. On this basis, Europe is well posi­tio­ned to help shape the next wave of inno­va­tion in semi­con­duc­tor development. 

“We are deligh­ted to announce the first invest­ment of the Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor plat­form with the acqui­si­tion of IBS. Our goal is to build leading compa­nies in the Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor indus­try through an inno­va­tive and highly opera­tio­nally driven approach. We will leverage our private equity exper­tise and unique stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Silian Part­ners to achieve this.” Lise Faucon­nier, Senior Mana­ging Direc­tor, Ardian, said. “We look forward to support­ing IBS in its deve­lo­p­ment. We will build on the wealth of tech­no­lo­gi­cal know­ledge and expe­ri­ence that Laurent Roux and his highly talen­ted team have accu­mu­la­ted over the past nearly 40 years and bring our stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal exper­tise to shar­pen product diffe­ren­tia­tion, streng­then custo­mer focus and take the company to the next level of growth,” said Dr. Bernard Aspar, Part­ner, Silian Part­ners.

About Ardian

Ardian is a leading global inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm. The company mana­ges or advi­ses assets tota­ling around US$ 169 billion for more than 1,680 inves­tors world­wide. Thanks to its exten­sive exper­tise in private equity, real assets and credit, Ardian offers a wide range of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as custo­mi­zed invest­ment solu­ti­ons — tail­o­red to inves­tors’ needs: Ardian Custo­mi­zed Solu­ti­ons enables insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to access best-in-class mana­gers across all asset clas­ses through a custo­mi­zed port­fo­lio. Ardian Private Wealth Solu­ti­ons also offers a range of services speci­fi­cally geared to high net worth individuals.

Ardian’s employees are also the company’s largest share­hol­der group. Ardian atta­ches great importance to their deve­lo­p­ment, as well as a culture of coope­ra­tion based on an active exch­ange of know­ledge and expe­ri­ence. The more than 1,050 employees at 19 office loca­ti­ons in Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East follow the prin­ci­ples of respon­si­ble invest­ment. Ardian’s mission is to make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society through its invest­ments and to create value that lasts. Ardian aims to deli­ver excel­lent returns in line with high ethi­cal stan­dards and social respon­si­bi­lity. At Ardian, ever­yone is dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding successful compa­nies for the long term. ardian.com

About IBS

IBS specia­li­zes in inno­va­tive ion implan­ta­tion solu­ti­ons and enables its custo­mers to bene­fit flexi­bly from IBS’ exper­tise through a unique 360° offe­ring of equip­ment, equip­ment services and foundry services. IBS opera­tes prima­rily from its offices in France, the UK and Singa­pore. The company was foun­ded in 1987 and is based in Peynier, France. ion-beam-services.com

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