ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt am Main / Bous — KTP Kunst­stoff Palet­ten­tech­nik GmbH (KTP) has acqui­red the majo­rity of shares in K2 PAK of Koper, Slove­nia. KTP was supported in this by the Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner, which holds a mino­rity stake in the Saar­land-based company. KTP is one of the Euro­pean market leaders in the produc­tion and deve­lo­p­ment of foldable large contai­ners and large load carri­ers as well as pallets and carrier systems made of plas­tic. With the acqui­si­tion of K2 PAK, KTP is streng­thening its busi­ness area around the inner pack­a­ging of trans­port boxes, lever­aging valuable syner­gies between the two compa­nies and conti­nuing its long-term growth strategy.

KTP had alre­ady acqui­red a majo­rity stake in K2 PAK at the begin­ning of 2022; the stake was now signi­fi­cantly increased again at the turn of the year. The remai­ning shares remain with the mana­ging part­ner Marco Krmac. For more than two deca­des, the family-owned company K2 PAK has been deve­lo­ping and supp­ly­ing advan­ced indus­trial reusable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons made of a wide variety of mate­ri­als as an inner packer, provi­ding opti­mum protec­tion for custo­mers’ compon­ents during trans­port. There are alre­ady long-stan­ding busi­ness rela­ti­onships with KTP — the inte­gra­tion will enable further syner­gies to be lever­a­ged and deve­lo­p­ment and inno­va­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties to be driven forward.

KTP Kunst­stoff Palet­ten­tech­nik GmbH, based in Bous (Saar­land), has specia­li­zed in the manu­fac­ture and deve­lo­p­ment of foldable large contai­ners and large load carri­ers as well as pallets and carrier systems made of plas­tic since 1988. The advan­ta­ges of the KTP contai­ners are the ease of use and the space saving due to volume reduc­tion. In addi­tion, resour­ces are conser­ved — both through the use of recy­cled raw mate­ri­als and the possi­bi­lity of retur­ning them to the raw mate­rial cycle, and thanks to the lower trans­port weight. VR Equi­typ­art­ner (VREP) had acqui­red a mino­rity stake in KTP at the end of 2011 to support manage­ment in exploi­ting the company’s further growth poten­tial and driving inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. From its head­quar­ters in Bous and its Chinese sales loca­tion in Taicang, KTP now exports its products to over 100 countries.

“The 2022 finan­cial year was the best in KTP’s history,” says a deligh­ted KTP Mana­ging Direc­tor Martin Hent­schel: “We also acqui­red a majo­rity stake in K2 PAK, thus ente­ring the inner pack­a­ging market. This expands our offer to our custo­mers, increa­ses our compe­ti­ti­ve­ness and enhan­ces custo­mer proximity.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner, also welco­mes the new part­ner­ship: “With the acqui­si­tion of K2 PAK, KTP is conti­nuing its successful growth story: after the strong expan­sion of produc­tion capa­ci­ties, the ongo­ing diver­si­fi­ca­tion out of the auto­mo­tive sector into other indus­tries and the successful inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, the acqui­si­tion of K2 PAK is a real game chan­ger. The addressa­ble market has increased signi­fi­cantly and now offers custo­mer access through both trans­port boxes and inner packaging.”

The tran­sac­tion team of VR Equi­typ­art­ner: Sarah Oster­mann, Simone Weck

Advi­sor VR Equitypartner:
Finan­cial Due Dili­gence: ECOVIS CF, Ljubljana, with Chris­toph Geymayer
Legal due dili­gence and legal advice: CMS REICH-ROHRWIG HAINZ / Senica & Part­ners, Ljubljana, with Aleš Lunder

News

Baienfurt/ Munich — The previous share­hol­ders of Hobe Tools Holding GmbH, FTSA Betei­li­gungs GmbH, INTEGRA Treu­hand­ge­sell­schaft mbH Steu­er­be­ra­tungs­ge­sell­schaft, AURELIUS Growth Invest­ments S.à r.l. and Hobe Mana­ging Direc­tor Dr. Jens-Jörg Eßer, have sold all their shares in Hobe to Indu­trade Switz­er­land AG. The tran­sac­tion took place within the frame­work of a compe­ti­tive bidding process.

Hobe GmbH is a niche manu­fac­tu­rer of micro-precis­ion tools foun­ded in 1971 and based in Baien­furt, Germany. The main custo­mers are compa­nies in indus­tries such as medi­cal tech­no­logy, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, elec­tro­nics, cons­truc­tion and metrology.

Indu­trade is an inter­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy and indus­trial group foun­ded in 1978 with more than 200 affi­lia­ted compa­nies in around 30 count­ries. Indu­trade gene­ra­ted sales of 21.7 billion Swedish kronor in 2021 and is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm.

Hobe will be inte­gra­ted into Indutrade’s DACH busi­ness area.

Advi­sor to seller: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich

Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs, Foto (Lead), Dr. Germar Enders (Coun­sel; both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Phil­ipp Schäuble (Labor Law), Nina Siewert, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Fabian Appa­doo, Dr. Robert Feind, LL.M., Sebas­tian Gerst­ner, Benja­min Macie­jew­ski, LL.M., Matthias Wein­gut (all Corporate/M&A)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

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

News

Hungen/ Wetz­lar — Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance a leading German M&A consul­ting boutique with a focus on medium-sized succes­si­ons, accom­pa­nies bgm baugrund­be­ra­tung GmbH (“bgm”, photo © bmg), specia­li­zed in soil and subsoil inves­ti­ga­tion, in the successful sale of the company to VINCI Ener­gies. bgm will hence­forth operate under the guise of Omexom — VINCI Ener­gies’ brand for energy infrastructures.

Foun­ded in 2008 by Mathias Müssig, bgm specia­li­zes in soil and subsoil inves­ti­ga­ti­ons. The company offers consul­ting services in the fields of engi­nee­ring geology, inves­ti­ga­tion of conta­mi­na­ted sites, geother­mal energy, preser­va­tion of evidence as well as control tests in the field of earthworks and compac­tion controls in asphalt paving.

“With the added exper­tise of bgm, we are expan­ding our port­fo­lio in over­head line cons­truc­tion for subsoil inves­ti­ga­ti­ons at pylon sites. Compa­nies in this market segment are rare and we are plea­sed to be able to offer our custo­mers a wide range of plan­ning services,” says Dr. Jochen Röhm, Omexom Divi­sion Mana­ger, into whose divi­sion the company will be inte­gra­ted. “We warmly welcome the team of bgm as a new member in our Omexom family and wish all colle­agues a successful start.”

“We are convin­ced that in VINCI Ener­gies we have found a buyer that provi­des our company with the right frame­work for contin­ued growth and future deve­lo­p­ment. We are deligh­ted to become part of VINCI Ener­gies. On the one hand, this will enable us to bene­fit from a network of specia­lists and share and, on the other, streng­then our own compe­ten­cies,” says Mathias Müssig, who will remain on the manage­ment board with Jörn Martini as head of the new busi­ness unit.

“The entire cons­truc­tion and energy indus­try is facing a radi­cal change, or is alre­ady expe­ri­en­cing it to a large extent. With VINCI Ener­gies, bgm will have a strong stra­te­gic part­ner at its side in the future, which will certainly contri­bute to the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company,” sums up Sebas­tian Wissig, project mana­ger at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor. “Due to the common stra­te­gic goals of bgm and VINCI Ener­gies, the process was very cons­truc­tive on both sides from the very begin­ning, so that we were able to work out a good and future-orien­ted solu­tion in close coor­di­na­tion with all parties and successfully conclude the tran­sac­tion,” adds Phil­ipp Panther, project employee at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and part of the team around Sebas­tian Wissig.

About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

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

About Omexom

Omexom is VINCI Ener­gies’ brand for energy infra­struc­tures. Omexom supports its custo­mers in all tasks rela­ted to the imple­men­ta­tion of the energy tran­si­tion. Omexom’s goal is to work with its custo­mers to create solu­ti­ons for sustainable energy and mobi­lity supply. The offe­ring covers the entire range of services for energy infra­struc­tures: From engi­nee­ring to main­ten­ance of all infra­struc­tures for power gene­ra­tion, trans­mis­sion and distri­bu­tion and that up to the end consumer’s elec­tri­city meter inclu­ding all energy-rela­ted services for muni­ci­pa­li­ties and commu­ni­ties. In Germany, Omexom opera­tes nati­on­wide for network opera­tors, public utili­ties, muni­ci­pal energy suppli­ers, trade and indus­try as well as for Deut­sche Bahn.
2021: 3.7 billion euros in sales, of which 675 million euros in Germany // 23,500 employees, of which 3,800 in Germany // 435 busi­ness units, of which 75 in Germany // 37 countries
www.omexom.de

About VINCI Energies

In a chan­ging world, VINCI Ener­gies is acce­le­ra­ting the envi­ron­men­tal tran­si­tion by play­ing a concrete role in shaping two profound trans­for­ma­ti­ons: Digi­ta­liza­tion and the energy tran­si­tion. As a market-orien­ted inte­gra­tor of custo­mi­zed, cross-tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons, we support our custo­mers in imple­men­ting tech­no­lo­gies that bene­fit society and protect the envi­ron­ment — from plan­ning through imple­men­ta­tion and opera­tion to main­ten­ance. With our 1,800 regio­nally based, agile and inno­va­tive busi­ness units, we are invol­ved in the energy-rela­ted decis­i­ons, infra­struc­tures and proces­ses of our custo­mers and ensure grea­ter relia­bi­lity, effi­ci­ency and sustaina­bi­lity every day.
2021: 15.1 billion euros sales // 85,700 employees // 1,800 busi­ness units // 57 countries
www.vinci-energies.com

News

Amster­dam / Munich — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt (“BUKO”), two leading provi­ders of outsour­ced traf­fic and secu­rity manage­ment solu­ti­ons in the Nether­lands. Equis­tone will work with current share­hol­der Scheybe­eck Parti­ci­pa­ties, the Burger family’s family office, as well as the exten­ded manage­ment team that will take a reverse stake in the company as part of the transaction.

It was important for Scheybe­eck Parti­ci­pa­ties to find a highly expe­ri­en­ced part­ner who could support the compa­nies’ growth ambi­ti­ons with strong finan­cial back­ing and a large inter­na­tio­nal network. BUKO CEO Robert Emme­rich will conti­nue to lead both compa­nies as Mana­ging Direc­tor. The part­ner­ship with Equis­tone will focus prima­rily on further expan­ding the market presence in the Nether­lands as well as targe­ted expan­sion into neigh­bor­ing count­ries, supported by strong market dyna­mics. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion authorities.

BUKO was foun­ded in 1962 in the Nether­lands and consists of three busi­ness units: BUKO Infra­sup­port, BUKO Trans­port and BUKO Waakt. BUKO Trans­port is not part of this tran­sac­tion. BUKO Infra­sup­port specia­li­zes in offe­ring end-to-end outsour­cing solu­ti­ons in tempo­rary traf­fic manage­ment. With its compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of services — from the design, plan­ning, permit­ting, provi­sion and coll­ec­tion, as well as the manage­ment of requi­red road signage and safety equip­ment for on-site road works — Infra­sup­port parti­cu­larly serves contrac­tors and autho­ri­ties invol­ved in utility-rela­ted, urban and rural road works. BUKO Waakt is a provi­der of tempo­rary secu­rity solu­ti­ons with a focus on camera surveil­lance, intru­sion detec­tion systems as well as access control systems, which are used espe­ci­ally on cons­truc­tion sites of resi­den­tial and public buildings.

The two busi­ness units BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt combine strong exper­tise with a custo­mer- and result-orien­ted approach, high-quality equip­ment and a convic­tion for the highest safety stan­dards. In this way, the company is making an important contri­bu­tion to ensu­ring the prescri­bed safety measu­res around road and cons­truc­tion projects and to meeting the incre­asing safety regu­la­ti­ons in the best possi­ble way. With seve­ral thousand projects comple­ted each year and its firmly estab­lished long-stan­ding and trus­ting custo­mer rela­ti­onships, the company is conside­red one of the largest provi­ders of custo­mi­zed traf­fic and secu­rity solu­ti­ons in the Nether­lands. It curr­ently employs more than 350 people and gene­ra­tes annual sales of around 70 million euros.

The part­ner­ship with Equis­tone is expec­ted to further drive the company’s contin­ued growth and deve­lo­p­ment. The main focus here is on making opti­mum use of the strong market momen­tum, prima­rily driven by further invest­ments in infra­struc­ture asso­cia­ted with digi­tiza­tion and the energy tran­si­tion, as well as in road main­ten­ance, and on incre­asing the company’s geogra­phi­cal presence.

“I am very plea­sed to part­ner with Equis­tone, espe­ci­ally due to their indus­try exper­tise gained in their nume­rous invest­ments in rele­vant port­fo­lio compa­nies, their presence in the rele­vant regi­ons, and their part­ner-like and excep­tio­nally strong team. I look forward to taking the growth of our company to the next level while main­tai­ning our family culture,” said Robert Emme­rich, CEO of BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt.

“BUKO is alre­ady excel­lently posi­tio­ned — Equis­tone wants to take advan­tage of this in a targe­ted manner and support BUKO in further streng­thening its service offe­ring as well as its market posi­tion in the Nether­lands through orga­nic growth,” explains Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Part­ner in Equistone’s Amster­dam office. “In addi­tion, Equis­tone will focus on incre­asing the market pene­tra­tion of certain regi­ons in the Nether­lands and will also explore the possi­bi­lity of expan­ding into neigh­bor­ing count­ries through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons,” added Tanja Berg, invest­ment direc­tor at Equistone.

The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Tanja Berg (photo) and Josh Aalbers.

Advi­sor Equistone:
PwC (Finan­cial, Tax, IT, and Debt Advi­sory), DC Advi­sory (M&A), Roland Berger and Munich Stra­tegy (Commer­cial), Vesper and Clif­ford Chance (Legal).

Consul­tant BUKO:
Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (M&A), Deloitte (finan­cial, tax advi­sory), Strategy& (commer­cial) and De Brauw Blackstone West­br­oek (legal).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of 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 incep­tion, equity has been inves­ted in more than 170 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around six active invest­ments in Bene­lux. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. In addi­tion, the “Equis­tone Reinvest­ment Fund” was recently laun­ched, from which it is possi­ble to reinvest in mino­rity posi­ti­ons follo­wing sales of port­fo­lio compa­nies from the main funds. www.equistonepe.com

News

Frank­furt — KKR, a leading global inves­tor, has appoin­ted Harald Dürr (photo) as Mana­ging Direc­tor of KKR’s Client and Part­ner Group (CPG) to lead its Family Capi­tal client busi­ness in the DACH region. In his role, Harald Dürr will focus on expan­ding KKR’s offe­ring for family offices and further streng­thening KKR’s posi­tio­ning in the DACH region. He also beco­mes part of KKR’s Family Capi­tal team in EMEA, which was estab­lished in 2014 to build long-term, trus­ted rela­ti­onships with high net worth fami­lies and entrepreneurs.

Harald Dürr spent more than 25 years at Deut­sche Bank, where he held various manage­ment posi­ti­ons and was respon­si­ble for the Family Capi­tal divi­sion, most recently as Senior Rela­ti­onship Mana­ger and Mana­ging Direc­tor in Frank­furt. In these roles, he focu­sed on complex client situa­tions and became a trus­ted advi­sor to some of the bank’s most important clients, inclu­ding family offices, busi­ness foun­ders and entre­pre­neurs. He also helped the bank increase its market share among the top 500 fami­lies in Germany.

Previously, he was a member of the advi­sory board of two German medium-sized compa­nies, where he addi­tio­nally advi­sed an inter­na­tio­nal wealthy family in connec­tion with their German invest­ments. Chris­tian Ollig, Part­ner and Head of DACH at KKR, said: “We are very plea­sed to have Harald Dürr join our growing team. With his exten­sive expe­ri­ence in serving family offices and entre­pre­neurs, Harald is an excel­lent addi­tion to our Client and Part­ner Group in the DACH region. We are plea­sed to have Harald Dürr join our team and lead KKR’s rela­ti­onships with this special group of inves­tors as we conti­nue to expand our presence in Germany.”

Harald Dürr, Mana­ging Direc­tor, CPG at KKR in Germany, said: “I am deligh­ted to join KKR’s team in Frank­furt. I look forward to lever­aging my expe­ri­ence, know­ledge and network in the German asset manage­ment market to further streng­then KKR’s exten­sive offe­ring in the DACH region and attract new inves­tors in the growing family capi­tal space.”

Harald Dürr’s appoint­ment is part of KKR’s ongo­ing efforts to expand its team in the DACH region and follows a number of appoint­ments in KKR’s Client and Part­ner Group, inclu­ding the appoint­ment of Hagen Raab as a Direc­tor in 2018 and Steven Bayly as a
Mana­ging Direc­tor in 2021, as well as the appoint­ment of Moritz Mondo­vits, who joined KKR in 2022 as Prin­ci­pal toge­ther with Hanna Kunz­mann as Asso­ciate. KKR’s Client and Part­ner Group is respon­si­ble for advi­sing and serving KKR’s Limi­ted Part­ners and works to further diver­sify KKR’s client base. The team is respon­si­ble for attrac­ting new inves­tors from all regi­ons and from various insti­tu­ti­ons. By incre­asingly expan­ding its capa­bi­li­ties in this area, KKR aims to address the growing importance of family offices and intro­duce them to the full range of KKR’s invest­ment opportunities.

About KKR

KKR is a leading global inves­tor provi­ding alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, capi­tal markets and insu­rance solu­ti­ons. The focus is on gene­ra­ting attrac­tive invest­ment returns through a long-term and disci­pli­ned invest­ment approach, employ­ing highly skil­led profes­sio­nals and support­ing growth at its invest­ment proper­ties and in the commu­ni­ties where KKR has a presence. KKR finan­ces funds that invest in private equity, credit products, real assets, and — through stra­te­gic part­ners — hedge funds. KKR’s insu­rance subsi­dia­ries offer reti­re­ment, life and reinsu­rance products under the manage­ment of Global Atlan­tic Finan­cial Group. www.kkr.com, Twit­ter @KKR_Co.

News

Wess­ling / Munich. — Deut­sche Aircraft Holdings (DAH), the sole owner of the compa­nies in the Deut­sche Aircraft Group, recently secu­red an important mino­rity inte­rest in DAH Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, which is jointly held by OHB and AFK.

The invest­ment is being made through a joint venture between aero­space company OHB SE and invest­ment company AFK Enter­prise AG, and will drive the deve­lo­p­ment of new green avia­tion tech­no­lo­gies inclu­ding D328eco™, an envi­ron­men­tally friendly version of the proven Do328® short-range passen­ger aircraft manu­fac­tu­red by Deut­sche Aircraft GmbH. Under the agree­ment, the inves­tors have the option of acqui­ring further shares up to a majo­rity stake at a later date.

Deut­sche Aircraft’s D328 series is based on the proud heri­tage of Dornier, and Deut­sche Aircraft holds the type certi­fi­cate for the Do328®. With new propul­sion systems, latest gene­ra­tion avia­tion tech­no­logy and more seats, the D328eco will set new stan­dards for envi­ron­men­tally friendly short-haul flying. Deut­sche Aircraft is also inves­ti­ga­ting various alter­na­tive fuels and future climate-neutral propul­sion systems as part of its product road­map. The Do328 is the last commer­cial aircraft to date to have been deve­lo­ped and built enti­rely in-house by a German company — and this will also be the case with the D328eco.

The invest­ment in DAH is subject to the appr­oval of the German govern­ment, which is support­ing the deve­lo­p­ment of the D328eco with a large-volume deve­lo­p­ment cost loan and is also support­ing the deve­lo­p­ment of clean avia­tion initia­ti­ves at Deut­sche Aircraft. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first quar­ter of 2023, once regu­la­tory appr­ovals and other custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons are satisfied.

Advi­sors to Deut­sche Aircraft Holdings (DAH): SKW Schwarz
Lead Part­ner Dr. Kolja Petro­vicki toge­ther with Cohen & Gresser (US law, UK law) and Carey Olsen (Cayman Islands law).

Consul­ting Attor­neys: Dr. Kolja Petro­vicki, LL.M. (UPenn), (Corporate/M&A, lead), Dr. Oliver M. Bühr (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Tatjana Schroe­der (Restruc­tu­ring), Alex­an­der Möller, Sabrina Hoch­brück­ner (both Labor Law), Stefan Skulesch (Tax) (all Frank­furt); Dr. Klaus Jankow­ski, Maria Rothä­mel (both Public Law, both Berlin), Heiko Wunder­lich (Tax); Eva Bona­cker (Merger Control) (both Munich).

About SKW Schwarz

SKW Schwarz is an inde­pen­dent law firm with 130 lawy­ers, four loca­ti­ons and a common claim: We think ahead. As a full-service law firm and member of TerraLex, we are globally networked and advise in all rele­vant areas of busi­ness law. Also in an area that is parti­cu­larly important for compa­nies: the future. We analyze, create clarity and provide advice today in the key legal areas of tomorrow.

About AFK Enterprise

AFK Enter­prise AG, based in Switz­er­land, the indus­trial arm of the AFK Kumar Family Office, is a private family office char­ged with the preser­va­tion, manage­ment and growth of the AFK Kumar family’s wealth. AFK makes stra­te­gic invest­ments across a broad spec­trum of markets, with a focus on equity and growth capi­tal. With its inter­na­tio­nal focus, AFK actively pursues and enga­ges in a variety of high-tech invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in Europe, the U.S. the Middle East, India, Asia, and emer­ging markets.

About OHB SE

OHB SE is a German space and tech­no­logy group and one of the leading inde­pen­dent forces in the Euro­pean space indus­try. With many years of expe­ri­ence in the realiza­tion of sophisti­ca­ted projects, OHB SE is excel­lently posi­tio­ned in inter­na­tio­nal compe­ti­tion and offers its custo­mers a broad port­fo­lio of inno­va­tive products in the three busi­ness units: Space Systems, Aero­space and Digi­tal. The company employs around 3,000 people and gene­ra­tes total sales of around one billion euros.

About Deut­sche Aircraft GmbH

Deut­sche Aircraft is Germany’s new targe­ted OEM. Deut­sche Aircraft’s new D328eco™ aircraft, based on the legacy of avia­tion pioneers, is desi­gned to signi­fi­cantly reduce opera­ting and main­ten­ance costs and lower the over­all carbon foot­print. This is in line with Deut­sche Aircraft’s vision and stra­te­gic road­map to support a more sustainable future for avia­tion. The D328eco will offer maxi­mum flexi­bi­lity as it can run on exis­ting avia­tion gaso­line as well as 100% H2-PtL. The aircraft is assem­bled in the paper­less finis­hing line (FAL) in Leipzig/Germany. All para­me­ters are in high demand in the current avia­tion envi­ron­ment, and there is alre­ady increased inte­rest in the D328eco among poten­tial custo­mers and partners.

News

Gelsenkirchen/ Munich — Komatsu announ­ced today that it has ente­red into an agree­ment to acquire GHH Group GmbH (GHH), a manu­fac­tu­rer of machi­nes for under­ground mining, tunnel­ing and foun­da­tion engi­nee­ring head­quar­te­red in Gelsen­kir­chen, Germany. The GHH Group deve­lops and produ­ces vehic­les for under­ground and tunnel cons­truc­tion. Komatsu, head­quar­te­red in Tokyo, opera­tes as a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of cons­truc­tion, mining, forestry and indus­trial equip­ment in more than 140 count­ries. Komatsu was advi­sed by Henge­ler Müller in this transaction.

GHH was foun­ded in the 1960s and is now part of the German Schmidt Kranz Group. The company offers a wide range of machi­nes focu­sing on loaders and arti­cu­la­ted dump trucks in the medium-seam mining, narrow-gauge and civil engi­nee­ring market segments. With this acqui­si­tion, Komatsu will acquire GHH’s facto­ries and conver­sion capa­bi­li­ties in key markets in addi­tion to its robust product offe­ring and talen­ted workforce.

We are very exci­ted about this acqui­si­tion as it repres­ents a great oppor­tu­nity for Komatsu to expand its under­ground mining equip­ment offe­ring and acce­le­rate new product deve­lo­p­ment through syner­gies with Komatsu’s exis­ting team and product offe­ring,” said Peter Salditt, presi­dent and CEO of Komatsu Mining Corp. “With the addi­tion of GHH’s facto­ries and rebuild opera­ti­ons in key markets in Europe, South Africa, India and Chile. We also want to use it to streng­then produc­tion and service capa­ci­ties for our customers.”

Komatsu intends to conti­nue GHH’s excel­lent service and plans to operate as usual after the acqui­si­tion. The combi­ned team will then work toge­ther to expand Komatsu’s under­ground mining equip­ment offe­ring and help custo­mers access products in new areas.

“GHH is plea­sed to embark on a new jour­ney with a strong player in the mining world. This opens up tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties for our people and our products to evolve and grow beyond what we had hoped for,” said Dr. Jan Petzold, CEO of GHH Group. “This is the next logi­cal step in beco­ming a true global player, and we look forward to beco­ming part of the Komatsu family.”

In fact, GHH may be conside­red a rock in the indus­try, with roots dating back to 1758. At its peak as a mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring conglo­me­rate, it had almost 100,000 employees. Indus­trial giants like MAN, Roland and MTU were once among them. In 1995, GHH Fahr­zeuge GmbH split off as a specia­list for under­ground equip­ment. Within 25 years, the manu­fac­tu­rer advan­ced to become a real player in the world market.

GHH supplies almost ever­y­thing that is on wheels in deep mining and espe­ci­ally in raw mate­rial mining. GHH exports its loaders, dump trucks, concrete mixers, and shove­lers around the globe. This includes dril­ling rigs, anchor hand­ling equip­ment and tunnell­ing machi­nes from Mine Master as well as flat travel­ling loaders from GHH Mining Machi­nes. A dense part­ner network under­pins the company’s claim to be a “total solu­tion provi­der” offe­ring ever­y­thing from a single source. The offi­cial closing of the acqui­si­tion is sche­du­led for the first half of 2023.

Under the ongo­ing medium-term manage­ment plan “DANTOTSU Value — Toge­ther, to ‘The Next’ for sustainable growth,” Komatsu is working to expand its under­ground hard­rock mining offe­rings and create new value for custo­mers by deve­lo­ping new equip­ment, proces­ses and tech­no­lo­gies that will help opera­ti­ons reach the next level for the work­place of the future and create a more sustainable envi­ron­ment for the next generation.

About Komatsu
Komatsu deve­lops and supplies tech­no­lo­gies, equip­ment and services for the cons­truc­tion, mining, fork­lift, indus­trial and forestry markets. For a century, the company has crea­ted value for its custo­mers through manu­fac­tu­ring and tech­no­logy inno­va­tion, and colla­bo­ra­ted with others to enable a sustainable future where people, busi­nesses and the planet thrive together.

 

News

Munich, Germany — French private equity firm PAI Part­ners (“PAI”) has acqui­red Savory Solu­ti­ons Group, a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of flavor and func­tional solu­ti­ons for the food sector. The seller was Inter­na­tio­nal Flavors & Fragran­ces Inc. (“IFF”). The merger is still subject to the usual regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the second quar­ter of 2023. POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the manage­ment of Savory Solu­ti­ons Group in connec­tion with the sale.

Savory Solu­ti­ons Group, parti­cu­larly under the Wiberg and Piasa brands, offers a range of value-added savory ingre­di­ents and blends. The solu­ti­ons are used by food manu­fac­tu­r­ers, butchers as well as food­ser­vice opera­tors to improve texture and taste and extend the shelf life of their products. The company opera­tes 17 produc­tion sites and nine inno­va­tion sites and employs over 1,800 people. Savory Solu­ti­ons Group serves more than 11,000 custo­mers in Europe, North America and Asia. The Group gene­ra­tes sales of around 470 million euros.

Toge­ther with PAI, Savory Solu­ti­ons Group will conti­nue to acce­le­rate the busi­ness through inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion in Europe and North America, both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons, parti­cu­larly in the attrac­tive vege­ta­ble and clean label segments. — The acqui­si­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close by the second quar­ter of 2023.

French private equity firm PAI Part­ners invests in market-leading compa­nies around the world with a strong focus on the food and consu­mer goods industries.

Advi­sor Savory Solu­ti­ons Group: POELLATH, Munich

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Investments)
Jan Lukas Jung­claus, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participations)
Ida Süß, LL.M. (UCLA) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Associates)

About PAI Partners

PAI Part­ners is a leading private equity firm inves­t­ing in market-leading compa­nies world­wide. PAI Part­ners mana­ges €26.4 billion of buyout funds and has comple­ted 92 invest­ments in 11 count­ries since 1994 with a tran­sac­tion value of over €72 billion. PAI has built an outstan­ding track record of working with ambi­tious manage­ment teams where unique perspec­tive, unmat­ched indus­try expe­ri­ence and long-term vision enable compa­nies to reach — and go beyond — their full poten­tial. www.paipartners.com.

News

Munich — FCF Fox Corpo­rate Finance GmbH (FCF) publishes the latest “Indus­trial IoT Venture Capi­tal Report”. This first-ever report, which exami­nes Euro­pean venture capi­tal funding trends in deep-tech verti­cal indus­trial IoT, reve­als a bifur­ca­ted trend.

Indus­trial IoT, the sub-verti­cal of IoT that focu­ses on indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons of IoT, is domi­na­ted by large indus­trial groups but also by a large number of start-ups that offer inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in areas such as hard­ware and senso­ric, soft­ware & analy­tics and connec­ti­vity. In its latest report, FCF has high­ligh­ted VC invest­ments but also exit acti­vi­ties (trade sale and IPO) of start­ups from the verti­cal, focus on Euro­pean start­ups in the obser­va­tion period 2017 — Q3 2022.

A look at the deve­lo­p­ment of invest­ment volu­mes and the number of deals reve­als a split picture: Although finan­cing volu­mes have increased signi­fi­cantly from EUR 650 million in 2017 to EUR 914 million in 2022. The number of deals, howe­ver, has been steadily decli­ning since 2019, from 407 to 163 deals in 2022. The decline in the number of deals thus began even before the gene­ral cooling of the venture capi­tal market since around the begin­ning of 2022. Nevert­hel­ess, the rising volu­mes indi­cate that the sector is still attrac­tive for inves­tors and is thus successfully holding its own against slumps in other verticals.

Matu­rity of the sector increa­ses — Out of the garage, into the factory

More volume with fewer deals natu­rally means higher average and median volu­mes per deal. In 2022 in parti­cu­lar, the invest­ment volume was largely driven by three mega deals — KINEXON with EUR 119 million, Descar­tes with EUR 107 million, and Nexxiot with a volume of EUR 102 million. In turn, the gene­rally decli­ning shares of seed & early-stage deals over time indi­cate a steadily growing matu­rity of the vertical.

News

Landshut/Munich — Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active growth inves­tors in the German high-tech land­scape, is once again inves­t­ing in iThera Medi­cal with funds from the Bava­rian Growth Fund. The Munich-based MedTech start-up is active in the field of optoa­cou­stic imaging for medi­cal diagno­stics and has deve­lo­ped the laser light-based “MSOT” tech­no­logy (Multis­pec­tral Optoa­cou­stic Tomo­gra­phy) for the detec­tion of various dise­ase patterns such as cancer or fibro­sis. Other inves­tors in the Series D round with a total volume of EUR 13 million are TRUMPF Venture as lead inves­tor, the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil Fund of the Euro­pean Commis­sion and the exis­ting inves­tors Mey Capi­tal Matrix, BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, Fluxu­nit, Falk Stra­scheg Holding and Occi­dent Group.

In clini­cal prac­tice, a wide range of diagno­stic proce­du­res is essen­tial to diagnose dise­ase and moni­tor response to treat­ment. In many areas, howe­ver, there is an unmet need for accu­rate, objec­tive, and quan­ti­ta­tive methods.

The unique multis­pec­tral optoa­cou­stic tomo­gra­phy (MSOT) from iThera Medi­cal GmbH promi­ses a breakth­rough here. The MedTech company was spun off from Helm­holtz Zentrum München in 2010 with the aim of commer­cia­li­zing rese­arch results in the field of inno­va­tive medi­cal imaging methods and today employs 45 people. iThera’s MSOT tech­no­logy uses the photoa­cou­stic effect — the conver­sion of light energy into sound waves — to charac­te­rize and diffe­ren­tiate diffe­rent tissue types in the body and convert them into 3D images. In contrast to estab­lished imaging methods, anato­mical, func­tional and mole­cu­lar tissue infor­ma­tion can thus be displayed for the first time at a depth of seve­ral centi­me­ters in high reso­lu­tion. This enables physi­ci­ans to make diagno­ses early, non-inva­si­vely and in real time — for exam­ple in the case of vascu­lar, fibro­tic or tumor dise­a­ses. MSOT has alre­ady demons­tra­ted its poten­tial clini­cal value in a variety of studies and is curr­ently being used in clini­cal rese­arch at leading acade­mic hospi­tals worldwide.

The company will use the new funding to advance the tran­si­tion of MSOT from rese­arch to routine clini­cal use. To this end, iThera Medi­cal is deve­lo­ping an MSOT device opti­mi­zed for routine clini­cal use in order to obtain regu­la­tory appr­oval for use in Europe and the United States (CE and FDA appr­oval) and to expand the clini­cal evidence from previous studies.

“The funding round is the next important step in taking our MSOT tech­no­logy from a rese­arch tool to a diagno­stic tool in the clini­cal setting, which we believe will be a game-chan­ger for milli­ons of pati­ents around the world,” said Chris­tian Wiest, CEO and co-foun­der of iThera Medi­cal. “The support of our inves­tors — both new and exis­ting — will enable us to realize this vision.”

Ulrich Kruse, Invest­ment Mana­ger at TRUMPF Venture (photo), commen­ted, “iThera Medical’s tech­no­logy is capa­ble of deli­ve­ring the next breakth­rough in medi­cal imaging. As a company with roots in photo­nics and medi­cal tech­no­logy, we are plea­sed to support MSOT’s contin­ued deve­lo­p­ment and anti­ci­pate a successful launch in medi­cal imaging.”

“MSOT addres­ses seve­ral criti­cal limi­ta­ti­ons of today’s non-inva­sive in vivo imaging tech­no­lo­gies, combi­ning the ease of use and depth pene­tra­tion of conven­tio­nal hand­held ultra­sound systems with unpre­ce­den­ted high-reso­lu­tion opti­cal infor­ma­tion down to the mole­cu­lar level,” explai­ned Dr. Georg Ried, mana­ging direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “This will mini­mize risks for pati­ents and reduce finan­cial burdens in seve­ral areas of health­care systems world­wide. We are ther­e­fore very plea­sed to conti­nue on the path we have embarked on toge­ther in the future.”

About iThera Medial:
Foun­ded in 2010, iThera Medi­cal deve­lops and markets optoa­cou­stic imaging systems for precli­ni­cal and clini­cal rese­arch. More recently, the company has begun using its tech­no­logy for routine clini­cal diagno­stics in a variety of dise­ase settings, inclu­ding cancer, inflamm­a­tion, fibro­sis and cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­ase. Optoa­cou­stic imaging uses the photoa­cou­stic effect — the conver­sion of light energy into acou­stic signals — to visua­lize and quan­tify opti­cal contrast in deep tissue with high spatial and tempo­ral resolution.
www.ithera-medical.com

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

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

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

News

Munich — fruit­core robo­tics has raised €23 million in new capi­tal in a Series B finan­cing round. For the first time, inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned venture capi­tal firms Capri­corn Part­ners and KOMPAS, as well as high- and deep-tech invest­ment firm XAI tech­no­lo­gies, are inves­t­ing in the pioneer of intel­li­gent robo­tics and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for busi­nesses of all sizes. Rene­wed confi­dence is also expres­sed by the previous VCs: UVC Part­ners, Matter­wave Ventures, CNB Capi­tal, the family office Pecon and the btov private inves­tor network are also parti­ci­pa­ting in the finan­cing round. The capi­tal will be used to acce­le­rate product inno­va­tion, sales and marke­ting, and inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

“With the closing of our Series B finan­cing, we are once again a big step closer to our goal of making robo­tics and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons acces­si­ble to a broad mass. We see that the demand for high-quality and easy-to-use robots in the market is conti­nuously incre­asing. Ther­e­fore, we will use the new capi­tal prima­rily to serve the demand for our robo­tics and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons as well as digi­tal products in the Euro­pean market”, says Jens Rieg­ger CEO and co-foun­der of fruit­core robo­tics. The company is curr­ently active in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and Italy. By the end of 2023, fruit­core robo­tics aims to open up a large part of the Euro­pean markets.

Central to fruit­core robo­tics’ success are the intel­li­gent robo­tics solu­ti­ons based around the “Digi­tal Robot” HORST, which provide compa­nies of all sizes with access to indus­trial, highly produc­tive auto­ma­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion. Even small and medium-sized compa­nies without much expe­ri­ence can get star­ted easily and quickly. The entry barriers are low — low invest­ment costs, fast imple­men­ta­tion, intui­tive programming and high perfor­mance meet the demand. Hard­ware, soft­ware, connec­ti­vity and services are offe­red in an easy-to-use end-to-end solution.

Three years after its market launch, fruit­core robo­tics is alre­ady auto­ma­ting seve­ral hundred diffe­rent appli­ca­ti­ons in 29 indus­tries. The network of part­ner compa­nies in the DACH region and in Italy has grown to more than 60 parti­ci­pants and is being succes­si­vely expan­ded. Today, the company employs more than 100 people and will conti­nue to create attrac­tive jobs at its sites in Cons­tance and Villin­gen through further growth.

Benja­min Erhart, Gene­ral Part­ner at UVC Part­ners (Photo) and Lead Inves­tor at fruit­core robo­tics says: “fruit­core robo­tics addres­ses a major pain of our economy: scalable auto­ma­tion in manu­fac­tu­ring SMEs. It is a key to address the criti­cal situa­tion of deli­very times, growing demand and (again) incre­asingly Europe-centric produc­tion in a timely manner. Since our initial invest­ment in 2021, the fruit­core robo­tics team has shown that deep soft­ware exper­tise has crea­ted an offe­ring that perfectly meets the needs of their custo­mers on a mass scale.”

About fruit­core robotics

fruit­core robo­tics GmbH, based in Cons­tance, Germany, specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and marke­ting of tech­ni­cally outstan­ding and easy-to-use “digi­tal robots”. The deep-tech company’s focus is on making robo­tic indus­trial auto­ma­tion available to the masses. The modu­lar product port­fo­lio includes the “Digi­tal Robots” HORST, the intui­tive soft­ware horstFX, the Indus­trial IoT plat­form horstCOSMOS.com and intel­li­gent features for camera reco­gni­tion. The robots are Made in Germany, from the hard­ware to the soft­ware. In addi­tion to robots, the company also offers ready-made solu­ti­ons and soft­ware packa­ges for plug & play imple­men­ta­tion of complete applications.

About UVC Partners
UVC Part­ners is a Munich and Berlin-based early-stage venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in Euro­pean B2B start-ups in the fields of enter­prise soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies and mobi­lity. The fund gene­rally invests between €0.5 and €10 million at the outset and up to €30 million in total per company. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s leading inno­va­tion and start-up center. With over 350 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM can draw on many years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding young compa­nies. This colla­bo­ra­tion gives UVC Part­ners the oppor­tu­nity to provide start­ups with unique access to talent, indus­try clients and other finan­cial partners.

News

Wetzlar/Germering(Munich) — Jaschek Maschi­nen­trans­porte GmbH, relia­ble assem­bly and trans­port service provi­der for the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try, beco­mes part of ROBUR. The leading German and globally active group of compa­nies from Munich combi­nes the exper­tise of more than 30 compa­nies for its custo­mers in the wind, water, energy, indus­tri­als and process indus­try segments and marks the start of a stra­te­gic growth part­ner­ship for Jaschek. Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance one of Germany’s leading M&A consul­ting bouti­ques for medium-sized compa­nies, exclu­si­vely advi­sed the company in the inves­tor process.

Jaschek Maschi­nen­trans­porte GmbH (“Jaschek MT”), based in Germe­ring near Munich and curr­ently employ­ing around 20 people, specia­li­zes in the smooth execu­tion of indus­trial services for manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, such as the disas­sem­bly and reas­sem­bly as well as the special trans­port of machi­nes and plants of all kinds. The company covers the entire range of services from plan­ning and project manage­ment to the storage and inte­rim storage of machi­nery and the scrap­ping and dispo­sal of old equip­ment. Jaschek MT has a broad custo­mer base from a wide range of indus­tries — in recent years, the focus has been parti­cu­larly on the auto­mo­tive sector with well-known custo­mers such as Porsche, Schaeff­ler and Audi AG.

“Mr. Füll­ner approa­ched us with an exci­ting case,” comm­ents Sebas­tian Ring­leb, project mana­ger at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor. “After taking over the manage­ment and later also the shares, he deve­lo­ped Jaschek into a relia­ble indus­trial service provi­der with well-known custo­mers from the auto­mo­tive indus­try. To ensure further growth, he was now looking for a part­ner to support the stra­tegy. Here we have found the ideal part­ner in ROBUR.”

ROBUR was foun­ded in 2015 and is now one of the top 10 indus­trial service provi­ders in Germany with more than 25 compa­nies and over EUR 300 million in sales. Divi­ded into the indus­try segments Wind, Water, Energy, Indus­tri­als and Process Indus­tries, around 3,000 employees in specia­li­zed compa­nies world­wide create effi­ci­ent, opti­mi­zed and inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons along the entire life cycle of indus­trial plants. In addi­tion, ROBUR supports custo­mers in desig­ning digi­ta­liza­tion, auto­ma­tion and data insight solu­ti­ons to stand against the chal­lenges of digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­ons and envi­ron­men­tal change.

Tommy Füll­ner will conti­nue to assume respon­si­bi­lity for Jaschek MT and will in future also devote hims­elf to stra­te­gic tasks within ROBUR: “In ROBUR, we have been able to find an excel­lent stra­te­gic part­ner under whose umbrella Jaschek MT can conti­nue to steer its course towards growth,” says Füll­ner. “The Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor team actively supported us with their expe­ri­ence and exper­tise throug­hout the entire sales process. I would like to express my sincere thanks for this.”

About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

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

About Jaschek Maschi­nen­trans­porte GmbH

True to the motto: “Great imple­men­ta­tion? JASCHEK”, we have been a guaran­tor for the smooth imple­men­ta­tion of even complex tasks for almost 40 years. The basis for this is our employees, who always find a suita­ble solu­tion based on their wealth of expe­ri­ence. As your relia­ble part­ner we offer you solu­ti­ons for machine trans­ports and factory relo­ca­ti­ons; disas­sem­bly and reas­sem­bly of machi­nes and plants; elec­tri­cal disas­sem­bly and reas­sem­bly as well as factory relo­ca­ti­ons and produc­tion relo­ca­ti­ons at home and abroad.from plan­ning to re-commis­sio­ning at the new loca­tion; the complete trans­port logi­stics incl. Disas­sem­bly and reas­sem­bly incl. pack­a­ging and docu­men­ta­tion; plan­ning and project manage­ment, it is also possi­ble to store machi­nes on 2,500 square meters of our own storage capa­city, for exam­ple as tempo­rary storage. In addi­tion, the dismant­ling and scrap­ping as well as dispo­sal of old equip­ment incl. Plant clea­ning and pollutant disposal.
www.jaschek-mt.de

About ROBUR Group
Foun­ded in 2015 in response to the chan­ging chal­lenges of high-quality and incre­asingly digi­tal indus­trial services, ROBUR is one of the top 10 indus­trial service provi­ders in Germany with a global presence, gene­ra­ting over EUR 300 million in reve­nue in 2022. Both the finan­cing and the manage­ment of the Group are based on part­ner­ship and entre­pre­neur­ship. The compa­nies bene­fit from the size and inter­na­tio­na­lity of the Group and can exploit sales, capa­city utiliza­tion and manage­ment syner­gies. Appro­xi­m­ately 3,000 colle­agues work in the wind, water, energy, indus­tri­als and process indus­try segments, crea­ting inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons as a compe­tent part­ner from plan­ning and realiza­tion through instal­la­tion, opera­tion and main­ten­ance to relo­ca­tion and dismant­ling. They help shape digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion with digi­tal, auto­ma­tion, and data insights solu­ti­ons. In this context, the chal­lenges of ecolo­gi­cal change are the driving force behind the crea­tion of effi­ci­ent, opti­mi­zed and holi­stic solu­ti­ons for the bene­fit of our custo­mers, the envi­ron­ment and future generations.
www.robur-industry-service.com

News

Frank­furt am Main / Bayreuth — With the support of its share­hol­ders VR Equi­typ­art­ner and INDUC, Grun­dig Busi­ness Systems GmbH (GBS) acqui­res 100 percent of the shares in Elek­tron Systeme from Weißen­ohe. With this acqui­si­tion, GBS streng­thens its posi­tio­ning in the field of elec­tro­nic assem­bly and systems (EMS) manufacturing.

Foun­ded in 2009, Elek­tron Systeme is a certi­fied EMS service provi­der based in Weißen­ohe, Germany. The group consists of Elek­tron Systeme und Kompo­nen­ten GmbH & Co KG and its sister company ib Prozess­leit­tech­nik GmbH & Co KG. As a one-stop store rooted in the region and a full-service part­ner for leading OEMs in medi­cal tech­no­logy and indus­try, Elek­tron Systeme manu­fac­tures complete elec­tro­nic assem­blies and device units. The company covers the entire elec­tro­nics value chain and accom­pa­nies its custo­mers from feasi­bi­lity studies to device cons­truc­tion, from new deve­lo­p­ments to logi­stics services. Recent invest­ments in new SMD produc­tion capa­city and a fully auto­ma­ted warehouse provide modern produc­tion conditions.

Grun­dig Busi­ness Systems GmbH (GBS) is a medium-sized produc­tion and service company based in Bayreuth. VR Equi­typ­art­ner, toge­ther with its subsi­diary VR Equity Gesell­schaft für regio­nale Entwick­lung in Bayern mbH, had acqui­red a mino­rity stake in GBS from INDUC in 2016. As both GBS and Elek­tron Systeme are active in the produc­tion of elec­tro­nic assem­blies and systems, the acqui­si­tion is inten­ded to streng­then the GBS EMS busi­ness unit — among other things through the mutual trans­fer of expe­ri­ence and exper­tise and the expan­sion of the produc­tion spectrum.

The seller is the foun­der and previous sole share­hol­der Frank Streit, who will act in an advi­sory capa­city after the tran­sac­tion. Opera­tio­nal manage­ment remains in the hands of the exis­ting manage­ment team: Michael Walter (Commer­cial Divi­sion) and Harald Weiß (Tech­ni­cal Division).

Frank Streit, who, like Harald Weiß, origi­nally comes from GBS, sees the tran­sac­tion as a win-win situa­tion: “The sale to GBS is an important stra­te­gic step for Elek­tron Systeme, because there are many opera­tio­nal synergy approa­ches due to the spatial as well as cultu­ral proxi­mity of the two houses.”

GBS Mana­ging Direc­tor Roland Holl­stein also sees it this way: “With Elek­tron Systeme, we have the chance to inte­grate addi­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­ring and produc­tion exper­tise for our EMS area into the company. For exam­ple, we are thin­king of imple­men­ting a best-prac­tice system for the two sites in Bayreuth and Weißenohe.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner, is also plea­sed about the new part­ner­ship: “The inte­gra­tion of the two compa­nies repres­ents a great oppor­tu­nity for further growth. Among other things, both compa­nies can now bene­fit from Elek­tron Systeme’s long-term custo­mer rela­ti­onships with seve­ral German blue-chip manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the medi­cal tech­no­logy and indus­trial sectors. We believe this puts GBS in an excel­lent posi­tion for the future.”

Dr. Frank Töff­lin­ger, mana­ging part­ner of INDUC and initia­tor of the GBS busi­ness unit “EMS”, also sees in the acqui­si­tion a consis­tent conti­nua­tion of the EMS growth course, espe­ci­ally as the sales of the busi­ness unit will almost double with the acquisition.

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 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million.

News

Munich/ Berlin — The owner-mana­ged invest­ment company EOS Part­ners GmbH (“EOS”) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in POOLARSERVER GmbH (“POOLARSERVER”), a German provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the digi­tal manage­ment of cons­truc­tion proces­ses. The closing of the tran­sac­tion took place in Novem­ber 2022. POELLATH provi­ded legal advice to EOS on the struc­tu­ring and imple­men­ta­tion of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion program as part of the transaction.

Foun­ded in 2007 and based in Stutt­gart, Germany, POOLARSERVER is a quality-leading cloud cons­truc­tion company that offers an intui­tive, relia­ble and multi-func­tional cloud cons­truc­tion manage­ment plat­form that faci­li­ta­tes colla­bo­ra­tion between all stake­hol­ders invol­ved in a cons­truc­tion project throug­hout the project life­cy­cle. The company has more than 550 custo­mers and over 1,000 ongo­ing cons­truc­tion projects.

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

POELLATH provi­ded legal advice to EOS in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the estab­lish­ment of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion program with the follo­wing Munich team:
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Investments)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participations)
Jan Lukas Jung­claus, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participations)

About PÖLLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 170 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape it toge­ther with

News

Frank­furt am Main — The Spokes­man of the Board of Manage­ment of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), Tors­ten Grede, intends to resign as a member and Spokes­man of the Board of Manage­ment at the end of Febru­ary 2023 in the best possi­ble agree­ment with the Super­vi­sory Board. This was announ­ced today by Tors­ten Grede and the Super­vi­sory Board of DBAG. The new spokes­man for the Execu­tive Board from March 1, 2023 is to be Execu­tive Board member Tom Alzin. Mela­nie Wiese (photo) will join the DBAG Manage­ment Board as the new Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer on Janu­ary 1, 2023, taking over respon­si­bi­lity for Finance from Tors­ten Grede.

“My decis­ion to ask the Super­vi­sory Board to prema­tu­rely termi­nate my service on the Manage­ment Board after 32 years of service to DBAG marks the comple­tion of the long-plan­ned gene­ra­tio­nal change on the Manage­ment Board,” Grede said today. And: “I am parti­cu­larly plea­sed that it will be my long-time colle­agues who, toge­ther with Mela­nie Wiese, will steer DBAG’s fortu­nes in the future, and that the Super­vi­sory Board will entrust my colle­ague Tom Alzin with the office of Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board.”

The Manage­ment Board of DBAG curr­ently has three members. In addi­tion to Mr. Grede and Mr. Alzin, this is Jannick Hune­cke. Tors­ten Grede has been a member of the Execu­tive Board since 2001 and has been Spokes­man of the Execu­tive Board since 2013.

“The Super­vi­sory Board would like to express its sincere thanks to Tors­ten Grede for the many years of successful coope­ra­tion,” said Dr. Hendrik Otto, Chair­man of DBAG’s Super­vi­sory Board today. And: “He has played a key role in shaping DBAG’s stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment and growth and has played a major role in estab­li­shing DBAG as one of the leading German private equity firms with assets under manage­ment or advi­sory of 2.5 billion euros.”

Tom Alzin will become the new Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of DBAG as of March 1, 2023. He joined DBAG in 2004 and has been a member of the Manage­ment Board since 2021. “I am very plea­sed about the confi­dence of the Super­vi­sory Board. I am convin­ced that DBAG is follo­wing the right path with its strong posi­tio­ning as one of Germany’s most renow­ned private equity firms and our new stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves. These include the expan­sion of our acti­vi­ties in the Italian market, the exten­sion of our range of equity solu­ti­ons for medium-sized and prima­rily family-mana­ged compa­nies, and the focus on sectors that bene­fit from struc­tu­ral growth. I will do ever­y­thing in my power to further advance the dyna­mic deve­lo­p­ment of the company,” said Tom Alzin.

Mela­nie Wiese worked for the energy compa­nies E.ON SE, Innogy SE, Essen, and Bayern­werk AG, Regens­burg, between 2017 and 2022 — most recently as a member of the boards of Innogy SE and Bayern­werk AG, respon­si­ble for finance (CFO, Bayern­werk AG). Previously, as Head of Accoun­ting & Report­ing at Innogy SE and Head of Group Accoun­ting at E.ON SE, she was invol­ved in a wide range of topics, inclu­ding group accoun­ting, M&A tran­sac­tions, taxes, control­ling and finan­cing. Previously, she headed the inter­na­tio­nal shared service orga­niza­tion of the tech­no­logy group ZF Fried­richs­ha­fen (2014 to 2017) and before that worked as a manage­ment consul­tant at Accen­ture Manage­ment Consul­ting and The Hackett Group.

“We are very plea­sed that in Mela­nie Wiese we have been able to attract a proven finan­cial expert with many years of manage­ment expe­ri­ence from German indus­try,” Super­vi­sory Board Chair­man Dr. Hendrik Otto said today. And: “Conti­nuity and a long-term orien­ta­tion are the corner­sto­nes of the private equity busi­ness; this is also reflec­ted in the smooth gene­ra­tio­nal change on the Manage­ment Board, and this is what DBAG’s Manage­ment Board also stands for in its new composition.”

Wiese expects nume­rous chal­lenges at her new employer. In the shadow of the nega­tive capi­tal market deve­lo­p­ment, DBAG had to absorb a loss of 98 million euros in the past fiscal year (until the end of Septem­ber 2022).

About DBAG

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 indus­try focus is on manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services, soft­ware and health­care sectors. Since 2020, DBAG has also been repre­sen­ted in Italy with its own office in Milan. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to appro­xi­m­ately 2.5 billion euros.

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz has advi­sed the Munich-based IT secu­rity company Crash­test Secu­rity GmbH on the sale of its mate­rial assets to Vera­code Inc, USA. The tran­sac­tion was carried out as a stra­te­gic exit in the form of an asset deal. The manage­ment team led by Felix Brom­ba­cher and René Milz­arek will work for the Vera­code Group in the future and drive expan­sion in the Euro­pean market.

Vera­code is a leading global provi­der of Appli­ca­tion Secu­rity Test­ing (AST) solu­ti­ons based in Burling­ton, Massa­chu­setts. Crash­test Security’s dyna­mic appli­ca­tion secu­rity test­ing (DAST) solu­tion is desi­gned to comple­ment the exis­ting DAST capa­bi­li­ties of Veracode’s Conti­nuous Soft­ware Secu­rity Plat­form and expand custo­mer access worldwide.

Crash­test Secu­rity, based in Munich, was foun­ded in 2017. The solu­tion can analyze Java­Script-based apps, REST (Repre­sen­ta­tio­nal State Trans­fer) APIs, and tradi­tio­nal web apps, and auto­mate secu­rity test­ing by inte­gra­ting them into the soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment pipeline.

SKW Schwarz has accom­pa­nied Crash­test Secu­rity GmbH in the various finan­cing rounds since its foundation.

Advi­sors Crash­test Secu­rity GmbH: SKW Schwarz, Munich
Dr. Martin Bött­ger (photo), Dr. Thomas Haus­beck (both Corporate/M&A, both lead), Heiko Wunder­lich (Tax Law), Dr. Martin Greß­lin (Labor Law), Dr. Daniel Meßmer (IT), Dr. Stefan Pein­tin­ger (Coun­sel, IT/Data Protection)

About SKW Schwarz

SKW Schwarz is an inde­pen­dent full-service law firm. With more than 120 lawy­ers at four loca­ti­ons in Germany, the firm advi­ses in all rele­vant areas of busi­ness law. At the end of 2018, the firm foun­ded SKW Schwarz @ Tech GmbH, in which the lawy­ers bundle all acti­vi­ties in the area of legal tech across loca­ti­ons and disciplines.

News

Frank­furt — Quadriga Capi­tal sells Aspire Educa­tion to EMZ Part­ners. Aspire’s manage­ment will take a reverse stake in the company as part of the tran­sac­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion. — Alan­tra, the global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment, has advi­sed Quadriga Capi­tal Funds, Jersey (“Quadriga”), legacy share­hol­ders and manage­ment of Aspire Educa­tion Group (“Aspire” or “the Company”) on the sale of the Company to EMZ Part­ners (“EMZ”).

The Vienna-based Aspire Group is the leading plat­form for voca­tio­nal quali­fi­ca­tion and trai­ning in the DACH region and, with 1,200 employees in eight compa­nies and 100,000 lear­ners per year, the largest private-sector educa­tion provi­der in Austria. The Aspire plat­form, consis­ting of the ibis acam, ETC, brai­nymo­tion, ARS, KAOS, Stepin, aspi­doo and fast lane brands, offers its custo­mers a wide range of services, from soft­ware & IT, legal, compli­ance, tax and finance to prepa­ring trai­nees and jobsee­kers to start or re-enter the work­force. The Aspire Group inves­ted in online and digi­tal capa­bi­li­ties early on, and Aspire custo­mers can access the service offe­ring either on-site, hybrid, or online.

Under Quadriga’s owner­ship, Aspire has inves­ted in expan­ding its digi­tal lear­ning tools and in new, inno­va­tive formats such as Hire-Train-Deploy to address the skills shortage, and has signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its geogra­phic foot­print and product port­fo­lio through six stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons since 2018. Most recently, Aspire acqui­red the German IT trai­ning provi­der brai­nymo­tion and now gene­ra­tes group sales of around 100 million euros. With EMZ, Aspire now wants to conti­nue this growth course.

Over­all, the market for private and publicly funded educa­tion in Germany and Austria is worth around six billion euros and is esti­ma­ted to grow by around three percent a year in the coming years, with IT trai­ning expec­ted to grow more than twice as fast. The market is bene­fiting from demo­gra­phic change and the asso­cia­ted struc­tu­ral trend toward lifel­ong lear­ning, as well as from the shortage of skil­led person­nel, parti­cu­larly in the IT sector. Accor­ding to the Insti­tute of the German Economy (IW), there were recently no suita­bly quali­fied jobsee­kers for nine out of ten vacan­cies nati­on­wide in Germany.

Phil­ipp Jacobi, Mana­ging Part­ner of Quadriga Capi­tal Eigen­ka­pi­tal­be­ra­tung GmbH, advi­sor to Quadriga, said: “The Aspire Group has perfor­med extre­mely well since Quadriga’s entry. Alantra’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in working with private equity inves­tors has now enab­led us to realize this value propo­si­tion in the dives­ti­ture, comple­ting a successful tran­sac­tion despite a chal­len­ging M&A environment.”

Johan­nes Lampert and Udo Schel­kes, co-CEOs of Aspire, added: “This tran­sac­tion provi­des an excel­lent foun­da­tion for the imple­men­ta­tion of our future vision for Aspire with orga­nic growth through inno­va­tive products as well as through further stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and part­ner­ships. We have alre­ady seen in past acqui­si­ti­ons that both the Austrian and German markets have unique charac­te­ristics and circum­s­tances despite their proxi­mity in terms of geogra­phy and language. The tire­less commit­ment of the Alan­tra teams in both count­ries has ther­e­fore made an important contri­bu­tion to the success of the tran­sac­tion and to our further growth strategy.”

Sven Harm­sen, Mana­ging Direc­tor in Alantra’s Frank­furt office, added: “We thank Quadriga and the manage­ment team for the trust and close coope­ra­tion on this mandate. Well-rehe­ar­sed teams with sector expe­ri­ence are a key factor in being able to successfully close tran­sac­tions even in the current market environment.”

The tran­sac­tion was mana­ged by Alantra’s offices in Frank­furt(Wolf­ram Schmerl (photo), Sven Harm­sen and Maxi­mi­lian Rohardt) and Vienna (Klaus Vukovich).

About Alan­tra
Alan­tra is a global alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, invest­ment banking and credit port­fo­lio advi­sory firm focu­sed on provi­ding services to busi­nesses, fami­lies and inves­tors opera­ting in the middle market segment. The Group has more than 550 profes­sio­nals in Europe, the USA, Latin America and Asia.
The Invest­ment Banking divi­sion provi­des inde­pen­dent advice on M&A, debt advi­sory, restruc­tu­ring and capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions and has advi­sed on more than 475 tran­sac­tions with a total value of over €80 billion in the last three years. Alantra’s specia­lists have both exten­sive global sector exper­tise and strong rela­ti­onships with local compa­nies, inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and finan­cing insti­tu­ti­ons in each of their markets.
www.alantra.com

News

Antwerp (Belgium)/ France — Biolam and Gimv today announce an important step on Biolam’s growth path. Follo­wing the rapid and successful deve­lo­p­ment of the group, which combi­nes orga­nic and exter­nal growth, Gimv is selling its shares in Biolam to the foun­ding team, which is supported by private inves­tors. The foun­ders, manage­ment and their new part­ners will conti­nue to focus on quality of service and care and expan­sion in France.

In 2019, Gimv acqui­red a stake with Daniel Attias in Biolam (www.groupebiolam.fr), an emer­ging group of clini­cal test­ing labo­ra­to­ries in the city of Amiens. The origi­nal plan, deve­lo­ped with Daniel Attias, aimed to create a leading player in the Hauts-de-France region in terms of size, clini­cal perfor­mance and level of service.

From the begin­ning, Biolam has grown very quickly thanks to a combi­na­tion of estab­li­shing labo­ra­to­ries in under­ser­ved loca­ti­ons, which is an important prere­qui­site for acces­si­ble quality care, and stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. In paral­lel, the Group conti­nuously inves­ted in staff, care orga­niza­tion, diagno­stic equip­ment and IT back­bone to support its ambi­tious medi­cal project. These efforts have enab­led Biolam to become a leading labo­ra­tory group in the Hauts-de-France and Normandy region, with a solid foun­da­tion for contin­ued success.

The company curr­ently opera­tes a network of more than 30 labo­ra­to­ries with 4 tech­ni­cal plat­forms and has an exten­sive pipe­line of active acqui­si­tion targets. Since Gimv’s invest­ment in 2019, Biolam has signed 7 addi­tio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons and built a leading and high-quality diagno­stics organization.

The tran­sac­tion announ­ced today will streng­then the company’s relent­less focus on quality service and care, as well as expan­sion in its regi­ons. The manage­ment team, toge­ther with its new part­ners, will conti­nue to invest in its orga­niza­tion while expan­ding its labo­ra­tory network to create an even better diagno­stics company for all stakeholders.

The tran­sac­tion has no mate­rial impact on the net asset value of Gimv as of Septem­ber 30, 2022. Further finan­cial details will not be disclosed.

Gautier Lefeb­vre, Part­ner at Gimv, and Kevin Klein, Prin­ci­pal at Gimv., state, “We are very proud to have part­ne­red with Biolam and Daniel Attias on the company’s growth stra­tegy, which has always put the quality of diagno­stics and level of service to physi­ci­ans first, espe­ci­ally during the pande­mic. From the begin­ning, we were perfectly aligned with the manage­ment team, resul­ting in an opti­mal ability to build the busi­ness and seize growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. We would like to thank the manage­ment of Biolam for their successful and excel­lent coope­ra­tion and wish them — toge­ther with their new part­ners — all the best for their further growth.”

Daniel Attias, Chair­man of the Biolam Group, says, “We have excee­ded the goals we origi­nally set with the Gimv team, which is a sign of very effec­tive colla­bo­ra­tion. We are grateful for the successful part­ner­ship with Gimv that has enab­led Biolam’s evolu­tion into an estab­lished and leading labo­ra­tory group with a solid foun­da­tion for the next phase of growth, and we look forward to conti­nuing to grow with our new partners.”

Trans­la­ted with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

News

Munich, Germany — Global Savings Group (GSG) and Pepper.com (Pepper) have signed an agree­ment to unite the world’s largest shop­ping commu­nity with Europe’s leading shop­ping recom­men­da­ti­ons and shop­ping rewards company. The tran­sac­tion repres­ents the largest deal in the indus­try in 2022 and crea­tes a Euro­pean cham­pion with a global presence.

Toge­ther, GSG and Pepper will form a multi­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy company that will empower shop­pers in more than 20 markets to make better purcha­sing decis­i­ons. GSG and Pepper will jointly operate the world’s largest shop­ping commu­nity, shop­ping refer­ral and rewards plat­form, connec­ting brands and retail­ers with consu­mers on more than 2 billion shop­ping trips annually.

“We are very exci­ted about this land­mark deal, which streng­thens our leading posi­tion in Europe. Toge­ther with Pepper, we will play an even more signi­fi­cant role in the daily lives of consu­mers and trans­form and shape the future of our indus­try by crea­ting a unique, impactful and even more compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of shop­ping solu­ti­ons with tremen­dous reach and bene­fits for consu­mers, brands, retail­ers and media compa­nies. Toge­ther we will expand our trans­for­ma­tive influence and drive GSG’s growth,” says Dr. Gerhard Traut­mann, CEO of GSG.

“Our main focus has always been to provide our commu­ni­ties with the best and most compre­hen­sive shop­ping solu­ti­ons to save money. Our colla­bo­ra­tion with GSG will greatly acce­le­rate this process by enab­ling us to broa­den our offe­ring. Toge­ther, we have more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in helping people make better buying decis­i­ons, and toge­ther we will provide even more rewar­ding shop­ping expe­ri­en­ces. Our loyal custo­mers and many more will bene­fit from our combi­ned content and tech­no­lo­gies,” comm­ents Fabian Spiel­ber­ger, CEO of Pepper.

GSG and Pepper are both market leaders in their fields and have expan­ded their shop­ping solu­ti­ons through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic growth. Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of UK loyalty specia­list Pouch in 2018, GSG acqui­red iGraal and Shoop, the leading French and German cash­back provi­ders, in 2020 and 2021 respec­tively, and most recently the Coupons.com brand and domain in the US. Pepper has always shared GSG’s goal of conso­li­da­ting the industry’s fast-growing market and has been expan­ding inter­na­tio­nally since 2014. Today, Pepper opera­tes market-leading social commerce plat­forms such as Dealabs, hotuk­de­als and myde­alz. Toge­ther, GSG and Pepper plan to deve­lop and deploy addi­tio­nal tech­no­lo­gies to build the leading plat­form for purcha­sing solu­ti­ons and services and to conti­nuously drive future growth in current and new markets and categories.

About GSG
GSG is Europe’s leading shop­ping rewards company with an inter­na­tio­nal presence in more than 20 markets. The company’s goal is to provide consu­mers with access to the best savings oppor­tu­ni­ties, cash­back, deals, product inspi­ra­tion, reviews, ther­eby enab­ling them to make opti­mal buying decis­i­ons. Foun­ded in 2012, GSG is head­quar­te­red in Munich, Germany, and employs more than 700 people in 12 offices around the world.

About Pepper
Pepper.com is the world’s largest shop­ping commu­nity. From its head­quar­ters in Berlin and offices in Guad­a­la­jara, London, Lyon and Winni­peg, Pepper Media Holding opera­tes market-leading social commerce plat­forms such as Dealabs, hotuk­de­als and myde­alz, which are used by 25 million consu­mers each month and influence 12,000 purchase decis­i­ons per minute. The company was foun­ded in 2014 by Fabian Spiel­ber­ger and Paul Nikkel.

Advi­sor Global Savings Group: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich
Dr. Phil­ipp Schäuble (lead, employ­ment law), Dr. Gero Burwitz (tax law), Jilali Maazouz (employ­ment law, Paris); asso­cia­tes: Fran­ziska Leub­ner (employ­ment law), Anne-Lorraine Méreaux (employ­ment law, Paris)

News

Landshut/Munich/Paris — Bayern Kapi­tal is taking a signi­fi­cant million euro stake in Paris-based TRiCa­res SAS, whose wholly owned subsi­diary, TRiCa­res GmbH of Asch­heim near Munich, employs around 20 highly quali­fied staff in Bava­ria, using resour­ces from the Bava­ria 2 growth fund. The German-French MedTech start-up is deve­lo­ping the medi­cal device Topaz, a cathe­ter-based heart valve repla­ce­ment system, to better treat severe tricu­spid regurgitation.

The invest­ment was made in the course of the second closing of a tran­sac­tion alre­ady announ­ced in Septem­ber. Series C finan­cing round with a total volume of EUR 47 millionwhose inves­tors include, in addi­tion to the lead inves­tor 415 Capi­tal also Go Capi­tal, Karista, Credit Mutuel Inno­va­tion, Welling­ton Part­ners, Andera Part­ners, Biomed­in­vest as well as a Consor­tium of private inves­tors around the company foun­der Pascal Lim.

Heart valve dise­ase is one of the most serious heart dise­a­ses, affec­ting more than 12.7 million pati­ents in Europe and many more world­wide. Although mini­mally inva­sive cathe­ter-based solu­ti­ons for the treat­ment of aortic and mitral valve dise­ase have been deve­lo­ped in recent years, none have been deve­lo­ped speci­fi­cally for the tricu­spid valve. Tricu­spid valve regur­gi­ta­tion is a common and serious condi­tion for which open-heart surgery and sympto­ma­tic phar­ma­co­lo­gic treat­ment are the stan­dard treat­ment opti­ons. Howe­ver, due to the high morta­lity risk, open-heart surgery is ruled out for more than 99% of dise­a­sed indi­vi­du­als — the average survi­val time for pati­ents without surgi­cal treat­ment is only 2.2 years.

TRiCa­res’ Topaz trans­fe­mo­ral heart valve repla­ce­ment system promi­ses to be a medi­cal mile­stone in the treat­ment of tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion. The inno­va­tive medi­cal device was deve­lo­ped speci­fi­cally for pati­ents with severe tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion to avoid risky open heart surgery. Topaz is the result of a French-German colla­bo­ra­tion and is implan­ted from the patient’s femo­ral vein in a lower-risk mini­mally inva­sive proce­dure. It is speci­fi­cally desi­gned to fit the anatomy of the tricu­spid valve for easy posi­tio­ning and high func­tion­a­lity. The pros­pects of pati­ents for whom there are no other treat­ment opti­ons can thus be signi­fi­cantly improved.

The Company plans to use the new funding from the comple­ted Series C round initi­ally to cover the costs of the curr­ently ongo­ing first-in-man clini­cal trial of Topaz (TRICURE FIH trial) in Belgium, as well as for the poten­tial submis­sion of the same in other Euro­pean count­ries. Howe­ver, the new capi­tal will prima­rily be inves­ted in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the product and to conduct a regis­tra­tion trial in the USA. To this end, TRiCa­res 2023 is initia­ting an early feasi­bi­lity study in five U.S. centers.

Helmut Strau­bin­ger, Presi­dent and CEO of TRiCa­res, says: “The successful finan­cing reflects the enorm­ous poten­tial of the Topaz heart valve repla­ce­ment system, our conti­nuous progress in its deve­lo­p­ment and the great confi­dence of our inves­tors. We are doing ever­y­thing we can to prove our very good results to date in clini­cal trials in other Euro­pean count­ries and also in the U.S., so that we can then offer this much-needed solu­tion to all pati­ents suffe­ring from severe tricu­spid regurgitation.”

Bavaria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs Hubert Aiwan­ger adds: “Toge­ther with the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB), we have endo­wed the Bava­ria 2 Growth Fund with 165 million euros to support high-tech start-ups in the deve­lo­p­ment phase. One of our goals here is to ensure that such compa­nies conti­nue to remain in Bava­ria and do not have to migrate due to a lack of funding. The exam­ple of TRiCa­res shows how dyna­mic and inno­va­tive our Bava­rian ecosys­tem for start-ups is.”

“Tricu­spid valve surge­ries are among the riskiest cura­tive proce­du­res, with a large propor­tion of affec­ted pati­ents deemed unsui­ta­ble due to high morta­lity rates,” explains Dr. Georg Ried, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “With Topaz, TRiCa­res is deve­lo­ping an inno­va­tive product with excel­lent poten­tial to fill this major gap in the treat­ment of valvu­lar heart dise­ase. We are very plea­sed to support TRiCa­res on its further course towards market approval.”

“We believe that the tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped by TRiCa­res has the poten­tial to estab­lish itself as the gold stan­dard in the treat­ment of pati­ents with tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion and to restore the quality of life of milli­ons of pati­ents in the long term,” commen­ted Frede­rik Groe­ne­we­gen, mana­ging part­ner of 415 Capi­tal. “We are impres­sed with the initial clini­cal cases with the Topaz system and look forward to helping the team bring this novel therapy to pati­ents in the U.S. and Europe.”

About TRiCa­res
TRiCa­res is a medi­cal device start-up based in Paris and Munich with a vision to bring a trans­fe­mo­ral tricu­spid valve repla­ce­ment system to market. This is inten­ded to help pati­ents with severe tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion (TI) without the need for open heart surgery. TRiCa­res’ expe­ri­en­ced team is supported by leading Euro­pean life science venture capi­tal firms 415 Capi­tal, Andera Part­ners, Bayern Kapi­tal, BioMed­Part­ners, Credit Mutuel Inno­va­tion, GoCa­pi­tal, Karista and Welling­ton Partners.
www.tricares.com

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

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

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

News

Munich/ Bochum — Vienna-based tuto­ring plat­form GoStu­dent has acqui­red Studi­en­kreis, the leading loca­tion-based tuto­ring company in the DACH region. The seller was the private equity firm IK Part­ners. No infor­ma­tion is available on the purchase price. Studi­en­kreis will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently under its current manage­ment team, while the two compa­nies aim to iden­tify syner­gies over time. POELLATH advi­sed the manage­ment of Studi­en­kreis in the context of the sale.

GoStu­dent is one of the largest online tuto­ring provi­ders in the world. The tran­sac­tion both acce­le­ra­tes the company’s stra­tegy of combi­ning the best of the online and offline worlds to give people access to quality educa­tion through tech­no­logy and firmly posi­ti­ons GoStu­dent at the fore­front of the morning, after­noon and content educa­tion market.

Studi­en­kreis is Germany’s leading tuto­ring company and serves 125,000 fami­lies in the DACH region every year. The company owns over 1,000 lear­ning centers across Germany and has been a pioneer in online lear­ning since 2012. Studi­en­kreis has been owned by IK since 2017. In 2018, Studi­en­kreis expan­ded into Austria through the acqui­si­tion of Lern­Qua­drat and streng­the­ned its market-leading posi­tion in the DACH region through increased brand aware­ness and the provi­sion of high-quality tuto­ring services. By combi­ning offline tuto­ring with online services as well as digi­tal tools deve­lo­ped in-house, Studi­en­kreis shares the vision of deve­lo­ping a blen­ded lear­ning experience.

Munich part­ner Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the manage­ment of Studi­en­kreis in connec­tion with the transaction.

News

Munich — Busi­ness law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed Adap­ta­vist Group Ltd, a London-based leader in digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, on the acqui­si­tion of venI­Ture GmbH.

venI­Ture is a German-based soft­ware consul­ting company and provi­der of enter­prise solu­ti­ons and work manage­ment in the DACH region. Foun­ded in Colo­gne in 2016, the company has become one of the leading provi­ders for ever­y­thing rela­ted to the products of the soft­ware manu­fac­tu­rer Atlas­sian over the years. With more than 100 employees from all over the world at loca­ti­ons in Germany, Croa­tia, Turkey and the United Arab Emira­tes, venI­Ture provi­des advice and support to its more than 400 satis­fied customers.

Foun­ded in 2005, Adap­ta­vist specia­li­zes in digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and IT services and employs over 750 people worldwide.

Legal advi­sors Adaptavist:

Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich: Dr. Kilian Helm­reich (Part­ner, Private Equity/M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), David Ziegel­mayer (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Maxi­mi­lian Spind­ler (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)

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

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

News

Hanover/Munich. NORD Holding has deci­ded to take the mega­to­pic of sustaina­bi­lity or ESG into account and to set a corre­spon­ding focus both intern­ally and on the port­fo­lio side. The start­ing signal for this is the parti­ci­pa­tion in the ESG soft­ware pioneer VERSO, which has also been successfully repre­sen­ted on the market with consul­ting and trai­ning for seve­ral years. NORD Holding intends to intro­duce the soft­ware solu­tion in its 15 asso­cia­ted compa­nies and thus stan­dards in sustainable corpo­rate management.

With its invest­ment in VERSO, NORD Holding is rely­ing on one of the few ESG soft­ware solu­ti­ons that has been estab­lished over many years and has now grown into a holi­stic service provi­der in the area of corpo­rate sustaina­bi­lity. VERSO supports compa­nies to acce­le­rate their Sustainable Trans­for­ma­tion effec­tively and effi­ci­ently: From “Mission Zero” (carbon accoun­ting, reduc­tion and offset­ting), to ongo­ing sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment, to ESG report­ing, a focus area of VERSO. The company is thus ideally posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from the EU-CSRD (Corpo­rate Sustaina­bi­lity Report­ing Direc­tive) in the long term.

VERSO addres­ses the incre­asing need for digi­ta­liza­tion and know­ledge in various areas of sustaina­bi­lity in SMEs through the direc­tive for capi­tal market-orien­ted compa­nies issued in 2017 and the Europe-wide exten­sion to smal­ler SMEs deci­ded in 2022. In addi­tion, there are further incre­asing regu­la­tory chal­lenges (e.g. Supply Chain Act), for which VERSO is alre­ady successfully prepa­ring its customers.

“We take our respon­si­bi­lity seriously: Toward our inves­tors and share­hol­dings, but also toward society and the planet. For us, the mega­trend of sustainable trans­for­ma­tion, and thus the area of ESG, is a key value driver. At the same time, we are deve­lo­ping ESG stra­te­gies with all our invest­ments to make our port­fo­lio more sustainable and thus, not least, more compe­ti­tive. VERSO alre­ady offers a strong and estab­lished solu­tion for compa­nies across all indus­tries and bene­fits from more than a decade of expe­ri­ence. Toge­ther with VERSO, we can ther­e­fore make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to our own port­fo­lio both on the opera­ti­ons side of NORD Holding and on the invest­ment side from the massi­vely incre­asing demand in the sustaina­bi­lity segment,” says Chris­tian Moritz Kukwa, Prin­ci­pal at NORD Holding.

Andreas Maslo, Co-Foun­der and CEO of VERSO, comm­ents: “We are commit­ted to a great mission: To acce­le­rate the sustainable trans­for­ma­tion of the economy. But in order to imple­ment our stra­tegy to this end, we don’t just need fast money, but the right growth part­ners. After many discus­sions with a wide variety of inte­res­ted parties, we made a very conscious decis­ion in favor of NORD Holding. We were convin­ced by an inves­tor with deep roots in the German SME sector, a genuine desire for trans­for­ma­tion and a trans­pa­rent share­hol­der struc­ture. In addi­tion, NH’s domain exper­tise in soft­ware, consul­ting and now ESG speaks for itself. We are now incre­di­bly looking forward to jointly buil­ding the leading ESG soft­ware and consul­ting service provi­der in the German-spea­king region. Thus, we will be able to support compa­nies even more effec­tively in their trans­for­ma­tion towards sustaina­bi­lity and further acce­le­rate the process.”

The invest­ment was carried out by the two NORD Holding teams Busi­ness Services and Software/Technology and under­lines the sector compe­tence in the area of tech­no­logy-enab­led services. On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tion was imple­men­ted by Chris­tian Moritz Kukwa, Chris­toph Grune­wald, Moritz Stolp and Korne­lius Karl Komischke.

About VERSO
VERSO supports medium-sized compa­nies holi­sti­cally in their Sustainable Trans­for­ma­tion with its soft­ware (SaaS) solu­tion and services for sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment. Consul­ting and trai­ning in CSR report­ing, manage­ment and climate accoun­ting make VERSO a compre­hen­sive part­ner for corpo­rate sustaina­bi­lity and ESG. Sustaina­bi­lity mana­gers profes­sio­na­lize and digi­ta­lize their CSR manage­ment with VERSO or bring even more effi­ci­ency into their exis­ting proces­ses, above all CSR report­ing. In addi­tion, VERSO supports compa­nies on their way to climate neutra­lity. VERSO GmbH, based in Munich, was foun­ded in 2010 by Andreas Maslo and Florian Holl and is now mana­ged by the two foun­ders toge­ther with Nuvia Maslo. www.verso.de

About NORD Holding
With over 50 years of history and assets under manage­ment of € 2.5 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity and asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund invest­ments. The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized companies.

In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king count­ries. The Fund Invest­ments busi­ness unit targets the micro and small cap segment of mid-market-orien­ted private equity funds in Europe. The focus here is on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor investor.

News

Stutt­gart — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed Schalt­bau Holding AG on the sale of GEZ (Gesell­schaft für elek­tri­sche Zugaus­rüs­tung) Rail Solu­ti­ons GmbH (GEZ) to a group of inves­tors consis­ting of Nord West Manage­ment GmbH and Nieder­rhei­ni­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted before the end of 2022. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction.

Follo­wing the sale of SBRS Char­ging Solu­ti­ons to Shell Deutsch­land GmbH in Octo­ber 2022, which Gleiss Lutz also legally advi­sed, Schalt­bau Holding AG is now selling GEZ Rail Solu­ti­ons GmbH, the second company to emerge from the former SBRS GmbH, as part of its port­fo­lio focus.

With annual sales of appro­xi­m­ately €525 million and around 3,000 employees, Schalt­bau Holding AG is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal suppli­ers of systems and compon­ents for the trans­por­ta­tion tech­no­logy and capi­tal goods industries.

Advi­sors to Schalt­bau Holding: Gleiss Lutz
Dr. Patrick Kaffiné (Part­ner, M&A), Dr. Stephan Aubel (Part­ner, Corporate/Capital Markets, both Lead), Dr. Anto­nius Mann (M&A), Dr. Chris­tina Aye (Coun­sel, all Frank­furt), Dr. Walter Andert
(Berlin, both Corporate/Capital Markets), Vladis­lava Berben­kova (Berlin), Michael P. Clever, Marc Maurice Duschek (both Frank­furt, all M&A), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner), Dr. Hannah Bug (Coun­sel, both
IP/IT, Berlin), Simon Wegmann (Data Protec­tion, Berlin), Dr. Lisa Kapp­ler (Public Law, Stutt­gart), Dr. Ocka Stumm (Part­ner), Julian Kette­mer (both Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Tobias Abend (Coun­sel, Labor Law, Frank­furt), Konrad H.J. Discher (Coun­sel, Real Estate Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Patrick Grüner (Coun­sel, Anti­trust Law, Stutt­gart), Dr. Katja Lehr (Coun­sel, Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Alex­an­der Nagel (Coun­sel,
Restruc­tu­ring, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Simon Wagner (Coun­sel, Dispute Reso­lu­tion, Stuttgart).

News

Stutt­gart — Menold Bezler advi­sed the Schwä­bisch Hall-based OPTIMA group of compa­nies on the sale of OPTIMA auto­ma­tion GmbH to a subsi­diary of the Private Assets AG invest­ment company. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The new owner opens up new deve­lo­p­ment and growth perspec­ti­ves for the opera­ti­ons of OPTIMA auto­ma­tion GmbH. The assem­bly tech­no­logy specialist’s loca­tion in Fell­bach with around 50 employees will be retai­ned. The new parent company will be SIM Auto­ma­tion GmbH from the exis­ting port­fo­lio of Private Assets AG.

OPTIMA is a third-gene­ra­tion family-run company in the field of pack­a­ging machi­nes and filling systems with 2,800 employees at 20 loca­ti­ons worldwide.

Private Assets is a Hamburg-based invest­ment company specia­li­zing in stra­te­gic invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies in tran­si­tio­nal situations.

Menold Bezler advi­sed OPTIMA on all legal aspects of the transaction.

Advi­sor OPTIMA Group of Compa­nies: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Jost Ruders­dorf (Lead Part­ner), Dr. Axel Klumpp (Part­ner, both Corporate/M&A)

Inhouse Legal: Dr. Michael Kien­in­ger (Gene­ral Counsel)

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

News

Munich / Berlin — Heidel­ber­ger Sand und Kies GmbH, a subsi­diary of Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als (Heidel­berg­Ce­ment), will acquire Berlin-based RWG I Holding GmbH from ADCURAM Group GmbH as of Janu­ary 1, 2023, subject to the appr­oval of the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. RWG I Holding GmbH is a leading company in the field of demo­li­tion and buil­ding mate­ri­als recy­cling with other comple­men­tary busi­ness areas. With three attrac­tive loca­ti­ons in Berlin and 250 employees, the company gene­ra­tes more than 50 million euros in sales per year. — POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to ADCURAM in connec­tion with the sale.

Chris­tian Knell, Spokes­man for Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als Manage­ment Germany, says: “With the purchase of RWG, Heidel­ber­ger Sand und Kies GmbH is streng­thening its two-pron­ged raw mate­ri­als stra­tegy in the grea­ter Berlin area. In addi­tion to primary mine­ral raw mate­ri­als, recy­cled aggre­ga­tes, among other things for the produc­tion of recy­cled concre­tes, can be incre­asingly offe­red in the future. Our long-term goal is to estab­lish a circu­lar economy and thus give prio­rity to the use of recy­cled aggre­ga­tes over primary raw mate­ri­als in the manu­fac­ture of our products.”

Heidel­ber­ger Sand und Kies Mana­ging Direc­tor Thomas Witt­mann adds, “RWG, with its market presence and good repu­ta­tion in the indus­try, is an excel­lent fit for us and will help us meet the increased demand from our custo­mers for sustainable buil­ding mate­ri­als in the grea­ter Berlin area.”

ADCURAM had acqui­red the RWG Group in 2019 as part of a succes­sion solu­tion and in recent years had built up the manage­ment team, profes­sio­na­li­zed the report­ing and finan­cial struc­tures, and made an acqui­si­tion before the end of 2022 to streng­then its growth potential.

Henry Bricken­kamp (photo © ADCURAM), Mana­ging Direc­tor at ADCURAM and opera­tio­nally respon­si­ble for the RWG Group, sees the tran­sac­tion as a confir­ma­tion of the manage­ment team: “The mana­ging direc­tors of the RWG Group have steadily expan­ded their market posi­tion in their respec­tive areas and signi­fi­cantly profes­sio­na­li­zed the company. The company is ther­e­fore the clear market leader in Berlin.” Broder Abra­ham­sen, also ADCURAM’s Mana­ging Direc­tor, added: “We are deligh­ted to have found a renow­ned part­ner for RWG in Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als, which will keep the company on the road to success.”

About Heidel­berg Materials

Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als is one of the world’s largest inte­gra­ted manu­fac­tu­r­ers of buil­ding mate­ri­als and solu­ti­ons, with leading market posi­ti­ons in cement, aggre­ga­tes, and ready-mix concrete. The company has more than 51,000 employees at almost 3,000 loca­ti­ons in over 50 count­ries. Around 4,200 employees work in Germany. Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als is working on sustainable buil­ding mate­ri­als and solu­ti­ons for the future as a pioneer on the path to CO2 neutra­lity and a circu­lar economy in the buil­ding mate­ri­als indus­try. Heidel­ber­ger Sand und Kies GmbH is a subsi­diary of Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als and opera­tes 40 sites across Germany with around 450 employees. www.heidelbergcement.de

About ADCURAM

ADCURAM is a priva­tely owned indus­trial group. ADCURAM acqui­res compa­nies with poten­tial and deve­lops them actively and sustain­ably. For the future growth of the Group, the capi­tal-strong indus­trial holding company has a total of 300 million euros available for acqui­si­ti­ons. With the help of its own 40-strong team of experts, the indus­trial holding company conti­nues to deve­lop the port­fo­lio compa­nies stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally. Toge­ther, the Group gene­ra­tes sales of around 800 million euros world­wide with nine holdings and more than 4,500 employees. ADCURAM sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial inves­tor and invests in succes­sion plans and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.adcuram.com

Consul­tant ADCURAM: POELLATH

Dr. Frank Thiä­ner (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity)
Dr. Tim Jung­in­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity)
Gerald Herr­mann (Part­ner, Taxes)
Dr. Domi­nik Gerli­cher (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity)
Till Schwich­ten­berg (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity)
Torben Busch (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity)
Jannis Lührs (Asso­ciate, Tax)

News

Hamburg/ Munich — Customs Support Group B.V. (“Customs Support”), a port­fo­lio company of Castik Capi­tal, acqui­res Porath Customs Agents GmbH (“Porath”), one of the brand-leading and best-known customs agen­cies in Germany with further acti­vi­ties in Poland and the Netherlands.

The tran­sac­tion

Customs Support, the leading and digi­tal customs broker in Europe, announ­ces the acqui­si­tion of Porath Customs Agents. This acqui­si­tion streng­thens Customs Support’s presence in Germany and Poland to faci­li­tate customs clearance for global trade within and outside Europe.

“Offe­ring Europe-wide, digi­tal customs solu­ti­ons from a single source for our custo­mers is an idea that has linked Porath and Customs Support for a long time. That Porath as a custo­mer-centric customs specia­list and Customs Support as a leading digi­tal customs service provi­der are now going down a common path makes me very happy.” Thors­ten Porath, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Porath Customs Agents.

“With their focus on digi­ta­liza­tion and their know­ledge of the customs profes­sion, Porath’s team is a perfect fit for Customs Support’s goals: making customs simple for global trade.” Frank Weer­mei­jer, CEO of Customs Support Group.

The role of Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners has been accom­pany­ing Customs Support as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor in its expan­sion in the DACH region for years. The acqui­si­tion of Porath is alre­ady the seventh acqui­si­tion that has been successfully imple­men­ted jointly, and work is under­way on further acqui­si­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties. In addi­tion to iden­ti­fy­ing the customs agency and cont­ac­ting the share­hol­ders, Proven­tis Part­ners carried out the stra­te­gic analy­sis of the target company and accom­pa­nied the further tran­sac­tion process from due dili­gence, through commer­cial nego­tia­ti­ons, to successful closing. The Proven­tis Part­ners tran­sac­tion team consis­ted of Timo Stahl­buhk and Dr. Leon­hard Austmann.

About Porath Customs Agents

Porath Customs Agents is a family owned and opera­ted company that has been in the market for over 30 years. Start­ing out as a freight forwar­ding company, the focus has shifted to its core compe­tence, customs clearance. With a dedi­ca­ted team stra­te­gi­cally loca­ted in Germany and Poland, the company is known for its excel­lence and meeting high custo­mer expec­ta­ti­ons. Its expe­ri­ence and focus on digi­tiza­tion offer custo­mers a tail­o­red solu­tion for every customs matter. The wide range of services offe­red, such as import and export clearance, tran­sit proce­du­res and customs consul­ting, is tail­o­red to speci­fic needs. Porath’s team provi­des fast and accu­rate customs advice, profes­sio­nal hand­ling and compre­hen­sive customs manage­ment, and excel­lent service to custo­mers. Porath is AEO-certi­fied and a member of VHSp and Hafen Hamburg. www.porath.com

About Customs Support Group

Head­quar­te­red in the Nether­lands, Customs Support Group is Europe’s leading inde­pen­dent, digi­tal and neutral provi­der of customs services, employ­ing over 1,500 dedi­ca­ted customs profes­sio­nals serving over 15,000 custo­mers annu­ally. Through our compre­hen­sive suite of services and digi­tal capa­bi­li­ties, we consis­t­ently help clients maxi­mize compli­ance, achieve opera­tio­nal effi­ci­en­cies, opti­mize import duties, customs plan­ning, and conti­nuously evolve in an ever-chan­ging customs landscape.

In addi­tion to tradi­tio­nal brokerage and digi­tal services, Customs Support Group provi­des customs consul­ting and gas measu­re­ment services. The company curr­ently opera­tes in the Nether­lands, Belgium, Germany, France, the United King­dom, Poland, Italy, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switz­er­land, Spain and Luxembourg.

In Europe, Customs Support Group serves many cross-border custo­mers from various indus­tries such as auto­mo­tive, food and beverage and many others. Customs Support is number one in digi­tal customs and is inves­t­ing signi­fi­cantly in the digi­tiza­tion of the customs process. www.customssupport.com

About Castik Capital

Castik Capi­tal S.à r.l. (“Castik Capi­tal”) mana­ges invest­ments in private equity. Castik Capi­tal is a Euro­pean private equity firm that acqui­res signi­fi­cant stakes in Euro­pean private and listed compa­nies where long-term value can be crea­ted through active part­ner­ships with manage­ment teams.

Foun­ded in 2014, Castik Capi­tal is based in Luxem­bourg and focu­ses on iden­ti­fy­ing and deve­lo­ping invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties across Europe. Invest­ments are made by the Luxem­bourg-based fund EPIC II SLP. Castik Capi­tal S.à r.l.’s advi­sor is Castik Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH, based in Munich. www.castik.com

About Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A advi­sory firm whose clients include a majo­rity of mid-sized family busi­nesses, corpo­rate subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With more than 30 M&A advi­sors, Proven­tis Part­ners is one of the largest inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancies in the German-spea­king region and looks back on more than 20 years of M&A expe­ri­ence and well over 300 comple­ted tran­sac­tions. The M&A consul­tants with offices in Düssel­dorf, Hamburg, Munich and Zurich are active in the sectors Indus­tri­als & Chemi­cals, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT, Health­Care and Energy & Sustaina­bi­lity. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — enables Proven­tis Part­ners to assist clients in 30 count­ries in key markets world­wide. www.proventis.com

News

Munich/ Berlin — Deep tech-focu­sed venture capi­ta­list Vsquared Ventures has raised €165 million for its new early stage fund, which will conti­nue to invest in Euro­pean start­ups in the deep tech space. “We stron­gly believe that the Euro­pean deep tech indus­try will outper­form other regi­ons in the coming years,” said Bene­dikt von Schoe­ler, Gene­ral Part­ner at Vsquared. That’s why the Munich-based VC firm, foun­ded in 2016, will conti­nue to invest in Euro­pean start­ups in the deep tech space, he said.

A YPOG team led by Jens Kretz­schmann advi­sed Munich-based venture capi­tal inves­tor Vsquared Ventures on the struc­tu­ring of its second early-stage fund. Estab­lished LPs such as the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund as well as renow­ned family offices and entre­pre­neurs parti­ci­pa­ted in the closing.

With the new fund, Vsquared will invest prima­rily in early stage foun­ders and start­ups from the deep tech sector. Since laun­ching its first Vsquared fund in 2020, the company has built a port­fo­lio of more than 30 compa­nies, inclu­ding start­ups such as rocket manu­fac­tu­rer Isar Aero­space, quan­tum compu­ting deve­lo­per IQM and high-perfor­mance battery specia­list Customcells, as well as Zama, which provi­des AI-driven encryp­tion to increase online privacy.

The venture capi­tal investor’s focus is on promo­ting Europe’s strengths — the strong talent pool in the deep tech sector and indus­trial know-how.
Deep Tech is incre­asingly percei­ved as an effec­tive solu­tion to the chal­lenges and crises of our time, for which Europe can take a global leader­ship role in the future. The fund will support start­ups from the outset to drive the deve­lo­p­ment and scaling of ideas that will cement and streng­then Europe’s repu­ta­tion in deep tech.

Inves­tor Lise Rech­stei­ner beco­mes gene­ral part­ner of the Vsquared team. — She comes with expe­ri­ence from her profes­sio­nal posi­ti­ons at Rocket Inter­net, Bauer Venture Part­ners and Nordic Impact. She also co-foun­ded the deep tech fund Propa­ga­tor Ventures.

About Vsquared Ventures

Vsquared Ventures is a tech­no­logy-focu­sed early-stage inves­tor based in Munich. Supported by pionee­ring entre­pre­neurs and tech­no­logy indus­try experts, they are crea­ting a streng­thening ecosys­tem to provide inter­di­sci­pli­nary know­ledge and access to those who are inven­ting the future, and to coll­ec­tively take their compa­nies to the next level of deve­lo­p­ment. Areas of focus include New Space, Quan­tum Compu­ting, New Mate­ri­als, AI, Robo­tics and Enter­prise SaaS. https://vsquared.vc

Advi­sor VSquared Ventures: YPOG

Jens Kretz­schmann (Lead, Struc­tu­ring), Partner
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Tax), Partner
Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Corpo­rate), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Michael Blank (Struc­tu­ring), Associate
Dr. Fried­rich Wöhlecke (Tax, Struc­tu­ring), Associate
Stefa­nie Nagel (Regu­la­tory), Associate
Sylwia Luszc­zek (Inves­tor Onboar­ding), Legal Project Manager
Ricardo Pfaff (Inves­tor Onboar­ding), Foreign Lawyer

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include
emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as 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.
The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary.
in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

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