Author: Tatjana Anderer

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

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

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

Munich — An inter­di­sci­pli­nary team of entre­pre­neurs has come toge­ther to form Sophora Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“Sophora”), an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company focu­sed on the DACH small cap market. The foun­ding team consists of three former Silver­fleet Capi­tal employees and two expe­ri­en­ced non-execu­tive direc­tors and has many years of expe­ri­ence in the invest­ment indus­try as well as opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence as foun­ders and CEOs of compa­nies. In addi­tion, the team has worked toge­ther for many years in previous roles and has a highly successful joint invest­ment track record.

Sophora focu­ses on medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region with sales between 5 and 50 million euros and a posi­tive opera­ting cash flow. The invest­ment stra­tegy is based on thema­tic invest­ments focu­sing on the follo­wing areas (i) Energy tran­si­tion & resource avai­la­bi­lity, (ii) B‑E-S-T1 tech­no­lo­gies and (iii) buy-and-build stra­te­gies predo­mi­nantly in the indus­trial and B2B services sectors and typi­cally includes majo­rity or signi­fi­cant mino­rity stakes. “We invest in compa­nies that bene­fit from the macroe­co­no­mic tail­winds of our invest­ment themes and help them realize their full growth poten­tial by provi­ding flexi­ble capi­tal, our stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal exper­tise, and access to our network of experts,” said Benja­min Hubner, Mana­ging Part­ner of Sophora.

Sophora aims to be an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner that enables compa­nies to disco­ver and deve­lop undis­co­vered value. Like the tree “Sophora Japo­nica”, which is also called honey tree due to its charac­te­ristic as a bee nutri­ent plant, Sophora relies on symbio­tic part­ner­ships based on trust and relia­ble coope­ra­tion. “Our goal is to become the honey bee among inves­tors and realize alpha returns in the DACH small cap market,” says Jenni­fer Regehr, Mana­ging Part­ner (photo, copy­right SOPHORA).

Sophora is active in the DACH small cap market, where the company sees an oppor­tu­nity to gene­rate alpha returns based on attrac­tive indus­try dyna­mics and under­ly­ing target speci­fics. In addi­tion, the Sophora team’s long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships and inves­tor network give the company privi­le­ged access to infor­ma­tion, exper­tise and proprie­tary leads. “We believe we can add signi­fi­cant value to our manage­ment teams and port­fo­lio compa­nies as well as to our inves­tors,” commen­ted Neil MacDou­gall, Chairman.

Toge­ther with two dedi­ca­ted value crea­tion and sustaina­bi­lity part­ners, Sophora brings a growth-orien­ted, best-in-class approach to value crea­tion tail­o­red to the indi­vi­dual profile and speci­fics of each port­fo­lio company. “Sophora’s goal is to be a trus­ted and value-crea­ting part­ner to the manage­ment teams of our port­fo­lio compa­nies,” said Dr. Michael Matros, Part­ner Value Crea­tion & Sustaina­bi­lity. Joop Heijen­rath, Part­ner Value Crea­tion & Sustaina­bi­lity, adds: “We are convin­ced that non-finan­cial crite­ria, espe­ci­ally ESG aspects, can influence the valua­tion of compa­nies and should ther­e­fore be conside­red in invest­ment decis­i­ons and effec­tive value crea­tion plans.

www.sophora.de

Grün­wald, Septem­ber 6, 2022 — AURELIUS Growth Capi­tal sells Aero­tec Europe GmbH (“Aero­tec Group”) inclu­ding its subsi­diary Airplane Equip­ment & Services A.E.S. to the finan­cial inves­tor Borro­min Capi­tal Fonds IV.

The Aero­tec Group, inclu­ding its subsi­diary Airplane Equip­ment & Services, is a leading service company for the air cargo indus­try in Europe. Repair and main­ten­ance of air freight contai­ners are the focus of the company with around 120 employees. In addi­tion, certi­fied main­ten­ance and repair services are provi­ded for regu­la­ted passen­ger aircraft compon­ents. The company main­ta­ins custo­mer rela­ti­onships with well-known Global Air Cargo compa­nies at all rele­vant German cargo airports.

“The corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment of Airplane Equip­ment & Services as well as the successful manage­ment buy-out exem­plify our special exper­tise in faci­li­ta­ting successful succes­sion plan­ning in medium-sized compa­nies. We bring our opera­tio­nal approach inten­si­vely into this process and always accom­pany our port­fo­lio as a close as well as relia­ble part­ner on the deve­lo­p­ment path,” comm­ents Eric Blumen­thal, Mana­ging Part­ner of AURELIUS Wachstumskapital.

In 2016, AURELIUS acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Airplane Equip­ment & Services as part of a corpo­rate succes­sion. The company has achie­ved very good opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment during its time in the AURELIUS port­fo­lio — inclu­ding signi­fi­cant reve­nue and earnings growth. Toge­ther with the AURELIUS team, the manage­ment successfully navi­ga­ted the uphe­avals of the COVID pande­mic. In 2021, Frank Kusse­row, an indus­try expert, could be won as mana­ging direc­tor. Kusse­row took over respon­si­bi­lity from foun­der Willy Rein­hardt, seam­lessly contin­ued the company’s deve­lo­p­ment and acqui­red a stake in Airplane Equip­ment & Services as part of the transaction.

“My special thanks go to the AURELIUS Growth Capi­tal team around Eric Blumen­tal, who supported us in close shoulder-to-shoulder from the very begin­ning and stood by us as a valuable spar­ring part­ner,” says Frank Kusserow.

“In tran­sac­tions, it always depends on the part­ners. We are convin­ced that we have found a suita­ble inves­tor and manage­ment combi­na­tion in Borro­min and Frank Kusse­row. Accor­din­gly, we are confi­dent about the future opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment of the Aero­tec Group,” Blumen­thal continued.

Advi­sor AURELIUS Growth Capital: 

Stephens Invest­ment Banking (M&A, Phil­ipp von Grawert and Valen­tin zur Strassen),
EGO HUMRICH WYEN (Legal, Dr. Alex­an­der Ego, Dr. Jan-Henning Wyen and Dr. Achim Speng­ler), Ebner Stolz (Finan­cial Due Dili­gence, Joerg Scho­berth and Jan Phil­ipp Schwed­helm) and CIL Manage­ment Consul­tants (Commer­cial Due Dili­gence, Juliane Kaden-Botha and Florian Wohlfart).

About Borro­min Capital

Borro­min Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (Borro­min) successfully struc­tures, finan­ces and accom­pa­nies corpo­rate succes­si­ons in Germany and neigh­bor­ing count­ries. By provi­ding equity capi­tal, Borro­min enables company owners to trans­fer their life’s work in an orderly manner and ensu­res the contin­ued deve­lo­p­ment of the compa­nies. In addi­tion, we parti­ci­pate in Group spin-offs and provide equity capi­tal for fast-growing compa­nies. We attach great importance to the manage­ment teams beco­ming co-entre­pre­neurs through equity participation.

Borro­min was foun­ded in 2001 in Frank­furt as an inde­pen­dent consul­ting firm for equity finan­cing (private equity) owned by the part­ners and is curr­ently advi­sing the fourth Borro­min Fund. The funds’ capi­tal is provi­ded by insti­tu­tio­nal and private inves­tors from Germany and abroad.

About the AEROTEC Group

The Aero­tec Group (as well as Airplane Equip­ment & Services) was foun­ded in 1997 in Colo­gne by Willy Rein­hard as a service company for main­ten­ance and repair work on regu­la­ted compon­ents of passen­ger aircraft. Since then, the company has expan­ded its service port­fo­lio and become a leading service provi­der for the air freight indus­try in the DACH region. The company main­ta­ins five inde­pen­dent bran­ches near the airports of Colo­gne, Frank­furt, Leip­zig and Basel. Each loca­tion offers its custo­mers certi­fied services at the highest level.

About AURELIUS

AURELIUS is a pan-Euro­pean alter­na­tive invest­ment group with offices in London, Luxem­bourg, Munich, Amster­dam, Stock­holm, Milan, Madrid and Düssel­dorf. AURELIUS has exten­sive opera­tio­nal exper­tise as well as expe­ri­ence and is thus in a posi­tion to acce­le­rate the value crea­tion process in its port­fo­lio companies.

The main invest­ment plat­forms are the AURELIUS Euro­pean Oppor­tu­ni­ties IV Fund and the exch­ange-traded AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN: DE000A0JK2A8, stock exch­ange symbol: AR4), which acquire group spin-offs and compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in the midmar­ket sector. The core element of the invest­ment stra­tegy is to grow the port­fo­lio compa­nies with a team of nearly 100 in-house opera­tio­nal taskforce experts.

AURELIUS is also active in the busi­ness areas of growth capi­tal, real estate and alter­na­tive forms of finan­cing. AURELIUS Growth Capi­tal parti­ci­pa­tes in LBO tran­sac­tions for midmar­ket succes­sion solu­ti­ons. AURELIUS Real Estate Oppor­tu­ni­ties focu­ses on real estate invest­ments with sustainable value enhance­ment poten­tial through active manage­ment. AURELIUS Finance Company offers flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for compa­nies throug­hout Europe.