ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — G+D Ventures, the venture capi­tal arm of the Giesecke+Devrient Group (G+D), toge­ther with the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB), has laun­ched a co-invest­ment plat­form with a total volume of EUR 50 million to finance Euro­pean start­ups in the trust tech envi­ron­ment. The aim of the fund is to invest in the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons that help to streng­then trust (confi­dence) in a digi­tal (tech) society. These include cyber­se­cu­rity solu­ti­ons, privacy protec­tion tech­no­lo­gies, digi­tal iden­tity manage­ment, and secure authen­ti­ca­tion and payment systems. Giesecke+Devrient was advi­sed by POELLATH.

G+D is a global secu­rity tech­no­logy group head­quar­te­red in Munich, Germany. As a relia­ble part­ner for inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers with the highest demands, G+D’s solu­ti­ons safe­guard the essen­tial values of this world. The company deve­lops custo­mi­zed tech­no­logy with passion and precis­ion in four core areas: Payment, Connec­ti­vity, Iden­ti­ties and Digi­tal Infra­struc­tures. In fiscal year 2021, the Group gene­ra­ted sales of EUR 2.38 billion with around 11,800 employees.

The Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank is the bank of the Euro­pean Union and also the largest multi­la­te­ral finan­cing insti­tu­tion in the world. Toge­ther, G+D and the EIB pursue the goal of support­ing young Euro­pean start­ups in the Trust­Tech envi­ron­ment. This helps to close the funding gap for Euro­pean early stage start­ups in this topic area and to advance young compa­nies dedi­ca­ted to deve­lo­ping inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for more security.

Advi­sor Giesecke+Devrient: POELLATH advi­sed G+D on all contrac­tual, tax and regu­la­tory aspects of the fund struc­tu­ring with the follo­wing Berlin team:

Dr. Philip Schwarz van Berk, LL.M. (London) (Part­ner, Private Funds)
Nele Frie (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)
Dennis Fordan (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)

News

Munich, Germany — Quan­tum compu­ting start-up planqc today announ­ced a €4.6 million funding round led by UVC Part­ners and Speed­in­vest. With this funding, planqc will deve­lop highly scalable room-tempe­ra­ture quan­tum compu­ters based on atoms in opti­cal latti­ces. planqc was foun­ded by a team of scien­tists from the Max Planck Insti­tute of Quan­tum Optics and the Ludwig Maxi­mi­lian Univer­sity of Munich and is the first spin-off of the Munich Quan­tum Valley, one of the leading centers for quan­tum tech­no­logy in Europe.

Current digi­tal quan­tum compu­ters are limi­ted by both the number of qubits used and their gate quality. While the number of qubits limits the amount of infor­ma­tion that can be proces­sed, the limi­ted gate quality inevi­ta­bly leads to errors in the result of a compu­ta­tion (so-called noise). While these NISQ (short for noisy inter­me­diate-scale quan­tum) compu­ters have recently outper­for­med clas­si­cal compu­ters on some abstract problems, they are still far from a “quan­tum advan­tage” for indus­try-rele­vant problems. TWAICE has increased sales by about 250 percent since May 2021. The company’s growing custo­mer base includes more than five of the world’s leading auto­ma­kers, as well as seve­ral major rene­wa­ble energy storage deve­lo­pers and operators.

planqc’s unique combi­na­tion of quan­tum tech­no­lo­gies is the fastest way to scale to thou­sands of qubits, which is a prere­qui­site for an indus­try-rele­vant quan­tum advan­tage. Quan­tum compu­ters from planqc store infor­ma­tion in indi­vi­dual atoms — by nature the best qubits — and arrange them in highly scalable arti­fi­cial light crys­tals. Quan­tum gates based on precis­ely control­led laser pulses are used to process quan­tum infor­ma­tion. planqc bene­fits from basic rese­arch at the Max Planck Insti­tute and the world’s leading laser and photo­nics indus­try in Germany.

Planqc’s foun­ding team brings toge­ther deca­des of inter­na­tio­nal rese­arch on neutral-atom quan­tum tech­no­lo­gies at world-leading insti­tu­ti­ons such as Harvard Univer­sity, Oxford Univer­sity, Univer­sity of Cali­for­nia Berke­ley, Univer­sity of Colo­rado, Univer­sity of Inns­bruck, CQT Singa­pore, and MPQ. The foun­ding team is comple­ted by multi-super­vi­sor and finan­cial expert Ann-Kris­tin Achleit­ner and serial entre­pre­neur Markus Wagner, foun­der of i5invest.

Support for planqc conti­nues to be provi­ded by scien­ti­fic advi­sors Imma­nuel Bloch and J. Igna­cio Cirac. Both are direc­tors at MPQ and are known for their pionee­ring work on quan­tum simu­la­tion and quan­tum infor­ma­tion. In addi­tion, quan­tum algo­rithm expert Dieter Jaksch, profes­sor of physics at Oxford Univer­sity and the Univer­sity of Hamburg, was recrui­ted as an advi­sor. “This world-class team combi­nes the tech­ni­cal and commer­cial exper­tise to build the world’s most powerful quan­tum compu­ters,” said Amanda Birken­holz, invest­ment mana­ger at UVC Partners.

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a Munich and Berlin based early-stage venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in Euro­pean B2B start-ups within the enter­prise soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies and mobi­lity sectors. The fund typi­cally invests between €0.5 million 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 center for inno­va­tion and busi­ness crea­tion. With over 300 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM can draw on many years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding young compa­nies. This colla­bo­ra­tion allows UVC Part­ners to provide start­ups with unique access to talent, indus­try clients and other finan­cial part­ners. www.uvcpartners.com

About planqc

planqc builds quan­tum compu­ters and stores quan­tum infor­ma­tion in indi­vi­dual atoms — inher­ently the best qubits. Quan­tum infor­ma­tion is proces­sed by arran­ging these qubits in highly scalable regis­ters and then mani­pu­la­ting them with precis­ely control­led laser pulses. planqc features a unique combi­na­tion of quan­tum tech­no­lo­gies that opens the fastest path to quan­tum proces­sors with thou­sands of qubits, crea­ting the neces­sary condi­ti­ons for an indus­try-rele­vant quan­tum advan­tage. planqc was foun­ded in April 2022 by Alex­an­der Glätzle, Sebas­tian Blatt, Johan­nes Zeiher, Lukas Reichs­öll­ner toge­ther with Ann-Kris­tin Achleit­ner and Markus Wagner. planqc is based in Garching near Munich. www.planqc.eu

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz has advi­sed French Travel­soft SAS on the acqui­si­tion of Berlin-based online travel plat­form Traffics.

Traf­fics, foun­ded in 1999, opera­tes an online market­place for services in the tourism indus­try. The company has more than 6,000 custo­mers, inclu­ding travel agen­cies, airlines and hotels, and arran­ges travel sales of up to 1.3 billion euros annually.

Travel­soft has been opera­ting Orches­tra, now the market-leading travel SaaS plat­form, in France since 2000, enab­ling profes­sio­nals in the tourism indus­try to compile leisure and travel offers. Travel sales proces­sed via Orches­tra amount to almost 2 billion euros per year.

A team led by part­ners Dr. Stephan Morsch and Dr. Matthias Orthwein perfor­med the legal due dili­gence for the tran­sac­tion and advi­sed on various IT and data protec­tion issues.

Advi­sor Travel­soft SAS: SKW Schwarz, Munich
Dr. Stephan Morsch, Photo (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Matthias Orthwein (IT/Data Protec­tion Law), Dr. Angela Poschen­rie­der (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A); Asso­ciate: Niko­lai Schmidt (IT/Data Privacy)

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

Paris/ Frank­furt a. M. — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment compa­nies, has acqui­red a stake in SERMA Group, Europe’s leading inde­pen­dent provi­der of consul­ting and services in the fields of elec­tro­nic tech­no­lo­gies, inte­gra­ted systems and infor­ma­tion systems. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

The Ardian Expan­sion team had alre­ady inves­ted in SERMA Group in 2015 and has supported the company’s growth since then, in parti­cu­lar through acqui­si­ti­ons and the foun­ding of the “SERMA Safety & Secu­rity” busi­ness unit.

The rene­wed parti­ci­pa­tion of Ardian Expan­sion along­side the manage­ment and employees of SERMA Group, who conti­nue to hold the majo­rity of the company, is another important step in the company’s deve­lo­p­ment. In addi­tion to the main share­hol­der Ardian, Chequers Capi­tal and Bpifrance remain as further mino­rity share­hol­ders.

SERMA Group is excel­lently posi­tio­ned in nume­rous niche solu­ti­ons of elec­tro­nic compon­ents and systems with high value added depth in various high-growth sectors. The company controls the entire value chain, from deve­lo­p­ment, test­ing, produc­tion and main­ten­ance to trai­ning. The Group has unique tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise in elec­tro­nics, energy, cyber­se­cu­rity and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons for sectors such as aero­space, trans­por­ta­tion, energy, medi­cal and telecommunications.

Ardian will support SERMA Group in its further growth stra­tegy. In recent years, the Group has successfully deve­lo­ped beyond its estab­lished range of products and services and ente­red new markets, which include, for exam­ple, the energy market and the nuclear indus­try. The estab­lish­ment of SERMA Energy, a compe­tence and test plat­form for batte­ries, power elec­tro­nics and elec­tric drive trains with a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons, will further acce­le­rate the company’s growth in the energy sector.

In the last ten years, the company’s sales have almost tripled to almost 150 million euros and the number of employees curr­ently exceeds 1,300.

“We have known SERMA Group for twelve years and have built a very trus­ting rela­ti­onship with the company and its manage­ment team over the course of our long-term invol­vement. We are looking forward to working with the highly expe­ri­en­ced team again and in parti­cu­lar to further acce­le­rate the Group’s growth. The company is ideally posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from key mega­trends, parti­cu­larly in the context of the digi­ta­liza­tion of the economy. Our goal is to conti­nue to drive exter­nal growth and increase inter­na­tio­nal market share based on the Group’s inno­va­tion capa­bi­li­ties.” So Arnaud Dufer (photo, © Ardian), Mana­ging Direc­tor and head of France of the ARDIAN EXPAN­SION-teamS.

“We are very plea­sed that Ardian has once again inves­ted in SERMA Group. In recent years, despite an envi­ron­ment marked by the effects of the pande­mic, we have gradu­ally deve­lo­ped into one of the leading compa­nies in Europe, thanks to the support of Chequers Capi­tal. We have now reached a criti­cal size that allows us to enter a new phase of our deve­lo­p­ment. We see parti­cu­lar poten­tial in the growing importance of decar­bo­niza­tion of the economy and in the area of cyber­se­cu­rity. We are proud that, in addi­tion to the manage­ment team, nearly 500 employees have a stake in SERMA Group — proof that they believe in the success of the company,” explains Phil­ippe Berlié , Presi­dent of SERMA GROUP.

“Chequers Capi­tal has successfully supported SERMA’s deve­lo­p­ment along­side its manage­ment team over the last twelve years. The key to the company’s success lies in the quality of its teams, the constant pursuit of excel­lence and opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency, and a strong tech­ni­cal compe­tence that charac­te­ri­zes the company in all its busi­ness areas. We are proud of the progress and deve­lo­p­ments achie­ved in the fields of elec­tro­nics, elec­tric drives and safety, which meet the growing, essen­tial and long-term needs of our society. Chequers supports SERMA Group with Phil­ippe Berlié and his team in this new phase, which will be charac­te­ri­zed by acce­le­ra­ted orga­nic growth as well as inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. Chequers, Ardian and BPI will bring all their expe­ri­ence to the successful conti­nua­tion of this project,” says Aure­lien Klein, Mana­ging Direc­tor at chequers capi­tal.

Compa­nies invol­ved in the transaction:

Ardian Expan­sion
Arnaud Dufer, Maxime Séquier, Romain Gautron, Pierre Peslerbe
Legal Advi­sors: McDer­mott Will & Emery (Grégo­ire Andrieux, Fabrice Piol­let, Côme de Saint-Vincent, Boris Wolkoff)

Chequers Capi­tal
Auré­lien Klein, Emeric Boo d’Arc, Jérôme Kinas
Legal Advi­sors: Hogan Lovells (Stéphane Huten, Arnaud Deparday)

Advi­sors of Ardian Expan­sion and Chequers Capital
Legal, tax and social due dili­gence: McDer­mott Will & Emery (Grégo­ire Andrieux, Fabrice Piol­let, Côme de Saint-Vincent, Boris Wolkoff)
Commer­cial Due Dili­gence: The Boston Consul­ting Group (Benja­min Sarfati, Julien Vialade)
Finan­cial Due Dili­gence: Ernst & Young (Emma­nuel Picard, Elsa Abou Mrad, Alban Molle)
ESG Due Dili­gence: PwC (Sylvain Lambert, Chloé Szpirglas)
Insu­rance Due Dili­gence: Finaxy (Débo­rah Hauchemaille)
IT Due Dili­gence: Netsys­tem (Olivier Cazzulo, Lionel Gros)

SERMA Group
Phil­ippe Berlié, Xavier Morin, Mirentxu Boutet, Olivier Duch­mann, Bernard Ollivier
Legal Advi­sors: Apollo (Florence Savouré, Laura Smyr­lia­dis, Iyad El Borini, Delphine Dille­man), Chepeau Lumeau & Asso­ciés (Frédé­ri­que Lumeau)

About SERMA Group
SERMA Group is an inde­pen­dent French company with exper­tise in elec­tro­nics, energy, cyber­se­cu­rity and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons. The tradi­tio­nal medium-sized company recently achie­ved sales of €150 million with 1,300 employees. The Group has deve­lo­ped signi­fi­cantly in recent years through nume­rous invest­ments in resour­ces as well as exter­nal growth. These rela­ted in parti­cu­lar to the areas of design, test­ing, know-how and technology.

The Group’s various busi­ness units accom­pany their custo­mers throug­hout the entire life cycle, which includes the control of their products, their relia­bi­lity, safety and func­tion. The Group’s exper­tise is based on its elec­tro­nics tech­ni­cal labo­ra­to­ries, its mate­ri­als labo­ra­tory, its various test plat­forms (compon­ents, boards, devices, power elec­tro­nics, elec­tric motors, batte­ries, safety), its deve­lo­p­ment offices and experts who act as a point of cont­act for its customers.

The SERMA Group is foun­ded on five stra­te­gic pillars:
— Elec­tro­nic tech­no­lo­gies and materials
— System secu­rity and cybersecurity
— Embedded systems development
— Microelec­tro­nic design and assembly
— Exper­tise and energy test­ing (batte­ries, drive chains)

The group has 20 sites in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Tuni­sia, each close to its custo­mers, who come from diffe­rent indus­tries. serma.com

About ARDIAN

Ardian is a leading global inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm. The company mana­ges or advi­ses on appro­xi­m­ately US$130 billion in assets for more than 1,300 inves­tors world­wide. Thanks to its exten­sive exper­tise in private equity, real assets and credit, Ardian offers a wide range of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as custo­mi­zed invest­ment solu­ti­ons — tail­o­red to inves­tors’ needs: Ardian Custo­mi­zed Solu­ti­ons enables insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to access best-in-class mana­gers across all asset clas­ses through a custo­mi­zed port­fo­lio. Ardian Private Wealth Solu­ti­ons also offers a range of services speci­fi­cally geared to high net worth indi­vi­du­als. Ardian is majo­rity owned by its employees and places great empha­sis on their deve­lo­p­ment, as well as a culture of colla­bo­ra­tion based on an active exch­ange of know­ledge and expe­ri­ence. The more than 900 employees at 15 office loca­ti­ons in Europe, North and South America and Asia, follow the prin­ci­ples of respon­si­ble inves­t­ing. Ardian’s mission is to make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society through its invest­ments and to create value that lasts. Ardian aims to deli­ver excel­lent returns in line with high ethi­cal stan­dards and social respon­si­bi­lity. At Ardian, ever­yone is dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding successful compa­nies for the long term. ardian.com

About Cher­quers Capital

Chequers is one of the oldest private equity invest­ment compa­nies in conti­nen­tal Europe and was foun­ded in Paris almost 50 years ago. Chequers is curr­ently inves­t­ing in its 17th invest­ment vehicle, which can take majo­rity or mino­rity stakes in growth compa­nies in France, Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy, Bene­lux and Iberia. The team of 23 expe­ri­en­ced profes­sio­nals from six nati­ons contri­bu­tes its expe­ri­ence and exper­tise to the deve­lo­p­ment of curr­ently around 20 invest­ments. chequerscapital.com

 

News

Munich — The River­side Company, a global private equity firm that invests in small and medium-sized compa­nies, has appoin­ted Dörte Höpp­ner (photo) to the newly crea­ted posi­tion of Chief Sustaina­bi­lity Offi­cer. She will lead and drive ESG initia­ti­ves at River­side globally. Dörte Höpp­ner, who joined River­side in 2017, will conti­nue to be based in Europe and report directly to Riverside’s co-CEOs, Stewart Kohl and Béla Szigethy.

“Crea­ting this posi­tion is the next logi­cal step for us, and Dörte is the perfect person for the job,” said River­side Co-CEO Béla Szige­thy. “She has been at the fore­front of our firm’s ESG initia­ti­ves for some time and is reco­gni­zed in the private equity commu­nity for her deep under­stan­ding and commit­ment to ESG and all its dimen­si­ons. This appoint­ment reflects the great work she has done on ESG in Europe.”

In her new role, Dörte will iden­tify and drive ESG initia­ti­ves and inte­grate them into Riverside’s various fund areas. In doing so, it will work closely with the mana­ging part­ners of the indi­vi­dual funds.

“Diver­sity and inclu­sion, envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bi­lity and high stan­dards of corpo­rate gover­nance have rightly become core busi­ness issues in recent years,” says River­side co-CEO Stewart Kohl. “Profes­sio­nal inves­tors expect private equity firms to have good ESG prac­ti­ces, and we in turn expect this from our port­fo­lio companies.”

Dörte will retain her leader­ship role in fund­rai­sing and inves­tor rela­ti­ons for River­side in Europe, in addi­tion to her expan­ded ESG respon­si­bi­li­ties, and will conti­nue to serve as the primary Euro­pean inves­tor cont­act for the global River­side company. She has been promo­ted to Mana­ging Direc­tor, Fund­rai­sing & IR.

“I have great respect for these tasks, but at the same time I am highly moti­va­ted,” Höpp­ner said. “As a company, we want to be a beacon for respon­si­ble ESG prac­tice, and I look forward to working with my extre­mely know­led­geable colle­agues, who are all passio­nate about ESG as well.”

The River­side Company is a signa­tory to the Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment (UN PRI) and supports the ESG Data Conver­gence Project, which was laun­ched last year by leading private equity firms and their inves­tors to agree on an indus­try stan­dard of ESG metrics that would allow compa­ra­tive reporting.

The River­side Company

River­side Company is a global private equity firm focu­sed on inves­t­ing in growing compa­nies valued up to $400 million. Since its foun­ding in 1988, River­side has made more than 870 invest­ments. The company’s inter­na­tio­nal private equity and struc­tu­red capi­tal port­fo­lios include more than 130 compa­nies. River­side Europe is an inte­gral part of the company’s broad global network and has been inves­t­ing in Europe since 1989. River­side belie­ves that having a global presence provi­des special insight and access into each local context, culture and busi­ness prac­ti­ces, making River­side employees better inves­tors and busi­ness partners.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Eisen­ach — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner supports Semen­tis GmbH Stephan Behr Vermö­gens­ver­wal­tung with another mezza­nine financing.

As a family holding company, Semen­tis GmbH combi­nes inte­rests in QSIL SE and IBYKUS AG. Based in Thurin­gia, Germany, QSIL has been produ­cing high-perfor­mance mate­ri­als from high-purity quartz glass and tech­ni­cal cera­mics since it was foun­ded in 1992. The group of compa­nies with produc­tion sites in Germany and the Nether­lands employs around 700 people and has estab­lished itself in recent years as one of the world market leaders in its sector. Foun­ded in 1990, IBYKUS AG, based in Erfurt, Germany, specia­li­zes in IT services in the field of public admi­nis­tra­tion and offers e‑government solu­ti­ons for the admi­nis­tra­tion of subsi­dies at the muni­ci­pal, natio­nal and Euro­pean levels. In addi­tion, its range of services includes inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for busi­ness process opti­miza­tion based on SAP as well as in-house deve­lo­ped enter­prise soft­ware. Around 200 employees work at six loca­ti­ons in Germany.

Stephan Behr welco­mes the further coope­ra­tion: “With VR Equi­typ­art­ner, we once again have the relia­ble support of a long-stan­ding and expe­ri­en­ced part­ner. In addi­tion to asset real­lo­ca­tion, the new, addi­tio­nal mezza­nine finan­cing prima­rily serves to open up further growth areas for both QSIL and IBYKUS and to drive forward expan­sion efforts.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, added: “Semen­tis, with its attrac­tive invest­ments in high-growth tech­no­lo­gies and markets, is a long-stan­ding and very trus­ted part­ner. We look forward to conti­nuing down this path together.”

About VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH

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. www.vrep.de.

The tran­sac­tion team at VR Equitypartner:
Chris­tian Ocken­fuß, Patrick Heinze, Dr. Clau­dia Willershausen

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

Contract draf­ting and due dili­gence Semen­tis: Flick Gocke Schaum­burg with Dr. Irka Zöll­ter, Dr. Florian Kutt, Larissa Rickli (Tax), Daniel Ternes (Commer­cial).

Due Dili­gence QSIL (Commer­cial): Codex Part­ners with Clemens Beick­ler, Stijn Proost

Due Dili­gence QSIL (Finan­cial, Tax and Legal): tmitAlex­an­der Gerde­nit­sch, Patrick Gageur, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Menges

News

Munich — The Munich-based indus­trial holding ADCURAM Group has sold its stake in the WOUNDWO Group, based in Graz, Austria. The acqui­rer is the Paris-based listed indus­trial group SFPI Group. ADCURAM has accom­pa­nied WOUNDWO inten­si­vely over the past years, repo­si­tio­ned it and successfully deve­lo­ped it further. Toge­ther with the manage­ment, the turno­ver could be increased by more than 50% during this time and the inno­va­tive strength could be signi­fi­cantly streng­the­ned. The tran­sac­tion, the details of which have been agreed not to be disc­lo­sed, is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of July.

WOUNDWO was foun­ded in 1952 as a trading company in Graz, Austria, and is today a renow­ned quality supplier of sun protec­tion solu­ti­ons with 60 million euros in sales and around 310 employees. WOUNDWO holds a market-leading posi­tion in Austria and is also active in France, Germany and Switz­er­land as well as other count­ries. The product port­fo­lio of the tradi­tio­nal company includes awnings, exter­nal vene­tian blinds, roller shut­ters, insect screen products and inte­rior privacy and sun protec­tion systems. As an inter­na­tio­nal supplier of high-quality products ‘made in Austria’, WOUNDWO addres­ses the current mega­trends of outdoor living, sustaina­bi­lity and energy effi­ci­ency in the growth market of sun protection.

ADCURAM acqui­red WOUNDWO at the end of 2015. Since then, a stra­tegy for inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion has been imple­men­ted with a focus on markets borde­ring Austria. At the same time, WOUNDWO’s exper­tise in textile shad­ing systems was further expan­ded and ancho­red in the market. With the estab­lish­ment of an expe­ri­en­ced, powerful manage­ment team, it was possi­ble to conti­nuously imple­ment process opti­miza­ti­ons and conso­li­date produc­tion at three produc­tion sites in Austria and the Czech Repu­blic. Further deve­lo­p­ment steps in terms of product port­fo­lio and addi­tio­nal inter­na­tio­nal growth are also planned.

“As a market-leading company in Austria, espe­ci­ally in the area of awnings, WOUNDWO was alre­ady excel­lently posi­tio­ned at the time of our invest­ment in 2015. Toge­ther with the manage­ment, we have succee­ded in setting up the company for sustainable success inter­na­tio­nally as well. Our opera­tio­nal support has crea­ted the condi­ti­ons for further growth,” explains ADCURAM part­ner Dr. Phil­ipp Gusinde (photo © ADCURAM). Jochen Engelke, member of the advi­sory board of WOUNDWO, adds: “WOUNDWO is an agile, inno­va­tive company with a strong team. We are very happy to have found a part­ner in the SFPI Group that is as entre­pre­neu­rial as it is inno­va­tive and has a lot of expe­ri­ence in the sun protec­tion sector. We wish our colle­agues at WOUNDWO all the best on their contin­ued growth path.”

“Over the past years, ADCURAM has posi­tio­ned WOUNDWO as a major player in the Austrian sun protec­tion market with high commit­ment, detailed busi­ness under­stan­ding and stra­te­gic skills. This has been a great time for the company and for us as mana­ging direc­tors. Now we are looking forward to deve­lo­ping WOUNDWO into the next phase of the company with the SFPI Group as a strong, stra­te­gic inves­tor,” explain Alex­an­der Foki and Wolf­gang Kuss, mana­ging direc­tors of WOUNDWO.

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 730 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.de

News

Munich/ Berlin — Traf­fics Soft­ware­sys­teme für den Touris­mus GmbH (“Traf­fics”), the leading travel SaaS plat­form in Germany and Travel­soft SAS (“Travel­soft”) as opera­tor of Orches­tra, the equi­va­lent on the French market, are joining forces to become the Euro­pean market leader. Momen­tum Rechts­an­wälte und Steu­er­be­ra­ter, led by Dr. Daniel Wied, provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the sellers of Traf­fics in the areas of M&A and tran­sac­tion taxes.

Travel­soft, the holding company of Orches­tra, acqui­res 100% of Berlin-based travel tech expert Traf­fics. The Traf­fics foun­ders, Salim Sahi and Jens Muske­witz, have taken a substan­tial stake in Travel­soft. Chris­tian Sabbagh, foun­der and chair­man of Orches­tra, remains Travelsoft’s majo­rity share­hol­der. The merger was accom­pa­nied by major French banks. Momen­tum provi­ded compre­hen­sive M&A and tran­sac­tion tax legal advice to the sellers of Traf­fics under the leader­ship of Dr. Daniel Wied.

Since 1999, Traf­fics has been a leading, award-winning travel tech­no­logy company and a global pioneer in the digi­tal travel indus­try. The company deve­lops inno­va­tive consul­ting, search and booking systems for travel and is repre­sen­ta­tive for the future-orien­ted deve­lo­p­ment of an entire indus­try. Its custo­mers include more than 6,000 travel agen­cies as well as well-known travel portals, airlines, hotels and travel suppli­ers. The company arran­ges travel sales of more than 1.3 billion euros per year. The merger with Travel­soft will acce­le­rate the growth of both compa­nies by offe­ring new services to current and future customers.

Advi­sor Traf­fics: Momen­tum Attor­neys at Law and Tax Consultants
Dr. Daniel Wied, M. jur. (Oxon), Part­ner, M&A; Lead Partner
Dr. Phil­ipp Gold, Part­ner, M&A
Dr. Matthias Heil­meier, Part­ner, M&A
Sarah Kaspar, Asso­ciate, M&A

Momen­tum Stee­ring Legal (Paris), led by Agathe Martin and Nuno de Ayala Boaven­tura, was invol­ved for the French aspects of the transaction.
Corpo­rate finance advice on the seller side was provi­ded by Ennea Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH (Simon Schil­ler, Jan Valentin).
The New York law firm Stairs Dillen­beck Finley Mayer (Dr. Peter Mayer) played a leading role on the buyer side.
The legal due dili­gence on the buyer side was perfor­med by SKW Schwarz (led by Dr. Stephan Morsch, Dr. Matthias Orthwein Munich).
Ebner Stolz Düssel­dorf (Guido Glor­feld, Imke Meier, Timo West­meier, Sarah Chris­toph, Rianne Von Der Mark) was respon­si­ble for finan­cial and tax due dili­gence on the buyer side.
The nota­riza­tion was perfor­med by notary Dr. Roman Bärwaldt, Taylor Wessing, in Berlin.

About Momen­tum Lawy­ers and Tax Advisors
Momen­tum is a boutique law firm specia­li­zing in tran­sac­tions and advi­ses on M&A, private equity, venture capi­tal, corpo­rate and tax law — entre­pre­neu­rial, effi­ci­ent, expe­ri­en­ced and with the highest quality standards.

News

Bonn — High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) laun­ches its fourth fund and alre­ady reaches a commit­ted volume of more than EUR 400 million with the first closing. More than EUR 130 million of this amount comes from private inves­tors who parti­ci­pate in HTGF’s fourth fund along­side the Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and Climate Protec­tion (BMWK) and KfW Capi­tal. The result clearly exceeds expectations.

As a public-private part­ner­ship, HTGF is thus taking the successful coope­ra­tion between public and private fund inves­tors into the next gene­ra­tion: The second closing will take place this year and thus much faster than with the prede­ces­sor fund. 40 compa­nies from a wide range of indus­tries are parti­ci­pa­ting in HTGF IV; medium-sized compa­nies are parti­cu­larly well repre­sen­ted, along with nume­rous large compa­nies and family offices.

The new fund is an early-stage fund for inno­va­tive, tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies that are no more than three years old. With its early-stage finan­cing, it supports young compa­nies in the digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces and chemi­cals sectors. In the process, the analy­sis and selec­tion methods will be geared even more closely to the aspect of sustaina­bi­lity. The prere­qui­si­tes for funding are promi­sing rese­arch results, an inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gi­cal basis and a promi­sing market situa­tion. In addi­tion to provi­ding support on finan­cing issues, HTGF also assists young compa­nies with its network as well as its tech­no­lo­gi­cal and busi­ness know-how.

POELLATH advi­sedHTGF during the launch of the fund on all contrac­tual, regu­la­tory and tax aspects of fund struc­tu­ring, contrac­tual docu­men­ta­tion and distri­bu­tion as well as on inves­tor nego­tia­ti­ons with the follo­wing Berlin team:

Tarek Mardini, LL.M. (UConn) (Part­ner, Lead, Private Funds)
Ronald Buge (Part­ner, Private Funds)
Dr. Jan Schulz, LL.M. (London) (Senior Asso­ciate, Private Funds)
Anto­nia Nabavi (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)
Melissa Rödel (Rese­arch Asso­ciate, Private Funds)

News

Munich, Germany — The River­side Company, a global private equity inves­tor focu­sed on the lower middle market, has signed a defi­ni­tive agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in Montel AS (Montel), a Norwe­gian energy and power market infor­ma­tion provi­der owned by its foun­der and manager.

Montel, head­quar­te­red in Oslo, is an inter­na­tio­nal niche market leader provi­ding energy and power market infor­ma­tion to energy produ­cers, grid opera­tors, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, trading compa­nies and indus­trial end users. The company’s services are prima­rily deli­vered through its proprie­tary Montel Online subscrip­tion-based plat­form and include energy market news and real-time and histo­ri­cal trading data.

Montel provi­des full-service energy infor­ma­tion services and is the only focu­sed provi­der of energy market infor­ma­tion services.

“This acqui­si­tion fits well with our invest­ment stra­tegy. “Montel is a true ’small market leader’ in the energy infor­ma­tion market and we believe the company is perfectly posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from the shift from fossil fuels to rene­wa­ble energy sources in many parts of the economy,” said Kars­ten Langer, Mana­ging Part­ner of River­side Europe. “We are plea­sed to invest along­side the foun­der and manage­ment team, who will remain with the company and conti­nue to play an important role in the company’s growth in the years to come.”

River­side will support Montel’s growth by scaling the orga­niza­tion to further gain share in a growing market, deve­lo­ping new products and services, and driving geogra­phic expan­sion. In addi­tion, the Group will make selec­tive acqui­si­ti­ons to expand its range of analy­ti­cal services.

Montel’s acti­vi­ties are highly aligned with various ESG aspects and the UN Sustainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goals, as its services help compa­nies gain a better under­stan­ding of their energy consump­tion so they can take action to reduce the causes of climate change in the longer term and enable a smooth tran­si­tion to rene­wa­ble energy consumption.

“We are exci­ted to part­ner with River­side in Montel’s next phase of growth,” said Tom Nyblin, CEO of Montel. “In gene­ral, the demand for infor­ma­tion services and analy­sis for the elec­tri­city market is expec­ted to increase shar­ply in the future. By joining forces with River­side, Montel is in a strong posi­tion to capi­ta­lize on these trends.”

Working with Langer on the tran­sac­tion for River­side were Senior Part­ner Dr. Michael Weber, Vice Presi­dent Dan Parksjö, Senior Direc­tor Jeroen Lens­sen, Opera­ting Part­ner Julian Heer­de­gen and Senior Legal Coun­sel Peter Parmen­tier. Prin­ci­pal, Origi­na­tion, Ali Al Alaf broke­red the tran­sac­tion for River­side. — The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory approvals.

Consul­tant Riverside:

BAHR, Allen & Overy, Hannes Snell­man Bain & Company, PWC, Deloitte and Code & Co. advi­sed, while the company and its share­hol­ders were advi­sed by Alpha Corpo­rate Finance, Wiers­holm and BDO.

The River­side Company

The River­side Company is a global private equity firm focu­sed on invest­ments in middle-market growth compa­nies valued at up to $400 million. Since its foun­ding in 1988, River­side has made over 870 invest­ments. Riverside’s inter­na­tio­nal private equity and struc­tu­red capi­tal port­fo­lios include over 130 compa­nies. River­side Europe is an inte­gral part of the company’s global network and has been inves­t­ing in Europe since 1989. River­side belie­ves this global presence provi­des excep­tio­nal insight into local condi­ti­ons, culture and busi­ness prac­ti­ces, making the River­side team better inves­tors and busi­ness partners.

News

Munich — Baker McKen­zie advi­sed Ariceum Thera­peu­tics (Ariceum) on the successful closing of a EUR 25 million Series A finan­cing round led by EQT Life Scien­ces (form­erly LSP) and Health­Cap, and on the acqui­si­tion of assets from Ipsen Pharma.

Ariceum is a priva­tely held biotech­no­logy company deve­lo­ping a novel, first-in-class radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal product for the diagno­sis and targe­ted radia­tion therapy of certain diffi­cult-to-treat cancers. The company was foun­ded by EQT Life Scien­ces (form­erly LSP) and Health­Cap, which also led the over­sub­scri­bed finan­cing round in which Pureos Bioven­turesalso parti­ci­pa­ted. Ipsen trans­fer­red assets and all rights to them to the company.

“Toge­ther with our client and our team of specia­li­zed corpo­rate, biotech­no­logy and life scien­ces lawy­ers, we succee­ded in secu­ring finan­cing, paving the way for the deve­lo­p­ment of a therapy for pati­ents suffe­ring from certain diffi­cult-to-treat cancers,” commen­ted Julia Braun, LL.M., the lead part­ner on the transaction.

Ariceum is led by a highly expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team with a strong track record and exper­tise in clini­cal trials, syste­mic radio­the­rapy and radio-phar­maceu­ti­cal deve­lo­p­ment, as well as in the launch and commer­cia­liza­tion of diagno­stic and thera­peu­tic products in a variety of indi­ca­ti­ons worldwide.

Baker McKenzie’s Corporate/M&A and Life Scien­ces team regu­larly advi­ses phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies, finan­cial and stra­te­gic inves­tors, and early-stage biotech­no­logy compa­nies on dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal health­care transactions.

Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed, among others, Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+ on a EUR 60 million Series B finan­cing of Tubu­lis GmbH, Alle­cra Thera­peu­tics on an exclu­sive license and supply agree­ment with ADVANZ PHARMA, MODAG on a stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with Teva, Chord Thera­peu­tics on its sale to Merck KGaA, LSP as lead inves­tor in a EUR 20 million Series A equity finan­cing of Inno­va­tive Mole­cu­les, Numab Thera­peu­tics in a CHF 100 million cross-over finan­cing, Cata­lYm in a EUR 50 million Series B finan­cing led by Vesa­lius Capi­tal, Casdin Capi­tal as lead inves­tor in DNA Script’s USD 50 million exten­ded Series B equity finan­cing round, and Chr. Hansen Holding in its acqui­si­tion of Jenne­wein Biotechnology.

Legal advi­sor Ariceum Thera­peu­tics: Baker McKenzie

Lead: Corporate/M&A: Julia Braun, LL.M. (Part­ner, Munich)
Team: Corporate/M&A: Dr. Marcus Meese (Part­ner, Munich), Dr. Katja Heuter­kes (Coun­sel, Munich), Dr. Julia Rossié (Asso­ciate, Munich)
Employ­ment: Dr. Matthias Köhler (Part­ner, Berlin), Felix Arnold, Dr. Harasch Yakubi (both Asso­cia­tes, Berlin), Amelie Czekalla (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
IP: Dr. Markus Hecht (Coun­sel, Frankfurt)
Tax: Thomas Gierath (Part­ner, Munich), Vikto­ria Ritter (Asso­ciate, Munich), Jochen Meyer-Burow (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Ariane Schaaf (Coun­sel, Frankfurt)

About Baker McKenzie

Complex busi­ness chal­lenges require a holi­stic response across diffe­rent markets, sectors and juris­dic­tions. Baker McKenzie’s solu­ti­ons for clients are accom­pa­nied by seam­less advice, under­pin­ned by in-depth prac­tice and indus­try know­ledge as well as excel­lent local market insights. In more than 70 offices world­wide, we work with our clients to provide solu­ti­ons for a connec­ted world.

In Germany, around 200 lawy­ers in Berlin, Düssel­dorf, Frankfurt/Main and Munich repre­sent the inte­rests of their clients with proven profes­sio­nal exper­tise and inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence. As one of the leading German law firms, Baker McKen­zie advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons in all areas of commer­cial law.

News

Munich — The private equity inves­tor AUCTUS has acqui­red the a1-envi­ro­sci­en­ces Group, which includes a1-envi­ro­sci­en­ces GmbH of Düssel­dorf and a1-envi­ro­sci­en­ces Ltd. of Warring­ton (UK). The seller was the British company Diploma plc. AUCTUS acqui­res a1 Group to support its contin­ued orga­nic growth by, among other things, adding new product lines and ente­ring addi­tio­nal geogra­phic areas. In addi­tion, growth is also to be acce­le­ra­ted through acqui­si­ti­ons of further labo­ra­tory supply specia­lists by way of a Europe-wide buy-and-build concept.

a1-envi­ro­sci­en­ces is a respec­ted specia­list in medi­cal test­ing and analy­sis tech­no­logy, as well as quaran­tine tech­no­logy for medi­cal labo­ra­to­ries. a1 has loca­ti­ons in Germany, Great Britain, France, Belgium and the Nether­lands. In this context, a1’s busi­ness model includes consul­ting, sales, user trai­ning and main­ten­ance of sold systems in order to provide a compre­hen­sive service.

AUCTUS is a Munich-based invest­ment company. With a fund capi­tal under manage­ment of more than EUR 800 million and curr­ently 47 plat­form compa­nies from various indus­tries, AUCTUS is one of the leading inves­tors in the German small- and mid-cap sector. The port­fo­lio curr­ently conta­ins 47 plat­form compa­nies from various indus­tries in and outside Europe.

Diploma plc is an inter­na­tio­nally active group of compa­nies with a focus on the life scien­ces, seals and controls sectors.

Advi­sors to AUCTUS Capi­tal Part­ners AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek:

Boris Dürr (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law / M&A), Munich
Marcel Greu­bel (Corpo­rate Law, M&A), Munich
Peter Michael Schäff­ler (Tax Law), Munich
Chris­tian Schild (Corpo­rate Law, M&A), Munich
Andreas Schruff (Corpo­rate Law, M&A), Munich
Dr. Markus Rabe (Banking & Finance), Munich
Dr. Henrik Lay (Tax Law), Hamburg
Dr. Sarah Slavik-Schulz (Tax Law), Hamburg
Sandra Pfis­ter (Banking & Finance), Hamburg
Andreas Wien­cke (Banking & Finance), Frankfurt

Advi­sor Diploma plc: Simmons & Simmons

Dr Stephan Ulrich (Lead/Client Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Dusseldorf)
Slaven Kova­ce­vic (Lead/Counsel, Private Equity/M&A, Dusseldorf)
Sabine Krause (Super­vi­sing Asso­ciate, Private Equity/M&A, Dusseldorf)
Sam Bert­ling (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Dusseldorf)
Dr Bernulph von Crails­heim (Part­ner, Tax, Frankfurt)
Elmar Weinand (Coun­sel, Tax, Frankfurt)
Dr Jens Gölz (Part­ner, Finan­cial Markets, Frankfurt)
Peter Louzen­sky (Super­vi­sing Asso­ciate, Finan­cial Markets, Munich)
Dr Martin Gramsch (Coun­sel, Anti­trust, Munich)
Edward Baker (Part­ner, Private Equity/M&A UK, London)
Char­lotte Moor­house (Asso­ciate, Private Equity/M&A UK, London)

News

Düssel­dorf / Colo­gne — Japan’s Soft­Bank Corp. has taken a signi­fi­cant stake in Colo­gne-based IoT service provi­der 1NCE GmbH. The compa­nies simul­ta­neously signed an exclu­sive distri­bu­tion agree­ment for the Asia-Paci­fic (APAC) region. Soft­Bank will exclu­si­vely distri­bute 1NCE in 19 markets in the APAC region, inclu­ding Austra­lia, Japan, Malay­sia and Singa­pore. 1NCE will also open sales and tech­ni­cal offices in Singa­pore and Tokyo.

Soft­Bank Corp., head­quar­te­red in Tokyo, is a leading Japa­nese provi­der of tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and infor­ma­tion tech­no­lo­gies. In fiscal 2021/2022, Soft­Bank posted sales of 5.7 tril­lion yen.

Foun­ded in 2017 by Alex­an­der P. Sator and Deut­sche Tele­kom AG, 1NCE, head­quar­te­red in Colo­gne, Germany, specia­li­zes in IoT connec­ti­vity via a flat rate and offers mobile connec­ti­vity and soft­ware services in coope­ra­tion with network opera­tors in more than 110 count­ries to date.

The Herbert Smith Freeh­ills team led by Dr. Sönke Becker recently advi­sed Soft­Bank Robo­tics Group Corp. on the sale of its French subsi­diary to United Robo­tics Group.

Advi­sors to Soft­Bank Corp.: Herbert Smith Freeh­ills, Düsseldorf
Dr. Sönke Becker (Lead), Lena von Richt­ho­fen (Coun­sel, both Corpo­rate), Dr. Marius Boewe (Regu­la­tory), Moritz Kunz (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Marcel Nuys (Anti­trust), Joseph Fisher (Corpo­rate, Tokyo); Asso­cia­tes: Marjel Dema, Dr. Niko­laus Moench, Janis Rentrop (all Corpo­rate), Kris­tin Kattwin­kel (Regu­la­tory), Dr. Simone Zieg­ler (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Juliana Penz-Evren (Anti­trust, Brussels), Naoko Adachi (Tokyo), Jarry Tay (Kuala Lumpur, both Corporate)

News

Munich — Oakley Capi­tal Fund IV and other co-share­hol­ders have sold their shares in Cont­abo to KKR. Cont­abo is a fast-growing cloud infra­struc­ture and hosting provi­der based in Munich, Germany, offe­ring simple, easy-to-use cloud services to small busi­nesses, deve­lo­pers, prosumers and gamers. With a global network of 24 data centers on four conti­nents, Cont­abo serves a diverse mix of more than 250,000 custo­mers across a wide range of indus­tries. Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Oakley Capi­tal Fund IV and other co-share­hol­ders on the sale of Cont­abo to KKR.

The exit will gene­rate a gross return in excess of 10x MM and over 100% IRR to Fund IV. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Oakley Capi­tal Fund V (“Fund V”) will acquire a mino­rity stake in Cont­abo along­side majo­rity inves­tor KKR, to bene­fit from the anti­ci­pa­ted future growth of the busi­ness. t

Advi­sors to Oakley Capi­tal Fund IV and other co-share­hol­ders: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker (photo), Dr. David Huth­ma­cher, Dr. Chris­toph Jerger (all lead, all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Anna Schwan­der (Corpo­rate), Dr. Thomas S. Wilson (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion, Brussels); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Thomas Diek­mann, Dr. Marcus Comman­deur, Lukas Fell­höl­ter, Juliane Hubert, Dr. Tamara Zehen­t­bauer (all Private Equity/M&A)

Advi­sors to Oakley Capi­tal Fund V: Kirk­land & Ellis, London

Jacob Traff, David Higgins (both lead); Asso­ciate: Kars­ten Silber­na­gel (all Private Equity/M&A)

About Kirk­land & Ellis
With more than 3,000 lawy­ers in 19 offices world­wide, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firms. The Munich team provi­des focu­sed advice in the areas of private equity, M&A, corpo­rate, capi­tal markets, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and tax law.

News

Wies­ba­den — Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Hessen (“MBG H”) can look back on a successful fiscal year 2021. As a central point of cont­act for medium-sized compa­nies in capi­tal-inten­sive inno­va­tion and growth phases, it appro­ved 15 new invest­ments in the past fiscal year (previous year: 13) with a total volume of 5.8 million euros (previous year: 4.7 million euros). Disbur­se­ments in the micro­mez­za­nine area were also increased year-on-year from EUR 516,000 (12 appli­ca­ti­ons in 2020) to EUR 910,000 (16 appli­ca­ti­ons in 2021). At the end of the fiscal year, MBG H had thus inves­ted in a total of 98 Hessian companies.

The past fiscal year was not only a successful year for MBG H, but also a very special one: In Septem­ber, it cele­bra­ted its 50th anni­ver­sary — while Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH (“BMH”), which mana­ges MBG H, cele­bra­ted its 20th anni­ver­sary. As a subsi­diary of Helaba, the SME invest­ment and venture capi­tal company BMH has been bund­ling all public invest­ment inte­rests and finan­cing instru­ments for start-ups and SMEs in Hesse since 2001.

MBG H provi­des mezza­nine capi­tal to small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses in Hesse in the form of silent part­ner­ships over a period of ten years. The invest­ment focus here is on compa­nies that are estab­lished in their market and have inte­res­t­ing inno­va­tion and growth pros­pects. “Even after two years of Corona — or perhaps precis­ely because of it — we see how many crea­tive ideas are emer­ging in our state. How many compa­nies have deve­lo­ped new ideas, have new perspec­ti­ves and are confi­dent about the future,” Jürgen Zabel, Mana­ging Direc­tor of BMH since 2005, is plea­sed to say and adds: “Where we could, we supported these compa­nies, accom­pa­nied them so that toge­ther with us they could survive the crisis as well as possible.”

As a silent part­ner, MBG H has taken on the respon­si­bi­lity of being a relia­ble and strong part­ner even in diffi­cult times: with inten­sive consul­ta­ti­ons, defer­ral of inte­rest and redemp­tion payments to improve liqui­dity or the increase of addi­tio­nal equity capi­tal. In the curr­ently published annual report, MBG H pres­ents three port­fo­lio compa­nies to show by way of exam­ple that in addi­tion to all the facts and figu­res, the people with their ideas and visi­ons, with their plans and their drive are never lost sight of:

3spin to extin­gu­ish virtual fires

The young company 3spin helps — not only — to extin­gu­ish virtual fires by provi­ding programs in augmen­ted reality with which compa­nies can train their employees using the lear­ning plat­form. In addi­tion, 3spin enables other compa­nies to easily imple­ment AR programs themselves.

Truck light­ing from PROPLAST

PROPLAST GmbH specia­li­zes in the light­ing of commer­cial vehic­les. On the one hand, these can be stan­dard head­lights, but on the other hand, the most crea­tive truckers also rely on the exper­tise of the Hessi­ans to put their vehic­les in the best light.

All-round care through Curmundo

Finally, Curmundo GmbH offers services rela­ted to nursing care. And is parti­cu­larly successful at it — not least because the care service works with a flat hier­ar­chy and many digi­tal opti­ons, without losing sight of the patients.

“These are three compa­nies that could hardly be more diffe­rent — and which have deve­lo­ped well in recent years despite all the crises,” knows Dr. Stef­fen Huth, Mana­ging Direc­tor of BM H since 2021, and adds: “We at MBG H are very plea­sed that we can conti­nue to support the compa­nies in going their way. We provide funding so that the compa­nies can realize their visi­ons for the future, so that they can finance ideas and inno­va­tions, buy equip­ment and goods, pay new employees.”

In this context, MBG H supports company take­overs as well as start-ups in the long term — without ambi­ti­ons for a quick exit and short-term profits.

About BMH

Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH (“BMH”), head­quar­te­red in Wies­ba­den, was foun­ded in 2001 and is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Hessen-Thürin­gen Giro­zen­trale (Helaba). Through Wirt­schafts- und Infra­struk­tur­bank Hessen (WIBank), BMH Hessen is actively invol­ved in the econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties of the State of Hesse. As a medium-sized invest­ment and venture capi­tal company, BMH bund­les public invest­ment inte­rests and finan­cing instru­ments for early-stage, growth and medium-sized compa­nies in Hesse. BMH curr­ently mana­ges seven invest­ment funds with an inves­ted invest­ment volume of around 125 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion, BMH has inves­ted over 250 million euros in a total of more than 500 compa­nies. The main areas of invest­ment include the soft­ware & IT, life scien­ces, mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring, indus­trial goods, profes­sio­nal services and e‑commerce sectors. More infor­ma­tion about BMH and its funds: www.bmh-hessen.de

News

Colo­gne, Germany, June 09, 2022 — Data insight company Consu­mer Edge has acqui­red Qent­nis GmbH. As a result, the two compa­nies now operate jointly in the USA and Europe, two of the world’s most important consu­mer markets.

Consu­mer Edge is a leading data analy­tics company focu­sed on the inter­na­tio­nal consu­mer market, based in New York, USA. The acqui­si­tion of the Berlin-based startup is Consu­mer Edge’s response to the growing demand for accu­rate, always-on consu­mer spen­ding data and expands its compre­hen­sive offe­ring of multi­na­tio­nal, consu­mer-focu­sed alter­na­tive data and rese­arch solu­ti­ons to the pan-Euro­pean market.

About Consu­mer Edge

Foun­ded in 2009 by CEO Bill Peco­ri­ello, Consu­mer Edge is a data analy­tics solu­ti­ons provi­der focu­sed on the global consu­mer market. They provide key play­ers in the invest­ment and busi­ness land­scape with best-in-class alter­na­tive data products and tools to enable advan­ced stra­te­gic decis­ion making. Consu­mer Edge’s suite of products, consis­ting of data feeds, templa­tes, and visua­liza­tion plat­forms, provi­des opti­mal insight into consu­mer beha­vior by linking nume­rous privacy-compli­ant data types across geogra­phies. This allows for actionable insights that are supported by the near real-time market intel­li­gence and bench­mar­king capa­bi­li­ties available at the retailer, brand and item levels. https://consumer-edge.com

About Qent­nis GmbH

Qent­nis is a German, Berlin-based data company that provi­des unique insights for insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and corpo­ra­ti­ons. Qent­nis’ core busi­ness is the coll­ec­tion, proces­sing, allo­ca­tion and aggre­ga­tion of anony­mi­zed tran­sac­tion data. The offer is aimed at insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, the private equity sector and compa­nies that want to learn more about market and company trends in order to form and vali­date invest­ment hypo­the­ses. Qent­nis was foun­ded in 2019 by Bene­dikt Ernst and Simon Kröger with IONIQ Group as the main inves­tor. https://www.qentnis.com

Advisor:inside Consu­mer Edge: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich, Photo (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Jona­than Görg (Tran­sac­tions), Associate
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Anna Eick­meier (IP/IT, Data Protec­tion), Senior Associate
Stefan Rich­ter (Tax), Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Tax), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Chris­toph Lütten­berg (Corpo­rate), Associate

The YPOG team worked closely with a team from Lowen­stein Sand­ler, led by Alex D. Leibo­witz, on U.S. legal matters and part­ne­red with boutique law firms Push Wahlig Work­place Law on employ­ment law matters, and KNPZ Attor­neys at Law on busi­ness law matters.

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Corpo­rate, Funds, Liti­ga­tion, Tax, Tran­sac­tions, IP/IT, Notary Services, Banking + Finan­cial Services and FinTech + Block­chain. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 90 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law as well as www.linkedin.com/company/ypog.

News

Coburg / Munich — Venture capi­tal inves­tor group HZG laun­ches its first venture capi­tal fund, the HZG Addi­tive Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech Fund, with a volume of EUR 60 million. The fund’s inves­tor base includes expe­ri­en­ced entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors, as well as major family offices. POELLATH advi­sed HZG Group on the launch of the HZG Addi­tive Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech Fund.

Based in Coburg, Bava­ria, HZG Group is compri­sed of venture capi­tal invest­ments, busi­ness angel invest­ments and its own rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment center with a clear focus on the field of addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring (3D prin­ting). The company’s invest­ment focus is on early-stage invest­ments in inno­va­tive start-ups in the DACH region. The invest­ment focus is on all areas of addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring and rela­ted indus­trial fields: from machi­nes and proces­ses to appli­ca­ti­ons and services in the context of Indus­try 4.0, such as machine lear­ning, robo­tics, auto­ma­tion, Inter­net of Things (IoT) and AI appli­ca­ti­ons. In the future, two to three invest­ments per year are planned.

The foun­ders and mana­ging part­ners of HZG Group, Kers­tin Herzog and Frank Cars­ten Herzog, look back on more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in 3D prin­ting and, in addi­tion to their know-how and under­stan­ding of the indus­try, comple­ment the equity invest­ment with a corre­spon­ding network and their passion for technology.

Addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring is beco­ming incre­asingly important in more and more indus­tries. Just under half of German compa­nies expect to manu­fac­ture end products addi­tively as early as 2022, accor­ding to manage­ment consul­tants EY.

POELLATH advi­sedHZG Group on all contrac­tual and regu­la­tory aspects of fund struc­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion during the launch of the fund as well as on inves­tor nego­tia­ti­ons with the follo­wing Berlin team:
Dr. Philip Schwarz van Berk, LL.M. (London) (Part­ner, Private Funds)
Katha­rina Schrö­ter (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)
Dennis Fordan (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)

News

Elms­horn — The share­hol­ders and foun­ders of The Quality Group GmbH (“TQG”), based in Elms­horn near Hamburg, are selling their shares to CVC Fund VIII, which is mana­ged by CVC Capi­tal Part­ners (“CVC”). All exis­ting share­hol­ders parti­ci­pate indi­rectly in the company as future mino­rity share­hol­ders. Menold Bezler advi­sed The Quality Group GmbH on this transaction.

TQG is a specia­list in sports nutri­tion such as protein powders, dietary supple­ments and low-sugar foods and was formed at the end of 2020 by the merger of seve­ral compa­nies, mainly known for the brands “ESN” and “MORE NUTRITION”. TQG employs a total of around 360 people. Distri­bu­tion is largely online via the company’s own store, social media and part­ner­ships with influen­cers, as well as food retail­ers. The share­hol­ders Benja­min Burk­hardt and Chris­tian Wolf will remain opera­tio­nally active in the company.

CVC is a leading private equity firm and has been active in the German market for more than 30 years. Toge­ther with the foun­ders, CVC intends to conti­nue TQG’s growth path via the expan­sion of logi­stics, an expan­ded product port­fo­lio and the inter­na­tio­nal CVC network.

A Menold Bezler team led by Vladi­mir Cutura advi­sed the share­hol­ders of TQG on all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion. The firm alre­ady advi­sed TQG in Decem­ber 2020 on the merger of the compa­nies behind “ESN” and “MORE NUTRITION” and on the subse­quent acqui­si­tion of GOT 7 Nutri­tion GmbH & Co KG.

Advi­sors to The Quality Group GmbH: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)

Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner, Lead), Thomas Futte­rer, Nicole Brandt, LL.M, Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Jens Schmelt (Part­ner), Hans­jörg Frenz, LL.M. (Part­ner), Dr. Jan Nehring-Köppl (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Julia Schnei­der (Part­ner), Markus Kleinn (both IP), Dr. Jochen Bern­hard (Part­ner), Eliana Koch-Heint­ze­ler, Daniel Klass (all Anti­trust), Dr. Aris Joann­idis (Part­ner), Dr. Monika König (Part­ner), Dr. Caro­lin Reichert (Part­ner), Dr. Markus Augen­schein, Isabelle Hörner, Janina Dinke­la­ker (all Commer­cial), Dr. Frie­der Werner (Part­ner), Alex­an­dra Heidel­ber­ger (both Labor Law), Marc Ehrmann, LL.M. (Part­ner), Elisa Dyballa (both Real Estate Law), Stef­fen Foll­ner (Part­ner, Banking & Finan­cing), Dr. Cars­ten Ulbricht (Part­ner), Vari­nia Iber, Caro­lin Nemec (all IT Law), Nico Haldy (Part­ner), Clemens Mauch, Sarah Roßmann (all Tax), Jan Schmei­sky (Part­ner, Auditing)

Advi­sor CVC: Will­kie Farr & Gallagher

Lead part­ners Georg Linde and Dr. Matthias Schudlo; part­ners Patrick Meiisel, Sebas­tian Fitz­Ge­rald, Dr. Jasmin Dett­mar; coun­sel Timo­thy Sawyer; and asso­cia­tes Phil­ipp Oehler­king, Sebas­tian Bren­ner and Xian­rui Wang.

About Menold Bezler

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

About CVC

CVC is a leading private equity and invest­ment advi­sory firm with a network of 25 offices throug­hout Europe, Asia and the U.S. and appro­xi­m­ately €123 billion of assets under management.

News

Frank­furt and Munich — Oakt­ree has laun­ched a public take­over offer for Deut­sche Euro­Shop AG. A consor­tium of private invest­ment funds mana­ged and advi­sed by Oakt­ree Capi­tal Manage­ment, L.P. and CURA Vermö­gens­ver­wal­tung, the family office of the Otto family and parent company of the ECE Group, has announ­ced its decis­ion to launch a volun­t­ary public take­over offer for all no-par value shares of Deut­sche Euro­Shop AG through Hercu­les BidCo GmbH, which will be indi­rectly control­led by the consor­tium. Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP advi­sed Oakt­ree in connec­tion with its public tender offer for Deut­sche Euro­Shop AG.

The total value for share­hol­ders of EUR 22.50 per share repres­ents a substan­tial premium of 44.0 percent over Deut­sche EuroShop’s unaf­fec­ted share price of EUR 15.63 per share at the close of trading on May 20, 2022. — Deut­sche Euro­Shop is a major shop­ping center inves­tor that owns a port­fo­lio of 21 high-quality shop­ping centers in prime loca­ti­ons in Germany and attrac­tive cities in Central and Eastern Europe.

The offer is a stra­te­gic invest­ment in Deut­sche Euro­Shop to ensure that the company can respond to exis­ting chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties in the current retail envi­ron­ment. Over the past two years, vola­ti­lity in the retail sector has increased due to pande­mic-rela­ted closures, supply chain disrup­ti­ons, and gene­ral consu­mer uncer­tainty caused by the war in Ukraine.

Advi­sor to Oakt­ree: Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP

The firm was led by Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Wilhelm Rein­hardt (Frank­furt) and Clai­bourne Harri­son (London); Part­ners Alan Samson (Real Estate, London), Sandy Bhogal (Tax, London), Coun­sel Anne­kat­rin Pels­ter (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Dr. Dennis Seif­arth (Corpo­rate, Munich) and James Chand­ler (Tax, London).

About Gibson Dunn

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,600 lawy­ers in 20 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn offices are loca­ted in Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, San Fran­cisco, São Paulo, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.gibsondunn.com.

News

Grün­wald near Munich/ London — The invest­ment specia­lists SOLUTIO, Grün­wald near Munich, and Pantheon, London, have successfully closed their second joint private debt secon­dary fund. Like its prede­ces­sor product, SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Debt II invests in funds that pool private corpo­rate loans (private debt). The final closing took place in May 2022 at 510 million euros. This is double the amount of the first fund of this type, SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Debt I, which closed in Febru­ary 2020 at EUR 250 million.

“During the Covid pande­mic, it became appa­rent that the private debt asset class is more stable than the public finan­cial markets. This is also eviden­ced by the very good perfor­mance of our first fund over the past two years,” said SOLUTIO CEO Robert Massing. “Our offe­ring is getting a lot of tail­wind because insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors are very inte­res­ted in invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties with an attrac­tive risk-reward profile and low volatility.”

“The doubling of volume in the second fund compared to the first reflects the gene­ral market trend — private debt is curr­ently gaining signi­fi­cant market share globally,” said Ralph Günther, Part­ner and Head of DACH Region at Pantheon. “On the one hand, many banks are incre­asingly with­dra­wing from the lending busi­ness due to regu­la­tory pres­sure. Second, there is a catch-up poten­tial of private debt compared to the longer estab­lished asset class of private equity.”

Like its prede­ces­sor product, SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Debt II invests in medium-sized compa­nies (mid-market) prima­rily in Europe and North America. Once again, 75 to 85 percent of the funds raised will be used for senior loans (senior debt), inclu­ding unitran­che, and 15 to 25 percent for subor­di­na­ted / other debt. The main focus here is again on loans for compa­nies held by private equity compa­nies (“corpo­rate spon­so­red deals”). In the past, these have mostly repor­ted low default rates.

More than 90 percent of the fund port­fo­lio is hedged against rising inte­rest rates and infla­tion with so-called floa­ting instru­ments. If central banks conti­nue to raise inte­rest rates, as is widely expec­ted, then port­fo­lio returns would also conti­nue to rise.

SOLUTIO AG and Pantheon also operate this fund as a part­ner­ship in a joint venture. Pantheon is one of the leading private market fund mana­gers with a global presence (Ameri­cas, Europe, Asia) and 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private finan­cial markets.

SOLUTIO AG

SOLUTIO AG, foun­ded in Munich in 1998, deve­lops inno­va­tive invest­ment concepts espe­ci­ally for the needs of German and Austrian insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in the field of real assets. SOLUTIO initia­tes invest­ment concepts exclu­si­vely toge­ther with mana­gers who have a proven track record of above-average success. The company itself also parti­ci­pa­tes in all invest­ment concepts. In the past 24 years, SOLUTIO AG and its joint venture part­ners have laun­ched a total of 20 invest­ment programs in the asset clas­ses of private equity, infra­struc­ture, private debt and real estate with a total volume of over 6.5 billion euros.

News

Stutt­gart — FLEX Capi­tal acqui­res output manage­ment specia­list for OMS subsi­diary Form­ware with Heuking. A team led by Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein provi­ded legal advice to the private equity fund FLEX Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of the output manage­ment specia­list Raster­punkt (RP Output Manage­ment GmbH) for its OMS Group. With the tran­sac­tion, the Form­ware subsi­diary of the OMS Group is to further expand its OMS processes.

Raster­punkt has indus­try exper­tise in admi­nis­tra­tion, banking, insu­rance, utili­ties and retail and is an important link in the value chain between custo­mers and soft­ware part­ners for Form­ware and the OMS Group.

The two German medium-sized soft­ware pioneers Form­ware and NIC form the OMS group of compa­nies, which offers a fully compre­hen­sive and uncom­pli­ca­ted product for the auto­ma­ted crea­tion and digi­tal or postal dispatch of docu­ments. The two compa­nies enable custo­mers to merge the data of exten­sive recur­ring commu­ni­ca­tion proces­ses via various commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels and to gene­rate, send and archive invoices, contracts, orders, etc. in a fully auto­ma­ted digi­ta­li­zed manner and in an audit-proof manner.

Foun­ded in 1989 in Stutt­gart, Raster­punkt serves more than 100 custo­mers and offers compre­hen­sive exper­tise, flexi­bi­lity and profes­sio­nal solu­ti­ons in the area of consul­ting for output manage­ment and consul­ting services. Raster­punkt works with all major OMS soft­ware vendors and has exten­sive indus­try knowledge. 

FLEX Capi­tal is a next-gene­ra­tion private equity fund that invests in profi­ta­ble and growing compa­nies in the German Inter­net and soft­ware midmar­ket. FLEX Capi­tal is backed by six entre­pre­neurs Chris­toph Jost, Peter Walec­zek, Andreas Etten, Jan Becker, Felix Haas and Dr. Robert Wuttke, who have foun­ded nume­rous compa­nies them­sel­ves and made more than 140 tech invest­ments. Curr­ently, the FLEX port­fo­lio includes eleven port­fo­lio compa­nies across four platforms.

Advi­sor to FLEX Capi­tal: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Stuttgart
Dr. Emanuel Teich­mann (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Stuttgart
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg
Timo Daniel Trefzger (Labor Law), Hamburg

News

Stuttgart/ Reutin­gen — Menold Bezler advi­sed the Reut­lin­gen-based high-tech engi­nee­ring company Manz AG on a cash capi­tal increase without share­hol­ders’ subscrip­tion rights amoun­ting to appro­xi­m­ately 10% of the share capi­tal. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. (Photo: Daim­ler Truck)

The capi­tal increase through the issue of 774,408 new shares is rela­ted to a coope­ra­tion agree­ment on a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Daim­ler Truck AG in the field of elec­tro­mo­bi­lity. As a result of the invest­ment, Daim­ler Truck AG will become Manz AG’s new anchor share­hol­der. The proceeds of 30.6 million euros will be used to finance Manz AG’s further growth.

With curr­ently around 1,400 employees, the Manz Group deve­lops and builds produc­tion solu­ti­ons for various sectors and indus­tries in Germany, Slova­kia, Hungary, Italy, China and Taiwan. Manz AG was foun­ded in 1987 and has been listed on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (ISIN: DE000A0JQ5U3) since 2006. In fiscal 2021, the Group gene­ra­ted sales of around EUR 227 million.

Menold Bezler provi­ded legal advice on the capi­tal increase. The team led by Guido Quass has been working for Manz AG on corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law issues for many years.

Advi­sors to Manz AG: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Dr. Guido Quass (Part­ner), Dr. Björn Stau­din­ger (both Stock Corpo­ra­tion and Capi­tal Markets Law); Dr. Jochen Bern­hard (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law)

About Menold Bezler

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

News

Munich/ Röden­tal — Active Capi­tal Company (ACC) has acqui­red the shares in Werner Lieb GmbH & Co KG (LIEB). LIEB is a German mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring company and a specia­list in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons with a focus on the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. With this next plat­form invest­ment, ACC is expan­ding its port­fo­lio in Germany, bene­fiting from its imple­men­ta­tion-orien­ted invest­ment approach and many years of expe­ri­ence in mecha­ni­cal engineering.

Expan­sion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the offe­ring for the semi­con­duc­tor industry
Hart­wig Oster­meyer, Part­ner at ACC: “LIEB is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to grow with the incre­asing demand for chip produc­tion capa­city, espe­ci­ally in Europe. LIEB stands for more than 65 years of highest mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring compe­tence and quality stan­dards and has built an excel­lent repu­ta­tion and custo­mer base in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try over the last years.” ACC sees great poten­tial through further inno­va­tion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. “LIEB has an impres­sive deve­lo­p­ment pipe­line and we will invest in commer­cia­li­zing these solu­ti­ons to an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base.”
Secu­red company succes­sion of family-owned SMEs.

Stef­fen Lieb, Lieb’s previous co-part­ner, says: “We star­ted this process to secure succes­sion for our company and have found not only a trust­wor­thy new share­hol­der, but a true part­ner who will actively support LIEB in achie­ving its stra­te­gic goals.” His brot­her and previous co-part­ner Michael Lieb adds, “We are impres­sed by the tech­ni­cal exper­tise, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and proac­tive approach and are convin­ced that ACC is the right part­ner for our family legacy.”

About LIEB

LIEB, based in Röden­tal, Germany, was foun­ded in 1955 by Werner Lieb, the grand­fa­ther of the current mana­ging part­ners Stef­fen and Michael Lieb.… The core compe­tence lies in the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of specia­li­zed auto­ma­tion systems that increase the effi­ci­ency and quality of high-precis­ion produc­tion proces­ses. In recent years, the company has specia­li­zed in auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try; these machi­nes are now used by leading chip manu­fac­tu­r­ers world­wide. www.werner-lieb.de

About Active Capi­tal Company

ACC is an inde­pen­dent, execu­tion-orien­ted inves­tor focu­sed on SMEs in the Nether­lands and Germany. ACC invests in compa­nies in the fields of indus­try, technical
Whole­sale and busi­ness services with sales between €10 million and €100 million. Through an entre­pre­neu­rial and proac­tive approach, ACC sustain­ably maxi­mi­zes the value of its invest­ments. In this context, ACC supports the manage­ment in the imple­men­ta­tion of stra­te­gic projects and brings in its exten­sive part­ner network. ACC is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its fourth fund and began opera­ti­ons in Germany in 2019 with its invest­ment in Schahl­LED and successful trans­for­ma­tion. ACC has offices in Amster­dam and Munich. www.activecapitalcompany.com/de

Advi­sor ACC: ARQIS (Düsseldorf/Munich)

Mauritz von Einem (lead), Johan­nes Landry, Benja­min Bandur (all Private Equity), Jens Knip­ping, Jasmin Stucken­b­rock (both Tax), Marcus Noth­hel­fer, Nora Meyer-Strat­mann, Rolf Tichy (all IP/Commercial), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard, Fran­ziska Resch (both Real Estate), Tobias Neufeld, Daniel Schle­mann (both Data Privacy), Anja Mark­worth, Thi-Kieu-Chinh Nguyen, Julia Rege­nauer (all Labor/Pensions)

News

Bergamo/ Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) invests in MTW Holding SpA (“Metal­works”), a group of Italian manu­fac­tu­r­ers of metal and plas­tic access­ories for the luxury goods indus­try. Metal­works was foun­ded by Bravo Capi­tal Part­ners in 2016 and has evol­ved with a buy-and-build stra­tegy and a successful realignment of its busi­ness stra­tegy. In a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), DBAG Fund VIII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, will acquire a majo­rity stake in MTW Holding SpA. Luxem­part SA, a Luxem­bourg-listed company and inves­tor in Bravo Capi­tal, and the manage­ment team will parti­ci­pate as mino­rity share­hol­ders; the former owners and foun­ders of the company, who are curr­ently invol­ved in MTW Holding, will also become invol­ved again.

DBAG Fund VIII will invest up to 60 million euros, of which 13 million euros are attri­bu­ta­ble to DBAG. The fund will then hold around 62 percent of the shares in the holding company (DBAG: 14 percent). The closing of the purchase agree­ment is sche­du­led for the second quar­ter. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The current MBO is the seventh invest­ment of DBAG Fund VIII. The fund has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies since mid-2020. Last year, DBAG foun­ded the subsi­diary DBAG Italia and opened an office in Milan. Led by Giovanni Revoltella, four local members of the DBAG invest­ment team now work there. With PM Flex (2020) and Itelyum (2021), the DBAG port­fo­lio so far includes two invest­ments in Italian companies.

Under the umbrella of MTW Holding (www.mtwh.it/en, based in Castelli Cale­pio near Bergamo), three compa­nies operate that comple­ment each other in terms of product range and custo­mer rela­ti­ons: Metal­works, Mengoni & Nassini and FGF. The group designs and produ­ces high-quality fashion access­ories for luxury fashion brands. Typi­cal examp­les are belt buck­les, clasps or fittings for hand­bags, shoes and clot­hing, but also jewelry or emblems of the iconic brands, which are mainly repre­sen­ted globally. These products are made of metals such as brass, zamak, stain­less steel or plas­tic. Crucial to the company’s success is its ability to turn custo­mers’ design ideas into a finis­hed, high-quality product within a matter of days. Proxi­mity to high-end Italian and French fashion brands, for whom inno­va­tion and crea­ti­vity are parti­cu­larly important, also plays a major role. At the same time, they expect a relia­bly high quality of the parts that are proces­sed in their products.

The group employs 250 people at its sites near Bergamo and Florence; it also recently opened a branch in Paris to deepen rela­ti­ons with French luxury goods brands. The Group serves a market that has grown globally by an average of six percent over the past 25 years. 2021 sales were around 60 million euros, 16 percent more than in the pre-Corona year 2019. The market losses caused by the Corona crisis were thus offset within one year.

“The Group has an estab­lished posi­tion in a resi­li­ent market that is growing faster than the natio­nal product,” said Tom Alzin, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board, on the occa­sion of the MBO. “We want to help ensure that the manage­ment team can conti­nue the buy-and-build stra­tegy to expand the company’s geogra­phic foot­print.” Corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons have been a signi­fi­cant part of DBAG’s value enhance­ment stra­te­gies for years. In the past year alone, twelve invest­ments from the DBAG port­fo­lio comple­ted 25 corpo­rate acquisitions.

“Our agenda for the coming years includes not only corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons,” said Cesare Luzz­ana, CEO of Metal­works Holding, “but also orga­nic growth through inno­va­tive, sustainable mate­ri­als for exis­ting and new customers.”

About Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing share of equity invest­ments is accoun­ted for by compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services and soft­ware, and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner. Assets mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to 2.5 billion euros.

News

Berlin/ Regensburg/ Munich — A fund advi­sed by Elvas­ton Capi­tal (“Elvas­ton”) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in iS Soft­ware Group (“iS Soft­ware”), a German soft­ware deve­lo­per for the energy and water indus­try. The seller was WZ Energy Holding GmbH (“WZ Energy”). POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to Elvas­ton in connec­tion with the acquisition.

Based in Regens­burg, iS Soft­ware has been deve­lo­ping and distri­bu­ting stable and modern soft­ware solu­ti­ons for small and medium-sized compa­nies in the energy and water indus­try for more than 25 years. The company supports and accom­pa­nies its appro­xi­m­ately 300 custo­mers with indi­vi­dual concepts and solu­ti­ons as well as forward-looking tech­no­lo­gies. iS Soft­ware employs about 120 people at 5 loca­ti­ons and focu­ses on current topics, such as the new market commu­ni­ca­tion 2022, Redis­patch 2.0, new billing models or the SMGWA connection.

Elvas­ton is an entre­pre­neur-led invest­ment company based in Berlin, specia­li­zing in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Elvas­ton acqui­res majo­rity stakes and provi­des equity capi­tal to finance growth. The port­fo­lio includes succes­sion solu­ti­ons for entre­pre­neurs and fami­lies, group spin-offs and buy-and-build concepts in indus­tries with conso­li­da­tion poten­tial, growth finan­cing in the form of equity capi­tal increa­ses and tran­sac­tions in listed companies.

Consul­tant Elvas­ton: POELLATH

Dr. Tim Kauf­hold (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust Law, Frank­furt a.M.)
Dr. Moritz Klein (Coun­sel, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Frank­furt a.M.)
Nemanja Burgić, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Matthias Ober­bauer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)

About POELLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 150 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 best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings regu­larly list our consul­tants as leading experts in their field.

News

Bonn / Berlin — AMCS and Quen­tic announ­ced that the compa­nies have reached an agree­ment for the purchase of Quen­tic GmbH — a leading provi­der of EHSQ and ESG report­ing — by AMCS. The acqui­si­tion is supported by AMCS’ inves­tors, inclu­ding Clear­lake Capi­tal Group, which is joining forces with AMCS for its next phase of growth. High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) will sell its shares as part of the deal. For HTGF, it is one of the most profi­ta­ble investments.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to close in the coming weeks. Follo­wing regu­la­tory appr­oval, Quen­tic will become part of AMCS.

The tran­sac­tion will give HTGF the third highest multi­ple in its fund history. The seed inves­tor from Bonn had alre­ady inves­ted in Quen­tic in 2008, accom­pa­nied it inten­si­vely for 14 years and was able to contri­bute signi­fi­cantly to the deve­lo­p­ment of the start-up through close exch­ange. HTGF reco­gni­zed the great market poten­tial of EHSQ and ESG report­ing early on. Inves­t­ing in sustainable start-ups has been an important focus of the fund since the begin­ning: Quen­tic is a leading provi­der in the field of stan­dar­di­zed soft­ware solu­ti­ons for occu­pa­tio­nal safety, envi­ron­men­tal manage­ment and sustainability.

AMCS is a leading global provi­der of inte­gra­ted soft­ware and vehicle tech­no­logy for the envi­ron­ment, recy­cling and resour­ces sectors. As part of AMCS, Quentic’s market posi­tion is to be further expan­ded. AMCS is fully aligned with Quentic’s mission to enable orga­niza­ti­ons around the world to sustain­ably manage their people, busi­ness and envi­ron­men­tal proces­ses at all levels.

The sale is a mile­stone. The foun­ding team alre­ady set the course in 2007/2008 with a view to cloud tech­no­lo­gies, the SaaS busi­ness model and then visio­nary topics such as EHSQ and ESG. “I am very happy for the three foun­ders, all of whom are still in opera­tio­nal roles, as well as all Quen­tic employees about this great success and of course to have expe­ri­en­ced this long, as well as extre­mely successful jour­ney toge­ther,” said Markus Kreß­mann, Part­ner at HTGF

“HTGF accom­pa­nied us as an inves­tor and stra­te­gic part­ner at a very early stage. For a soft­ware company like us, HTGF’s network and indus­try know­ledge are very important. We thank them for their valuable coope­ra­tion and support!” Markus Becker, CEO and co-foun­der of Quentic

Quen­tic GmbH is a spin-off of the Berlin Univer­sity of Applied Scien­ces and was supported in the early phase by an EXIST start-up grant from the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and Tech­no­logy. HTGF remained on board for seve­ral finan­cing phases and supported the company in further follow-up financing.

Today, the company has 250 employees at over 14 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Europe. Its custo­mers include more than 900 medium-sized compa­nies as well as major global corporations.

About Quen­tic
Quen­tic is a leading Soft­ware as a Service (SaaS) solu­tion provi­der for HSEQ and ESG manage­ment. The Quen­tic plat­form compri­ses ten indi­vi­du­ally combi­nable specia­list modu­les and thus offers the best prere­qui­si­tes for effi­ci­ent manage­ment in the areas of occu­pa­tio­nal safety, risks & audits, events & obser­va­tions, hazar­dous subs­tances, control of work, legal compli­ance, online instruc­tions, proces­ses, envi­ron­men­tal manage­ment and sustaina­bi­lity. They are comple­men­ted by the Quen­tic app for mobile report­ing and by powerful analy­sis opti­ons, as well as clear and daily updated dash­boards on HSEQ key data in Quen­tic Analy­tics. Over 900 custo­mers have built their custo­mi­zed and powerful HSEQ manage­ment plat­form with Quen­tic soft­ware solu­ti­ons, streng­thening their organization’s sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted Envi­ron­ment, Social and Gover­nance (ESG) respon­si­bi­lity areas. The inte­gra­tive soft­ware is suita­ble to support complete manage­ment systems accor­ding to ISO 14001, ISO 50001 and ISO 45001.
Quen­tic is head­quar­te­red in Berlin, Germany, and employs more than 250 people. Subsi­dia­ries are loca­ted in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Nether­lands, France, Spain and Italy.

News

Paris/ Frank­furt — BMW and Merce­des-Benz are selling their joint car-sharing subsi­diary “Share Now”, foun­ded in 2019, to the French-Italian car group Stellan­tis. Through the sale, they want to have more funds for other projects. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the merger control authorities.

Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Bird & Bird has advi­sed Free2move (Stellan­tis Group) on the acqui­si­tion of Share Now, a joint venture between BMW Group and Merce­des-Benz Mobi­lity AG formed in 2019.

Advi­sors BMW Group and Merce­des-Benz Mobi­lity AG: Hogan Lovells
Niko­las Zirn­gibl (Part­ner, Munich) and Thiemo Woertge (Asso­ciate, Munich) on corporate/M&A aspects; Falk Loose (Part­ner, Munich) on tax aspects; Falk Schoe­ning (Part­ner, Munich) on merger control aspects.

Free2move (Stellan­tis Group) was advi­sed by the follo­wing Bird & Bird attorneys:

France: Inter­na­tio­nal Lead and Coor­di­na­tion Carole Bodin (Part­ner), Sofia El Biyed and Céline Sol (Asso­cia­tes), all Corporate/M&A, Anne-Char­lotte Le Bihan (Part­ner) and Claire Bratel (Asso­ciate), both IP, Ariane Mole (Part­ner), Oriane Zubce­vic and Marine Besson (Asso­cia­tes), all Data Protec­tion, Boris Martor (Part­ner) and Raphael Weiss (Asso­ciate), both Regu­la­tory; Alex­andre Vuchot (Part­ner), Stéphane Leri­che (Asso­ciate) and Sacha Bettach (Asso­ciate), all Commercial/Tech & Comms, all Paris.

Germany: led by Dr. Kai Kerger (Part­ner), Johanna Schind­ler and Tamara Böhmert (Asso­cia­tes), all Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt, Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg (Part­ner, Munich) and Dr. Miriam Ball­hau­sen (Part­ner, Hamburg), both Commercial/Tech & Comms, Dr. Markus Körner (Part­ner, Munich), IP;Dr. Matthias Lang (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf) Regu­la­tion; Dr. Barbara Geck (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Labor Law.

Spain, Italy, Nether­lands: Lour­des Ayala (Part­ner, Madrid), Alberto Salvadé (Part­ner, Milan) and Pauline Vos (Part­ner — The Hague) all Corporate/M&A coor­di­na­ted the audits in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Racine acted with Bastien Thomas (Part­ner), Fran­çois Aubin and Céci­lia Pataut (Asso­cia­tes) as advi­sors to Free2move on merger control aspects.

PwC advi­sed Free2Move on the tax aspects of the tran­sac­tion with Delphine Bocquet (Part­ner, Paris) and Julien Marti­nez (Asso­cia­tes, Paris), Ralf Ulrich Brau­na­gel (Part­ner, Frank­furt) and Wiebke Henning (Asso­cia­tes, Frank­furt) and on the employ­ment aspects with Fanny Marchiset (Part­ner, Paris).

News

Munich, Germany — Life science inves­tors Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+ are advi­sing on a EUR 60 million (USD 63 million) Series B finan­cing for Tubu­lis GmbH. All exis­ting inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round, inclu­ding Bayern Kapi­tal (with Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern 2), BioMed­Part­ners, copa­rion, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), OCCIDENT and Seven­ture Partners.

The new capi­tal will be used to advance Tubu­lis’ proprie­tary pipe­line of uniquely assem­bled anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes (ADCs) toward clini­cal evalua­tion and launch programs for a range of solid tumor indi­ca­ti­ons. The new capi­tal is expec­ted to enable the company to realize the true thera­peu­tic poten­tial of ADCs through further inno­va­tion in new drug clas­ses and the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of novel cancer targets.

Tubu­lis uses proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies to deve­lop novel drugs whose mecha­nisms of action go deep at the root cause of the dise­ase in ques­tion. The goal is to expand the thera­peu­tic poten­tial of anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes (ADCs) to enable more targe­ted and effec­tive therapy of cancer as well as other diseases.

Andera Part­ners was foun­ded over 20 years ago and is a key player in private equity invest­ments inside and outside France. Andera teams manage more than €3.2 billion of invest­ment capi­tal in life scien­ces (Andera Life Scien­ces), growth and buyout capi­tal (Andera MidCap, Andera Expan­sion, Andera Crois­sance, Andera Co-Invest), non-spon­sor tran­sac­tions (Andera Acto), and envi­ron­men­tal trans­for­ma­tion (Andera Infra). The Andera Life Scien­ces team has raised over €1.1 billion through the BioDis­co­very family of funds and is curr­ently inves­t­ing from the BioDis­co­very 6 fund.

Evotec is a life science company with a unique busi­ness model dedi­ca­ted to disco­ve­ring, deve­lo­ping and deli­ve­ring highly effec­tive thera­peu­tics to pati­ents. The company’s multi­mo­dal plat­form includes a unique combi­na­tion of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies, data and science for the disco­very, deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of world-class phar­maceu­ti­cal products.

Fund+ is a Belgian venture capi­tal firm that invests in inno­va­tive Euro­pean life scien­ces compa­nies deve­lo­ping drugs, medi­cal devices and diagno­stics, with a focus on pati­ent-centric approa­ches and large unmet medi­cal needs. With over €200 million in assets under manage­ment, Fund+ has a solid track record since 2015, inves­t­ing in 17 port­fo­lio compa­nies with two major exits.

Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+ were advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Baker McKenzie’s Corporate/M&A and Life Science teams. They regu­larly advise phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies, finan­cial inves­tors, stra­te­gic inves­tors and biotech­no­logy compa­nies on natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal health­care tran­sac­tions. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed, among others, Alle­cra Thera­peu­tics on an exclu­sive license and supply agree­ment with ADVANZ PHARMA, MODAG on a stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with Teva, Chord Thera­peu­tics on its sale to Merck KGaA, LSP as lead inves­tor in a EUR 20 million Series A equity finan­cing of Inno­va­tive Mole­cu­les, Numab Thera­peu­tics in a CHF 100 million cross-over finan­cing, Cata­lYm in a EUR 50 million Series B finan­cing led by Vesa­lius Capi­tal, Casdin Capi­tal as lead inves­tor in DNA Script’s USD 50 million exten­ded Series B equity finan­cing round, and Chr. Hansen Holding in its acqui­si­tion of Jenne­wein Biotechnology.

Legal Coun­sel Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+: Baker McKenzie
Lead Part­ner Julia Braun, LL.M. (Part­ner, Munich); Corporate/M&A: Bert­hold Hummel (Part­ner, Munich), Dr. Julia Rossie (Asso­ciate, Munich)
Tran­sac­tional IP: Julia Schie­ber (Senior Asso­ciate, Zurich)
Foreign Trade Law: Alex­an­der Ehrle, Kimber­ley Fischer (both Asso­cia­tes, Berlin)
Employ­ment Law: Dr. Matthias Köhler (Part­ner, Berlin), Kers­tin Schmie­del (Asso­ciate, Berlin)

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