ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

The funds advi­sed by PREMIUM Equity Part­ners acquire heine­king­me­dia toge­ther with KEMPEN Private Markets Fund, Amster­dam, as part of a succes­sion solu­tion for the previous foun­ders and the MADSACK Media Group. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. — With a team led by Hamburg part­ner Dr. Stefan Duhn­krack, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek provi­ded legal advice to funds advi­sed by PREMIUM Equity Part­ners GmbH on the purchase of heine­king­me­dia GmbH.

heine­king­me­dia GmbH is a fast-growing hidden cham­pion in the field of digi­tiza­tion of educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons and schools, both class­rooms and pedagogy as well as admi­nis­tra­tion. The product port­fo­lio includes colla­bo­ra­tive hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons (UCC / Unified Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and Colla­bo­ra­tion) that digi­tally opti­mize the flow of infor­ma­tion and commu­ni­ca­tion between educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons, schools, students, teachers and parents. More than 10,500 schools in Germany use the products and services of the market leader. Over 1.5 million users use its GDPR-compli­ant mobile apps, messa­ging apps, and colla­bo­ra­tive soft­ware solu­ti­ons. They are suita­ble for both class­room and distance lear­ning, as well as for colla­bo­ra­tive use in virtual meeting rooms.

By support­ing PREMIUM, heine­king­me­dia will make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the digi­tiza­tion of schools and educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons and acce­le­rate initia­ti­ves such as those of the German fede­ral govern­ment under the Digi­tal­Pakt Schule to improve the digi­tal educa­tion infra­struc­ture. In addi­tion, PREMIUM will enable growth to expand and globa­lize the product port­fo­lio, parti­cu­larly in soft­ware and content solutions.

The foun­ders of heine­king­me­dia will move to the new company advi­sory board. As the new CEO, Markus Doetsch — supported by Annette Ohlich — will streng­then the manage­ment of heine­king­me­dia. Both have alre­ady successfully mana­ged growth compa­nies in the digi­ta­liza­tion sector in the past.

PREMIUM Equity Part­ners is an invest­ment company foun­ded in 2011 with a focus on strong niche compa­nies in the DACH region with reve­nues between EUR 10 million and EUR 50 million. PREMIUM invests capi­tal in the context of growth finan­cing, succes­sion solu­ti­ons and spin-offs. For each invest­ment, PREMIUM combi­nes its many years of tran­sac­tion and finan­cing expe­ri­ence with the indus­try know-how of its indus­trial part­ners. heine­king­me­dia is PREMIUM’s eighth tran­sac­tion. The invest­ment of PREMIUM Mittel­stand Fund II GmbH & Co KG bene­fits from the finan­cial support of the Euro­pean Union under the Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments (“EFSI”).

Advi­sor PREMIUM Fund: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Stefan Duhn­krack (Lead Part­ner, M&A)
Tim Peter­mann (Head of Due Diligence)
Dr. Hans Markus Wulf (IT)
Dr. Søren Pietz­cker, LL.M. (IP)
Dr. Hans Henning Hoff (Commer­cial)
Dr. Carlo Schmidt (Labor Law)
Dr. Matthias Kühn, LL.M. (Procu­re­ment Law)
Beli­ar­dis Ehlert-Gasde (due dili­gence), all Hamburg
Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn, (Due Dili­gence), Munich
Thomas K. W. Schrell. LL.M. (funding)
Anja Harms (Finan­cing), both Frank­furt am Main

News

Berlin — Raue advi­sed the two foun­ders of Karls­ruhe-based start-up Karls­ruhe Infor­ma­tion Tech­no­logy Solu­ti­ons — Kites GmbH (“Kites”) on the sale of the language trans­la­tion tech­no­logy provi­der to NASDAQ-listed Zoom Video Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, Inc. (“Zoom”) advi­sed. The trans­la­tion tech­no­logy will be used in Zoom meetings in the future.

Kites specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment of real-time machine trans­la­tion solu­ti­ons. The start-up has exis­ted since 2015 and is a spin-off from the Karls­ruhe Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy (KIT), where the two foun­ders are faculty members. Kites curr­ently employs twelve people, who will in future streng­then Zoom’s engi­nee­ring team from Karls­ruhe. The foun­ders will also remain with the team. Zoom intends to further expand the Karls­ruhe deve­lo­p­ment team and is also conside­ring estab­li­shing a rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment site in Germany.

Raue compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the two foun­ders of Kites on the sale of the company to Zoom, in parti­cu­lar on corpo­rate, IP and employ­ment law issues as well as on the foreign trade clearance of the transaction.

Advi­sor to foun­der and share­hol­der Kites GmbH, Karls­ruhe: Raue, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Andreas Nelle, Photo (Lead, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Markus Ples­ser (Part­ner, IP), Dr. Felix Stang (Part­ner, IP), Prof. Dr. Sascha Herms (Part­ner, Labor Law), Dr. Michael Berg­mann (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Foreign Trade Law), Dr. Michael Gläs­ner (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Tatiana Gush­china (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Benja­min Lück (Asso­ciate, IP), Anja Piet­sch­mann (Asso­ciate, Public Law), Dr. Johan­nes Modest (Asso­ciate, Anti­trust Law, Foreign Trade Law)

News

Munich — ARQIS advi­sed Munich-based AI startup OCELL on their seed finan­cing round. With an opera­ting system for digi­tal forestry, OCELL helps forest mana­gers operate more effi­ci­ently and sustain­ably. Busi­ness angels from the BayStartUP inves­tor network are now inves­t­ing a high six-figure sum in this tech­no­logy under the leader­ship of Andreas Kupke (Finanz­check) and Wolf­gang Seibold toge­ther with the TUM Initia­tive for Indus­trial Inno­va­tors. The capi­tal injec­tion is supple­men­ted by a grant of over 500,000 euros. The capi­tal is to be used to improve products and quality and to expand the commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, marke­ting and sales departments.

The startup OCELL around the foun­ders Chris­tian Decher, David Dohmen and Felix Horvat has deve­lo­ped the “Dyna­mic Forest” app. It provi­des forest mana­gers with the ability to make scien­ti­fi­cally sound manage­ment decis­i­ons and imple­ment smoot­her forestry opera­ti­ons through an opti­mal data foun­da­tion. In addi­tion to digi­tiz­ing custo­mers’ exis­ting analog data sources, OCELL relies on aerial imagery coll­ec­ted speci­fi­cally with highly effi­ci­ent ultra­light aircraft. OCELL relies on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to evaluate the forest areas.

OCELL is an AI Company specia­li­zing in the gene­ra­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion of aerial imagery. — With its network of profes­sio­nal pilots and sophisti­ca­ted camera module, OCELL gene­ra­tes the best possi­ble image data from the air. Here, the quality is far beyond the capa­bi­li­ties of satel­li­tes and drones. As a data science firm, OCell focu­ses on deep analy­tics for its clients. For this purpose, know-how with data proces­sing, ‑filte­ring, photo­gram­me­try and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is applied.

The main custo­mer segment is forest mana­gers, helping them to better charac­te­rize, manage and protect forests from thre­ats. An addi­tio­nal market segment is infra­struc­ture moni­to­ring, where our capa­bi­li­ties in tree detec­tion and analy­sis help to avoid damage and delays.

“OCELL exci­ted us at ARQIS not only as a deep-tech topic, but also because we were able to provide very hands-on deal coun­sel for the seed finan­cing round with the foun­ding team and the expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels invol­ved,” says Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem, who was OCELL’s lead advi­sor. “As part of this finan­cing round, we were able to put the GESSI contract struc­ture we helped deve­lop into prac­tice for the first time, largely without a notary,” he adds.

Advi­sor OCELL: ARQIS (Munich)

Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Lead Part­ner), Dr. Mauritz von Einem; Asso­cia­tes: Louisa Graf, Benja­min Bandur, Anselm Graf (all Venture Capital)

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law and Risk, the firm is geared towards provi­ding holi­stic advice to its clients. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Bonn — High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) can report another successful exit. The assets of EH‑D were sold to Bosch Rexroth. The loca­tion will remain, the employees will move to Bosch Rexroth. — It is the ninth port­fo­lio company of HTGF to be acqui­red by a fund inves­tor of HTGF. Robert Bosch GmbH is inves­ted in all three HTGF funds. HTGF is a seed inves­tor for tech­no­logy start-ups, but also a plat­form for exch­ange between corpo­ra­ti­ons, medium-sized compa­nies and start-ups.

“By taking over the special compact axis know-how, we will be able to offer our custo­mers a tech­no­lo­gi­cally and econo­mic­ally leading drive solu­tion for all perfor­mance clas­ses in the future and drive forward the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. In addi­tion, the broa­der port­fo­lio supports us in our stra­tegy to win custo­mers in further sectors such as the food indus­try.” Dr. Stef­fen Haack, Member of the Execu­tive Board of Bosch Rexroth AG respon­si­ble for Deve­lo­p­ment and Head of the Indus­trial Hydrau­lics Busi­ness Unit, said.

The compact axles of EH‑D and Onovum EH‑D and Onovum have a leading posi­tion in this market segment and have a wide range of custo­mers. They are used in a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons in various indus­tries where linear move­ments with high force are requi­red: typi­cally in plas­tics machi­nery or pres­ses, in power plant engi­nee­ring, the steel indus­try, metal proces­sing, refri­ge­ra­tion, the food indus­try or in mobile appli­ca­ti­ons. As early as 2010, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and Bayern Kapi­tal inves­ted in EH‑D (form­erly Böhner-EH GmbH) as part of a seed finan­cing round.

Dr. Andreas Olmes, Prin­ci­pal of High-Tech Grün­der­fonds: “We are extre­mely proud that foun­der and CEO Kai Böhner has revo­lu­tio­ni­zed elec­tro-hydrau­lic drives on the basis of the invest­ment toge­ther with Bayern Kapi­tal in 2010. We are all the more plea­sed that this in turn convin­ced Bosch, repre­sen­ted by Bosch Rexroth, an inves­tor in HTGF from the very begin­ning and throug­hout, to take over EH‑D and inte­grate it into its own product range. Congratulations!”

About Bosch Rexroth

As a leading global supplier of drive and control tech­no­lo­gies, Bosch Rexroth ensu­res effi­ci­ent, powerful and safe motion in machi­nes and systems of all types and sizes. The company bund­les world­wide appli­ca­tion expe­ri­ence in the market segments of mobile appli­ca­ti­ons, plant engi­nee­ring and cons­truc­tion, and factory auto­ma­tion. With intel­li­gent compon­ents, custo­mi­zed system solu­ti­ons, and services, Bosch Rexroth crea­tes the condi­ti­ons for fully networ­kable appli­ca­ti­ons. Bosch Rexroth offers its custo­mers hydrau­lics, elec­tric drive and control tech­no­logy, gear tech­no­logy, and linear and assem­bly tech­no­logy, inclu­ding soft­ware and inter­faces to the Inter­net of Things. With a presence in more than 80 count­ries, over 29,600 employees gene­ra­ted sales of around 5.2 billion euros in 2020. www.boschrexroth.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 130 companies.
Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the compa­nies ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Bank, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, 1+1 AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG. www.htgf.de

News

Paris / San Fran­cisco / Rome — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, has made a $25 million invest­ment in Trans­la­ted through its Ardian Growth Fund. An Italian and US-based pioneer in the use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to support profes­sio­nal trans­la­tors. This puts Ardian at the top of a $30 million invest­ment round.

Trans­la­ted offers an end-to-end trans­la­tion plat­form. This plat­form combi­nes the renow­ned adap­tive neural machine trans­la­tion soft­ware “ModernMT” deve­lo­ped by Trans­la­ted with a network of 200,000 selec­ted trans­la­tors. The company has been able to record constant annual orga­nic growth of 30 percent in each of the last few years. Thanks to this symbio­sis of man and machine, Translated’s offe­rings have constantly impro­ved. As a result, Trans­la­ted today meets the needs of global tech plat­forms like Airbnb, Google, and Uber, as well as small and medium-sized businesses.

Ardian Growth’s team, which can build on many years of expe­ri­ence in scaling compa­nies, has teamed up with Translated’s two foun­ders, Isabelle Andrieu and Marco Trom­betti, to support them in their AI and trans­la­tion ambi­ti­ons. Ardian’s invest­ment will enable Trans­la­ted to acce­le­rate its growth and drive the adop­tion of its AI-powered plat­form in Europe and the US.

Marco Trom­betti, co-foun­der and CEO of Trans­la­ted, says: “One of humanity’s grea­test chal­lenges is for every indi­vi­dual to under­stand — and be unders­tood. We urgen­tly want to solve this problem — because the better people under­stand each other, the easier it will be for huma­nity to over­come any other major chall­enge. We chose to part­ner with Ardian because the team values diver­sity as much as we do and can help us acce­le­rate the imple­men­ta­tion of our plans. Moreo­ver, Ardian has the self-aware­ness and the means to support us in the long term.”

Isabelle Andrieu, co-foun­der of Trans­la­ted, adds, “I am over­joyed that we have reached this mile­stone. It’s thanks to our deter­mi­na­tion, our hard work and our wonderful team who have fully commit­ted to the company and rely on us. We are full of enthu­si­asm and look forward to conti­nuing this incre­di­ble journey.”

Laurent Foata, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Head of Ardian Growth, said, “Trans­la­ted was foun­ded by visio­nary entre­pre­neurs Marco and Isabelle, self-funded, and alre­ady gene­ra­tes more than 50 percent of its reve­nue in the U.S. market. Such unique entre­pre­neu­rial stories fit Ardian Growth’s invest­ment philo­so­phy and our commit­ment to the soft­ware industry.”

Bert­rand Scha­piro, Direc­tor on the Ardian Growth team, adds, “By pionee­ring AI deve­lo­p­ment and adap­ting it to the needs of trans­la­tors, Trans­la­ted has tapped into a market previously domi­na­ted by only a few estab­lished play­ers. We are plea­sed to support a company that has mana­ged to keep pushing inno­va­tion in the field of AI without losing sight of its ulti­mate goal.”

About TRANSLATED

Trans­la­ted has been provi­ding human trans­la­tion services in 194 languages and for 40 special­ties for 20 years. The company uses a powerful combi­na­tion of human crea­ti­vity and machine intel­li­gence to produce high-quality trans­la­ti­ons in the shor­test possi­ble time. www.translated.com

About ARDIAN

Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging over US$112 billion in assets for its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its investors.

With the objec­tive of achie­ving posi­tive results for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties promote indi­vi­du­als, compa­nies and econo­mies world­wide. Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy is aligned with the three guiding prin­ci­ples of excel­lence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

The company has a global network of more than 700 employees and 15 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its more than 1,100 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate. www.ardian.com

News

Frank­furt a. Main — The Frank­furt office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP has advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN CAPITAL”) and Iris­Next Funds (“IRIS CAPITAL”) on their invest­ments in the Series C finan­cing round of Forto GmbH (“Forto”). — Both have alre­ady been inves­ted in Forto since the Series B finan­cing round led by INVEN CAPITAL in the summer of 2020. The $240 million funding round now led by Soft­bank (Vision Fund 2) included parti­ci­pa­tion from Citi Ventures, G Squared and other exis­ting inves­tors such as North­zone, Cherry Ventures and Unbound. With its latest round of funding, Forto has raised $360 million in capi­tal to date and is now valued at $1.2 billion.

Forto GmbH (form­erly Freight­Hub), based in Berlin, is a digi­tal logi­stics service provi­der that enables its custo­mers to digi­tally manage global supply chains from the manu­fac­tu­rer to the end customer.

INVEN CAPITAL is the venture capi­tal arm of the CEZ Group, whose invest­ment focus is on invest­ments in clean-tech and new-energy companies.

IRIS CAPITAL is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm specia­li­zing in the digi­tal economy. IRIS CAPITAL invests in compa­nies at various stages of growth, from start-ups to late-stage and growth play­ers. Iris­Next is a fund of IRIS CAPITAL, backed as inves­tors by leading compa­nies such as Orange, Publi­cis, Valeo and Bridge­stone, as well as finan­cial inves­tors and insti­tu­ti­ons such as Bpifrance and BRED Banque Populaire.

Weil’s Frank­furt office regu­larly advi­ses INVEN CAPITAL on its invest­ments, inclu­ding the recent finan­cing rounds at tado GmbH and Zolar GmbH, the sale of its stake in home battery storage provi­der sonnen to Shell Over­seas Invest­ment B.V., the invest­ment in start-up Cloud&Heat Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH and the recent finan­cing round at Sunfire GmbH.

The Weil tran­sac­tion team for this tran­sac­tion consis­ted of Frank­furt Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Chris­tian Tapp­ei­ner, Coun­sel Julian Schwa­ne­beck, Asso­ciate Dr. Khatera Zuschlag and Para­le­gal Nata­scha Späth (all Corpo­rate, Frankfurt).

News

Munich — The private equity inves­tor AUCTUS Capi­tal Part­ners AG and the funds advi­sed by AUCTUS have acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the häus­ser­mann Group.

The häus­ser­mann Group, which in addi­tion to häus­ser­mann in Sulz­bach also includes the compa­nies Kosche and Kovalex in Much as well as Maier in Reut­lin­gen and Mirako in Austria, manu­fac­tures high-quality wood and wood-based products for inte­rior and exte­rior use. The main products include wooden faca­des, ther­mo­wood, decking boards, moldings and panels. Over the last ten years, the häus­ser­mann Group has grown steadily, both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons, towards a sales target of EUR 100 million. The growth course is to be contin­ued after the parti­ci­pa­tion of AUCTUS.

AUCTUS Capi­tal Part­ners AG is a Munich-based invest­ment company. With a fund capi­tal under manage­ment of more than EUR 800 million and a total of more than 200 company invest­ments since 2001, AUCTUS is one of the leading inves­tors in the German small and mid cap sector. The AUCTUS team, consis­ting of more than 20 expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment experts, curr­ently mana­ges 38 plat­form invest­ments in various sectors of the economy.

Dürr’s team advi­ses AUCTUS on a regu­lar basis, most recently having advi­sed the private equity inves­tor on the sale of the medak­tiv Group and on an invest­ment in the nursing home opera­tor Mira­belle Holding.

Advi­sor to AUCTUS: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Boris Dürr (private equity, lead),
Marcel Greu­bel (Corporate/M&A),
Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (Queen Mary Univer­sity of London) (Corporate/M&A),
Dr. Ralf Nobis (Corpo­rate Law/M&A),
Peter M. Schäff­ler (Taxes),
Astrid Well­hö­ner, LL.M. Eur. (Labor Law),
Stepha­nie Wurm (Labor Law),
Bettina Nehe­i­der (Public Law), all Munich
Chris­toph Nöhles, LL.M. (Boston Univer­sity) (Real Estate),
Doro­thee Kirs­ten Linn­artz, LL.M. (Univer­sity of the West of England, Bris­tol) (Real Estate),
Marcel Maybaum (IP),
Phil­ipp Roman Schrö­ler (IP), all Düsseldorf

News

Munich/ Krailling/ Schwein­furt — The share­hol­ders of Helmut Schweyer Fein­me­cha­nik sell their busi­ness shares retroac­tively to 01.01.2021 to a port­fo­lio company of EOS Part­ners, who thus gain another add-on for their EMS group.

Helmut Schweyer Fein­me­cha­nik GmbH is a family-owned company that has been successfully mana­ged by its share­hol­ders for more than 20 years in the field of turning and milling tech­no­logy for the medi­cal (tech­no­logy) sector. The company, based in Krailling near Munich, has become a key supplier to a global labo­ra­tory tech­no­logy group over the past 10 years and has always accom­pa­nied its aggres­sive growth. A key success factor for this deve­lo­p­ment is the distinc­tive know-how with regard to manu­fac­tu­ring from high-quality mate­ri­als within the narro­west tolerances.
The share­hol­ders of Helmut Schweyer Fein­me­cha­nik, Helmut and Eva Schweyer, commis­sio­ned Concen­tro to find a suita­ble inves­tor who would take over and further expand the busi­ness opera­ti­ons in Krailling under the manage­ment of their daugh­ter, Stepha­nie Toch.

Within the EMS MED TEC Group, Schweyer now comple­ments the service port­fo­lio as an add-on with its high-precis­ion turned and milled parts made of high-quality metals. The EMS Group, with loca­ti­ons in Schwein­furt, Euer­bach and Hohen­wart, focu­ses on EMS solu­ti­ons and metal proces­sing for the medi­cal, medi­cal tech­no­logy and labo­ra­tory tech­no­logy sectors and alre­ady counts some well-known medi­cal (tech­no­logy) groups among its customers.

Advi­sor to Helmut Schweyer Fein­me­cha­nik GmbH: Concen­tro Manage­ment AG
The Concen­tro M&A team around Michael Raab (Part­ner), Sebas­tian Mink (Proku­rist | Prin­ci­pal) and Sidika Schar­penack (Consul­tant) exclu­si­vely supported the company and manage­ment as sell-side advi­sors in the prepa­ra­tion, struc­tu­ring and execu­tion of the bidding process.
The legal advice to the share­hol­ders of Helmut Schweyer Fein­me­cha­nik GmbH as well as the nego­tia­tion of the contracts and further agree­ments was carried out under the leader­ship of Mr. Ferdi­nand Hoff­mann, attor­ney at law. Tax advice was provi­ded to the share­hol­ders and the part­ners throug­hout the tran­sac­tion by Mr. Ulrich Schrafstetter.

Advi­sor to Helmut Schweyer Fein­me­cha­nik GmbH: TRACC Legal
In the course of the tran­si­tion, the buyers were advi­sed by Dr. Thomas Lotz, attor­ney at law, from the law firm TRACC Legal.

News

HOUSTON — Gray­log, a global provi­der of next-gene­ra­tion log manage­ment solu­ti­ons, today announ­ced an $18 million growth capi­tal round led by new inves­tor Harbert Growth Part­ners and co-inves­tor Piper Sand­ler Merchant Banking. — The round also included parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tors Mercury Fund, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and Integr8d Capi­tal. The invest­ment will drive the company’s growth plans and help further posi­tion it as a market leader in log manage­ment and analytics.

“Gray­log is well posi­tio­ned to be a long-term winner in the fast-growing market for log manage­ment and analy­tics solu­ti­ons. With its focus on deli­ve­ring a supe­rior analyst expe­ri­ence combi­ned with a vibrant open source commu­nity, the company offers custo­mers a compel­ling alter­na­tive to other log manage­ment solu­ti­ons plagued by high comple­xity and high total cost of owner­ship (TCO). We are exci­ted to work with the Gray­log team to capi­ta­lize on the signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties ahead for the company,” Brian Carney, Gene­ral Part­ner, Harbert Growth Partners

“Our due dili­gence reve­a­led a custo­mer base that loves Graylog’s blend of search and analy­tics exper­tise, perfor­mance, scala­bi­lity and over­all flexi­bi­lity. The company has a great foun­da­tion to build on and we are exci­ted to be part of the team,” Bob Rinek, Mana­ging Direc­tor, Piper Sand­ler Merchant Banking

Gray­log contin­ued to grow rapidly during the chal­len­ging busi­ness climate last year. The company recently expan­ded its Euro­pean opera­ti­ons and recei­ved seve­ral awards, inclu­ding the Editor’s Choice for SIEM from Cyber Defense Maga­zine and the 2021 Gold Stevie Award for DevOps Solutions.

“This invest­ment will enable us to acce­le­rate our global go-to-market stra­te­gies and the advance­ment of our award-winning solu­ti­ons for IT, DevOps and secu­rity teams. We appre­ciate the support of new and exis­ting inves­tors to help us realize our poten­tial,” Andy Grol­nick, CEO of Graylog

About Gray­log

Log manage­ment done right. Gray­log is an award-winning, centra­li­zed log manage­ment solu­tion used in more than 50,000 instal­la­ti­ons world­wide. It is desi­gned for speed and scala­bi­lity in captu­ring, storing and analy­zing tera­bytes of machine data in real time. Gray­log is speci­fi­cally desi­gned for modern log analy­tics to provide a better user expe­ri­ence with a cost-effec­tive and flexi­ble archi­tec­ture. Hundreds of thou­sands of users can use Gray­log to explore their data every day to solve secu­rity, compli­ance, opera­ti­ons, and appli­ca­tion deve­lo­p­ment issues. www.graylog.org

About Harbert Growth Partners

Harbert Growth Part­ners (“HGP”) seeks to iden­tify and invest in promi­sing emer­ging growth-stage tech­no­logy compa­nies loca­ted in attrac­tive inno­va­tion ecosys­tems outside of Sili­con Valley. Based in Rich­mond, Virgi­nia, the HGP team combi­nes exten­sive invest­ment, advi­sory and opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence with capi­tal and an exten­sive network to help promi­sing entre­pre­neu­rial teams successfully execute their growth plans. HGP seeks to invest in expe­ri­en­ced entre­pre­neurs as well as compa­nies with defen­si­ble posi­ti­ons in large and growing markets. www.harbert.net

More about Piper Sand­ler Merchant

Piper Sand­ler Merchant Banking (PSMB) is part of the asset manage­ment busi­ness of Piper Sand­ler Compa­nies (NYSE: PIPR) and acts as the private equity arm of the company. The group seeks invest­ments in private, commer­ci­ally focu­sed compa­nies with strong growth pros­pects within indus­try sectors covered by Piper Sandler’s equity rese­arch and invest­ment banking resour­ces. PSMB provi­des invest­ment advi­sory services through its affi­lia­ted regis­tered invest­ment advi­ser, PSC Capi­tal Part­ners LLC.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date.

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte has advi­sed Dutch media company Azer­ion on its acqui­si­tion of Hamburg-based games deve­lo­per Whow Games.

Whow Games opera­tes social online casino games on the web, inclu­ding the jackpot.de site, and was foun­ded in 2014 by Bigpoint foun­der Heiko Hubertz. For 2019, the company gene­ra­tes sales of 27.5 million euros.

Head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam, Azer­ion employs more than 800 people world­wide. A close-knit agency network markets game apps, online games and platforms.

Advi­sor to Azer­ion: SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte, Munich

Dr. Sebas­tian Graf von Wall­witz, LL.M. (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Nicole Wolf-Thomann (Coun­sel, Corpo­rate), Eva Bona­cker (Coun­sel, Corporate)

News

Landshut/ Martins­ried — High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), Crea­thor Ventures, KfW and Bayern Kapi­tal have announ­ced to sell their invest­ment in SIRION Biotech GmbH, an inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of viral vector tech­no­lo­gies for the effi­ci­ent deve­lo­p­ment and deli­very of cell and gene thera­pies. SIRION’s services ideally comple­ment PerkinElmer’s Hori­zon Disco­very port­fo­lio, it says. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory approvals.

For its part, Perki­nEl­mer, Inc, a U.S. chemi­cal and medi­cal tech­no­logy company, has announ­ced that it has reached an agree­ment to acquire SIRION. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the third quar­ter of 2021. In 2007, Crea­thor Ventures, HTGF, Bayern Kapi­tal and KfW jointly inves­ted in SIRION as part of a seed finan­cing round.

Head­quar­te­red in Martins­ried near Munich, SIRION has a total of 50 employees at loca­ti­ons in Germany, France and the USA. The company has built a robust port­fo­lio of licen­sed vector tech­no­lo­gies that are used by more than a dozen major phar­maceu­ti­cal and biotech compa­nies that are inves­ti­ga­ting a total of more than 25 diffe­rent diseases.

“Our team looks forward to working with Perki­nEl­mer as we conti­nue to expand our leader­ship posi­tion in viral vector tech­no­lo­gies for cell and gene therapy. As part of Perki­nEl­mer, we will bene­fit from faci­li­ta­ted access to geno­mic analy­sis, gene editing and base editing tech­no­lo­gies, as well as excel­lent global infra­struc­ture and presence,” said Dr. Chris­tian Thirion, CEO of SIRION.

“We are very proud to have accom­pa­nied the successful deve­lo­p­ment of SIRION. As a seed inves­tor, we are always on the lookout for tech­no­lo­gies where great poten­tial can be seen even before market entry, as well as for highly moti­va­ted foun­ders and teams. All of this applied to SIRION,” says Marco Winzer, Part­ner at HTGF.

“SIRION is an excel­lent exam­ple of how foun­ders and manage­ment teams can deve­lop an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy from early stage in the lab to inter­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy leader­ship toge­ther with expe­ri­en­ced inves­tors. We are very plea­sed to have played an active role in this success story,” says Karl­heinz Schme­lig, Part­ner at Crea­thor Ventures.

“We were very impres­sed by SIRION’s tech­ni­cal and market exper­tise right from the start and have actively supported the company from the begin­ning. We are ther­e­fore very plea­sed about this great success and wish SIRION all the best,” says Roman Huber, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Bayern Kapi­tal.

About SIRION Biotech GmbH
SIRION Biotech was foun­ded in 2005 with the goal of deve­lo­ping a new gene­ra­tion of viral vector tech­no­lo­gies for gene and cell therapy and vaccine deve­lo­p­ment. SIRION deve­lops novel thera­peu­tic viral vectors and lever­a­ges proprie­tary tech­no­logy plat­forms based on lenti‑, adeno- and adeno-asso­cia­ted viru­ses to acce­le­rate its part­ners’ progress in drug deve­lo­p­ment. www.sirion-biotech.com.

About Crea­thor Ventures
Crea­thor Ventures invests in tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies that are advan­cing the auto­ma­tion of indus­try and busi­ness, as well as the perso­na­liza­tion and digi­tiza­tion of health­care. The team curr­ently mana­ges over 30 tech and health­care compa­nies and has funded over 200 compa­nies as a lead or co-lead inves­tor over the past 30 years. More than 20 compa­nies were listed on inter­na­tio­nal stock exch­an­ges. Crea­thor Ventures curr­ently mana­ges a fund volume of over 230 million euros. www.creathor.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 130 compa­nies. www.htgf.de

About KfW
KfW is one of the world’s leading promo­tio­nal banks. With its deca­des of expe­ri­ence, KfW works on behalf of the German fede­ral and state govern­ments to improve econo­mic, social and ecolo­gi­cal living condi­ti­ons world­wide. In 2020 alone, it has made a funding volume of EUR 135.3 billion available for this purpose. Of this, 33% was spent on climate and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion measures.

KfW does not have any bran­ches and does not have any custo­mer depo­sits. It refi­nan­ces its promo­tio­nal busi­ness respon­si­bly and almost enti­rely via the inter­na­tio­nal capi­tal markets. In 2020, it borro­wed EUR 66.4 billion for this purpose. It employs more than 6,700 people at its head­quar­ters in Frank­furt am Main, its two bran­ches in Berlin and Bonn, and its subsi­dia­ries KfW IPEX-Bank, DEG and KfW Capi­tal. It is repre­sen­ted at around 80 loca­ti­ons world­wide. www.kfw.de

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal curr­ently mana­ges twelve invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 500 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 350 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 290 inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. www.bayernkapital.de

News

Munich — EQT Ventures leads USD 15 million seed round for start up Origin.Bio. In addi­tion to EQT Ventures, other backers include Bluey­ard and Inven­tures. DLA Piper advi­sed EQT Ventures on its invest­ment in the Munich-based start-up Origin.Bio in this seed round.

Since its foun­ding in 2021, Origin.Bio, a synthe­tic biology company, has been connec­ting bioen­gi­neers with nature. It produ­ces synthe­tic micro­or­ga­nisms that can produce many of the same subs­tances that tradi­tio­nal chemi­cal indus­try proces­ses do today, but with signi­fi­cantly lower energy use and waste gene­ra­tion and avoi­ding petro­leum chemi­cals. The company provi­des the link between R&D‑focused insti­tu­ti­ons and manu­fac­tu­r­ers and increased climate-focu­sed innovation.

EQT Ventures is the venture capi­tal fund of the Swedish private equity fund EQT Part­ners. EQT Ventures invests in fast-growing, inno­va­tive and tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies in all sectors world­wide, with a focus on Europe and the US.

Advi­sors to EQT Ventures: DLA Piper
The DLA Piper team, led by Part­ner Andreas Füch­sel (Private Equity/M&A), contin­ued to include Part­ner Semin O (Liti­ga­tion & Regu­la­tory), Coun­sel Kaja Herr­mann (Labor Law), Senior Asso­ciate Phil­ipp Groll (Private Equity/M&A) and Asso­cia­tes Alex­an­der Rösch (Liti­ga­tion & Regu­la­tory), Johan­nes Klug (Labor Law, all Frank­furt) and Jessica Herr­mann (Corpo­rate, Munich).

About DLA Piper
DLA Piper is one of the world’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 240 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. www.dlapiper.com

News

Berlin / Frank­furt a. Main — Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP has advi­sed Bregal Mile­stone as lead inves­tor on its USD 115 million Series C growth invest­ment in Uber­all. The current inves­tor United Inter­net and the manage­ment also parti­ci­pate in the round. Previous inves­tors in Uber­all include HPE Growth and Project A.

The tran­sac­tion is Bregal Milestone’s tenth invest­ment and the first tran­sac­tion in Germany. Uber­all offers a leading full-suite SaaS loca­tion marke­ting and analy­tics plat­form that helps brands and busi­nesses with every step of the “Near Me” jour­ney: from finding and selec­ting online, to gene­ra­ting offline sales, to gathe­ring and mana­ging online feed­back, to recommending.

Uber­all is relied upon by thou­sands of custo­mers, inclu­ding more than 600 major global compa­nies in Europe, North America and Asia, both in direct sales and through its exten­sive global network of chan­nel part­ners. Since long­time friends David Feder­hen and Florian Hübner foun­ded the company in Berlin in 2013, Uber­all has grown into an inter­na­tio­nal market leader with offices in 6 count­ries and a global team of 300 employees.

The company successfully grew its ARR between FY17-20 at a CAGR of 60%. The invest­ment will allow to drive product inno­va­tion the growth stra­tegy, with parti­cu­lar focus on further conso­li­da­ting its leader­ship posi­tion in Europe and acce­le­rate global expan­sion. Will­kie advi­sed on all aspects of the tran­sac­tion, KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed on IP issues.

Advi­sors to Bregal Mile­stone : Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP
The Will­kie team was led by part­ner Dr. Matthias Schudlo (Corpo­rate) and Miriam Steets, photo (Coun­sel, Corpo­rate, both Frank­furt) and included part­ner Georg Linde (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), coun­sel Wulf Kring (Tax) and Matthias Töke (Finance, both Frank­furt) and asso­cia­tes Dr.Erik Göretz­leh­ner and Ilie Manole (both Corpo­rate), Dr. Nadine Kramer and Martin Waśkow­ski (both Labor Law) and Philip Thür­mer (Real Estate, all Frankfurt).

KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed on IP issues:
The KNPZ team included part­ner Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath and asso­cia­tes Jan Schä­fer, Matthias Struck, Niko­laus Schmidt-Hamkens and Dr. Enno ter Haze­borg (all Hamburg).

About Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP
Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm of more than 850 lawy­ers with offices in New York, Washing­ton, Hous­ton, Palo Alto, San Fran­cisco, Chicago, Paris, London, Frank­furt, Brussels, Milan and Rome.

 

News

Hamburg/ Frank­furt a. M. — About You cele­bra­tes its debut on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange today, Wednes­day, June 16. The offer price for the private place­ment is set at 23.00 euros per share. CEO Tarek Müller holds a share of 4.3 percent, Sebas­tian Betz 3.7 percent and Hannes Wiese 2.7 percent.

The offer price for the private place­ment is 23.00 euros per share. The Otto Group subsi­diary is thus valued at 3.9 billion euros.

Accor­ding to Textil­wirt­schaft, the foun­ders hold the follo­wing shares: Tarek Müller has a share of 4.3 percent, Sebas­tian Betz 3.7 percent. Hannes Wiese has 2.7 percent. Howe­ver, the trio intends to sell just under 3.3 million shares, which will bring them a total of 76 million euros. After the private place­ment, Müller, Betz and Wiese will have stakes of 3.0 percent, 2.6 percent and 1.7 percent respectively.

Net, 627 million euros remain. — In addi­tion, from the holdings of the exis­ting owners GFH (Gesell­schaft für Handels­be­tei­li­gun­gen mbH), Seven­Ven­tures GmbH, GMPVC German Media Pool GmbH and Fashion Media Pool GmbH, up to 4.8 million ordi­nary bearer shares will be gran­ted as an option to cover over-allot­ments (green­shoe option).

The IPO will gene­rate gross proceeds of 657 million euros for About You. Net, 627 million euros remain. The company plans to spend 150 million euros on inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, 115 million euros on tech­no­lo­gi­cal infra­struc­ture and 50 million euros on the further deve­lo­p­ment of its B2B tech­no­logy divi­sion. 80 million euros is to be used to repay share­hol­der loans. About You is also conside­ring acqui­si­ti­ons. 80 million euros is reco­gni­zed as a reserve for M&A transactions.

Tarek Müller, Co-Foun­der and Board Member Marke­ting & Brand: “Today is a great day for About You. Toge­ther with some of the world’s most renow­ned brands and compa­nies, we are now part of the exch­ange family. Today we cele­brate the successful listing of About You, but our focus is alre­ady fully on the future.”

In addi­tion to Deut­sche Bank, Gold­man Sachs and JPMor­gan , Numis Secu­ri­ties, Société Géné­rale and UBS also supported the IPO.

News

Langels­heim (Germany)/New York — Swiss specialty chemi­cals group Clari­ant has announ­ced that it will sell its pigments busi­ness to a consor­tium consis­ting of the Heubach Group and SK Capi­tal Part­ners. The tran­sac­tion is valued at $900 million. The purchase price repres­ents a multi­ple of 10.7 to 11.4 times stan­da­lone 12-month adjus­ted EBITDA as of April 2021. Clari­ant intends to reinvest at the time of closing to become a 20 percent share­hol­der in the ulti­mate holding company along­side Heubach and SK Capital.

The combi­ned company will gene­rate annual sales of more than 900 million euros with around 3,000 employees. Through the reinvest­ment, Clari­ant intends to further bene­fit from the impro­ved profi­ta­bi­lity of the pigments busi­ness. An effi­ci­ency program alre­ady initia­ted and syner­gies from the merger with the Heubach pigments busi­ness should also contri­bute to this.

Clariant’s pigments busi­ness is valued at an enter­prise value of CHF 805 million to CHF 855 million, subject to an earn-out payment of CHF 50 million linked to the finan­cial results of the pigments busi­ness in 2021. With the closing of the tran­sac­tion, Clari­ant has comple­ted the inten­ded dive­st­ments as part of the port­fo­lio stream­li­ning, follo­wing the previous dive­st­ments of the Health­care Pack­a­ging and Master­bat­ches businesses.

Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed SK Capi­tal Part­ners on the forma­tion of a consor­tium with Heubach Group and the consortium’s subse­quent acqui­si­tion of Clariant’s pigments business.

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first half of 2022, subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. At the closing of the tran­sac­tion, Clari­ant will take a 20% stake in the combi­ned business.

About SK Capital

SK Capi­tal is a private invest­ment company focu­sing on the specialty mate­ri­als, chemi­cals and phar­maceu­ti­cal sectors. The company curr­ently mana­ges assets in excess of USD 5 billion.

The Heubach Group is a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of orga­nic, inor­ga­nic and anti­cor­ro­sive pigments and pigment prepa­ra­ti­ons. The company is head­quar­te­red in Langels­heim and opera­tes sites in Germany, the USA and India, as well as sales offices worldwide.

Advi­sors to SK Capi­tal Part­ners: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich
Attila Oldag, Dr. Chris­toph Jerger (both lead, both M&A, Private Equity), Daniel Hiemer (Tax); Asso­ciate: Dr. Johan­nes Rowold (M&A, Private Equity)
Kirk­land & Ellis, London: David Holds­worth (Lead), Rachel Green­halgh (both M&A, Private Equity), Kirs­teen Nicol (Debt Finance), Shane Cran­ley (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion), Timo­thy Lowe, Cian O’Con­nor (both Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Amelia Rolfe, Louis Hopson (both M&A, Private Equity), Stefan Arnold-Soulby, Maurice Walsh (both Debt Finance), Phil­ipp Gnatzy, Sandeep Ravi­kumar (both Anti­trust & Competition).
Kirk­land & Ellis, Brussels: Dr. Thomas S. Wilson (Anti­trust & Competition)
Kirk­land & Ellis, USA: John S. Kefer (New York), Thomas James Doble­man, Joce­lyn A. Hirsch (both Chicago, all Debt Finance); Asso­cia­tes: Bridget E. Hahn (New York, Debt Finance), Joshua P. Cowin (Chicago, M&A, Private Equity)

About Kirk­land & Ellis
With appro­xi­m­ately 2,900 lawy­ers in 16 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

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed SIGNA Sports United GmbH (SSU) in connec­tion with its merger with Yucaipa Acqui­si­tion Corpo­ra­tion (YAC), a publicly traded special purpose acqui­si­tion company (SPAC). The merger also includes the acqui­si­tion of the British online bicy­cle retailer Wiggle/CRC Group.

In the course of this so-called De-SPAC tran­sac­tion, the group struc­ture of SSU will be funda­men­tally chan­ged. Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, SSU’s shares will be traded on the NYSE; SSU, as well as the publicly traded TopCo, will have their corpo­rate head­quar­ters in Berlin.

A McDer­mott team led by Dr. Kian Kauser and Sebas­tian Bonk advi­sed SIGNA Sports United GmbH and its majo­rity share­hol­der SIGNA Inter­na­tio­nal Sports Holding GmbH on the corpo­rate and tax struc­tu­ring of the group as well as on the acqui­si­tion of Wiggle/CRC Group.

The tran­sac­tion unders­cores McDer­mott Will & Emery’s strong posi­tion in provi­ding corpo­rate and tax advice on complex cross-border transactions.

Advi­sors to SIGNA Sports United GmbH and SIGNA Inter­na­tio­nal Sports Holding GmbH: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düsseldorf/Frankfurt
Dr. Kian Tauser (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Sebas­tian Bonk (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf; both Lead), Dr. Matthias Kamp­s­hoff, Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach (both Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Heiko Kermer (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Elea­nor West (Corporate/M&A, London), Dr. Jan Hückel (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf; both for take­over Wiggle/CRC Group), Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax, Frank­furt), Sebas­tian Klein (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Daniel Ross (Corporate/M&A, London), Carina Kant (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf)

News

London/ Munich — Oakley Capi­tal (“Oakley”) announ­ces the appoint­ment of Valero Domingo as a new Part­ner in its London office and six promo­ti­ons within its invest­ment team, inclu­ding two appoint­ments to Part­ner. Valero brings a wealth of expe­ri­ence to Oakley, while recent promo­ti­ons support the company’s growth follo­wing dyna­mic deve­lo­p­ment in recent years. Oakley’s team now consists of 61 employees in the London and Munich offices, 32 of whom are invest­ment professionals.

Valero Domingo joins Oakley’s London team, where he will be respon­si­ble for deal origi­na­tion and execu­tion, as well as port­fo­lio company deve­lo­p­ment. He previously worked at Charme Capi­tal Part­ners as a Prin­ci­pal based in London and Madrid and has considera­ble expe­ri­ence in the finan­cial sector and speci­fi­cally also in the Euro­pean private equity segment, gained in previous posi­ti­ons at High­bridge, 3i and Gold­man Sachs.

In addi­tion, Oakley has promo­ted two employees from invest­ment direc­tor to part­ner: Sam Fenton-Whit­tet and Sascha Günther. Sam Fenton-Whit­tet joined Oakley’s London team in 2015 after working for the UK govern­ment for seve­ral years, inclu­ding various senior posi­ti­ons at HM Treasury. His focus at Oakley conti­nues to be on deal origi­na­tion, execu­tion and port­fo­lio manage­ment. To date, Sam Fenton-Whit­tet has been invol­ved in Oakley’s invest­ments in Career Part­ner Group, Pupil Aid and Inspi­red. Sascha Günther is based in Oakley’s Munich office and focu­ses on tran­sac­tions and the manage­ment of Oakley’s invest­ments in German-spea­king count­ries. In his time at Oakley, he has worked on invest­ments at Wish­card Tech­no­lo­gies, 7NXT/Gymondo, Wind­star Medi­cal and most recently ECOMMERCE ONE. Prior to joining Oakley, he was Vice Presi­dent at ProSiebenSat.1 in Germany, where he was respon­si­ble for seve­ral invest­ments in the tech­no­logy, media and consu­mer goods sectors.

Oakley also announ­ces four addi­tio­nal promo­ti­ons within its invest­ment team: Lovis von Andrian has been promo­ted to Invest­ment Direc­tor, having previously been Invest­ment Mana­ger, while Mike Muts­aers, Cris­tina Popescu and Jamie Wilman have been promo­ted from Invest­ment Asso­ciate to Invest­ment Mana­ger. The promo­ti­ons are the result of strong perfor­mance and contri­bu­ti­ons to the deve­lo­p­ment of Oakley’s invest­ment acti­vi­ties over the past seve­ral years.

Peter Dubens, Mana­ging Part­ner of Oakley Capi­tal, stated:

“The appoint­ment of Valero Domingo to Part­ner, along with a host of inter­nal promo­ti­ons across the Oakley team, follows another year of strong growth for Oakley. The contin­ued evolu­tion of our teams’ expe­ri­ence and sector know­ledge has been criti­cal to Oakley’s ability to gene­rate consis­tent and diver­si­fied deal flow and subse­quently drive the growth of the outstan­ding compa­nies we support to the next level. I am plea­sed to welcome Valero Domingo to our team and would like to thank all of our colle­agues who have been promo­ted for their signi­fi­cant contri­bu­ti­ons to the company’s success.”

About Oakley Capital

Oakley Capi­tal is a private equity firm with more than €4 billion in assets under manage­ment focu­sed on Western Europe. Oakley invests in middle-market compa­nies across the region in three core sectors — consu­mer, educa­tion and technology.

Oakley’s entre­pre­neu­rial mind­set and deep indus­try know­ledge allows him to iden­tify speci­fic invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and gene­rate supe­rior returns. The Oakley team works closely with a unique network of entre­pre­neurs and successful manage­ment teams to access primary proprie­tary invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and gain valuable insights into the busi­ness models in which it invests. The ability to over­come comple­xity and a flexi­ble approach to value crea­tion enable Oakley to help its port­fo­lio compa­nies achieve sustainable growth.

News

Munich — Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG has acqui­red Munich Hotel Part­ners GmbH with its asso­cia­ted subsi­dia­ries (“MHP Group”) in a reverse IPO. With the acqui­si­tion, Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG, which is listed on the Munich Stock Exch­ange, will incre­asingly focus its busi­ness on the MHP Group, one of Germany’s leading hotel provi­ders, in the future and thus support the growth of the MHP Group in the wake of the openings follo­wing the COVID 19 pande­mic. Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek under the lead of Part­ner Boris Dürr.

Based on an equity value of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 59 million, the exis­ting share­hol­ders will receive a conside­ra­tion in the form of a cash compo­nent of EUR 6 million and a share compo­nent of an expec­ted 33,125,000 new shares in Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG in accordance with the contrac­tual agree­ment reached and will thus retain a signi­fi­cant indi­rect inte­rest in Munich Hotel Part­ners GmbH. The share compo­nent is to be gran­ted by way of a capi­tal increase against contri­bu­ti­ons in kind, on which the Annual Gene­ral Meeting of Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG has yet to pass a reso­lu­tion. Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG is plan­ning seve­ral cash and non-cash capi­tal increa­ses to finance and execute the acquisition.

The Heuking team provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG on all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion, inclu­ding tran­sac­tion struc­tu­ring, legal due dili­gence, purchase agree­ment docu­men­ta­tion and also on the stock and capi­tal market law measu­res to imple­ment the transaction.

The MHP Group is one of the leading German hotel provi­ders and has estab­lished itself in the acqui­si­tion of exis­ting upper-upmar­ket hotels. MHP curr­ently opera­tes four Le Méri­dien brand hotels in Germany and Austria in Hamburg, Stutt­gart, Munich and Vienna, as well as the Shera­ton Düssel­dorf Airport Hotel.

Advi­sors to Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Boris Dürr (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Munich
Dr. Chris­toph Küster (Corpo­rate Law/M&A),
Dr. Ralf Nobis (Corpo­rate Law/M&A),
Astrid Well­hö­ner, LL.M. Eur. (Labor Law),
Stepha­nie Wurm (Labor Law),
Peter M. Schäff­ler (Tax Law),
Bettina Nehe­i­der (Public Sector and Procu­re­ment), all Munich
Chris­toph Nöhles, LL.M. (Boston Univer­sity), (Real Estate & Construction),
Fabian Schmitz, (Real Estate & Cons­truc­tion), both Düsseldorf

Advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of Munich Hotel Part­ners: Henge­ler Mueller
The part­ners Dr. Kai-Stef­fen Scholz (lead, Corporate/M&A, Berlin) and Dr. Markus Ernst (Tax, Munich) as well as the asso­cia­tes Dr. Ingo Berner, Niclas Bettien (both Corporate/M&A, Berlin) and Dr. Tim Würst­lin (Tax, Munich) were active.

 

 

News

Berlin — EVP Group, a port­fo­lio company of Capi­ton acqui­res Group Korott. Group Korott is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer and distri­bu­tor of vitamins, mine­rals, natu­ral cosme­tics, as well as sport supple­ments for the Spanish consu­mer health­care market. In addi­tion to its store-brand part­ne­ring busi­ness, Korott has its own brand port­fo­lio, inclu­ding well-known brands such as Vive+ and Power­Gym. Head­quar­te­red in Alcoy (Spain), the group opera­tes a modern produc­tion faci­lity with free capa­ci­ties that can also be utili­zed by EVP Group.

Korott serves a variety of super/hypermarkets, phar­macies, and health food chains with its broad product port­fo­lio. The produc­tion faci­lity with its wide-ranging capa­bi­li­ties of formats and dosage forms enables Korott to adapt and meet clients’ needs. The broad product port­fo­lio and manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties are backed by a strong in-house R&D depart­ment, secu­ring constant inno­va­tion and proxi­mity to custo­mers. In the current finan­cial year, Korott will gene­rate annual reve­nues of appro­xi­m­ately € 20 million.

Tran­sac­tion

Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of Prin­ci­ple Health­care (Novem­ber 2020), Group Korott further expands EVP’s Euro­pean reach, product port­fo­lio and own produc­tion capa­bi­li­ties while unlo­cking signi­fi­cant group-wide syner­gies. Toge­ther with Korott, EVP Group mani­fests its posi­tio­ning as a leading player in the Euro­pean consu­mer health­care market and an ideal plat­form to further grow orga­ni­cally and through acquisitions.

Korott’s expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team will reinvest signi­fi­cantly, beco­ming the second-largest share­hol­der after capi­ton, and remain with the company to conti­nue the company’s growth path as part of a larger, pan-Euro­pean player.

Capi­ton Deal Team: Alex­an­der Zamora (foto) and Jona­than Lerman.
The parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial details of the transaction.

EVP Group and capi­ton were advi­sed in this tran­sac­tion by Strategy& (commer­cial), PwC (finan­cial), EY (tax), Shoos­miths, Cuat­re­ca­sas, BMH Braeu­ti­gam (legal) and Fide­lio Health­care Part­ners (technical/operations).

About capi­ton AG

capi­ton is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged private equity firm that mana­ges a total fund volume of €1.3 billion. The invest­ment port­fo­lio of capi­ton AG curr­ently compri­ses 14 medium-sized compa­nies. As an equity part­ner, capi­ton supports manage­ment buy-outs and growth finan­cing in estab­lished medium-sized companies.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) successfully comple­tes its invest­ment in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and soft­ware company Telio. Its shares in the company will be sold to Char­ter­house Capi­tal Part­ners LLP, a finan­cial inves­tor based in the United King­dom. The shares of DBAG Fund VI, which was advi­sed by DBAG, and the Telio manage­ment will also be sold. Corre­spon­ding contracts were signed last week; their execu­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close within the next four months.

DBAG is now reali­zing proceeds from the sale, which roughly corre­spond to the valua­tion of the invest­ment in DBAG’s most recent IFRS inte­rim finan­cial state­ments (March 31, 2021). Ther­e­fore, the tran­sac­tion will not add any further value in the current quar­ter. Howe­ver, addi­tio­nal value contri­bu­ti­ons may arise from the future deve­lo­p­ment of the company via a re-invest­ment: DBAG and DBAG Fund VI will invest part of the proceeds from the sale and will hold around 13 percent (of which DBAG will hold around 2.5 percen­tage points) of Telio shares in the future.

Further dispo­sal of the DBAG Fund VI portfolio
The sale of the invest­ment in Telio is the fifth comple­tion of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO) from the DBAG Fund VI port­fo­lio. A further share­hol­ding (Pfaud­ler Group) was mainly sold last year. The fund had struc­tu­red eleven MBOs between 2013 and 2016. With DBAG Fund VI, DBAG had begun to invest incre­asingly outside tradi­tio­nal indus­trial sectors; Telio is one of the MBOs from new growth sectors.

Telio (www.tel.io, Hamburg) deve­lops, installs and opera­tes commu­ni­ca­tion and media systems for the correc­tional system, thus making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the reso­cia­liza­tion of prisoners. Telio installs tele­pho­nes and asso­cia­ted systems in prisons that allow inma­tes to make control­led calls — from the cell wing or directly from their detention room. The range of services includes other means of commu­ni­ca­tion: tele­vi­si­ons, DVD play­ers, radios and compu­ters with limi­ted Inter­net access. The basis for commer­cial success is initi­ally invest­ment in appro­priate instal­la­ti­ons (cables, termi­nal equip­ment) and soft­ware deve­lo­ped in-house for moni­to­ring and billing usage. The soft­ware takes over part of the work of the correc­tional offi­cers and thus faci­li­ta­tes their daily prison routine. Telio also plans to tran­si­tion to Inter­net-based services and telephony.

Corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons to acce­le­rate transformation
DBAG and DBAG Fund VI had inves­ted in Telio in April 2016 in the course of an MBO and curr­ently hold 83 percent of the shares, of which DBAG holds 15.3 percen­tage points. Since then, Telio has become a global leader in inmate commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and the tech­no­logy and infra­struc­ture needed to support it. Sales have more than tripled; in 2020, they amoun­ted to around 83 million euros. In addi­tion to orga­nic growth, company acqui­si­ti­ons also contri­bu­ted to the growth rate of more than 22 percent per year on average; DBAG and DBAG Fund VI had twice provi­ded addi­tio­nal funds for this purpose. Telio has ente­red new regio­nal markets and signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its product offe­ring, for exam­ple with tech­no­logy that detects and stops the ille­gal use of cell phones in prisons. Telio is incre­asingly focu­sing on digi­tal solu­ti­ons, for exam­ple in the areas of video tele­phony and e‑learning. Telio is now repre­sen­ted in 700 faci­li­ties in 21 count­ries world­wide; 80 percent of sales are gene­ra­ted in Europe, nine percent of which are in Germany. Since the begin­ning of the invest­ment, the number of employees has increased to 218.
more than doubled.

“Telio has under­gone a major trans­for­ma­tion and once again impro­ved its market posi­tion,” DBAG board member Tom Alzin said today; “demons­t­ra­ting once again that corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons can decisi­vely acce­le­rate a company’s deve­lo­p­ment — and in this case, its repo­si­tio­ning.” And, “In no small part, heavy invest­ment in Inter­net-based commu­ni­ca­ti­ons has made it possi­ble for many inma­tes to main­tain cont­act with their loved ones via phone and video in recent months, despite pande­mic-rela­ted visi­tor bans.”

Alan­tra advi­sedChar­ter­house Capi­tal Part­ners on an invest­ment in Telio Manage­ment GmbH. Alan­tra is a global alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, invest­ment banking and credit port­fo­lio advi­sory firm focu­sed on provi­ding services to busi­nesses, fami­lies and inves­tors opera­ting in the middle market segment. The Group has more than 540 profes­sio­nals in Europe, the USA, Latin America and Asia.

About Char­ter­house

Char­ter­house is one of the longest estab­lished private equity firms in Europe. The company combi­nes exper­tise and capi­tal, working with ambi­tious foun­ders and manage­ment teams to drive trans­for­ma­tive change. Char­ter­house takes a selec­tive, convic­tion-based approach and invests in high-quality middle-market Euro­pean compa­nies in the services, health­care, specia­li­zed indus­tri­als and consu­mer sectors. The focus is on tran­sac­tions with an enter­prise value of between €200 million and €1.5 billion.

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 propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

News

Frank­furt am Main — With the aim of support­ing the further growth of the group of companies
support, Borro­min Capi­tal Fund IV inves­ted in Little John Bikes Group (LJB) in June 2021. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. LJB is one of the leading specia­list retail­ers in the German bicy­cle retail trade and offers a
versa­tile product port­fo­lio in the bicy­cle and access­ories sector.

In the fast-growing e‑bike segment, LJB posi­ti­ons itself with inno­va­tive service and consul­ting. In addi­tion, LJB curr­ently has the fastest expan­sion rate in the indus­try, with a focus on busi­ness succes­sion. Toge­ther with LJB’s manage­ment, Borro­min will drive the group’s natio­nal growth as well as support the further struc­tu­ral and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the company and its employees.

Nick Money-Kyrle, Mana­ging Part­ner of Borro­min Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH: “LJB has achie­ved impres­sive corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment in recent years. With its opera­tio­nal excel­lence and expe­ri­en­ced as well as passio­nate manage­ment leader­ship, LJB is very well posi­tio­ned in the natio­nal bicy­cle market. We are convin­ced that the company will have excel­lent growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the future — both orga­ni­cally and through acquisitions.”

Martin Franke, Part­ner at Borro­min Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH, adds: “The bicy­cle market in Germany is highly frag­men­ted. We see a great oppor­tu­nity here for LJB to conti­nue its successful expan­sion course through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons (of indi­vi­dual specia­list retail­ers or small chains of specia­list retail­ers) in comple­men­tary loca­ti­ons. This stra­tegy will both bene­fit LJB’s custo­mers and secure jobs in Germany. We are very plea­sed to actively accom­pany the sustainable expan­sion of the group of compa­nies in the coming years toge­ther with the management.”

Olden­bur­gi­sche Landes­bank is support­ing the tran­sac­tion with acqui­si­tion finan­cing and a working capi­tal loan.

About Little John Bikes
LJB was foun­ded in 1997 in Neukirch, East Saxony, and has since deve­lo­ped into a leading specia­list dealer for bicy­cles and e‑bikes in Germany. The company, head­quar­te­red in Dres­den, curr­ently opera­tes 41 stores. The current focus of expan­sion is on the new German states. The product range offers modern mobi­lity solu­ti­ons for cyclists of all ages — whether for ever­y­day, recrea­tio­nal or sport­ing use. The broad spec­trum of services and consul­ting under­lines the service-orien­ted focus. Market-orien­ted thin­king, exten­sive know-how and dyna­mic growth have made LJB one of the indus­try leaders in Germany.

About BORROMIN Capital
Borro­min (form­erly Stead­fast Capi­tal) is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm focu­sed on medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe and the Bene­lux count­ries. Our funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies and provide equity capi­tal for busi­ness succes­si­ons, manage­ment buy-outs and growth finan­cing. Borro­min was foun­ded in 2001 and has since pursued a successful, value-orien­ted stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in profi­ta­ble compa­nies in a wide range of industries.

Borro­min Capi­tal Fund IV (Borro­min Capi­tal Fund IV SCS, SICAV-RAIF) bene­fits from the finan­cial support of the Euro­pean Union under the Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments (“EFSI”) estab­lished under the Invest­ment Plan for Europe. The purpose of the EFSI is to support the finan­cing and imple­men­ta­tion of produc­tive invest­ments in the Euro­pean Union and to ensure better access to finance.

News

Munich / Osaka (Japan) — AURELIUS has announ­ced that it has successfully comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of all shares of the Euro­pean consu­mer battery busi­ness (“Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy”) from Pana­so­nic Europe B.V. (“Pana­so­nic Europe”). Through its Euro­pean distri­bu­tion center in Zellik, Belgium, Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy opera­tes two manu­fac­tu­ring sites in Belgium and Poland. At all loca­ti­ons, Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy now employs a total of appro­xi­m­ately 900 people and gene­ra­ted total sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 230 million in fiscal 2019. The tran­sac­tion is the first under the newly laun­ched co-invest­ment program of AURELIUS: The exch­ange-traded AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA will hold a 30 percent stake in the company.

Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of consu­mer batte­ries in Europe.

Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of consu­mer batte­ries in Europe and has a long history of high-quality produc­tion and distri­bu­tion in the Euro­pean market dating back to 1970. The company’s main products include alka­line and zinc-carbon batte­ries, as well as rech­ar­geable Ni-MH batte­ries and specialty batteries.

About AURELIUS

AURELIUS Group is a pan-Euro­pean invest­ment group with offices in Munich, London, Stock­holm, Madrid, Amster­dam and Luxem­bourg. Since its foun­da­tion in 2006, AURELIUS has grown from a local turn­around inves­tor to an inter­na­tio­nal multi-asset manager.

Key invest­ment plat­forms are its AURELIUS Euro­pean Oppor­tu­ni­ties IV fund as well as listed AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA (“AEO”; ISIN: DE000A0JK2A8), which acquire corpo­rate carve-outs and compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in the mid-market (fund) and lower mid-market sector (AEO). The invest­ment strategy’s core element is opera­tio­nal support of its port­fo­lio compa­nies with a team of about 100 in-house opera­ting taskforce experts.

AURELIUS Group also opera­tes in the areas of growth capi­tal, real estate oppor­tu­ni­ties and debt. AURELIUS Growth Invest­ments invests in lever­a­ged buyouts usually in succes­sion situa­tions. AURELIUS Real Estate Oppor­tu­ni­ties focu­ses on real estate invest­ments, the value of which can be increased in the long-term by means of active manage­ment. AURELIUS Finance Company is an alter­na­tive direct lender, focu­sed on provi­ding flexi­ble debt solu­ti­ons to small and mid-market firms across Europe.

News

Montierchaume/Munich — Quan­tum Capi­tal Part­ners (“QCP”) announ­ces that Avia­group Indus­tries SAS (“Avia­group”), an affi­liate of Quan­tum Oppor­tu­nity Fund II GmbH & Co. KG, has acqui­red 100% of the shares of CPP France SAS (“CPP France” or the “Company”) from US aero­space supplier Conso­li­da­ted Precis­ion Products Corp. (“CPP”), a port­fo­lio company of Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Part­ners. — With the tran­sac­tion, the company will be rena­med to its former corpo­rate name Aero­cast SAS (“Aero­cast”). The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by the QCP team in Munich.

Aero­cast, based in Montier­chaume, France, is a leading alumi­num foundry for the aero­space & defense indus­try specia­li­zing in invest­ment casting produc­tion tech­no­logy. The castings produ­ced are used in various struc­tu­ral parts for civil and mili­tary aircraft and heli­c­op­ters. Custo­mers include well-known OEMs and Tier-1s from the aero­space indus­try. Aero­cast employs appro­xi­m­ately 100 people.

Avia­group brings toge­ther under its umbrella seve­ral aero­space compa­nies (Secan, Avia­tube, Indraero Siren and SAM) loca­ted in France and Morocco with a total of appro­xi­m­ately 1,000 employees. The Avia­group compa­nies actively exch­an­ged know-how and worked closely toge­ther to deve­lop complex custo­mer solu­ti­ons. In addi­tion, they use common syner­gies and struc­tures in the admi­nis­tra­tive as well as in the commer­cial area. Avia­group divi­des its acti­vi­ties into the focus areas Ther­mal Manage­ment, Alumi­num Tubes and Aero­s­truc­tures. In the future, Aero­cast will comple­ment the tech­no­logy and appli­ca­tion spec­trum in the Aero­s­truc­tures area.

Frédé­ric Saizy, CEO of Avia­group: “We are deligh­ted that Aero­cast will become part of Avia­group. We see inte­res­t­ing opera­tio­nal synergy poten­tial not only due to the physi­cal proxi­mity to Indraero Siren’s almost neigh­bor­ing produc­tion faci­lity. We have also recei­ved very posi­tive feed­back and support for the acqui­si­tion from custo­mers. Avia­group sees itself as a part­ner to aero­space OEMs and pursues an active conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy through selec­tive acqui­si­ti­ons to stabi­lize the value and supply chains in the aero­space indus­try for the bene­fit of its customers.”

www.quantum-capital-partners.com

News

Berlin — Leaps by Bayer is inves­t­ing in Berlin-based digi­tal health company Ada Health as part of its Series B finan­cing round. The finan­cing round is worth $90 million and was led by Leaps by Bayer. In addi­tion, inves­tors Samsung Cata­lyst Fund, Vitru­vian Part­ners, Inteligo Bank, F4 and Mutsch­ler Ventures parti­ci­pa­ted in the round. SMP provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Leaps by Bayer on the Series B finan­cing round of Berlin-based digi­tal health company Ada Health.

Leaps by Bayer is the impact invest­ment unit of the phar­maceu­ti­cal company Bayer AG, which uses its invest­ments to find solu­ti­ons to some of the biggest chal­lenges of our time in the fields of health and agri­cul­ture. The invest­ment in Ada Health is Leaps’ first commit­ment in Germany.

Ada has deve­lo­ped a powerful arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI)-based health analy­tics plat­form. It is desi­gned to help users better under­stand their symptoms and iden­tify and diffe­ren­tiate dise­ase patterns with great medi­cal accu­racy. At the same time, the plat­form supports users in finding the right medi­cal care in a timely and safe manner. The Ada app, which is aimed at consu­mers, has alre­ady recor­ded more than 23 million health analy­ses perfor­med world­wide since its global launch. The goal of the funding, accor­ding to the company, is to further advance Ada’s tech­no­lo­gies and acce­le­rate the company’s path to beco­ming the global leader in perso­na­li­zed digi­tal health. This is also inten­ded to streng­then the company’s leading posi­tion in the USA.

“We are very plea­sed to have supported the Leaps team in this invest­ment in a German company that aims to improve global access to health­care through digi­ta­liza­tion,” said Stephan Bank.

Consul­tant Leaps by Bayer: SMP
Dr. Stephan Bank (Lead), Partner
Dr. Florian Wilbrink, Associate
Dr. Chris­toph Lütten­berg, Associate
Peter Schä­fer, Associate

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP’s attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent 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. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become 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, SMP employs more than 70 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors and tax specia­lists in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. For more infor­ma­tion: www.smp.law and www.linkedin.com/company/smp.law.

News

June 02, 2021 — Today, Origin.Bio announ­ced its $15m Series Seed, led by EQT Ventures with parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tor BlueY­ard Capi­tal, Taavet Hinri­kus and Sten Tamviki, Inven­tures, Acequia Capi­tal, and Char­lie Song­hurst. Origin.Bio is a next-gene­ra­tion synthe­tic biology company that repli­ca­tes and impro­ves ingre­di­ents from tradi­tio­nal chemi­cal indus­tria­liza­tion proces­ses, free­ing manu­fac­tu­r­ers from petro­che­mi­cal depen­dency. — DLA Piper advi­sed EQT Ventures on its invest­ment in Munich-based start-up Origin.Bio in a $15 million seed round.

Since its foun­ding in 2021, Origin.Bio, a synthe­tic biology company, has been connec­ting bioen­gi­neers with nature. It produ­ces synthe­tic micro­or­ga­nisms that can produce many of the same subs­tances that tradi­tio­nal chemi­cal indus­try proces­ses do today, but with signi­fi­cantly lower energy use and waste gene­ra­tion and avoi­ding petro­leum chemi­cals. The company provi­des the link between R&D‑focused insti­tu­ti­ons and manu­fac­tu­r­ers and increased climate-focu­sed innovation.

EQT Ventures is the venture capi­tal fund of the Swedish private equity fund EQT Part­ners. EQT Ventures invests in fast-growing, inno­va­tive and tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies in all sectors world­wide, with a focus on Europe and the US.

Advi­sors to EQT Ventures: DLA Piper
Led by Part­ner Andreas Füch­sel (Private Equity/M&A), Part­ner Semin O (Liti­ga­tion & Regu­la­tory), Coun­sel Kaja Herr­mann (Labor Law), Senior Asso­ciate Phil­ipp Groll (Private Equity/M&A) and Asso­cia­tes Alex­an­der Rösch (Liti­ga­tion & Regu­la­tory), Johan­nes Klug (Labor Law, all Frank­furt) and Jessica Herr­mann (Corpo­rate, Munich).

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is one of the world’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.dlapiper.com

News

Munich — The LEDLENSER Group has acqui­red all shares in Ledco Ltd, Sunninghill, Berkshire (UK), as part of the entre­pre­neu­rial succes­sion. Ledco was foun­ded in 2004 and exclu­si­vely distri­bu­tes LEDLENSER products in Great Britain, Ireland and Nort­hern Ireland. Former owner Jon Kemp will initi­ally remain with the company to ensure a smooth hando­ver. In the COVID-19 year, Ledco’s busi­ness, like LEDLENSER’s busi­ness model, again proved to be extre­mely robust and perfor­med very well.

With the acqui­si­tion of Ledco, LEDLENSER is consis­t­ently pursuing the further opti­miza­tion of its value-enhan­cing distri­bu­tion stra­tegy. Follo­wing the successful estab­lish­ment of its own sales subsi­dia­ries in North America and Denmark, the acqui­si­tion of Ledco means that the company is now also swit­ching to direct sales in the UK. In the coming years, sales in England, Scot­land, Wales, Ireland and Nort­hern Ireland are to be syste­ma­ti­cally expan­ded further in order to streng­then the presence in these important markets for LEDLENSER and to conti­nuously expand the reve­nue and earnings contri­bu­tion to the Group.

After the Group was alre­ady able to increase its over­all perfor­mance with a high single-digit growth rate in the crisis year 2020, LEDLENSER star­ted the new year 2021 with signi­fi­cant double-digit reve­nue growth compared to the same period of the previous year. LEDLENSER’s successful deve­lo­p­ment can be attri­bu­ted to the consis­tent imple­men­ta­tion of stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves since Afinum’s entry. The topic of product inno­va­tion also plays a major role here. As a result, more new products were laun­ched in 2020 than ever before in the company’s history. The e‑commerce share is also conti­nuously incre­asing due to invest­ments in tech­no­logy, online marke­ting and the team. Purcha­sing and produc­tion opti­miza­tion at our own plant in China are also alre­ady making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to earnings and ensu­ring product avai­la­bi­lity and supply capa­bi­lity in these chal­len­ging times.

LEDLENSER Group is a plat­form invest­ment of AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co. KG, which was acqui­red by the Ameri­can Leather­man Tool Group in a carve-out at the end of 2018. LEDLENSER is one of the world’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of high-quality LED flash­lights and head­lamps for deman­ding profes­sio­nal users and outdoor enthu­si­asts. The company, head­quar­te­red in Solin­gen, Germany, was foun­ded in 1993 and is conside­red the inven­tor of the LED flashlight.

About Afinum
Afinum Manage­ment GmbH is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company owned by the manage­ment with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, which specia­li­zes in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe.

News

Munich — The owner of mod IT Services GmbH (“mod”), Anja Oster­loh, sold her shares to the owner-mana­ged invest­ment company EOS Part­ners GmbH (“EOS”) in May 2021 with retroac­tive effect to Decem­ber 31, 2020. POELLATH advi­sed EOS on the transaction.

Foun­ded in 1991, mod IT Services GmbH is a total service provi­der for indi­vi­dual work­place manage­ment and IT secu­rity solu­ti­ons. The offer includes consul­ting, custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons as well as joint imple­men­ta­tion in projects and support for the ongo­ing opera­ti­ons of its custo­mers. The company employs around 150 people at its sites in Einbeck, Hano­ver and Kassel and supports more than 10,000 IT work­places worldwide.

EOS Part­ners GmbH is a long-term orien­ted invest­ment company focu­sing on medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region that have unique selling propo­si­ti­ons, sustainable custo­mer rela­ti­onships and high growth poten­tial. EOS supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in streng­thening their product and service port­fo­lios, which is often linked to further invest­ments such as bolt-on acqui­si­ti­ons. Curr­ently, EOS mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately 200 million euros of equity.

mod IT Service­Be­ra­ter EOS Part­ners GmbH in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the estab­lish­ment of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion legally with the follo­wing Munich team:

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Manage­ment Participation/Private Equity)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation/Private Equity)

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.

We offer compre­hen­sive services in the follo­wing areas: Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons | Private Equity | Venture Capi­tal | Private Funds | Real Estate Tran­sac­tions | Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets | Finan­cing | Tax | Succes­sion and Wealth | Foun­da­ti­ons and Non-Profit Orga­niza­ti­ons | IP/IT, Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust | Liti­ga­tion and Arbitration.

News

Karls­ruhe — The tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners (“LEA”) supports the merger of PROCAD, with keytech Soft­ware GmbH as well as ACATEC Soft­ware GmbH to form one of the leading soft­ware provi­ders for the digi­ta­liza­tion of the product life­cy­cle with 250 employees, around 1,350 custo­mers and more than 125,000 users. The move will increase the Group’s inno­va­tive strength and closely inte­grate its product data manage­ment (PDM), product life­cy­cle manage­ment (PLM) and product confi­gu­ra­tion (CPQ) solutions.

The low-code approach and stan­dar­di­zed imple­men­ta­tion methods mean custo­mers are produc­tive faster. The appli­ca­ti­ons’ func­tions, ease of use and custo­miza­bi­lity signi­fi­cantly increase process effi­ci­ency. The comple­xity of end-to-end digi­tiza­tion from deve­lo­p­ment, marke­ting, produc­tion and main­ten­ance to the digi­tal twin is made mana­geable — in the cloud and on-premise.

Foun­ded in Reck­ling­hau­sen in 1996, keytech Soft­ware GmbH is one of the leading PLM provi­ders in the German-spea­king region specia­li­zing in the opti­miza­tion of busi­ness proces­ses within the product lifecycle.

ACATEC Soft­ware GmbH, based near Hano­ver, was foun­ded in 2004 and has since become one of the most inno­va­tive provi­ders of Confi­gure Price Quote (CPQ) and CAD auto­ma­tion soft­ware in Germany.

Gerhard Knoch, Mana­ging Direc­tor of PROCAD:
“We are deligh­ted to join forces at eye level and aim to be the part­ner of choice for our custo­mers when it comes to orchest­ra­ting know­ledge along the entire product life­cy­cle in a highly effi­ci­ent way — no other company offers such easy digi­tiza­tion of these busi­ness proces­ses. With our strong part­ner network, we will conti­nue to expand our market posi­tion internationally.”

Dr. Reiner Heim­soth, foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of keytech:
“With keytech and PROCAD, two extre­mely expe­ri­en­ced compa­nies come toge­ther. When two strong PLM experts join forces and combine their in-depth know­ledge, it’s clear that the combi­na­tion of proven PLM and PDM solu­ti­ons provi­des the indus­try with an enorm­ous increase in efficiency.”

Henning Bitter, foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of ACATEC:
“Our speed­maxx product confi­gu­ra­tor comple­ments the PLM solu­ti­ons from keytech and PROCAD perfectly. The merger crea­tes by far the best over­all solu­tion for an all-round smart, digi­tal product life­cy­cle, start­ing from product confi­gu­ra­tion by the custo­mer at the point of sale, through produc­tion, to opera­tion and main­ten­ance of the product.”

Phil­ipp Hertel, Part­ner at LEA:
“With our invest­ment in PROCAD in August 2018, we pursued the goal of expan­ding to become the leading digi­ta­liza­tion solu­tion for product life­cy­cle manage­ment. The addi­tion of keytech and ACATEC’s market-reco­gni­zed solu­ti­ons and expert teams is another important step on this path.”

About LEA Partners
LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. Based in Karls­ruhe, one of the largest tech­no­logy clus­ters in Europe, LEA Part­ners has mana­ged invest­ments in nume­rous tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. The merger of PROCAD, keytech and ACATEC repres­ents another trans­for­ma­tive tran­sac­tion for the €200 million B2B tech fund focu­sed on soft­ware compa­nies from the DACH region.

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