ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Zurich/ Stutt­gart — The Swiss indus­trial group Artum AG has acqui­red a stake in Eppstein­FOILS GmbH & Co KG. One of the sellers is the invest­ment company Corner­stone Capi­tal. Toge­ther with long-time mana­ging direc­tor Dirk Mälzer, Artum plans to conti­nue the success story of Eppstein­FOILS GmbH & Co. KG as a hidden cham­pion in a market niche and to further streng­then the current market posi­tion of the Eppstein Group in line with its long-term invest­ment approach. Artum was advi­sed by a team led by Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, Part­ner at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

Eppstein­FOILS GmbH & Co. KG manu­fac­tures high-quality and extre­mely thin tech­ni­cal non-ferrous metal foils. The films produ­ced by the company, which was foun­ded in Eppstein in 1852, are used speci­fi­cally in the fields of medi­cal tech­no­logy, mate­ri­als test­ing, the pack­a­ging indus­try and elec­tro­nics. Around 100 employees work for the company.

Artum AG is a Swiss indus­trial group owned by entre­pre­neurs. Artum has no inten­tion to resell the compa­nies in which it has inves­ted. The long-term stra­tegy is aimed at turning medium-sized compa­nies into powerful and profi­ta­ble inter­na­tio­nal indus­trial groups. Since 2001, Artum has built 15 compa­nies into eight indus­try groups and deve­lo­ped them into market leaders.

Advi­sors to Artum AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, LL.M. (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Stuttgart
Marcel Behrendt (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Stuttgart
Dr. Alex­an­der Schott (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Stuttgart
Dr. Till Naruisch, LL.M (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Frankfurt
Dr. Frank Baßler (Real Estate Law), Stuttgart
Michael Below (Public Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Anne Schulz (Public Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Stefan Jöster (Insu­rance Law), LL.M., Cologne
Chris­toph Hexel (Labor Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Alex­an­der Bork (Labor Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Markus Klin­ger (IP/IT), Stuttgart
Dr. Felix Drefs (IP/IT), Stuttgart
Phil­ipp Roman Schrö­ler (IP), Düsseldorf
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg
Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (Anti­trust Law), Hamburg

News

Berlin/ Vienna — SMP advi­sed the Euro­pean VC inves­tor Speed­in­vest on the struc­tu­ring of the second focus fund gene­ra­tion Speed­in­vest x 2. The backers again include the two anchor inves­tors of the first Speed­in­vest fund, Russ­me­dia and the Styria Media Group from Austria. The Speed­in­vest x 2 focus fund invests in pre-seed, seed and Series A finan­cing rounds of promi­sing start­ups in the digi­tal market­places and network effects sectors. Speed­in­vest recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice from a team led by SMP part­ner Stephan Bank.

“With the various focus funds, Speed­in­vest bund­les concen­tra­ted sector exper­tise. The success of this invest­ment stra­tegy was recently demons­tra­ted again in the USD 250 million Series C round of the port­fo­lio company Tier Mobi­lity. We are very plea­sed that SMP was able to accom­pany the largest Austrian VC fund after the struc­tu­ring of the Speed­in­vest 3 fund now also in the launch of the second focus fund gene­ra­tion of Speed­in­vest x 2″, says Stephan Bank.

About Speed­in­vest
Speed­in­vest is a Euro­pean venture capi­ta­list head­quar­te­red in Vienna that focu­ses on early-stage invest­ments in DeepT­ech, FinTech, Digi­tal Health, Consu­mer­Tech, Indus­tri­al­Tech and Network Effects. Speed­in­vest relies on a combi­na­tion of hori­zon­tal fund gene­ra­ti­ons and verti­cal focus funds docked to them. Speed­in­vest Group employs more than 40 invest­ment profes­sio­nals who work toge­ther in sector-focu­sed teams and 20 opera­tio­nal profes­sio­nals who provide full-service HR, marke­ting, busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment and U.S. expan­sion support to port­fo­lio compa­nies. Speed­in­vest has offices in London, Berlin, Paris, Munich, Vienna and San Fran­cisco. Speedinvest’s port­fo­lio compa­nies include Tier Mobi­lity, Wefox, Legal OS, Planetly, Candis and Fincompare.

Advi­sor Speed­in­vest: SMP
Dr. Stephan Bank (structuring/lead manage­ment), Partner
Matthias Enge (Struc­tu­ring), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory Law), Partner
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Regu­la­tory Law), 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 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 over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

News

Munich — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) sell their majo­rity stake in Eschen­bach Holding GmbH (“Eschen­bach”), Nurem­berg. Eschen­bach is a German market leader in eyewear and spec­ta­cle frames, vision aids and ready-to-wear sunglas­ses with strong posi­tio­ning in Europe and the USA. Toge­ther with the British Inspecs Group plc (“Inspecs”), based in Bath and listed in London, Eschen­bach will further expand this strong market posi­tion. The details of the tran­sac­tion are not being disc­lo­sed and the tran­sac­tion remains subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties and the fulfill­ment of contrac­tual conditions.

Foun­ded in 1913, Eschen­bach is today the world market leader for opti­cal vision aids and one of the leading global desi­gners of eyewear and opti­cal products. Whether with its charac­terful eyewear brands, its magni­fy­ing vision aids or its bino­cu­lars, the company combi­nes award-winning design with relia­ble quality. This is also demons­tra­ted by seve­ral “Red Dot Awards” that Eschen­bach has recei­ved for its eyewear coll­ec­tions in the past three years alone. Accor­ding to current figu­res from the Gesell­schaft für Konsum­for­schung (GfK), the company has also been the leader in the German market for eyeglass frames in all price segments since the end of 2019.

Barclays Private Equity, Equistone’s prede­ces­sor, had acqui­red Eschen­bach toge­ther with the manage­ment team from the foun­ding family and a finan­cial inves­tor in July 2007. Since then, sales have increased from an initial €100 million to €143 million in 2019. This period also includes the stra­te­gic sale of the Tech­ni­cal Optics divi­sion in 2014 and the important acqui­si­ti­ons of the British eyewear supplier Inter­na­tio­nal Ey ewear Limi­ted (2008) and the US eyewear brand Tura (2009).

Inspecs, a desi­gner, manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of eyeglass frames and lenses was foun­ded in 1988 by Robin Totter­man (CEO). The Group produ­ces a wide range of eyewear frames for the opti­cal, sunglas­ses and safety segments, which are sold either “bran­ded” (under license or through the Group’s own brands) or “OEM” (inclu­ding trade­marks on behalf of retail custo­mers and unbran­ded). As one of the few compa­nies able to offer such a one-stop-shop solu­tion for inter­na­tio­nal retail chains, Inspecs is ideally posi­tio­ned to conti­nue gaining market share in the growing global eyewear market. Inspecs’ custo­mers include inter­na­tio­nally posi­tio­ned retail­ers in the opti­cal segment and beyond, as well as whole­sa­lers and inde­pen­dent opti­ci­ans. The Group’s distri­bu­tion network covers 80 count­ries and reaches appro­xi­m­ately 30,000 points of sale. Inspecs opera­tes globally with offices in the UK, Portu­gal, Scan­di­na­via, the USA and China (Hong Kong, Macau and Shen­zen), and manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties in Viet­nam, China, the UK and Italy.

Dr. Marc Arens, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Part­ner of Equis­tone at the Munich loca­tion: “The succes­ses of our time toge­ther, an extre­mely posi­tive fiscal year 2019 and a new five-year growth stra­tegy provide Eschen­bach with the ideal basis for further successful corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment. The merger with Inspecs will give Eschen­bach addi­tio­nal impe­tus for a new chap­ter in its success story and sustain­ably streng­then its global compe­ti­tive position.”

“In the very good coope­ra­tion over the past ten years, Equis­tone has always proven to be a relia­ble and growth-orien­ted inves­tor and part­ner,” adds Eschen­bach CEO Dr. Jörg Zobel. “Toge­ther with Equis­tone, we have found the ideal stra­te­gic part­ner for our future five-year stra­tegy in Inspecs. We have big goals that we want to realize toge­ther with our new part­ner. In doing so, high stan­dards of craft­sman­ship and quality as well as the opti­mal combi­na­tion of form and func­tion in design shall remain essen­tial for us.”

“We have been follo­wing Eschenbach’s deve­lo­p­ment with inte­rest for some time and are plea­sed to welcome Germany’s No. 1 eyewear manu­fac­tu­rer and its team to the Inspecs Group. The combi­na­tion of these two indus­try-leading compa­nies crea­tes the sixth largest eyewear provi­der in the world over­all and will allow us to expand into addi­tio­nal key markets around the world while further diver­si­fy­ing our combi­ned custo­mer and product port­fo­lio. This is an exci­ting time for the indus­try and I am alre­ady looking forward to working with Eschen­bach,” said Robin Totter­man, CEO of Inspecs.

Respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone are Michael H. Bork, Dr. Marc Arens and Julia Lucà. Equis­tone and Eschen­bach were advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (M&A), Ashurst (Legal), E&Y Parthe­non (Stra­tegy) and E&Y (Finan­cial & Tax). Inspecs was advi­sed by Living­stone (M&A), Gleiss Lutz (Legal) and KPMG (Finan­cial & Tax).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 150 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 40 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. www.equistone.de / www.equistonepe.com.

About Eschen­bach www.eschenbach-optik.com.

About Inspecs https://inspecs.com.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Mark­grö­nin­gen — Kälte Eckert GmbH is pushing ahead with its plat­form stra­tegy to become the leading supplier of refri­ge­ra­tion systems in southern Germany by acqui­ring SOS Klima­tech­nik from Königs­dorf near Munich. The seller of the shares is the sole share­hol­der Alex­an­der Stiegler Iurato, who will remain with the company as mana­ging direc­tor. The inte­gra­tion of quali­fied employees, the trans­fer of know-how and the expan­sion of the catch­ment area in the Munich metro­po­li­tan region are the goals of the part­ner­ship. For the port­fo­lio company of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, this is the third add-on within a year: In Novem­ber 2019, the foun­da­tion was laid through the merger with Günther Kälte­tech­nik, and in April 2020, Gart­ner Keil GmbH was acquired.

Foun­ded in 1998, SOS Kälte­tech­nik GmbH near Munich specia­li­zes in the instal­la­tion of refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and heat pump tech­no­logy and works for commer­cial, indus­trial and private custo­mers. The company has a team of highly quali­fied employees who specia­lize in opti­mally adap­ting the perfor­mance of the instal­led cooling units to the condi­ti­ons of the premi­ses to be cooled. SOS Kälte­tech­nik GmbH takes care of the main­ten­ance and service work itself.

“The tran­sac­tion unders­cores the strength of our long-term invest­ment approach, which we consis­t­ently pursue in part­ner­ship with our port­fo­lio compa­nies, even in the market envi­ron­ment curr­ently charac­te­ri­zed by the Covid-19 pande­mic,” said Chris­tian Futter­lieb (photo), mana­ging direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner. “As part of the tran­sac­tion, Kälte Eckert gains access to more highly quali­fied person­nel and can in turn trans­fer its know-how for natu­ral refri­ger­ants to SOS Kälte­tech­nik. Thus, the company can be expan­ded into a support­ing service subsi­diary. This is an important step for Kälte Eckert’s plat­form stra­tegy on the way to beco­ming the leading supplier in southern Germany.”

The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner has held a majo­rity stake in Kälte Eckert since August 2017 and is support­ing the tradi­tio­nal company, which was foun­ded more than 50 years ago, in its further growth. There, special plants for commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion with a focus on canteen kitchens, indus­try and air condi­tio­ning are prima­rily realized.

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.

Refri­ge­ra­tion Eckert at a glance
Kälte Eckert GmbH specia­li­zes in special plant engi­nee­ring for commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion with a focus on indus­trial kitchens, indus­trial refri­ge­ra­tion and air condi­tio­ning. In addi­tion, the company is the nati­on­wide tech­no­logy leader in the field of alter­na­tive ecolo­gi­cal coolants. Custo­mers include major corpo­ra­ti­ons such as Daim­ler, UniCre­dit and LBBW. Foun­ded in 1966 by Horst Eckert, the company is now mana­ged by his sons Michael Eckert and Holger Eckert. www.kaelte-eckert.de

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

Legal: HEUKING KÜHN LÜER WOJTEK, Stutt­gart, with Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein and Char­lotte Schmitt

Finan­cial & Tax: Helmer & Part­ner, Heiden­heim, with Dr. Rüdi­ger Frieß

M & A: Stein­beis Consul­ting Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons, Stutt­gart, with Ulrich Praßler
RALA-Consul­ting, Waakir­chen, with Rain­hardt Lange
Bocon Unter­neh­mens­be­ra­tung, Reichers­beu­ern, with Michael Böddeker

News

Munich / Dela­ware — The fintech startup specia­li­zing in block­chain compli­ance solutions
Dela­ware-basedNota­bene has raised a seed funding round of USD 1.7
million comple­ted. The panel was led by block­chain and
Fintech inves­tors Castle Island Ventures and Green Visor Capi­tal from the
USA. As a Euro­pean inves­tor from the very begin­ning, the early-stage
Block­chain fund Signa­ture Ventures, based in Munich and Berlin, has already
inves­ted in the company since July of this year.

Nota­bly, block­chain enables compa­nies such as crypto exch­an­ges to meet the increasingly
to meet new compli­ance requi­re­ments. The plat­form makes it possi­ble for
Compli­ance depart­ments consider­a­bly easier and more cost-effective,
Risk-based moni­to­ring of tran­sac­tions for KYC stan­dards and possi­ble money laundering.
check The inter­na­tio­nal company with head­quar­ters in the USA and the
Switz­er­land was foun­ded at the begin­ning of 2020 by an indus­try-expe­ri­en­ced and diverse
Foun­ding team estab­lished from Europe, the USA and South America
cooperates.

About Signa­ture Ventures
Block­chain marks the next step in the evolu­tion of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion by shif­ting the para­digm from centra­li­zed data silos to decen­tra­li­zed, open data flows with the user at the heart of it.
As a dedi­ca­ted Block­chain fund with top-level indus­try experts, we are firmly rooted in the crypto commu­nity. We have access to an exten­sive ecosys­tem linking key Block­chain indus­try play­ers, VCs, corpo­ra­tes and acade­mics to connect and acce­le­rate our port­fo­lio compa­nies with the best busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties. Our vast indus­try exper­tise and network makes us attrac­tive for highly specia­li­zed start­ups and foun­ders who are looking for smart money.

News

Frank­furt a. M./ Munich — The German offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have again recor­ded good growth > of 5 percent in the current fiscal year due to their good market posi­tion, espe­ci­ally in the areas of restruc­tu­ring and private equity. To reflect this once again very posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment, the follo­wing lawy­ers have been appoin­ted Coun­sel with effect from Janu­ary 1, 2021: Dr. Matthias Eiden (Restruc­tu­ring, Frank­furt), Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Private Equity, Frank­furt), Florian Wessel (Private Equity, Munich).

In addi­tion, Manuel-Peter Fringer (photo) was also elec­ted part­ner of the firm effec­tive Janu­ary 1, 2021. Mr. Fringer is a part­ner in the private equity prac­tice in the firm’s Munich office and advi­ses on cross-border tran­sac­tions. Most recently, he advi­sed KKR and Noval­pina Capi­tal, among others, on various transactions.
“The elec­tion of Manuel-Peter Fringer as Part­ner, as well as the appoint­ment of three addi­tio­nal attor­neys in both of the firm’s German offices as Coun­sel, is a reflec­tion of the firm’s contin­ued success story and will allow us to conti­nue to capi­ta­lize on future growth poten­tial and further expand our market posi­tion,” said Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt, Mana­ging Part­ner of the German offices.

Below is a list of some of the manda­tes that the firm has acted as legal coun­sel for this year, and which have contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to its success:
* Exide Tech­no­lo­gies as part of a compre­hen­sive restruc­tu­ring of the entire Group and a realignment of the Euro­pean group of compa­nies (Germany, France, Scan­di­na­via, Bene­lux, Spain, Portu­gal) and its subse­quent sale
* Advent Inter­na­tio­nal on the acqui­si­tion of a stake in Aareon AG
* Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group (share­hol­der Noval­pina Capi­tal) in the realignment of its online busi­ness activities.
* Inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor group in the bidding process for Avaloq
* Terreal when buying Creaton
* Santé Cie (port­fo­lio company of Ardian) on the acqui­si­tion of Aposan.

News

Within a short period of time, Enpal mana­ged to close two rounds of finan­cing with Zalando foun­ders Robert Gentz, David Schnei­der and Rubin Ritter, as well as with Prince­ville Climate Tech­no­logy, an invest­ment fund backed and finan­ced by actor and envi­ron­men­tal acti­vist Leonardo DiCa­prio. Flick Gocke Schaum­burg advi­sed tech entre­pre­neur Lukasz Gadow­ski (photo) on various rounds of finan­cing for Berlin-based solar start-up Enpal.

Lukasz Gadow­ski hims­elf and Alex­an­der Samwer’s fund Picus Capi­tal, which also has a stake in Enpal, had inves­ted in previous finan­cing rounds. On this occa­sion, Flick Gocke Schaum­burg also alre­ady stood along­side Lukasz Gadowski.

Enpal now has 400 employees and offers solar systems for rent. Homeow­ners can obtain green power modu­les more cost-effec­tively through the rental model than is possi­ble through purchase. At the end of the lease term, tenants can purchase the modules.

Advi­sor Lukasz Gadow­ski: Flick Gocke Schaum­burg (Berlin)
Mathias Bülow (lead); Asso­ciate: Justus Bode (both Private Equity/Venture Capital)

News

Munich — Silver Invest­ment Part­ners has sold its stake in Land­bä­cke­rei SOMMER, the largest regio­nal quality bakery in Sauer­land and the surroun­ding area with around 60 stores and nearly 500 employees, to finan­cial inves­tor Auctus Capi­tal Part­ners. Network Corpo­rate Finance exclu­si­vely advi­sed the owners and the company on the transaction.

Tran­sac­tion
With the acqui­si­tion of SOMMER, AUCTUS plans to accom­pany the further growth of the bakery chain. In addi­tion to orga­nic deve­lo­p­ment, the growth stra­tegy also focu­ses on regio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons. Barbara Zeyß remains with SOMMER as Mana­ging Direc­tor and conti­nues to expand her share­hol­ding in the company.

The company
SOMMER was foun­ded in 1927 in Eslohe-Bremke and has estab­lished itself as a regio­nal quality leader in the Sauer­land region. The company opera­tes loca­ti­ons in single loca­ti­ons as well as in the fore­courts of high-traf­fic super­mar­kets and hyper­mar­kets. Follo­wing the take­over by Silver Invest­ment Part­ners and with the arri­val of Ms. Barbara Zeyß as mana­ging part­ner, there was a stra­te­gic realignment of the branch port­fo­lio and the intro­duc­tion of manage­ment and control­ling systems. These measu­res have impro­ved proces­ses and produc­tion plan­ning and signi­fi­cantly increased SOMMER’s results. Today, SOMMER serves both the bakery and quick service markets with its wide range of bread, pastries and snacks.

About Network Corpo­rate Finance
Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have estab­lished oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002.

 

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte has advi­sed BMG on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the inde­pen­dent German promo­ter Under­co­ver GmbH. The two compa­nies will work toge­ther in the future as part of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship. Under­co­ver foun­der and CEO Michael Schacke and the 30-strong team will remain with the company.

The tran­sac­tion marks BMG’s first entry into the live music busi­ness in the company’s history. Under the umbrella of the Bertels­mann Content Alli­ance, the new divi­sion will also work with Bertelsmann’s other content busi­nesses in Germany, such as Medi­en­gruppe RTL Deutsch­land, RTL Radio, UFA, the Penguin Random House publi­shing group and Gruner + Jahr.

Under­co­ver GmbH was foun­ded in Braun­schweig in 1991 and orga­ni­zes over 200 concerts and shows a year in nort­hern Germany alone. In addi­tion, Under­co­ver deve­lops and produ­ces its own formats and has been booking tours and festi­vals of natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal artists in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land for 15 years.

Consul­tant BMG:
SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte, Munich: Dr. Matthias Nord­mann (Corporate/M&A, Lead), Eva Bona­cker (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Martin Land­auer (Labor Law), Stefan C. Schi­cker, LL.M. (IP); Asso­ciate: David Leon Solberg (Corporate/M&A)

News

Frank­furt a. M. — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN CAPITAL”) on its invest­ment in Forto GmbH. The $50 million funding round led by INVEN CAPITAL also included parti­ci­pa­tion from Iris Capi­tal and exis­ting inves­tors such as Maersk, North­zone, Cherry Ventures, H14 and Rider Global.

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. The company now has more than 2,000 custo­mers, inclu­ding compa­nies such as Home24, Miele and Viess­mann. Foun­ded in 2016, the company is growing rapidly and curr­ently employs around 300 people.

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

Weil’s Frank­furt office regu­larly advi­ses INVEN on its invest­ments, inclu­ding the recent finan­cing round at 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 was led by Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Chris­tian Tapp­ei­ner. He was supported by Coun­sel Konrad v. Buch­waldt and Asso­cia­tes Julian Schwa­ne­beck, Stef­fen Giolda, Sara Afschar-Hamdi, Simon Stei­ner, Mario Kuhn (all Corpo­rate), Mareike Pfeif­fer, Lili­anna Ranody (both Labor Law), Markus Cejka (Finance), Alisa Preiß­ler, Dr. Chris­tian Widera (both Tax) as well as Para­le­gals Nata­scha Späth and Kris­tina Thiel.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley and Washing­ton, D.C.

News

Berlin — Soft­ware company Jobpal has sold all its shares in the company to US-based HR tech provi­der SmartRe­crui­ters. SmartRe­crui­ters is tapping into the robot-driven recruit­ment process auto­ma­tion (RPA) market through the acqui­si­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. An SMP team led by part­ner Malte Berg­mann, photo, advi­sed on the exit toge­ther with UK law firm Withers.

Jobpal
Foun­ded in 2016 as a startup by a German team, Jobpal is a soft­ware company deve­lo­ping on AI-powered chat­bots that auto­mate commu­ni­ca­tion between employ­ers and appli­cants. Jobpal curr­ently employs around 25 people.

SmartRe­crui­ters
SmartRe­crui­ters is a recrui­ting soft­ware provi­der head­quar­te­red in San Fran­cisco with addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons in Poland, Germany, UK and France. The company was foun­ded in 2010 by Jerome Ternynck.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP 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 have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Consul­tant Jobpal: SMP
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Lead Part­ner, Taxes), Partner
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Corpo­rate, M&A), Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Taxes), Senior Associate

News

Finland — IQM Quan­tum Compu­ters, the Euro­pean leader in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of super­con­duc­ting quan­tum compu­ters, secu­res EUR 39 million in a new round of finan­cing. This brings the total amount raised to date to EUR 71 million — one of the highest amounts raised by a Euro­pean deep tech start-up in a single year.

Lead inves­tor MIG led the round of exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding Tesi, Open­O­cean, Maki.vc, Vito Ventures and Matadero QED, as well as new inves­tors inclu­ding Vsquared, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capi­tal and Tencent.

Head­quar­te­red in Helsinki with a second office in Munich, the deep-tech company supplies commer­ci­ally available quan­tum compu­ters for rese­arch labo­ra­to­ries and super­com­pu­ting centers. The high-perfor­mance compu­ters are expec­ted to solve extre­mely complex compu­ta­tio­nal tasks within hours — a task that previously took seve­ral years. Through a unique co-design approach, IQM provi­des quan­tum bene­fits to indus­trial custo­mers through appli­ca­tion-speci­fic proces­sors. The company thus supplies the complete hard­ware stack for a quan­tum compu­ter, which inte­gra­tes various tech­no­lo­gies and enables coope­ra­tion with quan­tum soft­ware companies.

Quan­tum compu­ting is still in a rela­tively early stage of deve­lo­p­ment, but experts say it will gain elemen­tal importance in the coming decade, making major breakth­roughs in health­care, logi­stics, finance, chemis­try and other fields.

IQM is one of the fastest growing compa­nies in the quan­tum compu­ting sector and alre­ady has one of the world’s largest quan­tum engi­nee­ring teams. Funding from the current round will be used to acce­le­rate hard­ware deve­lo­p­ment and produce appli­ca­tion-speci­fic quan­tum compu­ters. In addi­tion, a large portion of the funding will go toward retai­ning and retai­ning the best talent in quan­tum compu­ting, as well as the sales and busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment teams.

Advi­sor to MIG Fund: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
MIG Fonds is a long-term client of LUTZ | ABEL. In the current finan­cing round, the advi­sory team consis­ted of Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch, LL.M. (lead) and Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (both VC / M&A, Munich) together.

News

Munich — Bearing­Point sells its inde­pen­dent Regu­la­tory Tech­no­logy (RegTech) divi­sion to leading private equity inves­tor Nordic Capi­tal in a share deal. The closing of the tran­sac­tion with Nordic Capi­tal is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. DLA Piper advi­sed Bearing­Point on this transaction.

The tran­sac­tion is the result of a stra­te­gic process to acce­le­rate the growth of the RegTech divi­sion as a soft­ware company provi­ding specia­li­zed, profes­sio­nal and mana­ged services along the regu­la­tory value chain. Bearing­Point will conti­nue to act as a stra­te­gic consul­ting part­ner and retain a mino­rity stake in RegTech.

RegTech is a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in the areas of regu­la­tory and risk tech­no­logy, tax tech­no­logy and report­ing services along the regu­la­tory value chain. Through close cont­act with regu­la­tors and as a member of key stan­dards commit­tees, RegTech is actively invol­ved in the draf­ting and deve­lo­p­ment of regu­la­tory stan­dards. With more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence in the indus­try, RegTech is firmly estab­lished as a market leader in Europe.

Bearing­Point is a leading global inde­pen­dent manage­ment and tech­no­logy consul­ting firm with a network of consul­tants that includes more than 10,000 employees and supports clients in over 70 count­ries. The company opera­tes in three busi­ness areas: The first covers the consul­ting busi­ness and focu­ses on five key areas to drive growth in all regi­ons. The second unit provi­des IP-driven mana­ged services beyond SaaS, offe­ring its custo­mers mission-criti­cal services that support busi­ness success. The third unit provi­des soft­ware solu­ti­ons for successful digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. It is also focu­sed on explo­ring inno­va­tive busi­ness models with custo­mers and part­ners by funding and deve­lo­ping start-ups.

Advi­sor Bearing­Point: DLA Piper
Lead Part­ner Dr. Thomas Schmuck, Senior Asso­ciate Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin. The other team members were part­ners Andreas Füch­sel (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Marie-Theres Rämer (Tax, all Frank­furt), Jan Pohle (IPT), Prof. Dr. Ludger Gies­berts (Lit&Reg, both Colo­gne) and Semin O, coun­sel Sergej Bräuer (both Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Dr. Thilo Streit (Lit&Reg) and Dr. Thors­ten Ammann (IPT, both Colo­gne), senior asso­cia­tes Niklas Mangels, Phil­ipp Groll (both Corporate/M&A), Miray Kavruk (all Frank­furt) and France Vehar (Colo­gne, both IPT), and asso­cia­tes Phil­ipp Meyer (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Andreas Rüdi­ger (IPT, Colo­gne). DLA Piper teams from the UK, Ireland, the Nether­lands, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Roma­nia were invol­ved in the consultancy.

The project was mana­ged in-house at Bearing­Point by Dr. Andreas Schöp­perle, Foto (Group Gene­ral Coun­sel) and Rainer Schö­ner (Senior Coun­sel). The tran­sac­tion was mana­ged at Bearing­Point by the M&A unit within Bearing­Point Capi­tal, led by Patrick Palm­gren toge­ther with Andreas Flach (Bearing­Point Chief Finan­cial Officer).

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.

News

Munich, Germany — Cata­lYm, an inno­va­tive biotech company deve­lo­ping novel immu­no­the­rapy approa­ches against cancer, has successfully closed its €50 million Series B finan­cing. The finan­cing consor­tium, led by lead inves­tor Vesa­lius Bioca­pi­tal III, also includes Novar­tis Venture Fund (NVF), Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern, copa­rion and foun­ding inves­tors Forbion and BioGe­nera­tion Ventures. Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from Vesa­lius, NVF and Bayern Kapi­tal will join the advi­sory board as new members.

The funding combi­ned with the strong commit­ment of exis­ting and new venture capi­tal inves­tors enables the all-important further deve­lo­p­ment of anti­bo­dies in the field of immuno-onco­logy. — Baker McKen­zie ’s Life Scien­ces team, led by Julia Braun, advi­sed Cata­lYm on all legal aspects of the Series B financing.

“The times of COVID-19 in parti­cu­lar are an exci­ting period for our client and the indus­try as a whole. Toge­ther with our client and our team of specia­li­zed biotech­no­logy and life scien­ces lawy­ers, we successfully secu­red funds for further rese­arch in the health­care sector with this tran­sac­tion,” commen­ted Coun­sel Julia Braun.

Cata­lYm is a biophar­maceu­ti­cal company deve­lo­ping novel cancer immu­no­the­ra­pies targe­ting growth and diffe­ren­tia­tion factor 15 (GDF-15). The company was estab­lished with start-up funding from Forbion and BGV in 2016 as a spin-off of the Univer­sity Women’s Hospi­tal Würz­burg and based on the work of Prof. Dr. Jörg Wisch­husen. Cata­lYm is led by an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team with exten­sive exper­tise in immuno-onco­logy drug deve­lo­p­ment and deal expe­ri­ence, and supported by inter­na­tio­nal venture capitalists.

Baker McKenzie’s Corporate/M&A and Life Scien­ces team regu­larly advi­ses large phar­maceu­ti­cal, finan­cial inves­tor and early stage biotech­no­logy compa­nies on dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal health­care tran­sac­tions. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed, among others, Casdin Capi­tal as lead inves­tor in DNA Script’s USD 50 million exten­ded Series‑B finan­cing round, Chr. Hansen Holding on its acqui­si­tion of Jenne­wein, Cure­Vac on its stra­te­gic mRNA tech­no­logy colla­bo­ra­tion with GSK, LSP Life Science Part­ners on a USD 38.5 million Series‑B finan­cing in DNA Script, Gala­pa­gos on a 10-year global rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment colla­bo­ra­tion with Gilead, Hita­chi Chemi­cal Company, Tokyo, in the acqui­si­tion of German apceth Biopharma, Forbion as lead inves­tor in a EUR 17 million Series‑C equity finan­cing of Omei­cos Thera­peu­tics and in a USD 54 million Series‑A finan­cing of Gotham Thera­peu­tics Corpo­ra­tion, Mundi­pharma in the sale of its Limburg manu­fac­tu­ring facility.

Legal advi­sor Cata­lYm: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Corporate/M&A: Julia Braun (Coun­sel, Munich)
Corporate/M&A: Bert­hold Hummel (Part­ner, Munich), Michelle Karrer, Dr. Julia Rossié (both Asso­ciate, Munich)
Public Law: Anahita Thoms (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Alex­an­der Ehrle (Asso­ciate, Berlin)
Anti­trust & Trade: Dr. Jonas Brueck­ner (Coun­sel, Berlin)
Pharma: Dr. Chris­tian Burholt (Part­ner, Berlin)

About Baker McKenzie
Baker McKen­zie advi­ses clients to successfully deal with the chal­lenges of globa­liza­tion. We solve complex legal problems across natio­nal borders and legal fields. Our unique culture — grown over 70 years — enables our 13,000 employees to under­stand local markets while opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. We use the trus­ting and friendly coope­ra­tion in our inter­na­tio­nal network for the bene­fit of our clients.

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

News

Karls­ruhe, Germany — Tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners (“LEA”) is selling IDL, a leading provi­der of finan­cial perfor­mance manage­ment soft­ware (FPM), to insightsoft­ware, a global leader in finan­cial report­ing and enter­prise perfor­mance manage­ment solu­ti­ons. Behind insightsoft­ware are the two private equity inves­tors TA Asso­cia­tes and Genstar Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the key points of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance and is expec­ted in the course of this year. This is the second exit for LEA from the €200m B2B tech fund focu­sed on soft­ware compa­nies from the DACH region.

IDL has specia­li­zed in the deve­lo­p­ment of FPM soft­ware solu­ti­ons for conso­li­da­tion, plan­ning, analy­sis and report­ing since 1990. Clas­si­fied by the analyst firm BARC as a market leader with a top posi­tion in the area of “Port­fo­lio Capa­bi­li­ties”, IDL serves corpo­rate groups and inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting medium-sized compa­nies in a wide range of industries.

LEA’s invest­ment was made in early 2019 based on its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in leading soft­ware compa­nies with high shares of recur­ring reve­nue and substan­tial growth poten­tial. LEA was convin­ced by IDL’s unique market posi­tion of provi­ding mission-criti­cal soft­ware to a broad and loyal custo­mer base. LEA supported IDL in its trans­for­ma­tion from a foun­der-led company to a leading FPM provi­der in the German-spea­king region. Key initia­ti­ves here were the expan­sion of the manage­ment team, the estab­lish­ment of an indi­rect part­ner sales chan­nel, and the imple­men­ta­tion of a compre­hen­sive M&A stra­tegy. IDL was able to signi­fi­cantly expand its custo­mer base during this period and signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate growth in reve­nues and EBITDA.

Bern­ward Egenolf, foun­der of IDL, said, “Our decis­ion to select LEA as a part­ner for IDL’s next stage of deve­lo­p­ment has proven abso­lut­ely correct. We were able to launch decisive stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves and complete our product port­fo­lio through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. The expe­ri­ence LEA has brought to the table has been instru­men­tal in acce­le­ra­ting our growth. We are now looking forward to bene­fiting from insightsoftware’s global network as we conti­nue to internationalize.”

Sebas­tian Müller, foun­der of LEA, added: “We were able to inten­si­vely support IDL in a variety of stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves in the areas of tech­no­logy, sales, marke­ting and M&A, thus contri­bu­ting to a signi­fi­cant acce­le­ra­tion of growth. We have enjoyed our part­ner­ship with IDL and wish the entire team much success with their new part­ner insightsoftware.”

Follo­wing BELLIN’s exit to Coupa Soft­ware in June 2020, the tran­sac­tion repres­ents the second exit from the €200 million LEA Mittel­stands­part­ner fund. LEA was advi­sed by GCA Altium and Milbank in the transaction.

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. With two invest­ment vehic­les for all company phases and a strong network of opera­tio­nal sector experts as well as stra­te­gic part­ners, LEA Part­ners can contri­bute substan­tial added value to the deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy companies.

News

Stuttgart/ Schwä­bisch Gmünd — Menold Bezler advi­sed BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, based in Stutt­gart, on the acqui­si­tion of a mino­rity stake of 40% in QLOCKTWO Group, based in Schwä­bisch Gmünd.

At QLOCKTWO, word clocks have been turned into design objects in an artis­a­nal produc­tion process since 2009. The time is displayed typo­gra­phi­cally with lumi­nous dots, and the language of the clock is varia­ble. The design has won over 30 inter­na­tio­nal awards, inclu­ding the Red Dot Design Award. World­wide sales are hand­led by a network of around 1,000 specia­list retail part­ners, the company’s own flag­ship stores and the online store.

BWK is one of the largest German capi­tal invest­ment compa­nies. With a long-term invest­ment approach, BWK supports medium-sized compa­nies from a broad range of indus­tries with equity capital.

Menold Bezler advi­sed BWK on its entry as a mino­rity share­hol­der in all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion. BWK regu­larly trusts the law firm when acqui­ring majo­rity or mino­rity stakes, most recently, for exam­ple, in the mino­rity stake in the manu­fac­tu­rer of auto­ma­ted measu­ring and test­ing tech­no­logy Xactools GmbH.

Advi­sors to BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Thomas Futte­rer, Kers­tin Lauber, Dr. Andreas Mayr, Nicole Brandt (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Jochen Bern­hard (Part­ner), Eliana Koch-Heint­ze­ler (both Anti­trust), Dr. Cars­ten Ulbricht (Part­ner), Carlo Kunz (both IT Law), Dr. Julia Schnei­der (Part­ner), Markus Kleinn (both Intellec­tual Property), Marc Ehrmann, LL.M. (Real Estate Law), Stef­fen Foll­ner (Banking Law & Finan­cing), Kath­rin Seiz (Labor 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. www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed the foun­ders of 089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH, Georg Anger­meier and Gunter Maisch, on the sale of all their shares in the company to GMGT Acqui­si­tion GmbH, a company of the Köberl Group, in which the invest­ment company Gimv holds a stake. 089 Immo­bi­len­ma­nage­ment GmbH is a provi­der of faci­lity services with loca­ti­ons in Munich and Augsburg.

Listed on the Brussels Euron­ext stock exch­ange, Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with a mana­ged port­fo­lio of more than 50 invest­ments. The compa­nies gene­rate combi­ned sales of over 2.5 billion euros and employ around 14,000 people.

Advi­sors to Gunter Maisch and Georg Anger­meier: McDer­mott Will & Emery
Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Phil­ipp Schäuble (Labor Law), Nina Siewert, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law; both Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Robert Feind (Corporate/M&A), Fran­ziska Leub­ner (Labor Law)

About 089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH
089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH is one of the leading faci­lity manage­ment compa­nies with a focus on jani­to­rial services in the Munich metro­po­li­tan region. In total, the company looks after around 28,000 resi­den­tial units in the areas of winter services, clea­ning, gardening and buil­ding services. www.089immobilienmanagement.de.

About the Köberl Group
The group of compa­nies is one of the leading full-service provi­ders of buil­ding tech­no­logy and faci­lity manage­ment services in the southern German market. The group of compa­nies, which employs a total of around 500 people and achie­ves a total output of over 75 million euros, includes Fink Gebäu­de­tech­nik GmbH & Co KG, GEMA Gebäu­de­ma­nage­ment GmbH and 089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH. www.firmengruppe-koeberl.de.

About GIMV
For 40 years, Gimv has been iden­ti­fy­ing entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and support­ing them as a Euro­pean invest­ment company on their way to market leader­ship. Listed on Euron­ext Brussels, Gimv curr­ently has a port­fo­lio of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 1.1 billion in invest­ments in over 50 holdings, which toge­ther realize reve­nues of more than EUR 2.75 billion and employ 14,000 people.

News

Munich — Myra Secu­rity recei­ves another round of finan­cing from Round2 Capi­tal. The cyber secu­rity company is focu­sing on expan­sion in times of growing digi­ta­liza­tion. LUTZ | ABEL advi­ses Round2 Capi­tal on invest­ment in Myra Secu­rity. Round2 Capi­tal is a Vienna-based inves­tor, with a focus on scale-ups.

The Munich-based cyber secu­rity company offers its custo­mers a Secu­rity-as-a-Service cloud plat­form to protect their own data traf­fic as well as networks from poten­tial cyber attacks. The cyber secu­rity provi­der counts custo­mers such as the German govern­ment, various minis­tries, the Euro­pean Central Bank, various finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and global e‑commerce play­ers among its custo­mers. Against the back­drop of growing digi­tiza­tion, demand is incre­asing for solu­ti­ons to protect these often highly sensi­tive data volu­mes from attack.

As a German provi­der, Myra Secu­rity is alre­ady well posi­tio­ned in the German and Euro­pean markets. Through the invest­ment, the company aims to further expand, deve­lop its service and increase its brand awareness.

Advi­sor Round2 Capi­tal GmbH: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
The consul­ting team around Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (Lead, VC / M&A, Munich) consis­ted of Dr. Corne­lius Renner (IT Law and Data Protec­tion, Berlin), Ute Schenn (Corpo­rate Law, Stutt­gart) and Caro­lin Lang, LL.M. (VC / M&A, Munich) together.

Advi­sor Myra Secu­rity GmbH: Baker Tilly (Daniel Laws)

News

Munich — ARQIS has supported the Munich-based multi-family holding Liberta Part­ners in the acqui­si­tion of Kienzle Auto­mo­tive GmbH. The tran­sac­tion was carried out through Liberta Part­ners Fund II as part of a succes­sor part­ner­ship. Closing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to take place in early November.

Kienzle is the leading German provi­der of sales and rela­ted services for networked devices and systems in the auto­mo­tive after­mar­ket sector. In the area of data manage­ment and fleet tele­ma­tics, Kienzle works with estab­lished soft­ware deve­lo­pers to create custo­mer-speci­fic evalua­tions and readout opti­ons. The medium-sized company is based in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

“The name Kienzle has stood for relia­bi­lity in the trans­por­ta­tion indus­try for more than 70 years,” says Nils von Wietz­low, part­ner at Liberta and respon­si­ble for succes­sion solu­ti­ons. “We want to conti­nue to be a relia­ble part­ner in the vehicle tech­no­logy sector and consis­t­ently expand the tele­ma­tics sector by streng­thening the distri­bu­tion system.” Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in succes­sion situa­tions and corpo­rate spin-offs.

ARQIS has acted for Liberta Part­ners for the second time. For exam­ple, Dr. Mauritz von Einem’s team advi­sed on the acqui­si­tion of the Liech­ten­stein-based mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring company FMA Mecha­tro­nik Solu­ti­ons and the take­over of the tour opera­tor Ameropa, a former subsi­diary of Deut­sche Bahn AG.

Advi­sor Liberta Part­ners: ARQIS Attor­neys at Law
Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Lead; Corporate/M&A/Taxes), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP/Commercial; both Munich), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law), Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate; all Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur (Corporate/M&A), Tanja Kurt­zer (Labor Law), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (IP/Commercial; all Munich), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Labor Law), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate; both Düsseldorf)
Niit­väli (Frank­furt): Evelyn Niit­väli (Anti­trust)

About ARQIS
ARQIS Attor­neys at Law is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. www.arqis.com.

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance has advi­sed venture capi­tal inves­tor TVM Capi­tal Life Science on the signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed closing of its TVM Life Science Inno­va­tion II fund. At $478 million, the fund repres­ents the company’s largest fund to date.

TVM, a leading life science venture capi­tal firm in North America and Europe, provi­des venture capi­tal to inter­na­tio­nal biophar­maceu­ti­cal, medi­cal device and diagno­stic compa­nies in North America and Europe. The Company invests in compa­nies that offer a visi­ble and attrac­tive exit stra­tegy from the outset, with the aim of maxi­mi­zing returns and gene­ra­ting signi­fi­cant liqui­dity for inves­tors at an early stage.

With support from top-tier dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors, inclu­ding Eli Lilly, other stra­te­gic inves­tors, pension funds, endow­ments, funds of funds, asset mana­gers and leading U.S. banks, as well as family offices from North and South America, Europe and South Korea, TVM closed its fund at a total of $478 million.

TVM was foun­ded in 1983 and is inter­na­tio­nally posi­tio­ned with offices in Luxem­bourg and Canada as well as consul­ting offices in Germany and other locations.

Advi­sor TVM: Clif­ford Chance
The inter­na­tio­nal Clif­ford Chance team for TVM was led by part­ner Sonya Pauls (Corporate/Private Equity, Munich).

About Clif­ford Chance
Clif­ford Chance, one of the world’s leading law firms, is present for its clients with around 3,400 legal advi­sors in all major busi­ness centers around the world.
In Germany, Clif­ford Chance is repre­sen­ted by around 300 lawy­ers, audi­tors, tax advi­sors and soli­ci­tors in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

News

Munich/ Krif­tel — Para­gon Part­ners acqui­res Casto­lin Eutec­tic, a leading global provi­der of wear protec­tion and repair solu­ti­ons for indus­trial equip­ment, from Messer Group. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Para­gon Part­ners on the refi­nan­cing for the acqui­si­tion of Casto­lin Eutectic.

Casto­lin Eutec­tic, based in Krif­tel, Germany, offers the full range of consu­ma­bles, equip­ment and services in welding, brazing and coating tech­no­lo­gies. With six plants world­wide, Casto­lin Eutec­tic manu­fac­tures products that are used in main­ten­ance and repair work by its own service team and by more than 40,000 custo­mers in over 50 indus­tries, inclu­ding engi­nee­ring & tooling, oil & gas, steel, mining, cement, glass, power gene­ra­tion and agri­cul­ture. The more than 1,600 employees gene­rate annual sales of €300 million. With more than 100 years of expe­ri­ence in the main­ten­ance and repair busi­ness, the Casto­lin Eutec­tic brand is known for outstan­ding tech­ni­cal exper­tise and quality.

PARAGON PARTNERS, foun­ded in 2004, is a leading private equity firm in Europe with more than EUR 1.2 billion in equity under manage­ment. PARAGON PARTNERS works with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and market leader­ship. PARAGON PARTNERS unlocks new value in funda­men­tally attrac­tive busi­nesses and has the ability to address comple­xity on both the tran­sac­tional and opera­tio­nal sides, repo­si­tio­ning busi­nesses through custo­mi­zed value crea­tion programs. The company is based in Munich, Germany.

Advi­sors to para­gon Part­ners: Shear­man & Sterling
Lead: Part­ner Winfried M. Carli, Part­ner Michael J. Stein­berg (New York Finance) and Part­ner Pierre-Nico­las Ferrand (Paris Finance), Of Coun­sel Danforth Newcomb (New York Compli­ance) and Asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu, Marius Garnatz and Martina Buller (all Germany Finance) as well as Akofa Tsiagbe, Omer K. Hashmi, Jordan Franks (all New York Finance) and Yaelle Cohen (Paris Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 24 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed the Austrian Onesty Group GmbH in connec­tion with the sale of shares in the Liech­ten­stein life insurer Pris­ma­Life AG to Barme­nia Versi­che­rungs­gruppe. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory approvals.

Barme­nia coope­ra­tes with Pris­ma­Life and acqui­res 25.1 percent of the shares in Pris­ma­Life. The company is to be deve­lo­ped into a compe­tence center for inter­na­tio­nal offe­rings of unit-linked life insurance.

Pris­ma­Life AG is one of Liechtenstein’s leading life insu­rance compa­nies and is head­quar­te­red in Ruggell. The company mana­ges custo­mer funds of around 1.3 billion euros.

The Onesty Group is an inde­pen­dent bancassu­rance company based in Austria.

Advi­sor Onesty Group GmbH: SKW Schwarz Rechtsanwälte
Dr. Stephan Morsch (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Angela Poschen­rie­der (Corporate/M&A)

News

Stutt­gart — Menold Bezler advi­sed the share­hol­ders of the smart home provi­der homee GmbH on the sale of one third of their shares to Novaco Invest GmbH. The remai­ning shares are still held by Code­ate­lier GmbH from Stutt­gart and the Austrian energy service provi­der Ener­gie Stei­er­mark AG.

The Berlin-based start-up homee offers a modu­lar smart home solu­tion that combi­nes diffe­rent wire­less stan­dards from diffe­rent manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Users can expand the appli­ca­tion as desi­red via add-on modu­les in cube form and control the devices remo­tely via an app.

Novaco Invest is a subsi­diary of the Markt­hei­den­feld sun protec­tion supplier Warema Renk­hoff SE. Warema and homee alre­ady worked toge­ther on the deve­lo­p­ment of the Warema WMS cube and the parti­ci­pa­tion is inten­ded to further streng­then this coope­ra­tion. Warema contri­bu­tes exper­tise in the areas of indoor climate, sunlight manage­ment and elec­tro­nic compon­ents in particular.

A Menold Bezler team advi­sed the share­hol­ders of homee GmbH on all tran­sac­tion-rela­ted legal issues.

Advi­sors Code­ate­lier GmbH and Ener­gie Stei­er­mark AG: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Jens Schmelt (lead part­ner), Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (both corpo­rate law/M&A)

Advi­sor Novaco Invest GmbH: Esche
Dr. Stephan Bauer, Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Hamburg
Lara Bos, Asso­ciate, Corporate
Hendrik Grei­nert, Asso­ciate, Corporate
Greta Groffy, Asso­ciate, Employ­ment 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, public compa­nies and non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Berlin — In addi­tion to its exis­ting inves­tor Flash Ventures, ever­stox has gained two further renow­ned backers for the expan­sion of its digi­tal logi­stics plat­form. The fresh capi­tal comes from Global Foun­ders Capi­tal (GFC) and Capna­mic Ventures. The company says it plans to use the successfully comple­ted growth finan­cing to further grow its team, deve­lop its tech plat­form and expand its network of inde­pen­dent warehouse logi­stics provi­ders. SMP advi­sed Munich-based tech startup ever­stox on its growth financing.

“The global logi­stics market is beco­ming incre­asingly complex and often inef­fi­ci­ent as a result. With its self-deve­lo­ped cloud tech­no­logy, inclu­ding the asso­cia­ted smart features, ever­stox is setting a new stan­dard for future-proof and sustainable logi­stics. We are very plea­sed to have been able to accom­pany ever­stox as advi­sors during the entry of further inves­tors,” says Frede­rik Gärtner.

About ever­stox
The successful Munich-based start-up ever­stox is the deve­lo­per and opera­tor of the tech­no­logy plat­form of the same name, which offers scalable and data-driven warehouse logi­stics and fulfill­ment for e‑commerce, B2B and retail through a network of Euro­pean logi­stics service provi­ders. The company is succes­si­vely buil­ding the first tech­no­logy-driven and inde­pen­dent network of renow­ned warehouse logi­stics and fulfill­ment part­ners, enab­ling trans­pa­rent, effi­ci­ent and ecolo­gi­cally valuable logi­stics solu­ti­ons across Europe. With everstox’s team of experts, retail­ers bene­fit from opti­mi­zed proces­ses, in-depth market know­ledge and stra­te­gic consul­ting. For dealers, this means a clear compe­ti­tive advan­tage in sales. The company is mana­ged by its three foun­ders Boris Bösch, Felix Haber­land and Johan­nes Tress. For more infor­ma­tion about ever­stox and the Logi­stics-as-a-Service solu­tion, visit www.everstox.com.

About Capna­mic Ventures
Capna­mic Ventures, based in Colo­gne and Berlin, is one of Europe’s leading early-stage venture capi­tal inves­tors. The VC’s invest­ment focus is on tech­no­logy start­ups with B2B busi­ness models in German-spea­king count­ries. In addi­tion, Capna­mic invests with inter­na­tio­nal co-inves­tors. All port­fo­lio compa­nies are supported by Capnamic’s global indus­try and expert network and the team’s exten­sive exper­tise. The Capna­mic team consists of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment profes­sio­nals who can look back on more than 80 invest­ments, nume­rous trade sales and IPOs as well as their own entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence. They work side by side with the port­fo­lio compa­nies to lay the foun­da­tion for their strong market posi­tion and lasting success. Capna­mic is led by Jörg Binnen­brü­cker, Olaf Jacobi and Chris­tian Siegele as Mana­ging Part­ners. www.capnamic.com

About Global Foun­ders Capital
Entre­pre­neurs create incre­di­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties — we are their biggest support­ers because we have built and support multi-billion dollar tech­no­logy compa­nies at all stages of growth. Over the past two deca­des, we have made over 500 invest­ments world­wide. Face­book, Linke­dIn, Slack, Event­brite, Canva, Away Travel, HomeA­way, Zalando, Revo­lut, Funding Circle, Lazada, Trave­loka, Triv­ago, Jumia, HelloFresh and Deli­very Hero are some of our port­fo­lio compa­nies. Global Foun­ders Capi­tal invests around the world. www.globalfounderscapital.com

About Flash Ventures
Flash Ventures is a pre-seed fund in Berlin and London that provi­des initial funding to young compa­nies to help them realize their growth ambi­ti­ons. The port­fo­lio includes invest­ments in Germany, Spain, Austra­lia, Singa­pore and Indo­ne­sia. For more infor­ma­tion about Flash Ventures, visit www.fl4sh.vc.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP 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 have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Consul­tant ever­stox: SMP
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Corpo­rate), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Corpo­rate), Partner
Pia Meven (Corpo­rate), Associate

News

Stutt­gart — As part of a succes­sion plan, Finexx Holding took over BIOVEGAN GmbH, an orga­nic food produ­cer from the very begin­ning based in Bone­feld, Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate. The parties agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion. Rödl & Part­ner compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the invest­ment company Finexx on the acqui­si­tion of BIOVEGAN GmbH.

Throug­hout the tran­sac­tion, Finexx was supported by a specia­li­zed, inter­di­sci­pli­nary tran­sac­tion team from Rödl & Part­ner as advi­sors on finan­cial and tax tran­sac­tion issues. Project manage­ment in the area of tax due dili­gence was the respon­si­bi­lity of part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Kutsch, who also provi­ded tax advice during the contract nego­tia­ti­ons and advi­sed on finan­cing and tran­sac­tion struc­tu­ring, and part­ner Chris­toph Hinz, who was respon­si­ble for the finan­cial area. Asso­ciate Part­ner Matthias Zahn was respon­si­ble for the finan­cial due dili­gence and Asso­ciate Part­ner Chris­toph Hirt for the finan­cial modeling.

BIOVEGAN is a leading supplier of orga­nic, vegan and gluten-free baking and cooking ingre­di­ents in German-spea­king count­ries, specia­li­zing in deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and distri­bu­tion. With the acqui­si­tion of the company, Finexx, as a specia­list in the field of Health & Bio, comple­ments its exis­ting stake in BioneXX Holding with the brands Feel­good Shop, GSE Vertrieb, natu­rity and FITNE and stra­te­gi­cally expands its exper­tise in Europe.

About FINEXX Holding Company
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is an invest­ment company foun­ded in 2013 that specia­li­zes in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies. Typi­cal fields of acti­vity are growth invest­ment and acqui­si­tion finan­cing as well as the support of chan­ges in the share­hol­der struc­ture and succes­sion planning.

Advi­sor Finexx-Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft: Rödl & Partner
Dr. Alex­an­der Kutsch, Part­ner (Corpo­rate / M&A), Stutt­gart, Over­all Project Manage­ment — Finan­cial & TaxChris­toph Hinz, Part­ner (Tran­sac­tion Services), Stutt­gart — Financial
Chris­toph Hirt, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tran­sac­tion Services), Stutt­gart — Financial
Matthias Zahn, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tran­sac­tion Services), Munich — Financial
Julia Bader, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tax Law), Stutt­gart — Tax

News

Nurem­berg — The owners of the Hans Müller Group of Compa­nies have sold the majo­rity of their shares in Hans Müller HMP Medi­zin­tech­nik GmbH and Hans Müller Medi­zi­ni­sche + Tech­ni­sche Gase GmbH to Messer Group. The tran­sac­tion took place within the frame­work of a bidding process. The closing of the acqui­si­tion is still subject to anti­trust clearance.

The previous owner Hans Müller was compre­hen­si­vely legally advi­sed in the course of the company sale by a specia­li­zed inter­di­sci­pli­nary team of Rödl & Part­ner Germany led by part­ner Michael Wiehl. The main focus of the advice was on the imple­men­ta­tion of a complex M&A process in the context of a bidding procedure.

Hans Müller sees great advan­ta­ges for both sides in the tran­sac­tion: “With this merger, we have been able to set the stra­te­gic course for a successful future. I am convin­ced that Messer is the ideal part­ner for the contin­ued exis­tence and further deve­lo­p­ment of Hans Müller Medi­zin­tech­nik, parti­cu­larly because of its charac­ter as a family-run company.” The Hans Müller Group employs around 165 people and will conti­nue to operate as part of Messer Medi­cal Home Care Holding GmbH under its own name and the leader­ship of Mana­ging Direc­tor Hans Müller.

With this merger of two family-owned compa­nies, Messer is expan­ding its home care busi­ness and now also serves the German market. “Hans Müller’s acti­vi­ties comple­ment our busi­ness through their regio­nal arran­ge­ment,” explai­ned Adolf Walth, Execu­tive Vice Presi­dent Sales & Marke­ting Europe of Messer Group GmbH. Messer previously had home care acti­vi­ties in Austria, Belgium, France, Slova­kia, Hungary and Roma­nia. “It is important to us to conti­nue the pati­ent-orien­ted entre­pre­neu­rial approach of Hans Müller Medi­zin­tech­nik,” added Nik De Corte, CEO of Messer Medi­cal Home Care Holding GmbH.

About Hans Müller HMP Medi­cal Technology
The group of compa­nies foun­ded in 2007 includes Hans Müller HMP Medi­zin­tech­nik GmbH, Hans Müller Medi­zi­ni­sche + Tech­ni­sche Gase GmbH and Hans Müller Medi­zin­tech­ni­sche Inno­va­tio­nen GmbH. The Group opera­tes at seven loca­ti­ons: Munich, Nurem­berg, Fürth, Nabburg, Eggen­fel­den, Reut­lin­gen and Kaisers­lau­tern. The port­fo­lio includes respi­ra­tory and oxygen equip­ment, inha­la­tion and suction equip­ment, as well as therapy and diagno­stic equip­ment for medi­cal moni­to­ring of sleep apnea pati­ents and prema­ture and newborn infants.

About Messer Group
Messer Group GmbH is the world’s largest family-run specia­list for indus­trial, medi­cal and specialty gases. In the Home Care segment, Messer Medizintechnik’s range includes medi­cal products and medi­cal oxygen. Its clientele includes physi­ci­ans in private prac­tice, hospi­tals, labo­ra­to­ries, nursing homes and homes for the elderly, as well as end users.

Advi­sor Hans Müller Medi­zin­tech­nik: Rödl & Part­ner Germany
Michael Wiehl, Part­ner (Corpo­rate / M&A), Nurem­berg, Lead — M&A, Legal, Dr. Alex­an­dra Gier­ing, Part­ner (Corpo­rate / M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal, Jens Linhardt, Senior Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate / M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal, Mahmood Kawany, Senior Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate / M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal, Johan­nes Gruber, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Real Estate), Nurem­berg — Legal, Annette Jakob, Senior Asso­ciate (Real Estate), Nurem­berg — Legal, Michael Beder, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Anti­trust), Munich — Legal, Dr. Michael Braun, Part­ner (Labor Law), Hof — Legal, Dr. Mela­nie Köst­ler, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tax Law), Nurem­berg — Tax

Mr. Ralph Münch, part­ner of the tax consul­ting firm Münch & Münch (Neumarkt in der Ober­pfalz), was the lead tax advi­sor for the transaction.

News

Munich/ Tilburg — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are selling their majo­rity stake in Group of Butchers, a leading specialty meat produ­cer head­quar­te­red in Tilburg, the Nether­lands. The buyer is the Dutch invest­ment company Parcom Private Equity. Equis­tone had acqui­red Group of Butchers in early 2017 and has since supported the company’s growth stra­tegy through a series of stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, among others. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the tran­sac­tion. The sale is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Group of Butchers was foun­ded in Tilburg in 1997 and has become the market leader in the Nether­lands for high-quality, artis­a­nal butchery products with a focus on sausage and minced meat special­ties. Group of Butchers excels in high quality stan­dards, smart product marke­ting, conti­nuous inno­va­tion in purcha­sing and produc­tion, and in iden­ti­fy­ing new trends such as Ameri­can BBQ, gour­met burger restau­rants and street food. The wide range of high-quality meat and sausage products is sold prima­rily by leading retail chains in the Nether­lands, Belgium and Germany.

Equis­tone took a majo­rity stake in Group of Butchers in early 2017 and has since supported the specialty meat producer’s orga­nic and stra­te­gic growth through seve­ral targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and market expan­si­ons. In 2018, Group of Butchers acqui­red Dutch smoked and dry sausage produ­cers Koet­sier Vlees­wa­ren and Keulen Vlees­wa­ren, as well as Gebroe­ders Snij­ders Vlees­wa­ren­fa­b­riek and VLL Vers Logis­tiek Limburg.

This acqui­si­tion also enab­led Group of Butchers to expand its service offe­ring in the area of slicing and pack­a­ging of meat products. It also ente­red the German market at the end of 2018 with the acqui­si­tion of Hart­mann GmbH, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of minced meat products based in Waren­dorf in North Rhine-West­pha­lia, and the Gmyrek Group, a tradi­tio­nal meat and sausage manu­fac­tu­rer based in Gifhorn in Lower Saxony. July 2019 also saw the addi­tion of Schou­ten Vlees­wa­ren, a BBQ and grill­ware specia­list for the Dutch market. Today, Group of Butchers employs a total of 900 people at 12 produc­tion sites and two distri­bu­tion centers and expects sales of about 280 million euros in 2020.

“By part­ne­ring with Equis­tone, we have once again been able to signi­fi­cantly streng­then our posi­tion as one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers and suppli­ers of high-quality butchery products in the Nether­lands and incre­asingly also in Germany and Belgium, and expand our geogra­phi­cal reach. We look forward to working with Parcom for the next steps in our growth,” says Remko Rosman, CEO of Group of Butchers.

“Group of Butchers’ excel­lent market posi­tio­ning is prima­rily due to high quality stan­dards and exten­sive exper­tise in iden­ti­fy­ing trends in the premium meat products segment. Toge­ther with the excel­lent manage­ment team, we have imple­men­ted a successful buy & build stra­tegy over the past years and ideally posi­tio­ned the company for further growth. We are plea­sed that Group of Butchers has found an opti­mal new part­ner for the next steps,” says Dr. Marc Arens, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Part­ner at Equistone.

“Group of Butchers conti­nues to offer great growth poten­tial, both orga­ni­cally and as we further inte­grate recent acqui­si­ti­ons and build new product and custo­mer segments through buy-&-build efforts. We look forward to support­ing the company in this endea­vor going forward,” said Maurits Werk­ho­ven, Part­ner at Parcom.

Dr. Marc Arens and Maxi­mi­lian Göppert are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone. Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Roth­schild & Co (M&A), EY Parthe­non (CDD), EY Finan­cial (FDD), EY Tax (TDD) and A&O (Legal).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 150 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 40 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. www.equistonepe.de

About Group of Butchers
Group of Butchers, head­quar­te­red in Tilburg, the Nether­lands, was foun­ded in 1997 as Dutch Grill Special­ties and is now a leading manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of high-quality butchery products. The company combi­nes the capa­ci­ties of seve­ral regio­nal butcher stores, each of which produ­ces its own meat products. This results in a diverse product port­fo­lio, from smoked meats and sausa­ges to filet améri­cain and roast and gril­led meat special­ties. In 2020, Group of Butchers employs 900 people and expects sales of about 280 million euros.

News

Oakley Capi­tal (“Oakley”) announ­ced today that Oakley has ente­red into an agree­ment to acquire Wind­Star Medi­cal GmbH (“Wind­Star Medi­cal”) from ProSiebenSat.1 majo­rity-owned NuCom Group.

Wind­Star Medi­cal is the leading German consu­mer health­care company for over-the-coun­ter (OTC) health­care products. The plat­form expects sales of more than 120 million euros from the deve­lo­p­ment and distri­bu­tion of bran­ded and private-label products in the current year. It has an exten­sive history of success in deve­lo­ping and estab­li­shing premium formu­la­ti­ons and brands.

In this context, Wind­Star Medical’s Consu­mer Brands divi­sion offers a wide range of high-growth premium bran­ded products in Germany, inclu­ding SOS (wound care/disinfectants), Zirku­lin (treat­ment of gastro­in­testi­nal complaints), Green­doc (mental well-being) and EyeMe­dica (eye health). Wind­Star also produ­ces private-label products for leading German drugs­to­res and super­mar­kets, while deve­lo­ping inter­na­tio­nal distri­bu­tion through exis­ting and new partners.

Wind­Star Medi­cal is bene­fiting from the long-term struc­tu­ral growth of the German consu­mer health market. This growth is being driven in parti­cu­lar by demo­gra­phic trends, such as the aging popu­la­tion, a shift in consu­mer demand due to increased aware­ness regar­ding physi­cal and mental well-being, and a willing­ness among the popu­la­tion to prevent dise­ase. As part of its invest­ment, Oakley will help the company’s manage­ment team conti­nue its growth trajec­tory, realize product inno­va­tion, incre­asingly digi­tize the busi­ness and iden­tify attrac­tive acqui­si­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties that can acce­le­rate the company’s growth.

The invest­ment in Wind­Star Medi­cal conti­nues Oakley’s track record of inves­t­ing in leading B2C plat­forms in the DACH region. Invest­ments alre­ady made include Veri­vox, Parship Elite and most recently Wish­card Tech­no­lo­gies and 7NXT / Gymondo. With its asset-light busi­ness model, indus­try-leading opera­tio­nal capa­bi­li­ties and attrac­tive growth pros­pects, the company now acqui­red fits the ideal tran­sac­tion profile for Oakley.

Peter Dubens (pictu­red), Mana­ging Part­ner at Oakley Capi­tal, said:

“Wind­Star Medi­cal is a unique plat­form for OTC health­care products with a very attrac­tive market posi­tion, whose deve­lo­p­ment and manage­ment team Oakley has closely follo­wed over the past years. We look forward to working with the team and will use our exten­sive expe­ri­ence in digi­ta­liza­tion, go-to-market as well as M&A to help Wind­Star further acce­le­rate its growth trajec­tory both dome­sti­cally and internationally.”

About Oakley Capital
Oakley Capi­tal is a private equity firm with more than €3 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.

About Wind­Star Medical
Wind­Star Medi­cal Group deve­lops compa­nies in the exten­ded health­care market. The Group’s busi­ness units are accom­pa­nied on their deve­lo­p­ment path and in their inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. Wind­Star Medical’s mission is to quickly and consis­t­ently build market leaders who can assert them­sel­ves as inde­pen­dent compa­nies in their markets. The company head­quar­ters are loca­ted in Wehr­heim in the Taunus region. Let’s improve quality of life! — This is the driving force and moti­va­tion of the more than 120 employees of the group of compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.windstar-medical.com. About the busi­ness units of the Wind­Star Medi­cal Group: Districon GmbH — Global Power Brands made for you! www.districon.eu, Dr. Kleine Pharma GmbH — Part­ne­ring Services — from the idea to the point of sale! www.kleine-pharma.com.

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