ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt a. M. / Schruns — SALTO Systems has acqui­red the GANTNER Elec­tro­nic Group, a pioneer in the field of cont­act­less elec­tro­nic access manage­ment and time recor­ding systems, from the invest­ment company Ardian. Gant­ner doubles sales and beco­mes tech­no­logy leader during Ardian’s invest­ment since 2016.

The Spanish company SALTO Systems is a world leader in the design and manu­fac­ture of advan­ced elec­tro­nic access control solu­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally in secu­rity-criti­cal areas. SALTO has deli­vered more than 5 million access points world­wide, which are used by about 40 million people every day. Clients include univer­si­ties, leading hospi­ta­lity groups, clinics and compa­nies in the health­care, commer­cial, workspace, retail and resi­den­tial sectors.

The GANTNER Group, head­quar­te­red in Schruns, Austria, is active in almost 70 count­ries and curr­ently employs over 500 people world­wide. In addi­tion to the core markets of Austria and Germany, the Group is repre­sen­ted by subsi­dia­ries in the UK, Belgium, the Nether­lands, Dubai, the USA, India and Australia.

GANTNER offers iden­ti­fi­ca­tion solu­ti­ons based on RFID and NFC tech­no­logy for use in fitness clubs, water parks and spas, theme parks, univer­si­ties and libra­ries, as well as commer­cial proper­ties and public buil­dings. GANTNER systems create a cont­act­less envi­ron­ment: admis­si­ons, lockers and point-of-sale offe­rings can all be effi­ci­ently opera­ted with a single NFC creden­tial in the form of a cont­act­less card, wrist­band or key fob.

A new member of the GANTNER Group since June 2020 is conti­data Daten­sys­teme, a market leader and visio­nary in the DACH region for cashl­ess proprie­tary payment systems for canteens. conti­data is head­quar­te­red in Dort­mund and has further offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Hano­ver, Colo­gne, Frank­furt, Stutt­gart and Munich.

The GANTNER product port­fo­lio enri­ches and diver­si­fies SALTO’s offe­ring and will enhance the end-user expe­ri­ence. With a combi­ned work­force of 1,200 employees in 40 count­ries, total sales of €260 million and the capa­city to provide more than one million access points per year, the new, streng­the­ned SALTO Group conti­nues to build on its posi­tion as the global leader in elec­tro­nic access control.

Dirk Witt­ne­ben (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian and respon­si­ble for the invest­ments of the expan­sion team in the DACH region, added: “We are proud to have been able to support Gant­ner in its inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, important stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and the deve­lo­p­ment of new indus­tries and custo­mers. It has enab­led the company to expand its offe­rings and broa­den its geogra­phic coverage.”

SALTO is finan­cing the tran­sac­tion through a combi­na­tion of a EUR 125 million capi­tal increase, bank finan­cing and cash.

A team led by Düssel­dorf-based Heuking Corporate/M&A Part­ner Dr. Martin Imhof advi­sed SALTO Systems under the lead manage­ment of Austrian law firm Wolf Theiss and Spanish law firm Garri­gues and supported the German part of the tran­sac­tion. In parti­cu­lar, Heuking conduc­ted legal due dili­gence inves­ti­ga­ti­ons of the German GANTNER compa­nies and advi­sed on company acqui­si­tion issues as well as finan­cing and data protec­tion issues.

Advi­sor SALTO Systems (Germany): Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Martin Imhof (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A),
Sebas­tian Poll­meier (Legal Due Dili­gence, M&A),
Chris­toph Hexel (Labor Law),
Dr. Guido Hoff­mann, LL.M. (Finance),
Dr. Chris­tian Appel­baum (Finance),
Michael Kuska, LL.M., LL.M. (IT, Data Protec­tion Law),
Astrid Lued­tke (IP),
Chris­toph Nöhles, LL.M. (Tenancy Law),
Fabian Schmitz (Tenancy Law), all Düsseldorf
Birgit Schreier (Commer­cial Law, Hamburg)
Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law, Munich)

Wolf Theiss (Austria):
Hart­wig Kien­ast (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A)

Garri­gues (Spain):
Carla Fran­goni (Lead Part­ner Private Equity/Corporate Law)

About Gant­ner
Foun­ded in 1982 in Schruns, Austria, the company is conside­red a pioneer in cont­act­less elec­tro­nic access control and time and atten­dance in its core segments. Gant­ner offers RFID and NFC tech­no­logy-based solu­ti­ons for fitness clubs, pools and spas, amuse­ment parks, cultu­ral insti­tu­ti­ons, univer­si­ties and libra­ries, as well as commer­cial and public buil­dings. These include access systems, elec­tro­nic locker locking systems, cashl­ess payment, cash regis­ter and accoun­ting systems, time recor­ding solu­ti­ons for staff, and ticke­ting and manage­ment soft­ware for leisure facilities.

Gant­ner opera­tes in around 70 count­ries and has subsi­dia­ries in Germany, Belgium, Holland, Great Britain, Dubai, India, Austra­lia and the USA. The company employs around 450 people world­wide. The mana­ging direc­tor since 2003 is Elmar Hart­mann. www.gantner.com

About Ardian
Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging over US$100 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 1,000 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate. www.ardian.com

News

Frank­furt — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­ses Joh. Beren­berg, Goss­ler & Co. KG (Beren­berg) as Sole Global Coor­di­na­tor and Sole Book­run­ner on the sale of shares in Derm­a­ph­arm Holding SE by Themis Betei­li­gungs-Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft. The tran­sac­tion volume amounts to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 250 million.

Derm­a­ph­arm is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of off-patent bran­ded phar­maceu­ti­cals for selec­ted markets in Germany.

The McDer­mott team led by part­ners Simon Weiß and Joseph W. Marx regu­larly advi­ses Beren­berg on capi­tal market tran­sac­tions, most recently on the capi­tal increase of CORESTATE Capi­tal Holding S.A. and the capi­tal measure of CompuGroup Medi­cal SE & Co. KGaA.

Advi­sor Beren­berg: McDer­mott Will & Emery (Frank­furt)
Simon Weiß (Capi­tal Markets) and Joseph W. Marx (US Capi­tal Markets, both Lead), Andrea Adele Stock­horst (Finan­cial Regu­la­tory); Asso­ciate: Isabelle Müller (Corpo­rate)

Inhouse Beren­berg: Dr. Martin Knie­hase (Head of Invest­ment Banking Legal Conti­nen­tal Europe, Direc­tor) and Vanessa Harms, LL.M. (Asso­ciate Direc­tor, Invest­ment Banking Legal)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery Attor­neys Tax LLP is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,200 attor­neys, we are repre­sen­ted in 20 loca­ti­ons world­wide: Atlanta, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt a.M., Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Sili­con Valley, Washing­ton, D.C. and Wilm­ing­ton. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. www.mwe.com

News

Aachen/Kempen — The S‑UBG Group from Aachen acqui­res mino­rity shares in Ther­mo­glas Nieder­rhein GmbH and Glas Trie­nes GmbH & Co KG with its Mittel­stands­fonds. In this way, S‑UBG enables the succes­sion of the company by the exter­nal mana­ger Mathias Schlatt, who acqui­res the remai­ning shares. Schlatt takes over the manage­ment of both compa­nies from Knut-Ulrich Rött­ger, who acqui­red the compa­nies in 1999 and has been mana­ging part­ner ever since.

The now 45-year-old mana­ger star­ted his career in his parents’ company Schlatt Glas­han­dels­ge­sell­schaft mbH in Bocholt: “Mathias Schlatt has been working in the glass indus­try for over 20 years and brings with him expe­ri­ence, good cont­acts and exten­sive exper­tise,” says Bern­hard Kugel, CEO of the S‑UBG Group. Knut-Ulrich Rött­ger is also plea­sed to be able to hand over his life’s work into good hands with the support of S‑UBG: “The fair nego­tia­ti­ons and the profes­sio­nal advice have thus ulti­m­ately led to two estab­lished compa­nies being retai­ned in Kempen and jobs being secured.”

Estab­lished full-range supplier
The compa­nies Ther­mo­glas and Trie­nes were foun­ded in Kempen on the Lower Rhine in 1976 and 1954 respec­tively. Today, with just under 100 employees, both operate on the market as full-range suppli­ers in the produc­tion and proces­sing or finis­hing of glass. Special exper­tise exists in the produc­tion of insu­la­ting glass, for exam­ple as sound insu­la­tion, solar control or safety glass. In addi­tion, Trie­nes produ­ces and sells high-quality glass products with special proper­ties for indus­try and buil­ding cons­truc­tion. The main product is toug­he­ned safety glass (ESG), which is prepared on the company’s own machi­nes and then tempe­red in the ESG furnace. This gives the glass its safety-rele­vant proper­ties and stabi­lity. For exam­ple, the ESG product SECURIT® has four to five times the breakage resis­tance of conven­tio­nal glass.

“Whether it’s coated glass, self-clea­ning glass or safety glass, glass is now a high-tech mate­rial and the demands on produ­cers are conti­nu­ally incre­asing,” explains Schlatt. “Energy-effi­ci­ent cons­truc­tion or safety stan­dards in the cons­truc­tion sector are just a few drivers. Here in the Lower Rhine region, invest­ments have always been made so that we can meet custo­mer needs and legal stan­dards at all times.”

Well posi­tio­ned in the growing market
“We are inves­t­ing in two solid compa­nies with long-term stable earnings,” Kugel said. “The law incre­asingly prescri­bes the use of safety glass, and the ongo­ing cons­truc­tion boom and demand in future indus­tries have also brought glass produ­cers constant deve­lo­p­ment for years.” The new owners also see pros­pects in inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. Schlatt: “There is still a lot of poten­tial in expan­ding our natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal sales networks. And there is alre­ady an expan­sion area at our Kempen site for addi­tio­nal produc­tion capacity.”

About the S‑UBG Group
The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in the provi­sion of equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for over 30 years. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; a high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a decisive invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. 2020, Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I für die Region Aachen, Krefeld & Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG was laun­ched toge­ther with NRW.BANK, the savings banks of Aachen, Krefeld and Düren, Kreis­spar­kasse Heins­berg, Stadt­spar­kasse Mönchen­glad­bach, Noma­in­vest, DSA Invest GmbH, inves­tors from the Dr. Babor Group and other private inves­tors. It provi­des around 40 million euros in seed capi­tal for the start-up scene in the region. Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I emer­ged from Seed Fonds III for the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach region. As an exten­sion of Seed Fund III, Tech­Vi­sion Fund I now seeks to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds (Series A/B) of exis­ting port­fo­lio compa­nies in addi­tion to seed invest­ments. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe. www.s‑ubg.de; https://techvision-fonds.de/

News

Berlin — In selling its 49% stake in Like­Meat to The Live­kindly Company, Inc. (“LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive”), SMP advi­sed the foun­der and former CEO of Like­Meat, Timo Recker, as well as Recker Holding GmbH. As a result of the tran­sac­tion, LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive became the sole share­hol­der of Like­Meat, having alre­ady acqui­red the remai­ning 51% stake in the renow­ned food company from heristo AG earlier this year. Further details of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed.

SMP also assis­ted Timo Recker in his invest­ment in the inter­na­tio­nally active plant-based food company as part of the $200 million “Foun­ders’ Funding Round.” As a member of the “Foun­ders’ Board” of LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive, he actively supports the global food company with his exten­sive indus­try expertise.

Timo Recker will now apply his exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence to the Asian market. As co-foun­der and CEO of Next Gen Foods, he plans to deve­lop high-quality plant-based foods that address the hete­ro­gen­eity of the Asian food market. The company is curr­ently prepa­ring a Series A finan­cing round for 2021.

“The sale of Like­Meat was one of the largest exit tran­sac­tions in the “plant-based-food” segment in recent years and thus forward-looking for an entire indus­try” says SMP part­ner Martin Scha­per. “We are plea­sed to have mana­ged this complex cross-border tran­sac­tion and are watching the plant-based food market with great inte­rest” he added.

Like­Meat
Like­Meat GmbH was foun­ded in 2013 by Timo Recker and is still conside­red a pioneer in the produc­tion of plant-based foods. Like­Meat has its admi­nis­tra­tive head­quar­ters in Düssel­dorf and two produc­tion faci­li­ties in Oss, the Nether­lands. As of March 2020, Like­Meat is part of The Live­kindly Company, Inc. and is headed by the mana­ging direc­tor Tal Nadari. The company employs 120 people and sells its products mainly in food retail. Today, Like­Meat products are available in Germany, the United King­dom, Scan­di­na­via and the Netherlands.

The Live­kindly Company, Inc.
The Live­kindly Company, Inc. (“LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive”) combi­nes estab­lished brands and startup brands, inclu­ding The Fry’s Family Food Co, Oumph! and Like­Meat GmbH. It also includes LIVEKINDLY Media, the leading publisher of plant-based topics. LIVEKINDLY Collective’s mission is to trans­form the global food system and is curr­ently the only company in the plant-based food space to map the entire value chain. LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive has built stra­te­gic part­ner­ships with seed growers, produ­cers and distri­bu­tors and inves­ted in infra­struc­ture to trans­form tradi­tio­nal meat production.

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

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per, Photo (Lead/Corporate), Partner
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Taxes), Partner
Dr. Martyna Sabat (Corpo­rate), Associate
Dr. Ansgar Frank (Corpo­rate), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Corpo­rate Liti­ga­tion), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Pia Meven (Corpo­rate), Associate
During his time at SMP, Dr. Peter Möll­mann was also instru­men­tal in advi­sing on the sale of LikeMeat.

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: Dr. Koops & Partner
Dr. Chris­tian Ruhe, Chris­toph Gerhards

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte
Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath, Matthias Struck

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: Buhler Duggal & Henry (New York)
Dr. Raoul Duggal, Carl T. Berry

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: Luther (Singa­pore)
Birgitta von Dresky, Nina Rompis

News

Jersey/ London — Triton Debt Oppor­tu­ni­ties II (“TDO II” or “the Fund”) has successfully comple­ted its fund­rai­sing with commit­ments of €744 million, signi­fi­cantly surpas­sing its target size of €550 million. TDO II recei­ved strong support from exis­ting inves­tors and has secu­red considera­ble commit­ments from a range of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors from around the world, in parti­cu­lar from Euro­pean and US pension funds. In addi­tion, Triton has also raised a Sepa­ra­tely Mana­ged Account which will serve as an over­flow account for the Fund.

TDO II opera­tes an all-weather approach to inves­t­ing, using its unique sourcing network to find attrac­tive invest­ments at healthy prices. The Fund was ther­e­fore well posi­tio­ned to deploy capi­tal throug­hout 2020, during which time there has been signi­fi­cant price dislo­ca­tion, and it is now 40% invested.

TDO II conti­nues to see a strong pipe­line of acti­vity and anti­ci­pa­tes considera­ble oppor­tu­nity to invest further during the market’s reco­very phase. TDO II will conti­nue to invest in the same sectors and geogra­phies as Triton’s private equity funds, focu­sing on the indus­tri­als, busi­ness services, consu­mer and health sectors, across the Nordics, DACH and Benelux.

The Fund invests in non-control posi­ti­ons across the capi­tal struc­ture in mid-market compa­nies, with its average invest­ment size typi­cally between €10–40 million. The TDO funds bene­fit from a unique advan­tage through their access to the wider Triton network, enab­ling them to tap into signi­fi­cant resour­ces and know­ledge, specia­list sector insight, and support from the firm’s invest­ment advi­sory network, opera­ting part­ners, senior indus­try experts and banking relationships.

Amyn Pesnani, Head of TDO, said: “We are extre­mely plea­sed to have been supported by a range of new and exis­ting inves­tors and we would like to extend our thanks for their commit­ment to TDO II. Our flexi­ble invest­ment approach, support from the wider Triton plat­form and stra­tegy of iden­ti­fy­ing underva­lued busi­nesses has allo­wed us to alre­ady put capi­tal to work this year, making the most of the current market condi­ti­ons, and we conti­nue to see a healthy pipe­line of exci­ting oppor­tu­ni­ties ahead.”

About Triton
Since its estab­lish­ment in 1997, Triton has spon­so­red ten funds, focu­sing on busi­nesses in the indus­trial, busi­ness services, consu­mer and health sectors. The Triton funds invest in and support the posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized busi­nesses head­quar­te­red in Europe. Triton seeks to contri­bute to the buil­ding of better busi­nesses for the longer term. Triton and its execu­ti­ves wish to be agents of posi­tive change towards sustainable opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ments and growth. The 44 compa­nies curr­ently in Triton’s port­fo­lio have combi­ned sales of around €18 billion and around 99,300 employees.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Schwab­mün­chen — The invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner acqui­res a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in DITTRICH + CO (“DICO”) in order to sustain­ably support the growth course of the Bava­rian specia­list for plas­tic injec­tion molding. The two mana­ging part­ners will remain invol­ved in the course of the tran­sac­tion and expand the opera­tio­nal manage­ment of the company to include the previous tech­ni­cal sales mana­ger Manfred März, who will also acquire shares. This also prepa­res the succes­sion at DICO in perspec­tive. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close by the end of Octo­ber 2020.

DITTRICH + Co GmbH & Co KG, based in Schwab­mün­chen near Augs­burg, is a family-run specia­list supplier of tooling and injec­tion molded parts with just under 100 employees, and is one of Europe’s leading compa­nies in its core areas. The company was foun­ded in 1958 by Rudolf Dittrich and Peter Muschak, has been in the hands of the second gene­ra­tion, Armin Dittrich and Andreas Muschak, since 1995 and has been growing steadily for years. DICO’s service port­fo­lio covers the entire value chain of manu­fac­tu­ring tech­ni­cally sophisti­ca­ted products: Plas­tic injec­tion molding (ther­mo­pla­s­tics and also modern compo­si­tes), design, tool­ma­king, series produc­tion, finis­hing and assem­bly. The clear focus on sustaina­bi­lity, quality, diver­si­fi­ca­tion and custo­mer bene­fits of products and services means that DICO is often inte­gra­ted into custo­mers’ proces­ses at an early stage.

Toge­ther with VR Equi­typ­art­ner, the successful growth of recent years is now to be contin­ued — both orga­ni­cally and through possi­ble company acqui­si­ti­ons. The market envi­ron­ment for injec­tion molding tech­no­logy and mold­ma­king is proving to be highly frag­men­ted. DICO sees its exper­tise and exter­nal growth poten­tial here, parti­cu­larly in the area of complex parts produ­ced in small and medium-sized series. In addi­tion to the well-known exis­ting custo­mers from the furni­ture indus­try, consu­mer elec­tro­nics, pack­a­ging indus­try, auto­mo­tive & trans­port, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and medi­cine, further new custo­mers in selec­tive indus­tries are to be added. At the same time, the company’s own manu­fac­tu­ring exper­tise and capa­city are being syste­ma­ti­cally expanded.

“In VR Equi­typ­art­ner, we have found a part­ner for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company who also brings a great deal of expe­ri­ence in succes­sion plan­ning and who shares our entre­pre­neu­rial philo­so­phy,” say Armin Dittrich and Andreas Muschak. Future co-mana­ging direc­tor Manfred März adds, “Our know-how regar­ding complex shapes and special mate­ri­als is vast. We look forward to working with VR Equi­typ­art­ner, who will now help us to further scale this unique knowledge.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, explains: “With DICO, we are ente­ring into an invest­ment in an excel­lently posi­tio­ned company whose order situa­tion is bril­li­ant and which has much further poten­tial in view of a steadily growing market. The company is not only a successful specia­list manu­fac­tu­rer of sophisti­ca­ted products, but also an excel­lent under­stan­ding of its custo­mers. A high recy­cling ratio and level of auto­ma­tion comple­ment these first-class future prospects.”

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is making the invest­ment toge­ther with its subsi­diary VR Equity Gesell­schaft für regio­nale Entwick­lung in Bayern mbH, which was provi­ded with funding from the Euro­pean Union for the promo­tion of inno­va­tive compa­nies in Bava­ria (ERDF funds) as part of a part­ner­ship with the Free State of Bavaria.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH at a glance:
VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million.

Advi­sor VR Equitypartner:

Commer­cial: Blue­mont Consul­ting GmbH, Munich, with Markus Frän­kel, Sebas­tian Rütt­gers, and Bene­dict Sevov

Finan­cial: TAP Dr. Schlum­ber­ger Krämer Pothorn & Part­ner mbB Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft, Munich, with Andreas Krämer, Stef­fen Bannen­berg and Andreas Seidemann

Legal & Tax: McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP, Frank­furt, with Dr. Michael Cziesla, Dr. Heiko Kermer, Norman Wasse, Marcus Fischer, Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Isabelle Müller

Consul­tant of DITTRICH + CO:

Kloep­fel Corpo­rate Finance GmbH, Munich, with Dr. Heiko Frank and Niko­lai Üstündağ

PKF WULF ENGELHARDT KG Steu­er­be­ra­tungs­ge­sell­schaft, Augs­burg, with Chris­toph Kalm­bach and Monika Gigler

Gütt Olk Feld­haus Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB, Munich, with Dr. Sebas­tian Olk, Adrian von Prit­t­witz and Gaffron, Domi­nik Forst­ner and Ricarda Theis

News

Aachen — S‑UBG AG has sold its shares in Vier­sen-based WS Quack & Fischer GmbH to the company’s family share­hol­ders. This marks the end of an 18-year invest­ment part­ner­ship that began in 2002 with S‑UBG’s invest­ment in the pack­a­ging company. With the addi­tio­nal equity, WS Quack + Fischer has reali­zed growth plans and arran­ged for succes­sion by the next family generations.

S‑UBG as a long-term part­ner for growth financing
WS Quack + Fischer was formed in 2001 from the merger of WS Verpa­ckungs GmbH and Quack & Fischer GmbH, which was in need of restruc­tu­ring. Follo­wing the restruc­tu­ring of the merged company, the Aachen-based finan­cial inves­tor, toge­ther with the co-share­hol­ders, took over the shares of depar­ting share­hol­ders. Since then, the pack­a­ging mate­ri­als produ­cer has contin­ued to deve­lop and was able to achieve sales of 30 million euros in 2019 with 110 employees. “We conti­nue to see good pros­pects for WS Quack + Fischer,” says Bern­hard Kugel (photo), CEO of the S‑UBG Group. “Thanks to early succes­sion plan­ning and steady growth, the company is ideally posi­tio­ned for the future.”

Succes­sion ensu­red for the long term
The two family share­hol­der trunks Eicker and Schmitz, toge­ther with their succes­sors, have posi­tio­ned them­sel­ves with long-term profes­sio­nal and entre­pre­neu­rial perspec­ti­ves and have been able to signi­fi­cantly increase sales and earnings in recent years. In parti­cu­lar, Mana­ging Direc­tor Thomas Eicker has alre­ady proven his worth as succes­sor to foun­ding part­ner Heinz Eicker. The succes­sion of the Schmitz family tribe is also secu­red for the long term. “Trust and trans­pa­rency have always been the foun­da­ti­ons of our coope­ra­tion with S‑UBG,” says Mana­ging Direc­tor Thomas Eicker.

About the S‑UBG Group
The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in the provi­sion of equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for over 30 years. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. 2020, Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I für die Region Aachen, Krefeld & Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG was laun­ched toge­ther with NRW.BANK, the savings banks of Aachen, Krefeld and Düren, Kreis­spar­kasse Heins­berg, Stadt­spar­kasse Mönchen­glad­bach, Noma­in­vest, DSA Invest GmbH, inves­tors from the Dr. Babor Group and other private inves­tors. It provi­des around 40 million euros in seed capi­tal for the start-up scene in the region. Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I emer­ged from Seed Fonds III for the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach region. As an exten­sion of Seed Fund III, Tech­Vi­sion Fund I now seeks to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds (Series A/B) of exis­ting port­fo­lio compa­nies in addi­tion to seed invest­ments. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe. www.s‑ubg.de

News

Hano­ver — NORD Holding has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG. The tran­sac­tion was carried out with the parti­ci­pa­tion of WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sach­sen. The Födisch family and the foun­der and CEO Dr. Holger Födisch will also remain share­hol­ders in the company. Toge­ther with NORD Holding and WMS, the market posi­tion is to be expan­ded and the successful growth course of recent years is to be contin­ued on a sustainable basis.

Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of emis­sion tech­no­logy for moni­to­ring envi­ron­men­tally harmful gases, dust and volume flows. Areas of appli­ca­tion are emis­sion moni­to­ring (CEMS: Conti­nuous Emis­sion Moni­to­ring Systems), process and envi­ron­men­tal measu­re­ment tech­no­logy and recur­ring tests of statio­nary measu­ring equip­ment. The product range extends from mobile and statio­nary measu­ring devices to complete systems. The medium-sized company opera­tes in a market envi­ron­ment that has been growing steadily for years, driven by global mega­trends and stric­ter envi­ron­men­tal regu­la­ti­ons, and supports its more than 600 custo­mers inter­na­tio­nally in acting sustain­ably and with an eye to the future. Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG curr­ently has over 180 employees.

“Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG is a typi­cal exam­ple of a true hidden cham­pion, charac­te­ri­zed by a culture of inno­va­tion and engi­nee­ring exper­tise. From the very begin­ning, we were very impres­sed by the company’s team spirit and tech­no­logy focus as well as the entre­pre­neu­rial vision of Dr. Holger Födisch. With the part­ner­ship that has now been estab­lished, we would like to accom­pany this outstan­ding company, with our possi­bi­li­ties, into the next growth phase — we are looking forward to the joint future,” says Andreas Bösen­berg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of NORD Holding.

Dr. Holger Födisch, foun­der and board member: “After 29 years of successful and dyna­mic deve­lo­p­ment of the company and the Födisch Group, we have actively pursued the realignment of the shareholder/participation struc­ture. This will enable us to meet the chal­lenges of future growth and create the basis for a further consis­tent orien­ta­tion of the Group towards the envi­ron­men­tal and auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy sectors. With NORD Holding, we have now found the right part­ner for the imple­men­ta­tion of our stra­te­gies, goals and visi­ons. We look forward to the joint chal­lenges and cooperation.”

For NORD Holding, the invest­ment in Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG marks the third invest­ment in the green and clean­tech sector. This under­pins the invest­ment stra­tegy of focu­sing on sustaina­bi­lity tech­no­lo­gies and bene­fiting from long-term mega­trends such as the need to increase resource and energy produc­ti­vity and reduce pollution.

On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tion was imple­men­ted by Andreas Bösen­berg (photo), Martin Scheff­ler and Marcel Rosengarten.

The WMS alre­ady held a stake in Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG with its prede­ces­sor fund. Harald Rehberg (Mana­ging Direc­tor WMS) on the tran­sac­tion: “We are plea­sed to now conti­nue to accom­pany the Födisch Group in part­ner­ship with our third-gene­ra­tion WMS. The company has deve­lo­ped magni­fi­cently in recent years — also thanks to its successful inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. We also see high momen­tum in the future, not least through further acqui­si­ti­ons in suita­ble segments.”

Harald Rehberg and Andreas Müller were respon­si­ble for the project at WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sachsen.

About Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG
Foun­ded in 1991, Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG is a leading and inde­pen­dent group of compa­nies for appli­ca­ti­ons in the field of envi­ron­men­tal, process and analy­sis tech­no­logy. With its head­quar­ters in Markran­städt near Leip­zig as well as service and sales compa­nies in Germany and a subsi­diary in China, the company employs over 180 people. In addi­tion to envi­ron­men­tal, service and main­ten­ance services, the product port­fo­lio includes fine dust sensors, filter moni­tors, dust measu­re­ment concen­tra­tion devices, gas analy­zers and volu­metric flow meters. Custo­mers are Euro­pean and non-Euro­pean compa­nies, among others from the energy, chemi­cal, cons­truc­tion, and waste and dispo­sal indus­tries, which are supported world­wide in comply­ing with emis­sion limits and in moni­to­ring various processes.

In 2018, EP Ehrler Prüf­tech­nik Engi­nee­ring GmbH (Nieder­stet­ten) was successfully inte­gra­ted as a wholly owned subsi­diary. EP Ehrler is a specia­list in the field of flow measu­re­ment tech­no­logy for air, gases and liquids and deve­lops its own custo­mi­zed and at the same time tech­no­logy-orien­ted complete solu­ti­ons. www.foedisch.de

About WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sachsen
The WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sach­sen is an initia­tive of the Free State of Saxony and regio­nal credit insti­tu­ti­ons and has supported more than 30 Saxon compa­nies in imple­men­ting their growth stra­te­gies since 2005. Since the begin­ning of this year, the WMS has been ente­ring its third gene­ra­tion of funds. In addi­tion to the savings banks, the inves­tors now also include the Säch­si­sche Aufbau­bank, the Bürg­schafts­bank Sach­sen and the Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft. The fund will invest a further 85 million euros in Saxony’s SME sector in the coming years. www.wachstumsfonds-sachsen.de

About NORD Holding
With its 50-year history and assets under manage­ment of € 2.5 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund of funds investments.

The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king countries.

News

Copen­ha­gen — Nordic Capi­tal raises €6.1bn remo­tely for its largest fund. The vehicle, the firm’s largest capi­tal pool to date, has consider­a­bly surpas­sed its initial €5bn target within just six months. Laun­ched in April this year, the fund was enti­rely raised remo­tely amid the pande­mic, without any face-to-face meetings, the firm said.

The successful fund­rai­sing comes at a time when fund closings have slowed down due to the pande­mic travel rest­ric­tions and the econo­mic down­turn. Globally, 552 private equity funds reached their final close in the first half of the year, 31% fewer than in the same period last year, accor­ding to data provi­der Preqin.

“We laun­ched this fund in the middle of a global pande­mic, which requi­red inves­tors to comple­tely alter their invest­ment proces­ses to enable remote dili­gence. The success of the fund­raise despite these chal­lenges reflects the inves­tors’ considera­ble confi­dence in Nordic Capital’s stra­tegy and team,” Pär Norberg (print), head of inves­tor rela­ti­ons of Nordic Capi­tal, said.

Most of Nordic Capi­tal Fund X inves­tors are from North America, follo­wed by Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The firm’s exis­ting port­fo­lio perfor­mance since the Covid-19 pande­mic star­ted was one of the reasons for the strong appeal, the firm noted in a statement.

The fund, which sealed its first deal earlier this month, with the acqui­si­tion of Danish soft­ware busi­ness Siteim­prove for €500m, focu­ses on mid-market compa­nies prima­rily based in Europe. Its main targe­ted sectors are health­care, tech­no­logy and payments, finan­cial services, indus­trial and busi­ness services.

Apart from the Euro­pean focus, the stra­tegy has a mandate for global invest­ment in health­care as in the previous fund and an emer­ging smal­ler global mandate also for tech­no­logy and payments businesses.

“The econo­mic impact of the Covid-19 pande­mic will conti­nue to be felt for some time and the most successful fund mana­gers will be those who respond well to emer­ging trends and market dyna­mics to leverage new oppor­tu­ni­ties,” Kris­toffer Melin­der, the firm’s mana­ging part­ner, added.

Since its incep­tion in 1989, Nordic Capi­tal has inves­ted more than €15bn in more than 110 invest­ments, accor­ding to a statement.

Source: Private Equity News

News

Munich — Oakley Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in 7NXT GmbH from Cross­lan­tic Capi­tal. Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Oakley Capi­tal on this transaction.

7NXT GmbH is a leading digi­tal plat­form with three busi­ness segments: online fitness (Gymondo), nutri­tio­nal supple­ments (Shape Repu­blic) and merchan­di­sing (Brand Solu­ti­ons). The group has gained more than two million regis­tered custo­mers since its estab­lish­ment in 2013.

Advi­sors to Oakley Capi­tal: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich
Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Greta-Jose­fin Harnisch (both Corporate/Private Equity)
EGO HUMRICH WYEN, Munich, Germany
Dr. Alex­an­der Ego, Dr. Jan-Henning Wyen, Dr. Erika Ditler

About Kirk­land & Ellis
With more than 2,700 lawy­ers in 15 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 am Main — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Nort­hern Green Canada Inc. (NGC), the first priva­tely owned licen­sed canna­bis produ­cer from Canada with EU GMP certi­fi­ca­tion, on the forma­tion of Nort­hern Green Global GmbH, based in Unter­schleiss­heim, Germany, and conti­nues to assist Nort­hern Green in its global expan­sion. With the estab­lish­ment of this inter­na­tio­nal phar­maceu­ti­cal company, Nort­hern Green is consis­t­ently pursuing its expan­sion stra­tegy to enable the deli­very of canna­bi­noid medi­ci­nes to global markets.

Nort­hern Green Canada Inc. is a rese­arch- and deve­lo­p­ment-driven manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality medi­cal canna­bis focu­sed on provi­ding phar­maceu­ti­cal canna­bis products and deve­lo­ping canna­bi­noid formu­la­ti­ons to treat chro­nic dise­a­ses and enhance pati­ents’ quality of life. The company is curr­ently expan­ding its extra­c­tion capa­bi­li­ties to produce oils and is working with renow­ned part­ners on treat­ment-based canna­bis medicines.

Advi­sor NGC: Bird & Bird LLP
Part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (lead) with Asso­cia­tes Johanna Schind­ler, and Dr. Ann-Kris­tin Asmuß (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Niels Lutz­höft with Asso­cia­tes Dr. Simon Hembt and Dr. Chris­toph Hendel (all Commercial/ Regu­la­tory, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Barbara Geck with Asso­ciate Carina Seum (both Labor Law, Frankfurt).

Back­ground
Bird & Bird’s cross-juris­dic­tional and long-stan­ding exper­tise places it at the fore­front of advi­sing clients in the medi­cal canna­bis space. Our inter­na­tio­nal canna­bis group advi­ses the market-leading compa­nies in this fast-growing industry.

News

Colo­gne - dogado GmbH, a port­fo­lio company of the private equity fund Triton, has acqui­red Profi­host AG. With the acqui­si­tion of Profi­host AG, dogado GmbH conti­nues its buy-and-build stra­tegy. dogado was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

The dogado Group includes the brands alfah­os­ting, check­do­main, easy­name and busy­m­ouse. With over 170 employees and around 250,000 custo­mers, the Group is one of the leading cloud hosting provi­ders for busi­ness custo­mers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. After its foun­ding in 2001, the company initi­ally specia­li­zed in profes­sio­nal hosting services and later became one of the first German specia­lists for cloud-based enter­prise solu­ti­ons, with products ranging from clas­sic web hosting to colla­bo­ra­tion services and cloud platforms.

Profi­host AG, owner-mana­ged since its foun­ding in 1998, is based in Hano­ver and focu­ses on mana­ged hosting solu­ti­ons “Made in Germany”, offe­ring inno­va­tive cloud-based server systems, with a variety of high-quality services.

Advi­sor dogado: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Pär Johans­son (photo), Tim Remmel, LL.M. (both Corpo­rate, M&A), Cologne

SiWe Attor­neys at Law
Martin Sinz­ger, Susanne Laura Sinz­ger-Weger­hoff, Bernd Tschöpe, LL.M.

Leidl & Partner
Jakob Eisen­reich, Julia Riedl

News

Frank­furt a. M./ Mönchen Gald­bach — Haus­held AG, a provi­der of smart elec­tri­city meters and control systems for the digi­ta­liza­tion of the energy tran­si­tion, was able to gain Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (“DBAG”) as a finan­ci­ally strong share­hol­der in the context of a capi­tal increase. Network Corpo­rate Finance exclu­si­vely advi­sed Haus­held on the transaction.

With the comple­ted capi­tal increase, Haus­held gains a long-term orien­ted part­ner for future growth. Haus­held offers so-called full roll­outs of smart meters to digi­tize the power grid of entire cities while ensu­ring the highest data protec­tion stan­dards. The funds raised will be used for growth and expan­sion of the market posi­tion. A total of around 50 million elec­tri­city meters in Germany will have to be intel­li­gently networked in the coming years.

For DBAG, the invest­ment is the first invest­ment within the frame­work of an expan­ded invest­ment stra­tegy, which also includes long-term, predo­mi­nantly mino­rity invest­ments in growth companies.

Haus­held AG, based in Mönchen­glad­bach, Germany, offers a market-ready solu­tion for the legally requi­red intro­duc­tion of smart elec­tri­city meters. Haus­held has deve­lo­ped a scalable, networked and intel­li­gent commu­ni­ca­tion network for a price-opti­mi­zed full roll­out of smart meters for muni­ci­pal utili­ties. “Haus­held is the only provi­der to date to offer a market-ready solu­tion for the govern­ment-requi­red estab­lish­ment of a scalable, inter­con­nec­ted, intel­li­gent commu­ni­ca­ti­ons network and has begun to bring its solu­tion to market with muni­ci­pal utili­ties in the elec­tri­city sector. The Haus­held full-service offe­ring is trans­fera­ble to other areas such as gas and water, where the same task will arise in the future. We ther­e­fore expect a dyna­mic growth rate for the company in a market with long-term growth poten­tial,” empha­si­zes Bernd Sexauer (photo), member of the Manage­ment Board at DBAG.

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.

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG is a listed private equity company. We initiate closed-end private equity funds: DBAG funds enable insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to invest in the equity or equity-like instru­ments of unlis­ted compa­nies. DBAG advi­ses and mana­ges these funds. That is, it seeks, exami­nes, and struc­tures oppor­tu­ni­ties for parti­ci­pa­tion. Our focus is on medium-sized compa­nies. We nego­tiate invest­ment agree­ments, accom­pany the port­fo­lio compa­nies during the invest­ment period and design the dive­st­ment process. An entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes us a sought-after invest­ment part­ner. Since DBAG was foun­ded more than 50 years ago, we have provi­ded equity to more than 300 compa­nies toge­ther with the DBAG funds.

News

Kassel / Berlin — Dedrone, the market leader in airspace secu­rity, has secu­red around $12.1 million (the equi­va­lent of €10.3 million) in growth capi­tal. The successful finan­cing round was led by Tempo­Cap, one of the largest Euro­pean invest­ment compa­nies in the tech­no­logy sector.

Foun­ded in 2014 in Kassel, Germany, Dedrone is a soft­ware company alre­ady backed by inves­tors such as Feli­cis Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Target Part­ners and John Cham­bers, former CEO of Cisco Systems and foun­der of JC2 Ventures. With the invest­ment, Dedrone intends to further deve­lop its drone detec­tion, clas­si­fi­ca­tion and defense tech­no­logy to protect busi­nesses and orga­niza­ti­ons world­wide from ille­gal drone acti­vity. The drone defense system deve­lo­ped by Dedrone detects approa­ching drones with the help of radio frequency sensors and special camera and radar systems, the data from which is proces­sed and analy­zed by the intel­li­gent Drone­Tra­cker software.

“Drone tech­no­logy has evol­ved greatly in recent years. Drones are now used in disas­ter relief and medi­cine deli­very, as well as for myriad appli­ca­ti­ons by busi­nesses and consu­mers,” explains Dedrone’s CEO Aadi­tya Deva­ra­konda. At the same time, he warns of the dangers posed by the unman­ned aerial vehic­les: “In the wrong hands, drones can be very dange­rous. They are easy to obtain and control and can be easily over­loo­ked. They are used prima­rily for espio­nage, smugg­ling and terrorism.”

“We are simply deal­ing with cutting-edge tech­no­logy that makes a huge diffe­rence to govern­ments, busi­nesses and criti­cal natio­nal infra­struc­ture,” says Olav Ostin, mana­ging part­ner of Tempo­Cap. It’s a fast-growing market, and we believe we’re betting on the best in the business.”

“Thou­sands of people and busi­nesses have felt the impact of ille­gal drone use, and this threat will conti­nue to grow. We look forward to tack­ling this chall­enge head-on,” adds Phil­ipp Meindl, Invest­ment Part­ner at TempoCap.

About Dedrone
Dedrone is the market leader in airspace secu­rity. Dedrone’s drone defense system protects criti­cal infra­struc­ture, govern­ments, mili­tary instal­la­ti­ons, prisons and busi­nesses around the world from unwan­ted drones. Dedrone’s SaaS tech­no­logy can be flexi­bly hosted in the cloud or on-premise and combi­nes machine lear­ning soft­ware with market-leading sensors and defen­ses. The goal is to provide early warning, clas­si­fi­ca­tion and defense against all drones thre­ats. Dedrone was foun­ded in Kassel in 2014. Since 2016, the company has been head­quar­te­red in San Fran­cisco, with addi­tio­nal offices near Washing­ton, D.C., in Colum­bus, Ohio, and London. www.dedrone.com

About Tempo­Cap
Tempo­Cap is one of the leading Euro­pean inves­tors in fast-growing compa­nies in the tech­no­logy sector. Tempo­Cap offers capi­tal to acce­le­rate corpo­rate growth as well as attrac­tive and flexi­ble liqui­dity solu­ti­ons for entre­pre­neurs, venture capi­ta­lists and corpo­ra­ti­ons. Tempo­Cap has around 2 billion euros under manage­ment. In addi­tion to inves­t­ing in indi­vi­dual assets, TempoCap’s recom­men­ded funds make direct direct invest­ments by purcha­sing entire port­fo­lios from a variety of inves­tors, inclu­ding venture capi­tal funds, corpo­ra­ti­ons, banks or named part­ners. www.tempocap.com.

News

Rheine/ Munich — The Ossen­berg Group takes over Gany­med, based in Berg near Munich. The leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of aids for the walking impai­red thus expands its product port­fo­lio and confirms its expan­sion stra­tegy with the acqui­si­tion of the company, which has been highly deco­ra­ted with many design and product awards. Cars­ten Diek­mann, Mana­ging Direc­tor of the Ossen­berg Group says: “With the acqui­si­tion we can further expand our alre­ady strong market posi­tion in the DACH region. With the Gany­mede brand and the outstan­ding design products, we can now accom­pany our custo­mers even more compre­hen­si­vely.” He said the acqui­si­tion was a major entre­pre­neu­rial step forward. “We will conti­nue to expand inter­na­tio­nally with the Gany­mede brand.”

The previous mana­ging direc­tor and foun­der Karen Oster­tag is leaving the company with imme­diate effect for reasons of age. Produc­tion of the Gany­mede walking aids will in future take place at the Ossen­berg site in Rheine. This means that Gany­mede products remain “Made in Germany”. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial infor­ma­tion about the transaction.

Gany­mede serves custo­mers from hobby athle­tes to professionals
Archi­tec­ture and modern bionic design of Gany­mede fore­arm supports are unique in the market and are espe­ci­ally appre­cia­ted by athle­tes — from profes­sio­nals to amateurs and hobbyists.

The Ossen­berg Group deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes fore­arm walking aids, light metal canes and ortho­pe­dic aids. The medium-sized company, with around 100 employees, has been selling its products through specia­list dealers for around six deca­des — in recent years also very successfully worldwide.

The Osna­brück-based family equity company zwei.7 acqui­red a stake in the tradi­tio­nal company in 2019. For zwei.7, the now comple­ted acqui­si­tion of Gany­mede is an important step for the buy & build stra­tegy of the Ossen­berg Group, which has been pursued from the begin­ning. “We are plea­sed to expand the product port­fo­lio of the Ossen­berg Group with this acqui­si­tion and thus further streng­then our market posi­tion in Europe, says Kars­ten Wulf, foun­der and CEO of the zwei.7 Group. “The Ossen­berg Group has pursued a convin­cing growth stra­tegy in recent years and, as a medium-sized company from Rheine, has built up a quality brand world­wide with its products in the mobi­lity indus­try. The acqui­si­tion of Gany­med now comple­tes the product port­fo­lio,” says Kars­ten Wulf.

About two.7
The zwei.7 group was foun­ded in 2018 by Kars­ten Wulf (photo) in Osna­brück. The family equity house invests in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies and takes entre­pre­neu­rial risks with equity capi­tal. The aim is to estab­lish and expand a Euro­pean health care clus­ter of small and medium-sized successful compa­nies, and in doing so to contri­bute Kars­ten Wulf’s deca­des of expe­ri­ence as a medium-sized entrepreneur.

About Ossen­berg
The Ossen­berg Group is the leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of ortho­pe­dic aids for the walking impai­red. Foun­ded in 2007 in Rheine in eastern West­pha­lia, the tradi­tio­nal company now sells its products world­wide. Last summer, Ossen­berg took over its compe­ti­tor Erwin Kowsky from Neumüns­ter. The Ossen­berg Group employs around 100 people and repor­ted sales of €16.7 million in 2019.

News

Munich — The invest­ment holding company Armira has sold all its shares in M‑Sicherheitsbeteiligungen GmbH (Mehler Vario System Group) to the invest­ment company Deut­sche Private Equity (DPE). The parties invol­ved have agreed not to disc­lose all details of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant authorities.

The Mehler Vario System Group is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of balli­stic protec­tive equip­ment. The product port­fo­lio includes an exten­sive range of high-quality balli­stic protec­tive vests, tacti­cal equip­ment and clot­hing, as well as balli­stic protec­tion solu­ti­ons for vehic­les. The Mehler Vario System Group includes Mehler Vario System GmbH as well as three German subsi­dia­ries and one each in Slove­nia and Serbia. The company is head­quar­te­red in Fulda, Germany, employs around 600 people at five loca­ti­ons and opera­tes inter­na­tio­nally in over 40 count­ries worldwide.

Mehler Vario System Group was acqui­red by Amira in 2014 and has since grown stron­gly both orga­ni­cally and inorganically.

Armira is a Munich-based invest­ment holding company that invests in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. The focus is on estab­lished, profi­ta­ble compa­nies with sales between 50 and 500 million euros. The unique capi­tal base of entre­pre­neurs and entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies gives Armira the flexi­bi­lity to invest without a fixed term and to focus on the long-term deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio compa­nies. The Armira Group curr­ently gene­ra­tes sales of over 1.5 billion euros and employs more than 8,000 people.

Legal advice: CMS Hasche Siegle
Lead Part­ner Dr. Hendrik Hirsch , Chris­tian Schu­bert, Coun­sel, Dr. Berrit Roth-Ming­ram, Senior Asso­ciate, Maxine Nots­tain, Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A,
Kai Neuhaus, Part­ner, Moritz Pottek, Asso­ciate, both Compe­ti­tion & EU,
Boris Alles, Coun­sel, Labor, Employ­ment & Pensions
Dr. Thomas Hirse, Part­ner, Phil­ippe Heinzke, Coun­sel, Sven Krause, Senior Asso­ciate, all Intellec­tual Property, Dr. Jakob Steiff, Part­ner, Real Estate & Public

CMS Slove­nia
Aleš Lunder, Part­ner, Robert Kordić, Asso­ciate, Saša Sodja

CMS Serbia
Radi­voje Petri­kić, Partner

Finan­cing advice to Amira: Shear­man & Sterling
Part­ner Winfried M. Carli, Asso­ciate Martina Buller (both Germany-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 23 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.

Appen­dix:

News

Berlin — German-Ameri­can venture capi­ta­list Bitkraft has laun­ched its first venture fund. With USD 165 million, the capi­tal raised by the fund, which is focu­sed on finan­cing start-ups in the gaming and e‑sports sector, signi­fi­cantly excee­ded the total volume targe­ted. Inves­tors include the family office of David Ruben­stein, co-foun­der of the Carlyle Group, and JS Capi­tal, an invest­ment firm run by Jona­than Soros. Toge­ther with the renow­ned US law firm Gunder­son Dett­mer, an SMP team led by Helder Schnitt­ker struc­tu­red Bitkraft Venture Fund I and advi­sed on tax and regu­la­tory issues.

“We are a good step closer to our goal of buil­ding the leading global invest­ment plat­form in the games and e‑sports indus­try,” explains Bitcraft foun­der Jens Hilgers.

Bitkraft Ventures
Bitkraft Ventures is a global invest­ment plat­form for gaming, e‑sports and inter­ac­tive media. Foun­ded by e‑sports vete­ran Jens Hilgers, Bitkraft connects inno­va­tive start­ups and foun­ders into a global network to drive the buil­ding of future-proof virtual worlds. The inter­na­tio­nally posi­tio­ned Bitkraft team adds signi­fi­cant value to its port­fo­lio compa­nies by buil­ding early partnerships.

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.

Consul­tant Bitkraft: SMP
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Lead Part­ner, Fund Struc­tu­ring), Partner
Dr. Thomas Töben (Taxes), Partner
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory Law), Partner
Dr. Sebas­tian Schwarz (Taxes), Senior Associate

News

Berlin — Dei meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH has closed a finan­cing round: a family office from Switz­er­land supports the inno­va­tive busi­ness model of the venture buil­der. With the multi-million finan­cing, the company will invest in the field of e‑mobility and further support the growth of the medi­cal tech­no­logy port­fo­lio companies.

meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH is a venture buil­der for promi­sing start-ups from two rese­arch-inten­sive and promi­sing indus­tries: medi­cal tech­no­logy and e‑mobility. Micro­mo­bi­lity services and solu­ti­ons GmbH, which specia­li­zes in urban solu­ti­ons for passen­ger and freight trans­port, was recently foun­ded for the new field of e‑mobility. Gerald Vollnhals (photo: 2nd from left), Mana­ging Direc­tor of meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH, looks back on years of expe­ri­ence in e‑mobility. Among other things, he co-foun­ded the elec­tric vehicle manu­fac­tu­rer Govecs and will expand the second busi­ness area of e‑mobility at meisterwerk.

Deve­lo­p­ment of a unique corona test
In the medi­cal tech­no­logy sector, the venture buil­der brings toge­ther two compa­nies under its umbrella. midge medi­cal, the first spin-off, is working on the deve­lo­p­ment of an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy for science-based, low-cost and rapid gene and blood tests in the home and medi­cal envi­ron­ment. The current focus of midge medi­cal is on the deve­lo­p­ment of a compact and porta­ble COVID-19 gene­tic test. This comple­tely new test is desi­gned to enable rapid and cost-effec­tive evalua­tion. Just recently, midge medi­cal closed a finan­cing round in the mid-single-digit millions.

Foun­ded in 2018 by meis­ter­werk ventures, AICURA medi­cal provi­des a plat­form for the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of AI-based medi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons. The AICURA plat­form makes medi­cal data available in hospi­tals for the deve­lo­p­ment of AI appli­ca­ti­ons. It also enables AI appli­ca­ti­ons to be seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into clini­cal work­flows. Data protec­tion is always guaran­teed, as the data never leaves the hospi­tals at any time.

Years of expe­ri­ence in startups
“meis­ter­werk ventures has made it its mission to further deve­lop unique ideas and to successfully accom­pany them to market matu­rity in the long term. Our team consists of expe­ri­en­ced and highly moti­va­ted profes­sio­nals. The funding we have now recei­ved gives us even more oppor­tu­ni­ties to imple­ment our plans and drive tech­no­lo­gi­cal progress in e‑mobility and medi­cal tech­no­logy,” says Michael Diebold, Mana­ging Direc­tor of meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH.

Besi­des Gerald Vollnhals, Daniel Lich­ter­feld, Michael Diebold and Dr. Markus Ries­ter are part of the foun­ding team of meis­ter­werk ventures. The goal is to turn inno­va­tive ideas into mature solu­ti­ons and commer­cia­lize them in start-ups. The part­ners have a lot of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding compa­nies. Over the course of their care­ers, they have been invol­ved in the crea­tion of nume­rous start-ups. The first spin-off took place in 2016 with midge medi­cal GmbH, follo­wed by AICURA medi­cal GmbH in 2018, and Micro­mo­bi­lity services and solu­ti­ons GmbH, the third company of the Berlin-based venture buil­der, star­ted opera­ti­ons in 2020.

About meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH
meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH is a venture buil­der head­quar­te­red in Berlin. Foun­ded in 2016, the company specia­li­zes in buil­ding busi­nesses in medi­cal tech­no­logy and e‑mobility. Behind meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH is a team of expe­ri­en­ced inven­tors and tech­no­lo­gists who deve­lop novel tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons with disrup­tive thin­king and versa­tile engi­nee­ring know-how.

Port­fo­lio compa­nies include midge medi­cal GmbH, which is working on a novel tech­no­logy for mobile COVID-19 gene­tic test­ing, AICURA medi­cal GmbH, which is deve­lo­ping an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-based health plat­form for doctors and clinics, and Micro­mo­bi­lity services and solu­ti­ons GmbH, which specia­li­zes in e‑mobility. The team of meis­ter­werk has a lot of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding up compa­nies. In their care­ers, they have been invol­ved in the crea­tion of 21 start-ups and 38 patent appli­ca­ti­ons, as well as holding senior posi­ti­ons at well-known compa­nies. These include the medi­cal tech­no­logy company Biotro­nik, the Radio­logy-As-A-Service company medneo, the real estate portal ImmobilienScout24, the produ­cer of elec­tric vehic­les Govecs, the prin­ted circuit board manu­fac­tu­rer AT&S and the listed company ADVA.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Baker McKen­zie advi­sed Chr. Hansen Holding A/S (Chr. Hansen) in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of all shares in Jenne­wein Biotech­no­lo­gie GmbH (Jenne­wein), a leading company in the market for human milk oligos­ac­cha­ri­des (HMOs). The purchase price amounts to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 310 million (on a debt-free basis). The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close before the end of Septem­ber 2020.

Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion, Chr. Hansen plans to invest more than EUR 200 million by 2025, inclu­ding in a new produc­tion faci­lity. This is inten­ded to expand HMO capa­city to meet anti­ci­pa­ted demand.

Jenne­wein is a leading inter­na­tio­nal biotech­no­logy company with a range of products in the field of human milk oligos­ac­cha­ri­des (HMOs) and rare monosac­cha­ri­des such as L‑fucose and sialic acid. Jenne­wein produ­ces a broad port­fo­lio of inno­va­tive HMO products, inclu­ding 2′-fucosyllactose, 3′-fucosyllactose, lacto-N-neote­tra­ose, and lacto-Ntetra­ose. These are rare sugars used in the food indus­try (espe­ci­ally in infant milk formula), in the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try and in the cosme­tics industry.

Chr. Hansen is a leading global life science company deve­lo­ping products based on natu­ral ingre­di­ents for the food, nutri­tion, phar­maceu­ti­cal and agri­cul­tu­ral indus­tries. This includes the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of cultures, enzy­mes, probio­tics and natu­ral colors for a variety of foods, confec­tion­ery, bever­a­ges, dietary supple­ments as well as animal feed and crop protec­tion products. This allows food manu­fac­tu­r­ers, for exam­ple, to reduce the use of chemi­cals and other arti­fi­cial substi­tu­tes, thus crea­ting “more” from “less,” which is what makes the food products in ques­tion special in today’s world. In 2019, Chr. Hansen was ranked the most sustainable company in the world by Corpo­rate Knights.

Advi­sor Chr. Hansen Holding A/S: Baker McKen­zie
Lead Corporate/M&A: Chris­tian Atzler, Foto (Part­ner, Frankfurt)
Team: Corporate/M&A: Dr. Peter Wand (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Markus Mörtel (Senior Asso­ciate, Frank­furt), Jessica Köhler (Asso­ciate, Frank­furt), Rouven Reuter (Asso­ciate, Frank­furt), Esther Xiang (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Commer­cial: Dr. Johan­nes Teich­mann (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Ingmar Oltmanns (Asso­ciate, Frank­furt) Rebecca Romig, Isabel Weaver (both Asso­cia­tes, Frankfurt)
IP: Dr. Rembert Niebel (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Alex­an­der Ritter (Senior Asso­ciate, Munich), Lena Weber (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
IT: Dr. Holger Lutz (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Tobias Born (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Regu­la­tory: Dr. Frank Pflü­ger (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Chris­tian Lebrecht (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Employ­ment: Dr. Chris­tian Reichel (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Felix Diehl (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Real Estate: Dr. Florian Thamm (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Till Pflug (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Banking & Finance: Dr. Oliver Socher (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Silke Fritz (Coun­sel, Frank­furt), Phil­ipp Thimm (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Foreign Trade Law: Anahita Thoms (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Alex­an­der Ehrle (Asso­ciate, Berlin)
Anti­trust: Gavin Bushell (Part­ner, Brussels), Chris­tian Horst­kotte (Part­ner, Düsseldorf)

Inhouse Legal Chr. Hansen: Chris­tel May-Worre (Hørs­holm, Denmark)

About Baker McKenzie
Baker McKenzie’s global Corporate/M&A team advi­ses on more cross-border tran­sac­tions than any other law firm. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed GEA on the sale of compres­sor manu­fac­tu­rer Bock to NORD, DBAG on an invest­ment in conga­tec Holding AG, benpac holding ag on the acqui­si­tion of Gallus Group, SAP on the sale of the SAP Digi­tal Inter­con­nect commu­ni­ca­ti­ons unit to Sinch AB, Para­gon Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of Casto­lin Eutec­tic, Air Liquide on the sale of the Schülke Group to Swedish finan­cial inves­tor EQT, METRO AG on the sale of its China busi­ness and the estab­lish­ment of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Wumei, Bayer AG on the sale of its majo­rity stake in chemi­cal park opera­tor Currenta, SPIE on the acqui­si­tion of OSMO, Toppan Prin­ting Co. Ltd. on its acqui­si­tion of the German Inter­print Group, and Evonik on the sale of its methacry­la­tes group to Advent International.

News

Berlin/ Munich — The robo­tics company Maga­zino has closed a Series B finan­cing round of 21 million euros. Jung­hein­rich AG and the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) lead the round, and exis­ting inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted. The capi­tal raised will be used to expand inter­na­tio­nal sales acti­vi­ties and, above all, to expand the “ACROS.AI” soft­ware stack — a soft­ware plat­form for intel­li­gent robots deve­lo­ped by Maga­zino, which is also used on third-party hard­ware. Once again, Maga­zino recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice on both equity and debt finan­cing from a team led by SMP

In addi­tion to the invest­ments made by the exis­ting share­hol­ders and Jung­hein­rich AG, the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) is provi­ding Maga­zino GmbH with venture debt finan­cing of up to 12 million euros. The EU Bank loan is backed by a guaran­tee from the Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments (EFSI). The EFSI is the center­piece of the Invest­ment Plan for Europe, under which the EIB and the Euro­pean Commis­sion work toge­ther as stra­te­gic part­ners to chan­nel private capi­tal into projects that streng­then the sustaina­bi­lity and compe­ti­ti­ve­ness of the Euro­pean economy. In many of these finan­cings, EIB invol­vement has an important signal­ing effect to private inves­tors, whose risk is often signi­fi­cantly redu­ced by the EU bank’s compre­hen­sive analy­sis and input.

Accor­ding to Maga­zino, the capi­tal raised will be used both to expand inter­na­tio­nal sales and to opti­mize the company’s proprie­tary soft­ware plat­form for intel­li­gent robots.

About Maga­zino
Maga­zino GmbH deve­lops and builds intel­li­gent, mobile robots that perceive their envi­ron­ment and make decis­i­ons them­sel­ves. The auto­no­mous robots work in paral­lel with humans and make proces­ses in the areas of e‑commerce, fashion and produc­tion logi­stics more flexi­ble and effi­ci­ent. With over 100 employees at the Munich site, Maga­zino provi­des the largest advan­ced robo­tics team in Europe. Magazino’s inves­tors include Körber AG, Zalando and Fiege Logistik.

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 Maga­zino: SMP
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead Part­ner, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Dr. Adrian Haase (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate
Chris­tiane Schnitz­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Associate
Matthias Kres­ser (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate

News

Paris/ Frank­furt am Main — Ardian, a leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm, today announ­ced the successful fund­rai­sing of €2 billion for its latest expan­sion fund, Ardian Expan­sion Fund V. Despite the chal­len­ging market envi­ron­ment due to Covid-19, Ardian Expan­sion has thus doubled the fund size compared to the previous gene­ra­tion in just six months, which also speaks for the unch­an­ged high attrac­ti­ve­ness of high-growth Euro­pean mid-cap companies.

Ardian Expan­sion Fund V has a global and diver­si­fied inves­tor base. While more than one-third of inves­tors inves­ted with Ardian for the first time, inves­tors in previous gene­ra­ti­ons of funds repre­sent half of the new fund’s volume, a testa­ment to their long-term confi­dence in the expan­sion team and the attrac­ti­ve­ness of the asset class. Thanks to new inves­tors from the Asia and Middle East regi­ons, the fund has also broa­dened its geogra­phi­cal focus.

In addi­tion, the fund expan­ded its inves­tor base, which now includes a sove­reign wealth fund for the first time along­side insu­rance compa­nies, high net worth indi­vi­du­als and pension funds. Seve­ral mana­gers from Ardian Expansion’s port­fo­lio compa­nies have also subscri­bed to fund units. They account for nearly five percent of the fund’s assets, unders­coring the good rela­ti­onships the expan­sion team has built with the manage­ment teams of their port­fo­lio companies.

With a total of 27 profes­sio­nals in Paris, Frank­furt am Main, Milan and Luxem­bourg, the Ardian Expan­sion team will conti­nue its stra­tegy of support­ing successful entre­pre­neurs in imple­men­ting their growth plans. On average, Ardian Expansion’s port­fo­lio compa­nies have each grown orga­ni­cally by more than ten percent in the past and have reali­zed almost four acqui­si­ti­ons on average. Thus, the stra­te­gic value of the compa­nies was increased through acce­le­ra­ted transformation.

Fran­çois Jerpha­gnon, Head of Ardian Expan­sion, said: “We are hono­red by the trust our inves­tors have placed in us. To double the fund size from our prede­ces­sor fund in just six months speaks to the success of our stra­tegy and the finan­cial perfor­mance it is deli­ve­ring for our inves­tors. Part of this invest­ment philo­so­phy, which we have culti­va­ted for 20 years, is to build strong rela­ti­onships with expe­ri­en­ced and dedi­ca­ted manage­ment teams and acce­le­rate value crea­tion for all stake­hol­ders through the Ardian platform.”

Ardian’s expan­sion team is focu­sed on buil­ding long-term rela­ti­onships with manage­ment teams — on average, there are about three years between first meeting and an invest­ment. As part of its flexi­ble invest­ment approach, the team is able to take both mino­rity and majo­rity stakes. This approach is also reflec­ted in the team’s strong track record of support­ing manage­ment teams in the areas of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and sustaina­bi­lity. For exam­ple, the team supports digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects at Diam and CCC, as well as native digi­tal busi­ness models, such as at CLS and Berlin Brands Group. As a pioneer in the imple­men­ta­tion of profit-sharing, Ardian and the Expan­sion Team distri­bute a portion of the profits reali­zed through growth to the employees of its port­fo­lio compa­nies upon dive­st­ment. Since the intro­duc­tion of this concept ten years ago, around 15 port­fo­lio compa­nies of Ardian Expan­sion have alre­ady bene­fi­ted from the profit-sharing scheme.

Despite the econo­mic down­turn in the COVID-19 pande­mic, Ardian Expan­sion contin­ued to make new invest­ments. The team has focu­sed on compa­nies that have strong orga­nic and exter­nal growth poten­tial and operate in robust sectors. The new fund is alre­ady 10 percent inves­ted. In May 2020, i.e. still during the lock-down, the purchase agree­ment was signed for Swiss­bit, a provi­der of NAND flash-based storage as well as embedded IoT solu­ti­ons for deman­ding niche appli­ca­ti­ons with substan­tial orga­nic growth poten­tial. This was follo­wed in July 2020 by the acqui­si­tion of Finaxy, a leading French broad-based insu­rance broker with a track record of strong orga­nic as well as exter­nal growth. The strong manage­ment teams in each case were among the decisive factors in the closing of these transactions.

About Ardian
Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging over US$100 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 690 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 1,000 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate.

News

Düssel­dorf — McDer­mott has advi­sed Main Capi­tal Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of MACH AG, a market-leading soft­ware provi­der for public admi­nis­tra­tion. The foun­ding Müller-Ontjes family remains the active owner. The joint growth stra­tegy will focus on expan­ding the product and tech­no­logy offe­ring through orga­nic as well as inor­ga­nic growth.

MACH AG, foun­ded in 1985 and head­quar­te­red in Lübeck, specia­li­zes in the digi­tiza­tion of public admi­nis­tra­tion. The company provi­des soft­ware, consul­ting and opera­ti­ons for more than 100,000 users in fede­ral and state agen­cies, muni­ci­pa­li­ties, church admi­nis­tra­ti­ons, teaching and rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons, and non-govern­men­tal orga­niza­ti­ons. With more than 400 employees, MACH AG gene­ra­tes sales of 44 million euros.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a stra­te­gic inves­tor focu­sed on the soft­ware sector in the Bene­lux, DACH and Scan­di­na­via with offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf and Stock­holm. With a long-term invest­ment hori­zon for successful part­ner­ships with manage­ment teams, its goal is to build larger soft­ware groups. Main Capi­tal Part­ners mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately €1 billion in assets for invest­ment in mature and growing soft­ware companies.

About Main Capital
Main Capi­tal is a stra­te­gic inves­tor in the soft­ware indus­try. We focus on acce­le­ra­ting busi­ness growth and gene­ra­ting busi­ness value. Expe­ri­ence and lessons lear­ned from the soft­ware market are bund­led in our Market Intel­li­gence prac­tice. This dedi­ca­ted group focu­ses on prac­ti­cal indus­try analy­sis to help our compa­nies iden­tify oppor­tu­ni­ties and achieve opera­tio­nal excel­lence. Bench­mar­king, process opti­miza­tion and segment / terri­tory analy­sis are just a few of the topics addres­sed by the team to deve­lop an adapted growth stra­tegy for each indi­vi­dual company. www.main.nl

Advi­sors to Main Capi­tal Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery (Düssel­dorf)
Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger, Norman Wasse (both Lead, Corporate/Private Equity), Dr. Kian Tauser (both Frank­furt), Dr. Nils Chris­tian Wighardt (Munich), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; Frank­furt; all Tax), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski, Dr. Thomas Gennert (both Labor Law), Daniel von Brevern (Anti­trust), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer (Real Estate Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Alexa Ningel­gen (Public Law), Dr. Chris­tian Masch (IT/IP, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Tobias Riemen­schnei­der, Isabelle Müller (all Corporate/M&A, all Frank­furt), David Schä­fer (Finan­cing), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Julian Jäger (Labor Law), Tina Zeller (Real Estate, Frank­furt), Mirjam Büsch, Lene Niemeier (both Public Law)

News

Iceland / Frank­furt — Marel hf , a public limi­ted company listed on the Icelan­dic Nasdaq OMX and Euron­ext Amster­dam, based in Garda­baer / Iceland, has acqui­red the entire busi­ness shares of TREIF Maschi­nen­bau GmbH (TREIF), inclu­ding all rele­vant busi­ness acti­vi­ties of the group. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the fourth quar­ter of 2020, subject to regu­la­tory approval.

TREIF, a family-owned company based in Ober­lahr, Germany, is a cutting machine manu­fac­tu­rer for the food and espe­ci­ally the meat indus­try. The company was foun­ded in 1948, curr­ently employs around 500 people at loca­ti­ons in Europe, the USA and China, and most recently gene­ra­ted annual sales of over 80 million euros.

Marel is an Icelan­dic manu­fac­tu­rer of food proces­sing equip­ment with more than 6,300 employees in over 30 count­ries with annual sales of 1.3 billion euros. The acqui­si­tion follows Marel’s stra­te­gic goal to become a full-service provi­der of advan­ced food proces­sing and stan­dard equip­ment solu­ti­ons and to further expand its global market presence.

Advi­sors to TREIF Maschi­nen­bau GmbH: Flick Gocke Schaum­burg (Bonn/Hamburg)
Dr. Stephan Göcke­ler, Dr. Chris­tian Bochmann (both lead, M&A/Corporate; Bonn/Hamburg), Dr. Chris­tian Pitzal, Dr. Bastian Lieg­mann (both Tax; Berlin), Dr. Florian C. Haus (Anti­trust), Alex­an­der Lösch­horn (IT); Asso­cia­tes: Fabian Schmidt (Anti­trust), Dr. Verena Roder-Hieße­rich (IP), Alex­an­der Heinen, Dr. Paul Schirr­ma­cher (both M&A/Corporate; Hamburg)

Advi­sors to Marel hf: Allen & Overy
Part­ners Dr. Michiel Huizinga (Lead, Corporate/M&A) and Dr. Michael Ehret (Tax, both Frank­furt) and Coun­sel Dr. René Galle (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Peter Wehner (Pensi­ons) and Dr. Udo H. Olgem­öl­ler (Public Law, both Frank­furt). Further­more, the team compri­sed Senior Asso­cia­tes Dr. Marcus Grühn (Real Estate Law, Hamburg), Dr. Sebas­tian Schulz (Labor Law), Stefa­nie Günther (Public Law, both Frank­furt), Catha­rina Glugla (Data Protec­tion, Düssel­dorf) as well as Asso­cia­tes Laura Reuther (Corporate/M&A), Sven Bisch­off, Paul Kess­ler (both Tax Law), Dr. Anna Jung (Public Law, all Frank­furt), Anna Kräling (IP, Düssel­dorf), Katrin Pilgram (Real Estate, Hamburg) and Senior Tran­sac­tion Offi­cer Nadine Gommel (Corporate/M&A, Frankfurt).

About Flick Gocke Schaumburg
Flick Gocke Schaum­burg has more than 350 profes­sio­nals in Berlin, Bonn, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, Hamburg, Munich, Stutt­gart and Zurich, advi­sing corpo­rate groups and family busi­nesses, private clients, NPOs and the public sector on tax law, corpo­rate and commer­cial law as well as audi­ting and busi­ness valuation.

About Allen & Overy
Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,500 employees, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 550 part­ners, in more than 40 loca­ti­ons world­wide. An up-to-date over­view of Allen & Overy’s offices can be found here: allenovery.com/locations.

Allen & Overy is repre­sen­ted in Germany at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg and Munich with appro­xi­m­ately 220 lawy­ers, inclu­ding 47 part­ners. The lawy­ers advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies prima­rily in the areas of banking, finance and capi­tal markets law, corpo­rate law and M&A, tax law as well as other areas of busi­ness law.

This press release is issued by Allen & Overy LLP. In this press release, “Allen & Overy” refers to “Allen & Overy LLP or its affi­lia­tes.” The named part­ners are either share­hol­ders, advi­sors or employees of Allen & Overy LLP and/or its affiliates.

News

Wie / Frank­furt a. M. — In addi­tion to lead inves­tor APEX Digi­tal Health, exis­ting inves­tors Entre­pre­neur First, SOSV and seve­ral high-ranking busi­ness angels also parti­ci­pa­ted in the seed round for Berlin-based medtech startup Deep­Spin. Deep­Spin says it plans to use the fresh capi­tal to expand the team and further deve­lop the tech­no­logy it has developed.

Alre­ady in Q2, a team led by SMP part­ner Martin Scha­per advi­sed APEX Digi­tal Health on its invest­ment in Berlin-based medtech startup Deep­Spin, as well as acting as lead inves­tor in the seed finan­cing round of Berlin-based startup Phan­tasma Labs. Other inves­tors include Signals VC, IBB Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, Wi Ventures, Entre­pre­neur First, and seve­ral high-profile busi­ness angels. Accor­ding to Phan­tasma Labs, the capi­tal raised will be used to expand the team as well as product development.

“We are very plea­sed that we were able to advise APEX Ventures on two finan­cing rounds at the same time. The invest­ments in DeepT­ech and Health­Tech under­line the ever incre­asing importance of these sectors in the VC market”, says Martin Schaper.

APEX Ventures
APEX Ventures is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal fund focu­sed on DeepT­ech start­ups with unique IP and extra­or­di­nary market poten­tial. APEX Ventures has comple­ted nume­rous invest­ments in Europe as well as in the U.S., inclu­ding AI for medi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons, quan­tum and laser tech­no­logy, auto­no­mous mobi­lity, compu­ter vision, and digi­tal foren­sics. APEX Ventures is in close colla­bo­ra­tion with the foun­ding teams to work toge­ther on go-to-market stra­te­gies and acce­le­rate inter­na­tio­nal growth. For an effec­tive selec­tion of talen­ted teams and their best possi­ble support, APEX Ventures is in close exch­ange with acade­mic insti­tu­ti­ons, entre­pre­neur­ship programs and other inter­na­tio­nal VC partners.

APEX Digi­tal Health
APEX Digi­tal Health — the second fund under the APEX Ventures umbrella — invests in early-stage health­care compa­nies. As in the first fund, which has alre­ady made 16 successful invest­ments, the focus is on DeepT­ech compa­nies with defen­si­ble intellec­tual property in the DACH region. Howe­ver, invest­ments are also plan­ned in the rest of Europe, the USA and Israel. Since the fund was regis­tered in Janu­ary 2020, four invest­ments have been comple­ted, in patho­logy, radio­logy and neurology.

Deep­Spin
Based on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, Berlin-based medtech startup Deep­Spin is deve­lo­ping a novel magne­tic reso­nance imaging (MRI) system. Compared to conven­tio­nal systems, DeepSpin’s solu­tion is said to be a frac­tion of the cost, size and weight. The company’s goal is to make MRI acces­si­ble to all pati­ents world­wide through the use of its tech­no­logy, thus estab­li­shing a new stan­dard of care in this specialty. The company was foun­ded in 2020 by Clemens Tepel and Pedro Silva.

Phan­tasm Labs
Phan­tasma Labs offers a solu­tion to improve self-driving systems. Using virtual simu­la­tion and novel AI tech­no­logy, Phan­tasma Labs’ soft­ware will help self-driving cars predict and under­stand human beha­vior, for exam­ple. In the simu­la­ti­ons, entire cities such as London or New York are recrea­ted virtually, in which an auto­no­mously driving system encoun­ters real-life situa­tions with other road users or even pede­stri­ans. The company was foun­ded in 2018 by Rama­krishna Nanjun­daiah and Maria Meier, who previously met in the Talent Inves­tor Entre­pre­neur First program.

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

Advi­sor APEX Ventures: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead/Corporate), Part­ner, Dr. Chris­tian Jois­ten (Tax), Asso­ciate Pia Dürre (Corpo­rate) Associate

Advi­sor APEX Digi­tal Health: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per (Corpo­rate Law), Part­ner, Jonas Huth (Corpo­rate Law), Associate

News

Munich — In the future, 45-year-old Michael Riemen­schnei­der will be part of the manage­ment team of the Strüng­mann family’s single family office Athos.

For half a year it was quiet around Michael Riemen­schnei­der, the former mana­ging direc­tor of Reimann Inves­tors, where he made nume­rous direct invest­ments. Then it became known that Riemen­schnei­der has been one of three mana­ging direc­tors since the begin­ning of July, along with Helmut Jeggle and Thomas Maier. Athos is the single family office of brot­hers Thomas and Andreas Strüng­mann, the foun­ders and former owners of Hexal.

The 45-year-old was previously Mana­ging Direc­tor of the Single Family Office of those members of the Reimann family of entre­pre­neurs who parted with their stake in the former family busi­ness at the end of the 1990s for more than 13 years. He had left the family office at the end of 2019. From 2000 to 2005, the indus­trial engi­neer with a docto­rate in busi­ness admi­nis­tra­tion was a stra­tegy consul­tant at the Boston Consul­ting Group.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed giro­pay GmbH on the sale of giro­pay to paydi­rekt GmbH. paydi­rekt GmbH takes over all rele­vant parts of giro­pay GmbH in order to provide the online payment proce­dure giro­pay in the future. The German banks and savings banks are thus bund­ling their two account-based online payment proces­ses. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is sche­du­led for Decem­ber 2020.

giro­pay GmbH, foun­ded in 2005 by Post­bank, the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe (Star Finanz GmbH), and the coope­ra­tive Finanz­gruppe (Fidu­cia & GAD IT AG), provi­des an account-based service that enables “regis­tra­tion-free” payments on the Inter­net via online banking. As a payment method in German e‑commerce, giro­pay curr­ently proces­ses over one million tran­sac­tions per month in a wide range of industries.

Advi­sors to giro­pay GmbH: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frank­furt a.M.
Dr. Michael Cziesla (Lead Part­ner), Norman Wasse, LL.M. (both Corporate/M&A), Daniel von Brevern (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Florian Lech­ner (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Tech­no­logy Law); Asso­ciate: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim (Corporate/M&A)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,200 attor­neys, we are repre­sen­ted in 20 loca­ti­ons world­wide: Atlanta, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt a. M., Hous­ton, Colo­gne, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Sili­con Valley, Washing­ton, D.C. and Wilm­ing­ton. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. www.mwe.com

News

Berlin/ Munich — Berlin-based acade­mic publisher De Gruy­ter has acqui­red eight acade­mic jour­nals from Munich-based Carl Hanser Verlag. Carl Hanser Verlag will trans­fer the jour­nals “Inter­na­tio­nal Jour­nal of Mate­ri­als Rese­arch,” “Inter­na­tio­nal Poly­mer Proces­sing,” “Kern­tech­nik,” “Mate­ri­als Test­ing,” “Prac­ti­cal Metall­o­gra­phy,” “Tenside Surfac­tants Deter­gents,” “ZWF-Zeit­schrift für wirt­schaft­li­che Fabrik­be­trieb” and “HTM-Jour­nal of Heat Treat­ment and Mate­ri­als” to De Gruy­ter on Janu­ary 1, 2021. Raue advi­sed Berlin-based acade­mic publisher De Gruy­ter on the transaction.

De Gruy­ter is an inde­pen­dent acade­mic publisher with head­quar­ters in Berlin and offices in Basel, Boston, Munich, Beijing, Warsaw and Vienna. De Gruy­ter publishes more than 1,300 new book titles and more than 900 jour­nals a year, is a world leader in open access, and provi­des digi­tal access to scho­larly content to more than 12 million users a year on its website, degruyter.com.

Carl Hanser Verlag is one of Germany’s leading publishers of lite­ra­ture as well as applied engi­nee­ring, tech­no­logy, compu­ter science and business.

Advi­sor Walter De Gruy­ter GmbH: Raue (Berlin)
Dr. Jörg Jaecks (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner Corpo­rate Law, M&A), Dr. Michael K. Berg­mann (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law), Dr. Johan­nes Modest (Asso­ciate, Anti­trust Law)

About Raue
Raue is an inter­na­tio­nally active law firm based in Berlin. She provi­des compre­hen­sive advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public enti­ties on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and conten­tious dispu­tes. www.raue.com

News

Munich/ Pfäf­fi­kon (Switz­er­land) — Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by Afinum Manage­ment GmbH, acqui­res a stake in Threema GmbH. Toge­ther with the foun­ders Martin Blat­ter, Manuel Kasper and Silvan Enge­ler, who will remain signi­fi­cantly invol­ved after the tran­sac­tion, Afinum will support the growth course of the past years. Toge­ther with Afinum, the company intends to further expand its own market posi­tion as the leading Euro­pean secure messen­ger for private and corpo­rate customers.

Threema (www.threema.ch), based in Pfäf­fi­kon, Switz­er­land, is a leading Euro­pean secure messa­ging provi­der for private users, public insti­tu­ti­ons as well as compa­nies. With Threema’s soft­ware solu­ti­ons, neither meta­data nor chat content is stored, which is a strong diffe­ren­tia­tor from other commer­cial messen­gers. This reflects the primary goal of ensu­ring custo­mer data secu­rity and privacy. Threema’s app for private users is used by custo­mers in over 90 count­ries. The corpo­rate custo­mer solu­tion Threema Work has become the market leader in the DACH region in recent years and is used by a large number of DAX 30 compa­nies, govern­ment agen­cies, NGOs and educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons. — Threema is to become open source.

Threema was foun­ded in 2014 by the three soft­ware deve­lo­pers Martin Blat­ter, Manuel Kasper and Silvan Enge­ler, who will conti­nue to lead the company. By ente­ring into this part­ner­ship, Threema lays the foun­da­tion for conti­nuity and gains resour­ces to grow beyond German-spea­king Europe. Threema will conti­nue to improve its own soft­ware and deve­lop addi­tio­nal features to conti­nue provi­ding custo­mers with the most secure secure messen­ger. Thanks to the inno­va­tive cross-plat­form multi-device solu­tion, Threema will also be usable on multi­ple devices in paral­lel in the future, without leaving perso­nal data on a server. In addi­tion, Threema will fully disc­lose the source code of Threema apps in the coming months to allow anyone to check the secu­rity and func­tion­a­lity of Threema itself and verify that the published source code matches the instal­led app.

The invest­ment in Threema is the ninth plat­form tran­sac­tion of Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co. KG.

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

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