ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Berlin — SMP advi­sed Berlin-based venture capi­ta­list Project A on its invest­ment in health­tech company Wind­star Medi­cal. Toge­ther with London-based private equity inves­tor Oakley Capi­tal, Project A inves­ted in the Wert­heim-based provi­der of health­care products, whose mission is to deve­lop compa­nies and brands in the exten­ded health­care market and support them in their expan­sion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. Compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice was again provi­ded to Project A by an SMP team. SMP has alre­ady supported the early-stage inves­tor in a large number of invest­ments in Germany and abroad and has laun­ched three fund gene­ra­ti­ons for him. Tim Schlös­ser and Malte Berg­mann took the lead for this mandate.

Project A

Project A is one of the leading venture capi­tal firms in Europe, based in Berlin, with bran­ches in Munich and London. In addi­tion to $500M in capi­tal under manage­ment, Project A provi­des opera­tio­nal support services to its port­fo­lio compa­nies: this includes more than 110 employees in soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment, busi­ness intel­li­gence, marke­ting, recrui­ting and many others. Project A was named Germany’s best VC by Busi­ness Insi­der 2020 maga­zine. Since its foun­ding in 2012, Project A has supported more than 60 start­ups in 12 count­ries. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies such as Cata­wiki, World­Re­mit, Home­day, Spry­ker, senn­der, KRY, Trade Repu­blic or Voi.

Oakley Capi­tal

Oakley Capi­tal is a private equity inves­tor based in London and Munich. The company was foun­ded in 2002 by Peter Dubens with the goal of crea­ting a funding part­ner that under­stands the needs of foun­ders and invests time, expe­ri­ence and capi­tal to help them grow and succeed. Oakley Capi­tal supports compa­nies in a variety of indus­tries throug­hout Western Europe, prima­rily in the tech­no­logy, consu­mer and educa­tion sectors.

Wind­star Medical

Wind­star Medi­cal is one of the leading provi­ders of non-phar­macy health­care products. High-quality dietary supple­ments, medi­cal devices and over-the-coun­ter medi­ci­nes enter drugs­to­res, super­mar­kets and discount stores through Wind­star. Windstar’s port­fo­lio includes over 500 items, inclu­ding both its own brands and a variety of private labels. Wind­star supports its custo­mers throug­hout the entire process, from the deve­lo­p­ment of the product to its launch. Wind­star employs around 100 people at three loca­ti­ons in Germany. The head­quar­ters and admi­nis­tra­tive head­quar­ters of the health­tech company are loca­ted in Wehrheim.

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.

Consul­tant Project A: SMP

Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (Co-Lead, Corpo­rate), Partner
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Co-Lead, Tax), Partner

News

Neu-Isen­burg — Swedish finan­cial inves­tor EQT has sold Neu-Isen­burg-based faci­lity mana­ger Apleona to French private equity firm PAI Part­ners (PAI) for €1.6 billion. EQT had itself acqui­red the former real estate divi­sion of the Bilfin­ger Group only four years ago in the fall of 2016.

Apleona will conti­nue to operate as an inde­pen­dent company on the market under the new owner, empha­si­zes Mana­ging Direc­tor Dr. Jochen Keysberg. He not only wants to drive digi­tal inno­va­tions, but also play a signi­fi­cant role in the “expec­ted market conso­li­da­tion in Germany”. To this end, the company will comple­ment both its service offe­ring and regio­nal coverage through inor­ga­nic growth, he announced.

PAI has deca­des of tradi­tion and indus­try exper­tise as a finan­cial inves­tor and is known for deve­lo­ping corpo­rate invest­ments in a long-term and sustainable manner, Keysberg adds. He said the ongo­ing Covid 19 pande­mic will rein­force exis­ting trends, such as outsour­cing of real estate services by large indus­trial compa­nies, inter­na­tio­nal bidding for ever-larger port­fo­lios, inclu­ding cross-border ones, and strong demand for digi­tal solu­ti­ons and products for buil­ding users and for buil­ding tech­no­logy, for exam­ple, to save energy and CO2.

Who is PAI Partners?

The orig­ins of PAI Part­ners date back to 1872 as the invest­ment arm of Handels­bank Pari­bas, now part of BNP Pari­bas. Follo­wing a manage­ment buy-out in 2001, the company now opera­tes inde­pendently on behalf of pension funds, insu­rance compa­nies, banks and private inves­tors. A team of 95 employees mana­ges a port­fo­lio of more than 20 Euro­pean compa­nies or 13.9 billion euros in assets under manage­ment. PAI invests in compa­nies in the Busi­ness Services, Food & Consu­mer, Gene­ral Indus­tri­als, Health­care and Retail & Distri­bu­tion sectors. The average holding period for invest­ments is five years, accor­ding to the PAI website.

Hengeler Mueller advises PAI on the transaction

The part­ners Dr. Emanuel Strehle, Dr. Daniel Möritz (both lead, M&A), Dr. Markus Ernst (Tax) (all Munich), Dr. Alf-Henrik Bischke (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf) and Hendrik Bocken­hei­mer (Labor, Frank­furt), the coun­sels Dr. Andrea Schlaffge and Patrick Wilke­ning (both Intellec­tual Property/IT, Düssel­dorf) as well as the asso­cia­tes Dr. Thomas Weie­rer, Johan­nes Schmidt, Chris­tian Linke, Dr. Constan­tin Alex­an­der Wege­ner (all M&A), Dr. Tim Würst­lin (Tax) (all Munich), Dr. Katha­rina Gebhardt, Dr. Marius Mayer, Dr. Andreas Kaletsch (all Labor Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Cars­ten Bormann (Public Commer­cial Law), Dr. Anja Balitzki, Dr. Kyra Brink­mann and Chris­tian Dankerl (all Anti­trust) (all Düsseldorf).

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott has advi­sed Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners on the sale of cyber­se­cu­rity company Avira to Norton­Li­feL­ock Inc. advise Norton­Li­feL­ock, also a leading cyber­se­cu­rity company, will acquire Avira in an all-cash tran­sac­tion valued at appro­xi­m­ately $360 million. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to anti­trust clearance and is expec­ted in the first quar­ter of next year.

Invest­corp had only acqui­red Avira in April 2020 for around 165 million euros. The acqui­si­tion marked Investcorp’s seventh deal from its $400 million IV. Tech­no­logy Fund and the third acqui­si­tion of a tech company in the DACH region within the previous 18 months.

Avira is a leading multi­na­tio­nal IT secu­rity soft­ware company head­quar­te­red in Germany with offices in Europe, the US and Asia. It serves the OEM (origi­nal equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer) and consu­mer markets with anti-malware, threat intel­li­gence and IoT solu­ti­ons, protec­ting over 500 million endpoints worldwide.

Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners focu­ses on inves­t­ing in fast-growing, foun­der-led compa­nies in Europe. The tech­no­logy team is conside­red a market leader in inves­t­ing in lower middle market compa­nies with a focus on soft­ware, data/analytics, cyber­se­cu­rity and fintech/payment. Since 2001, Invest­corp has raised over $1.5 billion to invest in tech­no­logy companies.

The McDer­mott team led by part­ners Michael Cziesla and Norman Wasse had alre­ady advi­sed Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of Avira in April and on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Content­serv Group in 2019.

Advi­sors Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery (Frank­furt)
Dr. Michael Cziesla (photo), Norman Wasse (both lead, M&A/Private Equity), Dr. Kian Tauser, Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; all Tax), Daniel von Brevern (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel, Finan­cing); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Victo­ria Huf (Trai­nee; both Corporate/M&A)

Pros­kauer Rose (London): Steven Davis, David Hill, Jacque­line Ball

News

London / Deli­vier — Global invest­ment firm The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) today has agreed to acquire the Acro­tec Group, in part­ner­ship with its manage­ment team, from Castik Capi­tal (photo: Michael Phil­ipps, foun­der of Casik Capi­tal). The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close in Q1 2021.

Head­quar­te­red in Deve­lier, Switz­er­land, Acro­tec is a leading inde­pen­dent supplier of high precis­ion indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons to the watch­ma­king and MedTech indus­tries as well as other high value indus­trial end markets, such as Auto­mo­tive, Elec­tro­nics and Aero­space. The company is a market-leading supplier into the estab­lished Swiss luxury watch-making market, manu­fac­tu­ring criti­cal compon­ents for mecha­ni­cal watch move­ments with major luxury watch brands as key custo­mers. Acro­tec recently expan­ded its posi­tion as a trus­ted MedTech contract manu­fac­tu­rer lever­aging its high-precis­ion engi­nee­ring capa­bi­li­ties to service a diver­si­fied base of global custo­mers. The company employs appro­xi­m­ately 1,200 people across 18 loca­ti­ons and exports to over 40 countries.

Expan­sion plans for Acrotec’s MedTech business 

The Carlyle Group will support Acro­tec in acce­le­ra­ting its growth plan through the deve­lo­p­ment of its exis­ting plat­form and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Lever­aging Carlyle’s global Health­care exper­tise and network, the part­ner­ship will seek to broa­den Acrotec’s MedTech busi­ness with expan­sion into new services and geogra­phies in Europe and in the United States.

Fran­çois Billig, foun­der and CEO of the Acro­tec Group, said: “In Carlyle, I am deligh­ted that we have found a part­ner that under­stands and appre­cia­tes the core values of the Group. This part­ner­ship, which repres­ents an important mile­stone in Acrotec’s history, will signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate our growth and diver­si­fi­ca­tion plan while remai­ning loyal to our core busi­ness in high precis­ion appli­ca­ti­ons. Castik has been a valuable part­ner over the past four years, support­ing the busi­ness to conso­li­date its leading posi­tion in mecha­ni­cal watch making, and over­see­ing a key phase of its deve­lo­p­ment, while respec­ting the values of the Group.”

Jona­than Zafrani (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor of the Carlyle Europe Part­ners advi­sory team, said: “We were attrac­ted to Acro­tec given its strong entre­pre­neu­rial spirit, its market-leading posi­ti­ons in the growing Swiss mecha­ni­cal watch market as well as for various precis­ion high-tech appli­ca­ti­ons, and the attrac­tive growth oppor­tu­nity in the global MedTech contract manu­fac­tu­ring market. The company has a strong repu­ta­tion with its custo­mers for manu­fac­tu­ring compon­ents that require the highest level of tech­no­logy and craft­sman­ship. We are exci­ted to part­ner with the Acro­tec manage­ment team and look forward to lever­aging our signi­fi­cant exper­tise in Indus­tri­als and Health­care to support Acrotec’s future growth.”

Michael Phil­lips, Invest­ment Part­ner and member of the Board of Mana­gers of Castik Capi­tal S.à r.l., said: “It was a great plea­sure support­ing Fran­çois and his entre­pre­neu­rial manage­ment team at Acro­tec over the last four years. During Castik’s owner­ship, the company pursued an active conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy, acqui­ring 12 stra­te­gic add-ons and successfully expan­ding into the MedTech indus­try. We wish Acro­tec all the best in the future and are confi­dent that Carlyle is the right part­ner to further drive the company’s excep­tio­nal performance.”

About Acrotec

Acro­tec is an inde­pen­dent group crea­ted by micro­me­cha­nics profes­sio­nals. Its main objec­tive is to be a refe­rence subcon­trac­tor by offe­ring a wide range of manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses for precis­ion compon­ents. Its stra­tegy is both to provide “Swiss Made” quality products to the entire watch indus­try as well as to the auto­mo­tive, elec­tro­nics, medi­cal, jewelry and aero­nau­tics indus­tries. Acro­tec distin­gu­is­hes itself by the extent of the know-how exer­cised under the same roof, in precis­ion machi­ning (CNC turning, CNC multi­spindle turning, cam-opera­ted turning, 3 & 5 axis milling, micro-turning, trans­fer and machi­ning of precious metals), by support proces­ses (surface treat­ment, cutting, assem­bly, heat treat­ment, deco­ra­tion and laser engra­ving) and by speci­fic proces­ses (realiza­tion of compon­ents by UV-Liga, wire erosion/sinking, machi­ning of synthe­tic stones, lami­na­tion, shaping of springs, realiza­tion of machi­nes and tools and engra­ving on sili­con — DRIE). Curr­ently, the Group has more than 1,200 employees.
www.acrotec.ch

About The Carlyle Group

The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) is a global invest­ment firm with deep indus­try exper­tise that deploys private capi­tal across four busi­ness segments: Corpo­rate Private Equity, Real Assets, Global Credit and Invest­ment Solu­ti­ons. With $230 billion of assets under manage­ment as of Septem­ber 30, 2020, Carlyle’s purpose is to invest wisely and create value on behalf of its inves­tors, port­fo­lio compa­nies and the commu­ni­ties in which we live and invest. The Carlyle Group employs more than 1,800 people in 30 offices across six conti­nents. Further infor­ma­tion is available at www.carlyle.com. Follow The Carlyle Group on Twit­ter @OneCarlyle

News

Munich / Augs­burg — GREMCO GmbH is a medium-sized hose & cabling specia­list in family owner­ship. After 30 successful years of deve­lo­p­ment, the owners sell their company to an exter­nal, long-term orien­ted manage­ment team. BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft is support­ing the acqui­si­tion in the form of a silent part­ner­ship and provi­ding a six-figure sum.

GREMCO deve­lops and supplies custo­mers from nume­rous indus­tries with high-quality and sophisti­ca­ted tech­ni­cal hose solu­ti­ons and compon­ents for high-tech cabling — world­wide. As a niche specia­list, hidden cham­pion GREMCO is able to supply complete system solu­ti­ons as well as custom-made products. Modern produc­tion faci­li­ties in
Europe, USA and Mexico guaran­tee quality and maxi­mum reliability.
The shrink, brai­ded and insu­la­ting slee­vings as well as elec­tri­cal wires and cables have excel­lent chemi­cal, ther­mal and elec­tri­cal proper­ties with inter­na­tio­nal appr­ovals and are used in an extre­mely wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons, yet based on a few core tech­no­lo­gies, in the aero­space, medi­cal, auto­mo­tive, indus­trial and envi­ron­men­tal sectors.

“At GREMCO, an expe­ri­en­ced, two-person exter­nal manage­ment team is taking over the company. The cultu­ral fit was inten­si­vely reviewed by the sellers in seve­ral meetings; finally, a life’s work and a deser­ving team passes to MBI mana­gers Simon Specka and Niko­las Langes. GREMCO is a great niche specia­list. For us, the MBI team, the exis­ting team and the company are an excel­lent fit,” says Mana­ging Direc­tor Karl Chris­tian Vogel, explai­ning BayBG’s commitment.

The new owners Niko­las Langes and Simon Speckaare also satis­fied.: “With our part­ner­ship approach as new share­hol­ders, we want to conti­nue the quality and service promise of the foun­ders in the long term and support and serve the long-stan­ding base of satis­fied custo­mers, some of whom have grown for deca­des, as before. We plan to leverage our exten­sive exper­tise in digi­tiza­tion, inno­va­tion and growth projects for the bene­fit of our loyal custo­mers and work­force. We are proud to have gained a renow­ned part­ner in BayBG to streng­then our equity side, whose values are important to us, who under­stands our stra­tegy and will accom­pany our growth in the long term.”

About BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH

With an inves­ted volume of more than 300 million euros, BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft is one of the largest provi­ders of equity capi­tal, espe­ci­ally for Bava­rian SMEs. With its venture capi­tal and equity invest­ments, which it provi­des in the form of equity and mezza­nine, it enables medium-sized compa­nies to imple­ment inno­va­tion and growth projects, manage corpo­rate succes­sion or opti­mize their capi­tal struc­ture. BayBG opera­tes as an ever­green fund and is not subject to exit pressure.

News

Munich — ARQIS advi­sed SkyFive AG on its Pre-Series A finan­cing round. The invest­ment round was led by a large insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor from Germany. This joined exis­ting inves­tors, all of whom doubled their initial invest­ment. In addi­tion, two well-known private inves­tors joined the company: Louis Belan­ger-Martin, serial entre­pre­neur and co-foun­der of Global Eagle, and Alain Lejeune, an expe­ri­en­ced mana­ger from the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons indus­try with firm roots in China.

SkyFive provi­des high-speed broad­band services to the avia­tion indus­try — based on its paten­ted Air-To-Ground (A2G) solu­tion that uses stan­dard mobile network compon­ents. A2G is the only tech­no­logy that can serve the ever-growing demand for broad­band connec­ti­vity in the sky. Here, broad­band connec­ti­vity is a key factor in impro­ving opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency, gene­ra­ting ancil­lary reve­nue, and also provi­ding a safer travel expe­ri­ence that requi­res fewer cont­acts and touches.

SkyFive’s A2G solu­tion is alre­ady deployed across Europe. Most recently, SkyFive signed an agree­ment with Airbus in August to provide an A2G solu­tion for China, which has become the largest air-traf­fic market. The capi­tal from the current finan­cing round will enable SkyFive to expand its services and acce­le­rate its global expansion.

The ARQIS team around Dr. Mauritz von Einem and Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem alre­ady supported SkyFive in the acqui­si­tion of the key assets of Nokia’s A2G busi­ness as well as in the seed finan­cing at the end of last year. In the run-up to the current finan­cing round, ARQIS had also mana­ged the conver­sion of SkyFive into a public company in the summer of 2020. Curr­ently, ARQIS is alre­ady mana­ging nego­tia­ti­ons with a number of inter­na­tio­nal insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors for the Series A finan­cing round that SkyFive aims to close in early 2021.

Advisor SkyFive: ARQIS Rechtsanwälte (Munich)

Dr. Mauritz von Einem and Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem, Foto (both lead; both Tran­sac­tions), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur, Louisa Theresa Graf (both Tran­sac­tions), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (IP), Tanja Kurt­zer (Labor Law)

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. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) intends to conti­nue growing: The net asset value of private equity invest­ments is expec­ted to increase by an average of between 14 percent and 19 percent in the current and the two follo­wing finan­cial years, while earnings from fund advi­sory services are expec­ted to reach a double-digit million euro amount in each case. This is accor­ding to the listed private equity company’s medium-term plan­ning published today with the Group’s 2019/2020 annual finan­cial report.

The basis for this growth is signi­fi­cantly higher invest­ments by DBAG along­side the funds it advi­ses, as well as invest­ments finan­ced exclu­si­vely from DBAG’s balance sheet: While an average of around 72 million euros has flowed into invest­ments in mid-market compa­nies over the past five years, around 120 million euros are plan­ned annu­ally until 2023. “If nothing else, the Covid 19 pande­mic is opening up invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties that we intend to target,” said DBAG CEO Tors­ten Grede, adding, “We have expan­ded our plat­form for equity solu­ti­ons in the midmar­ket and inves­ted in our invest­ment team.”

Net asset value of private equity invest­ments impac­ted by pande­mic in 2019/2020
Accor­ding to the plan­ning, DBAG’s growth will acce­le­rate: Between 2014 and 2019, the net asset value of private equity invest­ments had increased by around 13 percent annu­ally. It is expec­ted to grow by up to 19 percent per year until 2023. The growth would also more than offset the setback expe­ri­en­ced in net asset value due to the impact of the pande­mic on port­fo­lio compa­nies in fiscal year 2019/2020 (Oct. 1‑Sept. 30). At 422.0 million euros, adjus­ted for the effect of the distri­bu­tion to share­hol­ders, it fell 5.8 percent short of the previous year’s figure, but reached the upper end of the fore­cast revi­sed after the Corona shock in the spring. In parti­cu­lar, share­hol­dings with a strong link to indus­try suffe­red in some cases heavy losses in reve­nues and earnings and did not achieve their origi­nal budgets; this resul­ted in corre­spon­ding impairm­ents of these share­hol­dings. Once again, invest­ments in broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons or soft­ware compa­nies, which are bene­fiting from the acce­le­ra­ted digi­tiza­tion in many areas of life and busi­ness models, deve­lo­ped encouragingly.

Due to the special nature of its private equity busi­ness, DBAG does not manage its busi­ness using tradi­tio­nal annual perfor­mance indi­ca­tors such as EBIT or return on sales. Instead, the key perfor­mance indi­ca­tors are the varia­bles that DBAG can influence and that deter­mine the value of the two busi­ness areas of private equity invest­ments and fund advi­sory services — the net asset value of private equity invest­ments and the result of fund advi­sory services. Accor­din­gly, conso­li­da­ted net profit is not a key perfor­mance indi­ca­tor; it amounts to ‑16.8 million euros, driven by the
Perfor­mance of private equity invest­ments. This segment closed 2019/2020 with earnings before taxes of ‑25.2 million euros, down 67.3 million euros on the previous fiscal year.

Key figu­res (IFRS) 2019/2020 2018/2019
Segment result Private Equity Invest­ments -€25.2 million €42.1 million
Segment result Fund Consul­ting €9.5 million €3.0 million
Net asset value € 422.0 million € 472.1 million
Net result -€16.8 million €45.9 million
Divi­dend (2019/2020: propo­sed) €0.80 €1.50

Fund consul­tancy bene­fits from the launch of the new DBAG fund
Earnings in the second segment, fund advi­sory services, excee­ded expec­ta­ti­ons: at 9.5 million euros, they reached their highest level since the intro­duc­tion of segment report­ing in 2013/2014. The basis for the signi­fi­cant increase compared with the previous year (€3.0 million) is higher income from the fund busi­ness and lower provi­si­ons for varia­ble compen­sa­tion — this prima­rily reflects the perfor­mance of the port­fo­lio. Income was signi­fi­cantly higher (€30.6 million after €28.2 million) because DBAG has also been recei­ving income for advi­sing DBAG Fund VIII since its launch in August 2020.

The fund had been closed in May with a volume of 1.109 billion euros. As a result, the assets advi­sed and mana­ged by DBAG, which form the basis for measu­ring income from the fund busi­ness, rose to around €2.6 billion (Septem­ber 30, 2019: €1.7 billion).

Divi­dend propo­sal: 0.80 euros per share
The divi­dend propo­sal for the past finan­cial year — 0.80 euros per share — does not imply any change in DBAG’s divi­dend policy. “It prima­rily takes into account the expec­ted later returns from the port­fo­lio as a result of longer holding peri­ods for our indus­trial holdings,” said CFO Susanne Zeid­ler, explai­ning the propo­sal. He added: “We expect that as the econo­mic envi­ron­ment norma­li­zes after the pande­mic subs­i­des, we will be able to return to our policy of stable and, when­ever possi­ble, rising divi­dends next year with a divi­dend of between 1.00 and 1.20 euros per share.” The divi­dend propo­sal corre­sponds to a yield of 2.4 percent based on the average price of DBAG shares for the year.

Invest­ment decis­i­ons trig­ge­red for 314 million euros
DBAG’s invest­ment team has trig­ge­red invest­ment decis­i­ons of 314 million euros in 2019/2020. Three of these invol­ved manage­ment buyouts (MBOs) struc­tu­red for the new fund within the first two months of its invest­ment period. In addi­tion, there was another MBO with DBAG Fund VII and a first long-term invest­ment — a mino­rity stake in a fast-growing company, finan­ced exclu­si­vely from DBAG funds. Six port­fo­lio compa­nies grew stron­gly through a total of 14 corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons; these acqui­si­ti­ons, mainly finan­ced by the port­fo­lio compa­nies them­sel­ves, serve to acce­le­rate the imple­men­ta­tion of the stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio companies.

96.8 million of the invest­ment decis­i­ons were finan­ced by DBAG from its own balance sheet. This included €5.2 million for seven port­fo­lio compa­nies that were hit harder than average by the Corona pande­mic; the addi­tio­nal equity was used to support debt finan­cing solu­ti­ons to improve the finan­cial resour­ces of these companies.

Equity ratio remains very high at 89 percent
DBAG has a solid balance sheet with an equity ratio of around 89 percent. Cash and cash equi­va­lents decreased shar­ply compared with the previous year as a result of the high level of capi­tal expen­dit­ure. Once again, these signi­fi­cantly exceed the reco­veries from the port­fo­lio. With the conclu­sion of a further credit line, DBAG increased its finan­cial room for maneu­ver by 40 million euros. In 2019/2020, DBAG was able to add six invest­ments to its port­fo­lio, inclu­ding the MBOs of Carton­plast and the DING Group, which had alre­ady been agreed in 2018/2019. One company left the port­fo­lio; this dispo­sal had also been agreed in the previous year. The two (partial) dispo­sals agreed in 2019/2020 will not take effect until the new fiscal year. As of Septem­ber 30, the port­fo­lio consis­ted of 32 invest­ments in compa­nies of the (predo­mi­nantly) German Mittelstand.

“Stra­te­gic inte­rest in mature holdings”
The DBAG Manage­ment Board is confi­dent for the new, current 2019/2020 finan­cial year and beyond. “Our posi­tion in the market is good, we can have about one billion of capi­tal ready to invest and invest in new invest­ments,” the report conti­nues. In view of the ongo­ing pande­mic, DBAG intends to place parti­cu­larly high demands on the quality of the busi­ness model, its stra­te­gic importance and the growth of the respec­tive market when asses­sing invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. “Invest­ments from the IT services and soft­ware and broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors are the main candi­da­tes for this, but also Indus­try­Tech compa­nies,” says board spokes­man Grede, “for exam­ple, manu­fac­tu­r­ers of such indus­trial compon­ents whose products make auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion possi­ble in the first place.” In addi­tion, DBAG intends to address invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in compa­nies in special situa­tions, i.e. those with perfor­mance-rela­ted equity requirements.

Due to the econo­mic weak­ness that has persis­ted in parts of the indus­try for some time, dispo­sals have recently been delayed. The DBAG port­fo­lio conta­ins a number of compa­nies that have been supported for a longer period of time; change proces­ses that were initia­ted at the start of the invest­ment are well advan­ced. “We are expe­ri­en­cing inte­rest from stra­te­gic inves­tors in such invest­ments,” CFO Zeid­ler said today. And further: “Howe­ver, should dispo­sals and corre­spon­ding returns be further delayed, the addi­tio­nal credit line gives us flexi­bi­lity to take advan­tage of attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties at any time — in addi­tion, we are exami­ning other finan­cing opti­ons, for exam­ple on the equity side.”

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in new growth sectors such as broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to 2.6 billion euros

News

Munich, London, Paris — Silver­fleet Capi­tal, the pan-Euro­pean private equity firm, has signed an agree­ment to sell 7days to a consor­tium of inves­tors inclu­ding Chequers Capi­tal and Para­gon Part­ners. 7days is a provi­der of work­wear for medi­cal profes­si­ons head­quar­te­red in Germany. For Silver­fleet Capi­tal, the gross money multi­ple is 3.1x. Details of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to close in Janu­ary 2021, are not being disclosed.

7days was foun­ded in 1999 in Lotte near Osna­brück. Today, the company is a leading supplier of modern and inno­va­tive work­wear for medi­cal profes­si­ons. 7days designs, manu­fac­tures and distri­bu­tes a wide range of high-quality products, from jackets to lab coats, for more than 300,000 health­care custo­mers in twelve count­ries, inclu­ding Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, France, Belgium, the Nether­lands and Scandinavia.

7days combi­nes a fully inte­gra­ted multi-chan­nel distri­bu­tion plat­form, inclu­ding both cata­log marke­ting and strong e‑commerce chan­nels, with a verti­cally inte­gra­ted busi­ness model with diver­si­fied supply chains and in-house CSR (1)-compliant design and manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties. This enab­led the company to achieve stable, coun­ter­cy­cli­cal growth in its home market and also inter­na­tio­nally. Today, 7days employs 240 people across four loca­ti­ons and is expec­ted to gene­rate reve­nues of over €40 million in 2020 — repre­sen­ting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% during Silverfleet’s holding period. 7days is a certi­fied member of amfori BSCI (Busi­ness Social Compli­ance Initia­tive) — an initia­tive aimed at impro­ving social stan­dards in value chains world­wide — and is commit­ted to the BSCI Code of Conduct for Fair and Social Production.

Silver­fleet inves­ted in 7days from its mid-market fund in early 2018. Against the back­drop of a highly frag­men­ted health­care work­wear market, Silver­fleet saw great poten­tial here for sustainable long-term growth and expan­sion into new markets. Ther­e­fore, Silver­fleet desi­gned and imple­men­ted a successful trans­for­ma­tion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy for 7days, as part of which the company acqui­red Praxis Herning, a Danish provi­der of medi­cal work­wear for the Scan­di­na­vian market, in Decem­ber 2018, signi­fi­cantly expan­ding its geogra­phic reach. In addi­tion, Silver­fleet supported the company during its nearly three-year holding period in expan­ding its online sales chan­nels and imple­men­ting inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed, CSR-compli­ant procu­re­ment and produc­tion standards.

“We would like to take this oppor­tu­nity to thank Ulrich Dölken and Cars­ten Meyer, CEO and CFO of 7days, for the trustful coope­ra­tion over the past years. 7days is a typi­cal exam­ple of a Silver­fleet invest­ment — a leading company in a niche market with compel­ling unique selling propo­si­ti­ons, an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and poten­tial for trans­for­ma­tion and opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ment as well as inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. We are proud to have supported 7days on its growth trajec­tory to date and in its trans­for­ma­tion into a leading and inno­va­tive provi­der of high quality and fashionable work­wear for the health­care sector in Europe. We are plea­sed to place 7days in such capa­ble hands as it conti­nues on its growth path,” said Joachim Braun, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capital.

“We have taken a number of important steps to further expand 7days’ posi­tion as a market leader, both orga­ni­cally and through a stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion. 7days has not only proven resi­li­ent to crisis, parti­cu­larly during the current COVID-19 pande­mic, but has also deli­vered sustained above-market growth,” adds Benja­min Hubner, Prin­ci­pal at Silver­fleet Capital.

“In recent years, we have been able to posi­tion oursel­ves very well in the Euro­pean market for medi­cal work­wear by impro­ving our online sales chan­nels and deve­lo­ping new custo­mer segments based on their indi­vi­dual requi­re­ments. We were also able to expand into the Scan­di­na­vian market through a targe­ted stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion. This would not have been possi­ble without the support of Silver­fleet Capi­tal, for which we would like to express our grati­tude. With the support of our new part­ners Chequers Capi­tal and Para­gon Part­ners, we want to conti­nue to achieve the highest custo­mer satis­fac­tion with high-quality work­wear for medi­cal profes­sio­nals in the future,” say Ulrich Dölken and Cars­ten Meyer, CEO and CFO of 7days.

At Silver­fleet, Joachim Braun and Benja­min Hubner were respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The invest­ment company was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by William Blair (M&A), PwC (Finan­cial, Tax, ESG), Latham & Watkins (Tax), McDer­mott (Corpo­rate Legal), Shear­man & Ster­ling (Banking Legal) and goetz­part­ners (Commer­cial).

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years. The 31-strong invest­ment team works from Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.
Nume­rous invest­ments were made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros, inclu­ding: Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion based in the United King­dom; Life­time Trai­ning, a provi­der of trai­ning programs based in the United King­dom; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, an opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses based in the United King­dom; 7days, a German provi­der of medi­cal work­wear, among others.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal also main­ta­ins an invest­ment team focu­sed on smal­ler middle-market compa­nies that has alre­ady made two successful invest­ments: STAXS Conta­mi­na­tion Control Experts, a leading supplier of clean­room supplies in the Bene­lux (closed in Janu­ary 2019), and Trust­Quay, a leading provi­der of trust and fund admi­nis­tra­tion soft­ware for the trust and corpo­rate services industry.
Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth by inves­t­ing in compa­nies in its core sectors that bene­fit from speci­fic, long-term trends. Silver­fleet supports these compa­nies in their future growth stra­te­gies. As part of these stra­te­gies, invest­ments are made in orga­nic growth drivers, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons or opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ment proces­ses. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €2.1 billion in 32 companies.
Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods.
Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 29% of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 32% in the UK and Ireland, 21% in Scan­di­na­via, 15% in France and Bene­lux (includes an invest­ment sourced in Belgium and head­quar­te­red in the US), and 3% in other count­ries. www.silverfleetcapital.com

About Chequers
Origi­nally French subsi­diary of the Char­ter­house Group foun­ded in Paris in 1972. Inde­pen­dent since 2000 under the name Chequers Capi­tal. 300 invest­ments made in Europe in just under 50 years. 2017 Closing of Chequers Capi­tal XVII with a volume of €1.1 billion.

Our invest­ment stra­tegy: compa­nies with a value of €80 million to €500 million. Capi­tal invest­ment of €40 million to €150 million per tran­sac­tion. Compa­nies based in France, Germany, Italy, Bene­lux count­ries, Switz­er­land and Spain. Acti­vity in the indus­trial, service and commer­cial sectors. Wide range of tran­sac­tion types: MBO & LBO, indus­try conso­li­da­tion, deve­lo­p­ment capi­tal, owner­ship restruc­tu­ring, spin-off, turn­around. As majo­rity or mino­rity share­hol­der in close coope­ra­tion with manage­ment for a period of 5 to 10 years. www.chequerscpaital.com

News

Berlin — SMP advi­sed the startup SellerX on its seed finan­cing round. The company’s equity and debt finan­cing was led by Cherry Ventures, Felix Capi­tal, and Sili­con Valley-based VC Triple­Point Capi­tal, tota­ling €100 million. Other inves­tors include Village Global and seve­ral busi­ness angels, inclu­ding Zalando co-foun­der David Schnei­der and former Amazon UK CEO Chris North.

SellerX says it plans to use the fresh capi­tal to acquire up to 40 Amazon stores over the next 18 months, as well as expand its team. A team led by SMP part­ner Martin Scha­per provi­ded legal advice to SellerX in connec­tion with the debt finan­cing in the seed finan­cing round.

“Acqui­ring and growing Amazon stores is certainly one of the hottest busi­ness models right now. Congra­tu­la­ti­ons to the entire SellerX team on this remar­kable achie­ve­ment. “, says Martin Schaper.

SellerX
SellerX is a VC-funded startup that buys and builds out Amazon stores. With its growing and diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of FBA (Fulfill­ment by Amazon) sellers, SellerX aims to further opti­mize and grow its acqui­red busi­nesses to estab­lish sustainable consu­mer brands in the home, garden and pet supply cate­go­ries. The Berlin-based company was foun­ded in 2020 by Phil­ipp Trie­bel and Malte Horeys­eck and curr­ently employs around 25 people, accor­ding to the company.

Consul­tant SellerX: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per, Partner
Dr. Martyna Sabat, Associate
Matthias Kres­ser, Senior 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

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS mana­ged the Series B finan­cing round of Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung AG on behalf of the company and the exis­ting inves­tors. The exis­ting inves­tors are Schnei­der­Gol­ling & Cie. Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, copa­rion GmbH & Co. KG, Deut­sche Rück­ver­si­che­rung and ALSTIN Capi­tal, the inde­pen­dent venture capi­tal fund of Cars­ten Maschmeyer and his part­ners. They all expan­ded their investment.

With Elevat3, Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung was able to win another well-known capi­tal provi­der as lead inves­tor for the finan­cing round. The new growth fund of Chris­tian Anger­mayer, Thomas Hanke and Dr. Marlon Brau­mann invests tens of milli­ons in the digi­tal insu­rance company as part of a capi­tal increase. The Series B round was supported by IEG — Invest­ment Banking Group.

As the first fully digi­ta­li­zed insu­rance company with a BaFin license in Germany, Neodi­gi­tal offers insu­rance solu­ti­ons such as perso­nal liabi­lity, house­hold, bicy­cle, cell phone and pet owner liabi­lity insu­rance. To date, Neodi­gi­tal has won 175,000 custo­mers with its fully auto­ma­ted busi­ness concept and is curr­ently growing at a rate of appro­xi­m­ately 16,000 new custo­mers per month.

The ARQIS team around Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze alre­ady supported Schnei­der­Gol­ling and as well as copa­rion during their entry into Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung as well as during the finan­cing round at the begin­ning of this year, when Deut­sche Rück­ver­si­che­rung and ALSTIN joined as new investors.

Advi­sor Neodi­gi­tal Insurance/Old Inves­tors ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead Part­ner); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Nima Hanifi-Atash­gah, Kamil Flak (all Corporate/Venture Capital)
EY Law (Frank­furt): Dr. Ansgar Becker (Lead); Asso­cia­tes: Robert Jung, Yun Shi, Pia Wenz (all Regulatory)

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. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

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)

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