Author: Tatjana Anderer

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal private equity inves­tor Bridge­point acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Phar­ma­Zell from DPE Deut­sche Private Equity and Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Phar­ma­Zell is a leading inde­pen­dent manu­fac­tu­rer of Active Phar­maceu­ti­cal Ingre­di­ents (API) in the highly stable and specia­li­zed API market. There, the company has a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of more than 70 active ingre­di­ents and is an indus­try leader in a full range of products for the treat­ment of respi­ra­tory, inflamm­a­tory and liver dise­a­ses driven by life­style chan­ges. Many of the company’s products require special treat­ment proces­ses and/or tech­no­lo­gies. Phar­ma­Zell, head­quar­te­red in Raub­ling (near Munich), opera­tes four state-of-the-art produc­tion and R&D sites in Germany, Italy and India and employs over 900 people worldwide.

Bridge­point mana­ges more than €29 billion in assets provi­ded by global inves­tors. These include public and private pension funds, asset mana­gers, family offices, inde­pen­dent autho­ri­ties and insu­rance compa­nies around the world.

Advi­sors Phar­ma­Zell: P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the manage­ment around CEO Oliver Bolzern.
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, MPP, M&A/Private Equity)
Dr. Roman Sten­zel (Coun­sel, MPP, M&A/Private Equity)
Silke Bande­ner (Asso­ciate, MPP, M&A/Private Equity, all Munich)

Vier­sen / Munich — As part of a succes­sion plan, funds advi­sed by Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal have acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the hidden cham­pion EA Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik. The goal of the long-term part­ner­ship is to conti­nue EA’s successful history and further growth. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed the banks on acqui­si­tion finan­cing of EA Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik by Bregal.

EA-Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik GmbH & Co KG is Germany’s leading manu­fac­tu­rer in labo­ra­tory power supply, high perfor­mance power supplies and elec­tro­nic loads. In 1974, Helmut Nolden foun­ded the company with the vision of deve­lo­ping highly quali­fied power supply systems for all appli­ca­ti­ons. Today, EA-Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik is a globally active, medium-sized company.

What began in 1974 in a base­ment work­shop with the first deve­lo­p­ment of fixed-voltage power supplies for the labo­ra­tory and hobby sector has quickly deve­lo­ped into one of the most sought-after suppli­ers of highly complex solu­ti­ons. Today, EA produ­ces on 10,000m² at its main site in Vier­sen, has subsi­dia­ries in China as well as in the USA and employs about 250 people. Foun­ded by Mana­ging Direc­tor Helmut Nolden, the company has been growing stron­gly for years, supp­ly­ing custo­mers in the indus­trial, alter­na­tive energy, elec­tro­che­mi­cal, process tech­no­logy and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors. EA devices for test­ing high-perfor­mance elec­tri­cal compon­ents also make an important contri­bu­tion to the global deve­lo­p­ment of electromobility.

EA opera­tes in a market that is expe­ri­en­cing high growth and bene­fiting from long-term macro trends such as incre­asing elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, rising connec­ti­vity (smart home, IoT and Indus­try 4.0), shorter product life cycles and grea­ter battery usage. Bregal comm­ents: “We are looking forward to working toge­ther in this promi­sing envi­ron­ment and expect EA to conti­nue on its path of sustainable success through its high level of inno­va­tion, excel­lent custo­mer rela­ti­onships and broad product diver­sity. Toge­ther with the manage­ment and employees, we also want to open up new growth paths and future pros­pects, such as by further streng­thening EA’s presence in the USA and Asia, laun­ching new inno­va­tive products, and making further invest­ments in the Vier­sen site, inclu­ding a signi­fi­cant expan­sion of produc­tion capacity.”

Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed a consor­tium of banks led by Commerz­bank on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in EA Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik, a leading supplier of power elec­tro­nics, by Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal advi­sed funds as part of a succes­sion plan.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team led by part­ner Winfried M. Carli (Germany-Finance) included Sven Opper­mann (Germany‑M&A/Finance).

About Bregal Entre­pre­neu­rial Capital
Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal curr­ently mana­ges around 2.5 billion euros (assets under manage­ment), of which 1.2 billion euros are available for new invest­ments. — Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal is part of a family busi­ness that has grown over gene­ra­ti­ons. The focus is on majo­rity or mino­rity share­hol­dings, prima­rily in medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. These invest­ments are inde­pen­dent of deve­lo­p­ments on the finan­cial markets. With pati­ent capi­tal, an entre­pre­neu­rial approach and a spirit of part­ner­ship, we can focus on the success of our invest­ments and help them create sustainable value. Parti­cu­larly important are finan­cial stabi­lity, a high degree of flexi­bi­lity, short decis­ion-making paths and a high degree of entre­pre­neu­rial free­dom for the companies.

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

Coll­ec­tia is a provi­der of debt coll­ec­tion and debt purchase services with more than 13,000 corpo­rate custo­mers in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany.

Munich, London, Brøndby — Euro­pean private equity firm Silver­fleet Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Coll­ec­tia A/S, a credit manage­ment service provi­der based in Brøndby, Denmark. Details of the tran­sac­tion will not be disclosed.

Coll­ec­tia was foun­ded in 1998 and today is a rapidly growing provi­der of debt coll­ec­tion and debt purchase services. Head­quar­te­red in Brøndby, the company opera­tes mainly in the Danish market and has also estab­lished a smal­ler market presence in Sweden, Norway and Germany. With more than 175 employees, Coll­ec­tia curr­ently hand­les more than 600,000 active cases for appro­xi­m­ately 13,000 corpo­rate clients.

Coll­ec­tia has a mature proprie­tary tech­no­logy plat­form as well as an exten­sive credit data­base and advan­ced data analy­tics capa­bi­li­ties. This makes Coll­ec­tia a clearly diffe­ren­tia­ted company with the poten­tial to gain addi­tio­nal market share in both exis­ting and new markets. In recent years, the company has diver­si­fied its service port­fo­lio: In addi­tion to its core busi­ness of debt coll­ec­tion services, it has expan­ded its receiv­a­bles purcha­sing acti­vi­ties and laun­ched a new credit rating infor­ma­tion service in Denmark. Coll­ec­tia has also made seve­ral acqui­si­ti­ons to expand its presence in Scan­di­na­via and Germany.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has many years of expe­ri­ence in finan­cial services and focu­ses on lever­aging advan­ta­ge­ous macro dyna­mics. In Collectia’s case, incre­asing regu­la­tion in Denmark and across the EU is driving the outsour­cing of debt coll­ec­tion proces­ses to specia­li­zed service provi­ders; also, Coll­ec­tia expects that addi­tio­nal, new regu­la­tion in the coming years will lead to an incre­asing volume of problem loan and debtor port­fo­lios that banks and compa­nies will resell to specialists.

With the invest­ment from Silver­fleet, Coll­ec­tia intends to further acce­le­rate its growth course. The aim is to conti­nue to draw on the excel­lent tech­no­logy-based proces­ses in order to further deve­lop the Coll­ec­tion Solu­ti­ons area. The receiv­a­bles purcha­sing area is to be expan­ded, and the company’s inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion is to be further driven by targe­ted verti­cal niche acquisitions.

Mark Pias­e­cki (photo), Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal, says: “With Coll­ec­tia, we have gained a tech­no­lo­gi­cally savvy company with a core busi­ness in Denmark as a part­ner that offers many oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth on both a natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal level. We look forward to working closely with Collectia’s expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and to buil­ding on past succes­ses and reali­zing the company’s poten­tial together.”

Chris­tian la Cour Valen­tin, CEO of Coll­ec­tia, adds: “Silver­fleet Capi­tal shares our stra­te­gic vision for the future of Coll­ec­tia and under­stands where the parti­cu­lar strengths of our company lie. Toge­ther with its expe­ri­ence, capi­tal strength and network, the company is an ideal part­ner to expand our growth strategy.”

Coll­ec­tia marks the eleventh invest­ment for Silver­fleet Capi­tal from the current fund. The Silver­fleet port­fo­lio includes compa­nies from the UK, France, Bene­lux, Scan­di­na­via and Germany.

At Silver­fleet Capi­tal, Mark Pias­e­cki, Karl Eidem, Robert Knight, Johan Boork and Farhad Tatar were respon­si­ble for the current tran­sac­tion. The invest­ment company was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Houli­han Lokey (M&A), Deloitte (Debt, Commer­cial, Finan­cial & Tax), Bruun & Hjejle, Travers Smith and McFar­la­nes (all Legal), Rud Peder­sen (Regu­la­tory), BearingPoint(IT) and Quan­tum Data Analy­tics (Finan­cial). Debt finan­cing was provi­ded by Alcen­tra and Sydbank.

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years. The 32-strong invest­ment team works from Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Scan­di­na­via is one of the geogra­phi­cal target regi­ons for Silver­fleet Capi­tal; the company is parti­cu­larly active in Denmark. The invest­ment in Coll­ec­tia in 2020 marks Silver­fleet Capital’s fourth plat­form invest­ment in Denmark since 2013; other recent tran­sac­tions include the successful exits of Phase One in 2019 and Cimbria in 2016.

Ten invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a whole­sa­ler and retailer of women’s fashion head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a UK-based manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; 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 escor­ted group tour and cruise opera­tor based in the United King­dom; 7days, a German supplier of medi­cal work­wear; Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe, CARE Fertility, a leading opera­tor of ferti­lity clinics in the United King­dom, and BOA Core­Dux, a leading desi­gner and manu­fac­tu­rer of custom, high-purity metal hoses for criti­cal indus­trial applications.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal also main­ta­ins an invest­ment team specia­li­zing in smal­ler middle-market compa­nies, which has alre­ady made two successful invest­ments: STAXS Conta­mi­na­tion Control Experts, a leading supplier of clean­room access­ories in the Bene­lux (comple­ted in Janu­ary 2019), and Micro­gen Finan­cial Systems, 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 30% of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 33% in the UK and Ireland, 18% in Scan­di­na­via, and 15% in France and the Bene­lux (includes an invest­ment sourced in Belgium and head­quar­te­red in the US).

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has a solid invest­ment track record. Most recently, Silver­fleet sold Phase One, a leading tech­no­logy company in the field of high-end digi­tal camera systems and for image proces­sing soft­ware (invest­ment multi­ple 4.6x); Ipes, a leading provi­der of outsour­cing services for Euro­pean private equity compa­nies (invest­ment multi­ple 3.7x); CCC, one of the leading BPO services provi­ders in Europe; and Cimbria, a Danish manu­fac­tu­rer of agri­cul­tu­ral equip­ment (invest­ment multi­ple cannot be disc­lo­sed for legal reasons); Kalle, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of arti­fi­cial sausage sticks (invest­ment multi­ple 3.5x); OFFICE, a UK-based foot­wear retailer (invest­ment multi­ple 3.4x); and Aesica, a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal CDMO company (invest­ment multi­ple 3.3x).

Kirk­caldy, Scotland/ Munich — Shear­man & Ster­ling has advi­sed Frost­krone Food Group (Frost­krone), a port­fo­lio company fund advi­sed by EMERAM, on the finan­cing of its add-on acqui­si­tion of Inno­vate Foods.

Inno­vate Foods, based in Kirk­caldy, Scot­land, manu­fac­tures frozen finger foods and snacks for the whole­sale, retail and food service markets. Foun­ded by Tony Dumbreck, the company is one of the leading finger food manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the UK.

EMERAM is an inde­pen­dent Munich-based invest­ment company for German-spea­king medium-sized compa­nies. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide capi­tal for the further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies with a fund volume of €400 million. EMERAM sees itself as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for compa­nies in the three areas of Consu­mer, Services and Tech­no­logy. — Shear­man & Ster­ling regu­larly advi­ses EMERAM on finan­cing transactions.

Advi­sor to EMERAM: Shear­man & Sterling
Part­ner Winfried M. Carli and Asso­ciate Andreas Breu (Germany-Finance).

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

Munich, Frank­furt a. Main — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance has advi­sed global finan­cial inves­tor KKR and Regge­borgh on the sale of tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons company Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser to EQT and OMERS. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the second quar­ter of 2020, subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory approvals.

Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser was foun­ded in 2011. In 2015, KKR acqui­red a majo­rity stake from Dutch inves­tor Regge­borgh. With KKR’s invest­ment, Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser has become the fastest growing provi­der of giga­bit Inter­net connec­tions via fiber-to-the-home (“FTTH”) in Germany. With the opera­tio­nal and finan­cial support of KKR, the company inves­ted over EUR 1.2 billion in fiber-optic infra­struc­ture and its roll-out in under­ser­ved rural and subur­ban commu­ni­ties in Germany. For exam­ple, Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser increased the number of fiber-optic connec­tions to more than 600,000 house­holds and 5,000 companies.

Accor­ding to plans by EQT and OMERS, Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser will be merged with EQT port­fo­lio company inexio to form a leading FTTH provi­der in rural Germany. EQT will hold 51 percent of the combi­ned group, while Cana­dian pension fund OMERS will own 49 percent.

Clif­ford Chance had alre­ady advi­sed KKR on its invest­ment in Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser in 2015. In addi­tion, a Clif­ford Chance team had recently advi­sed Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser on a 1.8 billion refi­nan­cing to further expand fiber infra­struc­ture in Germany.

Clif­ford Chance M&A Part­ner Markus Muhs said of the tran­sac­tion: “We are plea­sed to have advi­sed KKR throug­hout its invest­ment in Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser with a strong team of M&A, finan­cing and regu­la­tory experts. In this tran­sac­tion, we were once again able to contri­bute our indus­try exper­tise and many years of expe­ri­ence in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and tech­no­logy sector.”

The Clif­ford Chance team that advi­sed KKR and Regge­borgh on the sale was led by part­ners Markus Muhs (Munich) and Frede­rik Mühl (Frank­furt, both Corporate/Private Equity/M&A).

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

Osnabrück/Rheine — The Osna­brück-based family equity company zwei.7 acqui­res a stake in the Ossen­berg Group. The Rheine-based company is the market leader for walking aids and fore­arm supports in Germany and, for its part, had taken over the second largest supplier in this market segment — Erwin Kowsky GmbH in Neumüns­ter — in the middle of last year.

The Ossen­berg Group is the leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of aids for the walking impai­red. The tradi­tio­nal company deve­lops, produ­ces and sells 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.

Both compa­nies have agreed to further inten­sify the strong growth course of the past years in the future. Former share­hol­der Cars­ten Diek­mann will remain with the company as mana­ging part­ner. Frank Wieditz will leave the company in Febru­ary 2020. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial infor­ma­tion about the transaction.

For the Osna­brück-based two.7 family equity firm, this is the first successful acqui­si­tion in the Health­Care sector, since its foun­da­tion in spring 2018. Kars­ten Wulf (photo), co-owner of the buw Group for more than 30 years, had laun­ched the two.7 Group in Osna­brück after the successful sale of the call center (6,000 employees, sold to Conver­gys in 2016). The company’s goal is to actively invest in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies and, in doing so, to contri­bute Kars­ten Wulf’s deca­des of expe­ri­ence as a medium-sized entrepreneur.

“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. Toge­ther we want to conti­nue and expand this course,” says Kars­ten Wulf.

“We are glad to have found an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner in the zwei.7 Group. The expe­ri­ence of Kars­ten Wulf and his part­ner Olaf Bock as successful entre­pre­neurs from Lower Saxony will help us to master the next growth steps. From entre­pre­neur to entre­pre­neur, we discuss at eye level and speak the same language, says Cars­ten Diek­mann, who has mana­ged the Ossen­berg Group in Rheine since 2007.

The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by tax advi­sor / lawyer Dr. Klaus Stein from Osna­brück.

About two.7
The tzwei.7 group was foun­ded in 2018 by Kars­ten Wulf 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. The invest­ment in the Ossen­berg Group is the first successfully comple­ted tran­sac­tion in the Health Care portfolio.

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.

Munich — The law firm GOF Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed the tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners, Karls­ruhe on the stra­te­gic invest­ment in Enscape GmbH. The foun­ders Thomas Will­ber­ger and Moritz Luck as well as High-Tech Grün­der­fonds remain share­hol­ders in Enscape.

Enscape, based in Karls­ruhe, Germany, is a leading provi­der of real-time 3D rende­ring and visua­liza­tion products for the archi­tec­ture, engi­nee­ring and cons­truc­tion indus­tries. Compa­nies from over 80 count­ries and 85% of the inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned TOP 100 archi­tec­ture firms use Enscape software.

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. GOF provi­ded legal support to LEA Part­ners in all phases of the tran­sac­tion process, inclu­ding finan­cing. Most recently, GOF advi­sed LEA Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of a stake in Midoco Group in 2019.

Legal advi­sors LEA Part­ners: GOF Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Sebas­tian Olk, Photo (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead M&A), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Banking/Finance, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Software), Isabelle Vran­cken, Dr. Marcel Schmidt, Karl Ehren­berg, LL.M., Chris­to­pher Ghabel

Flick Gocke Schaum­burg, Munich
Chris­tian Schatz (Part­ner, Tax Law), Corina Hack­barth (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Tax Law)

Stau­dacher Annuß Labor Law, Munich
Ingo Sappa (Part­ner, Labor Law), Dr. Felix Half­meier (Asso­ciate, Labor Law)

Barnes & Thorn­burg LLP, Chicago
Timo Rehbock (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Marga­rita Escalante (Corporate/M&A)

Legal advi­sors to the sellers: PwC Legal (Nurem­berg, Munich, Düsseldorf)
Gerhard Wacker (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead Partner)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading commer­cial law firm based in Munich. The firm’s prac­tice areas are corpo­rate law, M&A, finance and liti­ga­tion with a focus on tran­sac­tions and inter­na­tio­nal aspects.

Stutt­gart / Venlo — The Stutt­gart invest­ment company Finexx conti­nues to imple­ment the plat­form stra­tegy for the BioneXX Holding conti­nues: As part of a succes­sion plan, the Group, with the support of its majo­rity share­hol­der Finexx, has acqui­red the company Feel­good Shop based in Venlo, the Nether­lands, was acqui­red. Guido Gmei­ner remains Mana­ging Direc­tor at the e‑commerce plat­form specia­li­zing in natu­ral and orga­nic food supple­ments. The sellers of the wholly owned shares are private investors.

Feel­good Shop B.V. was the first online store (www.feelgood-shop.com) for natu­ral nutri­ents in the German-spea­king count­ries when it was foun­ded in 2003 and is now one of the leading suppli­ers of high-quality, certi­fied orga­nic food supple­ments and vital subs­tances there. The product range mainly compri­ses quality products on a natu­ral basis — inclu­ding vitamins, mine­rals, super­foods, vital subs­tance concen­tra­tes, anti-aging and diet products, as well as sports nutri­tion such as muscle-buil­ding products. With around 20 employees, Feel­good Shop is growing steadily.

“We are plea­sed to have contin­ued to successfully execute our buy-and-build stra­tegy in the nutri­tio­nal supple­ments space and to have been able to support BioneXX in this important acqui­si­tion,” said Finexx CEO Matthias Heining. “The market for health-conscious, orga­nic-orien­ted nutri­tion is booming, and the excel­lently posi­tio­ned Feel­good Shop will give BioneXX a new boost in growth, espe­ci­ally in online sales.” The invest­ment company Finexx, which supports medium-sized compa­nies in their growth with capi­tal, know-how and an exten­sive network, has built up a leading plat­form for certi­fied orga­nic and orga­nic food supple­ments in Europe under the umbrella of BioneXX Holding in recent years. The basis for this was the majo­rity share­hol­ding in the renow­ned GSE Vertrieb Biolo­gi­sche Nahrungs­er­gän­zungs- und Heil­mit­tel GmbH and natu­rity Vertriebs­ge­sell­schaft mbH at the end of 2018. In the mean­time, the former L’Oréal-LOGO­COS brand FITNE Health Care and JUVENTA Health­care also belong to the group.

The new part­ner­ship with Feel­good Shop is inten­ded to streng­then product deve­lo­p­ment in the BioneXX Group, bundle purcha­sing and logi­stics compe­ten­cies, and expand online sales capa­ci­ties. Total sales at BioneXX are expec­ted to be around 20 million euros in 2020. For Feel­good Shop, the focus is on lever­aging previously untap­ped sales poten­tial in addi­tio­nal Euro­pean markets, while meeting the steadily growing demand for health-main­tai­ning and health-promo­ting products with an even broa­der and bio-focu­sed product portfolio.

A CMS team led by lead part­ners Dr. Hendrik Hirsch and Dr. Heike Wagner provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the share­hol­ders of Feel­good Shop on the struc­tu­ring, nego­tia­tion and tax struc­tu­ring of the transaction.

About Finexx
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is a consul­ting company foun­ded in 2013 that specia­li­zes in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies. Typi­cal fields of acti­vity are growth invest­ment and acqui­si­tion finan­cing as well as the support of chan­ges in the share­hol­der struc­ture and succes­sion plan­ning. Finexx invests long-term funds (equity capi­tal of between 5 and 50 million euros), mainly in the form of majo­rity share­hol­dings, in compa­nies from the German-spea­king region, inclu­ding insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds. These have sales of EUR 10 million or more, a quali­fied manage­ment team, and can demons­trate sustainable earnings power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model.

The team has many years of indus­trial and manage­ment expe­ri­ence as well as profound know-how in the invest­ment sector — both are brought to bear for the successful further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies and in the asso­cia­ted change proces­ses. Finexx supports manage­ment by provi­ding active commer­cial and tech­ni­cal advice without inter­fe­ring with day-to-day opera­ti­ons, as well as a cross-indus­try network.
www.finexx.de

Munich — Liberta Part­ners, a Munich-based multi-family holding company, is acqui­ring Ameropa, a subsi­diary of Deut­sche Bahn (DB). Liberta Part­ners invests speci­fi­cally in compa­nies with future poten­tial in German-spea­king count­ries and supports them in the further deve­lo­p­ment of their busi­ness models. ARQIS advi­sed Liberta Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of Ameropa. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Ameropa, based in Bad Homburg near Frank­furt am Main, is a specia­list provi­der of short and rail adven­ture trips with 120 employees and around 500,000 custo­mers. The close coope­ra­tion between Ameropa and Deut­sche Bahn will conti­nue after the sale until further notice. Ameropa trips are offe­red in around 7,000 travel agen­cies and about 400 DB travel centers, as well as via the company’s own website and bahn.de.

“Ameropa conti­nues to stand for vaca­tion by rail. Many Ameropa custo­mers are rail custo­mers and we want even more to become so. We also pursued the claim of climate-friendly travel in our search for a suita­ble buyer and are very much looking forward to now conti­nuing the Ameropa success story with Liberta Part­ners,” says Dr. Michael Peter­son, CEO of DB Fernverkehr.

“Ameropa is a tradi­tio­nal company with strong part­ner­ships and inte­res­t­ing growth poten­tial,” said Nils von Wietz­low, part­ner at Liberta Part­ners. “Short city breaks and adven­ture trips are enjoy­ing high demand, and travel by rail is beco­ming incre­asingly popu­lar against the back­drop of the climate debate.”

Florian Korp (photo), part­ner at Liberta Part­ners, explai­ned, “We will help Ameropa realize its poten­tial, expand exis­ting part­ner­ships and deve­lop even more inno­va­tive offerings.”

“I’m looking forward to the new colla­bo­ra­tion with Liberta Part­ners and the remai­ning part­ner­ship with the rail­road,” says Kai de Graaff, who has led Ameropa as mana­ging direc­tor for seven years and will remain with the company in that capa­city, “toge­ther we’re taking Ameropa forward in a decisive way.”

Advi­sors to Liberta Part­ners: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Mauritz von Einem (Lead; Corporate/M&A and Tax), Dr. Mirjam Boche (Corporate/M&A and W&I), Johan­nes Landry (Corporate/M&A), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), Chris­tian Wege­ner (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Wolf­gang Bandur (Corporate/M&A)

About Ameropa
Ameropa-Reisen GmbH offers travel modu­les and package tours mainly for short city trips (2–4 days) by train in Germany and the DACH region. The offers consist mainly of hotel, travel and enter­tain­ment (musi­cals, concerts, sight­see­ing, etc.). Inter­na­tio­nal offers for luxury and special trains repre­sent another service segment. The company offers its products through part­ner­ships with other tour opera­tors and travel agen­cies (statio­nary and online) as well as through its own sales chan­nels (ameropa.de and its own call center). For more infor­ma­tion, visit: https://www.ameropa.de

About Liberta Partners
Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with a clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in corpo­rate spin-offs and succes­sion situa­tions. These are actively deve­lo­ped within the long-term “100% Core& Care” concept and bene­fit from the inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial under­stan­ding of Liberta Part­ners. The Liberta Part­ners team consists of profes­sio­nals from M&A, Opera­ti­ons and Legal. www.liberta-partners.com

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 at its current offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 45 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on the core issues of German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. The focus is on M&A, corpo­rate law, private equity, venture capi­tal, employ­ment law, private clients, intellec­tual property, liti­ga­tion as well as real estate law and tax law. www.arqis.com.

Frank­furt a. Main — Baker McKen­zie has advi­sed Berlin-based tech subscrip­tion service Grover on the closing of an asset-based finan­cing. An exis­ting debt finan­cing from Varen­gold Bank AG will be increased to €250 million. With the fresh capi­tal, the Circu­lar Economy company is ushe­ring in the next major phase of growth.

“With the successful closing of the finan­cing round, we were able to support our client in the imple­men­ta­tion of its growth stra­tegy and the further expan­sion of its product port­fo­lio,” commen­ted Dr. Patrick Mitt­mann, the lead part­ner at Baker McKen­zie on the transaction.

Varen­gold Bank AG is a German credit insti­tu­tion that was foun­ded in 1995 and since 2013 has had
has a full banking license. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Hamburg, the bank main­ta­ins bran­ches in
in London and Sofia. The core busi­ness areas are Market­place Banking and Tran­sac­tion Banking.
(Commer­cial Banking), the focus is on coope­ra­tion with Euro­pean fintechs, espe­ci­ally lending plat­forms. The port­fo­lio offe­red includes funding, debt and equity capi­tal markets products, fron­ting services of products requi­ring a banking license and inter­na­tio­nal payment services.

Grover (Grover.com) is one of the Euro­pean market leaders in consu­mer elec­tro­nics rental commerce. As a pioneer of the Access Economy, Grover offers its custo­mers access to the latest tech­no­logy in a flexi­ble, monthly subscrip­tion model. Both consu­mers and busi­nesses can choose from more than 2,000 tech products — from smart­phones and laptops to gaming, VR and smart home gadgets. They bene­fit from special flexi­bi­lity and full usage rights for a frac­tion of the purchase price. Grover’s service allows its users to keep, change, buy or return products depen­ding on their indi­vi­dual needs. Grover rents products in Germany via its own plat­form (Grover.com) and its broad online and offline part­ner network, which includes Europe’s leading elec­tro­nics retail group Media­Markt­Sa­turn as well as Gravis, Conrad and others.

Baker McKenzie’s Banking & Finance team provi­des ongo­ing support for a large number of German and inter­na­tio­nal loan finan­cings. Regu­lar clients include ING Bank, DZ Bank, LBBW, Commerz­bank, MUFG, UBS, BNPP, DEKA, SCB, RBS and Berlin Hyp.

Legal advi­sor Grover: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Banking & Finance: Dr. Patrick Mitt­mann (Part­ner, Frankfurt)
Other lawy­ers invol­ved: Banking & Finance: Kath­rin Marchant (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Robert Wippel (Coun­sel, Vienna)

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.