Author: Tatjana Anderer

Hamburg / Hünfeld — IK Invest­ment Part­ners (“IK”) announ­ced today that the IK VIII Fund has signed an agree­ment to acquire Ondal Holding GmbH (“Ondal” or “the Company”) from funds advi­sed by Capvis. Ondal is a leading ODM (“Origi­nal Design Manu­fac­tu­rer”) manu­fac­tu­rer of stret­cher systems for the medi­cal equip­ment sector, mainly used in opera­ting rooms and inten­sive care units.

Ondal was foun­ded in 1945 and has since become the world’s leading supplier of stret­cher systems for medi­cal use. With its inno­va­tive and diver­si­fied product port­fo­lio used in opera­ting rooms, inten­sive care units, and diagno­stic and imaging faci­li­ties, Ondal sets the global quality stan­dard for relia­bi­lity, func­tion­a­lity, and hand­ling. Products manu­fac­tu­red by Ondal are inter­na­tio­nally certi­fied and appro­ved for use in a variety of regu­la­ted markets. The company, which is head­quar­te­red in Hünfeld and has more than 500 employees, opera­tes three produc­tion faci­li­ties in Germany, the USA and China.

Bernd Fabian, CEO of Ondal, said: “With our high-quality systems, we ensure the mobi­lity and avai­la­bi­lity of medi­cal equip­ment, crea­ting opti­mal working condi­ti­ons. On this basis, we have built up long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with inter­na­tio­nally active blue chip compa­nies. The team at IK is the ideal part­ner for the next phase of our deve­lo­p­ment due to their exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the medi­cal tech­no­logy market, and shares our posi­tive assess­ment of our company’s growth pros­pects. We would like to take this oppor­tu­nity to thank Capvis for its support over the past years.”

Anders Peters­son, Part­ner at IK Invest­ment Part­ners, added: “Ondal is the world’s leading plat­form for medi­cal weara­ble systems with an excel­lent repu­ta­tion as a relia­ble and stra­te­gic part­ner to medi­cal tech­no­logy compa­nies. We look forward to working with manage­ment to further deve­lop the company’s strong market posi­tion as a tech­no­logy leader in its product segment.”

With Ondal, the mid-cap fund IK VIII acqui­res its fourth invest­ment in the current year. Over­all, this is the fifte­enth acqui­si­tion announ­ced since the fund’s incep­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the transaction.

Parties and advi­sors invol­ved in the transaction:

IK Invest­ment Part­ners: Anders Peters­son, Adrian Tanski, Daniel-Vito Günther
Finan­cial Advi­sor Buyer: Quar­ton (Konstan­tin Schön­born, Rolf Holtmann)
Stra­te­gic Due Dili­gence Buyer: Alva­rez & Marsal (Georg Hochleitner)
Finan­cial Due Dili­gence Buyer: Eight Advi­sory (Michael Wahl)
Legal Advi­sor Buyer: Renzen­brink & Part­ner (Ulf Renzenbrink)
Capvis: Eric Trüeb, Leif-Niklas Fanter
Finan­cial Advi­sor Seller: William Blair (Phil­ipp Mohr, Eike Dickmann)
Legal Advi­sor Seller: Henge­ler Müller (Daniel Wiegand)

About Ondal Medi­cal Systems
Ondal is one of the world’s leading desi­gners and manu­fac­tu­r­ers of medi­cal weara­ble systems that support move­ment, carry loads and provide light, gas or data to medi­cal equip­ment. www.ondal.de

About IK Invest­ment Partners
IK Invest­ment Part­ners is a Euro­pean private equity firm with an invest­ment focus on the Nordic count­ries, the DACH region and France/Benelux. Since 1989, IK has laun­ched funds with a cumu­la­tive equity volume of more than 10 billion euros and inves­ted in more than 130 Euro­pean compa­nies. The IK Funds support compa­nies with signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial and their manage­ment teams in deve­lo­ping busi­ness models for the future, streng­thening the compa­nies’ market posi­tion and thus crea­ting outstan­ding long-term deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. www.ikinvest.com

Dassow, Neumüns­ter, Seebach/ Nagold — The GPE Group with loca­ti­ons in Dassow, Neumüns­ter and Seebach, a specia­list for systems and compon­ents with a focus on medi­cal tech­no­logy, has acqui­red the NICOLAY Group of compa­nies based in Nagold. The total group gene­ra­tes sales of appro­xi­m­ately € 85 million. — The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The seller and buyer have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The tran­sac­tion will be finan­ced from the capi­ton V fund.

NICOLAY’s core compe­tence is the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of products in the field of non-inva­sive pati­ent moni­to­ring. The product range extends from exis­ting in-house deve­lo­p­ments that can be indi­vi­du­ally adapted to tailor-made solu­ti­ons accor­ding to custo­mer-speci­fic requi­re­ments. “The compa­nies NICOLAY and GPE comple­ment each other excel­lently in their diffe­rent compe­ten­cies. With this acqui­si­tion, we can better meet the incre­asing demand in the market for complex parts and compon­ents from a single source,” says CEO of GPE Group Steven Anderson.

“With GPE, we have gained a stra­te­gic part­ner who shares with us the same values of quality and custo­mer orien­ta­tion” adds Dr. Chris­tof Muz, Mana­ging Direc­tor of NICOLAY. In addi­tion to mana­ging the NICOLAY sites, Dr. Muz will also assume over­all respon­si­bi­lity for the tech­ni­cal area of all sites as Chief Tech­ni­cal Offi­cer (CTO) in the GPE.

Advi­sors capi­ton and GPE: Roland Berger (Commer­cial), KPMG (Finan­cial), EY (Tax), CMS (Legal), AvS (Manage­ment Audit) and Tauw (ESG) advised.

About Capi­ton AG
capi­ton AG capi­ton is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged private equity company mana­ging a total fund volume of over € 1.0 billion. Curr­ently, 11 medium-sized compa­nies are in capi­ton AG’s invest­ment port­fo­lio. capi­ton accom­pa­nies manage­ment buy-outs and growth finan­cing for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies as an equity partner.

Frank­furt a.M. - McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed nyxmo LAB GmbH on the sale of its stake in flux.connect GmbH. The acqui­rer is Bene­fi­cio Invest GmbH.

flux.connect GmbH has deve­lo­ped the server or cloud-based plat­form “flux.connect”. This enables commu­ni­ca­tion between connec­ted devices such as POS systems, booking plat­forms or POS payment termi­nals and provi­ders of addi­tio­nal services. This means, for exam­ple, that POS payment tran­sac­tion termi­nals can also be control­led by a cash regis­ter system (termi­nal cash regis­ter inte­gra­tion) or booking system.

nyxmo LAB, based in Munich, Germany, deve­lops soft­ware for point-of-sale solu­ti­ons such as card and online payment, loyalty and digi­tal cash code systems.

The team led by part­ner Dr. Michael Cziesla has recently advi­sed on a number of tech tran­sac­tions, most recently Invest­corp on the acqui­si­tion of a stake in Content­serv Group.

Advi­sors to nyxmo LAB: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frank­furt a.M.
Dr. Michael Cziesla, Photo (lead), Norman Wasse, LL.M. (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Heiko Kermer (Coun­sel, Tax Law), Marion von Grön­heim (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,100 lawy­ers, we are repre­sen­ted in 20 loca­ti­ons world­wide: Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt a. M., Hous­ton, Colo­gne, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Sili­con Valley, Washing­ton, D.C. and Wilm­ing­ton. There is a stra­te­gic alli­ance with MWE China Law Offices in Shang­hai. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP www.mwe.com

Hamburg — Proven­tis Part­ners has supported the owner of Europe’s largest online retailer for golf equip­ment Golf Versand Hanno­ver GmbH (“all4golf”) as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor in its succes­sion plan­ning. The owner of Golf Versand Hanno­ver GmbH has sold the company to Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by Munich-based Afinum Manage­ment GmbH. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Afinum is acqui­ring a stake in Europe’s largest online retailer of golf equip­ment, which opera­tes under the brand name “all4golf” in e‑commerce as well as with a branch in its main and logi­stics center in Hanover.

Stefan Kirste, owner of all4golf, will conti­nue to lead the company as mana­ging direc­tor after the tran­sac­tion and, toge­ther with Afinum, drive the company’s further expan­sion. Proven­tis Part­ners’ role Proven­tis Part­ners acted as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor to Mr. Kirste in the prepa­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the tran­sac­tion. In addi­tion to the complete docu­men­ta­tion, Proven­tis iden­ti­fied a selec­tion of estab­lished inves­tors as part­ners for all4golf and guided them through a struc­tu­red dive­st­ment process, coor­di­na­ted the due dili­gence and accom­pa­nied the contract nego­tia­ti­ons up to the closing of the transaction.

Legal advice from: KSB INTAX, led by Fried­rich Graf zu Ortenburg.

“With Proven­tis Part­ners, I had an advi­sor at my side who supported me in the best possi­ble way during the imple­men­ta­tion of my company succes­sion,” notes Stefan Kirste. “Ulrich Schnei­der and his team plan­ned the project in detail and imple­men­ted it strin­gently, while at the same time demons­t­ra­ting a great deal of tact in deal­ing with my orga­niza­tion. With Afinum, we were thus able to find a part­ner who shares my vision for all4golf and with whom I can now tackle the next phase of the company’s deve­lo­p­ment, a task I am very much looking forward to!”

About all4golf
all4golf (www.all4golf.de) is Europe’s largest e‑commerce company for golfing supplies. This leading market posi­tion is reflec­ted in the exten­sive range of more than 20,000 items, which covers the entire range of golf equip­ment, clot­hing and access­ories. In addi­tion to the online store, the store in the main and logi­stics center in Hano­ver offers one of the largest ranges of golf products in Germany on an area of over 500 square meters, in addi­tion to a fitting center. Since the acqui­si­tion of “Stephan Moll Golf Versand” in 1997, Mr. Kirste has grown the busi­ness from a clas­sic mail order company to a leading e‑commerce provi­der and the clear market leader in the golf segment, with a strong posi­tion across all cate­go­ries and an estab­lished private label. The far-sigh­ted­ness of this stra­te­gic decis­ion, taken at the begin­ning of the 2000s, is reflec­ted in parti­cu­lar in the growth achie­ved in every single finan­cial year since the beginning.

About Afinum
Afinum is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company that invests in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Afinum curr­ently mana­ges funds with a volume of around EUR 1 billion in equity. Afinum has been an active inves­tor in medium-sized compa­nies for 19 years and has carried out over 70 tran­sac­tions during this time, the vast majo­rity of which (>90%) in connec­tion with family businesses/out of start-up situa­tions, whether with further parti­ci­pa­tion and active manage­ment of the foun­ders or a complete sale as part of a company succes­sion. Afinum’s invest­ment profes­sio­nals have a total of more than 200 years of private equity tran­sac­tion expe­ri­ence and have successfully accom­pa­nied nume­rous compa­nies on their growth path during this time.

About Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A consul­tancy whose clients include a majo­rity of medium-sized family busi­nesses, group subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With 30 M&A consul­tants, Proven­tis Part­ners is active in the sectors Indus­tri­als, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT, Health­care and Energy and covers the German-spea­king region with offices in Hamburg, Colo­gne, Munich and Zurich. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — the inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — allows Proven­tis Part­ners market coverage in 30 of the world’s leading count­ries. The 20 members of the Mergers Alli­ance, with over 200 M&A profes­sio­nals, provide Proven­tis Part­ners, and ther­e­fore its clients, with unique access to local markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Frank­furt a. Main — A Gleiss Lutz team advi­sed Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft AG (DBAG) on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Carton­plast Group (Carton­plast). In a lever­a­ged buyout, DBAG Fund VII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, has acqui­red the majo­rity of shares in Carton­plast from the London-based finan­cial inves­tor Stir­ling Square Capi­tal Part­ners.

Finan­cing was provi­ded through a so-called first out/last out unitran­che, supple­men­ted by a super senior opera­ting line of credit. With a total volume of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 200,000,000, the finan­cing repres­ents one of the largest unitran­che finan­cings in the German market.

DBAG Fund VII has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies, prima­rily in German-spea­king count­ries, since Decem­ber 2016. Carton­plast is DBAG Fund VII’s eighth invest­ment in total and the third for which its top-up fund is also used.

Carton­plast was foun­ded in 1985. The company prima­rily rents reusable and recy­clable plas­tic liners for trans­port­ing glass bott­les, cans and other glass or PET contai­ners for food to the manu­fac­tu­r­ers of these contai­ners. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Diet­zen­bach, Carton­plast has 16 other loca­ti­ons — abroad, espe­ci­ally in Western and Central Europe, Turkey,
Russia, Brazil and South Africa. In 2018, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around 80 million euros; around three quar­ters of this was attri­bu­ta­ble to the plas­tic layer pad rental business.

Advi­sor DBAG: Gleiss Lutz
Frank Schlo­b­ach (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner), Patrick Reuter, Dr. Jan-Alex­an­der Lange, Teresa
Bald­win (all Finance, Frankfurt).

Munich — Global private equity firm Open­Gate Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in soft­ware company Core­Me­dia AG. The sellers were Deut­sche Tele­kom Capi­tal Part­ners and a consor­tium of private inves­tors. P+P advi­sed the manage­ment of Core­Me­dia AG on the transaction.

Core­Me­dia AG is a plat­form for content manage­ment and an expert in digi­tal marke­ting. The Hamburg-based company provi­des real-time product infor­ma­tion with multi­me­dia marke­ting content as well as perso­na­li­zed product messa­ges. Digi­tal marke­ting solu­ti­ons enable users to improve their digi­tal presence and opti­mize e‑commerce plat­forms. Its global custo­mers include compa­nies in the luxury goods, retail, media, indus­trial manu­fac­tu­ring, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and public sectors, as well as other global e‑commerce companies.

Core­Me­dia AG is the sixth invest­ment of Open­Ga­tes’ recently closed second insti­tu­tio­nal fund, whose assets amount to appro­xi­m­ately USD 585 million. The Los Ange­les-based invest­ment company has a focus on the mid-market segment in North America and Europe.

Advi­sors Core Media AG: P+P Pöllath + Partners
The two Munich part­ners Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte, Foto (M&A/Private Equity, Tax Law, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons) and Dr. Nico Fischer (Tax Law) provi­ded legal and tax advice to the manage­ment of Core­Me­dia AG in connec­tion with the sale.

Frank­furt am Main — Halder has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Anker Kassen­sys­teme GmbH in Biele­feld as part of a manage­ment buy-out. The manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tes in the tran­sac­tion and beco­mes a co-part­ner. The long-estab­lished company was foun­ded in 1876 and since then has been a provi­der of hard­ware and solu­ti­ons for the point of sale, distin­gu­is­hed by quality, secu­rity, flexi­bi­lity and inno­va­tive strength.

The company’s product port­fo­lio includes cash boxes in parti­cu­lar, but also cash drawers and poles. With over 600,000 cash casset­tes instal­led, Anker is the market leader for cash casset­tes in the DACH region. The company supports custo­mers from the retail, drugs­tore, food service, bakery, service station and health­care indus­tries with both stan­dard and custo­mi­zed solutions.

The company, which is rich in tradi­tion, most recently achie­ved annual sales of 13 million euros and employs 70 people. Growth poten­tial arises from the contin­ued increase in demand for POS products such as cash casset­tes, cash drawers and poles, parti­cu­larly in the retail sector. In order to bene­fit from chan­ging requi­re­ments and trends in the check­out area, Anker is expan­ding its product range and deve­lo­ping into a full-service provi­der for the point-of-sale. In addi­tion, the market presence in Europe is to be expan­ded, parti­cu­larly in Poland, France, Italy, Spain and the Nordics.

“With Halder we have a very expe­ri­en­ced and entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner at our side who will successfully accom­pany the further deve­lo­p­ment and sustainable growth of Anker. We would like to thank the Anker team for their extra­or­di­nary perfor­mance over the past years, which contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to the successful tran­sac­tion, and look forward to the further deve­lo­p­ment of Anker toge­ther with Halder and our team,” said Dr. Fabian Schühle, Mana­ging Direc­tor Anker Kassen­sys­teme GmbH. Mathias Fackel­meyer (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Halder: “The deve­lo­p­ment of the last years and espe­ci­ally the successful busi­ness model toge­ther with the very commit­ted and moti­va­ted manage­ment have tipped the scales in favor of our commit­ment. Halder is plea­sed to be able to conti­nue the growth course it has embarked on in the future through our contri­bu­tion.” The acqui­si­tion of Anker is the fourth invest­ment made by the Halder team in 2019.

Advi­sors Halder: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich
Dr. Tobias Kopp­mann, Dr. Cars­ten Böhm (both Private Equity), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt (Corpo­rate Finance, Frank­furt), Nina Siewert (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Stef­fen Woitz (Intellec­tual Property), Dr. Thomas Gennert (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Nadine Hartung (Coun­sel, Private Equity), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax Law, Frank­furt), Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel, Corpo­rate Finance, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Bene­dikt Gloß­ner, Frank Weiß (both Corpo­rate Law), Daniel Reich, Dr. Richard Gräbe­ner (both Intellec­tual Property Law), Colin Winter­berg (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Heiner Feld­haus (Real Estate Law, Düsseldorf).

About Halder
Halder invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies: compa­nies with a turno­ver of up to € 400 million and a posi­tive earnings situa­tion. Halder usually takes over the majo­rity of the capi­tal, usually as part of a manage­ment buy-out. You can be successful in many indus­tries — the decisive factor is a strong compe­ti­tive posi­tion. Expe­ri­ence shows that market leaders and domi­nant niche play­ers have compe­tent manage­ment, sustainable advan­ta­ges over the compe­ti­tion, and their key figu­res for past years demons­trate posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. Obser­ving these crite­ria is the best prere­qui­site for MBO mana­gers and Halder to achieve their common goal: a long-term increase in the value of the company.

Munich — Munich-based FinTech company IDnow (www.idnow.io) closes a new finan­cing round of USD 40 million. The new capi­tal comes from the Ameri­can private equity inves­tor Corsair Capi­tal. IDnow was again advi­sed by P+P Pöllath + Partners.

IDnow provi­des an Iden­tity Veri­fi­ca­tion-as-a-Service plat­form to verify the iden­tity of billi­ons of people world­wide easily, quickly and secu­rely. This enables compa­nies to handle custo­mer inter­ac­tions online with a high stan­dard of secu­rity. Its more than 250 custo­mers include compa­nies such as BNP Pari­bas, sola­ris­Bank and N26. The company was foun­ded in 2014 by Dennis von Feren­czy, Sebas­tian Bärhold, Armin Bauer and Felix Haas (from right, photo: IDnow).

Corsair Capi­tal is one of the leading inves­tors in the finan­cial and busi­ness services sector with a focus on the tech­no­logy and finan­cial services sectors.

P+P Part­ner Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin) provi­ded legal advice to the foun­ders of IDnow in the context of the new finan­cing round. P+P had alre­ady advi­sed IDnow in May 2018 as part of the last finan­cing round and has been support­ing the foun­ders for many years.

Frank­furt a. Main — Fina­tem acqui­res Food & Service Group, seller is private equity firm Stead­fast Capi­tal. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed NATIONAL-BANK AG on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Food & Service Group by Fina­tem. The current manage­ment team will remain with the company and toge­ther with Fina­tem intends to successfully conti­nue the buy and build stra­tegy. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

The Food & Service Group is a leading food deli­very whole­sa­ler for bulk consu­mers and whole­sa­lers and was foun­ded in 1960 as a family busi­ness. As an assort­ment deli­very whole­sa­ler head­quar­te­red in Mülheim an der Ruhr, the company specia­li­zes in just-in-time deli­veries to fast food and cate­ring busi­nesses with a focus on North Rhine-West­pha­lia. In addi­tion to the company’s own award-winning meat and sausage products, the product port­fo­lio is supple­men­ted by the purchase of comple­men­tary products from the snack and cate­ring sector and curr­ently compri­ses around 4,000 items.

NATIONAL-BANK AG is one of the leading inde­pen­dent regio­nal banks in Germany for discer­ning private and corpo­rate custo­mers and medium-sized insti­tu­tio­nal investors.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team, led by part­ner Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger (Germany-Finance), included asso­ciate Sven Opper­mann (Germany-Finance/M&A) and tran­sac­tion specia­list Deniz Alkanli (Germany-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 23 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

Frank­furt am Main / Hoch­stadt — The foun­ders of the Upper Fran­co­nian bedroom furni­ture specia­list Signet Wohn­mö­bel have handed over the majo­rity of their shares to indus­try expert and future CEO Thomas Schlos­ser as part of a succes­sion plan. A mino­rity share­hol­ding is acqui­red in equal parts by the invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner and a fund mana­ged by it. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close by Janu­ary 2020.

Signet, based in Hoch­stadt am Main, has been deve­lo­ping and produ­cing indi­vi­dual func­tional furni­ture for almost 30 years. From the very begin­ning, the two foun­ders, Carola and Gerald Klimke, have focu­sed on time­l­ess design, high func­tion­a­lity and sustaina­bi­lity: The trade­mark is the so-called “moving forms”, raw mate­ri­als from regio­nal, control­led stocks are used and the pollutant-free proces­sing takes place exclu­si­vely in Germany — accor­ding to the strict quality guide­lines of the German Furni­ture Quality Asso­cia­tion (awarded with the quality mark “Golden M”). From a two-man opera­tion, a medium-sized family busi­ness with about 70 employees and a product range around the topics of sitting, lying, slee­ping, living and object has deve­lo­ped. Signet is one of Germany’s leading suppli­ers of high-quality sofa beds in particular.

Foun­der Gerald Klimke explains the reasons for choo­sing the succes­sor constel­la­tion: “A sense of respon­si­bi­lity has always been a central corpo­rate value for my wife and me. When we now pass on our life’s work after 30 years, we ther­e­fore want above all to do justice to our employees, custo­mers and suppli­ers. We are very plea­sed to have found part­ners with whom we have the good feeling that the company will be contin­ued in our spirit.” His succes­sor, Thomas Schlos­ser, has alre­ady held nume­rous manage­ment posi­ti­ons at various furni­ture manu­fac­tu­r­ers and is conside­red a specia­list for high-quality furni­ture. He says, “Signet is a special company and it is with great plea­sure that I succeed Mr. and Mrs. Klimke.”

“Since its foun­ding, Signet has consis­t­ently gone its own way and focu­sed on produc­tion in Germany and distri­bu­tion through local retail­ers — this is the core of Signet’s success and the basis for the good posi­tio­ning of the desi­gner furni­ture manu­fac­tu­rer,” summa­ri­zes Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner. His company specia­li­zes in equity finan­cing and further deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized companies.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is making the invest­ment toge­ther with its subsi­diary VR Equity Gesell­schaft für regio­nale Entwick­lung in Bayern mbH, which was provi­ded with funding from the Euro­pean Union for the promo­tion of inno­va­tive compa­nies in Bava­ria (ERDF funds) as part of a part­ner­ship with the Free State of Bava­ria. Direc­tor Daniel Schmidt outlines the future stra­tegy for Signet: “We want to conti­nue the successful path of Signet toge­ther with Thomas Schlos­ser and at the same time push growth with specia­list dealers, in the contract sector and with addi­tio­nal part­ners.” Selec­tive geogra­phi­cal expan­sion into neigh­bor­ing foreign markets is also envisaged.

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 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.vrep.de.

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:
Legal & Tax: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte, Düssel­dorf, with Dr. Lars Laeger, Chris­tian Wege­ner and Thomas Chwalek

Finan­cial & Commer­cial: First Park Advi­sory, Munich, with Michael Hinter­hol­zer and Stefan Schmidt

Frankfurt/Stockholm/Boston — Alan­tra, a global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment, has advi­sed US-based family-owned Rite-Hite, on the sale of Caljan, a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy for e‑commerce appli­ca­ti­ons, to private equity firm Invest­ment AB Latour (“Latour”). As part of the tran­sac­tion, Alan­tra had the exclu­sive M&A advi­sory mandate and conduc­ted a compe­ti­tive inter­na­tio­nal auction process. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to EU merger control approval.

Caljan is the market leader in auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy for parcel hand­ling in the logi­stics and e‑commerce sectors. The product range includes teles­co­pic convey­ors, auto­ma­ted docu­ment hand­ling and labe­l­ing solu­ti­ons, and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for parcel deli­very bases. Foun­ded in 1963, the company is head­quar­te­red in Denmark and has subsi­dia­ries in Germany, France, the UK, Latvia and the USA. Net sales are around 100 million euros, with an opera­ting margin of over 15% and strong growth. The company employs 450 people.

“We are very plea­sed with the outcome of this tran­sac­tion and are convin­ced that Latour is the right part­ner for Caljan and all of its employees. Alantra‘s sector know­ledge, exper­tise in the Scan­di­na­vian markets, and close and through support from expe­ri­en­ced staff were criti­cal to the success of this tran­sac­tion,” said Paul Maly, CEO of Rite-Hite.

Henrik Olesen, CEO of Caljan, added: “We have worked inten­si­vely with Alantra’s experts for much of 2019. Their deep sector know­ledge, under­stan­ding of our busi­ness, and commit­ment have been a great help throug­hout the sales process. In parti­cu­lar, we were impres­sed with how Alantra’s global sector experts worked as an inte­gra­ted team with Alantra’s Scan­di­na­vian and US offices.”

Frank Merkel, Mana­ging Part­ner at Alan­tra, said, “We are proud to have been selec­ted as advi­sors to Rite-Hite in the sale of Caljan. Follo­wing the sale of Trans­norm last year, this tran­sac­tion repres­ents another mile­stone for our Indus­trial Auto­ma­tion & Machi­nery Prac­tice and high­lights our deep sector exper­tise. We wish Caljan well on its jour­ney as part of Latour.”

The sales process was led by the Indus­trial Auto­ma­tion & Machi­nery team in Frank­furt toge­ther with Alantra’s office in Stock­holm. The team was supported by inter­na­tio­nal Alan­tra offices in approa­ching local buyers.

About Alan­tra
Alan­tra is a global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment with offices in Europe, the US, Asia and Latin America. With over 330 experts, the Invest­ment Banking unit provi­des inde­pen­dent advice on M&A, corpo­rate finance, loan port­fo­lios and capi­tal market tran­sac­tions. The Asset Manage­ment unit mana­ges assets of around 4.5 billion euros in the asset clas­ses private equity, active funds, private debt, real estate and wealth manage­ment. www.alantra.com.