Author: Tatjana Anderer

Munich — Silvio Berlusconi’s media group Media­set beco­mes a new share­hol­der in ProSiebenSat.1. Munich and the Itali­ans describe the purchase of 10 percent as “friendly”.

The Italian media group Media­set buys 9.6 percent of ProSiebenSat.1 ’s shares. The block of shares is worth around EUR 330 million. Media­set CEO Pier Silvio Berlus­coni, son of ex-Prime Minis­ter Silvio Berlus­coni, announ­ced today (Wednes­day) that this is a “friendly acqui­si­tion” and “a long-term decis­ion aimed at crea­ting value with an incre­asingly inter­na­tio­nal focus.”

Group CEO Max Conze, “welco­mes” the invest­ment and sees it “as a vote of confi­dence in our stra­tegy and team.” Conze’s friendly reac­tion is proba­bly also due to the fact that Media­set does not want to force a restruc­tu­ring of ProSiebenSat.1’s manage­ment level: “We value ProSiebenSat.1’s manage­ment team,” the Itali­ans explai­ned. Media­set appre­cia­tes the manage­ment team of ProSiebenSat.1, Berlus­coni empha­si­zed. Since last year, the company from Unter­föh­ring near Munich has been mana­ged by Max Conze, who previously headed the vacuum clea­ner manu­fac­tu­rer Dyson.

Media­set entry posi­tive for ProSie­ben share
The share acqui­si­tion deepens the exis­ting part­ner­ship between the two media groups. Both have been working toge­ther in the Euro­pean Media Alli­ance (EMA) for five years. ProSie­ben is the larger part­ner here: While the Germans gene­ra­ted conso­li­da­ted reve­nues of EUR 4.9 billion in 2018, the Itali­ans achie­ved only EUR 3.4 billion. Both groups are strugg­ling with decli­ning reve­nues in their core TV adver­ti­sing busi­ness. “The aim of the alli­ance is to realize econo­mies of scale, which are crucial for the future of Euro­pean tele­vi­sion,” says Media­set boss Berlus­coni. Howe­ver, ProSiebenSat.1 did not respond to a FINANCE inquiry as to which speci­fic econo­mies of scale were involved.

On the capi­tal market, howe­ver, the Media­set entry is alre­ady helping Conze. Since Conze took office exactly one year ago, ProSieben’s share price has fallen from 25 to 13 euros. Many short-sellers were and are active in the stock. During this time, ProSie­ben CFO Jan Kemper, who had star­ted out as a beacon of hope, also threw in the towel. Today, howe­ver, the stock is up by around 5 percent and is once again trading at more than 15 euros. The Media­set share, on the other hand, slip­ped slightly.

Munich — The REWE retail chain acqui­res 100% of the shares in Lekker­land AG & Co KG. In the future, this will open up the new “Conve­ni­ence” busi­ness area under the REWE Group umbrella. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Lekker­land is the specia­list for on-the-go consump­tion and offers inno­va­tive service, custo­mi­zed logi­stics and a wide whole­sale range in seven Euro­pean count­ries. The focus is on the needs of custo­mers and consu­mers. Lekker­land serves around 91,000 points of sale in seven Euro­pean count­ries and has cutting-edge brands and private labels in its range. Custo­mers include gas stati­ons, stores, kiosks, conve­ni­ence stores, bake­ries, food retail­ers and quick service restau­rants. Lekker­land employs around 4,900 people across Europe. In fiscal 2018, sales amoun­ted to EUR 12.4 billion.

The coope­ra­tive REWE Group is one of the leading retail and travel groups in Germany and Europe. In 2018, the company achie­ved total exter­nal sales of more than EUR 61 billion. Foun­ded in 1927, REWE Group is present in 22 Euro­pean count­ries with more than 360,000 employees.

Advi­sor for Lekker­land AG & Co. KG: P+P Pöllath + Partners
* Dr. Matthias Bruse (photo), LL.M. (Lead Part­ner, M&A, Munich)
* Jens Hörmann (Part­ner, M&A, Munich)
* Jasmin Wagner (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Munich)
* Thies Jacob, LL.M. (Asso­ciate, M&A, Munich)
* Pascal Köst­ner, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Munich)
* Dr. Matthias Werner (Coun­sel, Real Estate Law, Berlin)

Other consul­tants for Lekkerland:
Inhouse Coun­sel: Andre Niemeyer (Head of Legal Depart­ment Lekkerland)
Osborne Clarke: Dr. Thomas G. Funke (Part­ner, Anti­trust), Dr. Sebas­tian Hack (Part­ner, Anti­trust), Ghazale Mande­ga­rian-Fricke (Senior Asso­ciate, Anti­trust), Jan Marco Aatz (Asso­ciate, Antitrust)

Frankfurt/Munich — Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed Elevion GmbH and its parent company, the listed Czech energy group CEZ Group, on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in Hermos AG and Hermos Schalt­an­la­gen GmbH from their shareholders.
Elevion GmbH is a leading provi­der of tech­ni­cal faci­lity services for commer­cial as well as indus­trial buil­dings and plants and conti­nues its successful growth stra­tegy with the acqui­si­tion of HERMOS Group, a provi­der of IT and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons in the energy, buil­ding and indus­trial sectors.

Advi­sors to energy group CEZ Group and Elevion GmbH: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Chris­tian Tapp­ei­ner. and was supported by the part­ners Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Ludger Kempf (Tax, Frank­furt) as well as the asso­cia­tes Konrad v. Buch­waldt, Sara Afschar-Hamdi, Stef­fen Giolda, Aurel Hille, Julian Schwa­ne­beck, Simon Stei­ner (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Mareike Pfeif­fer (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Nico­las Bech­told (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt), Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe, Dr. Sandra Kühn (both Liti­ga­tion, Munich), Dr. Alex­an­der Wandt (Finance, Munich) and the para­le­gals Jessica Köhler, Sandra Maurer, Kris­tina Thiel and Robert Ostermair.
In addi­tion, CEZ Group was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by the Czech law firm Skils s.r.o. under the leader­ship of Mana­ging Part­ner Karel Muzikar.

About Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
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, Warsaw and Washing­ton, D.C. www.weil.com

Düsseldorf/ Munich — Sumitomo Elec­tric Indus­tries, Ltd. has acqui­red the Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer of metal powder compon­ents Sinter­werke Herne GmbH (SWH, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, Germany) and Sinter­werke Gren­chen AG (SWG, Canton Solo­thurn, Switz­er­land). ARQIS advi­sed Sumitomo Elec­tric Indus­tries, Ltd. on this transaction.

Sumitomo Electric’s Powder Metall­urgy Divi­sion opera­tes world­wide under the name Sumitomo Elec­tric Sinte­red Alloy Ltd (Head­quar­ters: Taka­ha­shi City, Okayama Prefec­ture; Presi­dent: Toshi­y­uki Kosuge). The divi­sion offers a wide range of products mainly for Japa­nese manu­fac­tu­r­ers of cars, auto­mo­tive compon­ents and air condi­tio­ning systems. Based on the acqui­si­ti­ons it has now made, Sumitomo Elec­tric is looking to expand its sales chan­nels to Euro­pean auto­ma­kers and compo­nent manu­fac­tu­r­ers, and increase the presence of its powder metal products busi­ness in Europe to deve­lop further global busi­ness opportunities.

Advi­sor Sumitomo Elec­tric: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Eber­hard Hafer­malz, Foto (Lead), Dr. Shigeo Yama­guchi (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law), Johan­nes Landry (Restructuring/Corporate), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial). Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial); Coun­sel: Patrick Schöld­gen (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP & Commer­cial); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Hendrik von Mellen­thin (Labor Law), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate), Sina Janke (IP & Commercial)

Meyer­Lus­ten­ber­ger Lache­nal (Zurich): Dr. Chris­toph Heiz, LL.M. (M&A)

Held Jagut­tis (Colo­gne): Dr. Malte Jagut­tis, Dr. Simeon Held (regu­la­tory and envi­ron­men­tal law)
RCAA (Frank­furt): Evelyn Niit­vaeli (Anti­trust)

Düssel­dorf, Germany — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed FUJIFILM Group on the acqui­si­tion of medwork GmbH, a German company that deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets instru­ments for thera­peu­tic and diagno­stic endo­scopy. medwork beco­mes a wholly-owned subsi­diary of the Fuji­film Group, marking its full-scale entry into the endo­sco­pic instru­ment market. — The appr­oval of the anti­trust autho­ri­ties is still pending. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

medwork deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets endo­sco­pic instru­ments from a single source. In Europe, the company has built up a strong repu­ta­tion, mainly because of its exten­sive range of high-quality products and fast deli­very service, inclu­ding “same-day deli­very”. The demand for mini­mally inva­sive endo­sco­pic exami­na­ti­ons and treat­ments is incre­asing globally due to low pati­ent burden, and the endo­sco­pic instru­ments market is expec­ted to conti­nue to grow stron­gly as a result.

This latest Fuji­film acqui­si­tion will signi­fi­cantly expand their endo­sco­pic instru­ment product offe­ring. Fujifilm’s over­ar­ching stra­tegy is to meet a wide variety of medi­cal needs in order to improve the quality of healthcare.

Advi­sors to FUJIFILM Group: Bird & Bird LLP Düsseldorf
Dr. Stefa­nie Orttmann, LL.M. Part­ner and Alfred Herda, Part­ner (both lead)
Asso­cia­tes: Jan Medele and Michael Maier (Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf/Frankfurt), Part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Csaki (Regu­la­tory, Munich), Part­ner Dr. Anna Wolters-Höhne and Asso­ciate Lucas Brons (both Patent Law, Hamburg), Part­ner Dr. Catha­rina Klumpp, LL.M. and Asso­ciate Benja­min Karcher (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Dirk Barcaba and Coun­sel Elie Kauf­man, LL.M. (both Real Estate, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann and Asso­cia­tes Julia Froeh­der and Liliana Rodri­gues-Kaps (all Finance, Frank­furt), Part­ner Guido Bormann and Asso­cia­tes Johan­nes Wolte­ring and Kris­tin Kattwin­kel (all Regu­la­tory, Düssel­dorf), Coun­sel Dr. Stephan Wald­heim and Asso­cia­tes Heike Lesch and Marcio Da Silva Lima (both EU & Compe­ti­tion, Düssel­dorf), Coun­sel Lea Mackert, LL.M. and Asso­ciate Dr. Natal­lia Karni­ye­vich (both Commer­cial, Düssel­dorf) and Asso­ciate Julia Präger (Trade­mark Law, Düsseldorf).

The team worked closely with other Bird & Bird colle­agues from Spain, Poland, France, the Nether­lands and the UK as well as the Fuji­film in-house team led by Oboama Addy, Dr. Robert Ferschen, MBA, Sato­shi Tani­gawa, Dr. Robert Fischer (all FUJIFILM Europe GmbH) and Tsutomu Tokuda (FUJIFILM Corporation).

About Bird & Bird 
Bird & Bird is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm that advi­ses in parti­cu­lar compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons that are shaping and being chan­ged by new tech­no­lo­gies and digi­ta­liza­tion. We combine world-class legal exper­tise with deep indus­try know­ledge and a refres­hin­gly crea­tive mind­set to help clients achieve their busi­ness goals. We have over 1,300 lawy­ers in 29 offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Paci­fic and North America, and main­tain close rela­ti­onships with law firms in other parts of the world. To learn more about us, visit www.twobirds.com.

Frankfurt/Göttelborn/Lindenberg — Nano­gate SE is expan­ding its engi­nee­ring exper­tise through a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with the ERBIWA Group and plans to acquire a stake in ERBIWA. This was announ­ced by the tech­no­logy company for design-orien­ted, multi­func­tional compon­ents and surfaces.

Nano­gate SE is thus streng­thening its engi­nee­ring exper­tise and expan­ding its port­fo­lio through a stra­te­gic coope­ra­tion with ERBIWA. The company specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment of complex plas­tic compon­ents and sophisti­ca­ted manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses. With this stra­te­gic part­ner­ship, Nano­gate is expan­ding its tech­no­logy port­fo­lio to include addi­tio­nal appli­ca­ti­ons, such as the inte­gra­tion of stain­less steel, carbon fibers or natu­ral mate­ri­als into plas­tics. As part of the stra­te­gic coope­ra­tion, Nano­gate plans to initi­ally acquire 50 % of the shares in ERBIWA Group.

The ERBIWA Group, based in Linden­berg, Germany, was foun­ded in 2005. Custo­mers include well-known addres­ses from the mobi­lity segment and other indus­tries. In addi­tion to the engi­nee­ring of compon­ents, ERBIWA also covers the deve­lo­p­ment, design and procu­re­ment of important produc­tion equip­ment and tools and under­ta­kes the produc­tion of proto­ty­pes, small series and special series parts. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters, the company also has a site in China, which focu­ses prima­rily on the cons­truc­tion of high-quality produc­tion equip­ment. The company gene­ra­ted sales of more than EUR 15 million in 2018 and gene­ra­ted an attrac­tive return on investment.

Nano­gate and ERBIWA began their opera­tio­nal colla­bo­ra­tion back in 2017. Against this back­drop, Nano­gate now wants to acquire a 50 % stake in a first step, which will subse­quently be further expan­ded. The closing is still subject to the successful imple­men­ta­tion of various frame­work condi­ti­ons. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the previous owner of ERBIWA would like to acquire shares in Nano­gate in addi­tion to a cash compo­nent. If neces­sary, a capi­tal increase in kind will be carried out for this purpose, which would be in the lower single-digit percen­tage range of the current capi­tal stock. ERBIWA is initi­ally to be included at equity in the conso­li­da­ted finan­cial state­ments of Nano­gate SE. Further details of the agree­ment were not disclosed.

Advi­sors to ERBIWA Group and its share­hol­der Ernst Wagner: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, Freiburg
Dr. Hendrik Thies, Part­ner, Photo (Lead Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Stefan Lammel, Part­ner (Corpo­rate Finance, M&A)
Dr. Morton Douglas, Part­ner (IP)
Dr. Till Bött­cher, Senior Asso­ciate (Real Estate)
Stepha­nie von Riegen, Senior Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A)

Advi­sors to Nano­gate SE: CMS Hasche Sigle Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten und Steu­er­be­ra­tern mbB, Frankfurt
Katja Pohl, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner Corpo­rate, M&A)
Johanna Hofmann, Part­ner (Real Estate)
Dr. Elena Chertkova, Senior Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A)
Sandra Scheib, Senior Asso­ciate (Real Estate)

Nano­gate SE also recei­ved tax advice from Ernst & Young GmbH Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft (EY).
The share­hol­der was also advi­sed on M&A tran­sac­tions by MNI Part­ners (lead: Domi­nik Lutz).
In addi­tion, ERBIWA and its share­hol­ders were advi­sed by the tax advi­sors and audi­tors of HÄNLE & PARTNER, based in Tett­nang (lead: Daniel Hein­zel­mann, Partner).

About Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Partner
Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner is one of the leading inde­pen­dent German commer­cial law firms. The firm’s appro­xi­m­ately 85 lawy­ers, inclu­ding 31 part­ners, advise compa­nies world­wide from offices in Colo­gne, Frei­burg, Frank­furt am Main, Alicante and Brussels, as well as from coope­ra­tion offices in Shang­hai, São Paulo and Istan­bul. In total, the firm has around 200 employees. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.fgvw.de.

Munich / Frank­furt — Alli­anz Group, through its digi­tal invest­ment unit Alli­anz X, acqui­res all shares in Finan­zen Group, the opera­tor of the leading Euro­pean online market­place for high-value custo­mer cont­acts (leads) in the area of insu­rance and finan­cial products. The seller is the US invest­ment company Eli Global. As part of this sale process, which is one of the largest FinTech and Insur­Tech tran­sac­tions in Germany to date, the invest­ment bank GCA Altium acted as exclu­sive tran­sac­tion advi­sor to the Finan­zen Group shareholders.

The Finan­zen Group, head­quar­te­red in Berlin, has been support­ing insu­rance experts and finan­cial advi­sors across Europe in digi­tal acqui­si­tion since 2004 — in 2018 alone, more than 1.2 million new custo­mer cont­acts (leads) were traded on the Finan­zen Group plat­form. The unique market­place acts as a bridge between pros­pec­tive custo­mers sear­ching online and insu­rance and finan­cial advi­sors opera­ting offline, thus respon­ding to the growing ROPO (“Rese­arch Online, Purchase Offline”) trend for more complex insu­rance and finan­cial products. The company uses a tech­no­logy plat­form deve­lo­ped in-house to bring toge­ther lead gene­ra­tors (inclu­ding its own portal finanzen.de) and buyers in real time. Finan­zen Group also acts as an online broker for certain insu­rance products in Germany and Switzerland.

Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to custo­mary market appr­oval proce­du­res, Finan­zen Group is to become an inde­pen­dent subsi­diary of Alli­anz Group. The aim is to improve Allianz’s access to poten­tial custo­mers, support the success of agents and streng­then the distri­bu­tion network. With the Finan­zen Group, synergy poten­ti­als are to be tapped and its core busi­ness further expanded.

“Through its tech­no­logy-driven and scalable busi­ness model, Finan­zen Group can further bene­fit from the ongo­ing digi­ta­liza­tion of the insu­rance and finance indus­try,” says Tobias Schult­heiss, Mana­ging Direc­tor at GCA Altium in Frank­furt. “The company is an excel­lent fit with Allianz’s digi­tal stra­tegy. We are convin­ced that Finan­zen Group can conti­nue to grow and fully realize its poten­tial under the Alli­anz umbrella.” In the tran­sac­tion, GCA Altium was able to draw on its parti­cu­larly exten­sive exper­tise in FinTech and InsurTech.

About GCA Altium
GCA Altium is the Euro­pean divi­sion of GCA. The global invest­ment bank provi­des inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance advice in the fields of M&A, capi­tal markets and debt advi­sory. With more than 300 experts in 21 loca­ti­ons, GCA is present in the most important markets in America, Europe and Asia and supports a wide range of clients — inclu­ding large corpo­ra­ti­ons and groups, finan­cial inves­tors as well as growth compa­nies. www.gcaaltium.com

ARQIS advi­sed Allo­heim Senio­ren-Resi­den­zen SE on the acqui­si­tion of the Pro Talis Group from Meppen, which is active in inpa­ti­ent care, outpa­ti­ent care, day care and assis­ted living. The acqui­si­tion is subject to the appr­oval of the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The Pro Talis Group opera­tes 14 senior centers with over 1,100 nursing beds, an outpa­ti­ent service, two day care centers and two assis­ted living faci­li­ties with a total of 54 apart­ments. Since Egbert Möller foun­ded the family busi­ness in 2003, the company has steadily expan­ded its regio­nal presence and is now active in three German states.

Follo­wing comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, which is expec­ted before the end of the summer, Allo­heim will combine around 23,000 nursing beds and apart­ments for assis­ted living under its umbrella, thus streng­thening its presence in North Rhine-West­pha­lia, Lower Saxony and Schles­wig-Holstein. The faci­li­ties and care services of the Pro Talis brand will conti­nue to operate under the old name.

Rainer Hohmann, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Allo­heim, says: “With the Pro Talis faci­li­ties, the Allo­heim Group is gaining attrac­tive growth in modern, beau­tiful and high-quality equip­ped homes in attrac­tive loca­ti­ons. We now want to work with the Pro Talis staff to expand our offe­rings and realize further projects. We look forward to working together.”

ARQIS has alre­ady been invol­ved in nume­rous add-on acqui­si­ti­ons of the Allo­heim Group since 2010, most recently in the acqui­si­tion of the CMS group of compa­nies at the end of 2018. The firm also regu­larly advi­ses Allo­heim on real estate law.

Advi­sor to Allo­heim: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze, Photo (Lead Part­ner; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Chris­tof Schnei­der (Finan­cing), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Johan­nes Landry (Commer­cial); Coun­sel: Saskia Kirsch­baum (Labor Law) Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP); Asso­cia­tes: Thomas Chwa­lek (Head of Due Dili­gence), Malte Grie­pen­burg (Health Care), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate), Sina Janke (IP/Compliance), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Labor Law), Elisa­beth Falte­rer (Finan­cing), Dr. Liliia Sagun, Carina Grahs (both Legal Support Specialists)

Lands­hu­t­/­Plan­egg-Martins­ried/ New York, April 17, 2019 — The Martins­ried-based biophar­maceu­ti­cal company Immu­nic Thera­peu­tics (“Immu­nic”) has successfully made the leap to the NASDAQ tech­no­logy exch­ange in a so-called reverse take­over. This is the first time that a port­fo­lio company of Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern, mana­ged by Bayern Kapi­tal , has succee­ded in going public. Toge­ther with a consor­tium of inves­tors, Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern inves­ted in the company in 2016 as part of a Series A round, thus laying the finan­cial foun­da­tion for the company’s posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. The stock market listing is now expec­ted to provide Immu­nic with finan­cing secu­rity for its further deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties and thus unleash further growth momen­tum. Simul­ta­neously with the closing of the tran­sac­tion, Bayern Kapi­tal and six other inves­tors have again inves­ted a total of 26.7 million euros (around 30 million US dollars) in the former Bava­rian start-up.

Immu­nic is a biotech company foun­ded in 2016. The company’s deve­lo­p­ment pipe­line today includes selec­tive, orally available immu­no­logy thera­pies for the treat­ment of chro­nic inflamm­a­tory and auto­im­mune dise­a­ses such as ulce­ra­tive coli­tis, Crohn’s dise­ase, relapsing-remit­ting multi­ple scle­ro­sis and psoria­sis. As part of a share exch­ange (so-called reverse take­over) with the alre­ady listed company Vital Thera­pies Inc. Immu­nic has successfully made the step to the NASDAQ. The company’s common stock, with the new common name of Immu­nic Inc. have been traded on NASDAQ since April 15, 2019. The main objec­tive of the newly formed company is to conti­nue the deve­lo­p­ment of drugs for chro­nic inflamm­a­tory and auto­im­mune dise­a­ses until they are ready for the market.

Dr. Daniel Vitt, CEO of Immu­nic AG, says: “Inves­tors such as Bayern Kapi­tal with the Bava­rian Growth Fund have given us the oppor­tu­nity to form, deve­lop and grow as an inde­pen­dent company. The fact that we can now take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ties offe­red by the capi­tal market to enter the next phase of our corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment also has to do with the fact that we have been able to count on the contin­ued trust of our inves­tors from the very beginning.”

Bavaria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs, Hubert Aiwan­ger, on Immunic’s stock market listing: “We have endo­wed the Bava­rian Growth Fund with 100 million euros. The exam­ple of Immu­nic shows that this money is well inves­ted. The market is open to inno­va­tive and well-mana­ged start-ups — even IPOs are possi­ble in a very short time.”

About Immu­nic, Inc.
Immu­nic, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMUX) is a clini­cal-stage biophar­maceu­ti­cal company with a pipe­line of selec­tive, orally available immu­no­logy thera­pies for the treat­ment of chro­nic inflamm­a­tory and auto­im­mune dise­a­ses, inclu­ding ulce­ra­tive coli­tis, Crohn’s dise­ase, relapsing-remit­ting multi­ple scle­ro­sis and psoria­sis. The company is deve­lo­ping three small mole­cule products: IMU-838 is a selec­tive immu­no­mo­du­la­tor that inhi­bits intracel­lu­lar meta­bo­lism of acti­va­ted immune cells by blocking the enzyme DHODH; IMU-935 is an inverse agonist of RORγt; and IMU-856 targets resto­ra­tion of intesti­nal barrier func­tion. Immunic’s most advan­ced deve­lo­p­ment program, IMU-838, is in Phase 2 clini­cal trials for the treat­ment of ulce­ra­tive coli­tis and relapsing-remit­ting multi­ple scle­ro­sis. Another Phase 2 trial in Crohn’s dise­ase is plan­ned for 2019. An inves­ti­ga­tor-initia­ted, proof-of-concept clini­cal trial of IMU-838 in primary scle­ro­sing cholang­i­tis is also plan­ned at Mayo Clinic. For more infor­ma­tion: www.immunic-therapeutics.com.

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal curr­ently mana­ges eleven invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 325 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 290 million euros of venture capi­tal in 265 inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 5,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. www.bayernkapital.de