Author: Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in UNITY AG — Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft für Unter­neh­mens­füh­rung und Infor­ma­ti­ons­tech­no­lo­gie (UNITY AG), a leading inter­na­tio­nal consul­ting firm specia­li­zing in tech­no­logy consul­ting and digi­ta­liza­tion processes.
A fund advi­sed by DBAG acqui­res a control­ling stake in UNITY AG.
The previous share­hol­der, UNITY Inno­va­tion Alli­ance, which in turn is owned by its foun­ders and employees, acqui­res an almost equal econo­mic stake.
In addi­tion, UNITY AG employees are also inves­t­ing directly in UNITY AG as part of the transaction.
This results in a constel­la­tion of strong part­ners through the capi­tal share ratios.
The tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties, is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the third quar­ter of 2024.
The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the terms of the sale. Holi­stic consul­ting approach for sustainable success UNITY AG, which was named as one of the 14 most important manage­ment consul­tancies in Germany in the renow­ned Lünen­donk® List 2024, offers compre­hen­sive services to clients such as AIRBUS, GEA, Luft­hansa Tech­nik, Merce­des-Benz, Miele and the Univer­sity Hospi­tal of Cologne.
From 14 loca­ti­ons, almost 400 employees enable UNITY AG custo­mers to successfully posi­tion them­sel­ves in the age of digi­ta­liza­tion and sustaina­bi­lity — in 2023, a total output of more than 72 million euros was generated.
Tradi­tio­nal, isola­ted consul­ting approa­ches fall short due to the complex chal­lenges of digi­tal transformation.
This is UNITY AG’s core area of expertise.
It offers its custo­mers the expe­ri­ence of hundreds of successful projects paired with the inno­va­tive power of conti­nuous further deve­lo­p­ment of its areas of exper­tise and consul­ting approaches.
The strong growth of UNITY AG also charac­te­ri­zes this strategy.
In recent years, the company has grown by an average of 13 percent per year, clearly outper­forming the over­all market in Germany (approx. seven percent). UNITY AG is an ideal addi­tion to DBAG’s port­fo­lio The invest­ment decis­ion stems from the fact that the digi­ta­liza­tion market is largely resi­li­ent to macroe­co­no­mic effects.
The demand for consul­ting services is charac­te­ri­zed by struc­tu­ral growth and ther­e­fore offers attrac­tive deve­lo­p­ment opportunities.
These can be further inten­si­fied through the imple­men­ta­tion of stra­te­gic M&A transactions.
As a manage­ment consul­tancy, UNITY AG fits seam­lessly and comple­men­ta­rily into DBAG’s IT services and soft­ware port­fo­lio, which accounts for around 17 percent of the over­all portfolio.
The invest­ment in UNITY AG will bene­fit from this sector exper­tise and DBAG’s network.
Both are fed by current (akqui­net, AOE, Cloudf­light, freiheit.com) and former (in-tech, Solva­res) invest­ments. “UNITY AG is an ideal addi­tion to our port­fo­lio. The company impres­ses with its inno­va­tive and inte­gra­tive consul­ting approach, which goes far beyond pure IT consul­ting. UNITY AG supports custo­mers as a spar­ring part­ner along the entire value crea­tion process. This turns them into digi­tal cham­pi­ons and also enables them to take the deman­ding chal­lenges of digi­ta­liza­tion into their own hands. Toge­ther with the foun­ders, board members and part­ners of UNITY AG, this forms the basis for the growth path that we have jointly defi­ned and that will be pursued in the coming years,” says Jannick Hune­cke, Member of the Manage­ment Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (Photo: DBAG).
Values and manage­ment systems guaran­tee success UNITY AG orga­ni­zes its services within seven service units, inclu­ding Cyber Secu­rity, IT Trans­for­ma­tion and Sustainability.
The range of services is value-orien­ted and is based on “Inno­vate”, “Inte­grate”, “Trans­form” and “Realize”.
These values are the foun­da­tion of the consul­ting approach and ensure successful project implementation.
The UNITY AG manage­ment system plays a central role in the corpo­rate stra­tegy, focu­ses action on a concrete target image and serves as a compass in consulting.
By conti­nuously analy­zing new trends, UNITY AG is able to anti­ci­pate and iden­tify dyna­mic and tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments at an early stage.
The high quality of the manage­ment system is regu­larly confirmed by exter­nal certi­fi­ca­ti­ons, inclu­ding the inter­na­tio­nally valid DIN EN ISO 9001:2015 and DIN EN ISO/IEC 27001:2017 for infor­ma­tion secu­rity management.
Future-orien­ted consul­ting for digi­tal change “We are looking forward to great growth oppor­tu­ni­ties thanks to our brand core of ‘inno­va­tion, digi­ta­liza­tion and trans­for­ma­tion’. This can be further lever­a­ged through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. DBAG’s diverse M&A expe­ri­ence also helps us here. In this respect, we are very much looking forward to the colla­bo­ra­tion and the oppor­tu­nity to work toge­ther on our stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment,” says
Chris­toph Plass, foun­der and CEO of UNITY AG, explains further: “We have found the ideal inves­tor in DBAG. Its proxi­mity to SMEs and its sector exper­tise repre­sent real added value for UNITY AG. In addi­tion to these tech­ni­cal factors, the ‘cultu­ral fit’ also played a decisive role for us — we not only share a common vision, but also the same values.”
Dr.-Ing. Frank Thie­le­mann, long-stan­ding CEO of UNITY AG, adds: “In recent years, we have reali­zed a very successful orga­nic growth story. The indus­try and custo­mer port­fo­lio that we have built up is an excel­lent basis, also for our orga­nic growth in the coming years. The conti­nua­tion of this path — coupled with the addi­tio­nal oppor­tu­ni­ties of acqui­si­ti­ons with our strong inves­tor DBAG — will lead to a more ambi­tious growth path.”
UNITY AG is commit­ted to active transformation.
In this respect, the corpo­rate stra­tegy is geared towards linking all rele­vant econo­mic and ecolo­gi­cal factors in order to conti­nuously increase custo­mer and employee satisfaction.
This claim is under­li­ned by various awards.
These include the fifth “Best of Consul­ting” award from Wirt­schafts­Wo­che, the “Top Company” award from the employer rating portal kununu and the “Very Good Employer” award from the inter­na­tio­nal rese­arch and consul­ting insti­tute Great Place to Work®.
In addi­tion, nume­rous certi­fi­ca­ti­ons and member­ships in the ESG context, such as the UN GLOBAL Compact, the German Sustaina­bi­lity Code, the ecova­dis® award and the ÖKOPROFIT® certi­fi­ca­tion, demons­trate UNITY AG’s high level of ESG commit­ment. About DBAG Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), which has been listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of the most renow­ned private equity compa­nies in Germany. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The indus­try focus is on manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services, soft­ware and health­care sectors. Since 2020, DBAG has also been repre­sen­ted in Italy with its own office in Milan. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to appro­xi­m­ately 2.6 billion euros. As part of its stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with ELF Capi­tal Group, DBAG is adding private debt capi­tal to its range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs.

Frank­furt a. Main — Infle­xion, a leading Euro­pean mid-market private equity firm, is plea­sed to announce that it has part­ne­red with the foun­ders of Tier­arzt Plus Part­ner (“TPP”), Germany’s largest group of vete­ri­nary prac­ti­ces, to support the company’s contin­ued growth and expan­sion. The invest­ment is being made by Inflexion’s Buyout Fund VI. TPP was foun­ded in 2018 and has almost 100 vete­ri­nary prac­ti­ces throug­hout Germany with around 1,700 employees. The company works with local vete­ri­na­ri­ans to provide leading animal health services, prima­rily for small animals, and supports them with compre­hen­sive trai­ning, indus­try best prac­ti­ces and signi­fi­cant invest­ment in tech­no­logy. The market for vete­ri­nary services in Germany remains frag­men­ted and offers considera­ble poten­tial for further conso­li­da­tion and growth. Infle­xion plans to leverage its exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence to work with TPP’s foun­ding manage­ment and share­hol­ders to acce­le­rate the company’s growth. In parti­cu­lar, Infle­xion will support further invest­ments in the digi­ta­liza­tion of the company, in trai­ning and in the expan­sion of the vete­ri­nary prac­tice network in Germany, both through acqui­si­ti­ons and by opening new green­field sites. “As the largest and most successful vete­ri­nary network in Germany, TPP offers an excel­lent plat­form for future growth and deve­lo­p­ment. We look forward to combi­ning our exten­sive expe­ri­ence in this sector with the exper­tise of TPP’s foun­ders and an outstan­ding manage­ment team to further grow the busi­ness,” explains Martin Preuss (photo © Infle­xion), since March 2024 Part­ner and Head of DACH at Infle­xion. Fabian Kröll, Co-Foun­der and CEO, TPP, said: “We look forward to working with Infle­xion to conti­nue inves­t­ing in the growth of our busi­ness and the deve­lo­p­ment of our network. Our foun­ding and leader­ship team will remain on board and we will stay true to our mission of crea­ting the best expe­ri­ence for animals and people every day.” About Infle­xion Infle­xion is a leading Euro­pean mid-market private equity firm that invests in high-growth, entre­pre­neu­rial compa­nies with ambi­tious manage­ment teams, typi­cally valued between €50m and €1bn, and works in part­ner­ship with these compa­nies to acce­le­rate growth. Infle­xion has € 12 billion AUM and invests up to € 600 million of equity per invest­ment in majo­rity tran­sac­tions with various funds, but also in mino­rity tran­sac­tions with Europe’s largest specia­li­zed fund. www.https://www.inflexion.com

Zurich/ Munich — IMPAG Group, an inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed chemi­cal distri­bu­tion company, announ­ces that it has comple­ted a change in its inves­tor struc­ture as part of its stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment and to acce­le­rate growth in a conso­li­da­ting market.
Deut­sche Privat Equity (DPE) takes over the shares of Enzian AG as the new majo­rity investor.
This step is part of the IMPAG Group’s long-term growth stra­tegy, which aims to further conso­li­date its market posi­tion and create added value as a solu­tion provi­der for its stake­hol­ders, espe­ci­ally its custo­mers, supply part­ners and employees.
The change enables the IMPAG Group to streng­then its agility and inno­va­tive power and to drive forward its corpo­rate vision in a targe­ted manner by further deve­lo­ping its offe­ring and expan­ding its services.
The new inves­tor struc­ture with DPE supports IMPAG Group’s ambi­ti­ons to expand its presence in the Euro­pean market and diver­sify its busi­ness areas through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and partnerships.
IMPAG Group stri­ves to further streng­then its value-added posi­tion in the life science and mate­rial science sectors and to be percei­ved as a prefer­red part­ner for its global stakeholders.
The Board of Direc­tors and the Execu­tive Board of IMPAG Group are convin­ced that the change of inves­tor supports the stra­te­gic direc­tion of the company and forms the basis for further growth and long-term success.
“A change of inves­tor should always be driven by strength and not by neces­sity. IMPAG has deve­lo­ped across natio­nal borders, has estab­lished a strong market posi­tion in Europe and, with its ambi­tious plans for the future, is now ready for a new, strong inves­tor and part­ner. We are convin­ced that in DPE we have gained a strong part­ner with a compa­ra­ble under­stan­ding of values who will support the successful further deve­lo­p­ment of the IMPAG Group in the long term,” confirms IMPAG CEO Remo Bernardi.
Andreas Schmid, Part­ner at DPE, empha­si­zes: “We are convin­ced that we can expand on the basis of the exis­ting plat­form, the IMPAG Group, both through further orga­nic growth initia­ti­ves and through targe­ted buy-and-build acqui­si­ti­ons to become a leading pan-Euro­pean specia­list distri­bu­tor for chemi­cals.” DPE is a German capi­tal manage­ment company head­quar­te­red in Munich that invests in medium-sized growth compa­nies, prima­rily in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land, with the invest­ment funds it manages.
DPE supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies with a part­ner­ship approach, capi­tal, expe­ri­ence and respect for entre­pre­neu­rial action in order to realize their future potential.
The IMPAG Group, head­quar­te­red in Zurich and with subsi­dia­ries in Switz­er­land, Germany, Poland, France, Austria and Spain, is a chemi­cal distri­bu­tion company that supplies and supports the life science and mate­rial science indus­tries in Europe with raw mate­ri­als and services.