ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich, London, Paris — Prefere Resins, one of Europe’s leading phen­o­lic and amino resin produ­cers head­quar­te­red in Erkner, Bran­den­burg, near Berlin, is taking an important step in expan­ding its global market posi­tion: The port­fo­lio company from the second fund of the Euro­pean invest­ment company Silver­fleet Capi­tal has ente­red into an agree­ment with the British INEOS Enter­pri­ses signed a purchase agree­ment for the Mela­mi­nes and Para­form busi­nesses. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval; closing is expec­ted later this year. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Prefere Resins specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­ture and distri­bu­tion of phen­o­lic and amino resins used as a base for compo­site mate­ri­als in the cons­truc­tion, insu­la­tion and indus­trial sectors. The company has produc­tion faci­li­ties in Germany, Finland, the UK, France, Poland and Roma­nia, three rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment sites (Germany, Austria and Finland) and four regio­nal sales offices (Germany, the UK, Finland and Austria). The company employs more than 320 people and its annual produc­tion volume is about 350,000 tons.

With the acqui­si­tion of the INEOS Mela­mi­nes & Para­form busi­ness units, Prefere Resins expands its global reach with addi­tio­nal produc­tion faci­li­ties in the US and Germany, as well as a contract manu­fac­tu­ring faci­lity in Indo­ne­sia. INEOS Para­form is conside­red the second-largest supplier of the basic chemi­cal para­form­alde­hyde in Europe. Around 120 employees work at the Mainz site, where form­alde­hyde and form­alde­hyde deri­va­ti­ves have been produ­ced for more than 100 years. At INEOS Mela­mi­nes, one of the world’s leading suppli­ers of mela­mine resins with around 150 employees, indus­trial custo­mers in the coatings, paper, texti­les, tires, rubber and deco­ra­tive lami­na­tes sectors are served from Frank­furt, Spring­field (USA) and via contract manu­fac­tu­ring in Sura­baya (Indo­ne­sia).

“The acqui­si­tion of the two busi­ness units of INEOS Enter­pri­ses, which are excel­lently posi­tio­ned in the market, marks a mile­stone in our growth stra­tegy for Prefere Resins. With the addi­tio­nal exper­tise in the mela­mine resins, form­alde­hyde and form­alde­hyde deri­va­ti­ves segments, we are getting closer to our goal of posi­tio­ning oursel­ves as a global resins produ­cer,” says Arno Knebel­kamp, CEO of Prefere Resins Holding GmbH. Jenni­fer Regehr, who was respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion in Silver­fleet Capital’s Munich office, adds: “Our invest­ments aim to help market leaders in niches to achieve new growth. We are plea­sed that Prefere Resins has alre­ady succee­ded in this within one year of our invest­ment and that the next deve­lo­p­ment step could be initiated.”

At Silver­fleet Capi­tal, Guntram Kieferle from the Munich office is invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion in addi­tion to Jenni­fer Regehr.

About Prefere Resins
Prefere Resins is one of the leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­r­ers in Europe. Seven produc­tion sites in six Euro­pean count­ries are control­led from the company’s head­quar­ters in Erkner near Berlin. Thanks to their safety-rele­vant proper­ties combi­ned with an attrac­tive price-perfor­mance ratio, phen­o­lic resins are among the most widely used ther­mo­sets and can be used in a wide variety of areas, which include cons­truc­tion, insu­la­tion (insu­la­ting mate­ri­als) and indus­try (auto­mo­tive and mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring). With more than 320 employees, the company produ­ces around 350,000 metric tons of phen­o­lic and amino resins and suita­ble addi­ti­ves each year, gene­ra­ting annual sales of around 250 million euros. www.prefereresins.com

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

Eight 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 women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a U.K. manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a U.K. provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, a British opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses; 7days, a German supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

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 €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

News

Tokyo/ Munich — Japa­nese tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons group Soft­bank plans to acquire a stake in Wire­card and invest around 900 million euros in the payment services provider.

For this purpose, Wire­card is to issue a conver­ti­ble bond that can be conver­ted into a total of 6,923,076 Wire­card shares (curr­ently corre­spon­ding to approx. 5.6% of the share capi­tal) at a conver­sion price of EUR 130 per Wire­card share after a period of 5 years. The Annual Gene­ral Meeting of Wire­card AG on June 18, 2019 is expec­ted to decide on the issue of this conver­ti­ble bond to Soft­bank exclu­ding the subscrip­tion rights of current share­hol­ders. This would make Soft­bank the Bava­rian company ’s fourth-largest inves­tor after MB Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft — the invest­ment vehicle of Wire­card CEO Markus Braun — the invest­ment bank Gold­man Sachs and the asset mana­ger Black­rock.

Advi­sors to Wire­card: Noerr LLP and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher 

Advi­sors to Soft­bank: Sulli­van & Cromwell

 

News

Antwerp — Euro­pean private equity firm Gimv has announ­ced the forma­tion of a life scien­ces advi­sory board. The new board consists of six expe­ri­en­ced indus­try experts with exper­tise in drug and medi­cal device deve­lo­p­ment, company buil­ding, and mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons. Michel Darnaud (form­erly respon­si­ble for cardiac surgery at Liva­Nova), Peter Hirth (former CEO of Plex­xi­kon), Ismail Kola (former CSO at UCB), Kasim Kutay (CEO of Novo Holdings), Alex­andre LeBe­aut (CSO of Ipsen) and Edwin Moses (former CEO of Ablynx) will assist Gimv’s life scien­ces team with port­fo­lio deve­lo­p­ment, new deal origi­na­tion and gene­ral indus­try trend analysis.

Gimv has inves­ted in more than 80 life scien­ces compa­nies since 1982 and has consis­t­ently gene­ra­ted outstan­ding returns. Success stories include Ablynx, Plex­xi­kon, Devgen, Cova­gen Proso­nix and Endo­sense. As part of the broa­der “Health & Care” plat­form, Gimv’s life scien­ces team invests in biotech­no­logy and medi­cal tech­no­logy start-ups — both early and later stage. An invest­ment volume of 10–25 million euros per company is targe­ted, with finan­cing provi­ded through Gimv’s own balance sheet as part of an ever­green struc­ture. The Life Scien­ces team, led by part­ners Dr. Karl Nägler, Bram Vanpa­rys and Patrick Van Bene­den, curr­ently mana­ges a port­fo­lio of eleven compa­nies. The plan is to expand the port­fo­lio to 15 to 20 compa­nies in the coming years.

Dr. Karl Nägler, Part­ner Gimv Germany says: “The estab­lish­ment of this advi­sory board illus­tra­tes Gimv’s ambi­ti­ons in the fields of biotech­no­logy and medi­cal tech­no­logy for the coming years. At Gimv, we want to support ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs as part­ners. Through our new advi­sory board, we are expan­ding our network and adding value to our portfolio.”

Bram Vanpa­rys, Part­ner Gimv Belgium adds, “We are very plea­sed to estab­lish a close colla­bo­ra­tion with these renow­ned and successful experts, each of whom has alre­ady achie­ved great things in our indus­try. With this colla­bo­ra­tion, we succeed in further enhan­cing the value Gimv offers to pati­ents, port­fo­lio compa­nies and shareholders.”

News

Munich, London, Paris — Silver­fleet Capi­tal, a pan-Euro­pean private equity firm, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in CARE Ferti­lity Holdings Limi­ted (“CARE”). Head­quar­te­red in Notting­ham, England, the company is a leading opera­tor of ferti­lity clinics in the United King­dom. CARE’s above-average success rates are based on a strong scien­ti­fic and clini­cal approach. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Foun­ded in 1997, the company opera­tes nine clinics and 13 offices in the United King­dom and Ireland. Since its incep­tion, CARE has helped launch the birth of more than 30,000 babies. The company’s success rate across all key metrics is among the highest in the UK. With exten­sive rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties, CARE is an inno­va­tion driver in the indus­try. The company lever­a­ges data and clini­cal exper­tise to pioneer cutting-edge treat­ments and proce­du­res to market.

The invest­ment in CARE is based on Silverfleet’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in health­care and its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in high-growth markets — in this case, ferti­lity services — and helping compa­nies expand dome­sti­cally and inter­na­tio­nally. With the help of Silver­fleet, CARE will conti­nue its strong, diver­si­fied growth trajec­tory. This includes expan­ding the clinic network in the UK, deve­lo­ping new products and services to improve pati­ent success rates, and making further acqui­si­ti­ons to conso­li­date the highly frag­men­ted market in order to build an inter­na­tio­nal plat­form in the ferti­lity clinic sector.

The invest­ment in CARE is Silverfleet’s ninth over­all from the current fund and comple­ments a port­fo­lio that includes compa­nies in the UK, France, Scan­di­na­via and Germany.

Alfa Chan (photo), Part­ner at Silver­fleet and respon­si­ble for health­care invest­ments, says: “CARE is the clear market leader in a sector that shows high growth poten­tial as the demand for ferti­lity services conti­nues to increase. The CARE brand has a strong repu­ta­tion and treat­ment outco­mes are leading the market. We look forward to working closely with the manage­ment team and employees to further deve­lop the business.”

David Burford, CEO of CARE, adds, “Silver­fleet is the ideal part­ner to take our company to the next level of its growth. Silverfleet’s impres­sive track record of helping compa­nies execute their growth plans, as well as their exten­sive invest­ment expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector, will be very valuable. I’ve known the Silver­fleet team for a long time and look forward to imple­men­ting our plans together.”

The Silver­fleet team for this tran­sac­tion includes Alfa Chan, Sumit Dheir, Peter Kise­nyi and Domi­nic Mitchell, based in Silver­fleet Capital’s London office.

Consul­tant Silverfleet:
Lincoln (M&A), PwC (Finan­cial, Commer­cial & Tax), Ropes & Gray (Legal, Corpo­rate), Deloitte (Debt Advi­sory), WA Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons (Poli­ti­cal), Intui­tus (IT) and AJ Gallag­her (Insu­rance).
Apollo provi­ded the debt capi­tal.

About CARE Fertility
Foun­ded in 1997, CARE Ferti­lity is the leading ferti­lity service provi­der in the United King­dom, having successfully laun­ched the birth of more than 30,0000 babies since its incep­tion. CARE is an inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed brand and is synony­mous with inno­va­tion with leading ferti­lity success rates driven by clini­cal excel­lence and conti­nuous improvement.

Today, CARE Ferti­lity opera­tes nine CARE clinics and 13 offices, provi­ding compre­hen­sive coverage in the United King­dom and Ireland.

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

Eight 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 women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer 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 UK-based provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, an opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses based in the United King­dom; 7days, a German supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

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 €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four indus­try focus areas:
Busi­ness and finan­cial services, health­care, manu­fac­tu­ring, and retail and consu­mer goods. Its exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector is based on seve­ral successful previous invest­ments — inclu­ding Aesica (phar­maceu­ti­cal contract deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring) and Steri­ge­nics (contract steri­liza­tion services), which gene­ra­ted returns of 3.3x and 3.6x, respectively.

Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the U.K. and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (includes an invest­ment head­quar­te­red in the U.S. and sourcing in Belgium).

News

Munich — DLA Piper has FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co. KG on an invest­ment of up to USD two million as part of a Series A finan­cing round in Moon­light­ing, Inc, opera­tor of the on-demand free­lance plat­form Moon­light­ing. The goal of the invest­ment is to inte­grate the open source block­chain soft­ware EOSIO into Moonlighting’s Block­chain Profile Manage­ment System (BPMS).

Moon­light­ing is the first on-demand mobile solu­tion that uses a block­chain-powered plat­form and proprie­tary tokens to create a virtual market­place for self-employed and small busi­ness refer­rals. Foun­ded in 2014 in Char­lot­tes­ville, Virgi­nia, the company will use the invest­ment to trans­fer more than 700,000 user profiles to its block­chain using EOSIO. Each profile beco­mes trans­fera­ble and conta­ins important data such as ratings, recom­men­da­ti­ons, and confir­ma­ti­ons of third-party licen­ses and certi­fi­ca­tes. Moon­light­ing will also trans­fer its mobile manage­ment tools, such as CRM or mobile payment, to the block­chain to enable users to work secu­rely online.

FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co KG is a fund mana­ged by FinLab AG that invests exclu­si­vely in projects based on the open source block­chain soft­ware EOSIO. The fund focu­ses on seed and early-stage start­ups seeking equity invest­ment. The joint fund of USD 100 million was laun­ched by Block.one, the company behind EOSIO, and FinLab AG.

Advi­sor FinLab EOS VC Europe I: DLA Piper 
The DLA Piper team led by part­ner Simon Vogel also included senior asso­ciate Michael Rebholz (both Private Equity/Venture Capi­tal, Munich). In addi­tion, part­ners Danish Hamid (Washing­ton D.C.) and Mark F. Radcliffe and asso­cia­tes Kyle de Neve and Syeda Nazifa Nawroj (all Corporate/M&A, Sili­con Valley) were invol­ved in the advisory.

News

Hamburg/ Oberhausen/ Munich — BDO Legal advi­sed DMB Deut­sche Motor­sport Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft on the sale of NetRange MMH GmbH, the leading provi­der of cloud-based info­tain­ment solu­ti­ons for smart TVs and connec­ted cars. The acqui­rer is ACCESS Europe GmbH, a provi­der of connec­ted enter­tain­ment and also a German subsi­diary of the listed Japa­nese company ACCESS CO., LTD.

Hamburg-based NetRange MMH GmbH was foun­ded in 2009 by Jan Wendt and quickly became a pioneer in smart TV solu­ti­ons. With an inter­na­tio­nal network of curr­ently over 4,000 part­ners in more than 100 count­ries, the company has become the leading content provi­der and serves major custo­mers such as Grun­dig, Loewe and Voda­fone. Mean­while, NetRange has also expan­ded its offe­ring to include info­tain­ment for cars. DMB is an invest­ment holding of Jan Wendt.

Ober­hau­sen-based ACCESS Europe GmbH, which reports to Tokyo-based ACCESS CO. LTD., has been a provi­der of forward-looking IT solu­ti­ons around mobile commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and network soft­ware tech­no­lo­gies for a wide range of play­ers around the world since the 1980s. Mean­while, its soft­ware solu­ti­ons have been instal­led on more than 1.5 billion devices world­wide — inclu­ding cars, TVs, smart­phones, tablets, game conso­les and more. With this acqui­si­tion, ACCESS Europe GmbH aims to become the market leader in the field of soft­ware-based info­tain­ment solutions.

Jan Wendt on the tran­sac­tion: “I am deligh­ted to have found a buyer that is an excel­lent stra­te­gic fit for NetRange. The acqui­si­tion has set a mile­stone for the connec­ted car indus­try. At the same time, it is a strong response to the growing colla­bo­ra­tion between the auto­mo­tive and enter­tain­ment indus­tries. ACCESS will successfully deve­lop NetRange’s busi­ness as a global, publicly traded company. In the dive­st­ment process, the fast and profes­sio­nal advice provi­ded by BDO Legal contri­bu­ted to the success of this very ambi­tious tran­sac­tion in terms of time.”

Advi­sor DMB Deut­sche Motor­sport Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH:
Legal Advi­sory: BDO Legal Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH
The advi­sory services of BDO Legal Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH compri­sed the entire legal advice to DMB: Dr. Daniel Wied (lead, M&A/Munich), Dr. Konstan­tin Michel­sen (M&A/Hamburg), Peter Klumpp (Tax/Hamburg), Hans-Gerd Hunfeld (Tax/Hamburg), Peter Bellen­dorf (M&A/Hamburg), Yana Krause (M&A/Hamburg), Luisa Reimitz (M&A/Hamburg)

M&A Advi­sory: Clip­per­ton

Advi­sor ACCESS CO, LTD: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

News

Düssel­dorf — Douglas is ente­ring into a coope­ra­tion with Welmoa, a start-up for beauty services on demand. In the course of this, the perfu­mery giant is not only a clas­sic venture capi­ta­list, but also a media-for-equity investor.

Welmoa offers beauty services on demand and is alre­ady repre­sen­ted with its services in six cities in Germany. Speci­fi­cally, custo­mers can use the app to book appli­ca­ti­ons such as makeup, massa­ges, nail care or hair styling. The treat­ments take placeSo calcu­late your indi­vi­dual SEO budget now then at the desi­red loca­tion. The various beauty treat­ments can be booked seven days a week.

Addi­tio­nal entry offers
Exis­ting Douglas custo­mers are to bene­fit from further intro­duc­tory offers in the future. “The coope­ra­tion with Welmoa is to provide this service to our custo­mers. We are so convin­ced by the concept of being pampe­red with high-quality beauty services in the place of your choice that we are beco­ming active as an inves­tor,” says Tina Müller (photo), Group CEO of Douglas. “Inno­va­tive compa­nies are turning to web apps and head­less CMS.”

The equip­ment needed for the treat­ment is brought by the respec­tive service provi­ders. In order to be booka­ble through Welmoa’s app, they must go through a three-stage selec­tion process to ensure they meet the requi­red standards.

News

Munich — The Munich office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP has advi­sed MS Indus­trie AG on the sale of the produc­tion of valve train systems for the Daim­ler world engine at the US site in Webber­ville, Michi­gan. As part of the tran­sac­tion, MS Power­train Tech­no­lo­gie GmbH, Tros­sin­gen, a subsi­diary of MS Indus­trie AG, acqui­red 100% of the shares in MS Indus­tries Inc. and its rele­vant subsi­dia­ries to the Italian Gnutti Carlo Group, a global indus­trial group specia­li­zing in power­train compon­ents and alumi­num die casting.

MS Indus­trie AG, head­quar­te­red in Munich, is the listed parent company of a focu­sed indus­trial group for drive tech­no­logy and ultra­so­nic technology.

Advi­sors to MS Indus­trie AG:Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Munich-based Part­ner Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger, Photo (Corpo­rate) and was supported by Munich part­ner Tobias Geer­ling (Tax) and part­ners Matthew Goul­ding (Corpo­rate, Boston) and Mark Schwed (Tax, New York) as well as asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer, Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler, Ramona Fren­zel, Caro­lin Ober­maier (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Michael Messina (Corpo­rate, Boston) and Lorraine Shub (Tax, New York).

News

Berlin/ Munich — The indus­trial insurer HDI Global SE is inves­t­ing 12 million euros in the company buil­der Next Big Thing AG(NBT) via Hanno­ver Digi­tal Invest. The Series A round also invol­ves the inves­tor EOS VC , which is mana­ged by FinLab. NBT posi­ti­ons itself as a company buil­der, inno­va­tion hub and think tank. DLA Piper advi­sed FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co. KG as co-inves­tor on the invest­ment of up to two million euros.

Foun­ded in 2016, Next Big Thing AG is the leading company buil­der in the field of IoT and Block­chain and offers compre­hen­sive services for the deve­lo­p­ment of joint ventures. With its exper­tise, the company, which employs 61 people from 21 count­ries, offers a plat­form for foun­ders, entre­pre­neurs, inves­tors as well as poli­ti­ci­ans in Germany and Europe. Next Big Thing AG is part of de:hub, the digi­tal hub initia­tive of the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, which aims to inte­grate medium-sized and large compa­nies with new inno­va­tion part­ners from science and the start-up scene into a Germany-wide digi­tal network.

FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co KG is a fund mana­ged by FinLab AG that invests exclu­si­vely in projects based on the open source block­chain soft­ware EOS.IO. The fund focu­ses on seed and early-stage start­ups seeking equity invest­ment. The joint fund of USD 100 million was laun­ched by Block.one, the company behind EOS.IO, and FinLab AG.

The DLA Piper team led by part­ner Simon Vogel also included senior asso­ciate Michael Rebholz (both Private Equity/Venture Capi­tal, Munich).

News

Berlin - Moon­fare has closed an over­sub­scri­bed Series A finan­cing round. In total they raised €25m of capi­tal to date with it’s team of 23 people, a board of direc­tors of 4 and 34 inves­tors. Accor­ding to the foun­der Alex­an­der Argy­ros’ (photo)philo­so­phy, the capi­tal will be dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding upon Moonfare’s world-class invest­ment plat­form that enables private indi­vi­du­als to invest into top-tier private equity funds.

Moonfare’s share­hol­der base is now compri­sed of more than 100 private equity insi­ders, C‑level execu­ti­ves and entre­pre­neurs from across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. This is one of the largest Series A rounds ever done in Europe by indi­vi­dual inves­tors. We thank our share­hol­ders and Moon­fare inves­tors for their conti­nuous trust and support.

To date, Moon­fare has brought six top-tier private equity funds to market inclu­ding offe­rings from EQT, the Carlyle Group and Warburg Pincus. In 2019 alone, we expect to bring an addi­tio­nal 8–10 funds on the plat­form. www.moonfare.com .

 

News

Frank­furt am Main/ Oslo — The Norwe­gian Infront ASA has acqui­red the German vwd Group GmbH inclu­ding its Euro­pean subsi­dia­ries to create the leading Euro­pean provi­der of finan­cial market solu­ti­ons. The current majo­rity owner, private equity giant The Carlyle Group, had acqui­red its shares in 2012. Bird & Bird LLP advi­sed Infront ASA on this transaction

The Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity (BaFin) must now decide on the execu­tion of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion with a purchase price of EUR 130 million is plan­ned for the second quar­ter of 2019.

With the forth­co­ming take­over, Infront will acquire not only vwd Group GmbH but also all nine Euro­pean subsi­dia­ries, inclu­ding vwd Verei­nigte Wirt­schafts­dienste GmbH, as well as other compa­nies in Germany, the Nether­lands, Belgium, Luxem­bourg, Italy and Switz­er­land. Head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main, vwd offers fintech and regtech products and services for the invest­ment indus­try. The acqui­si­tion extends Infront’s reach to conti­nen­tal Europe through its Nordic home markets and opera­ti­ons in the UK, France and South Africa, crea­ting Europe’s leading finan­cial market solu­ti­ons provi­der. (stock market advertisement)

Infront is a global Norwe­gian finan­cial analy­sis provi­der and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exch­ange. The company relies on highly inno­va­tive tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons in the form of Soft­ware as a Service (Saas) and cloud-based appli­ca­ti­ons. Infront ASA provi­des its clients with market data, trading solu­ti­ons and up-to-date news for profes­sio­nal and private inves­tors in the Nordic count­ries and inter­na­tio­nally. With the so-called Infront Profes­sio­nal Termi­nal, users can access market data, company news, and analy­ses in real time, as well as trade elec­tro­ni­cally on the finan­cial market. The company was foun­ded in Oslo in 1998.

Bird & Bird and its inter­na­tio­nal team led by part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (Corporate/M&A) advi­sed the German, Dutch and Belgian markets. In addi­tion to corpo­rate law, the focus was on regu­la­tory issues rela­ting to the finan­cial services indus­try. The inter­na­tio­nal lead for the tran­sac­tion was provi­ded by the Norwe­gian law firm Selmer.

Advi­sor Infront ASA: Bird & Bird (Germany, The Hague and Brussels)
Part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (Lead Part­ner ) and Asso­ciate Dr. Ann-Kris­tin Asmuß, LL.M. (Corporate/M&A) as well as Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann (Lead Part­ner Regu­la­tion) and Asso­ciate Johan­nes Wirtz, LL.M. (Banking & Finance/Regulation) formed the core team. Also invol­ved were asso­cia­tes Inga Kerner, Chyn­gyz Timur, LL.M. and Michael Maier (Corporate/M&A) as well as Julia Fröh­der (Banking & Finance/Regulation), Part­ner Dr. Barbara Geck and Asso­ciate Florian Kesse­nich (Labor Law), Part­ner Jörg-Alex­an­der Paul and Asso­ciate Holger Nieden­führ (Commercial/IT) and Senior Coun­sel Mascha Grund­mann (Intellec­tual Property); Part­ner Pauline Vos and Asso­ciate Marinke Moeli­ker, (Corporate/M&A), Anne­ma­rieke van Vlodrop (Labor Law) and Coun­sel Karen Berg (Commer­cial), all Nether­lands; Part­ner Paul Hermant and Asso­cia­tes Cedric Berck­mans, (Corporate/M&A), Anton Aerts (Labor Law), all Belgium.

Selmer AS (Norway): Thomas G. Miche­let, Remi Dramstad and Jon Fred­rik Johan­sen (joint lead)Schellenberg Witt­mer (Switz­er­land): Pascal Hubli and Karin Mülchi
Gattai Minoli Agos­ti­nelli Part­ners (Italy): Nicola Marte­gani and Gerardo Gabrielli

News

Frank­furt a. M. — A fund advi­sed by Palla­dio Part­ners (“Palla­dio”) has acqui­red 25% of the Rail­pool Group from Oakt­ree Capi­tal Manage­ment. The funds advi­sed by Palla­dio now hold a total of 50% in Rail­pool. The other 50% is held by GIC (Singa­pore Sove­reign Wealth Fund).

Rail­pool was foun­ded in Munich in 2008 and is now one of the leading rail vehicle rental compa­nies. With over 400 loco­mo­ti­ves, Rail­pool is one of the largest suppli­ers in Europe. The company is active in 14 Euro­pean countries.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed Palla­dio with the follo­wing team:
— Uwe Bärenz, Georg Grei­temann, Jens Stein­mül­ler (Part­ners, Private Equity, Berlin/Frankfurt)
— Daniel Wied­mann (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
— Tobias Lochen (Coun­sel, Private Equity, Berlin)
— Chris­tine Funk, Sebas­tian Garn­carz (Senior Asso­cia­tes, Private Equity, Berlin/Frankfurt)
— Xin Zhang (Asso­ciate, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)

News

Duesseldorf/Munich — ARQIS has awarded Sankyo Tatey­ama, Inc. on the acqui­si­tion of the alumi­num foundry busi­ness of Aluwerk Hett­stedt GmbH (AWH), a manu­fac­tu­rer of alumi­num castings and extru­ded products, and the entire busi­ness of RMG Metall­fach­han­del GmbH (RMG), a distri­bu­tor of semi-finis­hed metal products. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

AWH is a manu­fac­tu­rer of cast alumi­num billet and extru­si­ons, specia­li­zing in medium and hard alloy casting. RMG acts as AWH’s exclu­sive distri­bu­tion unit and is an inte­gral part of the over­all transaction.

With the acqui­si­tion of AWH and RMG, Sankyo Tatey­ama will enable its subsi­diary, ST Extru­ded Products Group (STEP‑G), to streng­then its supply capa­bi­li­ties for the auto­mo­tive, aero­space and rail sectors.

Advi­sors to Sankyo Tatey­ama: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Eber­hard Hafer­malz, Foto (Lead), Dr. Shigeo Yama­guchi (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier, Dr. Tobias Brors (both Labor), 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, Martin Wein­gärt­ner (both Labor Law), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate)

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

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

News

Gelsenkirchen/Hamburg — Barely two months after joining Reha­con, Water­land Private Equity accom­pa­nies the first acqui­si­tion as part of a long-term buy & build stra­tegy: Thera­pie­zen­trum Anita Brüche, one of the largest provi­ders of physio­the­rapy services, occu­pa­tio­nal therapy and speech therapy in Hamburg, will in future be part of the Reha­con Group. The seller is foun­der and name­sake Anita Brüche. The Water­land port­fo­lio company Reha­con is thus conti­nuing its expan­sion course with the support of the inves­tor. The tran­sac­tion, the details of which have been agreed not to be disc­lo­sed, is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of May.

The Anita Brüche Therapy Center, which was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Dr. Urba­nek Corpo­rate Finance, treats over 10,000 pati­ents annu­ally with its more than 50 employees. The acqui­si­tion streng­thens Rehacon’s regio­nal presence in Hamburg and expands its port­fo­lio of services, for exam­ple by adding home visits to pati­ents. Reha­con is expec­ted to grow in the future by incor­po­ra­ting addi­tio­nal therapy centers, ther­eby expan­ding its posi­tion in the highly frag­men­ted physi­cal therapy market.

Reha­con, one of the leading compa­nies for physio­the­rapy services in Germany, opera­tes more than 100 therapy centers nati­on­wide, making it one of the largest provi­ders in the Euro­pean market. With more than 600 employees, most of whom treat their pati­ents on site in the therapy centers, the Group most recently gene­ra­ted annual sales of around 36 million euros.

Anita Brüche, foun­der of the therapy center of the same name, says: “With the Reha­con Group, we have now also found the best part­ner for the conti­nua­tion of my company for the pati­ents and the employees. We will conti­nue to stand for the highest quality of treat­ment in physio­the­rapy, occu­pa­tio­nal therapy and speech therapy in Hamburg.”

Michael Reeder, foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Reha­con, is parti­cu­larly plea­sed about the addi­tio­nal attrac­ti­ve­ness of the entire group as an employer: “With the now strong presence in Hamburg and the trai­ning and further educa­tion academy estab­lished there, we can now offer our thera­pists another exci­ting location.”

Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner at Water­land: “The Anita Brüche Therapy Center is a perfect fit for Reha­con and thus for our joint expan­sion stra­tegy: the high trai­ning stan­dard of the employees, digi­ti­zed proces­ses in the prac­tice and the asso­cia­ted very high employee satis­fac­tion are an ideal match for Rehacon.”

Water­land Private Equity has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care market. For exam­ple, the current port­fo­lio of compa­nies includes MEDIAN, the leading private provi­der in Germany with more than 120 reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics, the ATOS clinic group, which specia­li­zes in ortho­pe­dics, and the care service provi­der Schö­nes Leben. Water­land also has a signi­fi­cant stake in Hanse­fit, a leading network asso­cia­tion for company sports and health services with more than 1,400 affi­lia­ted fitness studios.

About Water­land
Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (Manches­ter), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, six billion euros in equity funds are under management.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med its invest­ments since its foun­ding in 1999 and has regu­larly ranked among the top three leading private equity firms world­wide in past HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Euro­pean private equity firm Vitru­vian Part­ners on its invest­ment in AI-powered health­care plat­form ADA Health.

Vitru­vian is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment fund head­quar­te­red in London that invests in Euro­pean compa­nies with high growth poten­tial, prima­rily through a focus on tech­no­logy and digi­ta­liza­tion-based busi­ness models. ADA Health, Europe’s “Hottest Health Start-up 2018,” offers the world’s leading health app, “Ada,” which iden­ti­fies appro­priate next steps for poten­tial proper medi­cal treat­ment for users, as well as B2B users such as health insu­r­ers and health­care provi­ders. The ADA app is AI-powered; it has been available for down­load world­wide since 2016 and has so far ranked first in the medi­cal app space in over 130 countries.

Vitru­vian has inves­ted in ADA Health through a Series B Growth Finan­cing to provide addi­tio­nal growth capi­tal to the company, along with its foun­ding share­hol­ders and exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding through a capi­tal raise. This is inten­ded not only to further expand ADA Health’s exis­ting market posi­tion in Germany, but also to enable further roll-out internationally.

The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been comple­ted. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the size of the growth investment.

Vitru­vian Part­ners was advi­sed by the follo­wing Bird & Bird attor­neys: Part­ner Dr. Hans Peter Leube, LL.M., Lead, and Asso­cia­tes Mari­anne Nawroth, Dr. Ann-Kris­tin Asmuß (all Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Inga Kerner (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Part­ner Dr. Fabian Niemann and Asso­ciate Dr. Nils Lölfing (both IT and Data Protec­tion, Düssel­dorf), Coun­sel Lea Mackert, LL.M. and Asso­ciate Dr. Juliane Kliesch (both IT and Commer­cial, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Csaki and Coun­sel Chris­tian Linden­thal, LL.M. (both Health­care Regu­la­tion, Munich), Part­ner Dr. Barbara Geck (Labor Law, Frank­furt) and Asso­ciate Florian Keßenich (Labor Law, Hamburg).

End

Back­ground
This advice demons­tra­tes once again that Bird & Bird’s parti­cu­lar expe­ri­ence in the tech­no­logy sector is meeting with strong and growing demand in the legal market, and incre­asingly so in private equity advice. This is because the firm is excep­tio­nally well posi­tio­ned, parti­cu­larly in this area, when it comes to advi­sing on invest­ments in compa­nies where data and data protec­tion, regu­la­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion issues play a major role and which ther­eby achieve a signi­fi­cant inno­va­tion boost for the respec­tive indus­try. Peter Leube has alre­ady advi­sed Vitru­vian on seve­ral tran­sac­tions and refi­nan­cings in the health and health­care sector, among others, such as the part­ner­ship with the doctari group.

For press inqui­ries, please contact:
Carola Rehs, Head of Marke­ting and Busi­ness Deve­lo­p­ment Germany
T: +49 (0)211 2005 6243, Email: carola.rehs@twobirds.com

Notes for the editor
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.

News

Aachen/Mönchengladbach — S‑UBG Aachen invests from its SME fund S‑UBG AG in the manu­fac­tu­rer of cutting systems SATO GmbH from Mönchen­glad­bach. The holding company of the regio­nal savings banks thus holds one third of the shares in SATO GmbH, while the remai­ning shares are held equally by Mana­ging Direc­tor Holger Kerkow and Frank Heesen. Both had taken over the group of compa­nies after the depar­ture of the company’s foun­der Anton Hubert in May 2017.

The two succes­sors have expan­ded the work­force again to around 50 employees and have alre­ady imple­men­ted various product inno­va­tions. “With the growth capi­tal from S‑UBG, we would like to acce­le­rate the further growth of SATO GmbH,” says Kerkow. “Through the succes­sors in manage­ment and the expan­sion that has taken place so far, SATO is solidly posi­tio­ned. Our two co-part­ners bring the neces­sary exper­tise to further drive the posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment of the company,” says Harald Heide­mann, CEO of the S‑UBG Group.

Indi­vi­dual system solu­ti­ons for special machine construction
SATO GmbH deve­lops and manu­fac­tures system solu­ti­ons for flame and water­jet cutting systems, espe­ci­ally with plasma, oxyfuel as well as laser cutting tech­no­logy. Depen­ding on the mate­rial and the customer’s appli­ca­tion, SATO designs the system indi­vi­du­ally and is thus in the field of special machine cons­truc­tion. The modu­lar design and a solid stock of requi­red compon­ents nevert­hel­ess enable fast deli­very times. Custo­mers include inter­na­tio­nal mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring groups.

News

Mann­heim — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is acqui­ring a mino­rity stake in Votro­nic Elec­tro­nic-Systeme GmbH & Co KG in Lauter­bach as part of a succes­sion plan. Homburg & Part­ner conduc­ted the commer­cial due dili­gence in the course of the transaction.

Votro­nic deve­lops and produ­ces elec­tro­nic compon­ents for motor­ho­mes, rescue, emer­gency and special vehic­les as well as boats. The product port­fo­lio includes on-board elec­tro­nic devices that signi­fi­cantly improve the usabi­lity and comfort of vehic­les. The company has firmly estab­lished itself in its niche segment, is now one of the market leaders there and has grown stron­gly in recent years.

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.

Homburg & Part­ner (H&P) is a specia­li­zed manage­ment consul­tancy with a focus on market stra­tegy, sales and pricing. The Private Equity Compe­tence Center combi­nes metho­do­lo­gi­cal and indus­try exper­tise to support compa­nies along the entire invest­ment process. In doing so, H&P focu­ses on the follo­wing seven indus­tries in parti­cu­lar with commer­cial due dili­gence and value enhance­ment projects:
(1) Auto­mo­tive (espe­ci­ally Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers)
(2) Buil­ding and cons­truc­tion mate­ri­als (ever­y­thing to do with buildings)
(3) Chemis­try (espe­ci­ally specialty chemistry)
(4) Health­care (in parti­cu­lar medi­cal tech­no­logy, phar­maceu­ti­cals and OTC)
(5) Indus­trial Goods and Engi­nee­ring (espe­ci­ally compo­nent suppli­ers and service providers)
(6) Consu­mer Invest­ment Goods
(7) Infor­ma­tion & Commu­ni­ca­tion Tech­no­logy (espe­ci­ally software)

News

Stuttgart/ Neu-Isen­burg - DATAGROUP has acqui­red all shares in UBL Infor­ma­ti­ons­sys­teme GmbH. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. DATAGROUP was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by a team led by Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein and Bene­dikt Raisch of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

With the acqui­si­tion of the specia­list in hosting and manage­ment of contai­ne­ri­zed soft­ware solu­ti­ons, DATAGROUP streng­thens its presence in the Rhine-Main region and expands its compe­ten­cies. The two UBL mana­ging direc­tors Nils Wulf and Uwe Schnei­der will conti­nue to manage the company under the new Group umbrella.

DATAGROUP SE from Pliez­hau­sen is one of the leading German IT service compa­nies. Around 2,000 employees design, imple­ment and operate IT infra­struc­tures and busi­ness appli­ca­ti­ons such as SAP.

The multi-cloud and mana­ged service provi­der UBL, based in Neu-Isen­burg near Frankfurt/Main, deve­lops and opera­tes IT infra­struc­tures and plat­forms for larger medium-sized compa­nies. The company specia­li­zes in provi­ding indi­vi­dual services in the cloud. UBL also opera­tes two data centers with direct redun­dant connec­tion to the high-speed fiber optic network Rhein-Main.

Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek regu­larly advi­ses DATAGROUP SE on tran­sac­tions, most recently on the acqui­si­tion of almato GmbH.

Advi­sor to DATAGROUP SE: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (M&A, lead management),
Bene­dikt Raisch (M&A, lead),
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax),
Dr. Anne de Boer, LL.M. (Capi­tal Markets Law),
Antje Münch, LL.M. (IP/IT),
Dr. Anto­nia Stein (Labor Law),
Corne­lia Schwiz­ler (Corpo­rate / M&A), all Stuttgart

DATAGROUP SE (Inhouse):
Moritz Schirmbeck

News

Karls­ruhe — The tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners invests in the LANDWEHR Group through its LEA Mittel­stands­part­ner Fund toge­ther with the long-stan­ding manage­ment team. The foun­ding family conti­nues to hold a stake in the company.

LANDWEHR has been deve­lo­ping and selling highly specia­li­zed HCM soft­ware products, espe­ci­ally for person­nel and buil­ding services compa­nies, since 1994 and is conside­red the market leader in the German market with more than 2,000 custo­mers. LANDWEHR also offers an indus­try solu­tion for event service provi­ders with inten­sive staff deploy­ment. In addi­tion, LANDWEHR’s port­fo­lio is roun­ded off by soft­ware offe­rings for payroll accoun­ting and finan­cial accoun­ting. Another LANDWEHR divi­sion is services, trai­ning and server hosting.

As part of the tran­sac­tion, the manage­ment team of Marc Linkert, Hubert Ober­meyer and Thors­ten Temme will take over the manage­ment of the company from the Land­wehr family and acquire a stake in the company them­sel­ves. Marc Linkert, Mana­ging Direc­tor Sales, explains: “Streng­the­ned by the exper­tise and resour­ces of LEA Part­ners, we can decisi­vely drive our company forward in an important phase of deve­lo­p­ment: not only by expan­ding our exis­ting product and service offe­ring, but also in parti­cu­lar by inves­t­ing in further indus­try solu­ti­ons and in our sales and tech­no­logy organization.”

“We have selec­ted our new majo­rity share­hol­der very carefully. LEA Part­ners has an excel­lent repu­ta­tion as a part­ner of high-growth tech­no­logy compa­nies,” says Oliver Land­wehr. “We are proud that we have been able to successfully imple­ment a succes­sion plan that streng­thens LANDWEHR in the long term and fits the company’s culture.”

“The Land­wehr family, manage­ment team and employees of LANDWEHR have done an impres­sive job of buil­ding the company over the past few years and deve­lo­ping it into a fast-growing market leader,” said Sebas­tian Müller of LEA Part­ners. “Based on the high custo­mer value gene­ra­ted by LANDWEHR’s fully inte­gra­ted soft­ware products in the partly highly regu­la­ted markets, we see substan­tial further growth poten­tial. In addi­tion, there are a variety of inor­ga­nic growth oppor­tu­ni­ties, which we want to examine in the course of a selec­tive buy & build stra­tegy and realize toge­ther with the manage­ment team.” www.leapartners.de

News

Munich/ Grün­wald — Hübner Schlös­ser & Cie (HSCie) exclu­si­vely advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Schahl­LED Light­ing GmbH on the sale of a majo­rity stake to the private equity fund Active Capi­tal Company (ACC). The mana­ging part­ners remain mino­rity share­hol­ders and, toge­ther with the new inves­tor, will conti­nue to actively promote the growth stra­tegy of Schahl­LED in the future. One of the goals set is now to bring the bene­fits of leading smart LED solu­ti­ons to a broa­der Euro­pean indus­trial custo­mer base.

“Envi­ron­men­tally friendly green tech­no­lo­gies and smart solu­ti­ons are play­ing an incre­asingly important role in today’s economy. With its range of intel­li­gent func­tional LED solu­ti­ons, Schahl­LED effi­ci­ently combi­nes both areas and has also opti­mally posi­tio­ned itself to bene­fit from the emer­ging trend towards an indus­trial Inter­net of Things. In Active Capi­tal Company, Schahl­LED has found the ideal part­ner to take the company to the next level and imple­ment their successful busi­ness model across Europe,” explains Sabine Moel­ler (photo), part­ner at HSCie and project mana­ger for this transaction.

HSCie advi­sed the sellers in all steps of the sales process. The two mana­ging part­ners comment, “We are plea­sed to have selec­ted HSCie as our advi­sor. With HSCie, we had a highly profes­sio­nal and compe­tent part­ner at our side in this crucial phase. In addi­tion to crucial inves­tor access and excel­lent process manage­ment and nego­tia­tion skills, HSCie also stands out for its huma­nity and unwa­ve­ring commitment.”

About Schahl­LED Lighting
Schahl­LED is a leading full-service provi­der of intel­li­gent LED light­ing solu­ti­ons with a focus on indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. The company’s prede­ces­sor was formed in 1999, while the company was estab­lished through a spin-off in 2006 and acqui­red by manage­ment in a manage­ment buy-in in 2012. Schahl­LED has its head­quar­ters in Munich and is active in the entire DACH region as well as in Poland. The company is a full-service provi­der from project design, manu­fac­tu­ring and deli­very of intel­li­gent LED light­ing systems, to instal­la­tion, soft­ware inte­gra­tion and data analy­sis. The company hand­les over a hundred major projects a year with a network of sales and service part­ners in nort­hern Germany, central Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and Poland. www.schahlled.de.

About Active Capi­tal Company
Active Capi­tal Company is an inde­pen­dent private equity fund focu­sed on small and medium-sized compa­nies in the Nether­lands and Germany. ACC invests in compa­nies in the indus­trial, whole­sale and service sectors with sales of between EUR 10 and 100 million. Through an entre­pre­neu­rial and proac­tive approach, ACC maxi­mi­zes the long-term value of its invest­ments by assis­ting manage­ment in execu­ting value-added projects and provi­ding access to its exten­sive part­ner network. www.activecapitalcompany.com.

About HSCie
Hübner Schlös­ser & Cie, is an inter­na­tio­nally active, inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firm based in Munich. In recent years, HSCie has comple­ted more than 150 tran­sac­tions in various indus­tries with a total volume of more than € 17 billion. HSCie is one of the leading consul­ting firms in Germany in the segment of medium-sized transactions.

News

Frank­furt a. M. — Funds advi­sed by KKR have announ­ced the purchase of i&u TV. i&u is a German tele­vi­sion produc­tion company foun­ded by Günther Jauch for both infor­ma­tion and enter­tain­ment formats. The company produ­ces TV shows such as “stern TV,” “Klein gegen Groß,” “Die Ulti­ma­tive Chart­show” and “Menschen, Bilder, Emotio­nen” for Germany’s highest-reach TV stati­ons. In addi­tion to Günther Jauch (photo), i&u works with show hosts such as Barbara Schö­ne­ber­ger, Thomas Gott­schalk, Kai Pflaume, Jörg Pilawa and Oliver Pocher.

i&u is to comple­ment the inde­pen­dent group of compa­nies for film and TV content that KKR is buil­ding around Tele München Gruppe and Univer­sum Film, which it alre­ady bought in Febru­ary 2019.

“After almost 20 years of successful work at i&u, my thanks go to all employees. Andreas Zaik will conti­nue to provide conti­nuity as Mana­ging Direc­tor and Editor-in-Chief. I, too, will be available to the company for seve­ral more years, both in front of and behind the camera. I am deligh­ted that i&u will now be part of a large media network. I have known and appre­cia­ted Fred Kogel for almost 40 years. With him at the helm of a powerful plat­form and the strong share­hol­der KKR, new oppor­tu­ni­ties will open up for i&u in the TV market and beyond,” said Günther Jauch.

Next stage of deve­lo­p­ment reached
Phil­ipp Freise, Part­ner and Head of the Euro­pean Invest­ment Team for Tech­no­logy, Media and Tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons at KKR, added: “With i&u, a top-class produc­tion company with a great team is joining our media company. We are consis­t­ently imple­men­ting our ambi­tious plans and making great stri­des in our plan to build a powerful content house in the German film and TV industry.”

Follo­wing the comple­tion of this tran­sac­tion, the inde­pen­dent audio­vi­sual content plat­form will comprise Tele München Gruppe, Univer­sum Film and i&u. Toge­ther, the compa­nies repre­sent the value chain of the TV and film indus­try: They buy and produce feature films, series and TV shows and handle the rights explo­ita­tion of this content in cine­mas, TV stati­ons, digi­tal services and home enter­tain­ment. In doing so, the compa­nies also draw on market-leading license libra­ries. Their inde­pen­dence means they can serve all custo­mers with high-quality content — from digi­tal strea­ming provi­ders such as Netflix or Amazon Prime to public and private TV stati­ons. The manage­ment team around CEO Fred Kogel is curr­ently prepa­ring the opera­tio­nal launch and further expan­sion of the media company.

Advi­sor KKR: Henge­ler Mueller
Active part­ners are Dr. Sebas­tian Schnei­der (M&A/Corporate Law, Berlin), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schiessl (M&A, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Stefan Rich­ter (M&A/Corporate Law), Dr. Albrecht Conrad (M&A/TMT) (both Berlin), Dr. Chris­tian Schwandt­ner (M&A/Corporate), Dr. Carl-Phil­ipp Eber­lein (Capi­tal Markets) (both Düssel­dorf), Dr. Jan D. Bonhage (Public Commer­cial Law, Berlin), Dr. Thors­ten Mäger (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Martin Klein (Tax) and Hendrik Bocken­hei­mer (Labor Law) (both Frank­furt), Coun­sel Fabian Seip (TMT, Berlin) and Eckbert Müller (Labor Law, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Alex­an­der Bekier, Dr. Hermann Dahlitz, Jonas Brost, Marvin Vesper-Gräske, Dr. Tobias Bege­mann (all M&A, Berlin), Marius Marx, Maxi­mi­lian Reischl (both Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Anja Balitzki (Anti­trust), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (both Düssel­dorf) and Dr. Char­lotte Riemann (Berlin) (both Public Commer­cial Law).

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS has provi­ded legal advice to the TRIGO Group, an inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of opera­tio­nal quality manage­ment solu­ti­ons for the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try, on the expan­sion of its busi­ness acti­vi­ties in Germany. TRIGO has acqui­red the busi­ness opera­ti­ons of QSSL Indus­trie­ser­vice GmbH, which opera­tes in the field of quality assu­rance services for the auto­mo­tive indus­try, from its insol­vency admi­nis­tra­tor Ilkin Banan­yarli (PLUTA) as part of a trans­fer­ring reor­ga­niza­tion. Both parties agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

QSSL Industrieservice’s services include quality control of parts and compon­ents as well as other indus­trial services such as assem­bly and logi­stics services. The current TRIGO loca­ti­ons in Stutt­gart and Berlin will bene­fit from the acqui­si­tion, and the loca­ti­ons in Fell­bach and Mann­heim gained with the take­over will enable further, deeper market penetration.

TRIGO was foun­ded in 1997. The inter­na­tio­nally active company offers opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic quality manage­ment solu­ti­ons for the manu­fac­tu­ring sector, espe­ci­ally for the auto­mo­tive and aero­space indus­tries. With a team of more than 10,000 employees working in more than 25 count­ries on four conti­nents, TRIGO offers a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of quality assu­rance services ranging from inspec­tion and test­ing to consul­ting and training.

ARQIS alre­ady advi­sed TRIGO Group in 2016 on its market entry into the German market in the context of the acqui­si­tion of “Böllin­ger Qualitätssicherungsgruppe”.

Advi­sors to TRIGO: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze, Foto (M&A), Johan­nes Landry (Insol­vency Law, M&A) (both lead), Dr. Tobias Brors (Labor Law), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate Law); of Coun­sel: Dr. Thomas Görge­manns (M&A); Asso­cia­tes: Thomas Chwa­lek (M&A), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Labor Law), Bere­nike Gott­wald (Tran­sac­tion Support Specia­list, Labor Law)

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

News

Paris/Munich (ener­gate) — The power-to-gas plant manu­fac­tu­rer Elec­tro­chaea has raised further growth capi­tal via a finan­cing round. The gas storage opera­tor Storengy has joined as a new inves­tor. Accor­ding to Storengy, the move is inten­ded to posi­tion the company in a growth market. The compa­nies did not disc­lose the amount of the invest­ment. Eletrochaea’s exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding the deve­lo­p­ment bank KFW and venture capi­ta­lists Munich Venture and B‑to‑V Part­ners, Caliza and Focus First also parti­ci­pa­ted in this finan­cing round. In paral­lel, Storengy and Elec­tro­chaea announ­ced their inten­tion to jointly imple­ment commer­cial projects in Europe and North America based on the deve­lo­ped power-to-gas tech­no­logy. They did not give details.

Advi­sor Elec­tro­chaea: GÖRG Part­ner­ship of attor­neys mbB
GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB, under the lead of Dr. Chris­tian Glauer, advi­sed Elec­tro­chaea GmbH on another finan­cing round.
Dr. Chris­tian Glauer, Asso­ciate Part­ner, M&A/Corporate Law, Munich
Dr. Bernt Paudtke, Part­ner, M&A/Corporate Law, Munich
Dr. Chris­tian Bürger, Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Cologne
Tobias Reichen­ber­ger, Asso­ciate, M&A/Corporate Law, Munich

Consul­tant STORENGY
Baker & McKen­zie Part­ner­ship of Lawy­ers and Tax Consul­tants mbB
Holger Engel­kamp B.Sc. LL.M., M&A/Corporate, Berlin

About Elec­tro­chaea
Based on bioca­ta­ly­sis, Elec­tro­chaea offers an inter­na­tio­nally paten­ted key power-to-gas tech­no­logy (photo). It recy­cles CO2 cost-effec­tively while produ­cing storable and versa­tile rene­wa­ble natu­ral gas from rene­wa­ble elec­tri­cal energy. The first large-scale plant is successfully in opera­tion in Denmark. By 2025, plants with a capa­city of more than one giga­watt are to be built.

With its unique biore­ac­tor, Electrochaea’s tech­no­logy offers a solu­tion for energy storage, carbon dioxide (CO2) reco­very and rene­wa­ble fuel produc­tion in the form of synthe­tic methane. The unique feature of Elec­tro­chaea tech­no­logy is its proprie­tary reac­tor and paten­ted cata­lyst, which consists of an excep­tio­nally effi­ci­ent and robust strain of Archaea* that converts green elec­tri­city into methane along with CO2 and hydro­gen. The func­tion­a­lity was tested and further deve­lo­ped in the world’s first and largest biome­tha­na­tion plant near Copen­ha­gen, Denmark. The bene­fits of biolo­gi­cal metha­na­tion are impres­sive; it enables long-term energy storage, decar­bo­niza­tion of the gas grid and gas use (inclu­ding indus­try and mobi­lity), and enables inde­pen­dence from fossil fuels.

About STORENGY
Storengy, a wholly owned subsi­diary of ENGIE, is a leading global provi­der of natu­ral gas under­ground storage. Thanks to its 60 years of expe­ri­ence, Storengy designs, deve­lops and opera­tes gas storage faci­li­ties and offers its custo­mers inno­va­tive products deve­lo­ped on the basis of long expe­ri­ence and relia­ble tech­no­logy. The company opera­tes natu­ral gas storage faci­li­ties with a volume of 12.2 billion cubic meters. Buil­ding on its globally reco­gni­zed exper­tise and opera­tor and dealer expe­ri­ence in storage capa­city in Germany, the UK and France, Storengy is posi­tio­ning itself as a market leader, parti­cu­larly in the areas of geother­mal energy deve­lo­p­ment (heating, cooling and power gene­ra­tion) and inno­va­tive energy supply. Solu­ti­ons for the produc­tion and storage of envi­ron­men­tally friendly rene­wa­ble ener­gies (biome­thane, hydro­gen, power-to-gas, synthe­tic methane, .…). Storengy makes its know-how available to its custo­mers around the world.

News

Wupper­tal / Vire / Paris — Rödl & Part­ner advi­sed the Vorwerk Group on its 30 percent share­hol­ding in Guy Degrenne SA (“DEGRENNE”) through a capi­tal increase of 15 million euros at a subscrip­tion price of 0.23 euros per share.

Follo­wing the capi­tal increase, the main share­hol­der Diver­sita and Vorwerk plan a joint squeeze-out of all shares held by mino­rity share­hol­ders. The effec­tive execu­tion of the squeeze-out is still subject to appr­oval by the French finan­cial market autho­rity AMF.

Follo­wing further steps agreed in a frame­work agree­ment signed in Janu­ary, Vorwerk will even­tually hold a 30% stake in DEGRENNE. Vorwerk’s invest­ment will enable DEGRENNE to acce­le­rate its reco­very and, in parti­cu­lar, to invest in the moder­niza­tion of its histo­ric produc­tion site in Vire, Normandy. About Vorwerk The Vorwerk Group is a family-owned company with world­wide acti­vi­ties in the produc­tion and sale of high-quality house­hold appli­ances. Vorwerk is known prima­rily for the multi­func­tional kitchen appli­ance Thermomix.

About DEGRENNE
DEGRENNE is a high-end manu­fac­tu­rer of luxury table­ware, inclu­ding cutlery, porce­lain dinn­erware and stain­less steel cook­ware, as well as high-end metal appli­ances for indus­trial custo­mers, inclu­ding Vorwerk.

Advi­sor Vorwerk: Rödl & Part­ner Paris
Legal, Tax, Finance Nicola Lohrey, Mana­ging Part­ner France (Legal Due Dili­gence, SPA Advice) Anne-Sophie Hebras, Attor­ney at Law (France), Asso­ciate Part­ner (Legal Due Dili­gence, SPA Advice, Closing Proce­du­res) Olivier Rous­sel, Gene­ral Direc­tor (Finan­cial Due Dili­gence, SPA Advice) Maxi­mi­lian Egger, CFA, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Finan­cial Due Dili­gence, SPA Advice, Closing State­ments) Maxi­mi­lian Lennertz, Asso­ciate (Finan­cial Due Diligence)

News

Zug (Switz­er­land) — The funds Ufenau VI German Asset Light (incl. co-invest­ment funds) advi­sed by Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners with a volume of EUR 560 million have been successfully closed. Like their prede­ces­sors, the funds were heavily oversubscribed.

In addi­tion to more than 50 well-known entre­pre­neu­rial perso­na­li­ties who belong to the network of Ufenau Indus­trie Part­ner, the circle of inves­tors could again be supple­men­ted by further insti­tu­tio­nal “blue chip” inves­tors from the USA, Europe (inclu­ding England) and Asia.

Ufenau VI follows the iden­ti­cal invest­ment stra­tegy as its successful prede­ces­sor funds. The focus is again on majo­rity invest­ments in “asset light” service compa­nies in Germany, Switz­er­land and Austria with reve­nues of 15 — 150 million euros and profi­ta­ble busi­ness models, active in the 5 sectors: Busi­ness Services, Educa­tion & Life­style, Healt­care, IT and Finan­cial Services. A syste­ma­tic buy & build stra­tegy supports the orga­nic growth of the companies.

In total, the new fund is aiming for a further 10 — 12 invest­ments in the D/A/CH region over the next few years. In paral­lel with the expan­sion of the busi­ness acti­vity, the team has been greatly enlar­ged and now compri­ses five part­ners and a total of over 20 invest­ment professionals.

Ralf Flore (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner: “We are very plea­sed that due to the plea­sing deve­lo­p­ments of our port­fo­lio compa­nies, the deve­lo­p­ment of our team and sustain­ably successful invest­ment stra­tegy, exis­ting and also renow­ned new inves­tors have placed their trust in us. On this basis, we will remain the prefer­red part­ner for, among other things, succes­sion situa­tions in German-spea­king count­ries in the future.”

AXON Part­ners, based in Zug and London, again acted as exclu­sive place­ment agent for the fundraising.

News

Frei­burg — High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and two private inves­tors are convin­ced of the importance of cell sepa­ra­tion for the produc­tion of biophar­maceu­ti­cals and for gene­tic analy­ses in rese­arch and diagno­stics. 3 million will be inves­ted in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the tech­no­logy, the expan­sion of sales struc­tures and the deve­lo­p­ment of addi­tio­nal fields of appli­ca­tion for Cytena GmbH’s single-cell printer.

The analy­sis of single biolo­gi­cal cells has rapidly gained importance in recent years. Single cells are used in the deve­lo­p­ment of modern drugs, so-called biophar­maceu­ti­cals, as well as in cancer and stem cell rese­arch. Cytena’s family of single-cell prin­ters are labo­ra­tory instru­ments for hand­ling and sort­ing single, vital cells. They repre­sent an inno­va­tive tool for the life scien­ces and make a lasting contri­bu­tion to the deve­lo­p­ment and acce­le­ra­tion of new therapies.

“The tech­no­lo­gi­cal advan­tage of the single-cell prin­ter over compe­ting products does not mean that we can rest on it. Our goal is rather to under­stand and serve the needs of the custo­mer better and better. The new capi­tal crea­tes an important basis for this,” says Cytena CFO Benja­min Steimle. In addi­tion, the invest­ment will help to capture further market share. Although the majo­rity of the world’s ten largest phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies are alre­ady custo­mers of the Frei­burg-based start-up, there is still a very large global market poten­tial waiting to be tapped.

Important mile­sto­nes on this path so far have included the recently concluded sales coope­ra­tion with an Ameri­can company and the expan­sion of the product family to include the x.sight devices. “The current round of finan­cing now puts us in a posi­tion to acce­le­rate the next steps for Cytena’s success story,” Steimle said.

Dr. Lena Krzy­zak, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF: “With our Series A invest­ment, we want to build on the previous growth success of the seed funding. The company has deve­lo­ped rapidly and we have great confi­dence in the manage­ment team for further market expan­sion and product development.”

About Cytena
Cyten­aTM is an estab­lished life science start-up. Spun off from the Frei­burg Insti­tute for Micro­sys­tems Engi­nee­ring (IMTEK) in 2014, Cytena mainly sells solu­ti­ons for cell hand­ling. The Cytena team has deve­lo­ped the paten­ted single-cell prin­terTM tech­no­logy, which allows the sepa­ra­tion of cells in a docu­men­ted, gentle and sterile process. The single-cell prin­ters have been manu­fac­tu­red in Germany and marke­ted world­wide since 2015. In 2018, the tech­no­logy was expan­ded to include the x.sightTM range of devices. A large propor­tion of the top ten phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies use single-cell prin­ters to produce clonal cell lines for anti­body production.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of 892.5 million euros distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 500 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the soft­ware, media and Inter­net sectors, as well as hard­ware, auto­ma­tion, health­care, chemi­cals and life scien­ces. More than EUR 2 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in around 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. The fund has also successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW, and 32 commer­cial enterprises.

News

Heidel­berg — Heidel­ber­ger Druck­ma­schi­nen AG has successfully comple­ted a cash capi­tal increase from autho­ri­zed capi­tal exclu­ding the subscrip­tion rights of its share­hol­ders. In accordance with the agree­ments reached, the new shares were subscri­bed by the Chinese company Master­work Group Co. Ltd. As a result of the capi­tal increase, Master­work, as a stra­te­gic anchor inves­tor, acqui­red a stake of around 8.5 % in Heidel­ber­ger Druck­ma­schi­nen AG.

Advi­sors to Heidel­ber­ger Druck­ma­schi­nen AG: Henge­ler Mueller
Henge­ler Muel­ler advi­sed Heidel­ber­ger Druck­ma­schi­nen AG on the corpo­rate and anti­trust aspects of the tran­sac­tion and assis­ted in the nego­tia­ti­ons and prepa­ra­tion of the legal docu­men­ta­tion. The part­ners Dr. Cars­ten Schap­mann (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Andreas Aust­mann (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Chris­toph Stad­ler (Anti­trust) (all Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chang­feng Tu (Corporate/M&A, Shang­hai), the Coun­sel Dr. Chris­tian Stro­thotte (Corporate/M&A), Patrick Wilke­ning (IP/M&A) and asso­cia­tes Dr. Adrian Cavin and Tianyuan Zhuang (both Corporate/M&A) (all Düsseldorf).

Advi­sor Master­work Group: King & Wood Malle­sons (KWM)
KWM Germany: Dr. Chris­tian Cornett (Part­ner), Hui Zhao (Part­ner), Dr. Tilmann Becker(Coun­sel), Chris­tian Osterm­öl­ler (Coun­sel), Heling Zhang (PSL)
KWM China: Qing­Jun Jin (Part­ner), Jia Diyan (Part­ner), Du Ruoy­ing (Asso­ciate), Xiao­tong Zhao (Asso­ciate)

 

News

Frank­furt, March 21, 2019 — Busi­ness law firm FPS provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to main incu­ba­tor GmbH, the rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment unit of Commerz­bank Group, on its venture capi­tal invest­ment in Dutch FinTech start-up Conpend, led by attor­ney Phil­ipp Weber.

main incu­ba­tor GmbH, the rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment unit of Commerz­bank Group, is inves­t­ing a six-figure sum in the Dutch FinTech start-up Conpend. Conpend digi­ti­zes the mostly manual and paper-heavy proces­ses in the trade finance busi­ness. Conpend’s TRAFINAS soft­ware solu­tion enables banks to digi­tize today’s trade finance process within a few months, redu­cing proces­sing time by up to 50 percent.

main incu­ba­tor GmbH, a wholly owned subsi­diary of Commerz­bank, rese­ar­ches future tech­no­lo­gies such as block­chain, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and robo­tics and uses exis­ting solu­ti­ons or deve­lops its own for the banking of the future.

Head­quar­te­red in the Nether­lands, start-up Conpend works closely with stra­te­gic part­ners to support a global custo­mer base. Conpend’s focus is on the compli­ance-compli­ant digi­tiza­tion and auto­ma­tion of trade finance, and thanks to market-leading tech­no­logy, the start-up simpli­fies back-office proces­ses and enables the reduc­tion of risks.

Advi­sors to main incu­ba­tor GmbH: FPS Fritze Wicke Seelig, Frank­furt am Main
Phil­ipp Weber, Asso­ciate Part­ner, Lead Part­ner (Venture Capi­tal, M&A, Corporate);
AKD Advo­ca­ten, Nether­lands: Natha­lie van Woer­kom, Part­ner, Lead (Dutch law)

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