Author: Tatjana Anderer

Zaisenhausen/ Stutt­gart — Finexx Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Sicko GmbH & Co KG as part of a long-term succes­sion plan. The company, based in Zaisen­hau­sen, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, deve­lops and sells solu­ti­ons for the digi­tiza­tion and auto­ma­tion of proces­ses in the wood­wor­king indus­try. The brot­hers Carl and Jochen Sicko are the sellers of the shares. They will conti­nue to be mana­ging direc­tors and also share­hol­ders via a reverse share­hol­ding. The aim of the part­ner­ship is to conti­nue to bene­fit from the incre­asing demand for auto­ma­tion in the market and, above all, to herald new growth steps at Sicko through addi­tio­nal profes­sio­na­liza­tion. The tran­sac­tion, the details of which have been agreed not to be disc­lo­sed, has alre­ady been completed.

Sicko’s focus is on deve­lo­ping solu­ti­ons that help increase produc­tion effi­ci­ency by inter­lin­king machi­nes. Since its foun­da­tion in 1975 by Karl Sicko, the father of today’s mana­ging direc­tors, the company, which now has 40 employees, has grown steadily and serves nume­rous well-known custo­mers in the DACH region and world­wide, inclu­ding wood proces­sing compa­nies such as sawmills and planing mills, wood-based panel and furni­ture manu­fac­tu­r­ers, as well as wood machi­nery manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Annual sales exceed seven million euros; in view of well-filled order books, signi­fi­cant double-digit sales growth is expec­ted for the current year.

For Finexx, the tran­sac­tion marks the second invest­ment from its fund with a volume of 35 million euros, which was only closed at the end of 2018 — last Novem­ber, the specia­list for the further deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized compa­nies acqui­red a majo­rity stake in GSE Vertrieb Biolo­gi­sche Nahrungs­er­gän­zung & Heil­mit­tel GmbH from Saar­brü­cken. At Sicko, the second invest­ment from the first Finexx fund, new invest­ments and addi­tio­nal know-how are now to be used to reach new levels of development.

“Sicko is a hidden cham­pion of the German SME sector and has an excel­lent repu­ta­tion in the indus­try. On this basis, we want to use new impe­tus to help drive forward the profes­sio­na­liza­tion of proces­ses and struc­tures as well as the expan­sion of capa­ci­ties, work­force and part­ner­ships. The deve­lo­p­ment of new busi­ness areas and markets as well as an expan­sion of the port­fo­lio are also on the list,” explains Matthias Heining (photo), who runs Finexx toge­ther with Dr. Markus Seilerand can draw on a combi­ned 30 years of opera­tio­nal and commer­cial exper­tise in the indus­trial and tech­no­logy sectors as well as in family-owned compa­nies. The market envi­ron­ment offers excel­lent pros­pects: In Germany, as the global market and tech­no­logy leader for wood­wor­king machi­nery, the importance of wood as a buil­ding mate­rial is incre­asing stron­gly again; many new appli­ca­ti­ons for the raw mate­rial are also emer­ging, inclu­ding in the wood-based mate­ri­als indus­try, pack­a­ging manu­fac­tu­r­ers, prefa­bri­ca­ted cons­truc­tion, energy gene­ra­tion, and window and front door cons­truc­tion. Dr. Seiler: “This increa­ses the need in produc­tion faci­li­ties for effec­tive, relia­ble machi­nes and systems that help drive intel­li­gent auto­ma­tion. Sicko has a key role to play in this.”

About Finexx
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is a consul­ting company foun­ded in 2013 that specia­li­zes in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies. Typi­cal fields of acti­vity are growth invest­ment and acqui­si­tion finan­cing as well as the support of chan­ges in the share­hol­der struc­ture and succes­sion planning.

Finexx invests long-term funds (equity capi­tal of between 5 and 50 million euros), mainly in the form of majo­rity share­hol­dings, in compa­nies from the German-spea­king region, inclu­ding insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds. These have sales of EUR 10 million or more, a quali­fied manage­ment team, and can demons­trate sustainable earnings power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model.

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

Munich — Water­land Private Equity acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Reha­con GmbH, one of the leading compa­nies for physio­the­rapy services in Germany. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Deut­sche Apothe­ker- und Ärzte­bank eG (apoBank) and Skan­di­na­viska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB) on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Reha­con Group.

Reha­con, based in Gelsen­kir­chen, opera­tes more than 100 therapy centers throug­hout Germany, making it one of the largest provi­ders on the market in Europe. With more than 600 employees, the vast majo­rity of whom work on-site with pati­ents in the therapy centers, the Group gene­ra­tes annual sales of around 36 million euros. The seller of the shares is Mr. Michael Reeder, the foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of the group, who is taking a signi­fi­cant stake in Reha­con through Reeder Invest GmbH.

The foun­der of the company will also conti­nue to manage it. The tran­sac­tion, which is expec­ted to be comple­ted by March 2019, is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. Details of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed.

Advi­sor Water­land: Shear­man & Sterling
The Shear­man & Ster­ling team included part­ner Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger and legal assistant Constanze Herrle (both Germany-Finance).

About Water­land Private Equity
Water­land Private Equity has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care market. The current port­fo­lio of compa­nies includes MEDIAN, the leading private provi­der in Germany with more than 120 reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics, the ATOS group of clinics specia­li­zing in ortho­pe­dics, the care service provi­der Schö­nes Leben, and two medi­cal prac­tice chains. Water­land is also invol­ved in Hanse­fit, a leading sports network for corpo­rate custo­mers with more than 1,400 affi­lia­ted fitness studios.

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps entre­pre­neurs achieve their growth objec­ti­ves. Water­land has offices in Belgium (Antwerp), the Nether­lands (Bussum), the UK (Manches­ter), Germany (Munich and Hamburg), Switz­er­land (Zurich), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Poland (Warsaw) and curr­ently mana­ges over €6 billion of inves­tor commitments.

Antwerp — Gimv acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Cool­world Rentals. The fast-growing company from the Nether­lands is active in the field of full-service rental of cooling and heating equip­ment to B2B custo­mers. The foun­ding Buij­zen family, foun­der Jack Buijns­ters and the manage­ment remain invol­ved. Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, Ruud van Mierlo, curr­ently Direc­tor Sales and Marke­ting, will be appoin­ted CEO. The current acting CEO Jack Buijns­ters moves to the advi­sory board and will conti­nue to play an active role in busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to enable Cool­world Rentals to execute its ambi­tious growth plans. Gimv is thus expan­ding its Sustainable Cities plat­form, which mana­ges compa­nies that bene­fit from the need for sustainable products.

Cool­world Rentals, based in Waal­wijk, the Nether­lands (www.coolworld-rentals.com), is an inter­na­tio­nal specia­list in full-service rental of cooling and heating equip­ment. Since its foun­da­tion in 1993, the company has deve­lo­ped into a specia­li­zed supplier that rents out cold storage and free­zing cells as well as indus­trial solu­ti­ons for process cooling, air condi­tio­ning and heating. With a wide range of products and services, Cool­world can respond flexi­bly to its custo­mers’ ever-chan­ging needs for cooling and heating solu­ti­ons. Examp­les include capa­city bott­len­ecks, rebuilds, test arran­ge­ments, seaso­nal peaks or opera­tio­nal disrup­ti­ons. An inter­na­tio­nal network of own bran­ches, logi­stics depots and service points in the Nether­lands, Belgium, Germany, France, Austria and Switz­er­land guaran­tees a year-round service around the clock.

Cool­world opera­tes in many market segments and counts compa­nies from the food, retail, phar­maceu­ti­cal, chemi­cal, logi­stics and data center sectors among its custo­mers. In these custo­mers’ proces­ses, modern air condi­tio­ning tech­no­lo­gies are play­ing an incre­asingly important role due to the need for fres­her food, stric­ter requi­re­ments or envi­ron­men­tal legis­la­tion. Also, peak times often have to be absor­bed with tempo­rary solu­ti­ons. Cool­world can guaran­tee the neces­sary flexi­bi­lity, quality and service for this. In addi­tion, the company offers its custo­mers appro­priate services such as tech­ni­cal design, trans­port, main­ten­ance and repair, and remote moni­to­ring as part of an all-round support service, so that they can concen­trate on their core busi­ness. The combi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal exper­tise, full-service concept, a broad custo­mer port­fo­lio and high custo­mer loyalty are the basis for Coolworld’s success.

With the invest­ment from Gimv, Cool­world aims to achieve its growth targets. This includes expan­ding acti­vi­ties in the home markets, broa­de­ning the port­fo­lio of energy-effi­ci­ent and sustainable products, and incre­asing opera­ting effi­ci­ency. A buy-and-build stra­tegy is also plan­ned for both exis­ting and new markets.

Rombout Poos and Roland Veld­hui­j­zen Van Zanten of the Gimv deal team: “Cool­world is a unique company in an attrac­tive segment that bene­fits from important trends that are in line with the stra­tegy of our Sustainable Cities invest­ment plat­form. We look forward to working with Ruud van Mierlo and his team to help shape Coolworld’s contin­ued expan­sion and signi­fi­cant growth. We share the view that sustainable leasing solu­ti­ons are beco­ming incre­asingly important, have a simi­lar geogra­phic foot­print and are looking to grow inter­na­tio­nally. We will bring our exper­tise in air condi­tio­ning and leasing to support the group’s growth.”

The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding appr­oval by the compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties. Further finan­cial details will not be disclosed.

About Gimv
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with almost 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity. The company is listed on Euron­ext Brussels and curr­ently mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately €1.6 billion in around 50 port­fo­lio compa­nies, which toge­ther gene­rate sales of €2.5 billion with over 14,000 employees.

As a reco­gni­zed leader for selec­ted invest­ment plat­forms, Gimv iden­ti­fies entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them in their trans­for­ma­tion into market leaders. Gimv’s four invest­ment plat­forms are: Connec­ted Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities. Each of these plat­forms works with a compe­tent and dedi­ca­ted team in Gimv’s home markets (Bene­lux, France and Germany) and can count on an exten­ded inter­na­tio­nal network of experts.

Müns­ter — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed US finan­cial inves­tor Tiger Global Manage­ment LLC on a multi-million venture capi­tal finan­cing for German start-up Flaschen­post, in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of a mino­rity stake in Flaschen­post. The Müns­ter-based company is recei­ving an invest­ment of €50 million from Tiger Global, which will be used in the first step for natio­nal growth and in the next for inter­na­tio­nal growth.

Bottle Post was foun­ded in 2016: via the company’s website, custo­mers can have drinks deli­vered within two hours. Flaschen­post opera­tes in eight German regi­ons and says it deli­vers up to 50,000 orders a week. Curr­ently, around 1,700 drivers, warehouse staff and office employees work for the company. In addi­tion to Tiger Global , other well-known venture capi­tal funds have inves­ted in Flaschen­post, inclu­ding Cherry Ventures and Vorwerk Ventures.

Tiger Global was foun­ded in New York City in 2001. The venture capi­tal and private equity inves­tor has one of its invest­ment focu­ses in the area of e‑commerce. Gleiss Lutz has regu­larly advi­sed Tiger Global on invest­ments in Germany for many years, such as Hitmeis­ter or Fein­tech­nik Eisfeld (Harry’s).

Advi­sor Tiger Global: Gleiss Lutz
Lead part­ners Dr. Jan Bals­sen (Part­ner, Private Equity) and Dr. Ralf Mors­häu­ser (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, both Munich)
Dr. Olaf Hohle­fel­der (Munich), Dr. Hilmar Hütten (Düssel­dorf), Florian Schorn, Stepha­nie Daus­in­ger (both Munich, all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Iris Bene­dikt-Bucken­leib (Coun­sel, Anti­trust, Munich), Dr. Timo Bühler (Finan­cing Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Stef­fen Krie­ger (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Eva Heup (Munich), Jose­fine Chakrab­arti (Berlin, all Labor Law), Dr. Chris­tian Hamann (Part­ner, Berlin, Data Protec­tion), Dr. Phil­ipp Naab (Coun­sel, Frank­furt, Real Estate), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner, Berlin), Dr. Manuel Klar (Munich), Dr. Matthias Schilde (Berlin, all IP/IT), Dr. Britta Kamp (Stutt­gart, Litigation).

Munich — Only a few months after the take­over by the Munich-based indus­trial holding ADCURAM, the MEA Group has reali­zed an important acqui­si­tion: With Adolf Schrei­ber GmbH (ASM) from Münsin­gen, a tradi­tion-rich specia­list supplier beco­mes part of the inter­na­tio­nal cons­truc­tion supplier head­quar­te­red in Aich­ach. The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been comple­ted; the parties have agreed not to disc­lose details.

ASM, the former Adolf Schrei­ber Metall­wa­ren­fa­brik, was foun­ded in 1872 and focu­sed on the produc­tion of high-quality gratings made of steel and stain­less steel more than 50 years ago. Nume­rous natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers from indus­try, plant engi­nee­ring and cons­truc­tion rely on the company’s expe­ri­ence and high quality stan­dards. ASM produ­ces gratings for them indi­vi­du­ally in diffe­rent sizes, mate­rial thic­k­nes­ses and mesh widths on modern equipment.

As a future part of the Metal Appli­ca­ti­ons busi­ness area, ASM comple­ments MEA’s port­fo­lio with further high-quality stain­less steel gratings and contri­bu­tes important auto­ma­ted manu­fac­tu­ring capa­ci­ties for MEA’s steadily growing order volume.

“With the acqui­si­tion, MEA can further tigh­ten stra­te­gic levers in terms of busi­ness expan­sion with exis­ting custo­mers, deve­lo­p­ment of addi­tio­nal market segments, streng­thening of the distri­bu­tion network as well as further tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment,” says Dr. Phil­ipp Gusinde (photo), CEO of ADCURAM Group AG and member of the advi­sory board at MEA. Tors­ten Wende, Mana­ging Direc­tor of MEA Metal Appli­ca­ti­ons adds: “We plan to expand ASM’s company site in Münsin­gen, Swabia, into a compe­tence center for all of MEA’s high-quality stain­less steel produc­tion. We are very plea­sed to welcome ASM to the MEA Group.” ADCURAM had acqui­red the family-owned company, foun­ded in 1886, in the summer of 2018 and has since been imple­men­ting an ambi­tious stra­tegy for further growth and expan­sion. MEA employs around 700 people and, as one of the leading suppli­ers to the cons­truc­tion indus­try, manu­fac­tures not only special gratings but also, among other things, light wells, windows and drai­nage systems.

About ADCURAM
ADCURAM is a priva­tely owned indus­trial group. ADCURAM acqui­res compa­nies with poten­tial and deve­lops them actively and sustain­ably. For the future growth of the Group, the capi­tal-strong indus­trial holding company has a total of 300 million euros available for acqui­si­ti­ons. With the help of its own 40-strong team of experts, the indus­trial holding company conti­nues to deve­lop the port­fo­lio compa­nies stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally. Toge­ther, the group gene­ra­tes nearly 500 million euros in sales world­wide (2017) with six holdings and over 2,500 employees.

ADCURAM sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial inves­tor and invests in succes­sion plans and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.adcuram.com

About MEA
The MEA Group is an inter­na­tio­nal group of compa­nies with over 130 years of expe­ri­ence in the market, world­wide acti­vi­ties and produc­tion sites in France, the Czech Repu­blic, Roma­nia and China. Inno­va­tive products and solu­ti­ons make the MEA Group one of the leading suppli­ers to the cons­truc­tion indus­try. MEA offers its custo­mers a wide range of products for base­ment cons­truc­tion and drai­nage appli­ca­ti­ons as well as a compre­hen­sive range of gratings. The motto: “BUILDING SUCCESS”. MEA solu­ti­ons make cons­truc­tion profes­sio­nals’ jobs easier, faster and safer, helping them achieve real produc­ti­vity gains.
www.mea-group.com

Berlin | Munich | Paris | Tokyo — ubitri­city Gesell­schaft für verteilte Ener­gie­sys­teme mbH recei­ves €20 million in a new finan­cing round that will enable the company to acce­le­rate growth and further deve­lop its mobile meter­ing tech­no­logy. The invest­ment was made by exis­ting share­hol­ders EDF and Next47 (Siemens’ venture capi­tal subsi­diary) and by Honda Motor Company as a new partner.

ubitri­city has deve­lo­ped a unique smart char­ging and billing solu­tion for smart AC char­ging of elec­tric vehic­les in public and private spaces. With mobile meter­ing tech­no­logy, muni­ci­pa­li­ties, property owners, fleet and fuel card opera­tors, and end users can bene­fit from signi­fi­cantly lower char­ging infra­struc­ture costs as well as free choice of energy provi­der and kilo­watt-hour accu­rate billing.

The new funding is inten­ded to acce­le­rate the expan­sion of char­ging infra­struc­ture, parti­cu­larly lantern char­ging points and char­ging points in real estate deve­lo­p­ments in the UK, Germany, France and the US. In paral­lel, the tech­no­logy will be further deve­lo­ped for the mass market expec­ted from 2020 and the condi­ti­ons for services across the entire spec­trum of V1G and V2G will be created.

“With Honda Motors, we have another strong part­ner on board who shares our vision of a smart elec­tric vehicle that brings the neces­sary tech­no­logy for char­ging and char­ging clean elec­tri­city and for smart char­ging services,” says Dr. Frank Pawlit­schek, CEO and Co-Foun­der of ubitri­city.

The company has made signi­fi­cant progress in deve­lo­ping its mobile meter­ing tech­no­logy, market presence and market access, e.g. in London. In addi­tion, ubitri­city is driving forward the instal­la­tion of char­ging stati­ons in cities as part of the German “Imme­diate Clean Air Program”, with more than 3,000 char­ging points to be instal­led in Berlin, Hamburg and Dort­mund. Success in the highly compe­ti­tive NYCx Climate Action Chall­enge, which is expec­ted to lead to a pilot project in New York, has further confirmed the global inte­rest in the company’s products and tech­no­lo­gies. “We are now putting char­ging points right at people’s door­s­teps — where milli­ons of Euro­peans park their vehic­les today, and at a time when more and more elec­tric vehic­les are being sold,” says Knut Hecht­fi­scher, co-foun­der of ubitricity.

The new capi­tal and the share increase by EDF and Siemens again empha­size the importance of ubitri­city as a key pillar in the elec­tro­mo­bi­lity stra­te­gies of both companies.

Last Octo­ber, the EDF Group unvei­led its elec­tric mobi­lity plan to become the leading energy company in its four largest Euro­pean markets: France, the UK, Italy and Belgium.

In addi­tion, Citelum (100% subsi­diary of the EDF Group) and ubitri­city are working toge­ther to inte­grate ubitricity’s inno­va­tive solu­tion into Citelum’s “Smart City” product line.

About ubitri­city — Gesell­schaft für verteilte Ener­gie­sys­teme mbH
Afforda­ble smart char­ging infra­struc­ture for elec­tric cars where­ver they are parked for longer peri­ods of time was the goal of Knut Hecht­fi­scher and Dr. Frank Pawlit­schek when they foun­ded ubitri­city in 2008. Today, the company is one of the leading provi­ders of intel­li­gent solu­ti­ons for char­ging and billing elec­tric cars. ubitri­city combi­nes tech­ni­cal know-how, such as the deve­lo­p­ment of the mobile elec­tri­city meter, with the possi­bi­li­ties of digi­ta­liza­tion. The result is tech­ni­cally simpli­fied and thus less expen­sive char­ging points that enable the nati­on­wide expan­sion of the char­ging infra­struc­ture. This approach solves the chall­enge of vehicle-speci­fic billing. In the future, the mobile elec­tri­city meter will also enable the grid inte­gra­tion of e‑vehicles as addressa­ble mobile storage devices. Elec­tric cars become mana­geable as part of a distri­bu­ted and mobile storage network and can thus make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the energy tran­si­tion. www.ubitricity.com

Munich — With retroac­tive effect from Decem­ber 31, 2018, Munich-based invest­ment company ASC Invest­ment Sarl (“ASC”) is acqui­ring Canon Germany’s prin­ting services busi­ness with over 300 employees. In the course of concen­t­ra­ting on its core busi­ness (sales of prin­ting systems and solu­ti­ons), Canon Germany had commis­sio­ned Bryan Garnier ’s German team to find a buyer with expe­ri­ence in the indus­try who would syste­ma­ti­cally deve­lop the prin­ting services and value-added services busi­ness. ASC Invest­ment Sarl was advi­sed by Reed Smith.

Canon Deutsch­land Busi­ness Services GmbH (CBS) is a prin­ting and docu­ment manage­ment service provi­der with 45 loca­ti­ons across Germany, whose custo­mers include well-known finan­cial service provi­ders, univer­si­ties and the German govern­ment. Canon acqui­red this busi­ness unit as part of the take­over of Dutch compe­ti­tor Océ in 2010. CBS has tradi­tio­nally focu­sed on provi­ding on-premise and tran­sac­tional prin­ting services, but is incre­asingly moving into the docu­ment outsour­cing space by selling value-added services such as scan­ning and digi­tiza­tion, docu­ment manage­ment and archi­ving, and design services. Last but not least, this area is to be further expan­ded with the support of the new owner.

About ASC
ASC is an invest­ment company with offices in Luxem­bourg and Munich and a focus on carve-out tran­sac­tions (corpo­rate spin-offs) in Europe. ASC Invest­ment is backed by fami­lies and entre­pre­neurs and specia­li­zes in putting non-core divi­si­ons of inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons on their own feet. The focus is always on deve­lo­ping a long-term stra­tegy for the future. ASC makes use of an exten­sive network of entre­pre­neurs, mana­gers and specia­lists from the rele­vant indus­tries for busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment. In recent years, ASC has successfully comple­ted four simi­lar tran­sac­tions and will provide CBS with a strong team of experts with indus­try experience.

Advi­sor ASC: Reed Smith
The Reed Smith team was led by Global Corpo­rate Group Florian Hirsch­mann, photo (Part­ner), Silvio McMi­ken, Tobias Schulz (all M&A/Corporate) and Thomas Gierath (Tax/ Partner).

Advi­sors to Canon:Bryan, Garnier & Co 
Bryan, Garnier & Co acted as Canon’s exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor, setting up a bidding process that included both private equity and stra­te­gic pros­pec­tive buyers. Bryan Garnier has advi­sed on nume­rous tran­sac­tions in the busi­ness services sector, inclu­ding, for exam­ple, the sale of Xerox Rese­arch Center Europe to Naver, the sale of Conduent’s parking services busi­ness to Andera Part­ners and the acqui­si­tion of Danish Woon­z­org­net by care services provi­der Orpea.

Munich — GS Star Hotels, a port­fo­lio company of private equity inves­tor Auctus ( photo: foun­ding part­ner Ingo Krocke) acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Rilano Holding GmbH. With this tran­sac­tion, GS Star Group is consis­t­ently imple­men­ting its growth concept and expan­ding its range of hotels in Germany and Austria. With the acqui­si­tion, GS Star Group grows to a plan­ned sales volume for 2019 of more than 100 million euros.

The Rilano Group opera­tes hotels throug­hout Germany and Austria under the brands The Rilano Hotel, Rilano 24|7 and Rilano Resorts. In total, the Rilano Group’s current hotel port­fo­lio includes eight hotels alre­ady in opera­tion and one under cons­truc­tion. In addi­tion, further hotels are being planned.

The port­fo­lio of the GS Star Group, which also includes Gorge­ous Smiling GmbH, curr­ently compri­ses 79 hotels in Germany, Austria and the Nether­lands. On the one hand, it acts as a fran­chise part­ner for global play­ers such as Inter­con­ti­nen­tal, Hilton or Wynd­ham, and on the other hand, it also opera­tes hotels under its own brand Artho­tel Ana.

By 2020, GS Star Group plans to operate around 100 hotels under manage­ment, making it the fastest growing German hotel group. There are curr­ently also expan­sion plans for other Euro­pean count­ries such as Switz­er­land and the United Kingdom.

Boris Dürr’s team regu­larly advi­ses Auctus on tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding its first entry into the hotel indus­try through the acqui­si­tion of GS Star Group in 2018.

Advi­sor to Auctus: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Boris Dürr, Dr. Oliver Trep­tow (both M&A/Corporate, both lead)
Dr. Arnold Büsse­ma­ker (Finan­cing)
Stef­fen Wilberg (Real Estate)
Peter M. Schäff­ler (Taxes)
Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (Corpo­rate /M&A), all Munich
Dr. Holger Lüders (Labor Law), Düsseldorf

Frank­furt — Advent Inter­na­tio­nal (“Advent”), one of the world’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced private equity firms, has announ­ced that it has signed a binding agree­ment to acquire the methacry­la­tes busi­ness of Evonik Indus­tries AG (“Evonik”) for €3 billion.

The tran­sac­tion compri­ses Evonik’s Methacry­la­tes, Acrylic Products, CyPlus and Methacry­late Resins Busi­ness Lines. The Group’s products include strong brands such as PLEXIGLAS® and are used in diverse end markets, inclu­ding the paints and coatings indus­try, cons­truc­tion, the auto­mo­tive indus­try and health­care. With around 3,900 employees at a total of 18 sites in Germany, North America and Asia, the Verbund gene­ra­ted sales of around 2 billion euros in 2018.

“Evonik’s methacry­la­tes busi­ness is an impres­sive tech­no­logy plat­form with an estab­lished market posi­tion and very attrac­tive growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. We look forward to working with the skil­led employees and manage­ment to estab­lish the Verbund as an inde­pen­dent global market leader in the future,” said Ronald Ayles (photo), mana­ging part­ner and head of the global chemi­cal indus­try prac­tice at Advent International.

With more than 30 successfully execu­ted tran­sac­tions in over three deca­des, Advent is one of the world’s most expe­ri­en­ced private equity inves­tors in the chemi­cal indus­try. Advent invests in well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with high opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic poten­tial. Toge­ther with the manage­ment teams of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and a strong global network of sector teams, exter­nal indus­try experts and opera­tio­nal part­ners, Advent crea­tes sustainable value through reve­nue and earnings growth. Advent also has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the spin-off of complex busi­ness units of large indus­trial companies.

With this exper­tise, Advent will work in part­ner­ship with manage­ment to help estab­lish the methacry­la­tes busi­ness as a strong stand-alone company. As with all its invest­ments, Advent is pursuing a long-term growth approach. Advent’s stra­tegy is to invest heavily in people, tech­no­logy and sites to deve­lop the divi­sion into a global market leader in methacry­la­tes. Advent sees addi­tio­nal poten­tial to further improve its alre­ady estab­lished market posi­ti­ons through invest­ment and expansion.

Advent has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in working with employee-owned German indus­trial compa­nies and atta­ches great importance to close coope­ra­tion with employee repre­sen­ta­ti­ves. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the third quar­ter of 2019, subject to custo­mary tran­sac­tion condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory approvals.

About Advent International
Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion (“Advent”) was foun­ded in 1984 and is one of the world’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment compa­nies. The company has comple­ted over 340 tran­sac­tions in 41 count­ries and mana­ges assets of appro­xi­m­ately €34 billion (as of Septem­ber 30, 2018).

Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH was foun­ded in Germany in 1991 and advi­ses Advent with its Frank­furt-based team of consul­tants. Advent is also one of the leading private equity compa­nies in Germany and has been inves­t­ing in Euro­pean compa­nies since 1990. Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH has advi­sed on invest­ments in 30 compa­nies to date. Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH’s consul­ting focus is on the follo­wing core sectors: chemi­cals and indus­try, finan­cial services and busi­ness services, health­care, retail, consu­mer goods and leisure indus­try, and media and telecommunications.

Advent has successfully inves­ted in the chemi­cal indus­try in recent years. In Germany, examp­les include allnex, a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of synthe­tic resins for the paint and coatings indus­try, and Oxea, a leading supplier of oxo alco­hols and oxo deri­va­ti­ves. In Latin America, Advent also holds stakes in VIAKEM, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of fine chemi­cals, and GTM, a trans­na­tio­nal distri­bu­tor of chemi­cal raw materials.

Frank­furt a. M. — Luxem­bourg-based Lavorel Medi­care S.A. has sold its holding company Lavorel Medi­care Deutsch­land GmbH, owner of the Herford-based Boni­tas Group, to a company of Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion. A team from Luther Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal support for the transaction.

The Boni­tas Group is one of the largest private nursing services in Germany. The 2018 market leader specia­li­zes in the field of criti­cal care and home respi­ra­tion. The company employs almost 4,500 people and, in addi­tion to provi­ding outpa­ti­ent care, opera­tes assis­ted living commu­ni­ties for seni­ors. Boni­tas Holding now opera­tes 50 nursing services, 44 resi­den­tial groups, 6 assis­ted living faci­li­ties, 2 day care faci­li­ties and 1 nursing home.

The Boni­tas Group with its more than thirty subsi­dia­ries belon­ged to the Luxem­bourg-based Lavorel Group. The latter entrus­ted the Luther team led by part­ner Dr. Oliver Kairies with the mandate, which, toge­ther with Luther’s Luxem­bourg office, provi­ded legal advice to the seller during the pre-struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion, the imple­men­ta­tion of the struc­tu­red bidding process, the purchase agree­ment nego­tia­ti­ons and the subse­quent anti­trust proceedings.

Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion with its port­fo­lio company Deut­sche Fach­pflege-Gruppe finally prevai­led as the bidder.

For Lavorel Medi­care S.A.: Luther
Corpo­rate / M&A: Dr. Oliver Kairies (lead), Dr. Thomas Halber­kamp, Dr. Thomas Kuhnle, Jens Röhr­bein, Dr. Sebas­tian Rabe, Dr. Daniel Schub­mann, Dr. Karina Wojto­wicz, Stefan Tolksdorf
Luther, Medi­cal Law / Regu­la­tory: Dr. Hendrik Sehy, Fran­ces Wolf
Luther, Real Estate: Achim Meier, Katha­rina von Hermanni, Irene Nezer-Kasch, Chris­tiane Struppek
Luther, Commer­cial: Jens-Uwe Heuer-James, Dr. Kuuya Chibanguza
Luther, IP / IT: Dr. Kay Oelschlä­gel, Dr. Chris­tian Rabe
Luther, Labor Law: Prof. Dr. Robert von Steinau-Stein­rück, Dr. Hilmar Rölz
Luther, Anti­trust Law: Dr. Helmut Jans­sen, LL.M.
Luther Luxem­bourg: Eric Sublon, Marie Sinni­ger, Michaela Ludowicy

Frank­furt a. M. / Munich — The US private equity inves­tor KKR is taking over Tele München Gruppe (TMG). Accor­din­gly, the US finan­cial inves­tor is buying TMG from the well-known media entre­pre­neur Herbert Kloi­ber, who owned the company for 42 years. Follo­wing appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties, the deal is expec­ted to be comple­ted in April. TMG was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Wirsing Hass Zoller (Legal), and Klee­berg & Part­ner (Tax).

KKR made the invest­ment from Euro­pean Fund IV. A KKR spokes­man did not want to comment on the purchase price or other tran­sac­tion details in response to a FINANCE inquiry. Accor­ding to the company’s own figu­res, TMG most recently gene­ra­ted total opera­ting perfor­mance of 520 million euros with around 1,800 employees. Foun­ded in 1977, the Group produ­ces films, trades in broad­cas­ting licen­ses and holds stakes in TV stati­ons RTL II and Tele 5, among others.

There will be chan­ges in the manage­ment of TMG as a result of the take­over by KKR. Thus, the new owner makes the former CEO of Constan­tin Medien, Fred Kogel, the new Mana­ging Direc­tor. Accor­ding to a press release from TMG, howe­ver, Kloi­ber junior will also remain the mana­ging direc­tor of the “core compa­nies”. Herbert G. Kloi­ber is to serve as a member of an advi­sory board, and will also remain a member of the Super­vi­sory Board of Odeon Film AG until the upco­ming Annual Gene­ral Meeting. As always with such deals, the sale still has to be appro­ved by the autho­ri­ties. The two parties did not provide any infor­ma­tion on the purchase price.

He headed Tele München Gruppe for 42 years, and now Herbert G. Kloi­ber is selling the group to finan­cial inves­tor KKR. This move also has impli­ca­ti­ons for some German broad­cas­ters and produc­tion compa­nies. For exam­ple, TMG holds 31.5 percent of RTL II toge­ther with Disney, while Tele 5 is wholly owned by the Group. TMG also holds a majo­rity stake in Odeon Film AG, while other subsi­dia­ries such as Concorde Film­ver­leih GmbH, Concorde Home Enter­tain­ment GmbH, Clas­art Film- und Fern­seh­pro­duk­ti­ons GmbH and Tele München Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH now also have a new owner.

KKR now wants to make Tele München Gruppe the leading inde­pen­dent plat­form for audio­vi­sual content in Germany and a central point of cont­act for crea­tive talent. The German market offers an “attrac­tive envi­ron­ment to further deve­lop TMG as an inde­pen­dent, market-leading plat­form and to repo­si­tion it in times of digi­tal disrup­tion,” the private equity firm says. As consu­mer demand for high-quality, local but also inter­na­tio­nal content grows, so does the need for “a large inde­pen­dent German content platform.”

“TMG is an attrac­tive middle-market asset and defi­ni­tely fits KKR’s middle-market stra­tegy,” the spokesper­son said. About a year ago, KKR also opened an office in Germany with Chris­tian Ollig (photo) as head. The deal was execu­ted jointly from the London and Frank­furt offices, accor­ding to the spokesper­son. Phil­ipp Freise was respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The long-time KKR mana­ger specia­li­zes in invest­ments in the media sector.

Advi­sors TMG: Wirsing Hass Zoller (Legal), and Klee­berg & Part­ner (Tax)

Munich/Gütenbach — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) acquire a majo­rity stake in RENA Group. The company, head­quar­te­red in Güten­bach in the Black Forest, builds tech­no­lo­gi­cally advan­ced equip­ment for wet-chemi­cal surface treat­ment and employs around 800 people world­wide. The sellers are funds advi­sed by Capvis AG. The manage­ment team around RENA CEO Peter Schnei­de­wind is also taking a stake in the company as part of the change of owner­ship, ther­eby commit­ting itself to RENA for the long term. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The sale is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

RENA was foun­ded in 1993 and is the leading global equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer in the field of wet-chemi­cal surface treat­ment. The globally active high-tech company addres­ses custo­mers from the semi­con­duc­tor sector, medi­cal tech­no­logy as well as the rene­wa­ble energy indus­try and glass proces­sing. With three produc­tion and R&D sites in Germany and Wikroty, Poland, and sales and service loca­ti­ons in Asia, for exam­ple in China and Singa­pore, as well as in North America, the company has a strong inter­na­tio­nal presence. RENA recently achie­ved an annual produc­tion output of over 120 million euros.

Toge­ther with Equis­tone, RENA aims to conti­nue to grow in exis­ting segments and expand its tech­no­lo­gi­cal market leader­ship. The company’s prono­un­ced strength in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment will conti­nue to be a key buil­ding block for this in the future. In addi­tion, part­ner­ships with exis­ting custo­mers are to be inten­si­fied and new custo­mer groups are to be deve­lo­ped for RENA’s inno­va­tive, high-quality machi­nes and systems.

“We are impres­sed by RENA’s market posi­tion, which is based prima­rily on inno­va­tive tech­no­logy, high quality, long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships as well as its strong manage­ment team,” said Stefan Maser (photo), part­ner at Equis­tone. David Zahnd, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Equis­tone, added: “Toge­ther with RENA’s manage­ment team and employees, we intend to consis­t­ently conti­nue the company’s growth trajec­tory, promote rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment and expand into new markets and regions.”

Peter Schnei­de­wind, CEO of RENA, comm­ents: “We are very plea­sed to have Equis­tone as a relia­ble and finan­ci­ally strong new part­ner that will support our further growth. For us, this is a clear sign to secure and expand our sites. Toge­ther with our custo­mers, we will deve­lop addi­tio­nal indi­vi­dual appli­ca­ti­ons and launch new intel­li­gent solu­ti­ons for wet-chemi­cal surface treat­ment — worldwide.”

On the Equis­tone side, Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Tanja Berg are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The mid-market inves­tor was advi­sed by goetz­part­ners (Commer­cial), KPMG (Finan­cial & Tax), Latham & Watkins (Legal), ERM (Envi­ron­men­tal), Sher­man & Ster­ling (Legal Finan­cing) and GCA Altium (Finan­cing).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of Europe’s leading equity inves­tors with a team of more than 35 invest­ment specia­lists in six offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­ding, equity has been inves­ted in more than 140 tran­sac­tions, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 40 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion at the hard cap. www.equistonepe.de

Morbach/ Frank­furt a. M. — Halder has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Conen Group, Morbach, through a manage­ment buy-out. The invest­ment is a succes­sion solu­tion for the owner family, which had foun­ded the company in 1965. Conen specia­li­zes in equip­ping educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons such as schools, kinder­gar­tens and nurse­ries in Western Europe, the Middle East and the USA.

One focus of the busi­ness is tech­ni­cal products for inter­ac­tive lear­ning, e.g. elec­tri­cally adjus­ta­ble mounts for elec­tro­nic displays, which are incre­asingly being used inter­na­tio­nally as lear­ning tools. In addi­tion, there is a wide range of furni­ture for schools and preschools in the core market of Germany and neigh­bor­ing count­ries, with which Conen serves over 1,000 long-stan­ding custo­mers. Through in-house product deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring, Conen reali­zes high verti­cal inte­gra­tion, avai­la­bi­lity and flexi­bi­lity in the imple­men­ta­tion of custo­mer requi­re­ments. Deli­very and instal­la­tion with our own logi­stics in Germany and neigh­bor­ing count­ries ensu­res short deli­very times and high final quality. In 2018, the company employed 225 people and gene­ra­ted sales of €37 million.

Growth poten­tial arises from the incre­asing digi­tiza­tion of educa­tion systems, which has trig­ge­red double-digit growth rates for inter­ac­tive displays inter­na­tio­nally. Conen ther­e­fore plans to expand its coope­ra­tion with moni­tor manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the USA and the Middle East. Germany also has a favorable envi­ron­ment, with high levels of addi­tio­nal govern­ment spen­ding plan­ned for preschool and school in the medium term.

About Halder
Halder has been active as an equity inves­tor in Germany since 1991 and has provi­ded equity capi­tal for succes­sion and growth to 39 medium-sized compa­nies. Halder supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in expan­ding inter­na­tio­nally, focu­sing their stra­tegy and busi­ness model, and inves­t­ing to expand capa­city and finance stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. The invest­ment in Conen is the first invest­ment of the Halder VI fund, which comple­ted its capi­tal raising in Janu­ary 2019.

Frank­furt a. M. — Noval­pina Capi­tal has finan­ced the foun­ders Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie and the manage­ment of NSO Group in their buy-out and advi­sed them on the acqui­si­tion of NSO Group from Fran­cisco Part­ners and other share­hol­ders. — NSO Group is a leading global cyber secu­rity company head­quar­te­red in Luxem­bourg with addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons world­wide (inclu­ding Israel, Cyprus and Bulgaria).

Noval­pina Capi­tal Capi­tal was advi­sed by the Frank­furt, Munich, London and Boston offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in the buyout led by the manage­ment of NSO Group and the acqui­si­tion of NSO Group from Fran­cisco Part­ners and other shareholders.

The manage­ment team and foun­ders of NSO Group today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of the company from global private equity firm Fran­cisco Part­ners. NSO Group deve­lops tech­no­logy that helps govern­ment intel­li­gence and law enforce­ment agen­cies prevent and inves­ti­gate terro­rism and crime to save lives. Estab­lished from the combi­na­tion of Israeli and Euro­pean cyber tech­no­logy compa­nies, NSO Group has since become a global leader in provi­ding cyber intel­li­gence and analy­tics solu­ti­ons to govern­ments. The company has grown rapidly and finis­hed 2018 with reve­nues of $250 million, and dozens of licen­sed customers.

Advi­sors to Noval­pina Capi­tal: Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Weil tran­sac­tion team is led by part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and supported by part­ners Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Ludger Kempf (Tax, Frank­furt), as well as Coun­sel Dr. Heiner Drüke (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer, Madleen Düdder, Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler, Daniel Zhu, Andreas Fogel (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Julia Hübner, Alisa Preis­sler, Kai Yan (all Tax Frank­furt) as well as Boston part­ner Matthew Goul­ding and asso­ciate Michael Messina (both Corporate).
The Weil team invol­ved in the acqui­si­tion finan­cing is led by Frank­furt Finance Part­ner Dr. Wolf­ram Distler and London Finance Part­ner Tom Richards and was supported by Asso­cia­tes Thomas Zimmer­mann (Munich) and Julia Tschi­ckardt (Frank­furt) as well as Alis­tair McVeigh and Conor Camp­bell (both London).
Fran­cisco Part­ners was assis­ted in the tran­sac­tion by Paul Hastings (part­ners Mike J. Kennedy and Jeffrey C. Wolff, San Fran­cisco office).
The foun­ders of NSO Group relied on part­ners Roy Caner and Viva Gayer of EBN & Co. in Tel Aviv.

About Weil
Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding about 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frankfurt/Main, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley, Warsaw and Washing­ton, D.C.