Author: Tatjana Anderer

Munich — AFINUM Fünfte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by AFINUM Manage­ment GmbH, has sold its stake in Sinnex Group to the French Groupe Méri­guet, a leading provi­der of reno­va­tion services for high-end real estate and luxury properties.

Sinnex (www.sinnex.com) is a company specia­li­zing in the highest quality inte­rior finis­hes for luxury yachts, private resi­den­ces as well as private aircraft. The main focus of the busi­ness is luxury yachts for private owners, espe­ci­ally super luxury yachts with a length of more than 40 meters. AFINUM took over the majo­rity of the shares from the foun­ders in April 2010 and arran­ged their entre­pre­neu­rial succes­sion in the period there­af­ter. During the holding period, the company’s perfor­mance more than doubled and today Sinnex is one of the top suppli­ers in this segment.

Within the Méri­guet Group, Sinnex is also expec­ted to contri­bute his profes­sio­nal skills to projects outside his tradi­tio­nal areas, parti­cu­larly in the resi­den­tial sector. Sinnex opera­tes a plant in Griffen/Austria for produc­tion purpo­ses and has an effi­ci­ent network of supplier opera­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally in Southe­as­tern Europe.

AFINUM is an inde­pen­dent manage­ment-owned invest­ment company with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe. Photo: Dr. Thomas Bühler, Part­ner and Dr. Gernot Eisin­ger, Part­ner (left)

Frank­furt a. M. — VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH has acqui­red a mino­rity stake in Infor­ma­tik Consul­ting Systems AG (ICS). The acqui­si­tion is part of a succes­sion plan and is aimed at conti­nuing the successful growth of ICS. VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH was advi­sed by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek with a team led by Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein and Bene­dikt Raisch.

The manage­ment of the company is in the hands of the previous board member and share­hol­der Cid Kiefer, who will in future hold a majo­rity stake in the company toge­ther with two other share­hol­ders. The previous passive family share­hol­ders, the Winkel and Hämer fami­lies, are leaving the company. Toge­ther, the share­hol­ders intend to expand the range of services as well as explore the opening of new loca­ti­ons and the acqui­si­tion of compa­nies. In this context, addi­tio­nal specia­lists are to be recrui­ted and the orga­niza­tio­nal struc­ture adapted to the incre­asing size of the company.

Stutt­gart-based ICS AG is a family-run IT consul­ting and engi­nee­ring company that has been deve­lo­ping solu­ti­ons for complex IT envi­ron­ments for more than 50 years. The company employs around 120 people at four loca­ti­ons in Germany and a subsi­diary in Switz­er­land. ICS is active in the fields of “Trans­por­ta­tion” (control and safety tech­no­logy for rail infra­struc­ture), “Indus­trial Engi­nee­ring” (main­ten­ance of IT systems in logi­stics and produc­tion) and “Infor­ma­tion Secu­rity” (deve­lo­p­ment, certi­fi­ca­tion and opera­tion of infor­ma­tion secu­rity systems).

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH
VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in the DACH region. VR Equi­typ­art­ner supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. In doing so, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of company deve­lo­p­ments before short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.

Advi­sors to VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (lead manage­ment, M&A),
Bene­dikt Raisch (Lead Part­ner, M&A),
Corne­lia Schwiz­ler (Corpo­rate / M&A),
Dr. Markus Klin­ger (IT/IP),
Dr. Felix Drefs (IT/IP),
Dr. Anne de Boer LL.M. (Funding),
Andreas Lutz (Real Estate Law),
Dr. Anto­nia Stein (Labor Law),
Dr. Nicole Armin­geon (Public Law), all Stuttgart
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg
Dr. Ruth Schnei­der (Commer­cial), Munich

Hano­ver — NORD Holding Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, Hano­ver, has sold its mino­rity share­hol­ding in AVISTA OIL AG, one of the leading compa­nies in used oil proces­sing in Europe and the USA, to Bitbur­ger Holding GmbH and SKion GmbH.

The mino­rity invest­ment by NORD Holding was made as part of a growth finan­cing to imple­ment AVISTA OIL’s long-term stra­tegy of further inter­na­tio­na­li­zing its busi­ness and expan­ding its product port­fo­lio. “We are plea­sed to have been able to guide AVISTA OIL’s outstan­ding manage­ment team through key stra­te­gic decis­i­ons in recent years, inclu­ding their move into the U.S. The new share­hol­der struc­ture now allows AVISTA OIL to take the next step in its growth,” says Andreas Bösen­berg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of NORD Holding. “We have more than achie­ved our common goals in the coope­ra­tion with NORD Holding. The perso­nal and very trus­ting rela­ti­onship will certainly conti­nue beyond his reti­re­ment as a share­hol­der of AVISTA OIL,” adds Marc Verfürth, member of the board of AVISTA OIL AG.

About AVISTA OIL AG
AVISTA OIL AG is one of the leading compa­nies in used oil rege­ne­ra­tion in Europe and the USA with an annual rege­ne­ra­tion capa­city of almost 500,000 tons today. In the oil upcy­cling segment, AVISTA OIL has a current capa­city of more than 300,000 tons, with another 100,000 tons under cons­truc­tion, and is one of the tech­no­logy leaders in the produc­tion of high-quality base oils and lubri­cants from used oils. A number of subsi­dia­ries and asso­cia­ted compa­nies are bund­led under the umbrella of AVISTA OIL AG, which performs all func­tions from coll­ec­tion & logi­stics, re-refi­ning and lubri­cant produc­tion to inter­na­tio­nal distri­bu­tion. AVISTA OIL employs around 700 people at seve­ral refi­nery sites in Europe and the USA.

About NORD Holding
With its 50-year history and assets under manage­ment of € 2 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund of funds invest­ments. The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king count­ries. The Fund Invest­ments busi­ness unit targets the small- and mid-cap segment of the Euro­pean private equity market and focu­ses on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor inves­tor. The fund of funds divi­sion curr­ently mana­ges € 1.3 billion and is one of the most successful fund of funds compa­nies in Europe.

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).

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

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 .

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

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)

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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).