Author: Tatjana Anderer

Frankfurt/Main — The funds advi­sed by PREMIUM Equity Part­ners, Frankfurt/Main, have sold all shares in the weka Group to the Dutch Outdoor Life Group (OLG). Based in Neubran­den­burg, weka employs around 140 people and gene­ra­tes sales of more than 30 million euros. The group opera­tes in two concept worlds: The garden world area includes garden houses, patio covers, children’s play equip­ment, swim­ming pools and carports. With high-quality saunas and infrared heat cabins weka serves the well­ness sector. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. PREMIUM Equity Part­ners was advi­sed by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

PREMIUM Equity Part­ners had acqui­red weka in 2016 and focu­sed on imple­men­ting new stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves. This included in parti­cu­lar the deve­lo­p­ment of new sales chan­nels and custo­mer groups, and the expan­sion of the product range to include alter­na­tive mate­ri­als such as wood-based mate­ri­als and metal. In the future, the new owner OLG and weka want to use syner­gies to become a Euro­pean market leader.

PREMIUM Equity Part­ners is an invest­ment company foun­ded in 2011, which invests in strong niche compa­nies in the DACH region with a turno­ver between 10 and 50 million euros. PREMIUM Equity Part­ners provi­des capi­tal to compa­nies for growth finan­cing, company succes­sion and spin-offs.

Duhnkrack’s team has been advi­sing PREMIUM Equity Part­ners for some time, most recently on the majo­rity invest­ment in the Dres­den-based mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring company KAMA GmbH.

Advi­sors to PREMIUM Equity Part­ners GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Stefan Duhn­krack (Lead Part­ner, M&A), Hamburg
Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn (Corpo­rate, M&A),
Dr. Hans Henning Hoff (DD, Corporate),
Tim Peter­mann (DD, Commercial),
Dr. Kai Erhardt (Finan­cing),
Dr. Chris­tina Etzel (Public Law),
Carlo Schmidt (Labor Law),
Fabian G. Gaffron (Taxes), all Hamburg
Dr. Anton Horn (IP), Düsseldorf
Dr. Thomas K. W. Schrell, LL.M. (Finan­cing), Frankfurt/M.

Munich — With the support of invest­ment bank Bryan, Garnier & Co, Munich-based smart ther­mo­stat provi­der tado has raised $50 million (€43 million) in a new round of funding, attrac­ting inter­net giant Amazon and energy company E.ON, among others, as new inves­tors. This makes it the largest private finan­cing round to date in the German IoT (Inter­net of Things) sector and the largest in Europe in the Inter­net of Things for private households.

Foun­ded in 2011, the flag­ship Inter­net of Things company has raised a total of over USD 100 million (EUR 89 million) in capi­tal to date. This also makes tado one of the three best-funded provi­ders of energy effi­ci­ency solu­ti­ons in Germany (after Sonnen with 147 million euros and Helia­tek with 138 million euros). In addi­tion to Amazon, the new inves­tors in the provi­der of smart ther­mo­stats and home climate manage­ment services include energy compa­nies E.ON and Total, as well as U.S. VC inves­tor Energy Inno­va­tion Capi­tal, WS Capi­tal and the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB). Previous backers include German venture capi­ta­lists Target Part­ners, Short­cut Ventures and BayBG, as well as the Siemens Group. Bryan Garnier has supported all four finan­cing rounds since 2014.

Up to 31 percent heating cost savings / Apple as exclu­sive retail partner
The smart ther­mo­stats from tado connect heating and air condi­tio­ning systems to the Inter­net and help save up to 31% on heating costs. The smart­phone-connec­ted devices detect, for exam­ple, when resi­dents leave the house or windows are opened, allo­wing them to auto­ma­ti­cally adjust tempe­ra­tures effi­ci­ently. Since its foun­ding, the company, which curr­ently has 180 employees, has doubled its user base annu­ally to around 400,000 users. The tado retail part­ners include Amazon, Saturn and also Apple, which exclu­si­vely sells the Munich-based company’s ther­mo­stats in 111 Euro­pean Apple stores. For its 34 so-called Solu­tion Part­ners, such as the German E.ON or the Austrian Verbund, tado°’s SaaS offe­ring enables them to inten­sify custo­mer loyalty.

The market for smart ther­mo­stats is expec­ted to grow by 54% annu­ally until the end of 2022, when it will be worth USD 6.8 billion (EUR 5.9 billion). A key driver here is also the rise of home assistants such as the Apple Home, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. “We are convin­ced that soon every buil­ding will be intel­li­gently heated and cooled. Now is exactly the right time to raise addi­tio­nal capi­tal and leverage it to estab­lish tado as number one in this growing market,” says Toon Bouten, CEO of tado.

Serious compe­ti­tor to Google Nest
With the newly raised funds, tado intends to expand its service offe­ring and further pene­trate the Euro­pean market. Unlike its U.S. compe­ti­tor Nest, which was bought by Inter­net company Google in 2014 for $3.2 billion, tado ther­mo­stats are easy to inte­grate into stan­dard smart home systems and work with virtually all heating systems commonly used in Europe.

“tado has grown rapidly since its foun­ding and is a serious compe­ti­tor to Google Nest. This has convin­ced Amazon as well as E.ON, Total and other leading inves­tors,” empha­si­zes Falk Müller-Veerse (photo), Part­ner and Head of Germany respon­si­ble for Bryan Garnier’s German busi­ness. “This is one of the largest private finan­cing rounds in 2018 in Germany and the largest in the IoT sector — and with top inves­tors. We are very proud to have been able to accom­pany this German flag­ship growth story for years.”

About Bryan, Garnier & Co
Bryan, Garnier & Co, foun­ded in 1996 in Paris and London, is an invest­ment bank focu­sed on Euro­pean growth compa­nies with offices in London, Paris, Munich, Zurich and New York. As an inde­pen­dent “full service” invest­ment bank, it offers compre­hen­sive finan­cing advice and support along the entire life cycle of its clients — from initial finan­cing rounds to a poten­tial sale or IPO with subse­quent follow-up finan­cing. The range of services includes equity analy­sis, equity sales and trading, private and public capi­tal raising, and M&A services for growth compa­nies and their inves­tors. The focus is on key growth sectors of the economy such as tech­no­logy (TMT) and health­care, but also smart indus­tries & energy, brand and consu­mer goods, and busi­ness services. Bryan Garnier is a regis­tered broker and licen­sed with the FCA in Europe and FINRA in the US. The company is a part­ner of the London Stock Exch­ange and Euronext.

Frank­furt am Main/ Heiken­dorf — Bird & Bird LLP advi­sed DBAG Expan­sion Capi­tal Fund, advi­sed by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), on the acqui­si­tion of shares in FLS GmbH (FLS), based in Heiken­dorf near Kiel. FLS is a company that offers soft­ware for real-time sche­du­ling of appoint­ments and tours in service and logi­stics and is a leader in this market niche with its cloud-based SaaS solution.

In the course of a manage­ment buyout, DBAG Expan­sion Capi­tal Fund will acquire a majo­rity stake in FLS. The company’s foun­der as well as the previous manage­ment and employees conti­nue to hold a signi­fi­cant stake in the company through an inno­va­tive reverse share­hol­ding struc­ture. The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been comple­ted. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

DBAG Expan­sion Capi­tal Fund was advi­sed by the follo­wing Bird & Bird attorneys:
Part­ner Dr. Hans Peter Leube, LL.M., Lead Part­ner (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Asso­cia­tes Mari­anne Nawroth (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Laura Müller (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Chyn­gyz Timur (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Barbara Geck and Asso­cia­tes Daniela Gudat, (both Labor Law, Frank­furt) and Florian Keßenich (Labor Law, Hamburg) as well as Part­ner Dr. Fabian Niemann, Coun­sel Lea Mackert, LL.M. (both Düssel­dorf), Asso­cia­tes Dr. Miriam Ball­hau­sen (Hamburg) and Dr. Juliana Kliesch (Düssel­dorf) all Commercial.

Attor­ney Florian Döring led the tran­sac­tion DBAG intern­ally; tax advice and advice to DBAG on Luxem­bourg law was provi­ded by a Link­la­ters team led by Munich-based part­ner Dr. Jann Jetter.tt

Back­ground:
This tran­sac­tion demons­tra­tes that Bird & Bird’s well-known tech­no­logy focus is also being widely accepted in the legal market for M&A matters. This is because the firm’s private equity advi­sory services also focus on invest­ments in compa­nies that focus on digi­tiza­tion topics and ther­eby achieve a signi­fi­cant inno­va­tion boost for the respec­tive indus­try. Peter Leube has alre­ady been on DBAG’s side in seve­ral tran­sac­tions and refi­nan­cings in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sector (most recently in the acqui­si­tion of the vitro­net Group and the Netz­kon­tor-Nord Group). In this case, DBAG once again relies on Bird & Bird’s know-how and exper­tise in the area of inno­va­tive, digi­tal busi­ness models as well as tech­no­logy-focu­sed indus­try exper­tise, such as here in the soft­ware provi­der segment with one of the first cloud-based SaaS solutions.

Frank­furt / London — Gene­ra­tion Invest­ment Manage­ment LLP (“GIM”) has fully acqui­red FNZ Group from finan­cial inves­tors H.I.G. Capi­tal and Gene­ral Atlan­tic. The acqui­si­tion was made by the company CDPQ-Gene­ra­tion and repres­ents the first tran­sac­tion of this new joint venture estab­lished by GIM and the Cana­dian pension fund La Caisse de dépôt et place­ment du Québec (“CDPQ”). For the tran­sac­tion, the FNZ Group was paid approx. EUR 1.9 billion rated The acqui­si­tion, one of the world’s largest FinTech tran­sac­tions in 2018, is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval. GIM was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.

FNZ is a global FinTech company head­quar­te­red in London and provi­des estab­lished finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons with modern and highly scaled plat­form solu­ti­ons for the entire value chain in the invest­ment busi­ness (Plat­form as a Service). This complete B2B plat­form offe­ring combi­nes the elements of tech­no­logy (SaaS) and back-office services (BPO), allo­wing it to offer end custo­mers better invest­ment solu­ti­ons at a low cost. FNZ’s custo­mers include banks, insu­r­ers, asset mana­gers and provi­ders in the field of company pension schemes.

GIM is an invest­ment manage­ment company foun­ded in 2004, which invests in sustainable compa­nies and curr­ently has assets of approx. USD 20 billion under management.

The Weil tran­sac­tion team consis­ted of Corpo­rate Part­ners Jona­than Wood (London) and Dr. Uwe Hart­mann, Foto (Frank­furt) and was supported by Part­ner Stephen Fox (Corpo­rate, London) and Asso­cia­tes Ellie Fialho and Marc Schu­bert (Corpo­rate, London) and Dr. Jan Harm­janz (Corpo­rate, Frankfurt).Note to Editors:

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

Antwerp/Munich/Mannheim/Isenbüttel — The Euro­pean invest­ment company Gimv has agreed with the respec­tive owners of the Medi-Markt Home­care-Service GmbH, based in Mann­heim, and the Isen­büt­tel-based Medi Markt Service Nord Ost GmbH and the respec­tive asso­cia­ted compa­nies concluded an agree­ment to take over the majo­rity of the shares in the company. This is a succes­sion situa­tion forboth compa­nies. — Gimv is thus expan­ding its Health & Care port­fo­lio to include a leading supplier of medi­cal aids in Germany, which is expec­ted to grow further in the coming years. The remai­ning shares will be acqui­red by the desi­gna­ted CEO of the Medi Markt Group, Markus Reichel. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to the usual regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in a few weeks.

The two compa­nies and their affi­lia­ted compa­nies, which toge­ther have around 225 employees, have previously opera­ted with diffe­rent regio­nal focu­ses. In the future, they are to operate as a group and uniformly under the Medi-Markt brand; Mann­heim will become the head­quar­ters. Markus Reichel, who was previously Mana­ging Direc­tor of Medi-Markt Home­care-Service GmbH, will become Mana­ging Direc­tor of the over­all group and, as part of the tran­sac­tion, also a co-part­ner. The compa­nies specia­lize in the mail order busi­ness with auxi­liary and care aids for home consump­tion; a parti­cu­lar focus is on consul­ting and regu­lar supply of products in the area of absor­bent incon­ti­nence aids. In addi­tion, the 12,000-item port­fo­lio also includes areas such as drai­ning incon­ti­nence aids, diabe­tes control, ostomy care, ente­ral nutri­tion, home care (disin­fec­tion and protec­tion) and perso­nal care, inclu­ding private labels. Medi-Markt is one of the most important suppli­ers of incon­ti­nence aids and ostomy care in the coun­try. The entire group turns over more than 50 million euros a year.

Medi-Markt supplies around 150,000 end consu­mers every year. A large propor­tion of the products are prescri­bed by doctors and hospi­tals on the basis of prescrip­ti­ons and billed to health and long-term care insu­r­ers, for whom Medi-Markt has been a relia­ble part­ner for many years.

“Toge­ther with our new growth part­ner Gimv, we want to further expand our range of services and also move into adja­cent segments. In addi­tion, acqui­si­ti­ons of suita­ble compa­nies are being conside­red,” explains Markus Reichel, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Medi-Markt Home­care-Service GmbH and future CEO of the Group. The main driver here is demo­gra­phic deve­lo­p­ment, which is expec­ted to lead to a further increase in demand for Medi-Markt products — the propor­tion of the popu­la­tion with incon­ti­nence problems alone, curr­ently esti­ma­ted at seven million, is expec­ted to rise to nine million within the next 20 years.

“The compa­nies of the Medi-Markt Group enable many people to live a more self-deter­mi­ned ever­y­day life and have achie­ved a strong market posi­tion with high quality and great commit­ment. At the same time, as effi­ci­ent provi­ders, they contri­bute to the cost-effec­ti­ve­ness of care,” says Phil­ipp v. Hammer­stein (photo), Part­ner at Gimv in the Health & Care divi­sion at the Munich office. “We look forward to vigo­rously conti­nuing the success story of these two leading specia­lists, inclu­ding lever­aging the poten­tial from the merger. Toge­ther with the expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment, we will focus on orga­nic growth as well as on a buy-and-build strategy.”

Thenew invest­ment marks Gimv’s seventh invest­ment in the German-spea­king health­care market. This means that Gimv curr­ently has 20 invest­ments in compa­nies from the health­care and life scien­ces sectors — the 16-strong, pan-Euro­pean team of the Gimv invest­ment plat­form Health & Care is thus one of the most active Euro­pean inves­tors in the health­care indus­try. The port­fo­lio also includes seve­ral hospi­tal and prac­tice groups, medi­cal tech­no­logy and biotech compa­nies, among others.

Berlin (ots) — The tech­no­logy-supported real estate broker Home­day, one of the fastest-growing inter­me­dia­ries in the German real estate market, announ­ces the conclu­sion of a new finan­cing round. Project A, Axel Sprin­ger and Purple­bricks, a British real estate plat­form, are inves­t­ing 20 million euros in Home­day . With the funding provi­ded, Home­day intends to invest in the further scaling of its busi­ness model. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to anti­trust clearance.

Since its foun­ding in 2015, the Berlin-based company has successfully broke­red real estate worth more than one billion euros across Germany. As one of the leading real estate brokers in Germany, Home­day relies on expe­ri­en­ced local agents who are supported tech­no­lo­gi­cally and orga­niza­tio­nally by a central team of experts, allo­wing them to spend more time on perso­nal custo­mer cont­act. Home­day offers this service both exclu­si­vely and non-exclu­si­vely to brokers.

With Purple­bricks, the leading UK tran­sac­tion-based digi­tal real estate plat­form, which is also active in the USA, Canada and Austra­lia, will also invest in the further deve­lo­p­ment of Home­day. Through the coope­ra­tion, Home­day will bene­fit from the know­ledge and expe­ri­ence of the British market leader in the expan­sion of its own busi­ness model.

Stef­fen Wicker, foun­der and CEO of Home­day (photo from left: Phil­ipp Reichle (CTO), Frie­de­rike Hesse (COO), Stef­fen Wicker (CEO) and Dmitri Uvarov­ski (CMO): “Through our strong growth in recent years, Home­day has estab­lished a leading posi­tion in the real estate market. We are very plea­sed with the inves­tors’ confi­dence in our model and our work. The finan­cing round and the exch­ange of expe­ri­ence with Purple­bricks put us in a posi­tion to acce­le­rate our growth once again. Our goal is to make Home­day the first stop for owners looking to sell their property.”

Uwe Horst­mann, Gene­ral Part­ner at Project A: “We are deligh­ted about the commit­ment of Axel Sprin­ger and Purple­bricks, and at the same time the invest­ment round for further scaling is a logi­cal step for us. Home­day has proven that brin­ging toge­ther inno­va­tive tech­no­logy with perso­nal on-site service by expe­ri­en­ced brokers provi­des grea­ter trans­pa­rency and trust for all parties invol­ved. With Homeday’s support, brokers, buyers and sellers can achieve the desi­red result quickly and conve­ni­ently. This win-win-win scena­rio of Home­day has estab­lished itself in the market and we conti­nue to see great poten­tial for growth.”

Home­day will invest the fresh capi­tal in further staff expan­sion, marke­ting as well as further deve­lo­p­ment of the product, combi­ned with the goal of crea­ting a unique custo­mer expe­ri­ence throug­hout the entire real estate tran­sac­tion process.

About Home­day
Home­day is a tech­no­logy-enab­led brokerage crea­ting an unpre­ce­den­ted custo­mer expe­ri­ence for sellers and buyers. Home­day agents assist real estate sellers and buyers nati­on­wide. Home­day combi­nes inno­va­tive tech­no­logy with effi­ci­ent proces­ses and expe­ri­en­ced local brokers. In 2015 Home­day was foun­ded by Stef­fen Wicker, Dmitri Uvarov­ski and Phil­ipp Reichle. Since its foun­ding, the brokerage firm has successfully broke­red over one billion euros in real estate volume.

About Project A
Project A is the opera­ting VC that offers not only capi­tal but also a large network and exclu­sive access to a wide range of services. The Berlin-based inves­tor mana­ges 260 million euros with which it finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups. The core of Project A is the team of 100 expe­ri­en­ced experts who provide opera­tio­nal support to the port­fo­lio compa­nies in areas such as soft­ware engi­nee­ring, digi­tal marke­ting, design, commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, busi­ness intel­li­gence, sales and recrui­ting. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies such as Arti­sense, Cata­wiki, Horizn Studios, KRY, LIQID, Spry­ker, uber­all and World­Re­mit. Learn more at www.project‑a.com and on the insights.project‑a.com blog.

About Purple­bricks
Purple­bricks is the UK’s leading next gene­ra­tion real estate brokerage with offices in Austra­lia, the US and Canada. Purple­bricks combi­nes expe­ri­en­ced, local real estate experts with the inno­va­tive use of tech­no­logy to make buying, selling and renting proper­ties more conve­ni­ent, trans­pa­rent and cost-effec­tive. Purple­bricks is chan­ging the way real estate agents and brokerage firms are perceived.

Frank­furt a. M./ Rohr­bach — Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) and DBAG Fund VII, which it advi­sed, on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in SERO Schrö­der Elek­tro­nik Rohr­bach GmbH (Sero) in a manage­ment buy-out (MBO). Sero is the sixth invest­ment of DBAG Fund VII, which focu­ses, among other things, on succes­sion plan­ning in family busi­nesses in the context of MBOs. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to the appr­oval of the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is expec­ted to take place in Novem­ber 2018.

Sero, head­quar­te­red in Rohr­bach, is a deve­lo­p­ment part­ner and manu­fac­tu­ring service provi­der for elec­tro­nic compon­ents. Sero’s main sales are in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, but it also opera­tes in other sectors. Sero offers its custo­mers indus­tria­liza­tion exper­tise and a high level of auto­ma­tion with machi­nery that enables inno­va­tive manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses and deli­vers cost-effi­ci­ent products of the highest quality.

Advi­sor DBAG: Shear­man & Sterling
Lead part­ner Dr. Thomas König, photo (Frank­furt-Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons), part­ner Dr. Esther Jansen (Frank­furt-Finance), coun­sel Dr. Anders Kraft (Frank­furt-Tax); asso­cia­tes Dr. Aliresa Fatemi, Denise Tayler, Sven Opper­mann, Dr. Phil­ipp Jaspers, Evelin Moini (all Frank­furt-Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons), Marion von Grön­heim (Frank­furt-Finance) and Dr. Astrid Ruppelt (Frank­furt-Tax).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

Paris — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the insu­rance company Opteven, which specia­li­zes in insu­rance coverage against tech­ni­cal defects on vehic­les, main­ten­ance contracts and mobile services in the event of vehicle break­downs. Ardian Expan­sion Fund IV has acqui­red the shares of Aviva, a multi­na­tio­nal insu­rance company, and Capza­nine.

Capza­nine, a Euro­pean private invest­ment fund, is reinves­t­ing in the company toge­ther with the manage­ment, offe­ring the more than 150 employees the oppor­tu­nity to acquire shares in Opteven.

The tran­sac­tion will enable the company to conti­nue its orga­nic growth and also incre­asingly pursue an exter­nal growth strategy.

Opteven was foun­ded in 1985 and is head­quar­te­red in Lyon. The company is a leader in vehicle service and mobi­lity contracts in France and Europe. Opteven specia­li­zes in poli­cies cove­ring coverage for tech­ni­cal defects and mobile services. In addi­tion, Opteven offers services in the areas of buil­ding and busi­ness insu­rance, health­care and other services.

Over the past ten years, the company has grown stron­gly and curr­ently gene­ra­tes sales of around 150 million euros with more than 450 employees.

Opteven is known for high service quality and enjoys the trust of its custo­mers, which include compa­nies from the insu­rance and finan­cial sectors as well as commer­cial custo­mers from the auto­mo­tive indus­try such as manu­fac­tu­r­ers, dealers, rental compa­nies and fleet operators.

In order to pick up on and anti­ci­pate chan­ges in the market, the company has pushed ahead with its digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. A dedi­ca­ted inter­nal depart­ment, Opteven Lab, iden­ti­fies and analy­zes new trends in areas such as mobi­lity, services and the envi­ron­ment. From this, Opteven deve­lops and tests inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons incor­po­ra­ting the latest tech­no­lo­gies and taking into account contem­po­rary forms of mobility.

Opteven curr­ently opera­tes in seven count­ries across Europe and has estab­lished subsi­dia­ries in Italy, the UK and Spain to conti­nue its growth across Europe.

Jean-Matthieu Biseau, CEO at Opteven, said, “Opteven’s posi­tio­ning in both the tech­ni­cal defects and mobile services segments makes the company unique. Opteven opera­tes in a growing market that is under­go­ing a conso­li­da­tion phase. That’s why it was important for us to find a part­ner who could support us in our ambi­tious growth stra­tegy in Europe, espe­ci­ally in acquisitions.”

Marie Arnaud-Batt­an­dier (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Expan­sion, added: “We look forward to working with Opteven’s skil­led manage­ment team, which has an outstan­ding track record. In parti­cu­lar, we will use our Euro­pean network to help Opteven acce­le­rate growth, open new loca­ti­ons and iden­tify compa­nies for poten­tial acquisition.”

Benoit Chop­pin, Asso­ciate Direc­tor at Capza­nine, added: “The company has perfor­med extre­mely well over the past five years and we have greatly appre­cia­ted working with the excel­lent manage­ment team led by Jean-Matthieu Biseau. Opteven has all the prere­qui­si­tes to conti­nue its successful course. That’s why we deci­ded to reinvest as a mino­rity shareholder.”

The tran­sac­tion was appro­ved by ACPR, the French banking and insu­rance regulator.

About Opteven
Opteven is one of the leading provi­ders of mobi­lity poli­cies and services in France and Europe.
Opteven is an inde­pen­dent group head­quar­te­red in Lyon, opera­ting in seven count­ries in Europe and with subsi­dia­ries in Italy, the United King­dom and Spain. The company’s growth over the past ten years has shown that the quality of its services is highly appre­cia­ted by commer­cial custo­mers from the auto­mo­tive indus­try (manu­fac­tu­r­ers, dealers, lessors), insu­rance compa­nies and banks. Opteven will gene­rate sales of 150 million euros in the current year and manage nearly 500,000 claims. With a port­fo­lio of more than 1,000,000 auto­mo­tive service contracts and nearly 3,000,000 roadside assis­tance contracts, Opteven has a unique posi­tio­ning in its markets.

About Capza­nine
Capza­nine was foun­ded in 2004 and is a Euro­pean private invest­ment fund. Capza­nine supports compa­nies in their growth and contri­bu­tes to their success in growth and trans­for­ma­tion phases through its finan­cial and indus­trial exper­tise. Capza­nine offers flexi­ble long-term finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs and mid-cap compa­nies. Depen­ding on the situa­tion, Capza­nine invests as a majo­rity or mino­rity share­hol­der and/or as a private debt provi­der (mezza­nine, unitran­che, senior debt) in unlis­ted small and mid-cap compa­nies with an enter­prise value of 30 to 400 million euros. While Capza­nine is flexi­bly posi­tio­ned, the company speci­fi­cally supports strong value-added compa­nies in the health­care, tech­no­logy, food and services sectors. Capza­nine is based in Paris and curr­ently mana­ges around 2.5 billion euros. Recent invest­ments include Hori­zon Soft­ware, Goiko Grill, Recom­merce, MBA and Monviso.

About Ardian
Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging appro­xi­m­ately US$72 billion in assets on behalf of its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its investors.

With the objec­tive of achie­ving posi­tive results for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties promote indi­vi­du­als, compa­nies and econo­mies world­wide. Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy is aligned with the three guiding prin­ci­ples of excel­lence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

The company has a global network of more than 530 employees and 14 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its appro­xi­m­ately 750 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate.

Advi­sor of the transaction

Acqui­rer: Ardian Expansion
Marie Arnaud-Batt­an­dier, Maxime Séquier, Claire d’Esquerre

Advi­sors to the acqui­rer: Nati­xis Part­ners (Valé­rie Pelle­reau, Patrice Raulin), Goetz­part­ners CF (Guil­laume Piette)

Legal, Fiscal and Social Advi­sor: Weil, Gotshal & Manges (Frédé­ric Cazals, Alex­an­dra Stoicescu, Lise Laplaud, Cassandre Porges, Kalish Mullen)

Stra­te­gic Advi­sor: Oliver Wyman (Olivier De Deman­dolx, Tarik Ouahmed)

Finan­cial, Actua­rial, Fiscal, Social and Legal Advi­sor: Ernst & Young (Cyril de Beco, Pauline Fabre)

Finan­cing: BNP (Guil­laume Redaud), LCL (Emilie Bosselut)

Seller: Capza­nine
David Hoppenot, Benoit Chop­pin, Bruno Bonnin

A Plus Finance: Olivier Gillot

Advi­sors to the seller: Tran­sac­tion R — Roth­schild (Pierre Sader, Raphaël Fassier)

Manage­ment Advi­sor: Scotto (Nico­las Menard-Durand)

Legal Advi­sor: Good­win (Jérôme Jouhan­neaud, David Diamant)

Stra­te­gic VDD: Indefi (Julien Berger)

Finan­cial VDD: Deloitte (Vincent Rapiau, Cyril Chalin, Davide Artigiani)

Finan­cial, Actua­rial, Fiscal and Legal Advi­sor: Deloitte

Social Advi­sor: Aguerra et Associés

Paris — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, has ente­red into an agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in Inula Group with Vendis Capi­tal, Domi­ni­que Baudoux (Foun­der and Chair­man) and Sergio Calan­dri (CEO).

The Inula Group was formed from the merger of Pran­arôm and Herbal­Gem, two pioneers in the field of natu­ral thera­pies. The two labo­ra­to­ries were estab­lished in 1985 and 1986, respec­tively. Today, Inula is a leading provi­der of herbal reme­dies. With the brands Pran­arôm, Herbal­Gem and Bioflo­ral, the Group specia­li­zes in parti­cu­lar in the high-growth segments of aroma­the­rapy, gemmo­the­rapy and Bach flower reme­dies. Thanks to the company’s scien­ti­fic approach and the quality of its products, the group has seen signi­fi­cant growth in recent years. Today it opera­tes in 25 count­ries and has a leading posi­tion in the markets of France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and the USA.

As part of this tran­sac­tion, the Group’s CEO, Sergio Calan­dri, reinvests along­side Ardian. Vendis Capi­tal and Pran­arôm foun­der Domi­ni­que Baudoux may also conti­nue to support the group.

Bruno Ladrière, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Ardian Buyout, and Daniel Setton, Direc­tor, stated: “We are very much looking forward to working with Inula’s teams and thank them for the trust they have placed in us as part of this tran­sac­tion. Toge­ther we will support the contin­ued growth of the company and expand the market posi­tion of Pran­arôm, Herbal­Gem and Bioflo­ral in Europe and globally. With this tran­sac­tion, we under­line our stra­tegy to support mid-sized compa­nies in reali­zing their growth opportunities.”

For their part, Cedric Olbrechts, part­ner at Vendis Capi­tal, and Domi­ni­que Baudoux, foun­der and chair­man of Inula, said: “During the seven-year part­ner­ship between Vendis and Inula, we have been able to create a great dyna­mic for the company, combi­ning our expe­ri­ence and exper­tise. Today, the group is the leading provi­der of natu­ral reme­dies in Europe. It has signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its inter­na­tio­nal presence, added new distri­bu­tion chan­nels and deve­lo­ped new products through the Pran­arôm brand and the successful inte­gra­tion of Herbal­Gem, Bioflo­ral and Veri­di­tas. We are proud that we have been able to successfully imple­ment the objec­ti­ves set in 2011. These succes­ses are prima­rily due to the compe­tent and expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team led by Sergio Calan­dri. We would like to express our sincere thanks here to ever­yone for their dedi­ca­tion and excel­lent work.” Domi­ni­que Baudoux added: “It was quickly clear to me that Ardian was the right part­ner for us and that the team shares our values, which have driven the success of our group since its inception.”

Sergio Calan­dri, CEO of Inula, added: “In recent years, our Group has deve­lo­ped extre­mely stron­gly. We have been able to estab­lish our brands as market leaders in seve­ral count­ries in Europe and world­wide and have successfully inte­gra­ted our acqui­si­ti­ons. Our future growth is built on the elements that charac­te­rize our approach: The quality of our products, a scien­ti­fic approach, exten­sive trai­ning and mastery of all stages of manu­fac­tu­ring. Ardian, with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector and its inter­na­tio­nal network, is the ideal part­ner to accom­pany Inula’s growth in the coming years.”

About Ardian
Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging appro­xi­m­ately US$72 billion in assets on behalf of its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its inves­tors. With the objec­tive of achie­ving posi­tive results for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties promote indi­vi­du­als, compa­nies and econo­mies world­wide. Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy is aligned with the three guiding prin­ci­ples of excel­lence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

The company has a global network of more than 530 employees and 14 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its appro­xi­m­ately 750 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate.

About Inula
The Inula Group was formed from the merger of Pran­arôm and Herbal­Gem, two pioneers in the field of natu­ral thera­pies. The two labo­ra­to­ries were estab­lished in 1985 and 1986, respec­tively. Inula deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes phyto­the­ra­peu­tic reme­dies. Its three brands are market leaders in their respec­tive sectors: Pran­arôm in scien­ti­fic aroma­the­rapy (essen­tial oils), Herbal­Gem in concen­tra­ted gemmo­the­rapy (bud extra­cts) and Bioflo­ral in Bach flowers (flower extra­cts). Inula achie­ved conso­li­da­ted sales of 85 million euros in 2017. The Group markets its products through six sales compa­nies (based in Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Portu­gal and North America) and distri­bu­tors in more than 20 count­ries in Europe, Asia and North America. The products are distri­bu­ted by more than 12,000 custo­mers. These include phar­macies, health food stores and health profes­sio­nals. The group opera­tes its own orga­nic plan­ta­ti­ons and four manu­fac­tu­ring labo­ra­to­ries in Belgium (Pran­arôm in Ghis­leng­hien and Herbal­Gem in Viel­salm), France (Bioflo­ral in Auver­gne) and the USA (Inula in Minnea­po­lis). www.pranarom.com — www.herbalgem.com — www.biofloral.fr

About Vendis Capital
Foun­ded in 2009, Vendis Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent private equity firm focu­sed on the Euro­pean consu­mer goods sector. Working with expe­ri­en­ced entre­pre­neurs and mana­gers, Vendis invests in small to medium-sized bran­ded compa­nies in Europe that are well posi­tio­ned for value-crea­ting growth or trans­for­ma­tion proces­ses. Vendis invests in France, Belgium, the Nether­lands, Germany and Scan­di­na­via. www.vendiscapital.com

Compa­nies and persons invol­ved in the transaction
Sellers: Vendis Capi­tal (Cedric Olbrechts, Mathieu de Medei­ros), Domi­ni­que Baudoux (Foun­der and Chair­man), Sergio Calan­dri (CEO)
Acqui­rer: Ardian (Bruno Ladrière, Daniel Setton, Alexis Manet, Rafik Alili, Edmond Delamalle)

Vendor consul­tant
M&A: JP Morgan (Edouard Debost, Peter Hujoel, Sebas­tien Guiol)
M&A Law: Fresh­fields (Vincent Macq, Frede­ric Elens, Elliott Fosseprez)
Lawyer of the manage­ment: Laurius (David Ryckaert)
Finan­cial VDD: PwC (Phil­ippe Estas, Geoff­roy Jonck­heere, Arnaud Chan­traine, Olivier Van Crombrugge)
Tax VDD: PwC (Hugues Lamon, Koen Walbers)
Stra­te­gic VDD: Roland Berger (Grégo­ire Tondreau, Patrick Bieche­ler, Pierre-Antoine Bodin, Jean Muraire, Yaros­lav Stetsenko)
Regu­la­tory VDD: Coving­ton (Bart Van Vooren)

Advi­sor of the acquirer
M&A: BNP Pari­bas Fortis (Gabriel Engle­bert, Pieter-Jan Van de Walle, Wide Hellem­ans, Elena Coluc­celli-Guérin, Muriel Petit)
Legal advice: Latham (Olivier du Mottay, Béné­dicte Bremond, Lionel Dechmann)
Finan­cial advi­sory: EY (Yannick Lostie de Kerhor, Stéphane Seguin, Mathieu Creu­zet, Nico­las Morel)
Legal, tax, social and ESG advice: EY (Jean-Chris­to­phe Sabou­rin, Patrice Mottier, Tom Swin­nen, Lionel Benant, Anne Dupu­pet, Anne-Elisa­beth Combes, Maelle Duquoc).
Insu­rance consul­ting: Siaci St Honoré (Pierre de Rochebouet, Julie Marmara, Brigitte Lalo)
Stra­te­gic advice: EY-Parthe­non (Henri-Pierre Vacher, Vincent Czes­zyn­ski, Louis Ravier, Benja­min Ferrand, Fabien Bouskila)
Regu­la­tory consul­ting: Inno­veo­Care (Géral­dine Veuil­let, Elodie Demars)

Hamburg — Allen & Overy LLP advi­sed Kharis Capi­tal Advi­sory Belgium sprl in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of Nord­see Holding GmbH by KC North Sea, a Kharis Capi­tal company, from HK Food GmbH, a subsi­diary of the Theo Müller group of companies.

NORDSEE GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Bremer­ha­ven, has more than 350 loca­ti­ons and is Europe’s leading supplier of fish special­ties with its restau­rant, snack store, and seafood buffet sales chan­nels and a total of 6,000 employees.

Kharis Capi­tal is a family-funded inves­tor in the consu­mer sector, with a dedi­ca­ted focus on the Quick Service Restau­rant (QSR) market. The company curr­ently controls appro­xi­m­ately 550 Burger King, Quick and O’Ta­cos brand restau­rants in Belgium, France, Italy, Luxem­bourg and Poland through various compa­nies. This acqui­si­tion is an important mile­stone for Kharis Capi­tal on its way to beco­ming a leading player in the Euro­pean QSR market.

Advi­sor Kharis Capi­tal Advi­sory Belgium sprl: Allen & Overy LLP 
The Allen & Overy team included part­ner Dr. Nico­laus Ascher­feld, coun­sel Max Lands­hut (both lead) and Marie-Luise von Buch­waldt, senior asso­ciate Dr. Sebas­tian Remberg, asso­cia­tes Dr. Stefan Witte, Louisa Graub­ner and Dr. Moritz Meis­ter (all Hamburg), senior asso­cia­tes An-Sofie Van Hoote­gem and Stépha­nie Dalleur and asso­ciate Gabri­elle De Vlieg­her (all Corporate/M&A, all Brussels).

In addi­tion, the team included part­ner Dr. Börries Ahrens (Hamburg), coun­sel Karel Bour­geois (Brussels), senior asso­ciate Dr. Ioan­nis Thanos (Hamburg, all anti­trust); part­ner Fabian Beul­le­kens, coun­sel Jacques Graas, senior asso­ciate Matthieu De Donder and asso­ciate Victo­ria Woest­mann (all corporate/M&A, Luxem­bourg)¸ part­ner Dr. Jens Matthes (Düssel­dorf), Senior Coun­sel Geert Glas (Brussels), Asso­ciate Anna Kräling (Düssel­dorf, all IP); Part­ners Yves Van Pul, Vanessa Xu (both London), Dr. Franz Bern­hard Herding and Thomas Neubaum (both Frank­furt), Coun­sel Dr. Ilja Baudisch (Munich), Senior Asso­cia­tes Julie Vander Donckt (Brussels), Elke Funken-Hötzel and Dr. David Schmidt (both Frank­furt), Asso­ciate Dr. Rauni Aham­mer (Munich) and Tran­sac­tion Support Lawyer Anasta­siya-Evan­ge­lina Wiegand (Frank­furt, all Banking and Finance); Coun­sel Fran­cois Guil­laume de Liede­kerke (Capi­tal Markets, Luxem­bourg); Part­ners Markulf Behrendt, Coun­sel Sören Seidel (both Hamburg), Senior Asso­ciate Yukiko Hitzel­ber­ger-Kijima (Düssel­dorf) and Asso­ciate Dr. Katha­rina Fischer (Hamburg, all labor law); Coun­sel Dr. Alice Broich­mann (Dispute Reso­lu­tion, Munich) as well as Part­ner Dr. Chris­tian Hilmes, Senior Asso­ciate Dr. Marcus Grühn and Asso­ciate Dr. Daniel Bolm (all real estate law, all Hamburg).

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in Kraft & Bauer Holding GmbH (Kraft & Bauer), one of the leading suppli­ers of fire protec­tion systems for machine tools. As part of a manage­ment buyout (MBO), DBAG Fund VII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, will acquire a majo­rity stake in Kraft & Bauer. Previous share­hol­ders are the Swiss finan­cial inves­tor Invi­sion, the foun­ding Bauer family and the current CEO Frank Foddi. DBAG will invest along­side DBAG Fund VII and will in future hold a calcu­la­ted stake of around 20 percent in Kraft & Bauer. The closing of the purchase agree­ment is sche­du­led for the coming quar­ter; the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties still have to approve the tran­sac­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Kraft & Bauer is the fifth MBO of DBAG Fund VII since the start of the fund’s invest­ment period in Decem­ber 2016. This means that around half of the invest­ment commit­ments have now been commit­ted. With a volume of just over one billion euros, DBAG Fund VII is the largest private equity fund initia­ted and advi­sed by a German private equity firm. The current MBO is DBAG’s seventh tran­sac­tion in the 2017/2018 finan­cial year, which ends in a few days (Septem­ber 30). These seven tran­sac­tions involve equity invest­ments by DBAG of around 67 million euros.

Kraft & Bauer (www.kraft-bauer.com) deve­lops, produ­ces and installs fire protec­tion systems for around 800 diffe­rent types of machine tools. The focus here is on micro­pro­ces­sor-control­led extin­gu­is­hing systems that detect a fire based on sensors and initiate the extin­gu­is­hing process. The fire protec­tion systems are either instal­led directly on the machine by Kraft & Bauer employees or sold as a kit to the machine manu­fac­tu­rer. Kraft & Bauer employs around 80 people at its head­quar­ters in Holz­ger­lin­gen (Baden-Würt­tem­berg), at a plant in Bann­wil (Switz­er­land) and at 13 service loca­ti­ons in Germany, Switz­er­land and Italy. The company gene­ra­tes around 30 percent of its sales in the service business.

Kraft & Bauer’s systems are used in machi­nes with an increased risk of fire, such as milling, turning and grin­ding machi­nes, which operate with parti­cu­larly high precis­ion and speed. Demand for these high-perfor­mance machi­nes — and thus for corre­spon­ding fire protec­tion systems — is incre­asing. In addi­tion, with a broad instal­led base of more than 30,000 systems in Germany alone, Kraft & Bauer bene­fits from a stable service busi­ness: the fire protec­tion systems need to be inspec­ted and main­tai­ned on a regu­lar basis. Kraft & Bauer’s sales acti­vi­ties are curr­ently focu­sed on the DACH region and Italy. Here, busi­ness with exis­ting custo­mers is to be expan­ded — both on the basis of rising demand and by retro­fit­ting exis­ting systems. In addi­tion, new custo­mers are to be acqui­red and inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion beyond the markets served to date is to be driven forward.

“We are inves­t­ing in a company that has estab­lished a leading posi­tion in its niche market with products that are criti­cal to success and safety,” explai­ned Dr. Rolf Schef­fels, member of DBAG’s Manage­ment Board, at the signing cerem­ony. “Howe­ver, Kraft & Bauer bene­fits not only from its strong market posi­tion, but also from the over­all growing importance of fire protec­tion measu­res for machine tools.”

“We want to exploit the exis­ting market poten­tial and conti­nue to grow,” commen­ted Klaus Bauer, foun­der and member of the Kraft & Bauer manage­ment team. “We are all the more plea­sed to have DBAG, a part­ner with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, at our side in the future.”

“Kraft & Bauer has grown by more than ten percent on average every year since Invi­sion took a stake in the company, constantly streng­thening its excel­lent market posi­tion,” notes Frank Becker, Mana­ging Part­ner of Invi­sion, adding, “This is thanks to the manage­ment team with foun­der Klaus Bauer and Mana­ging Direc­tor Frank Foddi, as well as all Kraft & Bauer employees, whom we would like to thank most since­rely for their successful collaboration.”

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests along­side DBAG funds in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are parti­cu­larly strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. With this expe­ri­ence, know-how and equity, it streng­thens the port­fo­lio compa­nies in imple­men­ting a long-term, value-enhan­cing corpo­rate stra­tegy. The entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 1.8 billion euros.

Frank­furt am Main — IMAP advi­sed the Swiss finan­cial inves­tor Invi­sion on the sale to Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG). DBAG, toge­ther with DBAG Fund VII, will hold a majo­rity stake in the leading supplier of fire protec­tion systems for machine tools; the family of foun­der Klaus Bauer and CEO Frank Foddi will conti­nue to hold stakes in the company. The closing of the purchase agree­ment is sche­du­led for the coming quar­ter; the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties still have to approve the transaction.

Kraft & Bauer deve­lops, produ­ces and installs fire protec­tion systems for around 800 diffe­rent types of machine tools. The focus here is on micro­pro­ces­sor-control­led extin­gu­is­hing systems that detect a fire based on sensors and initiate the extin­gu­is­hing process. The fire protec­tion systems are either instal­led directly on the machine by Kraft & Bauer employees or sold as a kit to the machine manu­fac­tu­rer. Kraft & Bauer employs around 80 people at its head­quar­ters in Holz­ger­lin­gen (Baden-Würt­tem­berg), at a plant in Bann­wil (Switz­er­land) and at 13 service loca­ti­ons in Germany, Switz­er­land and Italy. The company gene­ra­tes around 30 percent of its sales in the service business.

In 2013, Invi­sion acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Kraft & Bauer from its foun­der Klaus Bauer as part of a succes­sion solu­tion. With the sale, the last port­fo­lio company of the INVISION IV L.P. fund, which was laun­ched in 2008, was successfully realized.

“Kraft & Bauer has grown by an average of 10% every year since INVISION joined the company. Custo­mers appre­ciate the high product quality as well as the asso­cia­ted outstan­ding service,” explains Martin Spirig, Part­ner in Charge at INVISION. Frank Becker, Mana­ging Part­ner of INVISION, adds, “This is thanks to the manage­ment team with foun­der Klaus Bauer and Mana­ging Direc­tor Frank Foddi, as well as all Kraft & Bauer employees, whom we would like to thank for their successful cooperation.”

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes and advi­ses closed-end private equity funds and invests along­side DBAG funds in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 1.8 billion euros.

Advi­sors Invi­sion: IMAP
Dr. Cars­ten Lehmann, Phil­ipp Noack and Atanas Petkov of IMAP exclu­si­vely advi­sed the sellers and supported them in struc­tu­ring, nego­tia­ting and closing the tran­sac­tion in a compe­ti­tive process.

About IMAP
Foun­ded in 1973, IMAP is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and largest Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons orga­niza­ti­ons in the world with offices in 35 count­ries. More than 450 M&A advi­sors in inter­na­tio­nal sector teams specia­lize in corpo­rate sales, cross-border acqui­si­ti­ons and stra­te­gic finan­cing issues. Its clients are prima­rily family-owned compa­nies from the midmar­ket, but also include large natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons as well as finan­cial inves­tors, family offices and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. World­wide, IMAP accom­pa­nies about 200 tran­sac­tions per year with a total volume of more than USD 10 billion.

Berlin — Berlin-based digi­tal asset mana­ger LIQID has closed a finan­cing round and recei­ved 33 million euros for its further growth. This is one of the largest sums inves­ted in a German FinTech company to date. The main inves­tor is Tosca­fund Asset Manage­ment LLP, a London-based multi-asset alter­na­tive invest­ment company that mana­ges more than $4 billion. Exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding Project A, HQ Trust and Dieter von Holtz­brinck Ventures, also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round.

With its invest­ment through Tosca Private Invest­ments Fund (“TPIF”), Tosca­fund beco­mes a signi­fi­cant share­hol­der in the fast growing FinTech. TPIF sees itself as a private equity inves­tor with a focus on small and medium-sized compa­nies in the Euro­pean finan­cial services sector. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by BaFin.

LIQID was foun­ded in 2016 and posi­ti­ons itself as a digi­tal alter­na­tive to the tradi­tio­nal private bank. In close part­ner­ship with HQ Trust, the multi-family office of the Harald Quandt family, the company offers clients access to alter­na­tive asset clas­ses such as private equity in addi­tion to asset manage­ment, start­ing with a mini­mum invest­ment of EUR 100,000. Just under two years after its launch, LIQID mana­ges almost 300 million euros for its customers.

Chris­tian Schnei­der-Sickert, CEO and co-foun­der of LIQID, sees the reason for the rapid growth in a clear custo­mer focus and the active support of his inves­tors: “Our inves­tors have been decisive in support­ing the deve­lo­p­ment of LIQID and helping us to gain the trust of inves­tors. We are plea­sed to have found such a strong and inter­na­tio­nally expe­ri­en­ced part­ner in TPIF, with whose help this deve­lo­p­ment can conti­nue.” With TPIF’s active support, he said, it will be possi­ble to expand LIQID’s tech­no­logy plat­form as well as its range of services in Germany and beyond.

Fabri­zio Cesa­rio, Part­ner of Tosca­fund, is looking forward to the enga­ge­ment: “We are very happy to support the exis­ting share­hol­ders and the team of LIQID with our capi­tal and our exper­tise in the Euro­pean finan­cial services indus­try. This invest­ment fits perfectly with our long and successful history of finan­cing the growth of excep­tio­nally inno­va­tive compa­nies. Tech­no­lo­gi­cal change will funda­men­tally trans­form the finan­cial indus­try and LIQID is leading the way.”

George Koulou­ris, Part­ner at Tosca­fund, adds: “We see strong growth pros­pects in serving high net worth indi­vi­du­als across Europe. LIQID’s award-winning plat­form clearly stands out from the compe­ti­tion thanks to its unique combi­na­tion of tech­no­logy, profes­sio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and human exper­tise. In our view, LIQID is ideally tail­o­red to the needs of wealthy custo­mers. The busi­ness model is highly scalable and has great poten­tial for the entire Euro­pean market.”

LIQID was advi­sed by Roth­schild & Co. and TPIF by Herax Partners.

About LIQID
LIQID is an inde­pen­dent digi­tal asset mana­ger that offers its clients access to invest­ment stra­te­gies, asset clas­ses and condi­ti­ons previously reser­ved exclu­si­vely for high-net-worth indi­vi­du­als. The Berlin-based company works closely with the invest­ment team of HQ Trust, the multi-family office of the Harald Quandt family. On an intui­tive digi­tal plat­form, LIQID has digi­ta­li­zed asset manage­ment in a consis­tent and user-friendly way.

LIQID offers three diffe­rent invest­ment styles tail­o­red to indi­vi­dual client needs and based on a long-term invest­ment philo­so­phy proven over seve­ral market cycles. In addi­tion, LIQID clients gain low-cost access to leading private equity funds.

Since its launch in 2016, LIQID has recei­ved nume­rous indus­try awards. In 2017, the company was named Best German Late-Stage FinTech at the FinTech Germany Awards. The inde­pen­dent ranking insti­tute first­five awarded LIQID in 2016, 2017 and 2018 for outstan­ding perfor­mance in the manage­ment of its client port­fo­lios. In 2018, the busi­ness maga­zine brand­eins awarded LIQID the title of “Inno­va­tor of the Year” while Capi­tal put LIQID in first place in a compa­ri­son of robo-advi­sors. LIQID was also awarded the German Brand Award for outstan­ding brand manage­ment in the banking and finan­cial services sector.

About Tosca­fund Asset Management
Tosca­fund Asset Manage­ment LLP is a London-based invest­ment company specia­li­zing in alter­na­tive multi-asset invest­ments and curr­ently mana­ges over four billion US dollars. The company was foun­ded in 2000 by Martin Hughes and has estab­lished itself as one of the leading Euro­pean inves­tors in the finan­cial services sector.

In addi­tion to its main fund, Toscafund’s acti­vi­ties include equity finan­cing for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses, private loan finan­cing and invest­ments in commer­cial real estate. Tosca­fund has many years of expe­ri­ence in growth finan­cing of fast growing compa­nies. Invest­ments in the finan­cial services sector include Alder­more Bank, Hoist, Atom Bank, OakN­orth and Esure.

TPIF, Toscafund’s latest initia­tive, targets invest­ments in Euro­pean unlis­ted finan­cial and service compa­nies. TPIF is led by Fabri­zio Cesa­rio and George Koulou­ris, who joined Tosca­fund as part­ners in 2017. After Plurimi Wealth, the invest­ment in LIQID is the second invest­ment of TPI

Berlin — DLA Piper advi­sed exceet Group AG on the sale of the Berlin-based micro- and opto­elec­tro­nics company AEMtec GmbH to Melli­fera Neun­und­zwan­zigste Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft. The buyer is control­led by capi­ton V GmbH & Co KG, a fund of the private equity company capi­ton. The execu­tion of the agree­ment is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

The exceet Group is a listed invest­ment company based in Luxem­bourg that specia­li­zes in tech­no­logy compa­nies in the health­care and elec­tro­nics markets. exceet has been listed on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Prime Stan­dard) since July 2011.

Advi­sor to exceet Group AG: DLA Piper
The DLA Piper team led by part­ner Andreas Füch­sel (Corporate/Private Equity, Frank­furt) contin­ued to consist of the part­ners Dr. Konrad Rohde (Tax, Frank­furt) and Guido Kleve (Public Commer­cial Law, Colo­gne), the coun­sels Sebas­tian Kost (Munich), Dr. Raimund Behnes (both Tax), Semin O (Anti­trust), Robert Hofbauer (Finance, Projects & Restruc­tu­ring, all Frank­furt), Dr. Thilo Streit (Public Commer­cial Law, Colo­gne), Senior Asso­cia­tes Nadine Hesser (Employ­ment, Frank­furt) and Dr. Thors­ten Ammann (IPT, Colo­gne) and Asso­cia­tes Phil­ipp Groll (Corporate/Private Equity), David Klock (Anti­trust, both Frank­furt) and Hauke Tamm­ert (Public Commer­cial Law, Cologne).