ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

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

 

News

Frankfurt/Stockholm - Alan­tra, a global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment, has advi­sed Norwe­gian invest­ment compa­nies Nord Kapi­tal and Habu Holding on the sale of Dubai-based Nobu Group (Nobu) to Tubacex and Senaat Gene­ral Holding Corp. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in March 2019.

Nobu is a provi­der of precis­ion mecha­ni­cal appli­ca­ti­ons for the oil and gas indus­try and is central to the global value chain of major oilfield equip­ment suppli­ers and service compa­nies through the manu­fac­ture of precis­ion compon­ents and the main­ten­ance and repair of criti­cal oilfield equipment.

Nobu subsi­diary NTS has grown rapidly since its estab­lish­ment in the Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone (United Arab Emira­tes — UAE) in 2016 to become a leading provi­der of precis­ion compo­nent repair services whose services are used by the region’s largest oilfield service compa­nies. Through the estab­lish­ment of NTS Saudi in the King­dom of Saudi Arabia in 2012 and the merger with Promet in Norway in 2013, NTS has estab­lished itself as a key part­ner to Baker Hughes, Schlum­ber­ger, Halli­bur­ton, Weather­ford, Emer­son, Bene­stad and other leading oilfield equip­ment and service compa­nies. Nobu’s exper­tise in LWD/MWD (loggin­g/­me­a­su­ring-while-dril­ling) instru­ment main­ten­ance and in the manu­fac­ture of custom compon­ents from “exotic”, diffi­cult-to-machine mate­ri­als is criti­cal to its custo­mers’ ability to ensure the servicea­bi­lity of criti­cal tools for oilfield dril­ling in the Arabian Penin­sula and Norwe­gian Conti­nen­tal Shelf. With more than 200 employees, modern faci­li­ties and equip­ment, Nobu has a key compe­ti­tive advan­tage in these regions.

Frank Merkel (photo), part­ner at Alan­tra, based in Frankfurt’s Büro, said, “The Nobu Group sale unders­cores Alantra’s contin­ued commit­ment to the oil and gas sector and our ability to iden­tify poten­tial buyers globally and successfully execute multi­la­te­ral tran­sac­tions with multi­ple sellers and acqui­rers in diffe­rent juris­dic­tions and cultures. Advi­sing the two Nordic owners on the sale of a Middle East-based company with Scot­tish-Norwe­gian manage­ment to acqui­rers from Spain and the United Arab Emira­tes is also an excep­tio­nal case in our excee­din­gly inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and thus a parti­cu­larly inte­res­t­ing mandate.”

Anders Høifødt, Part­ner at Nord Kapi­tal, added: “We are deligh­ted with this successful tran­sac­tion. Nobu’s new owners have a clear vision for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company into a leading provi­der with an even broa­der range of machine-based services. The Alan­tra team provi­ded us with extre­mely valuable support in this highly complex cross-border transaction.”

Eimund Slet­ten, CEO of Habu Holding, high­ligh­ted, “We have a long track record of doing busi­ness in this region. New busi­ness ventures can be chal­len­ging in the Middle East, but our expe­ri­ence on the ground since 1992 has proven to be the main success factor in estab­li­shing NTS as a cost-effec­tive precis­ion machi­ning company in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We were impres­sed with Tubacex and Senaat’s approach and plans in this tran­sac­tion and look forward to remai­ning asso­cia­ted with the company through a return invest­ment in the future.”

About Alan­tra
Alan­tra is a global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment with offices in Europe, the US, Asia and Latin America. With more than 350 experts, the Invest­ment Banking unit provi­des inde­pen­dent advice on M&A, corpo­rate finance, loan port­fo­lios and capi­tal market tran­sac­tions. The Asset Manage­ment unit mana­ges assets of around 4.5 billion euros in the asset clas­ses private equity, active funds, private debt, real estate and wealth manage­ment. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: www.alantra.com.

News

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.

News

Frank­furt am Main, Germany — Argos Wityu, an inde­pen­dent, pan-Euro­pean invest­ment firm, and Epsi­lon Rese­arch, an online plat­form for unlis­ted M&A tran­sac­tions, unvei­led the Argos Index® Mid-Market for the fourth quar­ter of 2018. Deve­lo­ped in 2006, the index has measu­red the deve­lo­p­ment of company valua­tions of unlis­ted mid-market compa­nies in the euro­zone in which private equity funds had acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the six months prece­ding the survey since it was first published. With the current edition, the Argos Index reports speci­fic data for the German M&A market for the first time.

Stra­te­gic buyers drive valua­tions, index reaches all-time high of 10.1x EBITDA.
The deve­lo­p­ment of the multi­ples can be explai­ned on the one hand by stra­te­gic buyers, who paid an average EBITDA multi­ple of 10.7x in the fourth quar­ter as part of acqui­si­ti­ons, but also by finan­cial inves­tors, who valued compa­nies at 9.8x EBITDA.

Essen­ti­ally, the price increase is due to increased acti­vity in Euro­pean mid-market M&A tran­sac­tions — in the second half of 2018, tran­sac­tion volu­mes increased by 18 percent and cumu­la­tive tran­sac­tion values by 17 percent. The diffe­rence is parti­cu­larly large compared to the multi­ples of mid-cap listed companies(1), whose valua­tion has fallen by 11 percent to 8.0x EBITDA(2).

Valua­tions for unlis­ted compa­nies showed momen­tum in the second half of the year that was inde­pen­dent of deve­lo­p­ments on the stock markets(3). This can be explai­ned by seve­ral factors, inclu­ding high cash holdings by large compa­nies and high levels of “dry powder” from private equity inves­tors who are raising incre­asingly large amounts of capi­tal, as well as stra­te­gic buyers looking to acquire compa­nies in search of growth, and the ever-incre­asing demand from insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors looking to improve their returns by inves­t­ing in unlis­ted companies(4).

Germany: high M&A volume drives purchase prices
For the first time, the Argos Index also analy­zes the German M&A market. In 2018, EBITDA multi­ples in Germany increased by 8 percent to 9.8x EBITDA, or by 3.8 multi­ple points since the low point at the end of 2009. This price deve­lo­p­ment is driven by a dyna­mic M&A market, whose volume increased by 18 percent in 2018.

Since 2013, the deve­lo­p­ment of German multi­ples has been in line with those of the euro area. The crises of 2009 (finan­cial crisis) and 2012 (euro crisis) had no impact on valua­tion multi­ples in Germany compared with the deve­lo­p­ment of valua­tion levels in the euro zone.

About Argos Wityu
Foun­ded in 1989 as Argos Sodi­tic, Argos Wityu is an inde­pen­dent pan-Euro­pean invest­ment company with offices in Brussels, Frank­furt, Geneva, Luxem­bourg, Milan and Paris. Argos Wityu focu­ses on manage­ment buy-outs, buy-ins and spin-offs for small and medium-sized compa­nies with an enter­prise value between €25 and €200 million. The funds advi­sed by Argos Wityu invest in majo­rity stakes with equity tickets between 10 and 100 million euros. Since its incep­tion, Argos Wityu has laun­ched seven funds and comple­ted more than 75 tran­sac­tions. The focus is on growth and trans­for­ma­tion rather than high debt. The group has built a very strong track record in uncon­ven­tio­nal off-market tran­sac­tions, where Argos Wityu’s combi­na­tion of inter­na­tio­na­lity and local presence has contri­bu­ted to the deve­lo­p­ment of small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses. The current Fund VII (520 million euros), which was laun­ched at the end of 2017, has alre­ady comple­ted ten tran­sac­tions and is alre­ady more than 50 percent inves­ted. In total, Argos Wityu mana­ges funds with a volume of appro­xi­m­ately 1 billion euros. In Germany, the company has stakes in aktiv­op­tik, the fifth-largest chain of opti­ci­ans and acou­sti­ci­ans, and in Wibit Sports, the world market leader for floa­ting water parks. The invest­ment in Wibit brings to five the number of global market leaders in their respec­tive indus­tries in Argos Wityu’s 21-company invest­ment port­fo­lio: Gantrex, Henri Selmer, Sasa Demarle, Wibit and Zodiac Milpro. http://argos.wityu.fund

About Epsi­lon Research
Epsi­lon Rese­arch has deve­lo­ped the first online plat­form for unlis­ted M&A tran­sac­tions aimed at profes­sio­nals such as M&A advi­sors, private equity inves­tors or experts. The Epsi­lon plat­form provi­des access to data, analy­tics, soft­ware tools as well as other services requi­red for the valua­tion of unlis­ted compa­nies: (1) EMAT, the largest data­base of tran­sac­tion multi­ples of unlis­ted compa­nies in Europe, with details on 8,000+ tran­sac­tions between €1m and €500m enter­prise value across all indus­tries, (2) studies and indi­ces regu­larly published by Epsi­lon, such as the Argos Index, (3) cloud-based soft­ware for M&A cont­acts and project manage­ment (“M&A CRM Suite”) as well as for valua­tion projects (compa­ra­tive multi­ples and port­fo­lios of PE funds).

About the Argos Mid-Market Index
The Argos Mid-Market Index measu­res the deve­lo­p­ment of company valua­tions of unlis­ted mid-market compa­nies in the euro­zone. The analy­sis is conduc­ted by Epsi­lon Rese­arch for Argos Wityu and published quar­terly. EV/EBITDA multi­ples repre­sent median values of mid-market M&A tran­sac­tions on a six-month rolling basis. The under­ly­ing sample is based on the follo­wing crite­ria: Acqui­si­tion of majo­rity stakes, target company is head­quar­te­red in the euro­zone, mid-market (equity value between €15 million and €500 million), exclu­sion of certain sectors (finan­cial services, real estate and high-tech), avai­la­bi­lity of rele­vant tran­sac­tion data.

News

Seville (Spain) — Jinko Power, a global rene­wa­ble energy company, Ardian Infra­struc­ture, one of the Euro­pean leaders of the Infra­struc­ture sector and White Summit Capi­tal AG, a Switz­er­land-based firm specia­li­zing in private infra­struc­ture, have reached an agree­ment to jointly cons­truct and operate “La Isla”, a 182.5 MW solar photo­vol­taic (PV) plant near Seville, Spain. The project was previously wholly owned and deve­lo­ped by Jinko Power Inter­na­tio­nal, a sister company of Jinko Solar, the solar panel manu­fac­tu­rer. The plant is curr­ently in deve­lo­p­ment and cons­truc­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted during the second half of 2019.

Once in opera­tion, La Isla will be one of the first grid-pari­ty­/­zero-subs­idy projects in Europe and one of the largest solar PV plants in Spain. It will be able to gene­rate clean energy to cover the annual consump­tion of 100,000 households.
La Isla, repre­sen­ting a total invest­ment of €125 million, will create 350 direct jobs in the region during its cons­truc­tion phase.

Juan Ango­itia Grijalba, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Infra­struc­ture, said: “This invest­ment demons­tra­tes Ardian’s conti­nuing commit­ment to the deve­lo­p­ment of our rene­wa­ble energy port­fo­lio. With this acqui­si­tion, we are cemen­ting our presence in Spain, a coun­try with high poten­tial in the rene­wa­bles space. This builds on our sector exper­tise, with Ardian Infra­struc­ture now mana­ging circa 2GW of rene­wa­ble energy, through tech­no­lo­gies inclu­ding wind, solar, hydro and biomass.”

Amaia del Villar, Prin­ci­pal at White Summit Capi­tal, said: “We are deligh­ted to have successfully comple­ted this land­mark tran­sac­tion for White Summit Capi­tal. Toge­ther with our part­ners, we are proud to be spear­hea­ding the new rene­wa­ble energy paradigm.”

About Jinko Power
Jinko Power is a global rene­wa­ble energy company which deve­lops and opera­tes projects in Asia, Europe, Latam and the Middle East, and will be the indus­trial part­ner for La Isla.

About Ardian
Ardian is a world-leading private invest­ment house with assets of US$90bn mana­ged or advi­sed in Europe, the Ameri­cas and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees. It keeps entre­pre­neur­ship at its heart and focu­ses on deli­ve­ring excel­lent invest­ment perfor­mance to its global inves­tor base.
Through its commit­ment to shared outco­mes for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties fuel indi­vi­dual, corpo­rate and econo­mic growth around the world.
Holding close its core values of excel­lence, loyalty and entre­pre­neur­ship, Ardian main­ta­ins a truly global network, with more than 550 employees working from fifteen offices across Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), the Ameri­cas (New York, San Fran­cisco and Sant­iago) and Asia (Beijing, Singa­pore, Tokyo and Seoul). It mana­ges funds on behalf of around 800 clients through five pillars of invest­ment exper­tise: Fund of Funds, Direct Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Real Estate and Private Debt.

About White Summit Capi­tal AG
White Summit Capi­tal AG is a Switz­er­land based firm specia­li­zed in private infra­struc­ture. White Summit has part­ne­red with Ardian to support the invest­ment needs of La Isla and will act as asset mana­ger for the project.

News

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.

News

Frank­furt a. M. — The Frank­furt office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP has advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN”) on the sale of its share­hol­ding in sonnen Holding GmbH (“sonnen”) toge­ther with further
The inves­tors, inclu­ding GE Ventures, eCapi­tal, MVP, INVEN and SET Ventures have sold their stake in sonnen Holding GmbH (“sonnen”) to Shell Over­seas Invest­ment B.V..

sonnen, head­quar­te­red in Wilpolds­ried, Germany, is a leading global provi­der of intel­li­gent, decen­tra­li­zed elec­tri­city storage systems and a pioneer in tech­no­lo­gies for a clean, decen­tra­li­zed and networked energy system. As one of the fastest growing tech­no­logy compa­nies in Germany and Europe, sonnen has alre­ady been awarded nume­rous inter­na­tio­nal prizes. sonnen is repre­sen­ted with its products in nume­rous count­ries and has its own loca­ti­ons in Germany, Italy, the United King­dom, Austra­lia and the USA. Photo: white “sonnen” char­ger next to elec­tric car being charged.

“sonnen is a leading global provi­der of intel­li­gent, decen­tra­li­zed elec­tri­city storage systems, whose success is based on very custo­mer-orien­ted inno­va­tions. The acqui­si­tion will hence­forth enable us to offer an even wider range of products to our custo­mers who want to choose relia­ble, afforda­ble and clean energy,” said Mark Gains­bo­rough, Shell’s execu­tive vice presi­dent, New Ener­gies. “Toge­ther, in line with Shell’s stra­tegy to provide more and clea­ner energy solu­ti­ons to our custo­mers, we can now move forward to build an energy system that puts the custo­mer first.”

INVEN is a venture capi­tal fund of the ČEZ Group, whose corpo­rate purpose is focu­sed on invest­ments in clean-tech and smart-energy companies.

Advi­sors to INVEN: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Frank­furt office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm WEIL advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN”) on the sale of its stake in sonnen Holding GmbH (“sonnen”). Weil’s Frank­furt office regu­larly advi­ses INVEN on its invest­ments, such as its invest­ment in the start-up Cloud&Heat Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH and the most recent finan­cing round at Sunfire GmbH.
The Weil tran­sac­tion team was again led by Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Kamyar Abrar. He was supported by asso­cia­tes Thomas Weise, Aurel Hille and Stef­fen Giolda (all Corpo­rate, Frankfurt).

eCapi­tal, MVP and SET Ventures were repre­sen­ted in the tran­sac­tion by the Munich office of the law firm GÖRG Rechts­an­wälte, led by corpo­rate part­ners Dr. Bernt Paudtke and Dr. Chris­tian Glauer. Senior Coun­sel Michael Prinz zu Löwen­stein from the Frank­furt office of King & Spal­ding LLP advi­sed GE Ventures.

About SET Ventures
Since 2007, Amster­dam-based SET Ventures has inves­ted in Euro­pean tech­no­logy compa­nies that impact the future of the energy system. SET Ventures focu­ses broadly on inno­va­tive energy gene­ra­tion, energy distri­bu­tion and storage, and energy effi­ci­ency. SET Fund III provi­des early growth-stage capi­tal to ventures that shape the energy system tran­si­tion through smart soft­ware and services-based busi­ness models. For more infor­ma­tion please visit www.setventures.com.

About eCAPI­TAL
eCAPI­TAL AG, based in Müns­ter, is a capi­tal manage­ment company for alter­na­tive invest­ment funds (AIF) accor­ding to the EuVECA regu­la­tion. The company is one of the leading venture capi­tal inves­tors in Germany and has been actively support­ing inno­va­tive entre­pre­neurs in promi­sing indus­tries since 1999. The focus is on fast-growing compa­nies in the software/IT, Indus­try 4.0, clean­tech and new mate­ri­als segments. eCAPI­TAL curr­ently mana­ges six funds with a subscrip­tion capi­tal of over 240 million euros.

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, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley, Warsaw and Washing­ton, D.C.

News

Munich, Germany — EMERAM’s port­fo­lio company frost­krone Tief­kühl­kost GmbH (frost­krone) Rite Stuff Foods, Inc. (Rite Stuff Foods), a U.S. potato snack company. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed frost­krone Frozen Foods on the finan­cing of the add-on acqui­si­tion of Rite Stuff Foods, Inc. advise

EMERAM is an inde­pen­dent Munich-based invest­ment company for German-spea­king medium-sized compa­nies. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide capi­tal for the further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies with a fund volume of EUR 350 million. EMERAM sees itself as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for compa­nies in the five sectors of consu­mer goods, retail, indus­trial goods, services and healthcare.

Rite Stuff Foods was foun­ded in 1989 by Thomas J. Madden and is now one of the most important U.S. manu­fac­tu­r­ers of specialty pota­toes, employ­ing more than 230 people. Rite Stuff Foods is head­quar­te­red in Jerome, Idaho, and serves the grocery, food service and various restau­rant markets.

Advi­sor frost­krone Frozen Food: Shear­man & Sterling
The Shear­man & Ster­ling team, led by part­ner Winfried M. Carli, included Of Coun­sel Steven Sher­man, asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu and Magnus Wies­lan­der, and Legal Assistant Constanze Herrle.
Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed EMERAM, among others, on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of frost­krone Group and on the finan­cing of frostkrone’s add-on acqui­si­tion of French snack and finger food manu­fac­tu­rer Piz’wich.

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.

News

Colo­gne / Munich — Rödl & Part­ner has compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the Colo­gne-based media company SPORTTOTAL AG, which is listed on the regu­la­ted market of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Gene­ral Stan­dard), on the successful place­ment of more than 2.5 million new shares by way of a capi­tal increase. The Rödl & Part­ner team was led by Dr. Oliver Schmitt.

The gross issue proceeds of around EUR 3.08 million are to be used prima­rily to finance corpo­rate invest­ments such as the Virtual Spon­so­ring Exch­ange (VISPEX), an online market­place for sports rights, and to finance the Group’s working capi­tal, inclu­ding in parti­cu­lar the pre-finan­cing of race­track projects.

Around 70 percent of the new shares were subscri­bed by exis­ting share­hol­ders, the remai­ning 30 percent by a stra­te­gic inves­tor. The new shares were placed at a subscrip­tion price of 1.20 euros per new share.

Consul­tant SPORTTOTAL AG Rödl & Part­ner Munich
Dr. Oliver Schmitt, D.E.A. (Rennes I), Attor­ney at Law, Part­ner (Capi­tal Markets Law, Stock Corpo­ra­tion Law) Mario Schulz, MA (Dunelm), Attor­ney at Law, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Capi­tal Markets Law, Stock Corpo­ra­tion Law) Tobias Reiter, Attor­ney at Law, Senior Asso­ciate (Capi­tal Markets Law, Stock Corpo­ra­tion Law) Moritz Sippel, Attor­ney at Law, Asso­ciate (Capi­tal Markets Law, Stock Corpo­ra­tion Law)

News

Düssel­dorf — The French medium-sized company LACROIX has acqui­red SAE IT-systems, a specia­list in control tech­no­logy for moni­to­ring and secu­ring power grids and infra­struc­ture in the field of rene­wa­ble ener­gies. Luther advi­sed LACROIX on the transaction.

LACROIX Group, listed on Euron­ext, is an inter­na­tio­nal supplier of tech­ni­cal equip­ment. The company’s goal is to deve­lop tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons for a connec­ted and sustainable world. LACROIX has loca­ti­ons in France, Germany, Poland, Tuni­sia, Spain, Italy and Singapore.
LACROIX provi­des secure, networked equip­ment for the control of smart road infra­struc­ture as well as for the control of water and energy infra­struc­ture. In addi­tion, LACROIX designs and manu­fac­tures elec­tro­nic equip­ment for custo­mers in the auto­mo­tive, home auto­ma­tion, aero­space, manu­fac­tu­ring and health­care industries.
SAE IT-systems deve­lops and produ­ces tele­con­trol and station control tech­no­logy for the appli­ca­tion areas elec­tri­city, gas, heat, water, indus­try and infrastructure.
Toge­ther with SAE IT-systems, the LACROIX Group aims to meet the chal­lenges of tomorrow’s power grids, namely the inte­gra­tion, moni­to­ring and control of rene­wa­ble energy sources, the deve­lo­p­ment of smart distri­bu­tion grids and consump­tion control. With these new capa­bi­li­ties, LACROIX is ente­ring the energy networks and “smart grids” markets.
Among other things, the law firm Luther contri­bu­ted its energy and infra­struc­ture exper­tise to the transaction.

For LACROIX: Luther
M&A/Corporate: Dr. Michael Kröm­ker, MBA (lead), Kamil Flak, Marc Urlichs (all Düssel­dorf), Michael Strö­bel, LL.M. (Stutt­gart)
Anti­trust and Regu­la­tory Law: Guido Jansen (Part­ner), Anne Caro­line Wegner, LL.M. (Part­ner), Franz-Rudolf Groß, Benja­min Schwen­ker, Julia Lech­ten­böh­mer (all Düsseldorf)
Envi­ron­ment Plan­ning Regu­la­tion: Dr. Stefan Alten­schmidt, LL.M. (Part­ner, Düsseldorf)
Real Estate Law: Dr. Phil­ipp Pröbs­ting (Part­ner, Düsseldorf)
Employ­ment Law: Hans-Chris­tian Acker­mann (Part­ner, Düsseldorf)
Tax Law: Nicole Fröh­lich (Part­ner), Ulrich Siege­mund (Part­ner), Ramona Hubracht, LL.M., Nicole Rauer, LL.M., Jessica Lüdde­cke (all Frank­furt am Main)
IP/IT: Sebas­tian Laou­to­u­mai, LL.M. (Essen)
Lacroix Legal Depart­ment: Franck Legrand (Gene­ral Counsel)

News

The opera­tor of Germany’s largest apart­ment and house portal ImmobilienScout24 is about to be taken over by finan­cial inves­tors. Blackstoneand Hell­man & Fried­man are offe­ring Scout24 owners 46 euros per share, the finan­cial inves­tors announ­ced. Scout24’s manage­ment welco­med the offer, which is around 24.4 percent above the average price of the past three months. As a result, the company could be off the market again after a fairly short history on the stock exch­ange. The purchase price, inclu­ding debt, is expec­ted to be around 5.7 billion euros.

The two finan­cial inves­tors Hell­man & Fried­man and Blackstone compa­nies are now offe­ring 46 euros per Scout24 share in cash, as the MDax-listed company announ­ced in Munich. On the Trade­gate trading plat­form, the shares shot up by almost eleven percent to 46 euros in the morning compared with the Xetra close.

“We believe that this repres­ents an attrac­tive offer with a substan­tial premium, high tran­sac­tion secu­rity and stra­te­gic added value for the company,” said Hans-Holger Albrecht, Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of Scout24.
The purchase price is ther­e­fore around 5.7 billion euros.

The purchase price, inclu­ding debt, amounts to around 5.7 billion euros, the state­ment added. The mini­mum accep­tance thres­hold for the offer is 50 percent plus one share. In addi­tion, the finan­cial inves­tors are hedging against a possi­ble market slump. If the Dax falls too shar­ply — by more than 27.5 percent — the offer will lapse.
Hell­man & Fried­man itself had floa­ted the company on the stock market only three years ago for 30 euros per share. In the mean­time, the shares are almost comple­tely in free float. In July, they had reached their record high of 48.62 euros, but had then fallen back.

News

Bad Homburg/New York - Dr. Bernd Türk (photo), until now Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of Harald Quandt Holding, is appoin­ted to the Manage­ment Board of HQ Capi­tal. Dr. Türk is a proven finan­cial expert with over 25 years of expe­ri­ence in the finance and credit industry.

Türk succeeds Dr. Georg Wunder­lin, who will leave the manage­ment of HQ Capi­tal at his own request on March 31, 2019, to pursue new chal­lenges outside HQ Capi­tal. Since 2012, Wunder­lin was respon­si­ble for HQ Capi­tal, first as COO and since 2016 as CEO.

Gabriele Quandt, share­hol­der of the Harald Quandt Group: “The Harald Quandt family and the Super­vi­sory Board of HQ Capi­tal since­rely thank Dr. Wunder­lin for his great contri­bu­tion to the further deve­lo­p­ment of HQ Capi­tal over the past years and wish him all the best. We look forward to conti­nuing to work with Dr. Türk in his new role at HQ.”

Dr. Georg Wunder­lin: “In 2018, we were once again able to record inflows of inves­tor funds. With an excel­lent team and impres­sive clientele, the company is thus excel­lently posi­tio­ned for the future. I warmly congra­tu­late Dr. Türk on his new role and wish him and the HQ Capi­tal team every success for the future.”

Dr. Bernd Türk: “HQ Capi­tal is opti­mally posi­tio­ned for further growth. I look forward to accom­pany­ing the team and the company in its further development.”

HQ Capi­tal plans to conti­nue its growth course and further expand its leading market posi­tion as a specia­list for private equity and real estate invest­ments. www.hqcapital.com

News

Paris/ Frank­furt — Idin­vest Part­ners, the Euro­pean invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in the SME segment, today announ­ced the closing of its second growth capi­tal fund, Idin­vest Growth Fund II (IGF II), with a volume of €340 million, excee­ding its initial target of €300 million. To this end, Idin­vest Growth Fund II has attrac­ted pres­ti­gious inves­tors, more than 75 percent of whom are based outside France.

Since its launch in 2017, the fund has alre­ady inves­ted 50 percent of its funds in a total of 15 compa­nies, inclu­ding Ogury, Secret Escapes, Klaxoon, Vesti­aire Coll­ec­tive, Sophia Gene­tics and the German company iAdvize.

IGF II invests in compa­nies with high growth poten­tial that have alre­ady deve­lo­ped successful products and services that are both appre­cia­ted and adopted by consu­mers. The vast majo­rity of IGF II target compa­nies achieve annual sales of more than €10 million with annual growth rates of more than 50 percent. Compa­nies from the digi­tal economy repre­sent a signi­fi­cant part of this port­fo­lio. Nevert­hel­ess, the fund reta­ins a certain flexi­bi­lity with regard to its invest­ment sectors, which allows it to invest in health­care or other sectors as well.

Benoist Gross­mann (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner, said: “Idin­vest Part­ners is proud to support Euro­pean SMEs at every stage of their life­cy­cle. Our capa­bi­li­ties span the full range of capi­tal struc­ture from early-stage venture capi­tal to expan­sion stage finan­cing. We are plea­sed with the strong demand the fund has met with insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors world­wide and are confi­dent that Idin­vest Growth Fund II will support successful and ambi­tious SMEs on their path to beco­ming global leaders.”

About Idin­vest Partners
Idin­vest Part­ners is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment firm focu­sed on the mid market. With €8 billion in assets under manage­ment, Idin­vest Part­ners has proven exper­tise in venture capi­tal finan­cing for inno­va­tive start­ups, private debt finan­cing for mid-market compa­nies inclu­ding unitran­che, senior as well as subor­di­na­ted finan­cing, primary and secon­dary invest­ments, and private equity advi­sory services. — Foun­ded in 1997 as part of the Alli­anz Group, the company has been inde­pen­dent since 2010. In Janu­ary 2018, Idin­vest Part­ners became part of the Eura­zeo Group, a leading global invest­ment company whose €17 billion in assets under manage­ment (inclu­ding €11 billion from invest­ment part­ners) is inves­ted in a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio consis­ting of more than 300 corpo­rate investments.

For private debt, Idin­vest Part­ners opened an office in Frank­furt in early 2017. Here, four employees curr­ently support port­fo­lio compa­nies and custo­mers in the German market with debt capi­tal solu­ti­ons such as direct loans, take­over loans and asset finance.

News

Munich, London — Silver­fleet Capi­tal has gained another expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment specia­list in Ricardo Sommer (photo) . With him, the Euro­pean invest­ment company expands its invest­ment team specia­li­zing in smal­ler medium-sized compa­nies, led by Alex Breb­bia and David MacKen­zie. As Prin­ci­pal, Ricardo Sommer will in future be respon­si­ble for the invest­ment acti­vi­ties in the German-spea­king region, focu­sing on compa­nies with a value of between EUR 25 and 75 million. In addi­tion, he will support the acti­vi­ties of the Lower Mid-Market team in other regi­ons from the Munich office.

Ricardo Sommer comes from the invest­ment company Quadriga Capi­tal, where he played a key role as a direc­tor in buyouts of indus­trial compa­nies and busi­ness services provi­ders in the DACH region. Previously, Mr. Sommer worked as an invest­ment mana­ger for Synte­gra Capi­tal and advi­sed clients in the private equity and indus­trial goods sectors at the Boston Consul­ting Group. He studied indus­trial engi­nee­ring with a focus on mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Berlin and holds an MBA from INSEAD.

David MacKen­zie, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal and Co-Head of Lower Mid-Market, said, “We are plea­sed to welcome Ricardo Sommer on board. He brings exten­sive invest­ment expe­ri­ence to our team and will actively support us in further expan­ding our enga­ge­ment in the DACH region.”

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years and curr­ently mana­ges around €1.2 billion with its 30-strong invest­ment team in Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a U.K. manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a U.K. provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, a British opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses; 7days, a West­pha­lian supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth through its “buy to build” invest­ment stra­tegy. As part of this stra­tegy, Silver­fleet is acce­le­ra­ting the growth of its subsi­dia­ries by inves­t­ing in new products, produc­tion capa­city and employees, instal­ling successful retail formats or making follow-up acqui­si­ti­ons. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods. Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the UK and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (1).

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has a solid invest­ment track record. Most recently, Silver­fleet sold Ipes, a leading provi­der of outsour­cing services to Euro­pean private equity firms (invest­ment multi­ple 3.8x); CCC, one of the leading BPO services provi­ders in Europe, as well as Cimbria, a Danish manu­fac­tu­rer of agri­cul­tu­ral equip­ment (2); Kalle, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of arti­fi­cial sausage pellets (invest­ment multi­ple 3.5x); OFFICE, a UK foot­wear retailer (invest­ment multi­ple 3.4x); and Aesica, a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal CDMO company (invest­ment multi­ple 3.3x).

News

Düssel­dorf - Commerz Real and the Swedish Ingka Group, as the largest share­hol­ders in a consor­tium, are each parti­ci­pa­ting in the project company of the Veja Mate offshore wind farm in the North Sea with more than 200 million euros. With a total of 67 wind turbi­nes and a total capa­city of 402 mega­watts, this is the second largest offshore wind farm in Germany and one of the ten largest farms in the world. Other part­ners are funds of the German invest­ment compa­nies KGAL Group and wpd invest. In total, the consor­tium is acqui­ring around 80 percent of the shares in the project company.

Toge­ther with the debt capi­tal, the tran­sac­tion volume amounts to around €2.3 billion. The sellers of the park, which has been in opera­tion since 2017, are the previous project deve­lo­pers and owners High­land Group Holdings, Copen­ha­gen Infra­struc­ture Part­ners and Siemens Finan­cial Services. The latter will conti­nue to hold 20 percent of the shares. Tech­ni­cal support is provi­ded by Siemens Gamesa Rene­wa­ble Energy under a full-service contract.

Veja Mate is loca­ted about 95 km northwest of the island of Borkum in the German econo­mic zone of the North Sea and covers an area of 51 square kilo­me­ters. In this area, the average wind speed is more than 10 meters per second. The 180-meter-high wind turbi­nes have rotors each 154 meters in diame­ter and their foun­da­ti­ons are 7.8 meters in diame­ter. At 84.5 meters in length, they are the largest of their kind manu­fac­tu­red to date. The turbi­nes are desi­gned for an opera­ting life of 25 years, the main­ten­ance contract with Siemens initi­ally runs for 15 years. Accor­ding to the Rene­wa­ble Energy Sources Act (EEG 2014), the feed-in tariff is to be paid for a total of 20 years, until 2037. Accor­ding to the opera­tors, the opera­tion of the wind farm will save around 950,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The consor­tium, consis­ting of the IRI Invest­ments BV, a subsi­diary of the Swedish Ingka Group, ANET GmbH & Co. Geschlos­sene Invest­ment KG, KGAL ESPF 4 Holding SARL, ALH Euro­pean Infra S.C.S. SICAV-RAIF and the Green Return Fund 3 S.C.S. SICAV-FIAR, prevai­led in a bidding process. The invest­ment was acqui­red by way of a share deal from the sellers Siemens Project Venture GmbH, High­land Capi­tal Group and Copen­ha­gen Invest­ment Part­ners. The consor­tium was advi­sed in the bidding process by Watson Farley & Williams LLP.

About IRI Invest­ments BV
IRI Invest­ments BV is an invest­ment company of the Ingka Group that invests, among other things, in rene­wa­ble energy projects.

Advi­sors to IRI Invest­ments BV: Luther Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft
Luther, Corpo­rate / M&A, Düssel­dorf: Marc Urlichs (Coun­sel, Lead)
Luther, Energy Law, Düssel­dorf: Dr. Angelo Vallone (Part­ner)
The Luther team led by Coun­sel Marc Urlichs advi­sed IRI Invest­ments BV both in connec­tion with the ente­ring into and struc­tu­ring of the consor­tium and in connec­tion with the nego­tia­ti­ons with the sellers.

News

Munich, Frank­furt, Zurich ‑Despite strong first half, only 89 LBO finan­cings in 2018 — first decline since 2012. After years of steady growth, the German LBO market has recor­ded a decline for the first time since the end of the finan­cial crisis. The number of comple­ted tran­sac­tions fell to 89 last year compared with 103 in 2017 — a drop of almost 15 percent. Alter­na­tive finan­ciers, on the other hand, contin­ued their success story unde­ter­red in 2018, defy­ing the gene­ral decline in the German LBO market. The market share of debt funds rises to almost 50 percent.

The current MidCap­Mo­ni­tor of the invest­ment bank GCA Altium, which regu­larly pres­ents lever­a­ged buyout finan­cings with a loan volume of between 20 and 500 million euros, shows for the In 2018 as a whole, debt funds accoun­ted for almost half of the German LBO market: At 35 percent, it has again increased signi­fi­cantly compared with 2017 and now amounts to 48 percent. Of the 89 tran­sac­tions in 2018, Debt Funds successfully execu­ted 43 tran­sac­tions. The banks’ market share was still 65 percent in 2017 and has now shrunk to 52 percent with 46 transactions.

The success of alter­na­tive finan­cing parties is based on seve­ral factors. On the one hand, it can be obser­ved that banks are beco­ming more risk-averse in indi­vi­dual tran­sac­tions — espe­ci­ally with cycli­cal compa­nies. More flexi­ble debt funds fill this gap, secu­ring tran­sac­tions that would not have been finan­ced with banks — or only much more conser­va­tively. On the other hand, a signi­fi­cantly increased number of debt funds can now provide volu­mes of EUR 150 million and more per indi­vi­dual tran­sac­tion, making a complex banking club super­fluous. “The time advan­tage of larger, single-source finan­cings now plays a parti­cu­larly frequent role in compe­ti­tive auctions,” comm­ents Johan­nes Schmit­tat, Mana­ging Direc­tor in GCA Altium’s Frank­furt office. It can also be obser­ved that buy-and-build stra­te­gies in parti­cu­lar are being finan­ced via alter­na­tive lenders. “The final matu­rity of the loans, as well as grea­ter flexi­bi­lity in terms, frees up capi­tal for growth through acqui­si­ti­ons,” says Norbert Schmitz, also a mana­ging direc­tor at GCA Altium.

It is also striking that the success of alter­na­tive finan­cing parties is not limi­ted to Germany. Across Europe, 219 LBO tran­sac­tions were finan­ced by debt funds last year. “Compared to 2017, that’s another 22 percent increase,” says Norbert Schmitz. Howe­ver, Q4 saw the first signi­fi­cant quar­ter-on-quar­ter decline of 14 tran­sac­tions (down 23 percent). In addi­tion to Germany with 43 tran­sac­tions, alter­na­tive finan­cing was also used inten­si­vely in the UK (67 tran­sac­tions) and France (48 transactions).

Over­all, GCA Altium does not expect banks to regain lost market share in the near future. On the contrary, a further increase in alter­na­tive finan­cing is expec­ted in 2019.

On the banking side, Commerz­bank contin­ued its successful first half of the year, ranking first for 2018 as a whole with 13 transactions.
Unicre­dit (10) was able to defend its 2nd place, whereas last year’s market leader SEB (9) has to share 3rd place with Bayern LB (9). It is note­wor­thy here that the number of tran­sac­tions finan­ced by banks recor­ded a decrease of 32 percent and, at 46 in 2018, is signi­fi­cantly below the level of 2017 (68).

Even though the London large-cap and high-yield market faced fierce head­winds for low margins and very borrower-friendly terms seve­ral times in 2018, GCA Altium did not see any impact on the German LBO market. “Due to the contin­ued extre­mely compe­ti­tive envi­ron­ment between banks and debt funds, we expect stable condi­ti­ons in the short term,” adds Norbert Schmitz.

About GCA Altium
GCA Altium is the Euro­pean divi­sion of GCA. The global invest­ment bank provi­des stra­te­gic M&A as well as capi­tal markets advi­sory services to growth compa­nies and market leaders. GCA opera­tes globally with over 400 experts in 18 loca­ti­ons in the US, Asia and Europe. Built by the people who run the busi­ness, GCA specia­li­zes in deals that require commit­ment, an unbi­a­sed view, exper­tise and unique networks. www.gcaaltium.com

News

Frank­furt / Munich — The Smal­ler Mid-Cap Fund ( “TSM ”) advi­sed by Triton (“Triton ”) has comple­ted its invest­ment in Deut­sche Radio­lo­gie Holding (“DRH”). TSM is inves­t­ing along­side exis­ting inves­tors, the owners of Tempus Capi­tal and DRH Manage­ment. Terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP advi­sed the Triton Smal­ler Mid-Cap fund on the transaction.

DRH was foun­ded in 2017 and offers flexi­ble and profes­sio­nal succes­sion solu­ti­ons to radio­lo­gists and radia­tion thera­pists. The company is a strong and expe­ri­en­ced part­ner for successful owners. DRH’s expe­ri­en­ced team ensu­res a tech­ni­cally compe­tent and relia­ble hando­ver process, as well as the long-term secu­rity of the owners’ work.

The Triton Smal­ler Mid-Cap Fund invests in mid-cap compa­nies in the indus­trial, services, consu­mer goods and health­care sectors.

About Triton
Since its foun­ding in 1997, Triton has laun­ched nine funds and focu­sed on compa­nies in the indus­trial, services, consu­mer goods and health­care sectors.The Triton funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Europe and support their posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. Triton’s goal is to successfully deve­lop its port­fo­lio compa­nies in the long term by working toge­ther as part­ners. Triton and its manage­ment strive to gene­rate posi­tive change and growth through the sustainable impro­ve­ment of opera­tio­nal proces­ses and struc­tures. At present, Triton’s port­fo­lio includes 37 compa­nies with total sales of around EUR 13 billion and around 84,000 employees.

The Gibson Dunn team, led by Frank­furt-based corpo­rate part­ner Dr. Wilhelm Rein­hardt (photo ) and Munich-based finance part­ner Sebas­tian Schoon, included Dr. Dirk Ober­bracht (part­ner, corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Dr. Jens-Olrik Murach (part­ner, anti­trust, Frank­furt and Brussels), Alex­an­der Klein (of coun­sel, finance, Frank­furt) and Dr. Milena Volk­mann (asso­ciate, corpo­rate, Frankfurt).

About Gibson Dunn
Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,300 lawy­ers in 20 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn offices are loca­ted in Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, San Fran­cisco, São Paulo, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.gibsondunn.com.

News

Hamburg — Five months after the offi­cial launch of the inde­pen­dent online compa­ri­son plat­form for invest­ment products, the company has now secu­red the support of well-known inves­tors and over 3.3 million euros in equity capi­tal for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the online plat­form in a first round of financing.

“We want to give ever­yone inde­pen­dent access to the best and most rele­vant invest­ment products,” says Phil­ipp Schrö­der, CEO of the plat­form. Curr­ently, CAPin­side provi­des its auto­ma­ted real-time compa­ri­sons of over 40,000 invest­ment products as well as their ratings for profes­sio­nal inves­tors free of charge. Thus, the fintech from Hamburg offers the best possi­ble decis­ion support for investors.

“There is hardly an indus­try that has dama­ged itself so much through syste­ma­tic intrans­pa­rency and which, at the same time, is still so little digi­ti­zed as the invest­ment indus­try. And this is despite the fact that invest­ment funds are actually comple­tely unri­va­led as a form of invest­ment due to histo­ri­cally low inte­rest rates,” says Schrö­der, who successfully promo­ted the digi­tiza­tion and demo­no­po­liza­tion of the energy indus­try before foun­ding CAPin­side. “CAPin­side aims to regain trust through trans­pa­rency by deve­lo­ping our compa­ri­son tech­no­logy to help private inves­tors make better and more infor­med finan­cial decis­i­ons in the future,” Schrö­der said.

To ensure this, CAPin­side has now raised fresh capi­tal and will launch a compa­ri­son plat­form in April 2019 that can also be used by non-profes­sio­nal inves­tors. The capi­tal round was led by Thomas Pütter, the well-known venture capi­ta­list and ex-CEO of Alli­anz Capi­tal Part­ners, who also chairs the super­vi­sory board of CAPin­side AG. The inves­tors conti­nue to include Andreas Kupke, co-foun­der of Finanzcheck.de, Chris­toph Oster­mann, foun­der and CEO of the tech­no­logy start-up sonnen, and Alex­an­der Holt­ap­pels, CEO and foun­der of the Hamburg-based soft­ware company SABIO.

Since Septem­ber 2018, over 7,000 profes­sio­nal users have regis­tered with CAPinside.com and over 2 million non-regis­tered users visit the site per month. www.capinside.com

News

Zurich (CH) — The “Swiss Entre­pre­neurs Fund” has been laun­ched by Swis­sEF toge­ther with the insurer Mobi­liar and the major banks UBS and Credit Suisse, the foun­da­tion announ­ced on Thurs­day. The first inves­tor is Mobi­liar, which is contri­bu­ting CHF 100 million.

The Finan­cial Market Autho­rity Finma appro­ved the fund at the end of Janu­ary. — This would allow the fund to be opened up to the target size of CHF 500 million over the next few months. The initia­tors hope that insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as pension funds, family offices and wealthy private indi­vi­du­als will also invest in the fund.
The fund aims to invest directly, but also via third-party funds, in inno­va­tive compa­nies with growth poten­tial. The majo­rity of the invest­ments are to be made in compa­nies that have their head­quar­ters or a “signi­fi­cant share of their value crea­tion” in Switzerland.

Invest­ment focus of the Allied Banks
What is unique is that the two big banks were jointly invol­ved in an invest­ment vehicle, accor­ding to Swis­sEF. UBS contri­bu­tes its exper­tise in venture capi­tal and private equity funds. On the one hand, it invests in estab­lished invest­ment mana­gers, but also selec­tively promo­tes the forma­tion of new private equity funds. Credit Suisse, on the other hand, will be respon­si­ble for direct invest­ments in start­ups and inno­va­tive SMEs.
The target is for 50 to 66 percent of invest­ments to flow into Swiss compa­nies, with invest­ments also to be made prima­rily in compa­nies from neigh­bor­ing count­ries. Direct invest­ments are to amount to at least 20 percent of total invest­ments, and 65 to 80 percent of the funds will be inves­ted in third-party funds. The fund money is to be allo­ca­ted in a balan­ced way at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment, i.e. in venture capi­tal, in invest­ments in fast-growing compa­nies and in small to medium-sized “buyouts”.

Startup loca­tion Switzerland
The Swiss Entre­pre­neurs Foun­da­tion, which is supported by the private and poli­ti­cal sectors, was laun­ched in Decem­ber 2017 under the patro­nage of then-Fede­ral Coun­cilor Johann Schnei­der-Ammann to address the “chal­lenges facing Switz­er­land as a loca­tion for inno­va­tion and start­ups”. The foun­da­tion, based in Bern, has been under the patro­nage of Fede­ral Coun­cil­lor and head of the EAER Guy Parme­lin since the begin­ning of 2019. Johann Schnei­der-Ammann will remain asso­cia­ted with Swis­sEF as Hono­rary President.

The foundation’s goal is for Switz­er­land to expand its “leading posi­tion as a loca­tion for busi­ness and inno­va­tion” and create new jobs. In doing so, it intends to take a two-pron­ged approach. In addi­tion to the Swiss Entre­pre­neur Fund, which is now being presen­ted, it also imple­ments projects aimed at impro­ving the frame­work condi­ti­ons for entre­pre­neur­ship and inno­va­tive technologies.

Last year, he said, the foun­da­tion had alre­ady laun­ched two projects. The “Swis­sEF UpSca­ler” program is inten­ded to provide compa­nies in the growth phase with a “tailor-made support program”. A team from a pool of 50 expe­ri­en­ced “top entre­pre­neurs” and experts assist such compa­nies. In the “Swis­sEF Shaper” program, entre­pre­neurs are to be brought into cont­act with repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from natio­nal poli­tics and sensi­tize them to their concerns. www.swissef.ch

News

Stockholm/Berlin — Wine in Black, one of the leading online stores for high-quality wines in Germany, France, the Nether­lands, Austria and Switz­er­land, beco­mes part of the Swedish Viva Group, one of Scandinavia’s largest wine importers. Viva Group plans to further streng­then its growth trajec­tory with the Berlin-based retailer’s e‑commerce capa­bi­li­ties, while Wine in Black will bene­fit from the Swedish market leader’s global supplier rela­ti­onships. The acqui­si­tion alre­ady took place in Q4 2018 and will be formally closed in the coming weeks.

Emil Sall­näs, Mana­ging Part­ner of Viva Group: “Wine in Black has estab­lished a unique posi­tion in some of the largest and most attrac­tive Euro­pean markets for premium wines. We look forward to working with the Wine in Black team in Berlin and our teams in Scan­di­na­via to further acce­le­rate Wine in Black’s growth.”

Wine in Black was foun­ded in 2011. Foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor Stephan Linden (photo on the right) will leave the company after a tran­si­tio­nal phase in mid-2019 to devote hims­elf to new entre­pre­neu­rial projects. Wine in Black will be led by Chris­tian Fricke (photo left), who alre­ady joined Wine in Black as Mana­ging Direc­tor in Febru­ary 2018, and will conti­nue to act entre­pre­neu­ri­ally auto­no­mous and independent.

Stephan Linden: “As a start-up in a very compe­ti­tive market, we were very fort­u­nate to be able to attract such expe­ri­en­ced and successful venture capi­ta­lists as Project A, e.ventures, btov, Black River Ventures and others. After we were able to deve­lop Wine in Black from zero to an eight-digit annual turno­ver, it is now exactly the right time to start the next growth phase of Wine in Black with a stra­te­gic part­ner. The Swedish Viva Group convin­ced us with its very entre­pre­neu­rial approach, global network and deep market under­stan­ding and will help Chris­tian and the manage­ment team to take Wine in Black to the next level.”

Chris­tian Fricke: “Wine in Black star­ted as a closed shop­ping club for premium wines. In the past two years, the model has under­gone major deve­lo­p­ment. Our custo­mers appre­ciate our cura­ted and ever-chan­ging assort­ment to find exci­ting wines and further expand their know­ledge of wine. As a plat­form, we want to become the first port of call for anyone who wants to disco­ver new, high-quality wines. Viva Group shares our vision for the further deve­lo­p­ment of Wine in Black and will support us as a stra­te­gic part­ner in the further expan­sion in our core markets and beyond with a very long-term perspec­tive. I am very happy
about the new oppor­tu­ni­ties that this strong part­ner will create for the entire team and our market partners.”

Consul­tant Wine in Black GmbH:Vogel Heerma Waitz
Olga Balan­dina-Luke advi­sed Berlin-based online wine retailer Wine in Black GmbH on its acqui­si­tion by Scandinavia’s largest wine importer Viva Group.

About Viva Group
Over the past 20 years, Viva Group (www.vivagroup.se) has become the largest importer of wine and spirits in Scan­di­na­via. Through its subsi­dia­ries Chris Wine & Spirits, Giertz Vinim­port, The Wine Team, Wine­mar­ket and Iconic Wines, the company has a market share of nearly 25% at Systembo­la­get, the Swedish retail mono­poly. Inter­na­tio­nally, Viva Group is present with subsi­dia­ries in Finland, Norway, China and the UK. The Viva Group is also alre­ady repre­sen­ted in Germany by its life­style-orien­ted online store Wine a Porter.

About Wine in Black
Wine in Black is a leading online store for premium wine with a constantly chan­ging assort­ment of 300 wines at an average bottle price of 15 euros. The company is active in Germany, France, the Nether­lands, Austria and Switz­er­land. Wine in Black was foun­ded in 2011 and funded by leading Euro­pean venture capi­tal inves­tors, inclu­ding Project A Ventures, Black River Ventures, e.ventures, Bright Capi­tal, Passion Capi­tal, btov, KFW, Keen Mind Ventures, and kaufDA / Bonial Inter­na­tio­nal Group foun­ders Chris­tian Gaiser and Tim Marbach. For more infor­ma­tion about Wine in Black, visit http://www.wine-in-black.de.

News

London — H.I.G. Capi­tal, a leading global private equity firm with over EUR 26 billion in equity under manage­ment, appoints Markus Noe-Nord­berg (photo) as Mana­ging Direc­tor and head of its new Euro­pean mid-cap busi­ness, which will comple­ment H.I.G.’s exis­ting Euro­pean small-cap activities.

The small-cap team focu­sing on medium-sized compa­nies with an enter­prise value of up to EUR 250 million will conti­nue to invest from the current EUR 825 million fund as before.

Markus Noe-Nord­berg will lead the private equity acti­vi­ties in the mid-cap segment from London and work closely with the estab­lished local invest­ment teams. He has over 30 years of expe­ri­ence in corpo­rate finance and leverage buyout. Prior to joining H.I.G. Capi­tal, he was a part­ner and one of the foun­ders of Pamplona Capi­tal. Previously, he was a Mana­ging Direc­tor and Co-Head in the Finan­cial Spon­sors Group at Gold­man Sachs in London.

Sami Mnaym­neh and Tony Tamer, foun­ders and co-CEOs of H.I.G., commen­ted, “We are very plea­sed to have Markus join H.I.G.. Given his back­ground and expe­ri­ence, he is the ideal fit to lead our new private equity acti­vi­ties in the Euro­pean mid-cap segment.”

Commen­ting on his new role, Noe-Nord­berg said: “I am deligh­ted to build on H.I.G.’s success in Europe in the small-cap and lower mid-cap markets, where the firm has alre­ady secu­red a leading posi­tion in private equity with five offices. We are now broa­de­ning our invest­ment focus to include larger tran­sac­tions valued between EUR 250 million and EUR 750 million — a market segment in which the firm has been a successful player in the U.S. for more than a decade.”

About H.I.G. Capital
H.I.G. is a leading global alter­na­tive asset invest­ment firm with over EUR 26 billion in equity under manage­ment.* The company is head­quar­te­red in Miami and has U.S. offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Ange­les, San Fran­cisco and Atlanta, as well as inter­na­tio­nal branch offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. H.I.G. specia­li­zes in the provi­sion of debt and equity capi­tal to small and medium-sized compa­nies, pursuing a flexi­ble, opera­tio­nally orien­ted and value-enhan­cing approach:

1. H.I.G. invest­ment funds invest in manage­ment buyouts, corpo­rate reor­ga­niza­ti­ons, and spin-offs of both profi­ta­ble and distres­sed manu­fac­tu­ring and service companies.
2. H.I.G.’s debt funds invest in senior, unitran­che and subor­di­na­ted debt finan­cing tran­sac­tions with compa­nies of all sizes, both directly and through secon­dary markets. In addi­tion, H.I.G. is a leading CLO mana­ger through its White­Horse port­fo­lio and mana­ges a publicly traded BDC through White­Horse Finance.
3. H.I.G. real estate funds invest in upgraded proper­ties that can bene­fit from better asset manage­ment methods.

Since its foun­ding in 1993, H.I.G. has inves­ted in and mana­ged over 300 compa­nies world­wide. The company’s port­fo­lio curr­ently includes over 100 compa­nies with combi­ned total reve­nues of over €28 billion. For more infor­ma­tion, visit H.I.G.’s website at www.higcapital.com.

* Based on total capi­tal commit­ments mana­ged by H.I.G. Capi­tal and part­ner firms.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Last year, company foun­ders and fami­lies among the sellers of compa­nies to finan­cial inves­tors reached a new record high of around 40 percent, the highest share ever recor­ded. 19 of 47 manage­ment buyouts (MBOs) in the mid-market segment of the German buyout market were succes­sion solu­ti­ons in 2018. This is a further increase on the previous two years, which alre­ady saw above-average levels of family buyouts. In previous years, barely more than one in ten tran­sac­tions had a family background.

“Foun­ders and family entre­pre­neurs are incre­asingly reco­gni­zing the contri­bu­tion that finan­cial inves­tors can make to the further deve­lo­p­ment of their compa­nies,” said Tors­ten Grede, Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of DBAG. He conti­nues, “We are now seeing more and more entre­pre­neurs seeking new share­hol­ders with new busi­ness models in promi­sing indus­tries — so the market is broa­de­ning for us.”

There was also a signi­fi­cant increase in buyout acti­vity over­all. With 47 tran­sac­tions, finan­cial inves­tors struc­tu­red 12 more MBOs in the German SME sector last year than in 2017. This is also a new record for this market segment since Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) began evalua­ting it in 2002. In almost every second tran­sac­tion (21 out of 47), finan­cial inves­tors were active on both sides, i.e. as sellers and buyers. Spin-offs from groups or conglo­me­ra­tes were again the excep­tion in 2018, with seven cases.

The analy­sis only takes into account tran­sac­tions in which finan­cial inves­tors have acqui­red a majo­rity stake in a company with manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion and which have a tran­sac­tion value for the debt-free company of between 50 and 250 million euros. This is based on publicly available sources as well as esti­ma­tes and rese­arch by DBAG in coope­ra­tion with FINANCE.

Last year, private equity compa­nies finan­ced buyouts in the German SME sector worth a good 4.8 billion euros. This is the highest value since 2002, when the evalua­tion began; in 2017, the market volume had amoun­ted to 4.4 billion euros. The average enter­prise value decreased from 126 million euros to 103 million euros. Unlike in 2017, the vast majo­rity of tran­sac­tions (30 out of 47) were now in the lower part of the segment (enter­prise value: €50 million to €100 million). This corre­sponds to the high propor­tion of company foun­ders among the sellers: Of the 19 MBOs in which finan­cial inves­tors repla­ced fami­lies as share­hol­ders, 13 were dispo­sals by the company foun­der. As in the previous year, around half of the tran­sac­tions (24 out of 47) were struc­tu­red by multi­na­tio­nal, pan-Euro­pean private equity funds.

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG is repre­sen­ted in the list of buyouts with three MBOs in 2018. It is thus once again one of the most active finan­cial inves­tors for private equity in the market segment under conside­ra­tion. In the past 15 years, DBAG accoun­ted for 27 tran­sac­tions, more than any other finan­cial investor.

Family offices are incre­asingly percei­ved as real competition
Despite the larger market volume, compe­ti­tion in the German SME buyout market is intense. This is because the supply of capi­tal is also growing. In addi­tion to the well-known private equity compa­nies focu­sing on invest­ments in German SMEs, there are other compa­nies that are laun­ching funds for invest­ments in this segment on the market for the first time. Added to this is the capi­tal of multi­na­tio­nal private equity funds, which are also targe­ting the German market. Available capi­tal will conti­nue to exceed invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in 2019.

In addi­tion to the abun­dant supply of capi­tal, private equity firms face growing compe­ti­tion from family offices. Just how strong is shown by the current survey of invest­ment mana­gers from more than 50 private equity houses opera­ting in Germany, who are polled every six months on behalf of DBAG by the trade maga­zine FINANCE about trends in the German midmar­ket segment. 72 percent of them — leaving stra­te­gic buyers aside for the moment — recently saw family offices as the biggest compe­ti­tion outside the private equity camp. A year ago, only 59 percent did so. More than 80 percent of respond­ents agreed with the thesis that family offices have made life diffi­cult for private equity inves­tors in the battle for medium-sized take­over targets in the past 12 to 24 months. These figu­res suggest that at least those family offices that have estab­lished private equity-stan­dard struc­tures have caught up with the estab­lished PE houses. Thus, family offices are not only percei­ved as compe­ti­tors in bila­te­ral discus­sions with sellers of medium-sized compa­nies, but almost as much in auctions.

Accor­ding to the survey, compe­ti­tion among the port­fo­lio compa­nies is rated at 8.4 on a scale of 1 (very low) to 10 (very high) — this assess­ment has hardly chan­ged in the past three years.

DBAG trig­gers equity invest­ments of over 270 million euros in 2018
In 2018, Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG struc­tu­red eight manage­ment buyouts for the funds it advi­ses: Three of these, namely the MBOs of the mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring compa­nies Karl Eugen Fischer GmbH and Kraft & Bauer GmbH as well as the auto­mo­tive supplier Sero Schrö­der Elek­tro­nik Rohr­bach GmbH, were included in the statis­tics mentio­ned at the begin­ning. the five other MBOs are attri­bu­ta­ble to other market segments. DBAG trig­ge­red equity invest­ments of around 270 million euros for this purpose. It has two funds at its dispo­sal for invest­ments in the midmar­ket: DBAG Fund VII — the largest German private equity fund for invest­ments in the midmar­ket, with commit­ments of one billion euros — can deploy up to 200 million euros of equity per tran­sac­tion; more than 50 percent of the fund’s resour­ces are commit­ted a good two years after the start of the invest­ment. The DBAG ECF invests majo­rity or mino­rity inte­rests in compa­nies with a smal­ler enter­prise value; it focu­ses prima­rily on owner-mana­ged medium-sized compa­nies and offers a high degree of flexi­bi­lity with regard to the invest­ment ratio or holding period, which is parti­cu­larly important for entre­pre­neurs, via a broad range of finan­cing forms.

Value enhance­ment of sophisticated
Despite the recent dyna­mic deve­lo­p­ment of the buyout market, DBAG does not expect a further increase in the number of mid-market MBOs in 2019. “Macroe­co­no­mic uphe­avals, such as those caused by Brexit and trade conflicts, increase uncer­tainty — this can affect pricing in the M&A busi­ness and market dyna­mics,” said board spokes­man Grede. “For the exis­ting port­fo­lio, the chall­enge of selec­ting and imple­men­ting value-enhan­cing stra­te­gies — such as expan­ding the product range or ente­ring new geogra­phic markets — remains significant.”

Further infor­ma­tion and the full results of the market survey and market statis­tics, inclu­ding the complete list of MBOs in the German Mittel­stand, are available on DBAG’s website (www.dbag.de).

About Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG
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.

News

Munich — ARQIS advi­sed Seki­sui Plas­tics Europe GmbH, Munich, on the acqui­si­tion of a 75 percent stake in Proseat GmbH & Co KG, Mörfel­den-Wall­dorf, and seven other Proseat compa­nies from Recti­cel NV/SA, Belgium.

Proseat was foun­ded in 1999 as a joint venture between Recti­cel and its Cana­dian part­ner Wood­bridge Foam Corpo­ra­tion. The company supplies direct suppli­ers (Tier 1) and origi­nal equip­ment manu­fac­tu­r­ers (OEM) in the auto­mo­tive indus­try with molded seat cushions and head and armrests made of poly­ure­thane. The Proseat Group consists of eight compa­nies in six Euro­pean count­ries (Germany, France, Great Britain, Poland, Spain and the Czech Repu­blic). It occu­p­ies a leading posi­tion as Europe’s largest inde­pen­dent manu­fac­tu­rer of parts (seat uphols­tery mate­rial, trim parts such as head­rests and armrests, and foamed molded parts) for Euro­pean auto­mo­tive compa­nies. The auto­mo­tive indus­try is curr­ently under­go­ing signi­fi­cant change, charac­te­ri­zed by self-driving cars and elec­tric vehic­les. In auto­mo­tive parts, there is a growing need for mate­ri­als that help reduce envi­ron­men­tal impact, such as weight reduc­tion and ther­mal insulation.

ARQIS’ advi­sory services included assis­tance with legal due dili­gence in a total of seven juris­dic­tions, struc­tu­ring, and contract draf­ting and nego­tia­tion. ARQIS led an inter­na­tio­nal and multi­di­sci­pli­nary legal team consis­ting of Cuat­re­ca­sas (Spain), Dentons (Czech Repu­blic, Poland), Gide (France), Nauta­Du­tilh (Belgium) and RPC (UK), as well as Held Jagut­tis (Public Commer­cial Law/Regulatory) and RCAA (Anti­trust).

Advi­sors to Seki­sui Plas­tics: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (photo), Dr. Shigeo Yama­guchi (both lead); Eber­hard Hafer­malz, Dr. Meiko Dill­mann, Dr. Lars Laeger (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial; Munich), Dr. Mirjam Boche (W&I Insu­rance). Coun­sel: Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP & Commer­cial; Munich). Asso­cia­tes: Mauritz von Einem (Lead Asso­ciate; Corporate/M&A/Tax), Dr. Florian Kotman, Elisa­beth Falte­rer (Munich) (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Hendrik von Mellen­thin, Dr. Markus Schwip­per (Munich) (both Labor Law), Jenni­fer Danisch (Real Estate).

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 at its current offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 45 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on the core issues of German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. The focus is on M&A, corpo­rate law, private equity, venture capi­tal, employ­ment law, private clients, intellec­tual property, liti­ga­tion as well as real estate law and tax law.

News

Munich — Munich-based invest­ment holding PRIMEPULSE SE has acqui­red all shares in ETL Elek­tro­tech­nik Lauter GmbH (“ETL”), one of Germany’s most advan­ced EMS (elec­tro­nic manu­fac­tu­ring services) provi­ders. The company, based in Mauer­stet­ten (Allgäu), streng­thens the acti­vi­ties of the PRIMEPULSE Group in the EMS sector, which alre­ady includes in parti­cu­lar the Katek Group of Compa­nies, Gras­sau, and Steca Elek­tro­nik, Memmin­gen. Both within the divi­sion and across the entire network, the inte­gra­tion of ETL and access to the know-how and resour­ces of the powerful PRIMEPULSE network will result in nume­rous synergies.

ETL employs 180 people and has a turno­ver of around 40 million euros. The service and solu­tion exper­tise covers the entire life cycle of elec­tro­nic assem­blies and devices, from deve­lo­p­ment support to mate­ri­als and project manage­ment, produc­tion and logi­stics, and after-sales service. ETL’s custo­mers are active in the medi­cal tech­no­logy, indus­try, avia­tion, sensor tech­no­logy, safety tech­no­logy and rail­road tech­no­logy sectors, among others.

Klaus Wein­mann, CEO of PRIMEPULSE SE: “We see that busi­ness in the EMS sector is influen­ced by trends such as IoT and embedded compu­ting as well as the rapid deve­lo­p­ment of new tech­no­lo­gies. Against the back­ground of nume­rous, new appli­ca­ti­ons and services due to digi­ta­liza­tion, the EMS market promi­ses very high growth poten­tial. ETL is tech­ni­cally at a very high level, espe­ci­ally in the IoT area. Moreo­ver, with ETL we gain an estab­lished company with a first-class repu­ta­tion in the elec­tro­nics envi­ron­ment in addi­tion to an expe­ri­en­ced and moti­va­ted manage­ment team.”

For the tech­no­logy-orien­ted PRIMEPULSE group of compa­nies, the acqui­si­tion of ETL is a further consis­tent step in its ambi­tious growth stra­tegy on the way to beco­ming one of the top 3 German EMS service provi­ders. The strong compe­ten­cies of the port­fo­lio compa­nies in the two PRIMEPULSE busi­ness areas of Tech­no­logy and Indus­try, along with targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons, are the drivers of the Group’s dyna­mic growth. Thus, PRIMEPULSE is aiming to exceed one billion in sales for the Group this fiscal year with over 4,300 employees in the conso­li­da­ted companies.

About Prime­im­pulse SE
Prim­e­pulse SE is an invest­ment holding company based in Munich, Germany, which specia­li­zes in invest­ments in tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies in promi­sing markets. The Prim­e­pulse Tech­no­logy port­fo­lio includes the topics Indus­try 4.0, Auto­ma­tion and Inter­net of Things. As a stra­te­gic part­ner, Prim­e­pulse actively supports its group compa­nies in their growth.

Advi­sor to Prim­e­pulse SE: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Boris Dürr, Daniela Szczesny (both M&A/Corporate, both lead)
Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (M&A/Corporate)
Astrid Well­hö­ner, LL.M. Eur. (labor law)
Peter M. Schäff­ler (Taxes)
Dr. Rein­hard Siegert (Anti­trust Law)
Dr. Ruth Schnei­der (Anti­trust Law), all Munich

Boris Dürr’s team regu­larly advi­ses Prim­e­pulse on acqui­si­ti­ons, inclu­ding the take­over of elec­tro­nics manu­fac­tu­rer Katek from the Kath­rein Group in 2018.

News

Frank­furt a. M. — Halder has sold its stake in the Wback Group (Bönen), the leading whole­sale bakery in Germany specia­li­zing in soft rolls, to the Texas-based whole­sale baker and food group C.H. Guen­ther & Son, LLC (San Antonio/Texas).

An esti­ma­ted two million people bite into a WBack soft roll every day — but hardly anyone knows the manu­fac­tu­rer. The company is one of those unknown indus­try giants that operate as a supplier in the back­ground. For exam­ple, WBack is not only the soft roll supplier for the fast food chain Burger King in Germany, but also supplies other system restau­rants and hot dog provi­ders with its burger buns.

Wback was foun­ded in 2003, and in 2013 Halder took over the majo­rity share­hol­ding from foun­der Peter Wendeln as part of a succes­sion solu­tion. The company produ­ces soft rolls in Bönen (North Rhine-West­pha­lia) and Leip­heim (Bava­ria) using state-of-the-art, highly auto­ma­ted equip­ment for renow­ned major custo­mers from the system cate­ring, food retail and food service sectors.

Through a strong expan­sion of produc­tion capa­city, invest­ments in pack­a­ging machi­nes and an inter­me­diate warehouse, Wback has reali­zed high growth with exis­ting and new custo­mers, and sales have doubled since Halder joined the company. With the acqui­si­tion of Wback, C.H. Guen­ther further expands its product range and opens up addi­tio­nal Euro­pean markets.

About Halder
Halder has been active as an equity inves­tor in Germany since 1991 and has provi­ded equity capi­tal for succes­sion and growth to 38 medium-sized compa­nies. Toge­ther with the exits at Klin­gel medi­cal metal, Aqua Vital, KEYMILE and BMB Manif­at­tura Borse, the sale of Wback is the fifth invest­ment sale from the port­fo­lio of the Halder Germany II fund in the past six months. Over­all, Halder has on average signi­fi­cantly more than doubled the value of the invest­ments when they were sold. With the exit at Wback, the return of capi­tal to Halder inves­tors has excee­ded the one billion euro mark.

News

Frank­furt a. Main/ Bonn - Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Ardian Private Debt as lender on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of SER Group by Carlyle Europe Tech­no­logy Part­ners. The sellers retain a substan­tial mino­rity interest.

SER Group, head­quar­te­red in Bonn, Germany, has evol­ved from a pioneer in elec­tro­nic archi­ving to Europe’s number one provi­der of pionee­ring enter­prise content manage­ment (ECM) solu­ti­ons. Foun­ded in 1984, the company is charac­te­ri­zed by its inno­va­tive strength, custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons and excel­lent custo­mer service.

Ardian, a world-leading private invest­ment house, as a sole lender, has provi­ded a senior finan­cing package to Carlyle Europe Tech­no­logy Part­ners in support of the acqui­si­tion of SER Group in Germany. The finan­cing under­lines the ongo­ing expan­sion of Ardian Private Debt’s direct lending capa­bi­li­ties throug­hout Europe.

Mark Brenke, Mana­ging Direc­tor & Co-Head Ardian Private Debt, said: “As a finan­cing part­ner, we are deligh­ted to be support­ing the SER manage­ment team toge­ther with Carlyle who have a strong track record of inves­t­ing in B2B tech­no­logy busi­nesses. SER is the leading inde­pen­dent ECM soft­ware provi­der in the German m

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team led by Winfried M. Carli included Sven Opper­mann and Marina Kieweg (all Germany-Finance).

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.

News

Duderstadt/ Berlin — Matrazzo GmbH, based in Lower Saxony, Germany, has acqui­red muun, a Berlin-based startup specia­li­zing in custo­mizable mattres­ses that went bank­rupt in 2018. Luther provi­ded legal support for the transaction.

For mattress online retailer muun, it’s all over: last year, the startup foun­ded in 2014 had to file for insol­vency. Mattress manu­fac­tu­rer Matrazzo around CEO Sven Rudolf-Töpfer has now bought the startup with the help of a team from Luther Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft. In paral­lel, the tran­sac­tion specia­lists nego­tia­ted license agree­ments with the agen­cies respon­si­ble for muun’s corpo­rate design and product range.

The busi­ness opera­ti­ons of muun will conti­nue as an inde­pen­dent brand. Both the product port­fo­lio and the brand presence can thus conti­nue to exist.

Consul­tant Matrazzo: Luther
Corpo­rate / M&A: Dr. Phil­ipp Honisch (lead), Dr. Stefan Galla, Dr. Cédric Müller (all Essen), Denis Ullrich (Leip­zig); Luther, IT / IP: Sebas­tian Laou­to­u­mai, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Dorn­dorf (both Essen)

News

Aachen — Seed Fonds II Aachen makes a further finan­cing invest­ment in Hemo­vent GmbH. Toge­ther with the exis­ting inves­tors MIG-Invest­ment­fonds, NRW.BANK, KfW Banken­gruppe, First Capi­tal Part­ner and the private inves­tor Prof. Dr. Peter Borges, Aache­ner Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft is thus provi­ding the neces­sary funds in the mid seven-digit range. With the fresh capi­tal, the startup wants to realize, among other things, the market launch within the scope of a so-called “post-market study”. With this study, the Hemo­vent system “MOBYBOX” will be used on humans for the first time. In paral­lel, the foun­ders are also seeking US FDA approval.

Tech­no­lo­gi­cal advancements
Hemo­vent GmbH has deve­lo­ped one of the world’s smal­lest porta­ble ECMO systems (Extra Corpo­ral Membrane Oxygena­tion, photo), which supports or even comple­tely takes over the natu­ral cardio­pul­mo­nary func­tion in case of cardio­pul­mo­nary insuf­fi­ci­ency or fail­ure. Since the closing of the previous finan­cing round in June 2017, the Aachen-based startup has successfully comple­ted product deve­lo­p­ment and the veri­fi­ca­tion and vali­da­tion phase. Extre­mely posi­tive results have been achie­ved in the in vivo trials and the company expects CE certi­fi­ca­tion later this year.

“Hemo­vent has been deve­lo­ping very posi­tively since Seed Fonds II’s initial commit­ment,” says Markus Krücke­meier, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Seed Fonds Aachen II’s manage­ment company. “So far, the medtech company has been able to reach all mile­sto­nes and even create addi­tio­nal value in some areas. We are very satis­fied — both with the tech­no­lo­gi­cal and the econo­mic progress.”

“We have set our content mile­sto­nes until mid-2020 and are working with a well-coor­di­na­ted manage­ment team to be able to meet all targets on sche­dule,” says Chris­tof Lenz, CEO and co-foun­der of Hemo­vent GmbH. “In order to firmly estab­lish oursel­ves in the market, we have alre­ady been making cont­acts for years with clini­cal experts and users, insti­tu­tio­na­li­zed indus­try experts, and decis­ion-makers from MedTech groups, and we are repre­sen­ted at trade congresses.”

About Seed Fonds II Aachen
Seed Fonds II Aachen was estab­lished in March 2012 as the succes­sor to the fully finan­ced first Seed Fonds Aachen (invest­ment period: 2007–2011) as a follow-up fund from NRW.BANK’s Seed Fonds Initia­tive. In addi­tion to NRW.BANK, Seed Fonds II Aachen is finan­ced by Spar­kasse Aachen and DSA Invest GmbH, which is backed by Aachen-based DSA Daten- und System­tech­nik GmbH. The Seed Fund provi­des young compa­nies in the start-up phase with the neces­sary equity capi­tal and thus stimu­la­tes the deve­lo­p­ment of future-orien­ted tech­no­lo­gies in the Aachen econo­mic region. In 2018, the seed fund was laun­ched for the third time and for the first time also includes the Mönchen­glad­bach region, as the circle of inves­tors has expan­ded to include Spar­kasse Mönchengladbach.

Behind the opera­tio­nal manage­ment of the fund (FM Fonds-Manage­ment für die Region Aachen Betei­li­gungs-GmbH) are the invest­ment experts of the S‑UBG Group. The invest­ment company of the savings banks in the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach area looks back on more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence in finan­cing medium-sized compa­nies and tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups. www.seedfonds-aachen.de; www.s‑ubg.de.

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