ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt, Munich, London — Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed the finan­cial inves­tor Noval­pina Capi­tal in connec­tion with a public take­over offer for Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group AS, listed on the Tallinn Stock Exch­ange. The tran­sac­tion is the largest of its kind so far in the Baltic States.

The public tender offer is being made by Odys­sey Europe AS, a company owned by funds mana­ged by Noval­pina Capi­tal, for all shares in Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group for a price of EUR 1.90 per share. Accor­ding to this, the delis­ting of the Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group from the Tallinn Stock Exch­ange and the merger of Odys­sey Europe AS with the Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group are being sought.

Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group is a leading opera­tor of casi­nos and provi­der of sports betting in six markets in the Euro­zone (Esto­nia, Latvia, Lithua­nia, Italy, Slova­kia and Malta).

Advi­sors to Noval­pina Capi­tal: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Weil tran­sac­tion team is led by part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and is supported by the part­ners Stephan Grauke (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger (Corpo­rate, Munich) as well as Coun­sel Dr. Heiner Drüke (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and the asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer (Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Ansgar Wimber (Corpo­rate, Munich), Benja­min Rapp (Tax, Munich), Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler (Corpo­rate, Munich), Daniel Zhu (Corpo­rate, Munich) and Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) as well as para­le­gals Madleen Düdder, Patrik Marten and Sonja Popp (all Munich).
The Weil team working on the acqui­si­tion finan­cing is led by Frank­furt Finance Part­ner Dr. Wolf­ram Distler and London Finance Part­ner Patrick Bright and was supported by asso­cia­tes Dr. Dorian Legel and Julia Schum (both Frank­furt) as well as Nick Kren­del and Antony Serban (both London).

About Noval­pina Capital
Noval­pina Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent Euro­pean private equity firm that focu­ses on making control equity invest­ments in middle market compa­nies throug­hout the conti­nent. Noval­pina has a solu­tion-orien­ted, entre­pre­neu­rial approach to inves­t­ing and crea­ting value in its port­fo­lio compa­nies. Noval­pina Capi­tal was estab­lished by Stephen Peel, Stefan Kowski and Bastian Lueken in 2017. The Foun­ding Part­ners bring combi­ned expe­ri­ence of 48 years in private equity inves­t­ing, inclu­ding senior posi­ti­ons in the Euro­pean opera­ti­ons of leading global private equity invest­ment firms, and have a shared history of working toge­ther for nearly a decade.

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

News

Hano­ver — NRW.BANK is the first deve­lo­p­ment bank to coope­rate with the FinCompare finance portal with imme­diate effect: Selec­ted NRW.BANK deve­lo­p­ment program­mes are now inte­gra­ted into the fintech’s portal and comple­ment the range of products offe­red by around 200 prin­ci­pal banks, savings banks and other finan­cing partners.

“Digi­tal sales chan­nels are also beco­ming incre­asingly important in the initia­tion of loan tran­sac­tions in the commer­cial sector,” explains Michael Stöl­ting, member of NRW.BANK’s Mana­ging Board. “By coope­ra­ting with FinCompare, we offer compa­nies in NRW another digi­tal way to find the right funding product for their entre­pre­neu­rial idea.”

“Deve­lo­p­ment banks play an important role in corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment and NRW.BANK is an elemen­tary factor in SME finan­cing. Toge­ther, we are now simpli­fy­ing access to capi­tal: compa­nies from NRW looking for invest­ment loans on FinCompare, for exam­ple, are filte­red out and, on request, their eligi­bi­lity for funding is checked auto­ma­ti­cally and in real time by NRW.BANK — this is the modern form of corpo­rate finan­cing,” says Stephan Heller, foun­der and CEO of FinCompare. 

On the FinCompare platform (

www.fincompare.de

), small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses can compare offers from more than 200 finan­cing part­ners (banks, leasing compa­nies and FinTechs) for commer­cial finan­cing and busi­ness invest­ments and request a deal from their prefer­red banks. To date, FinCompare serves more than 1,500 active custo­mers with a proces­sed finan­cing volume of more than 800 million euros. FinCompare is head­quar­te­red in Berlin and since March 2018, the compa­ri­son portal has main­tai­ned an office in Düssel­dorf, where a team of around 20 employees is being built up. With NRW.BANK, a deve­lo­p­ment bank is now also connec­ted via a tech­ni­cal inter­face for the first time. This enables compa­nies from North Rhine-West­pha­lia to opti­mize the finan­cing of their project with a bank or savings bank in line with their needs. The coope­ra­tion is part of NRW.BANK’s digi­tiza­tion strategy.

About NRW.BANK
NRW.BANK is the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­pha­lia. It supports its owner — the state of NRW — in its struc­tu­ral and econo­mic policy tasks. To this end, it bund­les deve­lo­p­ment programs from the state, the fede­ral govern­ment and the Euro­pean Union and combi­nes them with its own debt and equity products and consul­ting services. It works with all banks and savings banks in NRW in a compe­ti­tion-neutral manner and in the house bank procedure.

About FinCompare
FinCompare, with loca­ti­ons in Berlin and Düssel­dorf, is a leading digi­tal plat­form for corpo­rate finan­cing and is aimed at small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs) with finan­cing needs. At www.fincompare.de compa­nies reach over 200 banks, leasing compa­nies, facto­ring compa­nies and inno­va­tive finan­cing part­ners. The plat­form offers all common finan­cing solu­ti­ons as well as access to funding programs under one roof. Compa­nies receive targe­ted and inde­pen­dent advice.

News

Oslo / Stock­holm / Copen­ha­gen / Munich — Scan­di­na­vian private equity house FSN Capi­tal Part­ners has opened an office in Munich. With Robin Mürer (photo on the right) and Justin Kent (photo on the left), two expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment specia­lists could be won as new part­ners for the acti­vi­ties in the DACH region.

FSN Capi­tal Part­ners (“FSN Capi­tal”) was foun­ded in 1999 and is one of the leading Scan­di­na­vian equity inves­tors focu­sing on medium-sized compa­nies. The FSN Capi­tal funds advi­sed by FSN manage more than two billion euros. With a 43-strong team and offices in Oslo, Stock­holm, Copen­ha­gen and now Munich, FSN Capi­tal prefers to invest in growth-orien­ted, mid-sized compa­nies in the indus­trial, digi­tal, services and consu­mer goods sectors. FSN Capi­tal supports manage­ment teams pursuing an orga­nic and acqui­si­tion-driven growth strategy.

Long-term commit­ment in the DACH region
The new office with two German part­ners in Munich under­lines FSN Capital’s ambi­tion to estab­lish a perma­nent presence in the German-spea­king region. With Robin Mürer and Justin Kent, FSN Capi­tal now counts ten part­ners. They bring exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence and toge­ther have more than twenty years of invest­ment prac­tice in the DACH region: Over the past ten years at Apax Part­ners, based in Munich and London, Mürer mainly mana­ged invest­ments in the digi­tal, consu­mer goods and health­care sectors. Kent has spent the last twelve years of his career working prima­rily on invest­ments in small and mid-cap compa­nies throug­hout Europe — first at The River­side Company and most recently at Capvis Equity Part­ners, where he focu­sed on the German-spea­king region.

“Opening an office in Germany is an important mile­stone for FSN Capi­tal and at the same time a logi­cal step in the deve­lo­p­ment of our company. The indus­trial link between the Nordic count­ries and Germany is tradi­tio­nally strong; in the DACH region there are many very successful SMEs facing chal­lenges such as succes­sion, globa­liza­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion,” explains Frode Strand-Niel­sen, Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of FSN Capi­tal. “The start of Robin Mürer and Justin Kent is a key pillar of our contin­ued deve­lo­p­ment and we are plea­sed to welcome both to our team for the tasks ahead.”

Patrice Jabet, Part­ner in Munich, adds: “Robin Mürer and Justin Kent have exten­sive expe­ri­ence and a broad network in the DACH region. Equally important, they share FSN Capital’s values and company ethos.” With the new hires, the Munich team grows to five people; in the medium term, it is expec­ted to grow to ten invest­ment experts.

Special value orien­ta­tion, excel­lent track record
FSN Capi­tal sees itself as a respon­si­ble, value-driven inves­tor and follows the prin­ci­ple “we are decent people making a decent return in a decent way”. Toge­ther with foun­ders, owner fami­lies and manage­ment teams, FSN Capi­tal works to further deve­lop the busi­ness of its port­fo­lio compa­nies — in a respon­si­ble and sustainable way and through an active invest­ment approach. In this way, FSN funds have been able to achieve average returns with a multi­ple (ROI) of 3.0x and an inter­nal rate of return (IRR) of 27%; making FSN Capi­tal one of the best performing advi­sed invest­ment funds across Europe. FSN Capital’s and the FSN Funds’ commit­ment to strict envi­ron­men­tal, social and gover­nance (ESG) prin­ci­ples was recently reco­gni­zed with the 2017 Private Equity Corpo­rate Citi­zen­ship Award.

About FSN Capital
FSN Capi­tal Part­ners is an invest­ment firm exclu­si­vely advi­sing the FSN Capi­tal Funds with capi­tal commit­ments of €2.2 billion. To support their further deve­lo­p­ment, these funds invest mainly in growth-orien­ted, Nort­hern Euro­pean compa­nies with a valua­tion of between €50 million and €300 million. FSN Capi­tal was foun­ded in 1999; the 43-member team works from Oslo, Copen­ha­gen, Stock­holm and Munich, and eleven execu­tive advi­sors contri­bute exten­sive indus­trial expe­ri­ence. The FSN funds curr­ently invest from the fund “FSN Capi­tal V” with a volume of one billion euros.

Since incep­tion, FSN funds have inves­ted more than one billion euros in 32 plat­form compa­nies and more than 70 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. As a result, returns were achie­ved with a multi­ple (ROI) of 3.0x and an inter­nal rate of return (IRR) of 27%; making FSN Capi­tal one of the best performing advi­sed invest­ment funds across Europe. The recent share sales of Instalco (Sweden) and Lagka­ge­hu­set (Denmark) exem­plify excel­lent returns through crea­tive, entre­pre­neu­rial growth stra­te­gies; the invest­ments in Netcom­pany (Denmark) and Bygg­hemma (Sweden) demons­trate the successful part­ner­ship with strong manage­ment teams in acce­le­ra­ting growth in dyna­mic markets. The purchase of Austrian Fasching Safety Belts GmbH by FSN Capi­tal V port­fo­lio company Holm­bergs Safety System is the latest transaction.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.fsncapital.com.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Munich — Allen & Overy LLP has advi­sed private equity inves­tor Bencis Capi­tal Part­ners (“Bencis”) on the acqui­si­tion of HALEX Holding GmbH (“Halex”) from H2 Equity Part­ners.

Halex, based in Alden­ho­ven, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, is one of Europe’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of extru­sion dies and service provi­ders for heat treat­ment with its two busi­ness units Halex Extru­sion Dies and Härtha Hardening Indus­tries. The company opera­tes twelve sites in Germany, Italy, the Nether­lands and Roma­nia and employs around 460 people.

Bencis is a private equity firm that invests in successful mid-sized compa­nies prima­rily in the Bene­lux and Germany.

The Allen & Overy team advi­sed on all M&A legal issues in this tran­sac­tion as well as on the complex finan­cing struc­ture of the tran­sac­tion, consis­ting of a unitran­che finan­cing in the form of notes provi­ded by Muzi­nich & Co., Idin­vest Part­ners and CVC Credit Part­ners and a revol­ving credit faci­lity gran­ted by ABN AMRO.

The team was led by Munich part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Veith with support from senior asso­ciate Dr. Daniel Epe and asso­ciate Tobias Hugo (all Corporate/M&A, Munich).

The finan­cing of the tran­sac­tion was advi­sed by Part­ner Thomas Neubaum (Banking and Finance), Part­ner Dr. Stefan Henkel­mann (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets), Coun­sel Jens Noll­mann (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets) and Bianca Engel­mann, Senior Asso­cia­tes Elke Funken-Hötzel and David Schmidt, Asso­ciate Louisa Drew­niok and Tran­sac­tion Support Lawyer Anasta­siya-Evan­ge­lina Gordienko (all Banking and Finance, Frankfurt).

Further­more, the part­ners Dr. Asmus Mihm (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Börries Ahrens (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg), Coun­sel Dr. Chris­tian Hilmes (Real Estate, Hamburg), the Senior Asso­cia­tes Peter Seidel and Dr. Domi­nic Paschke (both Tax Law, Frank­furt) as well as the Asso­cia­tes Heiner Meck­len­burg (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg) and Dr. Wolf­gang Wittek (Labor Law, Hamburg) provi­ded advice.

Notes to the Editor:
www.allenovery.de

Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,400 employees, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 550 part­ners, in 44 offices worldwide.

Allen & Overy is repre­sen­ted in Germany at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg and Munich with appro­xi­m­ately 220 lawy­ers, inclu­ding 50 part­ners. The lawy­ers advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies prima­rily in the areas of banking, finance and capi­tal markets law, corpo­rate law and M&A, tax law as well as other areas of busi­ness law.

This press release is issued by Allen & Overy LLP. In this press release, “Allen & Overy” refers to “Allen & Overy LLP or its affi­lia­tes.” The named part­ners are either share­hol­ders, advi­sors or employees of Allen & Overy LLP and/or its affiliates.

News

Gladenbach/ Munich — The Munich-based family-owned Sera­fin Group of Compa­nies (“Sera­fin”) acqui­res Weso-Aurorahütte GmbH (“WESO”), a subsi­diary of the Viess­mann Group (“Viess­mann”), one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers of heating, indus­trial and cooling systems. Viess­mann Group was advi­sed by DC Advi­sory.

With more than 400 employees and sales of around EUR 64 million, WESO belongs to the to the major German found­ries. The company from Gladen­bach in Hesse specia­li­zes in the manu­fac­ture of high-quality gray cast iron products that are used inter­na­tio­nally in various indus­tries. Last year, the company cele­bra­ted its 130th anniversary.

WESO had been part of the Viess­mann Group for seve­ral deca­des, supp­ly­ing it with castings for its heating tech­no­logy divi­sion. Viess­mann will remain an important custo­mer of WESO in the future. In addi­tion, the foundry serves well-known indus­trial custo­mers from various sectors with a focus on agri­cul­tu­ral and rail­road tech­no­logy. This busi­ness has been conti­nuously expan­ded over the past two deca­des and is to be pushed even further in the future.

Prof. Dr. Martin Viess­mann, Presi­dent of the Execu­tive Board of the Viess­mann Group, states: “With their exem­plary commit­ment, the employees in Gladen­bach have contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to the successful deve­lo­p­ment of WESO over the many years. I would like to express my sincere thanks for this. At the same time, I am plea­sed that with the hando­ver to Sera­fin, WESO conti­nues to be in good, family-run hands. We are firmly convin­ced that WESO is thus also very well posi­tio­ned for the future.”

Phil­ipp Haindl (photo), one of the foun­ders of the Sera­fin group of compa­nies and repre­sen­ta­tive of the share­hol­der family, empha­si­zed that nothing would change for the more than 400 employees of the Gladen­bach foundry. WESO’s previous stra­tegy as a custo­mer foundry will be further deve­lo­ped. “We invest in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies that have a func­tio­ning busi­ness model and can be further deve­lo­ped through the use of opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic measures.”

The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

News

Frank­furt am Main — DLA Piper has advi­sed Wipro Limi­ted, a global IT consul­ting firm and leading IT services provi­der, on the sale of its Hosted Data Centre Services busi­ness to Ensono. The sales price amounts to around $405 million.

The dive­st­ment, which includes eight data centers with around 900 employees, will enable Wipro to unlock new poten­tial. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close by the end of June 2018 follo­wing the comple­tion of custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory approvals.

Wipro Limi­ted is a multi­na­tio­nal company and a leading provi­der of IT services, consul­ting and busi­ness process services. With curr­ently more than 160,000 employees advi­sing clients in over 175 cities world­wide, Wipro Limi­ted is one of India’s largest compa­nies. For more than a decade, Wipro Limi­ted has been making stra­te­gic invest­ments in the conti­nen­tal Euro­pean market, which is reflec­ted in a strong presence.

Advi­sors to Wipro imited: DLA Piper
Under the joint leader­ship of part­ners Dr. Mathias Schulze Stei­nen (Frank­furt) and Anu Bala­subra­ma­nian (London, both Corpo­rate), the team also included part­ners Pascal Kremp (Labor Law, Munich) and Fabian Mühlen (Real Estate, Frank­furt), coun­sel Dr. Raimund Behnes (Tax, Frank­furt) and Dr. Anne­kat­rin Veit (Pensi­ons, Munich), and senior asso­cia­tes Dr. Dennis Hog (Real Estate) and Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin (Corpo­rate, both Frank­furt). In Birming­ham, Senior Asso­ciate Simon Wright (Corpo­rate) supported the team.

About DLA Piper
DLA Piper is a global law firm. DLA Piper offers a compre­hen­sive range of legal services in more than 40 count­ries in Europe, Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, the Middle East and North and South America. — In Germany, DLA Piper has four offices — Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich — and is led by German Mana­ging Part­ners Dr. Benja­min Para­mes­wa­ran and Dr. Konrad Rohde.

News
Berlin — sola­ris­Bank, the first banking plat­form with a full banking license, has successfully attrac­ted further inves­tors one year after its Series A finan­cing round. Four new stra­te­gic and finan­cial inves­tors parti­ci­pate in the Series B finan­cing tota­ling 56.6 million euros. In addi­tion to the exis­ting inves­tors Arvato Finan­cial Solu­ti­ons and SBI Group, who are once again inves­t­ing, renow­ned global compa­nies such as BBVA, Visa, Lake­star and ABN Amros Digi­tal Impact Fund (DIF) are expan­ding the inves­tor base.

“With our banking as a plat­form concept, we are shaping the future of the finan­cial indus­try. This inno­va­tive approach has convin­ced inter­na­tio­nal indus­try leaders in the finan­cial and tech­no­logy world to use the Series B invest­ment round to parti­ci­pate in our busi­ness model and growth. I am exci­ted about the poten­tial for further coope­ra­tion in Germany and inter­na­tio­nal markets that we can leverage toge­ther with these strong part­ners,” says Dr. Roland Folz (photo), CEO of sola­ris­Bank AG.

Foun­ded by company buil­der Finleap in March 2016, sola­ris­Bank was one of the first finan­cial tech­no­logy compa­nies with a full banking license. Since then, the company has estab­lished its Banking as a Plat­form concept inter­na­tio­nally. sola­ris­Bank is curr­ently active in seven Euro­pean count­ries. Curr­ently, around 60 corpo­rate custo­mers use the banking plat­form. By the end of the year, that number is expec­ted to grow to more than 100.

The product offe­ring was expan­ded to three product lines within the first two years: In addi­tion to Digi­tal Banking & Cards services, sola­ris­Bank also offers finan­cing and credit services as well as payment and trus­tee services for corpo­rate custo­mers via inter­face (API) . These services are used by compa­nies such as the credit portal smava, the digi­tal ABN AMRO brand Moneyou, the compa­ri­son portal Veri­vox, the banking solu­tion Kontist or the voucher provi­der fashioncheque.

The newly raised capi­tal supports sola­ris­Bank on its further growth course and will be used for the expan­sion of the tech­no­lo­gi­cal plat­form, the products and for further geogra­phi­cal expan­sion. All inves­tors have an outstan­ding inter­na­tio­nal profile and diverse strengths, from which sola­ris­Bank can bene­fit enorm­ously in its further development.

Advi­sors to sola­ris­Bank AG: P+P Pöllath und Partner
Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, M&A, Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Eva Nase (Part­ner, Stock Corpo­ra­tion Law, Munich)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Venture Capi­tal, Berlin/Munich)
Dr. Sebas­tian Käpplin­ger (Coun­sel, Regu­la­tory Law, Frankfurt)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Coun­sel, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Phil­ipp Opitz (Senior Asso­ciate, Stock Corpo­ra­tion Law, Munich)
Tim Jung­in­ger (Senior Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets, Munich)
Dr. Georg Seitz (Asso­ciate, M&A, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Chris­toph-Alex­an­der May (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets Law, Munich)

News

Munich - The Euro­pean invest­ment company Gimv reports a successful third quar­ter in the 2017/2018 finan­cial year. The Munich office has been streng­the­ned with the new Part­ner Phil­ipp von Hammer­stein (35) and the two new Prin­ci­pals Fried­rich von Wall­witz (32) and Patrick Schaich (38) — Gimv is thus gearing up for new invest­ments in the German-spea­king region across all focu­sed invest­ment platforms.

Phil­ipp von Hammer­stein (35, photo), on board as a Prin­ci­pal at Gimv in Munich since 2016, has been appoin­ted Part­ner in the Health & Care prac­tice, effec­tive Janu­ary 1, 2018. Prior to joining Gimv, von Hammer­stein worked for KPMG in Germany in the area of Deal Advi­sory — M&A. There, he has advi­sed on more than 50 projects — prima­rily in the health­care sector and for various client groups such as large listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, family-owned compa­nies, the public sector as well as private equity funds and their port­fo­lio compa­nies. At Gimv, von Hammer­stein was instru­men­tal in tran­sac­tions such as the invest­ment in the Swiss MVZ Holding. He holds a degree in Busi­ness Admi­nis­tra­tion (Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Berlin) and a Master in Manage­ment (ESC Toulouse/Toulouse Busi­ness School).

Fried­rich von Wall­witz (32) has been a Prin­ci­pal in the Smart Indus­tries team since Janu­ary. He previously worked in London, first as a commo­di­ties trader, then as an M&A advi­sor and merchant banker for PMB Capi­tal. There he deve­lo­ped long-term and sustainable finan­cing solu­ti­ons for compa­nies in the DACH region. Fried­rich von Wall­witz studied Econo­mics & Inter­na­tio­nal Rela­ti­ons (BA) at Lancas­ter Univer­sity, Law & Econo­mics at the Univer­si­ties of Hamburg, Rotter­dam and UC Berke­ley (LL.M), and Chris­tian Theo­logy at the Univer­sity of London (MA).

Patrick Schaich (38), Prin­ci­pal in the Connec­ted Consu­mer team since Febru­ary, joins from inter­na­tio­nal small-mid market private equity inves­tor The River­side Company. There, Schaich worked on tran­sac­tions in various indus­tries for nearly five years. Prior to that, he gained exten­sive expe­ri­ence in invest­ment banking at Kepler-Cheu­vreux and at Beren­berg, prima­rily in the retail and consu­mer goods sectors. Patrick Schaich holds an MSc as well as a BBA in Finance from the ESF Euro­pean School of Finance / HfWU Nürtingen-Geislingen.

Laun­ched in Belgium almost 40 years ago, Gimv, which is listed on Euron­ext Brussels, now opera­tes across Europe with around 90 employees and mana­ges around 1.6 billion euros. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Antwerp, Gimv has offices in Munich, Paris and The Hague. The company curr­ently holds stakes in around 50 port­fo­lio compa­nies. The focus is on the four invest­ment plat­forms Smart Indus­tries, Health & Care, Connec­ted Consu­mer and Sustainable Cities — inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies from these sectors with high growth poten­tial are supported by Gimv with capi­tal and know-how on their way to market leadership.

Promi­sing last quar­ter of 2017

Gimv’s on-balance sheet invest­ments from Octo­ber 1, 2017 to Decem­ber 31, 2017 amoun­ted to 55 million euros — brin­ging the total inves­ted in 2017 to 159 million euros. In the last quar­ter of 2017, two major invest­ments were reali­zed, inclu­ding in WEMAS Absperr­tech­nik GmbH from Güters­loh. Total dive­st­ments reco­gni­zed in the balance sheet in the third quar­ter amoun­ted to 197 million euros (full year: 314 million euros); five compa­nies were dive­s­ted. Gimv’s brisk busi­ness acti­vity has contin­ued since the begin­ning of 2018 — five new invest­ments and one sale have alre­ady been repor­ted since Janu­ary 1.

Great poten­tial in the DACH region

The team strength of Gimv’s Munich office, which is respon­si­ble for acti­vi­ties in the DACH region, has now been increased to ten invest­ment specia­lists — the reason for this is the increased demand for specia­li­zed inves­tors in the market: “In the DACH region in parti­cu­lar, many medium-sized compa­nies are curr­ently having to realign them­sel­ves and are looking for ways and means to expand into new regi­ons or to grow via addi­tio­nal busi­ness acti­vi­ties. With our almost 40 years of expe­ri­ence in future-orien­ted sectors and indus­tries, we can provide opti­mal support to these compa­nies — helped by the back­ground of our experts, all of whom have worked for many years in an opera­tio­nal and advi­sory capa­city in our target indus­tries,” explains Dr. Sven Oleow­nik, who heads the Munich office.

Gimv’s port­fo­lio in the German-spea­king region curr­ently compri­ses eleven growth compa­nies. To date, the team has reali­zed four successful exits, inclu­ding most recently the high-profile sale of compu­ter-gene­ra­ted imagery market leader Macke­vi­sion to Accenture.

About GIMV
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment firm with nearly 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity and venture capi­tal. The company is listed on Euron­ext Brussels, curr­ently mana­ges around EUR 1.6 billion and has invest­ments in 50 port­fo­lio compa­nies. As a reco­gni­zed leader in exclu­sive invest­ment plat­forms, Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the four invest­ment plat­forms Connec­ted Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities is mana­ged by a dedi­ca­ted and compe­tent team, each based in Gimv’s home markets — the Bene­lux, France and Germany — and supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts.

News

Karlsruhe/ Bayreuth - ALTUS AG of Karls­ruhe reports the successful sale of the Pinta solar park port­fo­lio to 7C Solar­par­ken AG, based in Bayreuth and origi­na­ting from Belgium.

7C Solar­par­ken takes over the port­fo­lio with addi­tio­nal expan­sion poten­tial from ALTUS AG, which deve­lo­ped the port­fo­lio. It is loca­ted near Salz­we­del in Saxony-Anhalt and is equip­ped with REC PV modu­les and Huawei inver­ters. The port­fo­lio has been feeding into the grid of Avacon Netz GmbH since Septem­ber 2017.

ALTUS as a holi­stic project deve­lo­per for rene­wa­ble ener­gies is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Kraft­werke Mainz-Wies­ba­den AG (KMW), which is part of the Stadt­wer­ke­ver­bund Mainz-Wiesbaden.

7C Solar­par­ken AG is a listed owner/operator of photo­vol­taic plants in Germany with a port­fo­lio of over 120 MWp. The Company’s shares are traded on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Gene­ral Standard).

Advi­sor Altus AG: MAYLAND AG
MAYLAND AG was exclu­si­vely manda­ted with the sales process, says CEO Matthias C. Just (photo). Only stra­te­gic inves­tors were approa­ched in a compe­ti­tive auction. The process was comple­ted within a period of just two months with the sale to 7C Solar­par­ken AG.

About MAYLAND AG
MAYLAND is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged M&A consul­tancy based in Düssel­dorf. Since its foun­da­tion in 1998, MAYLAND has been deve­lo­ping indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons for the purchase and sale of compa­nies or parts of compa­nies with owners and manage­ment of both medium-sized compa­nies and corpo­rate groups, and has been imple­men­ting these tran­sac­tions toge­ther with the decis­ion-makers. MAYLAND also arran­ges any neces­sary or requi­red finan­cing or asso­cia­ted restructuring.

MAYLAND provi­des struc­tu­red process manage­ment for these natio­nal and cross-border projects and coor­di­na­tes all services for a successful comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion. With analy­ti­cal excel­lence, many years of expe­ri­ence and a commit­ment to part­ner­ship, MAYLAND struc­tures tran­sac­tions in all phases of a company. MAYLAND atta­ches parti­cu­lar importance to custo­mi­zed and holi­stic solu­ti­ons, trans­pa­rent consul­ting services and long-term custo­mer rela­ti­onships based on trust. For more infor­ma­tion in German, English, Chinese and Russian, please visit www.mayland.de.

News

Munich — Munich-based private equity firm Para­gon Part­ners has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in UNICEPTA. Pesca Private Equity initia­ted the exit through the previous group of share­hol­ders around the Ippen media group, former Bertels­mann execu­tive Hart­mut Ostrow­ski and other inves­tors in an inter­na­tio­nal bidding process. The manage­ment team remains invol­ved in the company.

UNICEPTA is one of the leading Euro­pean service compa­nies for stra­te­gic media moni­to­ring, media response analy­sis and intel­li­gent issue manage­ment concepts. UNICEPTA has achie­ved an average annual increase in sales of around 18 percent over the last ten years. In the 2016/2017 finan­cial year, sales amoun­ted to €31.5 million. The company works for around 300 custo­mers, inclu­ding two-thirds of the DAX compa­nies and nume­rous other multi­na­tio­nals. UNICEPTA is also the leading provi­der in Germany for so-called news­room solu­ti­ons in corpo­rate communications.

Advi­sors to Pesca Private Equity: P+P Pöllath + Partners
P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the sellers around Pesca Private Equity on the sale of their shares.

Tobias Jäger (Coun­sel, Lead, M&A/PE, Munich), Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax, Munich), Dr. Jens Linde (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Finan­cing, Frank­furt), Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Coun­sel, Anti­trust Law, Frank­furt), Andrea Strei­fen­e­der (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich), Dr. Sebas­tian Rosen­tritt (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich), Chris­toph Beigel (Asso­ciate, Tax Law Munich)

News

Stuttgart/ Düssel­dorf — BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft has acqui­red a mino­rity stake in Crui­se­Vi­sion GmbH. Foun­ded in 2009 by Chris­tian Paulick and Mirko Berloge, the company is one of the tech­no­lo­gi­cal leaders in photo and video products on ocean cruise ships. It curr­ently employs 14 perma­nent staff at its site in Sche­ne­feld near Hamburg and around 95 freelancers.

Crui­se­Vi­sion offers custo­mi­zed photo and film solu­ti­ons for up to 25,000 passen­gers daily on cruise ships opera­ting world­wide. Further­more, Crui­se­Vi­sion offers guided bicy­cle tours for cruise passen­gers and plans to expand the successful concept to new market segments. “CruiseVision’s indus­try-expe­ri­en­ced and inno­va­tive manage­ment as well as its profi­ta­ble and scalable busi­ness model have convin­ced us. We will cons­truc­tively support the company in the imple­men­ta­tion of its growth stra­tegy,” explains BWK Mana­ging Direc­tor Bernd Bergschneider.

BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, based in Stutt­gart, is one of the oldest German private equity compa­nies and pursues a long-term invest­ment approach. ARQIS first acted for the company through a cont­act of part­ner Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schneider.

Advi­sors to BWK GmbH: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial; Munich); Coun­sel: Saskia Kirsch­baum (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Carina Engel­hard (Labor Law), Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP & Commer­cial; Munich), Scha­bana Alam Yar (Legal Support Specialist)

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 lawy­ers 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 as well as intellec­tual property and liti­ga­tion. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Munich/Graz — Funds advi­sed by DPE Deut­sche Private Equity Manage­ment III GmbH (DPE) acquire a majo­rity stake in VTU Engi­nee­ring (“VTU” or the “Company”). The foun­ding team remains signi­fi­cantly invol­ved in the company.

VTU is a leading engi­nee­ring service provi­der for the plan­ning and opti­miza­tion of process plants up to the gene­ral plan­ning of major invest­ments in the phar­maceu­ti­cal, biotech­no­logy, chemi­cal, metall­ur­gi­cal, and oil and gas indus­tries. The company has 20 loca­ti­ons in Austria, Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy and Roma­nia and employs over 400 highly quali­fied employees.

“Since its foun­da­tion in 1990, VTU Engi­nee­ring has stood for the highest level of compe­tence, quality and relia­bi­lity in plant design. Our growth path so far proves that we have deve­lo­ped from an Austrian specia­list to a leading plant desi­gner and project mana­ger in the entire German-spea­king region and beyond through tech­ni­cal know-how and a constant expan­sion of core compe­ten­cies,” comm­ents foun­der Dr. Michael Koncar, who will support the company in the future as a member of the advi­sory board.

Since 2010, VTU has more than tripled its sales and more than doubled its work­force. Major projects with phar­maceu­ti­cal custo­mers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land are the main growth drivers. DPE Mana­ging Direc­tor Guido Prehn empha­si­zes: “We have been follo­wing VTU’s deve­lo­p­ment for more than two years. We are impres­sed by how the company has estab­lished long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with the big names in the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try. We see signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial for VTU and will stron­gly support the manage­ment team as it conti­nues on its course.” VTU intends to leverage its strong market posi­tion and repu­ta­tion as a phar­maceu­ti­cal specia­list to drive growth with new custo­mers. “We are looking forward to tack­ling VTU’s next growth initia­ti­ves with an expe­ri­en­ced, entre­pre­neu­rial and strong part­ner behind us,” under­lines VTU CEO Dr. Fried­rich Fröschl.

About DPE Deut­sche Private Equity
DPE Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”), foun­ded by Volker Hichert (photo ) and Marc Thiery, is an inde­pen­dent German private equity firm and one of the largest growth capi­tal provi­ders in Germany. It focu­ses on medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries that operate in sectors with posi­tive long-term deve­lo­p­ment pros­pects. DPE was foun­ded in 2007 and has since inves­ted in 21 compa­nies, making 48 follow-on invest­ments and employ­ing more than 7,300 people today. DPE mana­ges total assets of around € 1.2 billion.

Advi­sor DPE: P+P Pöllath + Partners
P+P advi­sed DPE on German tax aspects of the acqui­si­tion with the follo­wing team:
— Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
— Gerald Herr­mann (Coun­sel, Tax Law Munich)

News

Grünwald/ Grün­wald — The energy group EnBW Ener­gie Baden-Würt­tem­berg AG acqui­res 100% of the shares in DEV — Deut­sche Ener­gie­ver­sor­gung GmbH. P+P advi­sed the majo­rity seller Grün­wald Equity Indus­trie GmbH. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

DEV is a Leip­zig-based manu­fac­tu­rer of energy storage systems with around 120 employees. Foun­ded in 2009, the company deve­lops and produ­ces intel­li­gent elec­tri­city storage systems for homes and commer­cial enter­pri­ses under the brand name SENEC. Features such as the SENEC.Cloud 2.0 and the SENEC.Cloud To Go enable owners of photo­vol­taic systems and elec­tri­city storage units to consume all of the solar elec­tri­city they gene­rate them­sel­ves and to cover their energy needs for heating and elec­tro­mo­bi­lity by gene­ra­ting their own electricity.

Grün­wald Equity invests through Grün­wald Equity Indus­tries & Services GmbH and Grün­wald Equity Indus­trie GmbH in medium-sized compa­nies, espe­ci­ally in German-spea­king count­ries. Grün­wald Equity had first inves­ted in DEV in the summer of 2016.

Advi­sors Grün­wald Equity Indus­trie: P+P Pöllath + Partners 
— Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
— Alex­an­der Pupe­ter (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
— Tobias Jäger (Coun­sel, Corpo­rate Law, Munich)
— Daniel Wied­mann (Coun­sel, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
— Dr. Sebas­tian Rosen­tritt (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate Law, Munich)

News

Munich/Mannheim — Since March, Dr. Burk­hard Weber (photo) has streng­the­ned the six-member part­ner group of IMAP M&A Consul­tants and will from now on be jointly respon­si­ble for advi­sing clients in the capi­tal goods sector. He has parti­cu­lar exper­tise in the fields of mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring, the cons­truc­tion and buil­ding mate­ri­als indus­try, and the paper indus­try. Burk­hard Weber joins IMAP from the US invest­ment bank Raymond James, where he was Mana­ging Direc­tor respon­si­ble for the expan­sion of consul­ting in the capi­tal goods sector in German-spea­king count­ries. Prior to that, the doctor of busi­ness admi­nis­tra­tion spent almost seven years as Mana­ging Direc­tor for the inter­na­tio­nal M&A boutique Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal in Frank­furt and New York. There he led nume­rous cross-border tran­sac­tions of German and Ameri­can compa­nies, among others advi­sing the German Würth Group as well as Bilfin­ger on tran­sac­tions in the US.

Previously, Burk­hard Weber was Mana­ging Direc­tor and co-part­ner of the German corpo­rate finance advi­sory subsi­diary of the British invest­ment bank Close Brot­hers. He star­ted his career in the tran­sac­tion busi­ness in 1996 at KPMG Corpo­rate Finance, where he was most recently a member of the German M&A manage­ment team for a time.

“We are deligh­ted to welcome a new colle­ague with such exten­sive exper­tise and diverse expe­ri­ence in cross-border tran­sac­tions to our circle of part­ners,” empha­si­zes Karl Fesen­meyer, CEO of IMAP Germany.

About IMAP
Foun­ded in 1973, IMAP is one of the oldest and largest Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons orga­niza­ti­ons in the world with offices in 35 count­ries. More than 400 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 12 billion.

News

Munich, Wörnitz, Tuticorin/India — GALA Kerzen is set for expan­sion with the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Ramesh Flowers, an Indian manu­fac­tu­rer and exporter of potpourri, air fres­he­ners, Inscense Sticks, cand­les and deco­ra­tive items. It is the first acqui­si­tion for the Bava­rian candle manu­fac­tu­rer since Equis­tone Part­ners advi­sed funds ente­red the market in 2016. With Ramesh Flowers, GALA Kerzen expands its range to include high-quality fragrance and deco­ra­tion products and opens up to non-Euro­pean markets. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The acqui­si­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

With the acqui­si­tion of the Indian produ­cer, Equis­tone is stra­te­gi­cally expan­ding its port­fo­lio company GALA Cand­les. Ramesh Flowers’ assort­ment includes scen­ted potpour­ris, dried flowers, and scen­ted oils and cand­les. The company was foun­ded in 1982 in Tuti­co­rin (India) by Mahen­dra Raj Singhwi, who still heads the company today. Ramesh Flowers employs a total of almost 3,000 people in its produc­tion faci­li­ties in India and in Teme­cula (California/USA), which are BSCI‑, SMEPA- and SEDEX-certi­fied, among others. The company supplies inter­na­tio­nal retail chains in its target markets in Europe and the USA via its long-stan­ding whole­sale part­ners. The Ameri­can market alone accounts for over 43% of Ramesh Flowers’ export share. This opens up oppor­tu­ni­ties for GALA Kerzen in neigh­bor­ing segments as well as in new target markets.

“Equis­tone has alre­ady opti­mally supported GALA Kerzen in the context of the succes­sion plan­ning two years ago. Since then, we have focu­sed prima­rily on gene­ra­ting new growth momen­tum. We have mana­ged this well in a conso­li­da­ting market. Now it’s a ques­tion of conti­nuing to grow globally as a Euro­pean candle manu­fac­tu­rer. The start­ing posi­tion is not bad: nine out of ten cand­les sold in the EU come from Euro­pean produc­tion. It is ther­e­fore all the more important not to rest on such a posi­tion, but to think ahead. With Equis­tone as a part­ner, we can realize stra­te­gic oppor­tu­ni­ties and growth chan­ces — like curr­ently with the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity of Ramesh Flowers,” says Dirk Lang­ham­mer, Mana­ging Direc­tor of the GALA Kerzen Group.

“The merger between GALA Cand­les and Ramesh Flowers brings nume­rous growth oppor­tu­ni­ties,” explains Dirk Sche­kerka, Coun­try Head DACH at Equis­tone. “GALA Kerzen is expan­ding its range into the neigh­bor­ing segment of room fragran­ces and deco­ra­ti­ons, and can now offer this to its exis­ting target custo­mers via its estab­lished trade part­ners. In addi­tion to the DACH region, another poten­tial target market for Ramesh Flowers’ products is, for exam­ple, Great Britain, where the candle manu­fac­tu­rer has its own sales office. Thanks to Ramesh Flowers’ inter­na­tio­nal presence in the USA, GALA Kerzen can addi­tio­nally gain a foot­hold in non-Euro­pean markets. And finally, the newly added produc­tion faci­li­ties will be able to absorb bott­len­ecks in the future or produce previously unpro­fi­ta­ble orders in small batches.”

About GALA Candles
The GALA Cand­les group of compa­nies is one of the largest candle manu­fac­tu­r­ers with two produc­tion sites in Germany and Hungary. For more than 40 years, cand­les have been produ­ced on state-of-the-art produc­tion lines with the highest level of quality and marke­ted prima­rily through estab­lished retail part­ners. With over 460 employees, the GALA Kerzen Group proces­ses appro­xi­m­ately 30,000 tons of kero­sene per year.

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.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Hamburg — Allen & Overy LLP is advi­sing US finan­cial inves­tor Cerbe­rus Capi­tal Manage­ment on the acqui­si­tion of HSH Nord­bank by inde­pen­dent inves­tors. The agree­ment provi­des for a purchase price of around one billion euros for 94.9 percent of the shares held in HSH Nord­bank. The other buyers include finan­cial inves­tors J.C. Flowers, Golden­Tree Asset Manage­ment and Centau­rus Capi­tal, as well as Austria’s BAWAG P.S.K. Bank für Arbeit und Wirt­schaft and Öster­rei­chi­sche Post­spar­kasse.

In connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion, problem loans with a nomi­nal value of seve­ral billion euros will be sold from the bank. This will enable HSH Nord­bank to compete without state aid in the future. The acqui­si­tion of HSH Nord­bank by inde­pen­dent inves­tors marks the first time that a German Landes­bank has been successfully privatized.

The tran­sac­tion will be comple­ted once the neces­sary regu­la­tory appr­ovals have been obtai­ned. These include appr­oval by the Euro­pean Commis­sion, the Euro­pean Central Bank, the parlia­ments of the states of Hamburg and Schles­wig-Holstein, and the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Allen & Overy is advi­sing Cerbe­rus on, among other things, the purchase agree­ment, the offloa­ding of the problem loans, on all regu­la­tory aspects (inclu­ding banking super­vi­sion law and anti­trust law) and on labor and tax issues.

The Allen & Overy team was led by part­ners Dr. Hart­mut Krause (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Dr. Nico­laus Ascher­feld (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg — both lead) and included the follo­wing addi­tio­nal team members:

Coun­sel Max Lands­hut (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Dr. Andre P.H. Wandt (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Senior Asso­ciate Alex­an­der Wüpper (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Gregor Petric, Tatiana Marzoli, Frede­ric Wünsche (all Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Moritz Meis­ter and Dr. Stefan Witte (both Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Fabian Schulze and Kai Schadtle (both Banking Regu­la­tory, Frankfurt).

Further­more, the team consis­ted of the part­ners Dr. Jan Schrö­der (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Jürgen Schind­ler (Anti­trust, Brussels), Dr. Heike Weber (Tax, Frank­furt), John Coburn, Dr. Franz Bern­hard Herding, Wolf­gang Melzer, Dr. Norbert Wieder­holt (all Banking and Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Walter Uebel­hoer (Banking, Munich), Dr. Stefan Henkel­mann (Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt), Dr. Jens Matthes (IP/IT, Düssel­dorf), Markulf Behrendt (Labor Law, Hamburg), Dr. Hans-Peter Löw (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Tobias Neufeld (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), the Coun­sel Dr. Udo Herbert Olgem­öl­ler (Public Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Ilja Baudisch (Banking and Finance Law, Munich), the Of Coun­sel Frank Herring (Banking Super­vi­sory Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Oliver Wald­burg (Banking and Finance Law, Frank­furt), Senior Asso­cia­tes Fatih Coskun, Chris­to­pher Jahnke, Lorenz Riehl (all Banking and Finance Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Chris­toph Börskens, Dr. Riccardo Mari­nello (both Real Estate, Frank­furt), Dr. Andreas Zieg­ler (Public Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Sebas­tian Schulz (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Karen Zöttl (Banking and Finance Law, Frank­furt), Daniela Schmitt (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Dr. Rauni Aham­mer (Banking and Finance, Munich), Louisa Drew­niok, Dr. Anna Serwotka, Dr. Jörg Weber, Anto­nia Wolf (all Banking and Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Anna Opel (Public Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Lisa Müller, Anja Glück (both Labor Law, Frank­furt), Catha­rina Glugla (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf) and Dr. Wolf­gang H. Wittek (Labor Law, Hamburg) as well as Tran­sac­tion Support Lawyer Ange­lika Pikulska (Corpo­rate, Munich).

 

News

Berlin — The Berlin-based AI start-up i2x, owned by tech­no­logy entre­pre­neur and angel inves­tor Michael Brehm, aims to use arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to improve the quality of custo­mer services. The company is deve­lo­ping soft­ware to opti­mize sales and custo­mer calls via auto­ma­ted coaching in real time. An idea that HV Holtz­brinck Ventures is convin­ced of. The venture capi­ta­list led the seed finan­cing round, which included other inves­tors in addi­tion to HV Holtz­brinck Ventures. The new capi­tal will now be used prima­rily to further deve­lop the tech­no­logy and inten­sify sales.

LUTZ | ABEL regu­larly advi­ses HV Holtz­brinck Ventures on finan­cing rounds.

Advi­sor HV Holtz­brinck Ventures: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts GmbH
Dr. Marco Eick­mann, LL.M. (Part­ner), Phil­ipp Hoene (Asso­ciate)

About LUTZ | ABEL
With more than 50 lawy­ers and offices in Munich, Hamburg, Stutt­gart and Brussels, the commer­cial law firm LUTZ | ABEL advi­ses on all aspects of commer­cial law.

News

Munich — A team led by M&A part­ner Boris Dürr has advi­sed the private equity funds advi­sed by AUCTUS Capi­tal Part­ners AG on the acqui­si­tion of GS Star Group. In the course of the tran­sac­tion, the two previous mana­ging direc­tors of GS Star GmbH, Andreas Erben and Heiko Grote, also acqui­red a stake in the newly estab­lished Gorge­ous Smiling Hotels Holding GmbH by way of a reverse share­hol­ding and will conti­nue to manage the group’s business.

The GS Star Group opera­tes hotels throug­hout Germany as well as in Austria and the Nether­lands under the Hamp­ton by Hilton, Holi­day Inn, Holi­day Inn Express and Super 8 brands and under its own ANA Art Hotels brand. In addi­tion, Gorge­ous Smiling GmbH, a subsi­diary of GS Star GmbH, acts as a service provi­der in the areas of marke­ting, yield manage­ment and purcha­sing services for third-party hotels not owned by the GS Star Group. Here, solu­ti­ons are offe­red for the opera­tion of hotels as well as for hotel real estate. In total, the current hotel port­fo­lio of the GS Star Group compri­ses over 50 hotels.

AUCTUS is one of the leading private equity inves­tors in the German-spea­king region. One focus of AUCTUS is the imple­men­ta­tion of indus­try concepts in conso­li­da­tion markets by means of a buy & build stra­tegy. Such a concept also under­lies AUCTUS’ invest­ment in the GS Star Group. For the future, GS Star Group toge­ther with AUCTUS plans to conso­li­date the opera­tor market of hotels. To this end, further hotels and hotel opera­ting compa­nies are to be acqui­red and the company’s own hotel real estate divi­sion expan­ded. Expan­sion into Italy and Spain is also planned.

The finan­cing, on which Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek also advi­sed, was provi­ded in the form of a unitran­che by IDIn­vest Partners.

On the part of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, the tran­sac­tion was lead-mana­ged by Munich part­ner Boris Dürr. Boris Dürr’s team regu­larly advi­ses funds advi­sed by AUCTUS on transactions.

Advi­sors to AUCTUS (tran­sac­tion and finan­cing): Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Boris Dürr (Lead, M&A), Daniela Szczesny (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Arnold Büsse­ma­ker (Finan­cing), Chris­tian Schild, LL.M., (Corporate/M&A), Ricarda Marschall, LL.M. (Corporate/M&A), Stef­fen Wilberg (Real Estate), Dr. Philip Wennin­ger (Labor Law), all Munich, Astrid Lued­tke (Trade­mark), Düsseldorf

News

Frank­furt a.M. — King & Wood Malle­sons (KWM) advi­sed the bank consor­tium, led by Bank of China, ICBC, China Cons­truc­tion Bank and Export-Import Bank of China, on the EUR 3.7 billion refi­nan­cing of Midea Group regar­ding the acqui­si­tion finan­cing provi­ded for the acqui­si­tion of KUKA AG.

KUKA AG, one of the world’s leading suppli­ers of intel­li­gent auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons, was acqui­red by the Chinese Midea Group in 2016. For this purpose, Midea initi­ally raised short-term acqui­si­tion finan­cing, which has now been repla­ced by longer-term financing.

The new loan, arran­ged by a consor­tium of banks led by Bank of China, Indus­trial and Commer­cial Bank of China, China Cons­truc­tion Bank and Export-Import Bank of China, has a volume of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 3.7 billion and a matu­rity of up to 5 years.

This refi­nan­cing was led in Germany by Rudolf Haas (photo), part­ner at King & Wood Malle­sons in Frank­furt. The advice to the clients was provi­ded in close coope­ra­tion with a KWM team from China led by Lv Ying­hao and Yang Xiao­quan and again illus­tra­tes the strength in corpo­rate finance tran­sac­tions, also with an Asian connection.

About KWM
KWM Europe Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH is a law firm foun­ded in 2017 and based in Frank­furt am Main. We advise our clients — natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies, entre­pre­neurs, mana­gers, banks and private equity houses — at the highest level on all legal issues rela­ted to invest­ment acqui­si­ti­ons (M&A) and other corpo­rate finance tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding the rele­vant tax and capi­tal markets law aspects. We provide prag­ma­tic answers to our clients’ legal chal­lenges. Our multi­di­sci­pli­nary, inte­gra­ted advi­sory approach and the seam­less inte­gra­tion into one of the largest commer­cial law firms world­wide, King & Wood Malle­sons, with its well over 2,000 lawy­ers working in 27 offices, allow us to advise medium-sized clients, finan­cial inves­tors or inter­na­tio­nal groups on cross-border as well as purely natio­nal tran­sac­tions or finan­cing. Profes­sio­nal excel­lence, a friendly and coope­ra­tive approach and a commer­cial consul­ting approach charac­te­rize our work.

News

Berlin/ Zurich — Capi­ton (Berlin) acqui­res a majo­rity stake in ISPIN AG (Zurich). In addi­tion to capi­ton and the foun­ding members of ISPIN, Marco Marchesi and Stefan Näpf­lin, the entire manage­ment of ISPIN is now invol­ved in the new group. Tom Koeh­ler (photo ) will also be part of the Execu­tive Board. Tom Koeh­ler has many years of expe­ri­ence in stra­tegy and port­fo­lio deve­lo­p­ment in the cyber secu­rity industry.

ISPIN is a leading Swiss cyber secu­rity services company based in Zurich. Through its Consul­ting, Solu­ti­ons and Mana­ged Services busi­ness units, ISPIN covers a wide range of rele­vant services rela­ted to cyber secu­rity, from initial consul­ting to imple­men­ta­tion and outsour­cing of entire custo­mer IT secu­rity infrastructures.

ISPIN is the first acqui­si­tion within capiton’s plan­ned “Buy & Build” concept for the cyber secu­rity market in the DACH region. About the tran­sac­tion ISPIN is a proprie­tary tran­sac­tion iden­ti­fied in capiton’s sector analy­sis in the field of “Cyber Secu­rity” and reali­zed in an exclu­sive sales process.

ISPIN has grown rapidly in recent years and is ready for the next phase of deve­lo­p­ment. The cyber secu­rity market in Europe is very frag­men­ted and is in a phase of conso­li­da­tion. The market outlook is excel­lent given further digi­tiza­tion, the advance of Inter­net of Things, Big Data and other data-driven tech­no­lo­gies. capi­ton and ISPIN ther­e­fore see great poten­tial to grow further by crea­ting addi­tio­nal capa­ci­ties and comple­men­tary competencies.

About capi­ton AG
capi­ton AG capi­ton is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged private equity company mana­ging a total fund volume of € 1.1 billion. At present, 10 medium-sized compa­nies are in capi­ton AG’s invest­ment port­fo­lio. capi­ton accom­pa­nies manage­ment buy-outs and growth finan­cing for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies as an equity partner.

News

Zurich/ Berlin - Capi­ton (Berlin) acqui­res majo­rity stake in ISPIN AG (Zurich). In addi­tion to capi­ton and the foun­ding members of ISPIN, Marco Marchesi and Stefan Näpf­lin, the entire manage­ment of ISPIN is now invol­ved in the new group. Tom Koeh­ler will also be part of the Execu­tive Board. Tom Koeh­ler has many years of expe­ri­ence in stra­tegy and port­fo­lio deve­lo­p­ment in the cy- ber secu­rity industry.

ISPIN is a leading Swiss cyber secu­rity services company based in Zurich. Through its Consul­ting, Solu­ti­ons and Mana­ged Services busi­ness units, ISPIN covers a wide range of rele­vant services rela­ted to cyber secu­rity, from initial consul­ting to imple­men­ta­tion and outsour­cing of entire custo­mer IT secu­rity infra­struc­tures. ISPIN is the first acqui­si­tion within capiton’s plan­ned “Buy & Build” concept for the cyber secu­rity market in the DACH region.

ISPIN is a proprie­tary tran­sac­tion iden­ti­fied through capiton’s sector analy­sis in the “Cyber Secu­rity” sector and re- alized through an exclu­sive sales process.

ISPIN has grown rapidly in recent years and is ready for the next phase of deve­lo­p­ment. The cyber secu­rity market in Europe is very frag­men­ted and is in a phase of conso­li­da­tion. The market outlook is excel­lent in view of further digi­ta­liza­tion, the advance of the Inter­net of Things, Big Data and other data-driven tech­no­lo­gies. capi­ton and ISPIN ther­e­fore see great poten­tial to grow further by crea­ting addi­tio­nal capa­ci­ties and comple­men­tary competencies.

About capi­ton AG
capi­ton is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged private equity company mana­ging a total fund volume of € 1.1 billion. At present, 10 medium-sized compa­nies are in capi­ton AG’s invest­ment portfolio.
capi­ton accom­pa­nies manage­ment buy-outs and growth finan­cing for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies as an equity partner.

News
Munich/Plettenberg, Febru­ary 21, 2018 — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are selling shares in Plet­ten­berg-based auto­mo­tive supplier E. WINKEMANN. The majo­rity of the shares will be acqui­red by Cathay Capi­tal MidCap Fund, which is advi­sed by Cathay Capi­tal Private Equity. Equis­tone and the mana­ging direc­tors of E. WINKEMANN will remain invol­ved. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the tran­sac­tion. The sale is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties.
In its now 80-year company history, E. WINKEMANN GmbH has become a major manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion metal stam­pings and today employs 380 people. From its loca­tion in the Märki­scher Kreis region, the company prima­rily supplies well-known German and inter­na­tio­nal auto­mo­tive suppli­ers and manu­fac­tu­r­ers world­wide. Equis­tone had inves­ted in the company in May 2012. Since then, E. WINKEMANN has deve­lo­ped convin­cin­gly. Sales increased from appro­xi­m­ately 66 million euros in 2012 to around 91 million euros in 2017. Last year alone, there was an increase of more than ten percent.
Over the past six years, Equis­tone has accom­pa­nied E. WINKEMANN on its way from a family-owned company to a conti­nuing successful medium-sized enter­prise with parti­ci­pa­ting manage­ment. This made it possi­ble to support the company’s flexi­ble busi­ness model with rapid decis­ion-making proces­ses and a high degree of free­dom on site, which ensu­res short product and deve­lo­p­ment cycles, espe­ci­ally in the dyna­mic envi­ron­ment of the auto­mo­tive indus­try. At the same time, Equis­tone enab­led the neces­sary invest­ments to further expand the company. As a result, E. WINKEMANN was able to grow sustain­ably by deve­lo­ping new products and inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and by addres­sing new customers.
“Toge­ther with the dedi­ca­ted manage­ment and the highly quali­fied employee base, we have mana­ged to signi­fi­cantly deve­lop an alre­ady well-posi­tio­ned company,” says Dirk Sche­kerka, Coun­try Head DACH at Equis­tone. “The know-how and expe­ri­ence of the entire work­force are key drivers of E. WINKEMANN’s strong posi­tion. The new part­ner will accom­pany the company into the next growth phase and expand its strong posi­tion in further markets, espe­ci­ally in Asia. We are plea­sed to remain asso­cia­ted with E. WINKEMANN as a share­hol­der and to conti­nue to support the company’s development.”
“Six years ago, in the course of succes­sion plan­ning, we carefully sear­ched for a suita­ble part­ner to secure the future of E.WINKEMANN. It turned out that we found the right part­ner in Equis­tone: Toge­ther we were able to secure long-term growth and expand into new markets,” says Dr. Bernd Sent, CEO of the company. “With its exper­tise in the auto­mo­tive supply indus­try and its profound expe­ri­ence in the syste­ma­tic and long-term orien­ted deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized compa­nies, the Equis­tone team has supported the achie­ve­ment of our goals at all times. With Cathay Capi­tal, we now want to conti­nue on the path we have chosen.”
Respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone are Dirk Sche­kerka and Stefan Maser.
Advi­sors to Equis­tone: Robert W. Baird & Co. (M&A) and P+P Pöllath & Part­ners (Legal/Tax).
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.
About E. WINKEMANN GmbH
Since its foun­da­tion in 1938, the tradi­tio­nal company E. WINKEMANN has deve­lo­ped into one of the most important and effi­ci­ent manu­fac­tu­r­ers of precis­ion metal stam­pings. The Plet­ten­berg (NRW) site now employs around 380 people. Custo­mers come from almost all indus­trial sectors, with the global auto­mo­tive and auto­mo­tive supply indus­try being the main focus. For precis­ion stam­ped metal parts, E. WINKEMANN is a compe­tent part­ner for the imple­men­ta­tion of custo­mer-speci­fic requi­re­ments. The company relies on its 80 years of expe­ri­ence and the supe­rior tech­ni­cal know-how of its employees. High-precis­ion stam­ped, embos­sed, bent and drawn parts are produ­ced in a modern machine park with a high degree of in-house produc­tion depth. All areas of the company are subject to a conti­nuous impro­ve­ment process based on effec­tive zero-defect stra­te­gies. E. WINKEMANN GmbH offers a compre­hen­sive range of services from product deve­lo­p­ment to series production.
News

Düssel­dorf, Germany - Allen & Overy LLP advi­sed US-based Eli Global LLC (Eli) on the acqui­si­tion of finanzen.de Vermitt­lungs­ge­sell­schaft für Verbrau­cher­ver­träge AG(finanzen.de) and its subsi­dia­ries in Germany, France, the UK and Switz­er­land from Black­fin Capi­tal Part­ners and the foun­ders of finanzen.de.

Finanzen.de is a successful Insur­Tech company based in Berlin and the leading Euro­pean online market­place for consu­mer leads in the finance and insu­rance sector.

The acqui­si­tion of finanzen.de is Eli’s first tran­sac­tion in Germany and the first company in Eli’s new finan­cial and insu­rance services port­fo­lio, which will consist of a diver­si­fied mix of compa­nies offe­ring such services and cover various sectors and sub-sectors. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to take place later this year. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The Allen & Overyteam consis­ted of Part­ner Dr. Jan Schrö­der and Coun­sel Anne Fischer (both Lead, bothCorporate/M&A/Insurance Corpo­rate), Part­ner Tobias Neufeld, Asso­ciate Catha­rina Glugla (both Data Protec­tion and Labor Law), Senior Asso­ciate Miray Kavruk (IP/IT, all Düssel­dorf) as well as Part­ner Thomas Neubaum , Coun­sel Bianca Engel­mann, Senior Asociate Elke Funken-Hötzel and Asso­ciate Dr. Anna Serwotka (all Banking and Finance, both Frank­furt). — In addi­tion, teams from Allen & Overy’s Paris and London offices were involved.

The law firm Niede­rer Kraft & Frey advi­sed on Swiss law.

About Allen & Overy
Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,400 employees, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 550 part­ners, in 44 offices worldwide.

Allen & Overy is repre­sen­ted in Germany at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg and Munich with appro­xi­m­ately 220 lawy­ers, inclu­ding 50 part­ners. The lawy­ers advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies prima­rily in the areas of banking, finance and capi­tal markets law, corpo­rate law and M&A, tax law as well as other areas of busi­ness law.

 

News

London — IK Invest­ment Part­ners (“IK”), a leading pan-Euro­pean private equity firm, today announ­ced the closing of its IK Small Cap II Fund (“IK Small Cap II” or “the Fund”) at the hard cap of €550 million set out in the Fund’s Artic­les of Asso­cia­tion. The fund was signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed and was placed exclu­si­vely with exis­ting inves­tors of IK.

The new fund is twice the size of its prede­ces­sor, which was IK’s first small cap fund closed in March 2016 at a hard cap of 277 million euros. The IK Small Cap I Fund has inves­ted in 12 compa­nies, of which three invest­ments have been successfully sold to date.

Like its prede­ces­sor fund, IK Small Cap II will focus on growth compa­nies in the core markets of Bene­lux, DACH, France and the Scan­di­na­vian count­ries. The invest­ments are carried out by a dedi­ca­ted small cap team with offices in Amster­dam, Hamburg, Paris and Stockholm.

Chris­to­pher Masek (photo), CEO of IK Invest­ment Part­ners, said, “Compa­nies, such as those that fall within the invest­ment focus of IK Small Cap II, are, we believe, the drivers of econo­mic growth and job crea­tion in Europe. The contin­ued confi­dence and support of our inves­tors unders­cores the high importance of inves­t­ing in this market segment, enab­ling compa­nies to enter their next phase of growth.”

Kris­tian Carls­son Kemp­pi­nen, Part­ner and respon­si­ble for the IK Small Cap Funds at IK Invest­ment Part­ners, added: “In 2017, we have seen an unpre­ce­den­ted abun­dance of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, with very crea­tive and ambi­tious compa­nies. We look forward to iden­ti­fy­ing and helping these future indus­try leaders reach their full potential.”

Nils Pohl­mann, Part­ner at IK Invest­ment Part­ners, said: “We are encou­ra­ged by the large number of excel­lent compa­nies in the DACH region and the resul­ting invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. IK’s value crea­tion approach combi­nes buy-and-build stra­te­gies and opera­tio­nal excel­lence, making it ideally aligned with high-growth natio­nal and global cham­pi­ons of the German Mittelstand.”

Gregor Korte, Part­ner at IK Invest­ment Part­ners, added: “Our far-reaching Euro­pean plat­form, combi­ned with our exten­sive local market know­ledge, offers unique growth oppor­tu­ni­ties to ambi­tious German small cap compa­nies. We look forward to part­ne­ring further with talen­ted entre­pre­neurs in the DACH region and helping them grow their businesses.”

Kirk­land & Ellis was manda­ted to provide legal advice to the IK Small Cap II Fund.

About IK Invest­ment Partners
is a Euro­pean private equity firm with an invest­ment focus on the Nordic count­ries, the DACH region and France/Benelux. Since 1989, IK has laun­ched funds with a cumu­la­tive equity volume of more than 9.5 billion euros and inves­ted in more than 115 Euro­pean compa­nies through the funds. The IK funds invest toge­ther with the respec­tive manage­ment and their inves­tors in medium-sized compa­nies with signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial in order to create successful, well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with excel­lent pros­pects for the future.

News

Bietig­heim Bissingen/ Eschborn/ Frank­furt a. M. — Funds advi­sed by private equity firm Triton have successfully comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of BFC Fahr­zeug­teile in Bietig­heim Bissin­gen. BFC Fahr­zeug­teile GmbH is a leading global specia­list and tech­no­logy leader in the field of metal clam­ping profiles for the auto­mo­tive indus­try and main­ta­ins produc­tion sites in Germany, China, Turkey and the USA.

The Triton funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Europe and support their posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. They focus on compa­nies in the indus­trial, services and consu­mer goods/healthcare sectors. 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 36 compa­nies with total sales of around EUR 14.2 billion and around 91,000 employees. The Triton funds are advi­sed by expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment profes­sio­nals based in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Italy, the UK, the US, China, Luxem­bourg and Jersey.

The inter­na­tio­nally active BFC Fahr­zeug­teile Group, head­quar­te­red in Bietig­heim-Bissin­gen, is one of the global market leaders in the field of metal clam­ping profiles for the auto­mo­tive indus­try. These products are mainly used in vehicle door, trunk and other body seals. BFC also designs and manu­fac­tures the machi­nes used, opera­ting highly flexi­ble produc­tion lines at seve­ral loca­ti­ons in Germany (2), the USA, China (2) and Turkey.

In the context of the tran­sac­tion, Triton was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed by a team of Rödl & Part­ner specia­li­zed in private equity tran­sac­tions under the leader­ship of part­ner Jochen Reis in the context of the finan­cial due dili­gence. The Tran­sac­tion Services team led by Jochen Reis advi­ses private equity compa­nies in parti­cu­lar on natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tion projects at the Esch­born / Frank­furt office.

About Triton
The invest­ment company Triton invests prima­rily in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxem­bourg, the Nether­lands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switz­er­land. We focus on medium-sized compa­nies that have the poten­tial to grow conti­nuously over econo­mic cycles. To foster this poten­tial, we work closely with the respec­tive manage­ment teams. Our invest­ment focus is on the indus­trial, service and consu­mer goods sectors

We curr­ently have invest­ments in compa­nies in Denmark, Germany, Finland, Luxem­bourg, Norway and Sweden. These compa­nies gene­rate total sales of around 14.2 billion euros and employ a total of around 91,000 people.

Advi­sor Triton: Rödl & Part­ner Eschborn
Jochen Reis, Head of Tran­sac­tion Services Esch­born, Diplom-Kauf­mann, Part­ner (Finan­cial Due Dili­gence), Simon Nieder­mann, Asso­ciate (Finan­cial Due Diligence)

About Rödl & Partner
As lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, busi­ness and IT consul­tants and audi­tors, we are repre­sen­ted at 108 of our own loca­ti­ons in 50 count­ries. Our clients trust our 4,500 colle­agues worldwide.

News

Trois­dorf — Effec­tive Janu­ary 17, 2018, the Reifen­häu­ser Group will acquire the EDS Group, an inter­na­tio­nal supplier of high-quality extru­sion dies. The inter­na­tio­nal nozzle specia­list EDS stands for tailor-made products in nozzle manu­fac­tu­ring and is a specia­list for flat nozz­les; Reifen­häu­ser stands inter­na­tio­nally for inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies in plas­tics extrusion.

Reifen­häu­ser is thus expan­ding its know-how in the compon­ents busi­ness and posi­tio­ning itself as a leading compon­ents supplier for extru­ders and dies. The acqui­si­tion combi­nes the strengths of both high-perfor­mance brands. EDS and Reifen­häu­ser comple­ment each other perfectly in terms of design and manu­fac­tu­ring know-how. With the acqui­si­tion, custo­mers will bene­fit in the future from shared high-perfor­mance tech­no­logy and manu­fac­tu­ring resour­ces as well as a global sales struc­ture. Over­all, Reifen­häu­ser is massi­vely expan­ding its tech­no­logy leader­ship in the field of nozzle produc­tion with this transaction.

MAYLAND AG was exclu­si­vely manda­ted with the sales process by Mr. Müller, the owner of the EDS Group. The process was successfully comple­ted in Decem­ber 2017 within a period of only four months with the sale to the Reifen­häu­ser Group.

About MAYLAND AG
MAYLAND is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged M&A consul­tancy based in Düssel­dorf. Since its foun­da­tion in 1998, MAYLAND, CEO Matthias C. Just (photo), has been deve­lo­ping indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons for the purchase and sale of compa­nies or parts of compa­nies with owners and manage­ment of both medium-sized compa­nies and corpo­rate groups and imple­men­ting these tran­sac­tions toge­ther with the decis­ion-makers. MAYLAND also arran­ges any neces­sary or requi­red finan­cing or asso­cia­ted restructuring.

MAYLAND provi­des struc­tu­red process manage­ment for these natio­nal and cross-border projects and coor­di­na­tes all services for a successful comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion. With analy­ti­cal excel­lence, many years of expe­ri­ence and a commit­ment to part­ner­ship, MAYLAND struc­tures tran­sac­tions in all phases of a company. MAYLAND atta­ches parti­cu­lar importance to custo­mi­zed and holi­stic solu­ti­ons, trans­pa­rent consul­ting services and long-term custo­mer rela­ti­onships based on trust.

News

Munich — Private equity inves­tor Gene­ral Atlan­tic was successful in the bidding process for a mino­rity stake in the digi­tal divi­sion of ProSiebenSat.1 Group. The parties announ­ced that Gene­ral Atlan­tic is acqui­ring a 25.1 percent stake in NuCom Group. The tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties, is based on an enter­prise value of the NuCom Group of EUR 1.8 billion.

In the NuCom Group, ProSiebenSat.l Media SE bund­les ten stra­te­gic invest­ments in predo­mi­nantly digi­tal commerce plat­forms, inclu­ding Veri­vox, Parship Elite Group and Jochen Schwei­zer mydays Group. The compa­nies bene­fit from the parent company’s high TV reach and mutual syner­gies, and are growing steadily on this basis. With Gene­ral Atlan­tic as a part­ner, ProSiebenSat.1 wants to further expand and inter­na­tio­na­lize the digi­tal division.

Gene­ral Atlan­tic is distin­gu­is­hed by deca­des of exper­tise as a stra­te­gic inves­tor in global compa­nies in the Inter­net and tech­no­logy sectors. Gene­ral Atlan­tic provi­des capi­tal and stra­te­gic support to compa­nies with high growth poten­tial. The fund employs more than 110 invest­ment profes­sio­nals across its offices in New York, Amster­dam, Beijing, Green­wich, Hong Kong, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Shang­hai and Singa­pore, and mana­ges more than $20 billion in assets.

Advi­sor Gene­ral Atlan­tic: Gleiss Lutz 
Lead Corporate/M&A Part­ners Dr. Jan Bals­sen (Munich) and Dr. Jan Bauer (Frank­furt)
Dr. Tobias Falk­ner (Coun­sel), Dr. Verena Kopp­mann, Dr. Tobias Harzenet­ter (Coun­sel), Dr. Stephan Dangel­mayer, Dr. Olaf Hohle­fel­der, Dr. Johan­nes Witt­mann, (all Corporate/M&A, all Munich), Dr. Stefan Mayer (Part­ner), Dr. Ocka Stumm (both Tax, both Frank­furt), Dr. Matthias Werner (Coun­sel), Dr. Björn Kalb­fus (Coun­sel), Dr. Manuel Klar, Dr. Theresa Uhlen­hut (all Munich), Dr. Hannah Bug (Berlin, all IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Dr. Stefan Aubel (Part­ner, Frank­furt, Capi­tal Markets), Dr. Jens Günther (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Bögl­mül­ler, Dr. Eva Heup (all Labor Law, all Munich), Dr. Reimar Buch­ner (Part­ner), Dr. Jan-Peter Spie­gel (Coun­sel, both Medi­cal Law, both Berlin), Dr. Phil­ipp Naab (Coun­sel), Svenja Bender (both Real Estate Law, both Frank­furt), Dr. Luid­ger Röck­rath (Coun­sel), Simon Fischer (both Dispute Reso­lu­tion), Dr. Petra Lins­meier (Part­ner) and Dr. Daniel Petzold (both Anti­trust Law, all Munich).

 

Gene­ral Atlan­tic is to acquire 25.1 percent of the shares in the Nucom Group , which includes online plat­forms such as Veri­vox and Parship, the company announ­ced in Unter­föh­ring. The Nucom Group is valued at 1.8 billion euros.
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This confirmed the specu­la­tion about the deal that had been circu­la­ting for seve­ral days and had alre­ady caused slight price jumps in the share price. The inves­tor is highly regarded in the indus­try for his exten­sive exper­tise. A few years ago, for exam­ple, he was a major share­hol­der in Axel Springer’s online clas­si­fieds busi­ness. He is also known in Germany as a co-owner of the long-distance bus opera­tor Flix­bus — in the USA, he holds shares in Airbnb and Uber, among others.

News

Pinnen­berg — The phar­maceu­ti­cal factory Evers GmbH & Co KG sells to the Chinese company Bright Future Phar­maceu­ti­cal Labo­ra­to­ries Ltd. The company produ­ces mainly natu­ral medi­ci­nes for the urology and gastro­en­te­ro­logy sector, which are sold inter­na­tio­nally and very stron­gly on the Asian market, espe­ci­ally in Japan and China. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The family busi­ness Phar­ma­zeu­ti­sche Fabrik Evers GmbH & Co KG was foun­ded in 1933. Head­quar­te­red in Pinne­berg, near Hamburg, Germany, the company focu­ses on a selec­ted range of natu­ral medi­ci­nes for the urology and gastro­en­te­ro­logy sectors and acts as a licen­sor in seve­ral count­ries. The Evipro­stat S, Evipro­stat N and Gallith brands are among the estab­lished products in this field.

Estab­lished in 1993, Bright Future Phar­maceu­ti­cal Labo­ra­to­ries Ltd is the largest GMP (Good Manu­fac­tu­ring Prac­tice) certi­fied phar­maceu­ti­cal manu­fac­tu­rer in Hong Kong. The company, with more than 7,000 employees, provi­des people with access to medi­ci­nes at afforda­ble prices and is parti­cu­larly active in key growth markets such as Hong Kong, main­land China, North America, Africa, Southe­ast Asia and Europe.

Advi­sors to Evers GmbH & Co KG: DLA Piper
The tran­sac­tion once again under­lines the exten­sive expe­ri­ence of the DLA Piper German China Desk, this time on the German seller side.

The core team of DLA Piper under the leader­ship of part­ner Dr. Nils Krause (photo ) contin­ued to consist of senior asso­ciate Dr. Jan-Phil­ipp Meier and asso­cia­tes Dr. Jasper von Georg and Ronja Hecker (all Corpo­rate, Hamburg). In addi­tion, Part­ner Guido Kleve, Coun­sel Dr. Thilo Streit (both Liti­ga­tion and Regu­la­tory, Colo­gne) and Chris­tian Lonquich (Real Estate, Frank­furt) as well as Tran­sac­tion Lawyer Hui Hao (Corpo­rate, Hamburg) were part of the team.

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