ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Starnberg/ Munich / Schin­del­legi (Switz­er­land) — Kühne Holding AG has ente­red into a defi­ni­tive agree­ment to acquire the phar­maceu­ti­cal contract manu­fac­tu­rer Aenova Group from the leading inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment company BC Part­ners. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the funds advi­sed by BC Part­ners will reinvest along­side Kühne Holding AG and conti­nue to support Aenova as a mino­rity share­hol­der. The finan­cial terms were not disclosed.

The Aenova Group is one of the world’s leading CDMOs (Contract Deve­lo­p­ment and Manu­fac­tu­ring Orga­niza­ti­ons) in the phar­maceu­ti­cal and health­care indus­try. Head­quar­te­red in Starn­berg near Munich, the company employs around 4,000 people at 14 produc­tion sites world­wide and is a one-stop service provi­der for the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and pack­a­ging of phar­maceu­ti­cals for phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies around the world. Under the owner­ship of BC Part­ners, the Aenova Group has deve­lo­ped into one of the ten largest CDMOs in the world. In 2023, Aenova achie­ved record results with pro forma sales of EUR 832 million, an increase of 17% compared to the previous year.

Kühne Holding AG, based in Schin­del­legi (Switz­er­land), bund­les the busi­ness inte­rests of Klaus-Michael Kühne. It has an entre­pre­neu­rial focus, holds a majo­rity stake in Kühne+Nagel Inter­na­tio­nal AG and is the largest single share­hol­der in Hapag-Lloyd AG, Deut­sche Luft­hansa AG and Brenn­tag SE.

Domi­nik de Daniel, CEO of Kühne Holding AGsaid: “With this invest­ment, we are taking an important stra­te­gic step to add health­care and phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies with a strong finan­cial base and long-term growth pros­pects to our invest­ment port­fo­lio. Aenova is on a very good path and we look forward to acce­le­ra­ting this further under our leadership.”

BC Part­ners utili­zed both the exten­sive origi­na­tion network of its Hamburg office and its exper­tise in the health­care sector to seize the oppor­tu­nity to invest in Aenova and acqui­red the company outside of an auction process. Health­care is one of BC Part­ners’ core sectors and its dedi­ca­ted health­care invest­ment team has inves­ted more than €6 billion in 21 health­care part­ner­ships since its inception.

Raymond Svider, Chair­man of BC Part­nersadded: “It has been a plea­sure working with Jan and the entire Aenova team. Toge­ther, we have posi­tio­ned the company as a global leader in contract manu­fac­tu­ring and estab­lished a solid foun­da­tion for future growth, with the company now bene­fiting from strong sales momen­tum, a record order back­log and favorable indus­try tail­winds. We are plea­sed that such an important German health­care company can conti­nue its growth trajec­tory under the stra­te­gic leader­ship of Kühne Holding AG. We have a long and successful history of working with fami­lies and foun­ders across Europe and look forward to working closely with Kühne Holding AG and Aenova in this next chap­ter of the company.”

This tran­sac­tion repres­ents another oppor­tu­nity for BC Part­ners’ funds to return signi­fi­cant capi­tal to inves­tors. BC Part­ners has comple­ted nine liqui­dity events in the last 12 months, gene­ra­ting EUR 8 billion in value for funds and co-inves­tors advi­sed by BC Part­ners, inclu­ding exits of port­fo­lio compa­nies Presi­dio, Forno d’Asolo Group, IMA and PetSmart in the last six months alone.

“With the new owner­ship struc­ture, we will conti­nue to imple­ment our stra­tegy to make Aenova the leading CDMO with market-leading capa­bi­li­ties and inno­va­tive specialty tech­no­lo­gies in Europe. With its long-term invest­ment hori­zon, Kühne Holding AG is the perfect comple­ment for the company to support this stra­tegy. It enables us to conti­nue on the path of opera­tio­nal excel­lence in the conven­tio­nal produc­tion busi­ness while buil­ding highly sought-after tech­no­logy plat­forms and deve­lo­p­ment services to meet custo­mer demand in the future,” empha­si­zes Jan Kengel­bach, CEO of Aenova since 2018.

E3X Part­ners (“E3X”) has worked closely with Kühne Holding AG to struc­ture and execute the plan­ned acqui­si­tion. Martin Mix, Mana­ging Part­ner at E3X, an invest­ment and advi­sory firm, comm­ents: “Our part­ner­ship with Kühne Holding AG under­lines our stra­te­gic commit­ment to brin­ging toge­ther the right long-term part­ners to support Aenova’s growth.” Jan-Felix Stolz, Mana­ging Part­ner at E3X, adds: “Aenova has a high stra­te­gic rele­vance for the growing Euro­pean phar­maceu­ti­cal market and we are exci­ted about the company’s prospects.”

- BC Part­ners and Aenova were advi­sed by Jeffe­ries, Kirk­land & Ellis, L.E.K. and PwC.
- Kühne Holding AG and E3X Part­ners were advi­sed by Allen & Overy and EY.

The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and the appr­oval of the rele­vant merger control authorities.

About the Aenova Group

The Aenova Group is a leading global contract manu­fac­tu­rer and deve­lo­p­ment service provi­der for the phar­maceu­ti­cal and health­care indus­try. As a one-stop store, Aenova deve­lops, produ­ces and packa­ges all common dosage forms, product groups and active ingre­di­ent clas­ses from phar­maceu­ti­cals to food supple­ments for human and animal health: solid, semi-solid and liquid, sterile and non-sterile, high and low doses, OEB 1 to 5 (Occu­pa­tio­nal Expo­sure Band). Around 4,000 employees at 14 loca­ti­ons in Europe and the USA contri­bute to the company’s success. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.aenova-group.com.

About BC Partners

BC Part­ners is a leading invest­ment firm with more than EUR 40 billion in assets under manage­ment in the areas of private equity, private debt and real estate stra­te­gies. BC Part­ners was foun­ded in 1986 and has played an active role in the deve­lo­p­ment of the Euro­pean buy-out market for over three deca­des. Today, BC Part­ners’ inte­gra­ted trans­at­lan­tic invest­ment teams operate from offices in Europe and North America and are focu­sed on our four core sectors: TMT, Health­care, Services and Indus­tri­als, and Consu­mer. Since its incep­tion, BC Part­ners has made over 127 private equity invest­ments in compa­nies with a total value of over €160 billion and is curr­ently inves­t­ing its eleventh private equity buyout fund. www.bcpartners.com.

About E3X Partners

E3X Part­ners is an invest­ment and advi­sory firm specia­li­zing in long-term part­ner­ships with invest­ment holding compa­nies, family offices and busi­ness owners. We offer custo­mi­zed capi­tal solu­ti­ons and stra­te­gic advice in public and private markets with a focus on Europe. Our custo­mi­zed services include invest­ment sourcing, tran­sac­tion execu­tion, port­fo­lio manage­ment, opera­tio­nal value crea­tion and board functions.

E3X Part­ners was foun­ded by Martin Mix and Jan-Felix Stolz and combi­nes exper­tise from the fields of private equity, finan­cial markets and stra­te­gic consul­ting. We forge lasting part­ner­ships based on trust, colla­bo­ra­tion and excel­lence to promote sustainable growth and deli­ver lasting value to our part­ners. www.e3xpartners.com.

 

News

Berlin — Culti­mate Foods, a biotech start-up based in Berlin Biocube and Hanno­ver (Insti­tute of Tech­ni­cal Chemis­try, Leib­niz Univer­si­tät Hanno­ver), successfully closes its seed round to scale up produc­tion proces­ses and expand commer­cial colla­bo­ra­ti­ons and operations.

The EUR 2.3 million finan­cing round was led by High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), one of Europe’s leading seed inves­tors. In addi­tion to HTGF, Life Science Valley Wachs­tums­fonds, b.value AG and Kale United also parti­ci­pa­ted. The world’s leading food­tech inves­tor Big Idea Ventures also parti­ci­pa­ted in this round.

Culti­mate Foods has deve­lo­ped an alter­na­tive fat that gives plant-based meat substi­tu­tes an authen­tic taste. Although there are many plant-based alter­na­ti­ves on super­mar­ket shel­ves, taste is still the biggest argu­ment that prevents consu­mers from choo­sing these sustainable products. As a B2B part­ner, Culti­mate Foods supplies cell-cultu­red premium fats to the alter­na­tive meat indus­try to solve this problem. The company has alre­ady carried out seve­ral commer­cial pilot projects with leading compa­nies in the food industry.

Culti­mate Foods took its first steps in Göttin­gen at the Life Science Factory, where it was able to get star­ted with its rese­arch imme­dia­tely after the pre-seed round in the well-equip­ped laboratories.

“Science is the key to solving many problems in the food indus­try. With inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies, we can deli­ver the meat taste that consu­mers want, while at the same time curbing unethi­cal factory farming and coun­ter­ac­ting climate change by redu­cing CO2 emis­si­ons. Follow your passion and make the world a better place,” says Euge­nia Sagué, co-foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of Culti­mate Foods.

“Culti­mate Foods has achie­ved important mile­sto­nes in a short space of time, built strong rela­ti­onships with the food­tech indus­try and ente­red into colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with univer­si­ties. HTGF is exci­ted to enter a new field of invest­ment and support Culti­mate Foods in revo­lu­tio­ni­zing the alter­na­tive meat indus­try with its cell-cultu­red fat ingre­di­ent. We have the oppor­tu­nity to really make a diffe­rence in the food indus­try,” comm­ents Tilmann Peter­sen, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF.

“As one of the most active inves­tors in agri-food tech­no­logy, we see inno­va­tion in fats as criti­cal to impro­ving the taste, health profile, sustaina­bi­lity and scala­bi­lity of sustainable food. As early pre-seed inves­tors in Culti­mate who have witnessed the team’s deve­lo­p­ment, we are exci­ted to conti­nue to support Culti­mate in this successful seed round as they bring their inno­va­tive fat ingre­di­ent to market,” said Caro­line Mak, Senior Direc­tor at Big Idea Ventures.

“Closing the seed round in today’s fund­rai­sing envi­ron­ment confirms the success of our tech­no­lo­gi­cal approach and the efforts of our team. With a consor­tium of expe­ri­en­ced biotech and food­tech funds on board, we look forward to bene­fiting from both areas of exper­tise as we scale to the next TRL and enter our first markets,” said George Zhelez­nyi, co-foun­der and CEO of Culti­mate Foods.

About Culti­mate Foods

Culti­mate Foods is a cellu­lar agri­cul­ture company that produ­ces plant-based alter­na­tive fat for meat products. Unlike other fat alter­na­ti­ves, the company crea­tes a unique lipid compo­si­tion of the fat that provi­des an authen­tic pork and beef flavor. The company has raised more than EUR 3 million to date and is supported by the strong life science inves­tors HTGF, b.value AG, Life Science Valley Wachs­tums­fonds as well as the largest food­tech funds Big Idea Venture, ProVeg Inter­na­tio­nal and Kale United. www.cultimatefoods.com

About the Life Science Valley Growth Fund

The early-stage fund for life science tech­no­logy spin-offs in Lower Saxony aims to exploit the local commer­cial and entre­pre­neu­rial poten­tial arising from excel­lent life science rese­arch and tech­no­lo­gies. It supports compa­nies in the fields of biotech­no­logy, medi­cal tech­no­logy, digi­tal health, agri­cul­tu­ral scien­ces and food tech­no­logy and promo­tes successful start-ups in tech­no­lo­gi­cal growth areas.

About b.value AG

b.value AG invests in DeepT­ech start-ups that combine excep­tio­nal foun­ders and ground­brea­king tech­no­lo­gies and offer solu­ti­ons for a sustainable world of tomor­row. The profound tech­no­logy exper­tise and many years of opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence in buil­ding and mana­ging biotech and high-tech compa­nies enable b.value AG to iden­tify the most promi­sing DeepT­ech start-ups and to support them finan­ci­ally and stra­te­gi­cally in order to realize their full poten­tial. Its unique struc­ture and expe­ri­ence allow b.value AG to act both flexi­bly and for the long term.

About Big Idea Ventures

Big Idea Ventures is one of the world’s leading invest­ment compa­nies in the fields of food tech­no­logy, agri­cul­tu­ral tech­no­logy and mate­ri­als science. We specia­lize in inves­t­ing in the world’s most inno­va­tive and sustainable tech­no­logy compa­nies. We combine capi­tal and part­ner­ships to promote econo­mic growth and build new food ecosys­tems. By foun­ding and support­ing pionee­ring compa­nies, we want to reduce the climate impact of food produc­tion and feed the world sustain­ably. Big Idea Ventures has teams in New York, Paris and Singa­pore and has inves­ted in more than 110 compa­nies in 30 countries.

About Kale United

Kale United is a publicly traded holding company that invests in pionee­ring plant and food tech­no­logy compa­nies. The aim is to maxi­mize the impact and increase the finan­cial return at the same time.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 750 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has around 1.4 billion euros under manage­ment. The team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. To date, exter­nal inves­tors have inves­ted around EUR 5 billion in the HTGF port­fo­lio in more than 2,000 follow-on finan­cing rounds. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 180 companies.
The fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal and 45 compa­nies from a wide range of sectors.

 

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is selling a signi­fi­cant portion of its stake in Solva­res, a leading provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for resource and route plan­ning. Five Arrows joins as a part­ner to support the company on its further growth path. The shares in DBAG ECF III, which was advi­sed by DBAG, will also be parti­ally sold. With its invest­ment in Solva­res, DBAG ECF III has successfully arran­ged the succes­sion of the former foun­der-mana­ged company.

Proceeds from the sale slightly above the fair value of the invest­ment as at Decem­ber 31, 2023

DBAG is now reali­zing proceeds from the sale that are slightly higher than the fair value of the invest­ment in the preli­mi­nary conso­li­da­ted balance sheet as at 31 Decem­ber 2023. This results in a slightly posi­tive value contri­bu­tion from the tran­sac­tion in the current quar­ter. The further invest­ment will allow addi­tio­nal value to be gene­ra­ted from the future deve­lo­p­ment of the company: DBAG and DBAG ECF III conti­nue to see very good deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for Solva­res, which is now one of the largest Euro­pean plat­forms for resource opti­miza­tion, and will ther­e­fore retain a signi­fi­cant stake. The new share­hol­der, Five Arrows, brings valuable B2B soft­ware and indus­try exper­tise to support the expan­sion of Solva­res’ product port­fo­lio and inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion stra­tegy by acce­le­ra­ting orga­nic growth and acquisitions.

Second sale from the DBAG ECF III portfolio

With the sale of its stake, DBAG ECF III has achie­ved the second realiza­tion from its fund port­fo­lio. Since 2018, the fund has built up a port­fo­lio of three compa­nies. The sale of the invest­ment in BTV Multi­me­dia was the first MBO sale from the DBAG ECF III portfolio.

Dispo­sal under­lines DBAG’s progress in the IT Services and Soft­ware segment 

The successful sale also under­lines the good progress made by DBAG in the IT Services and Soft­ware segment. After buil­ding up exten­sive know-how and a strong network, seven invest­ments have now been made in this segment. The asso­cia­ted share of DBAG’s total port­fo­lio value has increased almost five­fold in the last three years from five to 24 percent (as of Decem­ber 31, 2023).

Leading provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for resource and route plan­ning in Europe

Solva­res offers its custo­mers indus­try-leading soft­ware solu­ti­ons for plan­ning, control­ling and opti­mi­zing their field service, distri­bu­tion and trans­port logi­stics. Solva­res’ solu­tion plat­form is at the center of resource and mobi­lity manage­ment and supports over 3,000 custo­mers in 45 count­ries in solving complex use cases through proprie­tary algo­rithms and best-of-breed tech­no­lo­gies. This achie­ves tangi­ble effi­ci­ency gains for field service orga­niza­ti­ons and at the same time signi­fi­cantly redu­ces resource consump­tion and CO2 emis­si­ons. With a clear stra­te­gic focus and far-reaching invest­ments, Solva­res has succee­ded in trans­forming itself from a tradi­tio­nal license busi­ness into a powerful SaaS solu­tion provi­der. Turno­ver has increased almost five­fold in the last five years. Acqui­si­ti­ons also contri­bu­ted to the average double-digit orga­nic growth. The targe­ted acqui­si­tion of a total of five compa­nies enab­led further expan­sion in the field sales manage­ment area and comple­men­ted the product port­fo­lio with logi­stics and mobile func­tions. Finally, the inte­gra­tion of a former UK sales part­ner helped with internationalization.

“The high growth dyna­mics of the market coupled with invest­ments in soft­ware code and targe­ted inter­na­tio­nal company acqui­si­ti­ons have made a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to forming a Euro­pean market leader,” comm­ents Tom Alzin, Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (photo © DBAG), on the partial sale. He added: “Our decis­ion to focus more on digi­tal busi­ness models is incre­asingly paying off — to the bene­fit of inves­tors in DBAG’s shares and funds.”

Ivan Baga­ric, Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer of Solva­resadds: “Our solu­ti­ons deli­ver signi­fi­cant added value to our custo­mers on a daily basis. Our busi­ness has deve­lo­ped stron­gly in recent years and I look forward to conti­nuing our growth plan in the coming years and deve­lo­ping Solva­res into the Euro­pean market leader for field manage­ment and logi­stics soft­ware. Five Arrows, with its exten­sive global expe­ri­ence in scaling B2B soft­ware busi­nesses and long-term invest­ment perspec­tive, is our part­ner of choice to support us in this next phase of our jour­ney. We are grateful for DBAG’s support to date and are deligh­ted that they will remain our inves­tors along­side Five Arrows.”

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of Germany’s most renow­ned private equity compa­nies. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The indus­try focus is on manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services, soft­ware and health­care sectors. Since 2020, DBAG has also been repre­sen­ted in Italy with its own office in Milan. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to appro­xi­m­ately 2.6 billion euros. As part of its stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with ELF Capi­tal Group, DBAG is adding private debt capi­tal to its range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs.

News

Wetz­lar / Trois­dorf / Grei­fen­stein — Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, toge­ther with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance a leading German M&A advi­sory boutique for medium-sized compa­nies, has successfully advi­sed Eloma­trix Eloxal + Ober­flä­chen­tech­nik GmbH (“Eloma­trix”) on its sale to HERNEE HARTANODIC GmbH (“HERNEE”). The two specia­lists for metal proces­sing and surface finis­hing are thus pooling their exper­tise and aiming to achieve further growth and streng­then their market position.

Foun­ded in Colo­gne in 1964, Eloma­trix Eloxal + Ober­flä­chen­tech­nik GmbH has estab­lished itself as an expe­ri­en­ced anodi­zing plant throug­hout Germany. The North Rhine-West­pha­lian company offers specia­li­zed services to its custo­mers, who come from the aero­space, rene­wa­ble energy, auto­mo­tive and mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring indus­tries, among others. These range from the anodi­zing of alumi­nium profiles and sheet metal to the finis­hing of proto­ty­pes and series parts in stan­dard and special colors. The surface specia­list combi­nes the highest quality stan­dards and custo­mer focus with short deli­very times.

New owner for Elomatrix

The previous share­hol­der Klaus Schlotz, who took over the tradi­tio­nal company from company foun­der Heinz Erdmann in 1999 and has conti­nuously deve­lo­ped it ever since, is now handing over Eloma­trix to the new owner: HERNEE HARTANODIC GmbH, based in Hesse, is also a proven specia­list in metal proces­sing and surface finis­hing, with a focus on alumi­num surface tech­no­logy. With its specia­li­zed service port­fo­lio such as indi­vi­dual color/gloss anodi­zing and wear-resistant surfaces (hard coating process), HERNEE has been serving a broad custo­mer base for over 30 years. These include groups and compa­nies from the auto­mo­tive and aero­space indus­tries, as well as from the elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring, semi­con­duc­tor and medi­cal tech­no­logy sectors.

Increase in growth poten­tial through multi­ple synergy effects

By merging with Eloma­trix, HERNEE is streng­thening its service port­fo­lio and further expan­ding its exis­ting custo­mer base. At the same time, the targe­ted use of synergy effects should enable the company to achieve its stra­te­gic growth targets. Klaus Schlotz, part­ner at Eloma­trix, will provide advice during the tran­si­tion phase. He comm­ents: “For over 60 years, Eloma­trix has stood for in-depth expe­ri­ence in alumi­num surface finis­hing. With HERNEE and Jens Neeb in parti­cu­lar, we have now found a part­ner who fits perfectly with the core compe­ten­cies and values of Eloma­trix and will lead the company into a successful future thanks to his many years of expe­ri­ence in the industry”.

Sebas­tian Wissig, the respon­si­ble project mana­ger at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, adds: “With their combi­ned resour­ces, both compa­nies are an excel­lent addi­tion to each other and to the market — both opera­tio­nally and stra­te­gi­cally. The many years of acti­vity of Eloma­trix and HERNEE in the market create the ideal condi­ti­ons for signi­fi­cantly acce­le­ra­ting further growth through the iden­ti­fied syner­gies, coher­ently expan­ding the product range and further streng­thening the market position.”

About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor GmbH, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, is one of the leading M&A consul­ting firms in the German SME sector. The team of almost 30 experts accom­pa­nies medium-sized entre­pre­neurs exclu­si­vely through the entire sales process. “Our task is to safe­guard life’s work,” is how we see oursel­ves. In doing so, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, and which protects the iden­tity of their compa­nies to a special degree. Thanks to their excel­lent access to medium-sized compa­nies, Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance have also estab­lished them­sel­ves as a strong part­ner at the side of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal major compa­nies and inves­tors in acqui­si­ti­ons. This is also demons­tra­ted by the top posi­tion recently achie­ved at the Merger­mar­ket League Table. With a total of ten accom­pa­nied tran­sac­tions in the first quar­ter of 2024, the M&A consul­tancy ranks first in Germany. www.nachfolgekontor.de www.sonntagcf.com

About Eloma­trix Eloxal + Ober­flä­chen­tech­nik GmbH 
https://www.elomatrix.de/index.html

About HERNEE HARTANODIC GmbH 
https://www.hernee.de/

News

Knorr Brake Holding Corpo­ra­tion, a subsi­diary of Knorr-Bremse AG, signed an agree­ment with a subsi­diary of Alstom S.A. on April 19, 2024 to acquire Alstom’s conven­tio­nal rail signal­ing busi­ness in North America (Alstom Signal­ing North America).

An enter­prise value of around EUR 630 million was agreed as the purchase price. This includes an amount in the mid double-digit million euro range for addi­tio­nal expec­ted project busi­ness. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons and is expec­ted in summer 2024.

Henge­ler Muel­ler is advi­sing Knorr-Bremse on the tran­sac­tion in an inte­gra­ted team with the US law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed (part­ner Gerold Nigge­mann, M&A).

Advi­sor Knorr-Bremse: Henge­ler Mueller

M&A: Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Ziegen­hain (part­ner, lead), Dr. David Negen­born, Daniel Omas­rei­ter (both asso­cia­tes, all Munich).
Corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law: Dr. Simon Patrick Link (Part­ner), Dr. Lucas Lich­ten­berg (Asso­ciate, both Munich).
Anti­trust law: Dr. Markus Röhrig (Part­ner, Brussels), Dr. Anja Balitzki (Coun­sel, Düsseldorf).
FDI: Dr. Jan Bonhage (Part­ner, Berlin).

Team Knorr-Bremse: The in-house team of Knorr-Bremse AG included Chris­tian Vornehm (Head of Service Line Legal, M&A) and Dr. Moritz Schuler (Head of Corpo­rate Office, Capi­tal Market Law).

About Henge­ler Mueller

Henge­ler Muel­ler is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with offices in Berlin, Brussels, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, London and Munich. With around 320 lawy­ers, 90 of whom are part­ners, the firm specia­li­zes in provi­ding legal advice in complex tran­sac­tions, conten­tious dispu­tes and special situa­tions. Henge­ler Mueller’s clients include major commer­cial enter­pri­ses as well as leading inves­tors and family busi­nesses in Europe and worldwide.

News

Esch­born — Rödl & Part­ner has provi­ded Silver Invest­ment Part­ners (SIP) with compre­hen­sive commer­cial advice on acqui­si­ti­ons in connec­tion with the estab­lish­ment and expan­sion of its majo­rity share­hol­ding in COHEMI Group GmbH (COHEMI), an IT consul­ting group. The newly foun­ded consul­ting group, an alli­ance of SIRIUS Consul­ting & Trai­ning, Acuroc Solu­ti­ons and IQ Solu­ti­ons, is pursuing a long-term buy-and-build stra­tegy. The exis­ting manage­ment of all three compa­nies will remain signi­fi­cantly invol­ved both opera­tio­nally and financially.

This merger of the port­fo­lio compa­nies from IT, process and orga­niza­tio­nal consul­ting has the poten­tial to jointly exploit exis­ting growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the market and create syner­gies at Group level. For the custo­mers and target group — SMEs and corpo­ra­ti­ons in the DACH region, parti­cu­larly in the chemi­cal, phar­maceu­ti­cal, life scien­ces and energy supply sectors — the inte­gra­tion means a more compre­hen­sive range of consul­ting services. The Group’s core compe­ten­cies include IT gover­nance, IT project manage­ment, (IT) service manage­ment, change manage­ment, asset stra­tegy & perfor­mance manage­ment, data manage­ment as well as soft­ware asset and license management.

SIP was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by a Rödl & Part­ner team specia­li­zing in private equity tran­sac­tions, led by part­ner Tobias Beine. Senior Asso­ciate Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Focke and Asso­ciate Simon Holz­wei­ler joined the Tran­sac­tion Services team from Esch­born near Frank­furt am Main.

About Silver Invest­ment Part­ners (SIP)

SIP is an inde­pen­dent inves­tor for equity finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. As an entre­pre­neur-led part­ner, SIP states that it is invol­ved in majo­rity and mino­rity share­hol­dings in compa­nies with sales of between EUR 5 and 100 million, with a focus on compa­nies with sales of between EUR 10 and 50 million.

About COHEMI Group

The COHEMI Group is a consul­ting group with a focus on IT, process and orga­niza­tio­nal consul­ting. Its opera­tio­nal consul­ting compa­nies comprise almost 100 consul­tants (as of March 2024) at four loca­ti­ons in Germany with head­quar­ters in Frank­furt am Main. Accor­ding to the company, it plans to conti­nuously expand its port­fo­lio. The Group is pursuing a buy-and-build stra­tegy and intends to grow well above the market average in the coming years. The manage­ment consists of Chris Kohls­dorf and Michael Kern.

Advi­sor Silver Invest­ment Part­ners: Rödl & Partner

Tobias Beine, Part­ner, Finan­cial Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services, Esch­born, over­all project manage­ment — Finan­cial, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Focke, Senior Asso­ciate, Finan­cial Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services, Esch­born — Finan­cial, Simon Holz­wei­ler, Asso­ciate, Finan­cial Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services, Esch­born — Financial.

Rödl & Part­ner — The agile caret­a­ker for medium-sized global market leaders
As lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, busi­ness and IT consul­tants and audi­tors, we are repre­sen­ted at 110 of our own loca­ti­ons in around 50 count­ries. Our clients trust our 5,800 colle­agues world­wide. www.roedl.de.

News

Munich — PROM12 Capi­tal Fund I GmbH & Co. KG has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in SOLV­Vi­sion AG. PROM12 is an entre­pre­neur-led private equity company with a focus on profi­ta­ble small and medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. PROM12 specia­li­zes in part­ne­ring with entre­pre­neurs in the IT, IT services, digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and tech­no­logy sectors to help them acce­le­rate their growth and create sustainable value. The commer­cial law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed PROM12 Capi­tal Fund I GmbH & Co. KG on this transaction.

SOLV­Vi­sion AG offers high-quality enter­prise and IT service manage­ment services in the areas of consul­ting, quali­fi­ca­tion and process and ITSM plat­form operation.

About PROM12

As an entre­pre­neur-led invest­ment company, PROM12 sees itself as a spar­ring part­ner that supports tech compa­nies in their deve­lo­p­ment into natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal cham­pi­ons. PROM12 brings deep exper­tise from the IT/ IT Services/ Soft­ware indus­try and invests in its selec­ted part­ners to enable sustainable and acce­le­ra­ted growth, crea­ting long-term value. https://prom12.com

Legal advi­sors PROM12: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich

Dr. Kilian Helm­reich (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Isabelle Vran­cken (Senior Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Sophie Stef­fen (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate Law/M&A)
Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law, Munich: Ingo Sappa (Part­ner, Employ­ment Law)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus

Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

News

Zuffen­hau­sen — Porsche Auto­mo­bil Holding SE (Porsche SE) has issued a further bond with a volume of 1.6 billion euros — the largest unra­ted bond on the market. The bond compri­ses two tran­ches with matu­ri­ties until Septem­ber 2029 and Septem­ber 2032 and a volume of EUR 750 million and EUR 850 million respec­tively. The bond was over­sub­scri­bed seve­ral times.

The funds will be used by Porsche SE for the partial early repay­ment of exis­ting finan­cial liabi­li­ties and to build up stra­te­gic liqui­dity for poten­tial acquisitions.

Advi­sor Porsche Auto­mo­bil Holding SE: Henge­ler Mueller

Capi­tal markets law: Alex­an­der G. Rang (part­ner, lead), Julia Weid­ner (coun­sel), Dr. Konrad Schä­fer (asso­ciate, all Frank­furt). Corpo­rate law: Dr. Cars­ten A. Schap­mann, Dr. Gerd Sassen­rath (both part­ners), Manuela Roeding (coun­sel), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Metzen (asso­ciate, all Düsseldorf).

About Henge­ler Mueller

Henge­ler Muel­ler is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with offices in Berlin, Brussels, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, London and Munich. With around 320 lawy­ers, 90 of whom are part­ners, the firm specia­li­zes in provi­ding legal advice in complex tran­sac­tions, conten­tious dispu­tes and special situa­tions. Henge­ler Mueller’s clients include major commer­cial enter­pri­ses as well as leading inves­tors and family busi­nesses in Europe and worldwide.

News

Frank­furt — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­ses NRDC Equity Manage­ment Company on the acqui­si­tion of Gale­ria Karstadt Kauf­hof out of insol­vency. Toge­ther with entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner Bernd Beetz, NRDC has won the bidding process for the insol­vent depart­ment store chain Gale­ria Karstadt Kauf­hof and concluded the inves­tor agree­ment with the insol­vency admi­nis­tra­tor Stefan Denkhaus.

NRDC is the invest­ment company of Cana­dian entre­pre­neur Richard Baker. Baker has made a name for itself in the global fashion indus­try through a series of shrewd acqui­si­ti­ons. He owns a majo­rity stake in the depart­ment store company Hudson Bay Company (HBC). Among other things, HBC owns the Ameri­can luxury depart­ment store chain Saks Fifth Avenue. The consor­tium that wants to take over Gale­ria also includes former Kauf­hof Super­vi­sory Board Chair­man Bernd Beetz.

Gale­ria Karstadt Kauf­hof is the largest depart­ment store chain in Germany and the second largest depart­ment store group in Europe and filed for insol­vency in Janu­ary 2024 for the third time in the last four years follo­wing the bank­ruptcy of its parent company Signa. Gale­ria opera­tes 92 depart­ment stores in Germany and employs more than 15,000 people, accor­ding to its own figures.

The take­over by NRDC and Bernd Beetz follows a compe­ti­tive bidding process, which the insol­vency admi­nis­tra­tor began shortly after the insol­vency appli­ca­tion and ended shortly after the opening of insol­vency procee­dings with the award of the contract to NRDC and Bernd Beetz. The trans­fer of Gale­ria Karstadt Kauf­hof will take place by way of an insol­vency plan and the closing of the tran­sac­tion is plan­ned for the summer. — Baker was alre­ady the majo­rity owner of Gale­ria Kauf­hof from 2015 to 2019. The company was subse­quently sold to the Austrian René Benko.

The inter­na­tio­nal WEIL team was led by part­ners Robert Rizzo (Corpo­rate, NY), Britta Grauke (Restruc­tu­ring, Frank­furt) and Dr. Chris­tian Tapp­ei­ner (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and compri­sed Part­ner Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Coun­sel Dr. Matthias Eiden (Restruc­tu­ring, Frank­furt), Coun­sel Thomas Zimmer­mann (Finance, Munich), Coun­sel Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe (Real Estate / IP/IT, Munich), as well as asso­cia­tes Melina Husic (Restruc­tu­ring, Frank­furt), Hans-Chris­tian Mick (Finance, Frank­furt), Silvia Lengauer (Finance, Munich), Nata­scha Spaeth, Sebas­tian Klein, Jannik Dutt­lin­ger, Alex­an­der Roth­stein (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Caro­lin Vetter­mann (Tax Law, Munich), Alex­an­der Reich, Daniel Reich (both Tax Law, Frank­furt), Laura Kirch­ber­ger (Real Estate, Munich), Benja­min Köpple (Employ­ment Law, Munich), Clarissa Tran (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt), David Fier (IP/IT, Munich).

About Weil

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers. Weil has offices in New York, Boston, Brussels, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Shang­hai, Washing­ton, D.C. and Sili­con Valley. In Germany, the firm has two offices and around 60 lawyers/tax advi­sors in Frank­furt and Munich. The focus here is on provi­ding specia­li­zed advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal clients on cross-border private equity and M&A tran­sac­tions, high-profile liti­ga­tion manda­tes, complex restruc­tu­rings and finan­cings as well as tax structuring.

News

Munich — Proxima Fusion, the first spin-out of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Plasma Physics (IPP), has recei­ved seed funding of 20 million euros to acce­le­rate the cons­truc­tion of the first gene­ra­tion of fusion power plants. The Munich-based start-up has set itself the goal of enab­ling a new era of scalable, emis­sion-free energy. The tech­no­logy for this is based on the prin­ci­ple of opti­mi­zed quasi-isody­na­mic (QI) stel­la­ra­tors and high-tempe­ra­ture superconductors.

Redal­pine leads the seed finan­cing round — with invest­ments from Bayern Kapi­tal, the DeepT­ech & Climate Fund and the Max Planck Foun­da­tion. As an exis­ting inves­tor, UVC Part­ners doubles the pre-seed invest­ment along­side Plural, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, Wilbe and Visio­na­ries Club.

Inno­va­tive tech­no­logy in the field of compu­ter-based simulations

QI stel­la­ra­tors are one of the most promi­sing tech­no­lo­gies when it comes to tapping CO2-free, safe and almost unli­mi­ted energy. The funda­men­tal scien­ti­fic ques­ti­ons in magne­tic fusion have been inten­si­vely rese­ar­ched for more than six deca­des. Howe­ver, the gene­ra­tion of sustainable and econo­mic­ally viable fusion energy remained a chall­enge. Proxima Fusion builds on the results of the Wendel­stein 7‑X (W7‑X) expe­ri­ment, the world’s largest stel­la­ra­tor at the Max Planck Insti­tute for Plasma Physics.

Dr. Fran­cesco Sciort­ino, co-foun­der and CEO of Proxima Fusion“In April 2023, we star­ted with the tech­ni­cal opti­miza­tion and deve­lo­p­ment of magnets made of high-tempe­ra­ture super­con­duc­tors. We are now making tremen­dous progress in inte­gra­ted design with our Star­Fin­der auto­ma­tion system. The support of high-profile inves­tors confirms the high quality of the team and its pionee­ring impact.” In addi­tion to acce­le­ra­ting deve­lo­p­ment in the areas of hard­ware and soft­ware, Proxima Fusion will use the seed funding in parti­cu­lar to expand the team.

Benja­min Erhart, Gene­ral Part­ner at UVC Part­ners: “Proxima Fusion’s strengths in auto­ma­ted design, AI-assis­ted engi­nee­ring, high-tempe­ra­ture super­con­duc­tor magnet tech­no­logy and the team’s rapid growth and capa­bi­li­ties give us confi­dence in making fusion energy a reality in power plant operations.”

About Proxima Fusion

As the first spin-out of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Plasma Physics, Proxima Fusion is acce­le­ra­ting a para­digm shift in the energy sector. The Munich-based start-up is buil­ding on the pionee­ring W7‑X expe­ri­ment in Germany and is deve­lo­ping the world’s first QI stel­la­ra­tor power plant using high-tempe­ra­ture super­con­duc­tors. The declared aim is to tap into the universe’s ulti­mate energy source in order to gene­rate conti­nuous and relia­ble emis­sion-free energy. In 2023, engi­neers and scien­tists from orga­niza­ti­ons such as the Max Planck Society, MIT and Google foun­ded Proxima Fusion and the company is alre­ady leading Europe into a new era of clean energy. www.proximafusion.com

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a Munich and Berlin-based early stage venture capi­tal firm that invests in Euro­pean B2B start-ups in the fields of enter­prise soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies and mobi­lity. The fund gene­rally invests between €0.5 and €10 million at the outset and up to €30 million in total per company. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s leading inno­va­tion and start-up center. With over 400 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM can draw on many years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding young compa­nies. This colla­bo­ra­tion gives UVC Part­ners the oppor­tu­nity to provide start­ups with unique access to talent, indus­try clients and other finan­cial part­ners. www.uvcpartners.com

News

New York/ Hamburg — The Ameri­can private equity inves­tor KKR has made an offer of €2.8 billion ($3 billion) for the take­over of the German rene­wa­ble energy manu­fac­tu­rer Enca­vis. Enca­vis, based on Grosse Elbstrasse in Hamburg, opera­tes more than 300 wind and solar parks throug­hout Europe — most of them in Germany.

KKR subsi­diary Blitz 21–823 (BidCo) has reached an agree­ment on a volun­t­ary public take­over offer for all outstan­ding shares of Enca­vis at an offer price of EUR 17.50 per share.

The offer price is 33% above the volume-weigh­ted 3‑month average price on March 5, 2024 and 54% above the closing price of the Enca­vis share of € 11.35 on the same day.

The Ameri­can finan­cial inves­tor belie­ves that it has alre­ady secu­red a major stake in Enca­vis, as major share­hol­ders around the Hamburg billionaire Albert Büll want to sell their shares. Büll and his part­ner Corne­lius Liedke are among the larger real estate inves­tors in Hamburg, having built the Munds­burg Tower, the Mercado in Altona and the Neue Flora musi­cal thea­ter, among others. The moti­va­tion for the sale of its Enca­vis shares is unclear.

The Manage­ment Board and Super­vi­sory Board of Enca­vis have unani­mously voted in favor of the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship and plan to recom­mend that share­hol­ders accept the offer.

KKR has submit­ted the offer in a consor­tium that also includes the Viess­mann Group, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of heating and cooling systems, and the private equity inves­tor Abacon Capital.

The take­over is subject to the achie­ve­ment of a mini­mum accep­tance thres­hold of 54.3 % of all outstan­ding Enca­vis shares and the fulfill­ment of stan­dard offer condi­ti­ons such as appr­oval by super­vi­sory autho­ri­ties, anti­trust autho­ri­ties and foreign direct investors.
The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the fourth quar­ter of 2024.

Enca­vis is then delis­ted from the stock exch­ange and trans­fer­red to private ownership.

News

Munich/Burgheim/New York City — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) sell their majo­rity stake in Sport Group to KPS Capi­tal Part­ners, LP (“KPS”) follo­wing a successful part­ner­ship. — With the support of Equis­tone, the Bava­rian-based group of compa­nies has deve­lo­ped into a leading inter­na­tio­nal specia­list for arti­fi­cial turf and synthe­tic sports and leisure surfaces for outdoor use. Toge­ther with the new owner KPS, this growth course is to be contin­ued. The tran­sac­tion, the finan­cial details of which are not being disc­lo­sed, is subject to the usual regu­la­tory approvals.

Sport Group was foun­ded in 1969 and opera­tes as a global player in the manu­fac­ture of arti­fi­cial turf systems and synthe­tic floor cove­rings for sports and leisure with a strong presence in its home market of Germany as well as in Europe, Austra­lia and the USA. Based in Burg­heim, Bava­ria, the Group offers its custo­mers, inclu­ding well-known soccer clubs and sports compa­nies and orga­ni­zers such as FC Bayern Munich, the US Open and the Olym­pic Games, a compre­hen­sive product port­fo­lio in the form of arti­fi­cial turf, poly­ure­thane surfaces and compon­ents for indus­trial and land­sca­ping applications.

A central compo­nent of the Sport Group’s range of services is end-to-end project support: from the procu­re­ment of raw mate­ri­als and instal­la­tion to after-sales services and main­ten­ance. With a strong focus on rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, parti­cu­larly in the area of sustaina­bi­lity, Sport Group has estab­lished itself as an indus­try pioneer for sustainable tech­no­lo­gies, products and services, inclu­ding the deve­lo­p­ment of the world’s first carbon-neutral soccer and field field hockey turf and the first and so far only recy­cling plant for arti­fi­cial turf and EPDM rubber. The Group curr­ently unites 19 subsi­dia­ries in nine count­ries under one roof and employs more than 1,900 people worldwide.

In June 2015, Equis­tone acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Sport Group

Since then, the specia­list for sports surfaces has driven forward its ambi­tious growth targets with the support of Equis­tone: With a total of nine successfully reali­zed acqui­si­ti­ons during the holding period, the group size has been sustain­ably expan­ded, as has its geogra­phi­cal presence in key growth markets such as Austra­lia, the USA and Malay­sia. Another focus was on the conti­nuous expan­sion of Group-wide sustaina­bi­lity exper­tise: the deve­lo­p­ment of sustainable products was signi­fi­cantly advan­ced with targe­ted invest­ments; the profi­ta­bi­lity and profes­sio­na­liza­tion of the Group was also sustain­ably streng­the­ned and adapted to the incre­asing growth. During the joint part­ner­ship with Equis­tone, the Sport Group has thus succee­ded in more than doubling its corpo­rate sales — despite a chal­len­ging econo­mic envi­ron­ment due to the coro­na­vi­rus pande­mic and disrupted supply chains.

Toge­ther with the new owner KPS, the Sport Group’s growth is now to be taken to a new level. “The global dimen­sion and the large number of growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in this market segment make long-term invest­ments very attrac­tive. Sport Group has deve­lo­ped extre­mely well in recent years. The stra­te­gic steps we have taken toge­ther with the manage­ment team have sustain­ably streng­the­ned the company and helped to expand its leading posi­tion in the Euro­pean market to the inter­na­tio­nal arena,” explains Dr. Marc Arens, Senior Part­ner and Coun­try Head DACH/NL at Equistone.

Chris­toph von Nitzsch, CEO of Sport Group, adds: “The joint part­ner­ship with Equis­tone has been extre­mely successful — toge­ther we have been able to signi­fi­cantly inten­sify our growth in recent years and conti­nue our inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. We look forward to conti­nuing this successful course with KPS and to further advan­cing our goal of setting new stan­dards in sustaina­bi­lity within our industry.”

On the Equis­tone side, the funds were advi­sed by Dr. Marc Arens, Maxi­mi­lian Göppert, Moritz Treude and Mark Feiler.

Advi­sor to Equistone: 

Houli­han Lokey (Lead M&A), William Blair (M&A),
BCG (Commer­cial)
Deloitte (Finan­cial)
Ernst&Young (Tax & EHS)
Latham (Legal)
PwC (Data Analytics)
Crescendo (Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons)
Good­win (finan­cing)

Latham & Watkins LLP advi­sed Equis­tone Part­ners Europe with the follo­wing team:

Burc Hesse (Part­ner, lead), Dr. Sebas­tian Pauls (Part­ner), Dr. Julia Schö­fer, Dr. Manuel Schmutz­ler, Julian Glaub, Dr. Corinna Freu­den­ma­cher (all Asso­ciate, all Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Susan Kempe-Müller (Part­ner), Daniela Jaeger, Gracia Engwaya (both Asso­ciate, all IP), Dr. Max Hauser (Part­ner), Judith Jacob (Asso­ciate, both Anti­trust), Joachim Gritt­mann (Coun­sel, Regu­la­tory), Dr. Wolf-Tassilo Böhm (Coun­sel), Clemens Ganz (Asso­ciate, both Data Protec­tion), Sven Nickel (Coun­sel), Marie-Chris­tine Welp (Asso­ciate, both Real Estate), Ralph Drae­ger, Verena Birke (both Asso­ciate, Finance, all Frank­furt), Dr. Ulf Kieker (Part­ner), Manuela Minsel (Asso­ciate, Tax), Dr. Tobias Leder (Part­ner), Martina Hölzer (Asso­ciate, both Employ­ment, all Munich), Dr. Stefan Bartz (Coun­sel, Compli­ance), Kath­rin Krim­mer (Legal Analyst, Liti­ga­tion, both Hamburg), and with further support from the Latham & Watkins offices in London, Hous­ton, Boston and Washing­ton D.C.

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are among the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily 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 incep­tion, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio of Equis­tone funds curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 invest­ments in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands and Belgium. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.equistonepe.com.

About Sport Group
www.sportgroup-holding.com

About KPS Capi­tal Part­ners, LP
https://de.kpsfund.com

News

Luxem­bourg — Toge­ther with the Euro­pean Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy Fund (ECBF), the French agri­cul­tu­ral tech­no­logy company Weenat has successfully closed a Series C finan­cing round tota­ling EUR 8.5 million. Other inves­tors in this round are Pymwy­mic, LIBERSET, and IDIA Capi­tal Inves­tis­se­ment. The funding will enable Weenat to expand its inno­va­tions across Europe and streng­then the agri­cul­tu­ral community’s resi­li­ence to climate change through the use of cutting-edge technology.

Expan­sion and impact on farmers across Europe

Since its foun­da­tion in 2014, Weenat has estab­lished itself as a tech­no­lo­gi­cal market leader and pionee­red the first wire­less weather station connec­ted to a mobile appli­ca­tion. Since then, the company has deve­lo­ped real exper­tise in the manu­fac­ture of relia­ble sensors and culti­va­ted in-house know­ledge in the fields of engi­nee­ring, machine lear­ning, agro­nomy and metrology.

With a decade of expe­ri­ence, Weenat is now profi­ta­ble in its core opera­tion and has more than 25,000 sensors deployed across Europe. The network is supported by over 200 local part­ners, inclu­ding leading coope­ra­ti­ves, retail­ers and food indus­tries in France, Spain and Germany. Weenat not only coll­ects exten­sive data­sets of spatial and cali­bra­ted weather and soil water data, but also provi­des solu­ti­ons for the food and agri­cul­ture indus­try to promote climate resi­li­ent prac­ti­ces. This unique blend of capa­bi­li­ties posi­ti­ons Weenat for robust expan­sion across Europe and beyond.

” As a leading player in weather data and water manage­ment, Weenat’s goal is to deploy its inno­va­tions across Europe and provide farmers with effec­tive and user-friendly solu­ti­ons, explains ” Jérôme Le Roy. ” In 2023, our 10,000 soil sensors led to the conser­va­tion of 32 million cubic meters of water. The poten­tial impact of scaling our solu­ti­ons across all areas of Europe is truly amazing! “.

Inno­va­tions to combat water scar­city in agriculture

Climate change is an unde­niable reality that will make water scar­city and manage­ment a major envi­ron­men­tal chall­enge for deca­des to come. This situa­tion has a profound impact on farmers, as agri­cul­ture accounts for 70 percent of the world’s freshwa­ter with­dra­wals, and more than half of this water is used inef­fi­ci­ently due to a lack of suita­ble tools.

Weenat is commit­ted to helping farmers over­come the chal­lenges of water scar­city, with inno­va­tion at the heart of its stra­tegy. Through the successful acqui­si­tion of Weather Measu­res, a data-driven agtech start-up, in 2021, the company streng­the­ned its R&D&D capa­bi­li­ties and remains commit­ted to provi­ding cutting-edge tech­no­lo­gies to the farming commu­nity, whether through inter­nal deve­lo­p­ment or exter­nal acquisitions.

Under­stan­ding soil dyna­mics remains the biggest chall­enge for irri­ga­tion equip­ment. For this reason, Weenat has laun­ched an ambi­tious R&D program aimed at real-time moni­to­ring of soil water content throug­hout the root zone depth in all plots in Europe. Laun­ched in 2023, this program uses data from Weenat’s exten­sive network of ground sensors, the largest in Europe, along­side satel­lite imaging and arti­fi­cial intelligence.

The company used the combi­ned exper­tise of its data scien­tists, agro­no­mists and meteo­ro­lo­gists and has alre­ady achie­ved promi­sing scien­ti­fic results. It will now acce­le­rate its inno­va­tion path to provide the entire farming commu­nity with key data for the coming years.

” With climate change and water scar­city bearing down on us, Weenat’s track record of profi­ta­ble growth stands out in the fast-growing precis­ion irri­ga­tion market. A world-class foun­ding team and a high level of scien­ti­fic excel­lence have earned them the trust of growers and a leading posi­tion in France. We are very confi­dent that Weenats can make its mark on the wider market and are exci­ted about its poten­tial for excep­tio­nal impact! ” concludes Stéphane Rous­sel, Part­ner of the Euro­pean Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy Fund (ECBF).

About Weenat

Weenat provi­des the agri­cul­tu­ral commu­nity with the agro-meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal data they need to moni­tor the clima­tic and agro­no­mic condi­ti­ons of their plots in real time, from sowing to harvest. Thanks to Weenat, farmers and the agri­cul­tu­ral indus­try have accu­rate infor­ma­tion to anti­ci­pate climate hazards and opti­mize their agri­cul­tu­ral manage­ment. Foun­ded in 2014 by Jérôme Le Roy, the French company AgTech curr­ently has 60 employees, more than 200 part­ners and agri­cul­tu­ral distri­bu­tors ( coope­ra­ti­ves, retail­ers, rese­arch insti­tu­tes and agri­cul­tu­ral compa­nies ), more than 25,000 users, 25,000 sensors instal­led and is deve­lo­ping its offer in 8 Euro­pean count­ries ( France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Nether­lands, Luxem­bourg, Switz­er­land ). www.weenat.com

About the inves­tors in Weenat’s Series C finan­cing round:

Euro­pean Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy Fund (ECBF)

The Euro­pean Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy Fund ( ECBF ) is a private venture capi­tal fund dedi­ca­ted exclu­si­vely to the bioe­co­nomy and the circu­lar economy. Laun­ched by the Euro­pean Commis­sion, it invests in visio­nary Euro­pean entre­pre­neurs who are driving the tran­si­tion from a fossil-based to a bio-based economy. The ECBF aims to cata­lyze the tran­si­tion to a sustainable future by inves­t­ing in later-stage compa­nies with high inno­va­tion poten­tial, favorable returns and sustainable impact. The ECBF was foun­ded in 2020 and mana­ges a total of € 300 million. It focu­ses on deploy­ing capi­tal in attrac­tive and impactful compa­nies based in the EU-27 or 16 HORIZON 2020 count­ries. The Luxem­bourg-based fund is advi­sed by Hauck & Aufhäu­ser Funds Services S.A. as Alter­na­tive Invest­ment Fund Mana­ger (AIFM) and by the expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment team of EZBF Manage­ment GmbH based in Germany. www.ecbf.vc

Pymwy­mic

Pymwy­mic has been at the fore­front of the tran­si­tion to inves­t­ing with care for people and the planet since 1994. Supported by 200 indi­vi­du­als, fami­lies, entre­pre­neurs and angel inves­tors and toge­ther with insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, we have laun­ched two impact funds focu­sed on sustainable deve­lo­p­ment goals. Pymwymic’s Healthy Ecosys­tems Impact Fund I (closed in 2021) has nine port­fo­lio compa­nies (two of which are exiting) that are deve­lo­ping solu­ti­ons to preserve and restore our ecosys­tems. We are curr­ently inves­t­ing through the Healthy Food Systems Impact Fund II, support­ing the trans­for­ma­tion of entre­pre­neurs who are trans­forming our food system from farm to fork.

LIBERSET

LIBERSET is a trans­at­lan­tic invest­ment firm with offices in the US and Europe that supports the growth of inno­va­tive compa­nies that promote indus­trial tran­si­tion and decar­bo­niza­tion. Their mission is to invest in compa­nies that deve­lop breakth­rough solu­ti­ons that address global indus­trial inef­fi­ci­en­cies and solve major pain points. The inves­tor commu­nity consists of family groups, family offices, expe­ri­en­ced CEOs and entre­pre­neurs active in the fields of agri­cul­ture, food, cosme­tics, energy, mobi­lity, buil­ding manage­ment and cons­truc­tion. LIBERSET is commit­ted to support­ing the trans­at­lan­tic growth of its port­fo­lio compa­nies and helping them to build sustainable global value creation.

IDIA Capi­tal Investissement

IDIA Capi­tal Inves­tis­se­ment brings toge­ther the proprie­tary invest­ment acti­vi­ties of the Crédit Agri­cole Group, which focus on mino­rity invest­ments to support mid-caps and SMEs across all busi­ness sectors. It has reco­gni­zed exper­tise in the areas of food, wine and energy tran­si­tion. IDIA Capi­tal Inves­tis­se­ment also mana­ges the Crédit Agri­cole Group’s land and forestry groups and moni­tors Crédit Agri­cole S.A.’s invest­ments in certain funds. The total funds mana­ged by IDIA Capi­tal Inves­tis­se­ment (via invest­ment vehic­les such as CARD, CA Grands Crus, Grands Crus Inves­tis­se­ments, CA Tran­si­ti­ons, LCL Crois­sance, Ambi­tion Agri Agro Inves­tis­se­ment, etc.) amount to € 2.2 billion. The company is aiming to invest between € 1 million and € 50 million. IDIA Capi­tal Inves­tis­se­ment is a port­fo­lio manage­ment company autho­ri­zed by the AMF (French Finan­cial Markets Autho­rity) under no. GP-15000010.

News

Munich — Maxburg Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH has successfully comple­ted the place­ment of the new fund gene­ra­tion “Maxburg Fund IV” with capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling EUR 450 million.
Maxburg Fund IV pursues a private equity stra­tegy and invests prima­rily through equity and equity-rela­ted invest­ments (mainly majo­rity and/or control­ling stakes) in private compa­nies, mainly in the DACH region. POELLATH advi­sed Maxburg Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH on the final closing of Maxburg Fund IV for EUR 450 million.

Maxburg Fund IV’s global inves­tor base includes a large number of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, inclu­ding public and private pension funds, foun­da­ti­ons, insu­rance compa­nies and family offices from Europe, North America and Asia.

POELLATH advi­sed Maxburg on the fund struc­tu­ring and fund­rai­sing on all corpo­rate, tax, distri­bu­tion and other regu­la­tory issues as well as on all inves­tor nego­tia­ti­ons with the follo­wing Frank­furt team:
— Dr. Peter Bujot­zek, LL.M. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Private Funds), Photo ©Poellath
— Dr. André Blischke (Coun­sel, Private Funds)
— Fran­zisca Anna Stucken­berg (Senior Asso­ciate, Private Funds / Regu­la­tory Law)
— Dr. Thomas Becker (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)

About POELLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 180 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings regu­larly list our consul­tants as leading experts in their field.

News

Bonn — CData Soft­ware, a leading provi­der of connec­ti­vity solu­ti­ons for data, has announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of Data Virtua­lity, a global provi­der of data inte­gra­tion and data manage­ment solu­ti­ons, from HTGF. HTGF was one of the first inves­tors in a seed round in 2012 and will sell its shares as part of the stra­te­gic takeover.

With the acqui­si­tion of Data Virtua­lity, CData provi­des its custo­mers with powerful, centra­li­zed data inte­gra­tion plat­forms that solve the biggest chal­lenges in data manage­ment. CData is the only data manage­ment vendor to have laun­ched a bimo­dal inte­gra­tion package that allows custo­mers to use both data repli­ca­tion and live data inte­gra­tion to connect to their data on a common plat­form. With Data Virtua­lity, CData is now expan­ding its ability to support compa­nies with an enter­prise-wide data virtua­liza­tion plat­form for company-wide access to live data.

Data Virtua­lity provi­des live connec­ti­vity for direct system-to-system data access and data virtua­liza­tion solu­ti­ons for a unified and control­led data layer. It comple­ments and extends the exis­ting CData Drivers products, which enable point-to-point connec­ti­vity between systems, and Connect Cloud, which enables multi-point connec­tions between cloud applications.

“The acqui­si­tion of Data Virtua­lity comple­ments our exis­ting live connec­ti­vity products with a virtua­liza­tion plat­form for compa­nies with more complex data archi­tec­ture and we are deligh­ted to welcome them to our team. With the inte­gra­tion of Data Virtua­lity into our product port­fo­lio, we can now offer compa­nies a complete set of repli­ca­tion and live access tools that work both on-premise and in the cloud or in hybrid tech­no­logy stacks. CData is uniquely posi­tio­ned to acce­le­rate data virtua­liza­tion initia­ti­ves for enter­pri­ses at every stage of deve­lo­p­ment. We are looking forward to the future,” says Amit Sharma, CEO and co-foun­der of CData

“Data Virtua­lity proudly shares CData’s mission to empower orga­niza­ti­ons to unleash and maxi­mize the full poten­tial of their data. Toge­ther, our global scale and market-leading tech­no­logy offer a tremen­dous oppor­tu­nity to fulfill busi­ness requi­re­ments more flexi­bly. By abstrac­ting the tech­ni­cal comple­xity with our newly combi­ned tech­no­logy suite, we support the demo­cra­tiza­tion of data and enable more people in compa­nies to work effi­ci­ently with data. HTGF has been a relia­ble and cons­truc­tive part­ner from the very begin­ning and has always provi­ded us with valuable support,” explains Dr. Nick Golo­vin, foun­der and CEO of Data Virtua­lity (photo).

“As a seed inves­tor, we are very plea­sed to be part of this stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion between CData and Data Virtua­lity. It is an important mile­stone in the resha­ping of the data manage­ment and data inte­gra­tion land­scape and offers signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth and inno­va­tion. Dr. Nick Golo­vin, CEO and foun­der of Data Virtua­lity, and his team have demons­tra­ted exem­plary inno­va­tion, stra­te­gic plan­ning, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and resi­li­ence and have achie­ved remar­kable results,” comm­ents Axel Nitsch, Prin­ci­pal at HTGF.

About Data Virtuality

Data Virtua­lity GmbH deve­lops and distri­bu­tes data inte­gra­tion solu­ti­ons that enable compa­nies to simplify the acces­si­bi­lity and usabi­lity of data in order to gain insights more quickly. The solu­tion revo­lu­tio­ni­zes the tech­no­lo­gi­cal concept of data virtua­liza­tion and can be built on exis­ting and new data land­scapes. With our expe­ri­ence in support­ing global compa­nies such as BSH Haus­ge­räte, New York Univer­sity (NYU), Crédit Agri­cole and Part­nerRe, Data Virtua­lity solves the complex chal­lenges of data inte­gra­tion and manage­ment in large orga­niza­ti­ons. With more than 200 ready-made connec­tors, Data Virtua­lity supports compa­nies in imple­men­ting modern data archi­tec­tures such as hybrid and multi-cloud, data fabric and data mesh.

About CData Software

CData Soft­ware is a leading provi­der of data access and connec­ti­vity solu­ti­ons. Our self-service data products and connec­ti­vity solu­ti­ons provide univer­sal access to live data from hundreds of popu­lar on-premise and cloud appli­ca­ti­ons. Milli­ons of users world­wide, inclu­ding Sales­force, Office Depot and Holi­day Inn, rely on CData to enable advan­ced analy­tics, drive cloud adop­tion and create a more connec­ted enter­prise. CData can be used by any user, is available in any appli­ca­tion and was deve­lo­ped for any company. CData is thus rede­fi­ning the data-driven company. Find out more at www.cdata.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 700 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has around 1.4 billion euros under manage­ment. The team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. To date, exter­nal inves­tors have inves­ted around EUR 5 billion in the HTGF port­fo­lio in more than 2,000 follow-on finan­cing rounds. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 180 companies.
Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal, and 45 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.

 

News

Frankenthal/Pfalz/Leipzig — Menold Bezler has advi­sed the private share­hol­ders of Fran­ken­tha­ler Pres­se­ver­trieb GmbH & Co KG (FPV) based in Frankenthal/Pfalz on the merger with 4Press GmbH & Co KG from Machern near Leip­zig, the largest press whole­sa­ler in Germany. The merger is still subject to appr­oval by the Cartel Office. — FPV supplies more than 4,500 retail­ers in southern Hesse, the Pala­ti­nate and nort­hern Baden-Würt­tem­berg with press products. FPV’s share­hol­ders are three private share­hol­ders and ten publishers/national distributors.

4Press was crea­ted in 2023 from the merger of Verlags­grosso Nord, Verlags­grosso Ost and Presse Vertrieb Berlin and has nine loca­ti­ons. Follo­wing the merger, the sales area will increase to around 22,000 press retailers.

Menold Bezler advi­sed the private share­hol­ders of Fran­ken­tha­ler Pres­se­ver­trieb on all legal aspects of the merger. The merger is a further step in the concen­tra­tion in press distri­bu­tion that has been ongo­ing for years.

Advi­sor Fran­ken­tha­ler Pres­se­ver­trieb GmbH & Co. KG: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Dr. Axel Klumpp (part­ner, lead), Dr. Felix Gegler (both corpo­rate law/M&A), Ralf-Diet­rich Ties­ler (part­ner, employ­ment law)

About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a commer­cial law firm in Stutt­gart with a part­ner­ship struc­ture and 300 employees. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Düssel­dorf — Sach­se­n­En­er­gie AG acqui­res a solar park in Poland. The sellers are Gold­beck Solar GmbH and the SUNCATCHER Group. Both deve­lop and build solar and energy systems. — ARQIS advi­sed Sach­se­n­En­er­gie AG on the purchase of a solar park in Poland.

The solar park is a 9 MWp solar complex — a clus­ter of two ground-moun­ted solar parks in the western Polish town of Barli­nek. Equip­ped with over 16,500 solar modu­les, the plants in Barli­nek are expec­ted to produce 8,982 GWh of elec­tri­city per year. This corre­sponds to supp­ly­ing around 4,000 house­holds. The plant was comple­ted and put into opera­tion at the site at the begin­ning of 2024. The park is to be expan­ded to a capa­city of 11.1 MW by the end of 2024.

As a full-service provi­der for public services, the Sach­se­n­En­er­gie Group relia­bly supplies custo­mers throug­hout Saxony with energy, water, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, energy-rela­ted services and modern infra­struc­ture. It is the largest muni­ci­pal supplier in eastern Germany. The company aims to expand its rene­wa­ble energy busi­ness through PV and wind projects deve­lo­ped in-house and through further acqui­si­ti­ons in Germany and Europe. With the solar park in Barli­nek, Sach­se­n­En­er­gie AG is acqui­ring its first ground-moun­ted PV system in Poland, ther­eby expan­ding its geogra­phi­cal presence.

ARQIS worked for Sach­se­n­En­er­gie AG for the first time. The lead part­ner Dr. Lars Laeger was recom­men­ded by the market. The mandate is signi­fi­cant for the firm as it impres­si­vely under­lines its special focus on M&A in regu­la­ted indus­tries, in parti­cu­lar rene­wa­bles. ARQIS was supported in Poland by Wolf Theiss in local law.

Advi­sor Sach­se­n­En­er­gie AG: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Dr. Lars Laeger, photo © Arqis (Lead, M&A), Part­ner: Dr. Fried­rich Gebert (Public and Regu­la­tory), Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping (Tax), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Kamil Flak, Dr. Denis Schütz (both M&A), Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Bern­hard Gröhe, Luise Schü­ling (both Public and Regulatory)

Wolf Theiss (Poland): Igor Muszyn­ski, Pawel Szumow­ski, Marika Grzybowska

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. Around 80 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German, Euro­pean and Japa­nese commer­cial law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law, Risk and Regu­la­tory, the firm is geared towards provi­ding compre­hen­sive advice to its clients. The law firm was foun­ded in 2006 and has offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo as well as a talent hub in Berlin. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Munich ‑PANGEA Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal GmbH takes over GETECO GmbH. The acqui­si­tion was made via the soft­ware holding company NUBE Soft­ware GmbH, with which PANGEA focu­ses on the acqui­si­tion of majo­rity inte­rests in medium-sized B2B soft­ware companies.

With more than 10,000 daily users, GETECO has estab­lished itself as a specia­list for soft­ware solu­ti­ons for social insti­tu­ti­ons and offers specia­li­zed solu­ti­ons. GETECO gene­ra­tes 65% of its turno­ver from inte­gra­tion assis­tance and child and youth welfare. The two foun­ders, Theo Prinz and Concetta Prinz-Guarda­basso, will remain asso­cia­ted with GETECO as mana­ging directors.

PANGEA Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal, based in Munich, sees itself as a part­ner for entre­pre­neurs who are plan­ning their succes­sion or looking for invest­ments for further growth, whether in the short or long term. The focus is on invest­ments in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with sustainable and profi­ta­ble busi­ness models.

Legal advi­sors to PANGEA Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Software), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Sophie Stef­fen (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate Law/M&A)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus

Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. We also handle the liti­ga­tion in these specia­list areas. www.gof-partner.com

 

News

The Hague — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”), a Euro­pean inves­tor specia­li­zing in enter­prise soft­ware, announ­ces the successful closing of its two latest buyout funds, Main Capi­tal VIII and Main Foun­da­tion II, which have reached a total volume of EUR 2.44 billion in capi­tal commit­ments. With Main Capi­tal VIII and Main Foun­da­tion II, which have roughly doubled in size compared to the previous funds, Main’s total assets under manage­ment have risen to around EUR 6 billion.

As with previous fund­rai­sings, Main recor­ded strong parti­ci­pa­tion from its exis­ting inves­tor base. Inves­tors’ contin­ued confi­dence in Main is demons­tra­ted by a remar­kable re-up rate of 115%. In addi­tion to rene­wed invest­ments from exis­ting inves­tors, Main also recei­ved commit­ments from new inves­tors tota­ling around €1 billion, inclu­ding seve­ral renow­ned insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as APG (on behalf of its client ABP), Tecta Invest and Texas County and District Reti­re­ment System. Alre­ady active inves­tors such as Hamil­ton Lane have signi­fi­cantly increased their capi­tal commitment.

Fund­rai­sing for Main Capi­tal VIII and Main Foun­da­tion II began in Octo­ber 2023 with a target volume of EUR 1.6 billion and EUR 400 million respec­tively. The dual fund­rai­sing saw considera­ble demand from both exis­ting and new inves­tors world­wide, and Main was able to successfully complete the two fund­rai­sings, with their respec­tive hard caps of EUR 1.9 billion and EUR 500 million, within just under six months. The short period of time within which both funds were reali­zed in an over­all diffi­cult finan­cing situa­tion and the high level of inves­tor inte­rest, which signi­fi­cantly excee­ded the funds’ hard caps, confirm Main’s contin­ued strong invest­ment perfor­mance and its highly specia­li­zed focus on invest­ments in enter­prise software.

Main is a specia­li­zed buyout inves­tor in the enter­prise soft­ware sector, with a 20-year track record and broad market coverage in the mid-market, inves­t­ing between EUR 5 and 150 million in profi­ta­ble small to mid-sized soft­ware compa­nies. Main’s port­fo­lio compa­nies are supported by its in-house Market Intel­li­gence and Perfor­mance Excel­lence team, which provi­des access to proprie­tary data and rese­arch as well as best prac­ti­ces in the areas of go-to-market stra­te­gies, tech­no­logy, finance and M&A. Thanks to a team of more than 70 experts in the core markets Bene­lux, DACH, the Nordic count­ries and the USA, its local presence and the orga­niza­tion of topic-speci­fic events, Main is closely connec­ted with the local

soft­ware ecosys­tems, allo­wing exclu­sive rela­ti­onships to be estab­lished with soft­ware foun­ders and entre­pre­neurs. Over the last few years, Main has become one of the most active inves­tors in Europe. In 2023, Main reali­zed well over 40 tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding 12 invest­ments in new plat­form invest­ments, 26 add-ons and 6 disposals.

Throug­hout the company’s history, Main has reali­zed almost 30 exits with a weigh­ted average return of more than four times and a loss rate of well below 0.5%.
Main’s acti­vi­ties focus on the deve­lo­p­ment of larger, scalable and inter­na­tio­nally profi­ta­ble soft­ware groups within speci­fic product markets, which are expan­ded both through orga­nic growth and acqui­si­ti­ons. Main opera­tes across borders in around 10 product markets, inclu­ding health­tech, govtech, HRtech and cyber­se­cu­rity. Signi­fi­cant invest­ments in the area of cyber­se­cu­rity include Point­s­harp (SE), Oribi (NL) and Inverid (NL). In HRtech, Main is inves­t­ing in BCS (NL), Text­ker­nel (NL) and Perbi­lity (DE). Main’s acti­vi­ties in the health­tech sector include compa­nies such as Enova­tion (NL) and SDB Groep (NL), LuxSci (USA), Alfa eCare (SE), Buch­ner (DE), UHB (DE) and Oiva Health (FI). An exam­ple of a major govtech invest­ment is xxllnc (NL), a large SaaS govtech group with over 300 employees that provi­des produc­ti­vity tools for local muni­ci­pa­li­ties and soft­ware for tax and social affairs.

Charly Zwem­s­tra, Foun­der and Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer at Main (photo © Main Capi­tal), said: “Main was one of the early play­ers in the Euro­pean soft­ware space, focu­sing on buyouts of profi­ta­ble and robust enter­prise soft­ware compa­nies to build larger inter­na­tio­nal soft­ware groups. We are very proud of our 20-year track record and the contin­ued support and trust placed in us by a very insti­tu­tio­nal and global LP base. The successful comple­tion of Main Capi­tal VIII and Main Foun­da­tion II conso­li­da­tes our posi­tion as Euro­pean market leader for soft­ware buyouts. With the help of the new funds, we conti­nue to play a key role in conso­li­da­ting the frag­men­ted soft­ware market, within which we are buil­ding inter­na­tio­nally leading Euro­pean and trans­at­lan­tic soft­ware companies.”

Jorn de Ruij­ter, Head of Inves­tor Rela­ti­ons and Invest­ment Direc­tor at Main, said: “Closing two funds well above the origi­nal target and almost doubling the size of the previous funds in just six months under­lines Main’s excep­tio­nal track record and close rela­ti­onship with our LP base. We are grateful for the strong and contin­ued support from exis­ting and new LPs. Main’s proven approach to buil­ding larger, more resi­li­ent soft­ware groups has enab­led us to deli­ver consis­tent top quar­tile returns for our LPs and we will conti­nue to do so for these two new funds as well as for future funds.”

Main did not use a place­ment agent for the fund­rai­sing, Loyens & Loeff acted as legal advisor.

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the DACH region, the Bene­lux count­ries, the Nordic count­ries and the United States with assets under manage­ment of around EUR 6 billion. Main has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams in its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to create profi­ta­ble growth and larger, successful soft­ware groups. As a leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds in Northwest Europe and North America, Main employs 70 people in its offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp and a branch office in Boston. Main mana­ges an active port­fo­lio of over 45 soft­ware groups. This port­fo­lio employs a total of more than 12,000 people. Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main supports students with grants and scho­lar­ships to study IT and compu­ter science at tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties and univer­si­ties of applied scien­ces. www.main.nl

 

News

Wetz­lar / Wesel / Munich — Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, toge­ther with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance a leading German M&A advi­sory boutique, has successfully advi­sed RMS GmbH (“RMS”), known for its special LÜRA storage products, on its sale to the new majo­rity share­hol­der Hohn­haus & Jansen­ber­ger Group (“HJG”). With this tran­sac­tion, RMS GmbH, which specia­li­zes in steel cons­truc­tion and bulk goods storage tech­no­logy, is aiming for further natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal growth.

RMS GmbH was foun­ded in 1996 with a focus on the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and sale of highly specia­li­zed products for the storage and sort­ing of bulk mate­ri­als and thus offers tailor-made system solu­ti­ons for bulk mate­ri­als logi­stics. Their robust, multi­func­tional LÜRA parti­tion walls made of steel form the basis. They are used for the flexi­ble cons­truc­tion of mobile-modu­lar box systems and a wide range of hall opti­ons inclu­ding roof constructions.

New pros­pects for RMS through stra­te­gic majo­rity shareholder
RMS intends to conti­nue its growth trajec­tory of recent years in the future: Foun­ded in 2013, the Hohn­haus & Jansen­ber­ger Group (“HJG”) is an invest­ment company focu­sed on medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries that has exten­sive indus­trial expe­ri­ence, parti­cu­larly in metal proces­sing. The company focu­ses on opera­tio­nal support for acqui­red compa­nies and pursues a long-term invest­ment approach. In total, around EUR 30 million has been inves­ted in SMEs in the DACH region since the company was founded.

With the majo­rity stake now held by Munich-based HJG, RMS will expand its posi­tion in the market and at the same time clarify the future succes­sion of RMS Mana­ging Direc­tor Stephan Lüger. He will remain with RMS as mana­ging direc­tor and share­hol­der; Peter Jansen­ber­ger, part­ner at HJG, will also join the manage­ment team.

New name, same values: RMS beco­mes LÜRA as part of the acquisition

RMS takes the start of the fourth decade of the company’s history and the new owner­ship struc­ture as an oppor­tu­nity to set the course for the future: At the same time as the chan­ges at share­hol­der level, the company is being rena­med from RMS to LÜRA. From a stra­te­gic point of view, this is a sensi­ble step, as the brand name alre­ady stands for unique products that combine inno­va­tion and quality in the bulk solids market.

Stephan Lüger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of RMS: “For around 30 years, we have been crea­ting flexi­ble, dura­ble system solu­ti­ons for bulk goods logi­stics with LÜRA — solu­ti­ons that are only available from us. I am deligh­ted to have gained the Hohn­haus & Jansen­ber­ger Group as a strong part­ner for my company. We agree on our busi­ness philo­so­phy. For us, the corner­sto­nes are appre­cia­tion and long-term part­ner­ships with custo­mers, suppli­ers and employees.”

Peter Jansen­ber­ger, Part­ner of the Hohn­haus & Jansen­ber­ger Group, adds: “We got to know Mr. Lüger and RMS very well in advance and are looking forward to shaping the future toge­ther with an entre­pre­neur of such compe­tence and integrity.”

Sebas­tian Wissig (photo © Sebas­tian Wissig), respon­si­ble project mana­ger at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor“The acqui­si­tion of RMS by the Hohn­haus & Jansen­ber­ger Group combi­nes the opera­tio­nal excel­lence and inno­va­tive strength of RMS with the finan­cial strength and stra­te­gic exper­tise of HJG. We are convin­ced that this synergy has the poten­tial to take RMS to a new level of growth and market presence.”

About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor GmbH, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, is one of the leading M&A consul­ting firms in the German SME sector. The team of almost 30 experts accom­pa­nies medium-sized entre­pre­neurs exclu­si­vely through the entire sales process. “Our task is to safe­guard life’s work,” is how we see oursel­ves. In doing so, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, and which protects the iden­tity of their compa­nies to a special degree. Thanks to their excel­lent access to medium-sized compa­nies, Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance have also estab­lished them­sel­ves as a strong part­ner at the side of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal major compa­nies and inves­tors in acquisitions.
www.nachfolgekontor.de www.sonntagcf.com

About RMS GmbH
https://www.rms-luera.de

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Reed Smith, led by corpo­rate part­ner Constan­tin Conrads, has advi­sed Aussa­fer Due Srl (Aussa­fer Due), an Italian high-tech metal proces­sing company, on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the German company Hail­tec toge­ther with Cappelli RCCD. Aussa­fer Due is a port­fo­lio company of 21 Invest, an Italian private equity inves­tor foun­ded by Ales­san­dro Benetton.

Aussa­fer Due, based in Italy, is an inter­na­tio­nal leader in metal­wor­king with high-tech proces­ses. The company has been in the port­fo­lio of the Euro­pean invest­ment group 21 Invest since Decem­ber 2020.

This tran­sac­tion is a funda­men­tal mile­stone for the project led by 21 Invest. It streng­thens the direct presence in Germany, the largest Euro­pean market, and brings the group to a total turno­ver of over 100 million euros (with a growing share abroad, curr­ently around 30%) and a total of almost 500 employees.

Hail­tec, which was foun­ded near Stutt­gart and is mana­ged by the young entre­pre­neur Alex­an­der Renz, will repre­sent considera­ble added value for the Group thanks to its specia­liza­tion in various market niches such as elec­tro­nics, e‑mobility, micro-precis­ion mecha­nics and medi­cal tech­no­logy, e.g. the deve­lo­p­ment of pros­the­ses made from special mate­ri­als such as titanium.

Alex­an­der Renz will remain a share­hol­der of the company and head of the Group’s German divi­sion after the takeover.

The Reed Smith team advi­sing Aussa­fer Due on all German legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion, inclu­ding tax, real estate, employ­ment, anti­trust, intellec­tual property and tech­no­logy, was led by Munich corpo­rate part­ner Constan­tin Conrads (photo © Reed Smith). He was supported by part­ners Dr. Martin Bünning, Dr. Michaela Westrup, Dr. Etienne Richt­ham­mer, Dr. René Loch­mann and Dr. Andreas Splitt­ger­ber, as well as asso­cia­tes Katrin Gerce­ker, Max von Döhren, Chris­tian Schnur­rer, Sylvia Rein­hart, Florian Schwind and Phil­ipp Bergmann.

Aussa­fer was also supported in legal and corpo­rate law matters by Cappelli RCCD, in finan­cial, tax and busi­ness due dili­gence by KPMG and by goetz­part­ners as finan­cial advisor.

About Reed Smith

Reed Smith is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms with more than 1,600 lawy­ers in 31 offices in Europe, the USA, the Middle East and Asia. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.reedsmith.com.

News

Munich/ Berlin — The DUBAG team is plea­sed to announce the final closing of its third, over­sub­scri­bed LEO III fund with a total invest­ment volume of EUR 80 million. — Despite a chal­len­ging fund­rai­sing envi­ron­ment, the DUBAG team was able to close the new LEO III fund with the targe­ted cap of EUR 80 million in inves­tor commit­ments. With this volume, LEO III is roughly twice as large as its predecessor.

The invest­ment focus of the new LEO III fund is on compa­nies in special situa­tions, in parti­cu­lar spin-offs from conglo­me­ra­tes and tail-end situa­tions of PE inves­tors on a fund basis. The target turno­ver ranges from EUR 20 million to EUR 400 million. LEO III invests equity tickets from EUR 5 to 20 million and has direct access to a broad network of finan­cing part­ners willing to support chal­len­ging situa­tions. Tran­sac­tions with elec­tric vehic­les of up to EUR 125 million are included in the scope of investment.

“The coming years offer nume­rous exci­ting invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties with a variety of special situa­tions. With us, inves­tors have the oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in these inte­res­t­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. Our track record shows attrac­tive returns for our inves­tors,” explains Emanuel Catta­nei (photo © DUBAG), Part­ner M & A at DUBAG. “The inte­rest shown by insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in the new fund has signi­fi­cantly excee­ded our expectations.”

YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to DUBAG Group on the final closing of its third fund Lenbach Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties III.

Like its prede­ces­sor, the new fund is speci­fi­cally struc­tu­red to enable active support of the port­fo­lio compa­nies by the DUBAG Group. This commer­cial struc­ture sets the DUBAG Group apart from many other German PE investors.

About the DUBAG Group

The DUBAG Group is a Munich-based private equity inves­tor. The private equity funds set up by DUBAG specia­lize in the acqui­si­tion of compa­nies in special situa­tions. With the use of finan­cial and profes­sio­nal resour­ces, prag­ma­tism, exper­tise, stra­tegy and long-term vision, the DUBAG Group supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their day-to-day busi­ness, always keeping an eye on conti­nuous impro­ve­ment and sustainable growth. The current port­fo­lio compri­ses seven compa­nies with a total turno­ver of more than 700 million euros in various sectors in ten count­ries. www.dubag.eu

Advi­sor DUBAG: YPOG 

Dr. Fabian Euhus (Lead, Funds), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Tax, Funds), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Saskia Bong (Tax, Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Dajo Sanning (Tax, Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin/Hamburg Dr. Jannik Zerbst (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin/Hamburg

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

News

Aachen, Germany — Protem­bis GmbH (Protem­bis), a cardio­vas­cu­lar medi­cal device company, has raised EUR 30 million in a Series B finan­cing round. The startup will use the funds to advance the initia­tion of the PROTEMBO Inves­ti­ga­tio­nal Device Exemp­tion (IDE) Pivo­tal Trial (NCT05873816). The finan­cing round was split into two sepa­rate capi­tal increa­ses, both of which have now been comple­ted. A Euro­pean consor­tium of VC inves­tors led the invest­ment, inclu­ding Segu­lah Medi­cal Acce­le­ra­tion from Sweden, XGEN Venture from Italy and the Tech­Vi­sion Fund from Germany. Other inves­tors include Copa­rion, seve­ral large family offices, angel inves­tors and a multi­na­tio­nal medi­cal tech­no­logy group.

“We are plea­sed to announce the closing of the finan­cing round and thank our exis­ting and new inves­tors for their trust,” said Karl von Mangoldt and Conrad Rasmus, Co-CEOs of Protem­bis. “It reflects the fact that the field of cere­bral embo­lic protec­tion is thri­ving and that future growth will be driven by youn­ger and lower-risk pati­ents who do not accept the risk of brain injury when opting for trans­ca­the­ter aortic valve replacement.”

In addi­tion, Dr. Keith D. Dawkins, MD, was appoin­ted to the Protem­bis Advi­sory Board. Dawkins has more than 35 years of expe­ri­ence in the cardio­vas­cu­lar field. He was a prac­ti­cing cardio­lo­gist in the UK for over 20 years, a Fulbright Scho­lar at Stan­ford Univer­sity, Presi­dent of the British Cardio­vas­cu­lar Inter­ven­tion Society and author of more than 750 acade­mic publi­ca­ti­ons and presen­ta­ti­ons. Dawkins has been Chief Medi­cal Offi­cer (CMO) of Shock­wave since 2019. Previously, he held a senior posi­tion as Global CMO at Boston Scien­ti­fic since 2008. He is also a member of the super­vi­sory boards of Ventric Health LLC and Jena­Valve Tech­no­logy Inc. and as Chair­man of Innov­He­art s.r.l. Dawkins will contri­bute his exper­tise to Protem­bis’ clini­cal stra­te­gies and pre-commer­cial programs once the IDE study is completed.

“Having such a visio­nary leader as Dr. Dawkins on our advi­sory board demons­tra­tes the possi­bi­li­ties that cere­bral embo­lic protec­tion (CEP) holds for future trans­ca­the­ter thera­pies. We look forward to working closely toge­ther as the field evol­ves and our supe­rio­rity trial gains momen­tum,” says Azin Parhiz­gar, PhD and Advi­sory Board Chair.

“I have been empha­si­zing the need to protect the brain from new lesi­ons during trans­ca­the­ter aortic valve repla­ce­ment (TAVR) for many years and am ther­e­fore deligh­ted to be joining Protem­bis,” says Dawkins. “The ProtEmbo system and clini­cal trial design are inno­va­tive and I am confi­dent that they will greatly trans­form the field of cere­bral embo­lic protec­tion and elimi­nate or miti­gate many of the current issues of concern to the medi­cal profession.”

About Protem­bis!

The start-up Protem­bis, foun­ded by Karl von Mangoldt and Conrad Rasmus, has set itself the goal of offe­ring a simple and relia­ble solu­tion to protect pati­ents from brain inju­ries during left-sided heart surgery. To this end, the start-up is deve­lo­ping the ProtEmbo® Cere­bral Protec­tion System, which is curr­ently under­go­ing clini­cal trials. https://protembis.com

News

Amsterdam/ Bonn — The Amster­dam-based venture capi­tal fund INKEF Capi­tal has sold its stake in Cardior Phar­maceu­tic­las to Novo Nordisk. The purchase price amounts to €1.025 billion, inclu­ding an upfront payment and addi­tio­nal payments if certain deve­lo­p­ment and commer­cial mile­sto­nes are achie­ved. HTGF, one of the leading Euro­pean seed inves­tors, will also sell its shares as part of the tran­sac­tion. HTGF parti­ci­pa­ted in the first finan­cing round in 2017. At this early stage, HTGF belie­ved in the team’s vision and the poten­tial of RNA technology.

Comple­tion of the acqui­si­tion is subject to the appr­oval of the rele­vant autho­ri­ties and other custo­mary market condi­ti­ons and is expec­ted to take place in the second quar­ter of 2024.

Cardior is a leader and pioneer in the disco­very and deve­lo­p­ment of RNA-targe­ted thera­pies for the preven­tion, repair and rever­sal of heart dise­ase. The company’s thera­peu­tic approach targets charac­te­ristic non-coding nucleic acids as a plat­form for addres­sing the causes of cardiac dysfunc­tion with the aim of achie­ving a lasting effect in patients.
Novo Nordisk is an inter­na­tio­nal phar­maceu­ti­cal company head­quar­te­red in Denmark that has deve­lo­ped into one of the world’s leading insu­lin manufacturers.

“This acqui­si­tion reflects the trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial of CDR132L as a dise­ase-modi­fy­ing therapy for heart fail­ure,” said Dr. Clau­dia Ulbrich, CEO and co-foun­der of Cardior. “Novo Nordisk is the ideal part­ner due to its exten­sive clini­cal and commer­cial exper­tise combi­ned with its resour­ces to acce­le­rate our late-stage deve­lo­p­ment program, inclu­ding through larger pivo­tal trials. We look forward to advan­cing CDR132L to market approval.”

The agree­ment covers Cardior’s lead compound CDR132L, which is curr­ently in Phase 2 clini­cal deve­lo­p­ment for the treat­ment of heart fail­ure. — The acqui­si­tion is an important step in Novo Nordisk’s stra­tegy to build a presence in cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­a­ses. Novo Nordisk’s goal is to build a focu­sed, effec­tive therapy port­fo­lio through inter­nal and exter­nal inno­va­tion to address the signi­fi­cant unmet need in cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­ase, the world’s leading cause of death.

About INKEF Capital

INKEF is a leading venture capi­tal firm based in Amster­dam that supports early-stage compa­nies in Europe, Reitze Douma (photo © INKEF) is Mana­ging Part­ner. — As a long-term inves­tor, INKEF is in a posi­tion to accom­pany compa­nies through seve­ral rounds of finan­cing up to the IPO. INKEF supports tech­no­logy and life science compa­nies in deve­lo­ping their ideas into successful inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies. The best-known invest­ments include GitLab, Remote, Chan­ne­lEn­gine, Silver­flow, iOnc­tura and Castor. www.inkef.com.

Consul­tant INKEF: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, M&A/Transactions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Johan­nes Janning (M&A/Transactions), Part­ner, Cologne
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Barbara Hasse (M&A/Transactions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Dr. Jacob Schrei­ber (Tax), Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. http://www.ypog.law

News

Munich/ Frank­furt a. M. — The DOUGLAS Group (“DOUGLAS”), Europe’s leading distri­bu­tor of beauty products, has retur­ned to the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange after a break of seve­ral years. The total place­ment volume is around 34.2 million shares at a price of EUR 26.00 per share. Around 32.7 million of these are newly issued shares and around 1.5 million are exis­ting shares. Trading on the regu­la­ted market of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Prime Stan­dard) commen­ced on March 21, 2024. POELLATH provi­ded the Kreke family with compre­hen­sive tax advice in connec­tion with the IPO.

The total volume of the offe­ring amounts to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 890 million with gross proceeds for DOUGLAS of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 850 million, corre­spon­ding to a market capi­ta­liza­tion of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 2.8 billion. The proceeds from the IPO, toge­ther with an addi­tio­nal equity injec­tion, available cash and capi­tal inflows from a new EUR 1.6 billion loan agree­ment, will be used to fully redeem (refi­nance) the exis­ting finan­cial liabilities.

POELLATH advi­sed the Kreke family, which still holds around 10.2 percent of the Douglas shares after the IPO, compre­hen­si­vely on tax matters in connec­tion with the IPO with the follo­wing Munich team:
Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Tax), Dr. Tobias Deschen­halm (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax), Corne­lius L. Roth (Asso­ciate, Tax)

About POELLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 180 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings regu­larly list our consul­tants as leading experts in their field.

We offer compre­hen­sive services in the follo­wing areas: Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons | Private Equity | Venture Capi­tal | Private Funds | Real Estate Tran­sac­tions | Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Market Law | Finan­cing | Tax Law | Succes­sion and Assets | Foun­da­ti­ons and Non-Profit Orga­niza­ti­ons | IP/IT, Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust Law | Liti­ga­tion and Arbitration.

News

Berlin — The law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz has advi­sed kopa ventures on the finan­cing of Daato in a EUR 5 million seed finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by kopa ventures in coope­ra­tion with neos­fer and IBB Ventures.

Daato is the pionee­ring ESG manage­ment plat­form from Berlin. kopa ventures is an estab­lished early-stage inves­tor with a focus on Euro­pean climate tech start­ups in the fields of energy, mobi­lity, nature and carbon tech. The invest­ment marks a mile­stone for Daato and streng­thens the company in its mission to make ESG manage­ment effi­ci­ent, compli­ant and effec­tive for compa­nies of all sizes.

Advi­sor to kopa ventures: Vogel Heerma Waitz

Sabine Röth (part­ner), Sina Lühr

About Vogel Heerma Waitz

Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media. https://www.v14.de

News

Amster­dam / Munich — The Andra Tech Group, a leading group of compa­nies specia­li­zing in the manu­fac­ture of complex high-tech precis­ion compon­ents, is acqui­ring the Dutch company Lucas­sen Groep (Lucas­sen), a specia­list in high-precis­ion manu­fac­tu­ring and clean­room assem­bly. With this acqui­si­tion, the fourth to date since the funds advi­sed by Equis­tone acqui­red a majo­rity stake in spring 2021, the Group is once again under­pin­ning its strong posi­tion in its Dutch home market. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Since its foun­da­tion in 1973, the Andra Tech Group (form­erly Kusters Beheer), head­quar­te­red in the Nether­lands, has deve­lo­ped into a leading company for the manu­fac­ture of high-tech precis­ion compon­ents and submo­du­les. The acqui­si­tion of Lucas­sen marks a further stra­te­gic step for the Group — both in terms of streng­thening Andra Tech Group’s alre­ady leading posi­tion in its home market of the Nether­lands and in the conti­nuous expan­sion of its tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise in the field of high-precis­ion manu­fac­tu­ring. The merger of the Andra Tech Group with Lucas­sen will enable the two compa­nies to conti­nue their long-stan­ding coope­ra­tion and will also put them in an even better posi­tion to serve their joint blue-chip custo­mer base.

Lucas­sen Groep, foun­ded in 1989 and head­quar­te­red in Sittard, the Nether­lands, specia­li­zes in the manu­fac­ture of high-precis­ion compon­ents for custo­mers in the semi­con­duc­tor, analy­ti­cal and opti­cal sectors, among others. Under the leader­ship of Mana­ging Direc­tor Daniël Guli­kers, who will conti­nue to manage Lucas­sen within the Andra Tech Group, the company can look back on a strong track record in the Dutch market, not least due to its high-quality produc­tion and compre­hen­sive specia­list know-how. In addi­tion to manu­fac­tu­ring precis­ion mecha­ni­cal compon­ents with high clean­li­ness requi­re­ments from a wide range of mate­ri­als, Lucas­sen also specia­li­zes in clean­room assem­bly. The company curr­ently employs around 50 people.

Since the majo­rity invest­ment by the funds advi­sed by Equis­tone in March 2021, Andra Tech Group has contin­ued to grow on its way to beco­ming a leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­rer of high-tech precis­ion compon­ents and submo­du­les: With the support of Equis­tone, the Group further expan­ded its presence in the Nether­lands with the acqui­si­tion of Lemmens Metaal­be­werk­ing in Decem­ber 2023. This was prece­ded by the acqui­si­ti­ons of DKH Metaal­be­werk­ing, also based in the Nether­lands, in Febru­ary 2023 and Mayer Fein­tech­nik, based in Germany, in Decem­ber 2022. With the acqui­si­tion of Lucas­sen, the group of compa­nies — which serves an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base from the semi­con­duc­tor, high-tech, mobi­lity, food proces­sing, medi­cal, pack­a­ging and prin­ting indus­tries — has grown to a total of more than 700 employees.

“The Andra Tech Group and Lucas­sen can look back on many years of coope­ra­tion and value each other’s quality and exper­tise. We are ther­e­fore parti­cu­larly plea­sed to welcome Lucas­sen with Daniël Guli­kers and the entire team of highly quali­fied and expe­ri­en­ced employees to the Andra Tech Group. With the support and finan­cial strength of the Andra Tech Group, we can successfully conti­nue Lucassen’s growth trajec­tory,” explains Geert Ketel­a­ars, CEO of the Andra Tech Group.

“We are pursuing the ambi­tious goal of growing Lucas­sen stron­gly in the coming years. With the support that the Andra Tech Group can offer from an orga­niza­tio­nal and finan­cial perspec­tive, we can achieve this goal. At the same time, we are in a posi­tion to offer our custo­mers and employees attrac­tive pros­pects that will enable us as a company to conti­nue to operate at the highest level despite incre­asingly complex value and supply chains,” explains Daniël Guli­kers, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Lucassen.

“With this latest acqui­si­tion, the Andra Tech Group is further expan­ding its alre­ady leading market posi­tion in the Nether­lands and is also in a posi­tion to conti­nue the dyna­mic growth trajec­tory of recent years. Lucassen’s in-depth exper­tise and exten­sive custo­mer rela­ti­onships are an excel­lent addi­tion to the Group’s exis­ting product and service port­fo­lio,” empha­si­zes Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Part­ner in the Amster­dam office of Equis­tone.

The Equis­tone team includes Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Dr. Marc Arens, Phil­ipp Gauss and Josh Aalbers.

Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by PwC (Finan­cial & Tax) and Vesper (Legal).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are among the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in the Nether­lands, Germany, Switz­er­land, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily 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 incep­tion, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around six invest­ments in the Bene­lux region. Equis­tone funds are curr­ently inves­t­ing from the sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with 2.8 billion euros. In addi­tion, the “Equis­tone Reinvest­ment Fund” was recently laun­ched, from which it is possi­ble to reinvest in mino­rity posi­ti­ons follo­wing sales of port­fo­lio compa­nies from the main funds. www.equistonepe.com.

About Andra Tech Group
https://www.andratechgroup.com/en

About Lucas­sen Groep
https://www.lucassengroep.nl/en

News

Munich — The share­hol­ders of Swibox Holding AG have sold 100% of their shares to the Munich-based private equity fund EOS Part­ners. — The Munich and Frank­furt offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Swibox Holding AG toge­ther with the Swiss law firm MLL Legal AG and the subse­quent re-invest­ment in a joint holding company.

Swibox AG is a leading provi­der of elec­tri­cal enclo­sures and enclo­sure solu­ti­ons. In addi­tion to its own product lines and paten­ted new deve­lo­p­ments, inclu­ding in the field of safety tech­no­logy, the company plans to market its products not only on the Swiss market, but also inter­na­tio­nally. In order to meet this objec­tive, the Swibox Group was merged with the alre­ady inter­na­tio­nally estab­lished SRG & SERVE Group from Germany and Luxem­bourg under a joint holding company. Both groups will conti­nue to be mana­ged as inde­pen­dent compa­nies that operate auto­no­mously. The manage­ment of the Swibox Group will remain share­hol­ders in the new group of companies.

About EOS Partners

EOS Part­ners GmbH (“EOS”), a Munich-based invest­ment company foun­ded in 20215, with a focus on small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs). Phil­ipp Wege­ner and Thomas Röhrl are both Mana­ging Part­ners. — The company focu­ses on invest­ments in estab­lished compa­nies with strong busi­ness models and clear unique selling propo­si­ti­ons in growing markets. Important compon­ents of EOS’ stra­tegy are invest­ments in digi­ta­liza­tion and sales as well as opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency impro­ve­ments. EOS Fund I builds on this proven stra­tegy and pursues majo­rity share­hol­dings in compa­nies in the DACH region, prefer­a­bly in part­ner­ship with foun­ders and strong manage­ment teams. As a rule, EUR 5 to 30 million of equity is inves­ted per tran­sac­tion. https://eoscp.com

Advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of Swibox Holding AG: WEIL

The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Munich corpo­rate part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and coun­sel Andreas Fogel (corpo­rate, Munich) and included part­ner Tobias Geer­ling (tax, Munich), asso­cia­tes Amelie Zabel, Seve­rin Scholz and Dr. Chris­to­pher Schlet­ter (all corpo­rate, Munich) and Alex­an­der Reich (tax, Frankfurt).

About Weil

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers. Weil has offices in New York, Boston, Brussels, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Shang­hai, Washing­ton, D.C. and Sili­con Valley. In Germany, the firm has two offices and around 60 lawyers/tax advi­sors in Frank­furt and Munich. The focus here is on provi­ding specia­li­zed advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal clients on cross-border private equity and M&A tran­sac­tions, high-profile liti­ga­tion manda­tes, complex restruc­tu­rings and finan­cings as well as tax structuring.

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