ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Zug, Switz­er­land — Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”), one of the most active and
the largest private equity firm in the DACH region with a strong presence in Italy, announ­ces the closing of its fourth fund, Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal IV (“Fund IV”), with capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling EUR2.65 billion. Fund IV was signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed and closed successfully at its hard cap.

As with the previous fund gene­ra­ti­ons, Fund IV also achie­ved a high level of demand and was again able to attract seve­ral fami­lies and foun­ders as part of the more than 30 new investors.

Fund IV is adhe­ring to BU’s proven invest­ment stra­tegy, in which
core region to iden­tify “hidden cham­pi­ons” and forge part­ner­ships with start-up and family-run SMEs.

company. Fund IV provi­des indi­vi­dual commit­ments of between EUR 75 and 300 million to help leading regio­nal and global SMEs in attrac­tive market sectors such as soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­logy, busi­ness services and health­care to realize their potential.

The closing of Fund IV is another mile­stone on BU’s road to success. Since its foun­da­tion in 2015, the BU port­fo­lio compa­nies have been successfully deve­lo­ped in part­ner­ship with the 50-strong invest­ment team. BU’s port­fo­lio compa­nies achie­ved an increase in EBITDA of more than 20% p.a. during this period. To date, the funds advi­sed by BU have inves­ted over EUR 3.0 billion in more than 100 company succes­si­ons in the SME sector with over 27,000 employees. More than 7,700 jobs were crea­ted in the process. Many entre­pre­neurs from the BU invest­ments are also inves­ted in Fund IV.

Advi­sor Bregal Unternehmerkapital

Good­win Proc­ter provi­ded the legal advice.
Camp­bell Luty­ens advi­sed on fundraising.

About Bregal Entre­pre­neu­rial Capital

Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”) is a leading private equity firm with offices in Zug, Munich and Milan. With a total of EUR 7.0 billion in capi­tal raised since its foun­da­tion, BU is the largest mid-cap inves­tor head­quar­te­red in the DACH region. The funds advi­sed by BU invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy and Austria. With the mission to be the prefer­red part­ner for entre­pre­neurs and family businesses
BU focu­ses on part­ner­ships with market leaders and “hidden cham­pi­ons” with strong manage­ment teams and growth poten­tial. Since its foun­da­tion in 2015, the funds advi­sed by BU have inves­ted over EUR 3.0 billion in more than 100 compa­nies with over 27,000 employees. More than 7,700 jobs were crea­ted in the process. BU supports entre­pre­neurs and fami­lies as a stra­te­gic part­ner in order to further deve­lop their compa­nies, to
inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion, and helps them to do so,
respon­si­bly and with a view to the next gene­ra­tion, sustainable values.

 

News

Lyon / Frank­furt / London — Bridge­point and LumApps have announ­ced the upco­ming invest­ment of Bridge­point Europe VII (“BE VII”), a leading mid-market invest­ment fund, in the next gene­ra­tion cloud-based intra­net commu­ni­ca­ti­ons solu­ti­ons provi­der. As part of the current tran­sac­tion, valued at USD 650 million, LumApps’ exis­ting inves­tors — Growth Equity from Gold­man Sachs Alter­na­ti­ves, Eura­zeo Growth, Bpifrance via its Large Venture Fund and IRIS — are selling their shares to Bridgepoint.

The foun­ders and manage­ment of LumApps will retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion, which is expec­ted to close in July 2024 and is not subject to any condi­ti­ons precedent.

LumApps, head­quar­te­red near Lyon in France, is a cloud-based, social and colla­bo­ra­tive intra­net plat­form for compa­nies that supports employees in their work, commu­ni­ca­tion and colla­bo­ra­tion and thus increa­ses produc­ti­vity in the work­place. The company uses an AI-powered plat­form that inte­gra­tes with enter­prise soft­ware such as Google Workspace and Micro­soft 365, as well as hundreds of other busi­ness appli­ca­ti­ons and HR resour­ces such as Work­day, ServiceNow, Zoom, Sales­force, Box and SAP Success­Fac­tors. These appli­ca­ti­ons, data and infor­ma­tion are centra­li­zed on a single plat­form and serve as a so-called “digi­tal front door” for employees, who can access them via an AI conver­sa­tion interface.

LumApps curr­ently has more than five million users and around 700 custo­mers world­wide. The company is at the fore­front of the next-gene­ra­tion intra­net market, which Bridge­point esti­ma­tes is growing by 15 percent annu­ally and is curr­ently worth an esti­ma­ted USD 9 billion. This growth is being driven by a signi­fi­cant move away from legacy and in-house systems, the need for a single plat­form to inte­grate dispa­rate appli­ca­ti­ons and an increased focus on employee enga­ge­ment and retention.

LumApps conti­nues to expand its presence in the employee expe­ri­ence indus­try by deve­lo­ping advan­ced features such as video and mobile, as well as inno­va­tive new products such as the Gen-AI Compa­n­ion and micro-lear­ning solu­ti­ons. With world-class tech­no­logy and the ability to lead the market in inno­va­tion, LumApps has been able to expand its market share in all markets in which it opera­tes, inclu­ding the US, Western Europe and Japan.

Bridge­point will support LumApps in acce­le­ra­ting its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, with a focus on the US. At the same time, the company will conti­nue to invest in product deve­lo­p­ment to improve the employee expe­ri­ence through advan­ced AI and machine lear­ning tech­no­lo­gies, commer­cia­lize new products and conti­nue M&A activities.

Bridgepoint’s stra­te­gic invest­ment in LumApps builds on the company’s proven track record of support­ing soft­ware compa­nies that serve enter­prise custo­mers in expan­ding markets and have multi­ple levers to drive growth. Previous invest­ments include Kyriba, Fenergo, Calypso, eFront and Brevo.

This tran­sac­tion is the seventh acqui­si­tion by BE VII.

Sébas­tien Ricard, CEO of LumApps, said: “The stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Bridge­point repres­ents a logi­cal and signi­fi­cant step in LumApps’ growth trajec­tory, follo­wing the successful comple­tion of our Series A, B and C finan­cings and the profi­ta­ble growth we have achie­ved. By ente­ring the next phase of the company’s deve­lo­p­ment, we want to acce­le­rate our growth and inno­va­tion in key areas of our busi­ness. This includes exten­ding our leader­ship in packa­ged intra­net solu­ti­ons and expan­ding into the broa­der employee expe­ri­ence market with AI-powered tools to offer the only solu­tion that deli­vers commu­ni­ca­tion, colla­bo­ra­tion and lear­ning on the same plat­form. With Bridge­point as a part­ner, we are well equip­ped to conti­nue inves­t­ing in inno­va­tion to actively shape the future of enga­ge­ment and colla­bo­ra­tion in the workplace.”

David Nicault, Part­ner, and Nadia Cid, Direc­tor at Bridge­pointsaid: “LumApps is a global market leader with world-class products and tech­no­lo­gies. This is under­pin­ned by an impres­sive growth rate that is double that of the market. With its strong French roots and an estab­lished presence in key markets such as the US and Japan, LumApps fits perfectly into Bridgepoint’s plat­form stra­tegy. We are deligh­ted to be able to support LumApps in its global growth with our strong Euro­pean presence and indus­try exper­tise to help the company achieve its goal of beco­ming the leading employee expe­ri­ence platform. ”

Benoist Gross­mann, Senior Mana­ging Part­ner, and Anne-Char­lotte Phil­bert, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Eura­zeo, said: “As active members of the LumApps Board of Direc­tors and repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of Eura­zeo on this board, we are very proud to have been able to support the manage­ment team in reali­zing a shared vision for LumApps. LumApps has successfully estab­lished itself as a global market leader in the field of digi­tal employer expe­ri­ence for companies.

Consul­tant Bridgepoint: 

Deut­sche Bank (M&A Advi­sor), Latham & Watkins (Legal Advi­sor), Bain (Commer­cial), Cross­lake (Tech Due Dili­gence), EY (Finan­cial and Tax Due Dili­gence), D’Orn­ano + Co (Growth Due Dili­gence), ERM (ESG Due Dili­gence) and Marsh (Insu­rance Due Diligence).

Consul­tant LumApps:

William Blair (M&A Advi­sor), DLA Piper (M&A Legal Advi­sor), Squire Patton Boggs (VDD Legal Advi­sor), Dune (Corpo­rate Legal Advi­sor), EY-Parthe­non (VDD Commer­cial and Tech­no­lo­gi­cal Advi­sor), EY (VDD Finan­cial Advisor) .

About LumApps

LumApps is a next-gene­ra­tion intra­net SaaS plat­form that allows employees to connect to their orga­niza­tion and work from anywhere. By provi­ding a modern, intel­li­gent digi­tal hub, LumApps is revo­lu­tio­ni­zing employee inter­ac­tion, produc­ti­vity and lear­ning in the work­place. LumApps uses an AI-powered plat­form to make intel­li­gent, targe­ted inter­nal commu­ni­ca­tion effort­less and centra­lize key HR resour­ces and busi­ness appli­ca­ti­ons on a single plat­form, regard­less of the colla­bo­ra­tion suite: Google Workspace or Micro­soft 365.

With more than five million users and around 700 custo­mers world­wide, LumApps is reco­gni­zed as a Leader in the 2023 Gart­ner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intra­net Packa­ged Solu­ti­ons. LumApps is part of the French Tech 120 program.

About Bridge­point

Bridge­point Group plc is a listed inter­na­tio­nal alter­na­tive asset mana­ger focu­sed on mid-market compa­nies. With assets under manage­ment of over EUR 62 billion (inclu­ding ECP after closing of the tran­sac­tion), the company employs around 200 invest­ment experts in Europe, North America and Asia. Bridge­point combi­nes global reach with local market know­ledge and sector exper­tise to consis­t­ently deli­ver compel­ling returns across econo­mic cycles. Bridge­point pursues a diver­si­fied invest­ment stra­tegy in four verti­cal areas: Mid-Cap, Smid-Cap, Growth and Credit. Bridge­point has a track record of land­mark tran­sac­tions in the tech­no­logy sector, inclu­ding eFront, Calypso, Kyriba and Brevo.

https://www.bridgepoint.eu

News

Berlin — The share­hol­ders of the AI start-up Aaron.ai have sold to the French e‑health company Docto­lib. With the acqui­si­tion of the provi­der of an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI)-based tele­phone assistant, Docto­lib is expan­ding its own offe­ring to reli­eve prac­tice teams in their day-to-day work. This is the French company’s first acqui­si­tion in Germany.

Docto­lib was foun­ded in Paris in 2013 by Stan Niox-Chateau (photo 1st from left; © Docto­lib), who was previously invol­ved in a company that enables online restau­rant reser­va­tions. — Doclib is now active in France, Germany, Italy and the Nether­lands and employs 2800 people. The start-up Aaron, which has now been acqui­red by Docto­lib, was foun­ded in 2015 by Richard von Schae­wen, Iwan Lappo Dani­lew­ski and Tobias Wagen­füh­rer and is curr­ently the leading provi­der of AI-based tele­phone assis­tance solu­ti­ons for medi­cal prac­ti­ces in Germany.

Aaron has deve­lo­ped an AI assistant that answers calls instead of medi­cal assistants. The AI-supported soft­ware-as-a-service solu­tion was deve­lo­ped in coope­ra­tion with Humboldt- Inno­va­tion GmbH, a subsi­diary of Humboldt-Univer­si­tät zu Berlin, and is curr­ently used by more than 3,500 doctors.

Through the acqui­si­tion, Docto­lib now also wants to reach pati­ents who still make appoint­ments by tele­phone, which accounts for around half of all medi­cal appoint­ments in Germany. By acqui­ring the Berlin-based company, Docto­lib is expan­ding its product range in one of its most important growth markets.

About Aaron.ai

Aaron GmbH was foun­ded in Berlin in 2015. Toge­ther with hundreds of medi­cal assistants and doctors, the company has deve­lo­ped Aaron, an AI-control­led tele­phone assistant that supports medi­cal prac­ti­ces on the phone. The start-up uses arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to adapt human-machine commu­ni­ca­tion to the needs of people and not the other way around.

Advi­sor Aaron.ai: YPOG
Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg, Barbara Hasse (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Melisa Keme (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin; Florian Bacher (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin Cyra Ditt­ber­ner (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin Amelie Insel­mann (Tax). 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. www.ypog.law .

News

Munich/ Frank­furt a. M. — Clever­soft, a port­fo­lio company of private equity inves­tor Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners (LLCP), acqui­res Tetra­log Systems. McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed Clever­soft on the acqui­si­tion of Tetra­log Systems AG.

With this acqui­si­tion, Clever­soft is expan­ding its port­fo­lio to include Wealth­Tech solu­ti­ons for port­fo­lio analy­sis and opti­miza­tion, among other things, and is conti­nuing its growth strategy.

Foun­ded in 2004 and head­quar­te­red in Munich, Clever­soft Group is a leading provi­der of regu­la­tory soft­ware and services for the finan­cial services indus­try. The Group provi­des over 1,000 finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons world­wide with solu­ti­ons for opti­mi­zing busi­ness-rele­vant compli­ance processes.

Tetra­log Systems AG has been digi­tiz­ing the invest­ment advi­sory process for finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons in Europe for more than 30 years. Its clients include well-known Tier 1 banks and asset mana­gers. As part of Clever­soft, Tetra­log will conti­nue to operate on the market under its tradi­tio­nal name.

Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners is a mid-market private equity firm with $9.3 billion in assets under manage­ment and offices in Los Ange­les, New York, Chicago, Char­lotte, Miami, London, Stock­holm, The Hague and Frankfurt.

LLCP acqui­red Clever­soft from Main Capi­tal in 2023. A team from McDer­mott Will & Emery also advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion at the time.

Advi­sor Clever­soft: McDer­mott Will & Emery 

Under the leader­ship of Holger H. Ebers­ber­ger (Part­ner, Private Equity, Munich) and Dr. Thomas Diek­mann (Coun­sel, Private Equity, Munich); the team also included Marion Dalvai-König (Asso­ciate, Real Estate Law, Munich), Dr. Armin Teymouri (Asso­ciate, Private Equity, Munich), Stef­fen Woitz (Part­ner, IP/IT, Munich), Lukas Deutz­mann (Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law, Cologne/Düsseldorf), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion Law, Munich), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Chris­tian Rolf (Part­ner, Employ­ment Law, Frankfurt).

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. www.mwe.com/de

News

Aachen — The sustainable end-to-end battery recy­cling company cylib closes its Series A finan­cing round of 55 million. The finan­cing round, the largest ever raised by a Euro­pean battery recy­cling company, was comple­ted less than 24 months after the start of operations.

The round was led by Europe’s leading climate-tech VC, World Fund, and Porsche Ventures, the venture arm of sports car manu­fac­tu­rer Porsche AG. Other inves­tors include Bosch Ventures, DeepT­ech & Climate Fonds, NRW.Venture as well as exis­ting inves­tors 10x Foun­ders, Vsquared Ventures, Speed­in­vest and well-known busi­ness angels.

The finan­cing round is the first venture co-invest­ment by the indus­trial giants Porsche and Bosch in Germany. At the same time, expe­ri­en­ced inves­tors from the climate and deep tech sectors, the auto­mo­tive sector, indus­try and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors are inves­t­ing toge­ther in a battery recy­cling company for the first time. This under­lines the joint effort to build a sustainable battery infra­struc­ture in Europe.

Cylib was foun­ded in 2022 as a spin-off of RWTH Aachen Univer­sity by Lilian Schwich (CEO), Paul Sabarny and Dr. Gideon Schwich and specia­li­zes in the hydro­me­tall­ur­gi­cal recy­cling of used lithium-ion cells. — The company offers a market-leading tech­no­logy for the end-to-end recy­cling of lithium-ion batte­ries and has alre­ady reali­zed a successful pilot line and projects with major car manu­fac­tu­r­ers and battery producers.

The fresh capi­tal will be used to drive forward the indus­trial scaling of produc­tion and the expan­sion of the inter­di­sci­pli­nary team. Since Septem­ber 2023, the start-up has been opera­ting a pilot plant in Aachen and imple­men­ting projects with car manu­fac­tu­r­ers, suppli­ers and refi­ne­ries. The plant in a former chemi­cal produc­tion faci­lity in North Rhine-West­pha­lia is sche­du­led to start produc­tion in 2026.

Consul­tant cylib: YPOG

Dr. Adrian Haase (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Hamburg Alex­an­dra Stei­fen­sand (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin/Hamburg

About World­Fund

The Berlin-based VC was foun­ded in 2021 by Daria Saha­rova, Dani­jel Više­vić, Tim Schu­ma­cher and Craig Douglas. It has offices in Berlin, Munich, Colo­gne and Amster­dam as well as an invest­ment team with scien­ti­fic and entre­pre­neu­rial make-up. The World Fund has alre­ady supported 15 market-leading compa­nies, inclu­ding IQM Quan­tum Compu­ters, Space Forge, Planet A Foods, Juicy Marbles and GENUG Foods. Other invest­ments making head­lines include invest­ments in the battery manu­fac­tu­rer CustomCells, the recy­cling company Cylib and in Aedi­fion and Ecoworks for proptech start-ups.
www.worldfund.vc

About 10x Founders

10x Foun­ders is a network-driven inves­tor backed by over 200 entre­pre­neurs and busi­ness angels. The foun­ding part­ners (Andreas Etten, Andrej Henk­ler, Clau­dius Jablonka, Felix Haas, Jan Becker, Jan Reichelt and Robert Wuttke) have alre­ady made over 300 invest­ments and are now conti­nuing these early-stage invest­ments as part of 10x Foun­ders. At the begin­ning of 2021, they joined forces with the vision of crea­ting the best early-stage inves­tor for Europe’s most ambi­tious startup foun­ders. The aim is to support the next gene­ra­tion of foun­ders to help build world-leading tech­no­logy compa­nies from Europe. The “Entre­pre­neur-to-Entre­pre­neur” invest­ment plat­form is the back­bone of 10x Foun­ders and helps to bring toge­ther the best foun­ders with the best and most suita­ble co-investors.
www.10xfounders.com

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.
http://www.ypog.law

News

Berlin — Captain T Cell GmbH, a biotech­no­logy company deve­lo­ping next-gene­ra­tion T cells against solid tumors, has successfully closed a seed finan­cing round of 8.5 million euros. A consor­tium of expe­ri­en­ced life science inves­tors, inclu­ding i&i Biotech Fund I SCSp, Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH and HIL-INVENT Ges.m.b.H, parti­ci­pa­ted in the round.

In addi­tion, the Fede­ral Minis­try of Educa­tion and Rese­arch (BMBF) supports the company through its renow­ned GO-Bio program. The finan­cing also marks the appoint­ment of biotech vete­ran Jörn Aldag as Chair­man of the Advi­sory Board. — Dr. Lorenz Frey and Dr. Frank Vogel from the law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz advi­sed Captain T Cell.

The capi­tal from the seed finan­cing round will be used to bring a new gene­ra­tion of T‑cell thera­pies against solid tumors into the clinic.

Captain T Cell is deve­lo­ping TCR‑T cells with increased effi­cacy for solid tumors that cannot be trea­ted with exis­ting thera­pies. Using a series of novel tech­no­lo­gies, Captain T Cell gene­ra­tes TCR‑T cells with increased persis­tence and the ability to effec­tively coun­ter­act the hostile tumor microen­vi­ron­ment of diffi­cult-to-treat solid tumors. In precli­ni­cal in vivo models, the company has succee­ded in comple­tely rejec­ting aggres­sive tumors with these effi­cacy-enhan­ced T cells. A key tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped by the Captain T Cell team is the company’s proprie­tary TCR-ALLO plat­form for off-the-shelf treat­ment of solid tumors. The TCR-ALLO plat­form is a univer­sal tool that can be exten­ded to a variety of cancer indications.

The company is a spin-off of the renow­ned Max Delbrück Center in Berlin, Germany, a leading Euro­pean biome­di­cal rese­arch insti­tu­tion. The Insti­tute provi­ded valuable finan­cial and infra­struc­tu­ral support during the pre-seed phase and, toge­ther with its tech­no­logy trans­fer part­ner Ascen­ion, remains a close part­ner for future ventures.

Captain T Cell is based in Schönefeld/Berlin and is supported by the expe­ri­en­ced Euro­pean inves­tors i&i Biotech Fund I SCSp, Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH and HIL-INVENT Ges.m.b.H.. Captain T Cell was foun­ded by an ambi­tious team of immuno-onco­logy experts. The tech­no­lo­gies were deve­lo­ped at the Max Delbrück Center for Mole­cu­lar Medi­cine in the Helm­holtz Asso­cia­tion in Berlin. www.captaintcell.com

Consul­tant: Vogel Heerma Waitz

Dr. Lorenz Frey, Dr. Frank Vogel

About Vogel Heerma Waitz

Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media.

News

Hamburg/Alsdorf — Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners has acqui­red the VEDA Group. The Cana­dian Impe­rial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) reali­zed the €17 million finan­cing of the VEDA Group and recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice from YPOG.

VEDA is an indus­try-leading provi­der of HR soft­ware and Payroll-as-a-Service based in Alsdorf (Germany). Foun­ded in 1977, the company offers soft­ware for payroll accoun­ting, time and secu­rity manage­ment and payroll-as-a-service for medium-sized compa­nies in Germany. VEDA will use the finan­cing from CIBC to streng­then its market posi­tion in the DACH region and to expand into inter­na­tio­nal markets such as Bene­lux, the UK and Scan­di­na­via, and will conti­nue to pursue its buy-and-build stra­tegy with a focus on payroll soft­ware and payroll services companies.

The YPOG team led by Matthias Kres­ser has alre­ady advi­sed CIBC Inno­va­tion Banking seve­ral times on loan finan­cing of this and simi­lar types. Team:
Matthias Kres­ser (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg Jan Stamm­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin/Hamburg

About CIBC Inno­va­tion Banking

CIBC Inno­va­tion Banking provi­des stra­te­gic advice, cash manage­ment and finan­cing to inno­va­tive compa­nies in North America, the UK and selec­ted Euro­pean count­ries at every stage of their busi­ness cycle, from start-up to IPO and beyond. With offices in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Durham, London, Menlo Park, Mont­real, New York, Reston, Seat­tle, Toronto and Vancou­ver, the team has exten­sive expe­ri­ence and a strong, colla­bo­ra­tive approach that spans CIBC’s Commer­cial Banking, Private Banking, Wealth Manage­ment and Capi­tal Markets businesses.

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.
http://www.ypog.law

News

Zurich/Unterkulm/Pogno — The KWC Group, desi­gner and manu­fac­tu­rer of faucets and access­ories for kitchens, bath­rooms and wash­rooms and part of the Equis­tone Funds port­fo­lio since 2021, is selling its Home busi­ness to the Italian sani­tary specia­list Paini S.p.A. Rubi­net­te­rie (“Paini”). KWC Home and Paini are thus conti­nuing their long-stan­ding part­ner­ship under one roof. Details of the tran­sac­tion will not be disclosed.

KWC Group — form­erly a divi­sion of the Swiss Franke Group opera­ting under the name Franke Water Systems — is an inter­na­tio­nally active premium manu­fac­tu­rer and system provi­der for sani­tary equip­ment, fittings and water manage­ment systems. Follo­wing the successful sale of the KWC Medi­cal divi­sion to the Alum­bra Group in Janu­ary 2024, the Group, head­quar­te­red in Unter­kulm, Switz­er­land, now serves a broad custo­mer base with its three divi­si­ons — KWC Home, KWC Profes­sio­nal and OEM. In addi­tion to private end custo­mers, this also includes (semi-)public insti­tu­ti­ons such as airports, shop­ping centers, schools, sports and leisure faci­li­ties, hotels as well as hospi­tals, nursing homes and reti­re­ment homes. The KWC Group has seve­ral inter­na­tio­nal loca­ti­ons and compe­tence centers world­wide, inclu­ding in Switz­er­land, Germany, the UK, China and the Middle East, and curr­ently employs around 1,000 people.

Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe acqui­red a majo­rity stake in KWC Group in April 2021. Toge­ther with the support of Equis­tone, the Group is now selling its fast-growing Home divi­sion. KWC Home is the market leader in Switz­er­land in the manu­fac­ture of high-quality bath­room, kitchen and cate­ring fittings and serves custo­mers in the private sector. In recent years, the KWC Group has conti­nuously deve­lo­ped its Home busi­ness with the support of Equis­tone: With targe­ted invest­ments in the areas of digi­ta­liza­tion and IT, as well as in the product port­fo­lio — inclu­ding the intro­duc­tion of new products — KWC Home was able to further streng­then its alre­ady leading posi­tion in the Swiss dome­stic market as well as in Germany. Another important mile­stone was the successful repo­si­tio­ning of the divi­sion follo­wing the carve-out from the Franke Group and the estab­lish­ment of a strong bran­ding presence for KWC Home as an expe­ri­en­ced, inno­va­tive sani­tary partner.

Toge­ther with the new owner Paini, the growth of KWC Home is now to be taken to a new level: “In recent years, as part of the KWC Group and with the support of Equis­tone, we have succee­ded in further streng­thening our leading market posi­tion in Switz­er­land and expan­ding our presence in Germany. We look forward to conti­nuing this successful course with our new owner and long-stan­ding part­ner Paini,” explains Urs Tschopp, CEO at KWC Home.

“KWC Home is excel­lently posi­tio­ned on the market. With Paini, we have found the ideal new part­ner for KWC Home to conti­nue the growth course we have initia­ted and to further deve­lop the tradi­tio­nal KWC brand in the future,” adds David Zahnd, Part­ner at Equis­tone, Zurich (photo © Equistone).

Roman E. Hegglin, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Equis­tone, adds: “The Equis­tone funds will now focus on the successful deve­lo­p­ment of the KWC Profes­sio­nal busi­ness, which is well posi­tio­ned for further growth.

On the Equis­tone side, the funds were advi­sed by Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Roman E. Hegglin.

Advi­sors Equis­tone: DC Advi­sory (M&A), Bär & Karrer (Legal) and KPMG (Finan­cial).

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 40 compa­nies across Europe. www.equistonepe.com

About KWC Group
https://kwc.com/de_DE

About KWC Home
https://kwc.com/de_CH/home

About Paini S.p.A. Rubinetterie
https://www.paini.com/

News

Munich — FSN Capi­tal, a private equity firm with offices in Scan­di­na­via and Germany, has successfully comple­ted fund­rai­sing for a new special fund. Insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors have pled­ged more than EUR 400 million for invest­ments in parti­cu­larly ESG-orien­ted SMEs. This excee­ded the origi­nal target set for the new Compass Fund. The capi­tal commit­ments come from well-known insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as foun­da­ti­ons, pension funds and insu­rance compa­nies as well as private inves­tors; more than half of the funds come from North America and around 30 percent from Scan­di­na­via and the DACH region.

Respon­si­ble invest­ment approach

Robin Mürer, Co-Mana­ging Part­ner at FSN Capi­tal in Munich, says: “The addi­tio­nal small-cap focus comple­ments our exis­ting mid-cap stra­tegy. The FSN funds have inves­ted in eight compa­nies in the DACH region over the past seven years and we have found that our respon­si­ble invest­ment approach has been very well recei­ved in our second home market — in this respect, the Compass Fund is a logi­cal exten­sion of our previous invest­ment acti­vi­ties. It enables exci­ting growth part­ner­ships with smal­ler, soci­ally commit­ted compa­nies for which our value crea­tion model and ESG focus are attrac­tive. And we see this in Germany in parti­cu­lar, where sustaina­bi­lity is play­ing an incre­asingly important role in busi­ness and society.”

Epista Life Science alre­ady in the portfolio

The Compass Fund has alre­ady made its first invest­ments, inclu­ding in the company Epista Life Science. The signi­fi­cantly growing IT service and consul­ting company for the biopharma indus­try has 150 employees in Germany, Switz­er­land, Sweden and Denmark who support life science compa­nies world­wide with digi­ta­liza­tion, compli­ance and quality assu­rance. A parti­cu­lar focus is the imple­men­ta­tion of inno­va­tive proces­ses and tech­no­lo­gies that enable custo­mers to successfully adapt to new regu­la­tory requi­re­ments and at the same time drive inno­va­tion in the health­care sector. With this inter­face between busi­ness, poli­tics and society, the invest­ment is a prime exam­ple of the Compass Fund’s invest­ment approach.

Support in achie­ving ESG goals

FSN Capi­tal has alre­ady laun­ched six funds for invest­ments in larger medium-sized compa­nies over the past 25 years; over EUR 1.8 billion was raised for the last fund FSN Capi­tal VI in 2021. The Compass Fund, with its focus on SMEs that address the major social chal­lenges of the coming decade with their products and services, builds on the previous stra­tegy and is mana­ged by the same team with proven proces­ses and strategies.

Accor­ding to Rebecca Svensøy, Head of ESG at FSN Capi­talThe Compass Fund uses an indus­try-leading ESG approach, ther­eby conso­li­da­ting FSN Capital’s posi­tion as a parti­cu­larly respon­si­ble private equity company: “For us, ESG is not just about risk mini­miza­tion and report­ing compli­ance — in addi­tion to value crea­tion, we are prima­rily concer­ned with the full deve­lo­p­ment of exci­ting, sustainable poten­tial. We actively support compa­nies in imple­men­ting their ESG goals.”

About FSN Capital

FSN Capi­tal, one of the leading Nort­hern Euro­pean private equity firms, was foun­ded in 1999 and has four offices in Oslo, Stock­holm, Copen­ha­gen and since 2017 also in Munich The four funds advi­sed by FSN Capi­tal have four billion euros under manage­ment; for the latest Fund VI, 1.8 billion euros were raised for invest­ments in Scan­di­na­via and the DACH region The funds make majo­rity invest­ments in growth-orien­ted compa­nies in order to support them on their further path to success and to make them even more sustainable, compe­ti­tive, inter­na­tio­na­li­zed and profi­ta­ble. FSN Capital’s 97-strong team (29 of whom are based in Munich) is commit­ted to inves­t­ing respon­si­bly, achie­ving a posi­tive ESG impact on the port­fo­lio and deli­ve­ring market-leading returns, true to the motto “We are decent people making a decent return in a decent way”. The current port­fo­lio compa­nies in Germany include Bäcker Görtz, MEGABAD (Swash Group), Ecovium, Lobs­ter, impreg, Adra­gos Pharma, Rame­der and TASKING.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.fsncapital.com.

News

Colo­gne, May 2024 — Armira Growth has raised €200 million for its first growth fund with a final closing volume at hard cap of €200 million. In addi­tion to entre­pre­neurs and entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies from Armira’s special inves­tor base, public inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted in the closing. With its fund, Armira Growth will prima­rily invest in Euro­pean compa­nies from the growth sector, with a focus on the DACH region.

Armira Growth invests in fast-growing compa­nies in Europe that are driving tech­no­lo­gi­cal change and chal­len­ging tradi­tio­nal value chains with inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons. Armira Growth accom­pa­nies leading tech­no­logy compa­nies through growth invest­ments as a long-term and trust­wor­thy part­ner. — The selec­tive invest­ment stra­tegy focu­ses on a limi­ted number of selec­ted compa­nies and provi­des funds of between EUR 10 and 50 million each, ther­eby promo­ting a mino­rity part­ner­ship approach.

YPOG provi­ded Armira Growth with compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice on the struc­tu­ring and fund­rai­sing of its first growth fund with a final closing volume at the hard cap of €200 million.

Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Co-Lead) (Structuring/Corporate), Part­ner, Cologne
Lenn­art Lorenz (Co-Lead) (Regu­la­tory), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Co-Lead) (Structuring/Tax), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Andreas Bergt­hal­ler (Structuring/Corporate), Senior Asso­ciate, Cologne
Sylwia Luszc­zek (Legal Operations/Investor Onboar­ding), Senior Legal Project Mana­ger, Berlin Dr. Julian Albrecht (Structuring/Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Jens Kretz­schmann (Structuring/Tax), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Regu­la­tory), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg Anto­nia von Treu­en­feld (Regu­la­tory), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Dana Ritter (Structuring/Corporate), Asso­ciate, Cologne

About Armira Growth

Armira Growth is a Munich-based venture capi­tal and private equity inves­tor that provi­des capi­tal to high-growth Euro­pean tech compa­nies with proven busi­ness models.

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. www.ypog.law

News

The Hague — Main Capi­tal Part­ners is plea­sed to announce the successful sale of the Dutch company Opti­mi­zers to Orisha. Orisha is a French provi­der of busi­ness soft­ware for the cons­truc­tion, real estate, retail/wholesale and health­care sectors, supported by TA Asso­cia­tes. During the part­ner­ship with Main, Opti­mi­zers trans­for­med its profile into a compre­hen­sive Euro­pean e‑commerce enablem­ent soft­ware provi­der, offe­ring its inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base valuable solu­ti­ons to improve their e‑commerce proces­ses across the entire value chain.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners made its stra­te­gic invest­ment in Opti­mi­zers in 2019. With Main’s support, Opti­mi­zers has expan­ded its product offe­ring into a compre­hen­sive e‑commerce soft­ware suite and further streng­the­ned its inter­na­tio­nal presence in North West Europe and the USA and curr­ently employs around 170 people.

Under Main’s leader­ship, Opti­mi­zers has signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its addressa­ble market and grown its soft­ware busi­ness both orga­ni­cally and through three stra­te­gic (inter­na­tio­nal) acqui­si­ti­ons. As a result, recur­ring income increased seven­fold during this period. Opti­mi­zers is well posi­tio­ned to capi­ta­lize on these succes­ses in the coming years and is now supported by Orisha.

Stefan van Digge­len, CEO of Opti­mi­zers, comm­ents on the merger with Orisha: “We can look back on a fruitful colla­bo­ra­tion with Main, in which we were able to signi­fi­cantly expand our market posi­tion and also opti­mize our orga­niza­tio­nal effi­ci­ency in order to increase the over­all perfor­mance of the company. We look forward to opening this new chap­ter for Opti­mi­zers toge­ther with Orisha. This part­ner­ship not only impro­ves our access to addi­tio­nal exper­tise and expe­ri­ence, but more importantly streng­thens our ability to provide a consis­tent trading expe­ri­ence to our custo­mers worldwide.”

“We are deligh­ted to announce this important mile­stone for Orisha. The acqui­si­tion of Opti­mi­zers opens up exci­ting new pros­pects for the Group. Thanks to this tran­sac­tion, Orisha will become a major player in omnich­an­nel unified commerce in Europe and will actively parti­ci­pate in the trans­for­ma­tion of this sector. We look forward to comple­ting this tran­sac­tion with Main Capi­tal and explo­ring the new growth oppor­tu­ni­ties it pres­ents us with,” adds Jacques Olli­vier, CEO of Orisha.

Ivo van Deude­kom, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Main Capi­tal and member of the Super­vi­sory Board of Opti­mi­zers, concludes: “Through Main’s specia­li­zed invest­ment stra­tegy, we have helped the company trans­form into a resi­li­ent busi­ness model by incre­asing the propor­tion of the company’s recur­ring revenues.

Strong (inter­na­tio­nal) auto­no­mous growth, comple­men­ted by three stra­te­gic add-on acqui­si­ti­ons, follo­wed by strong up- and cross-sell execu­tion, resul­ted in a seven-fold increase in recur­ring reve­nues. We congra­tu­late Opti­mi­zers on this successful sale to Orisha; we believe Orisha is a perfect new home for Opti­mi­zers to conti­nue this impres­sive growth story.”

About Opti­mi­zers

Opti­mi­zers, foun­ded in 2006, is a compre­hen­sive Euro­pean provi­der of e‑commerce enablem­ent soft­ware and offers a versa­tile plat­form of solu­ti­ons for B2B and B2C digi­tal commerce excel­lence under three strong brands: Tweak­wise, Core-suite and Vendre. Opti­mi­zers’ soft­ware suite enables its custo­mers to improve their e‑commerce proces­ses across the entire value chain. It includes search & disco­very solu­ti­ons, e‑commerce plat­form and sales portal rela­ted solu­ti­ons, sales force soft­ware, warehouse manage­ment & EDI soft­ware solu­ti­ons and a driver appli­ca­tion for trans­por­ta­tion & (home) deli­very. The suite is deli­vered to a variety of indus­tries in more than 25 count­ries. The company is head­quar­te­red in Nijkerk, the Nether­lands, and has subsi­dia­ries in the Nether­lands, Sweden (Stock­holm) and the USA (New York). It employs around 170 people and supplies almost 1,500 custo­mers worldwide.

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH region, the Nordics and the United States with appro­xi­m­ately EUR 6 billion in assets under manage­ment. 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 achieve profi­ta­ble growth and larger, outstan­ding 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 an affi­lia­ted office in Boston. Main main­ta­ins an active port­fo­lio of over 45 soft­ware compa­nies. The under­ly­ing port­fo­lio employs over 12,000 people. Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main supports students with grants and scho­lar­ships to study compu­ter science at tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties and univer­si­ties of applied scien­ces. www.main.nl

 

News

Gütersloh/London — Oakley Capi­tal (“Oakley”), a leading pan-Euro­pean mid-market private equity inves­tor, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in vitro­con­nect, a leading open access plat­form in Germany, through its Oakley Capi­tal Origin Fund II. This was announ­ced by the company. The invest­ment is being made toge­ther with foun­der and CEO Dirk Paster­nack and the manage­ment team, who will conti­nue to lead the company. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the first half of 2024, subject to the neces­sary regu­la­tory approvals.

Güters­loh-based vitro­con­nect brings broad­band connec­tion provi­ders toge­ther with resel­lers using a proprie­tary soft­ware plat­form and inter­face logic. The company’s custo­mers include most of the leading tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons provi­ders in Germany. In addi­tion, vitro­con­nect offers process auto­ma­tion, network opera­tion, trading and white label services via its “Carrier Aggre­ga­tion Plat­form” (CAP).

The CAP-gene­ra­ted open access process services from vitro­con­nect help custo­mers to use broad­band networks more effi­ci­ently and reduce the tran­sac­tion costs of all parties invol­ved. Thanks to this unique offe­ring, the company has conti­nuously expan­ded its custo­mer base of network opera­tors and resel­lers. In addi­tion, mini­mal custo­mer fluc­tua­tion, strong custo­mer loyalty and a high propor­tion of recur­ring sales have contri­bu­ted to consis­tent and profi­ta­ble double-digit growth over the past three years.

As a pioneer of whole­sale acti­vi­ties in the highly frag­men­ted and tech­no­lo­gi­cally hete­ro­ge­neous German broad­band market, vitro­con­nect has an excep­tio­nally good market posi­tion to bene­fit from the strong growth in “Fiber to the Home” (FTTH) tech­no­logy and to help reduce the gap between Germany and other Euro­pean count­ries in the fiber optic market.

Curr­ently, the propor­tion of German house­holds with a connec­tion to the fiber-optic broad­band network lags far behind the rest of Europe. This will lead to signi­fi­cant invest­ments and considera­ble growth poten­tial in the coming years, with a simul­ta­neous increase in the number of house­holds with fiber optic connec­tions from 3 million today to 29 million in 2029 and 39 million in 2035.

The invest­ment in vitro­con­nect fits seam­lessly into Oakley’s long track record of part­ne­ring with high-growth, profi­ta­ble, foun­der-led compa­nies. Oakley’s most rele­vant tran­sac­tions in adja­cent sectors include soft­ware compa­nies such as WebPros, Hori­zons Opti­cal and Alerce.

The invest­ment in vitro­con­nect is the first invest­ment from Origin Fund II and follows the recently announ­ced acqui­si­tion of Hori­zons Opti­cal via its prede­ces­sor fund, Origin Fund I.

Peter Dubens, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Oakley Capi­talsaid: “vitro­con­nect is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from the market uphe­aval in Germany trig­ge­red by the switch to fiber optic tech­no­logy. The company has an excep­tio­nally strong market posi­tion based on custo­mer focus, high tech­ni­cal compe­tence and an excel­lent manage­ment team. We look forward to working with Dirk Paster­nack and his team, combi­ning vitroconnect’s core compe­ten­cies with our own indus­try exper­tise and acce­le­ra­ting the company’s future growth together.”

Dirk Paster­nack, foun­der and CEO of vitro­con­nect, said: “We were convin­ced by Oakley’s exten­sive exper­tise in the soft­ware and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sector and their proven ability to support compa­nies in phases of market disrup­tion. In Oakley, we have found an ideal part­ner to jointly embark on the next phase of vitroconnect’s growth plan.”

News

Munich — H&Z Unter­neh­mens­be­ra­tung AG advi­sed funds advi­sed by PREMIUM Equity Part­ners GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the Fila­Tech Group, Rema­gen­/R­hi­ne­land-Pala­ti­nate, during the commer­cial due diligence.

For more than 25 years, Fila­Tech has been the world’s leading inde­pen­dent system supplier of hollow fiber spin­ning systems that produce membrane fibers for the manu­fac­ture of dialy­zers used to wash the blood of kidney pati­ents. In view of the high growth rates of kidney dise­ase world­wide and the predo­mi­nant use of end-stage dialy­sis, there is a growing need for dialy­zers. Fila­Tech is also active in the produc­tion of gas sepa­ra­tion and water puri­fi­ca­tion systems, which are based on simi­lar prin­ci­ples for filter production.

The two senior mana­ging direc­tors and company foun­ders, Dr. Thomas Müller and Heinz Lands­berg, will remain on the manage­ment board for a tran­si­tio­nal period and then move to the company’s advi­sory board. — Toge­ther with the fami­lies invol­ved and the new CEO Robert de Deugd, PREMIUM will support the growth oppor­tu­ni­ties and promote both geogra­phi­cal diver­si­fi­ca­tion and the broa­de­ning of the product range.

Advi­sor PREMIUM Equity: H&Z

Dr. Markus Cont­zen (Part­ner M&A Advi­sory and Private Equity)
Sascha Taglia­ferri (Senior Project Mana­ger M&A Advi­sory and Private Equity)

www.hz.group

 

News

Amster­dam / Munich — Funds advi­sed by Castik Capi­tal S.à r.l. (“Castik”) have signed an agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in Andra Tech Group. The sellers of the shares are funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe, Moun­tain­view Capi­tal and the manage­ment of the group. Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe and the manage­ment team will retain a mino­rity stake in the company as part of the tran­sac­tion. The current CEO of Andra Tech Group, Geert Ketel­a­ars, will conti­nue to lead the company toge­ther with his manage­ment colle­agues Adwin Kanne­kens, Eric Urff and Gerben Heideman.

Foun­ded in 1973, Andra Tech Group (form­erly Kusters Beheer) has deve­lo­ped into a leading group for the manu­fac­ture of high-tech precis­ion compon­ents and submo­du­les. The Group consists of nine opera­ting compa­nies in the Nether­lands and Germany with a total of eleven modern and fully inves­ted produc­tion faci­li­ties that focus on the manu­fac­ture of high-quality precis­ion parts and modu­les. With more than 700 employees, Andra Tech Group serves an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base from a wide range of indus­tries, inclu­ding the semi­con­duc­tor, pack­a­ging, food, mobi­lity, medi­cal and aero­space indus­tries. The Andra Tech Group manu­fac­tures parts for proto­ty­pes, small to medium-sized batches and large series.

Andra Tech Group now intends to conti­nue its ambi­tious growth stra­tegy and estab­lish itself as a leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­rer of high-tech precis­ion compon­ents and submo­du­les through orga­nic growth and further acqui­si­ti­ons. The focus is on invest­ments in the Dutch dome­stic market and expan­sion into new regi­ons. Part of the growth stra­tegy is also to further expand the Group’s tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise in the area of high-precis­ion manufacturing.

“In Castik, we have found the ideal part­ner to support us in expan­ding our capa­ci­ties and exper­tise — both through orga­nic growth and targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. We look forward to working closely with Castik’s team, whose expe­ri­ence and confi­dence in our culture and DNA has convin­ced us. The fact that the funds advi­sed by Equis­tone remain inves­ted as mino­rity share­hol­ders shows their contin­ued confi­dence in Andra Tech Group and our stra­tegy,” explains Geert Ketel­a­ars, CEO of the Andra Tech Group.

“We would like to thank the Andra Tech Group manage­ment team for the trust they have placed in us and look forward to deve­lo­ping the company further toge­ther. Andra Tech Group opera­tes in an attrac­tive market envi­ron­ment charac­te­ri­zed by a steadily incre­asing demand for high-tech compon­ents and rapid tech­no­lo­gi­cal progress. Our primary goal is to support Geert and the entire manage­ment team in the next phase of growth. A parti­cu­lar focus will be on expan­ding the custo­mer base and the Group’s tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise,” says Michael Phil­ipps, Part­ner at Castik Capi­tal.

“It has been a great plea­sure to support Andra Tech Group on its jour­ney over the past three years. During the part­ner­ship, Andra Tech Group has made four acqui­si­ti­ons, further streng­the­ned its posi­tion in the Nether­lands and at the same time successfully ente­red the German market. Andra Tech Group is ther­e­fore ideally posi­tio­ned to successfully conti­nue the strong, dyna­mic growth of recent years into the future. We look forward to working with the Castik team and to conti­nuing to support Andra Tech Group in its next steps,” adds Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Part­ner in Equistone’s Amster­dam office.

Consul­tant:

Andra Tech Group and the Equis­tone funds were advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by William Blair (M&A), BCG (Commer­cial), PwC (Finan­cial & Tax), A&O Shear­man (Legal) and Tauw (ESG).

Castik Capi­tal S.à r.l. was advi­sed by Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (M&A and Finan­cing), Roland Berger (Commer­cial & Opera­tio­nal), PwC (Finan­cial, Tax, ESG), Andra Tech Group, Skad­den, Arps, Slate, Meag­her & Flom (Legal), Hout­hoff (Legal) and White and Case (Finan­cing 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 its foun­da­tion in 2002, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio of Equis­tone funds curr­ently compri­ses around 40 compa­nies across Europe. www.equistonepe.com.

About Andra Tech Group
www.andratechgroup.com/de

About Castik Capi­tal S.à r.l.
www.castik.com/de/

News

Düsseldorf/Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed the Euro­pean produc­tion and distri­bu­tion studio Vuelta Group on the acqui­si­tion of the Munich-based distri­bu­tion and produc­tion company Tele­pool. Vuelta is acqui­ring Westbrook’s shares on behalf of its German subsi­diary SquareOne.

The inte­gra­ted company will operate under the name SquareOne in future. The acqui­si­tion compri­ses a rights cata­log of over 1,200 titles, inclu­ding box office hits such as Drive, Pretty Best Friends, The Imita­tion Game, King Richard and Trans­por­ter 3. Tele­pool has been wholly owned by West­brook Inc. since 2018. by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.

The Vuelta Group is repre­sen­ted outside Germany in Scan­di­na­via by the produc­tion company Scan­box, in France by Play­time and Pan and in Italy by Indiana Productions.

McDer­mott alre­ady advi­sed on the acqui­si­tion of SquareOne Enter­tain­ment GmbH for the then newly foun­ded Vuelta Group in 2023 and has advi­sed on all of the Group’s Euro­pean acqui­si­ti­ons to date.

Advi­sor Vuelta Group: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düsseldorf/Munich

Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach (Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf/Frankfurt), Dr. Wolf­gang von Frentz (Media/IT, Munich; both lead), David Grimes (Corporate/M&A, New York), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski (Employ­ment Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Media/IT, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Kai Grand­pierre (Corporate/M&A, Colo­gne), Simon Apelojg (Media/IT, Munich), Markus Hunken­schrö­der (Finan­cing), Lisa Schei­pers (Employ­ment Law; both Düsseldorf)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: https://www.mwe.com/de/

News

Stutt­gart — Menold Bezler has advi­sed seve­ral share­hol­ders of the Stutt­gart-based AI specia­list Parsio­nate on the sale of their shares to the IT group Accenture.

Parsio­nate is a service provi­der in the field of master data manage­ment and data gover­nance with offices in Germany and loca­ti­ons in the Nether­lands, Sweden and Switz­er­land. The Parsio­nate Group’s consul­ting team, consis­ting of 130 employees, will become part of Accen­ture Technology’s Data & AI busi­ness unit in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The foun­ders Thomas Sperr­fech­ter and Michael Fieg will lead and further deve­lop the port­fo­lio for data archi­tec­ture and management.

Accen­ture is a global consul­ting company with a focus on tech­no­lo­gies such as cloud, data and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. 742,000 employees in more than 120 count­ries gene­ra­ted sales of USD 64 billion in 2023. The acqui­si­tion puts Accen­ture in an even better posi­tion to offer inno­va­tive data-driven solu­ti­ons to clients in Europe.

Menold Bezler advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Parsio­nate on the legal and tax aspects of the sale.

Advi­sor seller: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)

Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner, Lead; Photo © Menold Bezler), Jens Schmelt (Part­ner), Thomas Futte­rer, Linda Groß, Dr. Björn Stau­din­ger, Justus Häfner, Nicole Brandt, LL.M., Michelle Gutjahr (all Corporate/M&A), Kath­rin Seiz (Coun­sel), Dr. Tim Gühring, Katha­rina Gösele (all Employ­ment), Dr. Markus Kleinn (IP), Jochen Zimmer­mann (Part­ner), Clemens Mauch (Part­ner), Michael Spohn, Laura Bommer (all Tax)

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

Zug / Frechen — Build­Tec Soft­ware Group, foun­ded by funds advi­sed by Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”), acquire a majo­rity stake in Digi­Para GmbH (“Digi­Para”), a Germany-based provi­der of BIM-based eleva­tor plan­ning soft­ware. The aim is to conti­nue the growth course of the Build­Tec Soft­ware Group and to expand the product portfolio.

Digi­Para, based in Frechen, Germany, has made a name for itself in buil­ding infor­ma­tion mode­ling (BIM) for eleva­tors and escala­tors. The experts deve­lop BIM-opti­mi­zed programs for the effi­ci­ent plan­ning and confi­gu­ra­tion of eleva­tors. The company has been in exis­tence for around 35 years, and eleva­tor manu­fac­tu­r­ers and archi­tects world­wide use the two solu­ti­ons Digi­Para Lift­de­si­gner and Digi­Para Elevatorarchitect.

The soft­ware with intel­li­gent BIM model supports 2D designs and the entire plan­ning process. BIM ensu­res easy and smooth colla­bo­ra­tion, so that the eleva­tor and escala­tor confi­gu­ra­tion process can be simpli­fied and acce­le­ra­ted with the tools. “I am very plea­sed about the inte­gra­tion of Digi­Para into the Build­Tec Soft­ware Group. This deve­lo­p­ment offers our employees and custo­mers added secu­rity,” says Andreas Fleisch­mann, CEO of Digi­Para, adds: “I am also exci­ted about the new oppor­tu­ni­ties that this part­ner­ship opens up: soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment cycles can be acce­le­ra­ted and the quality of our BIM products can be further impro­ved, guaran­te­e­ing our custo­mers more effi­ci­ent and powerful soft­ware solutions.”

The inte­gra­tion of Digi­Para is a further mile­stone for the Build­Tec Soft­ware Group to further expand its growth course and market posi­tion and to deve­lop into the leading Euro­pean plat­form for inno­va­tive soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the trade and cons­truc­tion indus­try. With the stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion of Digi­Para, the Build­Tec Soft­ware Group bene­fits from a comple­men­tary product range to the CAD/CAM soft­ware solu­ti­ons for timber cons­truc­tion, stair­case cons­truc­tion and sheet metal proces­sing of the SEMA group of compa­nies acqui­red in 2022. The expan­ded global custo­mer base also offers poten­tial for cross-selling.

“We are deligh­ted to have Digi­Para as an abso­lute expert in the field of eleva­tor BIM as a part­ner. We are thus expan­ding our port­fo­lio by an important area and consis­t­ently conti­nuing our growth course,” says Alex­an­der Neuss, CEO of the Build­Tec Soft­ware Group. “Buil­ding Infor­ma­tion Mode­ling is the future of the cons­truc­tion indus­try,” Neuss conti­nues. The new part­ner­ship will now result in bene­fits and syner­gies with regard to BIM tools.

Since 2023, Build­Tec Soft­ware Group, foun­ded by BU advi­sed Funds, has made six acqui­si­ti­ons and now unites well-known compa­nies such as SEMA, Haus­mann & Wynen, Glaser Programm­sys­teme, E‑KOMPLET, Acies and now Digi­Para under one roof.

About Bregal Entre­pre­neu­rial Capital

Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”) is a leading private equity firm with offices in Zug, Munich and Milan. The funds advi­sed by BU invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy and Austria. With the mission to be the prefer­red part­ner for entre­pre­neurs and family busi­nesses, BU focu­ses on part­ner­ships with market leaders and “hidden cham­pi­ons” with strong manage­ment teams and growth poten­tial. Since its foun­da­tion in 2015, the funds mana­ged by BU have inves­ted over 3.0 billion euros in more than 100 compa­nies with over 20,000 employees. BU supports entre­pre­neurs and fami­lies as a stra­te­gic part­ner to further deve­lop, inter­na­tio­na­lize and digi­ta­lize their compa­nies, helping them to create sustainable value respon­si­bly and with a view to the next generation.

http://www.bregal.ch

News

Wies­ba­den / Zwin­gen­berg — BRAIN Biotech AG, a company specia­li­zing in bio-based products and solu­ti­ons such as enzy­mes and prote­ins as well as biotech­no­lo­gi­cal solu­ti­ons for more sustainable indus­trial proces­ses, is recei­ving a further injec­tion of capi­tal: Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH (“bmh”) — which has alre­ady parti­ci­pa­ted in seve­ral finan­cing rounds for the company since 1996 — is now provi­ding a further EUR 5 million in capi­tal. BRAIN intends to conti­nue inves­t­ing in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment work as well as in labo­ra­tory and produc­tion facilities.

BRAIN Biotech AG (“BRAIN”) was foun­ded in 1993 in Zwin­gen­berg, Hesse, and was one of the pioneers in the field of indus­trial biotech­no­logy. Today, it is one of the leading Euro­pean compa­nies in the field of enzyme tech­no­logy, among others. Since its foun­da­tion, the company has deve­lo­ped from a service provi­der specia­li­zing in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment to a group of compa­nies with an exten­sive scien­ti­fic services and product busi­ness for the B2B market. BRAIN focu­ses on the areas of nutri­tion, health and the envi­ron­ment. The acti­vi­ties of the BRAIN Group, with a total of 330 employees, 120 of whom are based in Zwin­gen­berg, are divi­ded into three divi­si­ons: The BioIn­dus­trial divi­sion focu­ses on the product busi­ness, while the BioSci­ence divi­sion compri­ses the rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment busi­ness on behalf of custo­mers. In the BioIn­cu­ba­tor segment, the company carries out its own R&D projects or those initia­ted with part­ners with high commer­cial potential.

Speci­fi­cally, bio-based products in the area of nutri­tion, for exam­ple, involve alter­na­tive protein and food sources based on micro­or­ga­nisms or cell cultures. In the health­care sector, BRAIN deve­lops phar­maceu­ti­cally active ingre­di­ents for the treat­ment of chro­nic wounds and rare dise­a­ses, among other things. BRAIN now covers the entire value chain for specialty enzy­mes — from deve­lo­p­ment to fermen­ta­tion and produc­tion on an indus­trial scale.

With the finan­cing round that has now been concluded, the company intends to further expand its rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties. At the same time, BRAIN Biotech is plan­ning invest­ments in labo­ra­tory and rese­arch faci­li­ties at the Zwin­gen­berg site.

Michael Schnei­ders, CFO BRAIN Biotech AGsays: “We are deligh­ted with bmh’s contin­ued confi­dence in our busi­ness model and greatly appre­ciate the trus­ting and long-stan­ding coope­ra­tion. We intend to use the funds from the current finan­cing round to make further future-orien­ted invest­ments at our head­quar­ters in Hesse and thus further expand our leading posi­tion in the market.”

Helge Haase, respon­si­ble Invest­ment Mana­ger of bmhexplains: “We are convin­ced of the poten­tial of BRAIN Biotech AG, and have been for over 25 years. We look forward to support­ing the company’s trans­for­ma­tion from a successful rese­arch company to a fast-growing manu­fac­tu­ring company and to conti­nuing to accom­pany BRAIN Biotech AG on its growth path.”

About the bmh

bmh Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH, based in Wies­ba­den, was foun­ded in 2001 and is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Hessen-Thürin­gen Giro­zen­trale (Helaba). Through the Wirt­schafts- und Infra­struk­tur­bank Hessen (WIBank), bmh is actively invol­ved in the econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment of the state of Hesse. As a medium-sized invest­ment and venture capi­tal company, bmh bund­les public invest­ment inte­rests and finan­cing instru­ments for early-stage, growth and medium-sized compa­nies in Hesse. bmh curr­ently mana­ges six invest­ment funds with a total invest­ment volume of around 125 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion, bmh has inves­ted in a total of more than 500 compa­nies. The main areas of invest­ment include the soft­ware & IT, life scien­ces, mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring, indus­trial goods, profes­sio­nal services and e‑commerce sectors. More infor­ma­tion about bmh and its funds: www.bmh-hessen.de

News

Munich, May 6, 2024 — Perusa Part­ners Fund II L.P. has sold its shares in the PROLED Group to the Galaed Group. The commer­cial law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed Perusa on this transaction.

The PROLED Group is a Euro­pean deve­lo­per, manu­fac­tu­rer and distri­bu­tor of LED light­ing with the brands PROLED, UNI-BRIGHT and mawa. With its own produc­tion faci­li­ties in Germany, PROLED is a refe­rence manu­fac­tu­rer for high-quality products with high design standards.

PROLED deve­lops, confi­gu­res and distri­bu­tes LED light­ing tech­no­logy for the B2B sector. The company sells its products to a broad network of archi­tects, elec­tri­ci­ans and whole­sa­lers, enab­ling it to achieve stable cash flows with low project risks.

Perusa acqui­red a majo­rity stake in MBN PROLED (Germany) as a plat­form in 2017 and streng­the­ned this in 2018 with the acqui­si­tion of UNI-BRIGHT (Belgium) and in 2021 with the acqui­si­tion of mawa (Germany). In 2020, the tran­si­tion from the foun­ders to a new exter­nal manage­ment team was successful and an inter­na­tio­nal sales team was established.

Since the acqui­si­tion by Perusa in 2017, PROLED’s sales and EBITDA have more than doubled as a result of acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic growth. PROLED is aiming to make further acqui­si­ti­ons in the frag­men­ted Euro­pean LED market with a focus on the high-margin B2B segment.

As an inter­na­tio­nally active private equity company, Perusa Part­ners specia­li­zes in the acqui­si­tion and deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized compa­nies in trans­for­ma­tion situa­tions in German-spea­king and Scan­di­na­vian countries.

Legal Advi­sors Perusa Part­ners Fund II L.P.: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich

Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A; Photo © GOF), Dr. Tilmann Gütt, LL.M. (London) (Part­ner, Banking/Finance), Thomas Becker, LL.M. (Eur.) (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Maxi­mi­lian Spind­ler, LL.M. (Colum­bia) (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Chris­to­pher Krappitz (Senior Asso­ciate, Banking/Finance), Tobias Berg­meis­ter (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Anja Schmidt (Asso­ciate, Banking/Finance)

Alten­burg Fach­an­wälte für Arbeits­recht, Munich
Andreas Ege (Part­ner, Employ­ment Law), Henning Timm (Coun­sel, Employ­ment Law)

 

 

News

Frank­furt — Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP has advi­sed PAI Part­ners (“PAI”) on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the reha­bi­li­ta­tion busi­ness of the VAMED Group from Frese­nius SE & Co. KGaA. PAI will hold a 67 percent stake through its PAI Mid-Market Fund (“PAI MMF”) and Frese­nius will hold a 33 percent stake.

VAMED opera­tes 67 reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics, acute care hospi­tals and care centers in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, the Czech Repu­blic and Great Britain with more than 100,000 pati­ents annu­ally. Supported by around 10,000 highly quali­fied employees, the unit offers a compre­hen­sive range of inpa­ti­ent and outpa­ti­ent reha­bi­li­ta­tion services as well as specia­li­zed acute care. The company takes a multi­di­sci­pli­nary approach to pati­ent care, with special­ties such as neuro­logy, ortho­pae­dics, psycho­so­ma­tics and cardiology.

Stefano Drago, one of the foun­ding part­ners of PAI Mid-Market Fund, said: “Vamed’s reha­bi­li­ta­tion busi­ness is a leading Euro­pean company provi­ding essen­tial reha­bi­li­ta­tion services and has an excel­lent repu­ta­tion for deli­ve­ring high quality care. PAI will leverage its signi­fi­cant expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector — inclu­ding previous invest­ments such as DomusVi, a leading player in the Euro­pean resi­den­tial aged care sector, a field adja­cent to reha­bi­li­ta­tion — to support Vamed’s reha­bi­li­ta­tion business.”

PAI Part­ners is a leading private equity firm that invests in market-leading compa­nies world­wide. The company mana­ges assets of around €27 billion and has made over 100 invest­ments in 12 count­ries since 1994, gene­ra­ting more than €24 billion in proceeds from 60 exits. PAI has built an outstan­ding track record of working with ambi­tious manage­ment teams where unique perspec­tive, unmat­ched indus­try expe­ri­ence and long-term vision enable compa­nies to reach — and go beyond — their full potential.

Advi­sor PAI Part­ners: WILLKIE

The Will­kie team was led by part­ner Dr. Axel Wahl (Corporate/M&A, Munich) and compri­sed the part­ners Dr. Michael Ilter (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Patrick Meiisel, Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax, all Frank­furt), Anne Kleff­mann (Employ­ment), Dr. Richard Röder (Global Trade & Compli­ance, both Munich), Jan Wilms (Finance, Frank­furt), Faus­tine Viala (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion, Paris) and David Kupka (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion, Brussels), the coun­sel Dr. Florian Dendl (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Chris­tian Sper­ling (Corporate/M&A), Henning Aufder­haar (Real Estate), Wulf Kring (Tax), Martin Waśkow­ski (Employ­ment, all Frank­furt), Maxi­mi­lian Mayer (Finance, Munich) as well as asso­cia­tes Dr. Tobias Gerigk, Dr. Patrick Kemper (Corporate/M&A, both Frank­furt), Nils Hörnig, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schatz (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Laurin Havlik (Global Trade & Compli­ance, all Munich), Dr. Phil­ipp Stein­hau­sen (Finance), Philip Thür­mer (Real Estate, both Frank­furt), Leota Walter (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Sophie Wollen­we­ber (Corporate/M&A), Sascha Wink­ler (Employ­ment Law) and Marcel Seemaier (Tax, all Frankfurt).

Other consul­tants:
Maria Heil, Guram Gobe­chia (both NOVACOS Attor­neys at Law, Germany), Dr. Phil­ipp Schr­a­der, Dr. Stefan Jeit­ler, Yvonne Wohl­muth (all E+H Attor­neys at Law GmbH, Austria), Dr. Phil­ippe Seiler, Romina Lauper (both Bär & Karrer Ltd., Switz­er­land), Martin Peckl, Silvie Kiraly (both HAVEL & PARTNERS s.r.o.Czech Repu­blic) and Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath and Dr. Moritz Schmitz (both KNPZ Attor­neys at Law — Klawit­ter Neben Plath Zint­ler — Part­ner­schafts­ge­sell­schaft mbB, Germany).

About Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP provi­des leading legal solu­ti­ons to complex, busi­ness-criti­cal issues that span markets and indus­tries. Our appro­xi­m­ately 1,200 lawy­ers in 14 offices world­wide provide inno­va­tive, prag­ma­tic and sophisti­ca­ted legal services in around 45 areas of law. Find out more at www.willkie.com.

News

Berlin — good­car­bon secu­res €5.25 million in funding to bring new high-quality nature-based solu­ti­ons to market and enable compa­nies to meet their long-term net zero and nature commit­ments. Ocean 14 Capi­tal leads the round, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Silver­strand Capi­tal, high profile angel inves­tors and exis­ting inves­tors Planet A Ventures, 468 Capi­tal and Green­field Capital.

Foun­ded in 2021 by Jérôme Cochet (photo left) and David Diallo, good­car­bon offers a plat­form for compa­nies that want to build and manage trust­wor­thy, long-term port­fo­lios of carbon credits from nature-based solu­ti­ons. The start-up’s approach invol­ves close colla­bo­ra­tion with impact-orien­ted projects and the culti­va­tion of exclu­sive good­car­bon origi­nal projects.

The EUR 5.25 million invest­ment is aimed at expan­ding the company’s nature analy­sis and exper­tise, streng­thening the team and brin­ging addi­tio­nal high-quality climate protec­tion projects to the market

At the heart of their model is the realiza­tion that the follo­wing three major chal­lenges of our time are inter­lin­ked and require a unified solu­tion: Global warm­ing (“net zero target”), loss of nature (“biodi­ver­sity target”) and global inequa­lity (“SDG target”). In the coming years, the start-up aims to become an inte­gral part of the carbon offset­ting plans of compa­nies in Germany and beyond.

“This finan­cing round marks a pivo­tal moment for good­car­bon and our mission to provide compa­nies with access to high-quality nature-based solu­ti­ons that enable them to imple­ment their emis­sion reduc­tion stra­te­gies while protec­ting our planet,” says Jérôme Cochet (photo left), foun­der and CEO of good­car­bon. “It is esti­ma­ted that 10 billion tons of carbon reduc­tion can come from nature by 2030, but we need to close the finan­cing gap for high quality instal­la­ti­ons. Many compa­nies are reluc­tant to enter into long-term part­ner­ships with projects due to a lack of avai­la­bi­lity and trans­pa­rency on the actual quality of the projects. With the Ocean 14 Capi­tal fund and Silver­strand Capi­tal on board, we are streng­thening our global network and exper­tise in nature-based solu­ti­ons and have expe­ri­en­ced new part­ners on our side to expand our Good Carbon Origi­nals projects.”

Nature-based solu­ti­ons are projects that aim to protect, sustain­ably manage and restore natu­ral and alte­red ecosys­tems, effec­tively addres­sing social chal­lenges while bene­fiting people and nature (IUCN). These projects have long-term, ecolo­gi­cally and econo­mic­ally sustainable effects for nature, local commu­ni­ties and inves­tors alike. Support­ing early-stage nature-based solu­ti­ons means initia­ting high-impact, high-inte­grity projects that are scalable, drive inno­va­tion, and restore and sustain ecosys­tems. Nature-based solu­ti­ons are indeed the most effec­tive tool in the fight against climate change, biodi­ver­sity loss and social inequality.

“We are deligh­ted to support good­car­bon and its mission to provide compa­nies with access to nature-based solu­ti­ons,” says George Duffield of Ocean 14 Capi­tal. “We are parti­cu­larly impres­sed by their science-based approach to quality and the alignment between product and market. The fact that they are alre­ady working with leading compa­nies such as Deut­sche Tele­kom, Bertels­mann and Melitta clearly demons­tra­tes their poten­tial to lead and make a diffe­rence in this space. We look forward to helping good­car­bon enable more compa­nies to confi­dently deli­ver on their net zero and nature promises.”

https://www.goodcarbon.earth

News

York­shire (UK) — IK Part­ners (“IK”) has acqui­red a mino­rity stake in A‑SAFE through its IK Part­ner­ship II (“IK PF II”) fund. A‑SAFE is a global leader in the deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­ture and distri­bu­tion of indus­trial poly­mer safety barrier systems. IK acqui­red its stake from the Smith family, which remains heavily inves­ted. This is the last invest­ment of the IK PF II fund, which is now fully inves­ted. — The finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. IK Part­ners was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by DC Advisory.

A‑SAFE was foun­ded in 1984 and is head­quar­te­red in York­shire, UK. The company manu­fac­tures a wide range of poly­mer-based products that are used in facto­ries and warehou­ses around the world to protect both people and assets from colli­si­ons with vehic­les such as fork­lift trucks. The company employs over 700 people, over 80 of whom work in rese­arch and development.

As a foun­der-led company, A‑SAFE has achie­ved signi­fi­cant orga­nic growth and today serves more than 6,000 custo­mers in over 50 count­ries. Its diverse custo­mer base includes some of the world’s largest compa­nies, inclu­ding Coca-Cola, UPS and Amazon. With the aim of further streng­thening its leading posi­tion in the field of indus­trial poly­mers world­wide, the company has deci­ded to enter into a part­ner­ship with IK.

With the support of IK and its dedi­ca­ted part­ner­ship fund, which focu­ses on mino­rity invest­ments in estab­lished, fast-growing compa­nies, A‑SAFE is poised for further growth. The manage­ment team, led by James and Luke Smith, is deligh­ted with the part­ner­ship with IK. Toge­ther, they want to tap into growth oppor­tu­ni­ties and drive inno­va­tion in order to rede­fine indus­try standards.

James and Luke Smith, Co-CEOs of A‑SAFE, said: “We are deligh­ted to be part­ne­ring with IK. This is an exci­ting oppor­tu­nity for us to conso­li­date our leading posi­tion in the market while expan­ding our global reach, enhan­cing our product offe­ring and incre­asing value for our custo­mers. With IK’s exper­tise and resour­ces, we are confi­dent that the company will conti­nue to grow and we look forward to working with Thomas and his team.”

Thomas Grob (photo © ik part­ners), Part­ner at IK and advi­sor to the IK Part­ner­ship II Fundadded: “A‑SAFE’s expan­sion into new markets and product segments and its commit­ment to inno­va­tion have firmly posi­tio­ned the company as an indus­try leader in work­place safety, secu­rity and effi­ci­ency systems. The company’s ability to anti­ci­pate market needs, coupled with outstan­ding products, has inspi­red great confi­dence in the manage­ment team and its capa­bi­li­ties. We look forward to working with James, Luke and their team over the coming years.”

About A‑SAFE

A‑SAFE was foun­ded in 1984 and is head­quar­te­red in York­shire (UK). A‑SAFE is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer and distri­bu­tor of indus­trial poly­mer safety barrier systems. The company began as a specia­list in poly­ethy­lene extru­sion. Under the leader­ship of the founder’s two sons, James and Luke Smith, the stra­te­gic switch to strong poly­mer barriers took place in 2000. www.asafe.com.

About IK Partners

IK Part­ners (“IK”) is a Euro­pean private equity firm focu­sed on invest­ments in the Bene­lux, DACH region, France, the Nordics and the UK. Since 1989, IK has raised more than 14 billion euros in capi­tal and inves­ted in over 180 Euro­pean compa­nies. IK supports high-poten­tial compa­nies and works with manage­ment teams and inves­tors to create robust, well-posi­tio­ned busi­nesses with excel­lent long-term pros­pects. www. ikpartners.com.

News

Munich — The TIMETOACT GROUP (“TIMETOACT”), a leading provi­der of IT services for the upper midmar­ket, corpo­ra­ti­ons and public insti­tu­ti­ons and a port­fo­lio company of the funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe, has acqui­red SWP Soft­ware­park GmbH, which opera­tes under the Trust­bit brand. The former Trust­bit Mana­ging Direc­tor Jörg Egretz­ber­ger will become Co-Mana­ging Direc­tor of the TIMETOACT GROUP Austria as part of the merger and will become a share­hol­der in the TIMETOACT Group. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. POELLATH advi­sed TIMETOACT on the legal aspects of the acquisition.

Trust­bit, based in Vienna (Austria), is an IT consul­ting company for digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and the deve­lo­p­ment of digi­tal busi­ness models. The company supports its cross-indus­try custo­mer base in the busi­ness areas of custo­mer-speci­fic deve­lo­p­ment of custo­mi­zed soft­ware, machine lear­ning & data science and IT consul­ting. Trust­bit employs around 50 people at 3 Austrian locations.

TIMETOACT is a leading provi­der of IT services, prima­rily for medium-sized and large compa­nies in the indus­trial, finan­cial and service sectors as well as public sector orga­niza­ti­ons. The company compri­ses seve­ral specia­li­zed IT compa­nies at 17 loca­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land as well as in Latvia, Malay­sia, Singa­pore and the USA. TIMETOACT employs over 1,250 people and has a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of soft­ware and consul­ting services. The acqui­si­tion of Trust­bit is the eighth successful acqui­si­tion since the funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe acqui­red a majo­rity stake in June 2021 and marks another important growth step for TIMETOACT.

POELLATH advi­sed TIMETOACT on the acqui­si­tion with the follo­wing Munich-based team:
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus, Photo © Poellath (Part­ner, Manage­ment Participations)
Nemanja Burgić, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity)
Dr. Verena Sten­zel (Coun­sel, M&A/Private Equity)
Jan Lukas Jung­claus, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participations)

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.

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