Banking software: Main Capital Partners acquires pdv and van den Berg

Düssel­dorf — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) reali­zes acqui­si­tion of pdv Finan­cial Soft­ware GmbH as well as van den Berg GmbH and van den Berg Service AG. In the future, the acqui­red compa­nies will operate under the umbrella of pdv Holding GmbH, which was foun­ded for this purpose and in which the manage­ment teams have inves­ted. The colla­bo­ra­tion between the two compa­nies marks a mile­stone in Main’s efforts to build a strong group in the banking soft­ware market.

Toge­ther with manage­ment, Main will support the group in its growth plans and with a selec­tive buy-and-build stra­tegy. The focus is on the further expan­sion of the banking soft­ware plat­form to include the core areas of trading, payment tran­sac­tions and supple­men­tary banking solu­ti­ons with a focus on recur­ring revenues.

pdv Finan­cial Soft­ware GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Hamburg, is the German market leader for capi­tal market soft­ware and offers end-to-end solu­ti­ons for the entire trading process chain. The solu­tion covers all major asset clas­ses and finan­cial instru­ments, both for buying and selling as well as for insti­tu­tio­nal and private trading. Key reasons for Main’s invest­ment include pdv’s cross-selling poten­tial within the broa­der banking soft­ware group, its attrac­tive finan­cial profile with sustained double-digit growth and high profi­ta­bi­lity, and its strong custo­mer base.

The van den Berg Group, which consists of van den Berg GmbH and van den Berg Service AG and is head­quar­te­red in Herzo­gen­rath, Germany, curr­ently offers payment soft­ware solu­ti­ons to its appro­xi­m­ately 100 custo­mers, who are prima­rily active in the banking sector. The company’s product port­fo­lio includes Payment Proces­sing and Manage­ment (PPM) with all elements requi­red for recei­ving, conver­ting, veri­fy­ing, correc­ting, recon­ci­ling and routing payment tran­sac­tions. In addi­tion, van den Berg offers further func­tions for SEPA Card Clea­ring for proces­sing card payments as well as an Instant Payments Gate­way. Estab­lished as a part­ner to banks for over 35 years and in use as a Payments-as-a-Service solu­tion for 15 years, van den Berg has built strong rela­ti­onships with its custo­mers and has succee­ded in buil­ding a long-stan­­ding and loyal custo­mer base.

The products and services of pdv and van den Berg comple­ment each other to a large extent and thus promise a high synergy poten­tial through cross- and upsel­ling within the broa­der banking soft­ware group. The merger will further expand the alre­ady strong presence of both compa­nies in the banking soft­ware market.

The team led by Düssel­­dorf-based Deloitte Legal lawy­ers Felix Fell­ei­sen and Max Lüer­ßen has advi­sed Main Capi­tal on a number of plat­form and add-on tran­sac­tions since 2015; more recently, Deloitte Legal has also repea­tedly acted for Main on the seller side, for exam­ple in the sale of finan­cial soft­ware provi­der b+m Group to German tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners and the stra­te­gic sale of arte­gic to UNITED Marke­ting Tech­no­lo­gies by DuMont.

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal Part­ners: Deloitte Legal

Max Lüer­ßen (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Lead), Felix Fell­ei­sen (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Co-Lead); Frauke Heudt­lass (Part­ner, Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Niko Jako­vou, LL.M. (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Felix Skala, LL.M. (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Hamburg); Dr. Fleur Johanna Prop, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Diet­mar Althaus (Coun­sel, Commercial/IT, Colo­gne), Stefan Weste (Coun­sel, Labor Law, Berlin); Nicole Deneke, Nicole Rurik (Asso­cia­tes, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Leonie Onkel­bach (Asso­ciate, Labor Law, Düsseldorf).

Deloitte Finan­cial Advi­sory: Jan Verleys­donk (Part­ner), Mathias Keller (Part­ner), Sven Hausen (Direc­tor); Vilma Vranici (Mana­ger), Janis Fabio Baltha­sar (Mana­ger), Pauline Tubben (Consul­tant, all Deloitte Finan­cial Advi­sory, Düsseldorf)