Buy&Build: NORD Holding and audiOsono acquire two companies in the hearing care market

Septem­ber 2020, Hano­ver, Germany — NORD Holding, toge­ther with an indus­­try-expe­ri­en­­ced manage­ment team led by Mana­ging Direc­tor Mr. Wilhelm Evers, is pursuing a buy-and-build stra­tegy in the premium hearing care segment. With part of the oton-/ Ohrwerk Group (a total of 29 estab­lished specialty stores), the foun­da­tion has now been laid for the inor­ga­nic growth plan­ned to more than 150 specialty stores. The compa­nies will be united in perspec­tive under a common appearance as “OHRWERK Hörge­räte” in the stron­gly growing market of premium hearing acoustics.

“With these invest­ments, audiO­sono will directly join the ranks of the largest hearing care compa­nies in Germany. Thanks to Mr. Evers’ indus­try expe­ri­ence and network, we are parti­ci­pa­ting in the strong growth in the hearing care market in the best possi­ble way and are very much looking forward to support­ing him in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the new company,” says Phil­ipp von Mitzlaff, Member of the Execu­tive Board at NORD Holding.

“We give our hearing care profes­sio­nals the oppor­tu­nity to concen­trate fully on their craft: Advi­sing custo­mers in the best possi­ble way, fitting hearing aids opti­mally and selling them. With this in mind, we want to be the most attrac­tive buyer and, above all, employer for hearing care profes­sio­nals in Germany,” says Wilhelm Evers, Mana­ging Direc­tor of audiOsono.

“We are plea­sed to have found strong part­ners in NORD Holding and audiO­sono, who share our corpo­rate philo­so­phy of respon­si­ble hearing care craft­sman­ship and will conti­nue the group’s growth course on this basis. In the future, I will concen­trate more on support­ing the oton & friends network part­ners,” says Andreas Roberg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of oton.

On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tions were accom­pa­nied by Phil­ipp von Mitzlaff, André Seidel and David Wössner.

About audiO­sono
With audiO­sono, NORD Holding is addres­sing the incre­asing demand for high-quality hearing aids and custo­­mer-orien­­ted advice in clear distinc­tion to the estab­lished branch concepts. As a buy-and-build plat­form with a focus on hearing acou­stics, audiO­sono prima­rily bene­fits from the high degree of frag­men­ta­tion in the German market and the incre­asing pene­tra­tion and accep­tance of hearing aids in society. audiO­sono parti­ci­pa­tes in estab­lished hearing care stores with a strong local presence as well as natio­nally active chains throug­hout Germany, offe­ring inde­pen­dent acou­sti­ci­ans an alter­na­tive to selling to a large chain store.

About oton and Ohrwerk
The Group opera­tes a total of 29 own stores with approx. 75 employees under the two umbrella brands oton — Die Hörakus­ti­ker and Ohrwerk Hörge­räte with seve­ral regio­nal clus­ters throug­hout Germany (esp. NRW, nort­hern Germany and Bava­ria). With its own hearing aid coll­ec­tion, an attrac­tive finan­cing concept, broad service port­fo­lio and various trai­ning programs, the Group is a leading entity in Germany in terms of custo­mer proxi­mity, quality aware­ness and employee deve­lo­p­ment. www.oton-hoerakustik.de/ and www.ohrwerk-gmbh.info/

Advi­sor Nord Holding: BPG Bera­­tungs- und Prüfungsgesellschaft 
Andreas Hoff­mann, WP and Part­ner (Over­all Manage­ment), Alex­an­der Schnei­der, Asso­ciate (Finan­cial), Ludger Fang­mann, StB and Part­ner (Tax), and Jan Phil­ipp Kruse, Asso­ciate (Tax).
www.bpe.de

About NORD Holding
With its 50-year history and assets under manage­ment of € 2.5 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the Direct Invest­ments and Fund Invest­ments busi­ness areas. The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king count­ries. The Fund Invest­ments busi­ness unit targets the small-cap segment of the Euro­pean private equity market and focu­ses on primary, secon­dary and co-inves­t­­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished in the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor investor.