Deutsche Beteiligungs AG sells stake in Infiana to Pamplona

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) successfully comple­tes its invest­ment in Infiana Group GmbH (Infiana). Its shares will be sold to Pamplona Capi­tal Manage­ment, a finan­cial inves­tor based in the UK. The shares of DBAG Fund VI, which was advi­sed by DBAG, and the Infiana manage­ment will also be sold. Corre­spon­ding agree­ments were signed last week; their execu­tion is still subject to the appr­oval of the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close within the next three months. With this tran­sac­tion, DBAG reali­zes more than double the origi­nally inves­ted capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The portion of the proceeds from the sale now agreed upon attri­bu­ta­ble to DBAG exceeds the carry­ing amount of the invest­ment in the IFRS inte­rim finan­cial state­ments as at March 31, 2019. The dispo­sal will ther­e­fore result in a slightly posi­tive contri­bu­tion to conso­li­da­ted earnings in the third quar­ter of 2018/2019, which ended on June 30, 2019. The fore­cast for the 2018/2019 conso­li­da­ted earnings of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG remains unch­an­ged in view of the conti­nuing impon­der­a­bles rela­ting to other factors influen­cing conso­li­da­ted earnings.

Infiana (www.infiana.com) deve­lops and produ­ces specialty films for the consu­mer goods market and indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. These are used for sophisti­ca­ted pack­a­ging and as a compo­nent for hygiene products, as release and surface films for appli­ca­ti­ons in the cons­truc­tion indus­try, and as release films in tech­ni­cal adhe­sive tapes and specialty labels. Among other things, the company has iden­ti­fied specialty films for phar­maceu­ti­cal appli­ca­ti­ons and for the produc­tion of compo­site mate­ri­als as attrac­tive growth areas. The variety and breadth of end-use fields provide for great diver­si­fi­ca­tion. The high flexi­bi­lity in produc­tion enables a variety of products. In doing so, the company bene­fits time and again from its inten­sive inno­va­tion acti­vi­ties, for which it has recei­ved seve­ral awards. Infiana produ­ces at two loca­ti­ons in Germany and in the USA. The nucleus of the 165-year-old company, which curr­ently employs 800 people, is its German head­quar­ters in Forch­heim. In 2018, Infiana turned over 227 million euros.

DBAG and DBAG Fund VI had inves­ted in Infiana in Decem­ber 2014 as part of a manage­ment buyout (MBO). The previous share­hol­der, a Finnish group, had sold the specialty films busi­ness because it wanted to focus on the produc­tion of food pack­a­ging. Accor­din­gly, after the seces­sion, the first task was to shape Infiana’s inde­pen­dence. Follo­wing the dive­st­ment of produc­tion in Brazil and Thai­land, the German and US sites were expan­ded and moder­ni­zed through substan­tial invest­ment in addi­tio­nal extru­sion and coating capa­ci­ties. The ESG and compli­ance guide­lines were expan­ded and adapted to meet the increased requirements.

“Infiana is better able to seize its market oppor­tu­ni­ties today than it was five years ago,” said Dr. Rolf Schef­fels, a member of DBAG’s Manage­ment Board; “the invest­ments have contri­bu­ted to this, as has the reor­ga­niza­tion of sales from a largely regio­nal approach to a global, verti­cal approach.”

Commen­ting on the change of owner­ship, Peter Wahs­ner, Chair­man of the Manage­ment Board, said: “Infiana has deve­lo­ped enorm­ously in recent years and is well posi­tio­ned to conti­nue to operate successfully in the future — with effi­ci­ent and modern produc­tion and a leading posi­tion in attrac­tive end markets.”

The sale of the invest­ment in Infiana is the fourth closing of an MBO from the DBAG Fund VI port­fo­lio. The fund had struc­tu­red eleven MBOs between 2013 and 2016.

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests along­side DBAG funds in well-posi­­tio­­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are parti­cu­larly strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. With this expe­ri­ence, know-how and equity, it streng­thens the port­fo­lio compa­nies in imple­men­ting a long-term, value-enhan­cing corpo­rate stra­tegy. The entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 1.7 billion euros.