FGvW advises on the sale of VDS Verkehrstechnik to Quarterhill

Toronto, Frank­furt, Löbau — Cana­dian intel­li­gent trans­por­ta­tion systems provi­der Quar­terhill Inc. through its wholly owned subsi­diary Inter­na­tio­nal Road Dyna­mics Inc. (“IRD”) acqui­red all shares in VDS Verkehrs­tech­nik GmbH, a German-based provi­der of high-precis­­ion traf­fic moni­to­ring equipment.

VDS, based in Löbau, Germany, deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and distri­bu­tes statio­nary and mobile traf­fic moni­to­ring devices that measure vehicle speed and record red light viola­ti­ons. VDS’s devices are curr­ently the only radar-based products certi­fied under the new regu­la­ti­ons in Germany, allo­wing direct track­ing of traf­fic viola­ti­ons. VDS has a produc­tion faci­lity and two service centers in Germany and will be inte­gra­ted into Sensor Line GmbH, which was acqui­red by Quarterhill/IRD in Janu­ary 2021. Sensor Line is one of the largest suppli­ers of VDS for opto­elec­tro­nic sensors (www.vds-verkehrstechnik.de).

Quar­terhill is a growth-orien­­ted company in “Intel­li­gent Trans­por­ta­tion Systems” and a leader in intellec­tual property licen­sing (for more infor­ma­tion: www.quarterhill.com). IRD is a dyna­mic ITS tech­no­logy company enga­ged in the deve­lo­p­ment of key compon­ents and advan­ced systems for the next gene­ra­tion of trans­por­ta­tion networks (for more infor­ma­tion: www.irdinc.com).

In the tran­sac­tion, the share­hol­der and the mana­ging direc­tor of VDS were compre­hen­si­vely legally advi­sed by an M&A team of the commer­cial law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner (FGvW) in Frei­burg and Frank­furt under the leader­ship of part­ner Dr. Hendrik Thies. The share­hol­der was exten­si­vely advi­sed in the area of commer­cial, stra­te­gic and orga­niza­tio­nal M&A tran­sac­tion advice by MNI Part­ners LLC under the leader­ship of part­ner Domi­nik Lutz. FGvW regu­larly carries out complex, often inter­na­tio­nal M&A projects toge­ther with MNI Partners.

Advi­sor Quar­terhill: Norton Rose Fulbright
Paul Amirault (Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Ottawa), Nils Rahlf (Part­ner), Dr. Ariane Theis­sen (Asso­ciate) and Andre Hart­mann (Asso­ciate) (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt); Clau­dia Poslu­schny (Coun­sel), Micha­els Zenkert (Asso­ciate); Olivia Reinke (Asso­ciate) (Employ­ment, Munich); Michael Mehler (Coun­sel), Daniela Kowalsky (Senior Asso­ciate) (Real Estate, Frank­furt); Tino Duttiné (Part­ner), Sarah Heufel­der (Asso­ciate) (Tax, Frank­furt); Tiffany Zilliox (Senior Asso­ciate, Intellec­tual Property, Munich).

Advi­sor to share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor VDS Verkehrs­tech­nik GmbH: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, Frei­burg and Frankfurt
Dr. Hendrik Thies (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law, M&A)
Dr. Till Bött­cher (Real Estate Law)
Annette Rölz (Labor Law)

MNI Part­ners LLC
Domi­nik Lutz, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, M&A Tran­sac­tion Advisory)

About MNI Part­ners: MNIP is a specia­li­zed boutique M&A stra­tegy and tran­sac­tion advi­sory firm in the U.S., Germany and India with a focus on smal­ler and mid-sized tran­sac­tions that are hand-picked, often cross-cultu­ral and below the radar of typi­cal market parti­ci­pants and invest­ment banks. MNIP’s clients, prima­rily on the sell side, are profi­ta­ble compa­nies owned by fami­lies and foun­ders or smal­ler corpo­rate spin-offs with $3 — $30 million in annual revenues.

About Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Partner
Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner is one of the leading inde­pen­dent German commer­cial law firms. The firm’s appro­xi­m­ately 100 lawy­ers, 35 of whom are part­ners, advise compa­nies world­wide from offices in Colo­gne, Frei­burg, Berlin, Frank­furt am Main, Alicante and Brussels. In total, the firm has around 250 employees. www.fgvw.de.