News-Kategorie: Private Equity

Munich, Germany — EMERAM’s port­fo­lio company frost­krone Tief­kühl­kost GmbH (frost­krone) Rite Stuff Foods, Inc. (Rite Stuff Foods), a U.S. potato snack company. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed frost­krone Frozen Foods on the finan­cing of the add-on acqui­si­tion of Rite Stuff Foods, Inc. advise

EMERAM is an inde­pen­dent Munich-based invest­ment company for German-spea­king medium-sized compa­nies. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide capi­tal for the further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies with a fund volume of EUR 350 million. EMERAM sees itself as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for compa­nies in the five sectors of consu­mer goods, retail, indus­trial goods, services and healthcare.

Rite Stuff Foods was foun­ded in 1989 by Thomas J. Madden and is now one of the most important U.S. manu­fac­tu­r­ers of specialty pota­toes, employ­ing more than 230 people. Rite Stuff Foods is head­quar­te­red in Jerome, Idaho, and serves the grocery, food service and various restau­rant markets.

Advi­sor frost­krone Frozen Food: Shear­man & Sterling
The Shear­man & Ster­ling team, led by part­ner Winfried M. Carli, included Of Coun­sel Steven Sher­man, asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu and Magnus Wies­lan­der, and Legal Assistant Constanze Herrle.
Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed EMERAM, among others, on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of frost­krone Group and on the finan­cing of frostkrone’s add-on acqui­si­tion of French snack and finger food manu­fac­tu­rer Piz’wich.

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

The opera­tor of Germany’s largest apart­ment and house portal ImmobilienScout24 is about to be taken over by finan­cial inves­tors. Blackstoneand Hell­man & Fried­man are offe­ring Scout24 owners 46 euros per share, the finan­cial inves­tors announ­ced. Scout24’s manage­ment welco­med the offer, which is around 24.4 percent above the average price of the past three months. As a result, the company could be off the market again after a fairly short history on the stock exch­ange. The purchase price, inclu­ding debt, is expec­ted to be around 5.7 billion euros.

The two finan­cial inves­tors Hell­man & Fried­man and Blackstone compa­nies are now offe­ring 46 euros per Scout24 share in cash, as the MDax-listed company announ­ced in Munich. On the Trade­gate trading plat­form, the shares shot up by almost eleven percent to 46 euros in the morning compared with the Xetra close.

“We believe that this repres­ents an attrac­tive offer with a substan­tial premium, high tran­sac­tion secu­rity and stra­te­gic added value for the company,” said Hans-Holger Albrecht, Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of Scout24.
The purchase price is ther­e­fore around 5.7 billion euros.

The purchase price, inclu­ding debt, amounts to around 5.7 billion euros, the state­ment added. The mini­mum accep­tance thres­hold for the offer is 50 percent plus one share. In addi­tion, the finan­cial inves­tors are hedging against a possi­ble market slump. If the Dax falls too shar­ply — by more than 27.5 percent — the offer will lapse.
Hell­man & Fried­man itself had floa­ted the company on the stock market only three years ago for 30 euros per share. In the mean­time, the shares are almost comple­tely in free float. In July, they had reached their record high of 48.62 euros, but had then fallen back.

Paris/ Frank­furt — Idin­vest Part­ners, the Euro­pean invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in the SME segment, today announ­ced the closing of its second growth capi­tal fund, Idin­vest Growth Fund II (IGF II), with a volume of €340 million, excee­ding its initial target of €300 million. To this end, Idin­vest Growth Fund II has attrac­ted pres­ti­gious inves­tors, more than 75 percent of whom are based outside France.

Since its launch in 2017, the fund has alre­ady inves­ted 50 percent of its funds in a total of 15 compa­nies, inclu­ding Ogury, Secret Escapes, Klaxoon, Vesti­aire Coll­ec­tive, Sophia Gene­tics and the German company iAdvize.

IGF II invests in compa­nies with high growth poten­tial that have alre­ady deve­lo­ped successful products and services that are both appre­cia­ted and adopted by consu­mers. The vast majo­rity of IGF II target compa­nies achieve annual sales of more than €10 million with annual growth rates of more than 50 percent. Compa­nies from the digi­tal economy repre­sent a signi­fi­cant part of this port­fo­lio. Nevert­hel­ess, the fund reta­ins a certain flexi­bi­lity with regard to its invest­ment sectors, which allows it to invest in health­care or other sectors as well.

Benoist Gross­mann (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner, said: “Idin­vest Part­ners is proud to support Euro­pean SMEs at every stage of their life­cy­cle. Our capa­bi­li­ties span the full range of capi­tal struc­ture from early-stage venture capi­tal to expan­sion stage finan­cing. We are plea­sed with the strong demand the fund has met with insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors world­wide and are confi­dent that Idin­vest Growth Fund II will support successful and ambi­tious SMEs on their path to beco­ming global leaders.”

About Idin­vest Partners
Idin­vest Part­ners is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment firm focu­sed on the mid market. With €8 billion in assets under manage­ment, Idin­vest Part­ners has proven exper­tise in venture capi­tal finan­cing for inno­va­tive start­ups, private debt finan­cing for mid-market compa­nies inclu­ding unitran­che, senior as well as subor­di­na­ted finan­cing, primary and secon­dary invest­ments, and private equity advi­sory services. — Foun­ded in 1997 as part of the Alli­anz Group, the company has been inde­pen­dent since 2010. In Janu­ary 2018, Idin­vest Part­ners became part of the Eura­zeo Group, a leading global invest­ment company whose €17 billion in assets under manage­ment (inclu­ding €11 billion from invest­ment part­ners) is inves­ted in a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio consis­ting of more than 300 corpo­rate investments.

For private debt, Idin­vest Part­ners opened an office in Frank­furt in early 2017. Here, four employees curr­ently support port­fo­lio compa­nies and custo­mers in the German market with debt capi­tal solu­ti­ons such as direct loans, take­over loans and asset finance.

Düssel­dorf - Commerz Real and the Swedish Ingka Group, as the largest share­hol­ders in a consor­tium, are each parti­ci­pa­ting in the project company of the Veja Mate offshore wind farm in the North Sea with more than 200 million euros. With a total of 67 wind turbi­nes and a total capa­city of 402 mega­watts, this is the second largest offshore wind farm in Germany and one of the ten largest farms in the world. Other part­ners are funds of the German invest­ment compa­nies KGAL Group and wpd invest. In total, the consor­tium is acqui­ring around 80 percent of the shares in the project company.

Toge­ther with the debt capi­tal, the tran­sac­tion volume amounts to around €2.3 billion. The sellers of the park, which has been in opera­tion since 2017, are the previous project deve­lo­pers and owners High­land Group Holdings, Copen­ha­gen Infra­struc­ture Part­ners and Siemens Finan­cial Services. The latter will conti­nue to hold 20 percent of the shares. Tech­ni­cal support is provi­ded by Siemens Gamesa Rene­wa­ble Energy under a full-service contract.

Veja Mate is loca­ted about 95 km northwest of the island of Borkum in the German econo­mic zone of the North Sea and covers an area of 51 square kilo­me­ters. In this area, the average wind speed is more than 10 meters per second. The 180-meter-high wind turbi­nes have rotors each 154 meters in diame­ter and their foun­da­ti­ons are 7.8 meters in diame­ter. At 84.5 meters in length, they are the largest of their kind manu­fac­tu­red to date. The turbi­nes are desi­gned for an opera­ting life of 25 years, the main­ten­ance contract with Siemens initi­ally runs for 15 years. Accor­ding to the Rene­wa­ble Energy Sources Act (EEG 2014), the feed-in tariff is to be paid for a total of 20 years, until 2037. Accor­ding to the opera­tors, the opera­tion of the wind farm will save around 950,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The consor­tium, consis­ting of the IRI Invest­ments BV, a subsi­diary of the Swedish Ingka Group, ANET GmbH & Co. Geschlos­sene Invest­ment KG, KGAL ESPF 4 Holding SARL, ALH Euro­pean Infra S.C.S. SICAV-RAIF and the Green Return Fund 3 S.C.S. SICAV-FIAR, prevai­led in a bidding process. The invest­ment was acqui­red by way of a share deal from the sellers Siemens Project Venture GmbH, High­land Capi­tal Group and Copen­ha­gen Invest­ment Part­ners. The consor­tium was advi­sed in the bidding process by Watson Farley & Williams LLP.

About IRI Invest­ments BV
IRI Invest­ments BV is an invest­ment company of the Ingka Group that invests, among other things, in rene­wa­ble energy projects.

Advi­sors to IRI Invest­ments BV: Luther Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft
Luther, Corpo­rate / M&A, Düssel­dorf: Marc Urlichs (Coun­sel, Lead)
Luther, Energy Law, Düssel­dorf: Dr. Angelo Vallone (Part­ner)
The Luther team led by Coun­sel Marc Urlichs advi­sed IRI Invest­ments BV both in connec­tion with the ente­ring into and struc­tu­ring of the consor­tium and in connec­tion with the nego­tia­ti­ons with the sellers.

Frank­furt / Munich — The Smal­ler Mid-Cap Fund ( “TSM ”) advi­sed by Triton (“Triton ”) has comple­ted its invest­ment in Deut­sche Radio­lo­gie Holding (“DRH”). TSM is inves­t­ing along­side exis­ting inves­tors, the owners of Tempus Capi­tal and DRH Manage­ment. Terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP advi­sed the Triton Smal­ler Mid-Cap fund on the transaction.

DRH was foun­ded in 2017 and offers flexi­ble and profes­sio­nal succes­sion solu­ti­ons to radio­lo­gists and radia­tion thera­pists. The company is a strong and expe­ri­en­ced part­ner for successful owners. DRH’s expe­ri­en­ced team ensu­res a tech­ni­cally compe­tent and relia­ble hando­ver process, as well as the long-term secu­rity of the owners’ work.

The Triton Smal­ler Mid-Cap Fund invests in mid-cap compa­nies in the indus­trial, services, consu­mer goods and health­care sectors.

About Triton
Since its foun­ding in 1997, Triton has laun­ched nine funds and focu­sed on compa­nies in the indus­trial, services, consu­mer goods and health­care sectors.The Triton funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Europe and support their posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. Triton’s goal is to successfully deve­lop its port­fo­lio compa­nies in the long term by working toge­ther as part­ners. Triton and its manage­ment strive to gene­rate posi­tive change and growth through the sustainable impro­ve­ment of opera­tio­nal proces­ses and struc­tures. At present, Triton’s port­fo­lio includes 37 compa­nies with total sales of around EUR 13 billion and around 84,000 employees.

The Gibson Dunn team, led by Frank­furt-based corpo­rate part­ner Dr. Wilhelm Rein­hardt (photo ) and Munich-based finance part­ner Sebas­tian Schoon, included Dr. Dirk Ober­bracht (part­ner, corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Dr. Jens-Olrik Murach (part­ner, anti­trust, Frank­furt and Brussels), Alex­an­der Klein (of coun­sel, finance, Frank­furt) and Dr. Milena Volk­mann (asso­ciate, corpo­rate, Frankfurt).

About Gibson Dunn
Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,300 lawy­ers in 20 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn offices are loca­ted in Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, San Fran­cisco, São Paulo, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.gibsondunn.com.

Munich — Munich-based invest­ment holding PRIMEPULSE SE has acqui­red all shares in ETL Elek­tro­tech­nik Lauter GmbH (“ETL”), one of Germany’s most advan­ced EMS (elec­tro­nic manu­fac­tu­ring services) provi­ders. The company, based in Mauer­stet­ten (Allgäu), streng­thens the acti­vi­ties of the PRIMEPULSE Group in the EMS sector, which alre­ady includes in parti­cu­lar the Katek Group of Compa­nies, Gras­sau, and Steca Elek­tro­nik, Memmin­gen. Both within the divi­sion and across the entire network, the inte­gra­tion of ETL and access to the know-how and resour­ces of the powerful PRIMEPULSE network will result in nume­rous synergies.

ETL employs 180 people and has a turno­ver of around 40 million euros. The service and solu­tion exper­tise covers the entire life cycle of elec­tro­nic assem­blies and devices, from deve­lo­p­ment support to mate­ri­als and project manage­ment, produc­tion and logi­stics, and after-sales service. ETL’s custo­mers are active in the medi­cal tech­no­logy, indus­try, avia­tion, sensor tech­no­logy, safety tech­no­logy and rail­road tech­no­logy sectors, among others.

Klaus Wein­mann, CEO of PRIMEPULSE SE: “We see that busi­ness in the EMS sector is influen­ced by trends such as IoT and embedded compu­ting as well as the rapid deve­lo­p­ment of new tech­no­lo­gies. Against the back­ground of nume­rous, new appli­ca­ti­ons and services due to digi­ta­liza­tion, the EMS market promi­ses very high growth poten­tial. ETL is tech­ni­cally at a very high level, espe­ci­ally in the IoT area. Moreo­ver, with ETL we gain an estab­lished company with a first-class repu­ta­tion in the elec­tro­nics envi­ron­ment in addi­tion to an expe­ri­en­ced and moti­va­ted manage­ment team.”

For the tech­no­logy-orien­ted PRIMEPULSE group of compa­nies, the acqui­si­tion of ETL is a further consis­tent step in its ambi­tious growth stra­tegy on the way to beco­ming one of the top 3 German EMS service provi­ders. The strong compe­ten­cies of the port­fo­lio compa­nies in the two PRIMEPULSE busi­ness areas of Tech­no­logy and Indus­try, along with targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons, are the drivers of the Group’s dyna­mic growth. Thus, PRIMEPULSE is aiming to exceed one billion in sales for the Group this fiscal year with over 4,300 employees in the conso­li­da­ted companies.

About Prime­im­pulse SE
Prim­e­pulse SE is an invest­ment holding company based in Munich, Germany, which specia­li­zes in invest­ments in tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies in promi­sing markets. The Prim­e­pulse Tech­no­logy port­fo­lio includes the topics Indus­try 4.0, Auto­ma­tion and Inter­net of Things. As a stra­te­gic part­ner, Prim­e­pulse actively supports its group compa­nies in their growth.

Advi­sor to Prim­e­pulse SE: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Boris Dürr, Daniela Szczesny (both M&A/Corporate, both lead)
Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (M&A/Corporate)
Astrid Well­hö­ner, LL.M. Eur. (labor law)
Peter M. Schäff­ler (Taxes)
Dr. Rein­hard Siegert (Anti­trust Law)
Dr. Ruth Schnei­der (Anti­trust Law), all Munich

Boris Dürr’s team regu­larly advi­ses Prim­e­pulse on acqui­si­ti­ons, inclu­ding the take­over of elec­tro­nics manu­fac­tu­rer Katek from the Kath­rein Group in 2018.

Frank­furt a. Main/ Bonn - Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Ardian Private Debt as lender on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of SER Group by Carlyle Europe Tech­no­logy Part­ners. The sellers retain a substan­tial mino­rity interest.

SER Group, head­quar­te­red in Bonn, Germany, has evol­ved from a pioneer in elec­tro­nic archi­ving to Europe’s number one provi­der of pionee­ring enter­prise content manage­ment (ECM) solu­ti­ons. Foun­ded in 1984, the company is charac­te­ri­zed by its inno­va­tive strength, custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons and excel­lent custo­mer service.

Ardian, a world-leading private invest­ment house, as a sole lender, has provi­ded a senior finan­cing package to Carlyle Europe Tech­no­logy Part­ners in support of the acqui­si­tion of SER Group in Germany. The finan­cing under­lines the ongo­ing expan­sion of Ardian Private Debt’s direct lending capa­bi­li­ties throug­hout Europe.

Mark Brenke, Mana­ging Direc­tor & Co-Head Ardian Private Debt, said: “As a finan­cing part­ner, we are deligh­ted to be support­ing the SER manage­ment team toge­ther with Carlyle who have a strong track record of inves­t­ing in B2B tech­no­logy busi­nesses. SER is the leading inde­pen­dent ECM soft­ware provi­der in the German m

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team led by Winfried M. Carli included Sven Opper­mann and Marina Kieweg (all Germany-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

Munich, London, Paris — Euro­pean private equity firm Silver­fleet Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in STAXS Conta­mi­na­tion Control Experts (Staxs NV). The company is one of the leading suppli­ers of clean­room access­ories in the Bene­lux count­ries. The Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF) has provi­ded addi­tio­nal capi­tal for the tran­sac­tion, the purchase price of which has not been disc­lo­sed. It was imple­men­ted by the invest­ment team at Silver­fleet Capi­tal, which specia­li­zes in smal­ler mid-market companies.

Foun­ded in 1995, STAXS is head­quar­te­red in Heeren­veen, the Nether­lands, and also has two loca­ti­ons in Belgium, Niel and Aart­s­el­aar; the company employs a total of around 80 people. As a value-added distri­bu­tor, STAXS sells high-quality disin­fec­tants and clea­ning agents, corre­spon­ding wipes and tools, as well as gloves and disposable clot­hing used for hygiene in clean­rooms in the life scien­ces and other sectors. STAXS also deve­lops and markets its own products under the DOTCH brand. A laun­dry service for clean­room clot­hing is also offe­red. The company has built up an excel­lent repu­ta­tion as an expert in conta­mi­na­tion protec­tion on the basis of high quality and relia­bi­lity and serves a loyal, also inter­na­tio­nally incre­asing regu­lar clientele.

Toge­ther with Silver­fleet Capi­tal, STAXS now intends to conti­nue its strong growth — the focus will be on expan­ding the product port­fo­lio and custo­mer base, further streng­thening the orga­niza­tion and expan­ding geogra­phi­cally. This includes a capa­city expan­sion at the Heeren­veen site due to the increased demand for DOTCH products. To the part­ner­ship, Silver­fleet Capi­tal brings exten­sive expe­ri­ence in deve­lo­ping compa­nies in the health­care market, gained during the team’s successful invest­ments in a phar­maceu­ti­cal contract manu­fac­tu­rer and a steri­liza­tion specia­list, among others.

“STAXS is a super­bly posi­tio­ned company whose jour­ney we’ve been follo­wing for a long time,” said Alex Breb­bia (pictu­red), a part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal and co-head of its small middle market invest­ment team. “We look forward to now working closely with CEO Johan-Detlef Dubbel­boer, the manage­ment team and employees to unlock further growth potential.”

Erik Fuchs, co-head of invest­ment acti­vi­ties in the Bene­lux, added: “The invest­ment in STAXS demons­tra­tes Silver­fleet Capital’s contin­ued commit­ment to the region. We want to actively support another local market leader in its internationalization.”

Johan-Detlef Dubbel­boer, CEO of STAXS since 2007, states, “I am looking forward to the part­ner­ship with Silver­fleet Capi­tal and the next phase of growth. The company has an impres­sive track record in further deve­lo­ping and inter­na­tio­na­li­zing Euro­pean mid-sized compa­nies and exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care market.”

The Silver­fleet Capi­tal team hand­ling the tran­sac­tion includes invest­ment experts Alex Breb­bia, Erik Fuchs and Peter Kise­nyi. Silver­fleet Capi­tal was advi­sed by Deloitte (Finan­cial & Tax), CIL (Commer­cial), Stek (Legal, Corpo­rate & Banking) and AJ Gallag­her (Insu­rance).

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years and curr­ently mana­ges around €1.2 billion with its 30-strong invest­ment team in Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a U.K. manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a U.K. provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, a British opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses; 7days, a West­pha­lian supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth through its “buy to build” invest­ment stra­tegy. As part of this stra­tegy, Silver­fleet is acce­le­ra­ting the growth of its subsi­dia­ries by inves­t­ing in new products, produc­tion capa­city and employees, instal­ling successful retail formats or making follow-up acqui­si­ti­ons. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods. Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the UK and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (1).

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has a solid invest­ment track record. Most recently, Silver­fleet sold Ipes, a leading provi­der of outsour­cing services to Euro­pean private equity firms (invest­ment multi­ple 3.8x); CCC, one of the leading BPO services provi­ders in Europe, as well as Cimbria, a Danish manu­fac­tu­rer of agri­cul­tu­ral equip­ment (2); Kalle, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of arti­fi­cial sausage pellets (invest­ment multi­ple 3.5x); OFFICE, a UK foot­wear retailer (invest­ment multi­ple 3.4x); and Aesica, a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal CDMO company (invest­ment multi­ple 3.3x).

(1) Includes an invest­ment head­quar­te­red in the USA and sourcing in Belgium. (2) Mention of invest­ment multi­ple not possi­ble for legal reasons

Berlin/Wied — MEDIAN, since 2011 a port­fo­lio company of the invest­ment company Water­land Private Equity Invest­ments and the largest private opera­tor of reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics in Germany, takes over Klini­ken Wied GmbH & Co KG. With two homes in the region between Bonn and Koblenz (Wied and Stei­mel), the company has specia­li­zed in inpa­ti­ent reha­bi­li­ta­tion in the field of addic­tion disor­ders since 1974, a core area also of MEDIAN. With 166 employees, the Wied clinics care for more than 210 plan­ned beds. The focus is on inpa­ti­ent and outpa­ti­ent treat­ment of alco­hol, medi­ca­tion and drug addic­tion, co-treat­ment of soma­tic and psycho­so­ma­tic illnesses as well as non-subs­tance-rela­ted addic­tions such as eating disor­ders and gambling addiction.

Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner of Water­land, says: “The two homes are a respec­ted insti­tu­tion. With their focus areas and high quality of care, they are an ideal fit for MEDIAN. At the same time, we can once again increase our regio­nal presence in Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate. We are consis­t­ently conti­nuing our buy-and-build stra­tegy, which has made MEDIAN the largest private rehab clinic operator.”

With Waterland’s support, the MEDIAN Group has grown in recent years, in what is now 19 tran­sac­tions, into a company that is one of the five largest private hospi­tal groups in Germany and is inves­t­ing heavily in buil­dings, tech­ni­cal equip­ment, digi­tiza­tion and new tools to better measure thera­peu­tic success. With Waterland’s tran­sac­tional exper­tise, the Group conti­nues to grow in a frag­men­ted market, offe­ring pati­ents and payers a distinc­tive profile and high quality stan­dards. Toge­ther with the two new faci­li­ties, the Group now compri­ses 120 faci­li­ties employ­ing 15,000 staff and trea­ting more than 230,000 inpa­ti­ents annu­ally in more than 18,000 beds. The health­care company includes reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics as well as psych­ia­tric acute care hospi­tals, therapy centers, outpa­ti­ent clinics and reinte­gra­tion faci­li­ties in 14 states. The company thus offers nati­on­wide coverage of so-called after­care and parti­ci­pa­tion services.

About Water­land
Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), Germany (Munich, Hamburg), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (Manches­ter), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, 6 billion euros in equity funds are managed.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med its invest­ments since its foun­ding in 1999 and has regu­larly ranked among the top three leading private equity firms world­wide in past HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings. In addi­tion, Water­land has also been among the top 3 most consis­tent buyout fund mana­gers globally in the Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report in recent years.

Water­land is listed as a fund mana­ger in the direc­tory main­tai­ned by the Dutch regu­la­tor AFM (Auto­ri­teit Finan­ciële Markten).

Berlin — Mobile bank N26 announ­ced that it has raised $300 million in its Series D funding round led by New York-based venture capi­tal firm Insight Venture Part­ners. This brings N26’s valua­tion to $2.7 billion. GIC, an invest­ment fund of the state of Singa­pore, is also parti­ci­pa­ting in the round. Accor­ding to N26, this brings its valua­tion to USD 2.7 billion. N26 origi­nally emer­ged from the AS PnP Acce­le­ra­tor program.

The $300 million invest­ment repres­ents the largest private equity finan­cing round for a fintech company in Europe in recent years. To date, N26 has raised more than $500 million from the world’s most estab­lished inves­tors, inclu­ding Tencent, Alli­anz X, Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Li Ka-Shing’s Hori­zons Ventures, Early­bird Venture Capi­tal, Redal­pine Ventures, Axel Sprin­ger Plug and Play and Grey­hound Capi­tal.

N26’s goal is to become the first global mobile bank. The company curr­ently opera­tes in 24 markets across Europe and has tripled its custo­mer base in the last 12 months to more than 2.3 million custo­mers. N26 is using the invest­ment for global expan­sion, start­ing with the launch of its app in the U.S. in the first half of 2019. In the coming years, the company aims to reach over 100 million custo­mers worldwide.

Valen­tin Stalf, CEO and co-foun­der of N26 (photo), says: “Globally, too many people are still using bad digi­tal banking products and paying too high fees. With Insight Venture Part­ners and GIC, we are joined by other renow­ned inves­tors and now more than ever we have the chance to turn around one of the biggest indus­tries with the best inves­tors in the world.”

Harley Miller, Prin­ci­pal at Insight Venture Part­ners, said, “It’s incre­asingly rare these days to see an indus­try this large not yet revo­lu­tio­ni­zed by tech­no­logy. N26 is the clear market leader in mobile banking in Europe; the company is well poised to expand into the U.S. market this year and build one of the leading digi­tal brands globally.”

N26 makes banking flexi­ble and trans­pa­rent. Features such as real-time noti­fi­ca­ti­ons, sub-accounts with savings goals and world­wide fee-free card payments set the product apart. Future product features include, for exam­ple, easy one-click account sharing. N26 will conti­nue to work on the best banking product for digi­tal customers.

Since the launch of its first product in Janu­ary 2015, N26 has acqui­red more than 2.3 million custo­mers in 24 Euro­pean markets and has proces­sed more than EUR 20 billion in tran­sac­tion volume to date. Custo­mers curr­ently hold over 1 billion euros in N26 accounts. www.n26.com.

Advi­sor to Axel Sprin­ger: Vogel Heerma Waitz
Dr. Clemens Waitz of the law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz advi­sed Axel Sprin­ger Plug and Play (AS PnP) on a EUR 260 million finan­cing of N26.

About N26
N26 is the first bank you’ll love. It offers a mobile bank account with no hidden fees. Valen­tin Stalf and Maxi­mi­lian Tayen­thal foun­ded N26 in 2013 and laun­ched their product in Germany and Austria in 2015. N26 has over 2.3 million custo­mers in 24 count­ries with money depo­sits of over 1 billion euros and a monthly tran­sac­tion volume of over 1.5 billion euros. N26 curr­ently has more than 700 employees in Berlin, Barce­lona and New York. With its Euro­pean banking license, bench­mark-setting tech­no­logy and no expen­sive branch network, N26 is signi­fi­cantly chan­ging 21st century banking and is available for Android, iOS and via the web app. To date, N26 has raised more than $500 million from renow­ned inves­tors, inclu­ding Insight Venture Part­ners, GIC, Tencent, Alli­anz X, Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Li Ka-Shing’s Hori­zons Ventures, Early­bird Venture Capi­tal, Grey­hound Capi­tal, Battery Ventures, as well as members of the Zalando board and Redal­pine Ventures. Curr­ently, N26 is active in the follo­wing count­ries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Esto­nia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liech­ten­stein, Lithua­nia, Luxem­bourg, the Nether­lands, Norway, Poland, Portu­gal, Slove­nia, Slova­kia, Spain, Sweden and the United King­dom. In 2019, N26 will also enter the US market. In New York, N26 opera­tes through its wholly owned subsi­diary N26 Inc.

About Insight Venture Partner

Insight Venture Part­ners is a leading global venture capi­tal and private equity firm inves­t­ing in high-growth tech­no­logy and soft­ware compa­nies that are driving change in their indus­tries. Foun­ded in 1995, Insight curr­ently mana­ges over $20 billion in assets and has cumu­la­tively inves­ted in more than 300 compa­nies world­wide. Our mission is to find, fund and successfully part­ner with visio­nary leaders and provide them with prac­ti­cal, hands-on growth skills to drive long-term success. In all our employees and our port­fo­lio, we foster a culture based on one core idea: Growth means oppor­tu­ni­ties. For more infor­ma­tion about Insight and all of its invest­ments, visit www.insightpartners.com or follow us on Twit­ter @insightpartners.

About GIC

GIC is a leading global invest­ment company estab­lished in 1981 to manage Singapore’s foreign exch­ange reser­ves. As a long-term value inves­tor, GIC is uniquely posi­tio­ned to invest in a broad range of asset clas­ses, inclu­ding equi­ties, fixed income, private equity, real estate and infra­struc­ture. In private equity, GIC invests in compa­nies both through funds and directly, working with fund mana­gers and manage­ment teams to help world-class compa­nies achieve their goals. GIC invests in over 40 count­ries and has been inves­t­ing in emer­ging markets for more than two deca­des. GIC is head­quar­te­red in Singa­pore and employs over 1,500 people in ten offices in the world’s major finan­cial centers. For more infor­ma­tion about GIC, visit www.gic.com.sg.

Luxem­bourg — SunFire has successfully closed a EUR 25 million Series C finan­cing round. The new lead inves­tor is the Luxem­bourg tech­no­logy company Paul Wurth S.A. . LUTZ | ABEL advi­sed Paul Wurth in the context of the transaction.

SunFire GmbH, foun­ded in 2010, is a deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer of highly effi­ci­ent elec­tro­ly­zers and fuel cells. With its tech­no­lo­gies, the company produ­ces climate-neutral fuels and gases for sectors that curr­ently can hardly do without fossil fuels, e.g. heavy-duty trans­port, avia­tion, steel produc­tion or chemicals.

The new lead inves­tor, Luxem­bourg-based tech­no­logy company Paul Wurth S.A., is part of the SMS group, the world’s leading machi­nery and plant manu­fac­tu­rer for the metals indus­try. With the fresh capi­tal and the renow­ned tech­no­logy part­ner, SunFire plans to imple­ment multi-mega­watt projects. For Paul Wurth, this invest­ment offers the oppor­tu­nity to enter the growing market for e‑fuels. In addi­tion to Paul Wurth, previous inves­tors INVEN Capi­tal, Idin­vest Part­ners, Total Energy Ventures and a group of private inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round.

LUTZ | ABEL advi­sed the lead inves­tor Paul Wurth under the leader­ship of venture capi­tal expert Dr. Marco Eick­mann. — With around 60 lawy­ers and offices in Munich, Hamburg and Stutt­gart, the commer­cial law firm LUTZ | ABEL provi­des advice on all aspects of commer­cial law.

Berlin — The invest­ment company Odewald KMU II (board of direc­tors from left: Oliver Schön­knecht, Heiko Arnold, Joachim von Ribben­trop) acqui­res a majo­rity stake in GIATA GmbH. Since 1996, GIATA has been support­ing its custo­mers in the tourism indus­try as a leading provi­der of “non-booka­ble content”, conti­nuously setting new stan­dards in hotel content proces­sing and distri­bu­tion. The foun­ding share­hol­ders have taken a signi­fi­cant stake in the company and will remain at the company’s dispo­sal for the long term. Odewald KMU II was advi­sed by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

Its modu­lar product range enables GIATA to offer complete solu­ti­ons tail­o­red to the indi­vi­dual custo­mer. In doing so, GIATA combi­nes inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies such as Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and Digi­tal Finger­prin­ting with careful, manual rese­arch. Custo­mers from over 70 count­ries include almost all inter­na­tio­nally known tour opera­tors and travel agency chains, online travel agen­cies, the global travel distri­bu­tion systems and inter­na­tio­nally known travel portals. GIATA has thus estab­lished itself as the market leader in the market segments served by the company in the rapidly growing global tourism market.

To support further growth, the foun­ding share­hol­ders have ente­red into a part­ner­ship with Odewald KMU, Berlin, an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies. To this end, Odewald KMU has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in GIATA. The foun­ding share­hol­ders have taken a signi­fi­cant stake in the company and will remain at the company’s dispo­sal for the long term. The common goal of the share­hol­ders is to conti­nue to grow sustain­ably in the coming years with the exis­ting product range and to successfully posi­tion the product inno­va­tions curr­ently being laun­ched on the market. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the amount of the invest­ment or further details of the shareholding.

The Odewald KMU II Fund has a volume of 200 million euros and invests in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies. The focus is on compa­nies in the fields of “German engi­nee­ring”, intel­li­gent services and health. Most recently, Odewald KMU II inves­ted in Langer & Laumann Inge­nieur­büro GmbH and heiz­ku­rier GmbH in Janu­ary 2018 with the support of Pär Johansson’s team. Kris­tina Schnei­der has also just successfully comple­ted the first add-on acqui­si­tion for heiz­ku­rier GmbH.

Advi­sor Odewald KMU II: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Pär Johans­son (Lead), Kris­tina Schnei­der, LL.M., Dr. Chris­toph Schork, LL.M., Tim Remmel, LL.M. (all Private Equity, Corporate/M&A), all Colo­gne Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Labor Law), Dr. Verena Hoene, LL.M. (IP), both Colo­gne, Dr. Philip Kemper­mann, LL.M., Michael Kuska, LL.M., LL.M. (IT) both Düsseldorf.

Düsseldorf/Munich, Germany, Decem­ber 20, 2018 — ARQIS has appoin­ted Kozo Keikaku Engi­nee­ring Inc. (KKE) on its invest­ment in NavVis GmbH as part of a Series C finan­cing round with a total volume of around EUR 31.2 million, in which exis­ting inves­tors MIG, Target Part­ners, BayBG and Digi­tal+ Part­ners also participated.

NavVis is a leading global plat­form provi­der of intel­li­gent indoor posi­tio­ning tech­no­logy. Its revo­lu­tio­nary digi­tal twin plat­form is used by the world’s leading auto­mo­tive, cons­truc­tion, real estate and insu­rance compa­nies. NavVis was foun­ded in 2013 as a spin-off of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich and today has over 100 part­ners in more than 30 count­ries and employs more than 165 people world­wide. NavVis is head­quar­te­red in Munich and has offices in New York and Shanghai.

Kozo Keikaku Engi­nee­ring Inc. is a profes­sio­nal design and engi­nee­ring company in Japan enga­ged in a wide range of busi­ness acti­vi­ties, inclu­ding struc­tu­ral design of buil­dings (man-made struc­tures), analy­sis and simu­la­tion of natu­ral and envi­ron­men­tal pheno­mena (earth­qua­kes, tsuna­mis, wind, etc.), and problem solving of society and commu­ni­ties. Since 2015, KKE has alre­ady coope­ra­ted with NavVis and intro­du­ced its products to the Japa­nese market. Both compa­nies now intend to inten­sify their coope­ra­tion through the finan­cial parti­ci­pa­tion of KKE.

Advi­sors to Kozo Keikaku Engi­nee­ring: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (photo), Dr. Meiko Dill­mann (both lead; Corporate/M&A; Munich), Dr. Shigeo Yama­guchi (Corporate/M&A; Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Florian Kotman (Corporate/M&A; Düsseldorf)

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 at its current offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 45 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on the core issues of German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. The focus is on M&A, corpo­rate law, private equity, venture capi­tal, employ­ment law, private clients, intellec­tual property, liti­ga­tion as well as real estate law and tax law. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

Berlin/ Kufstein — The Tyro­lean company Green­storm can be plea­sed about a multi-million invest­ment: the Euro­pean private equity firm Bregal Mile­stone invests a double-digit million amount. Green­storm is a fast-growing provi­der in the field of e‑mobility and alre­ady coope­ra­tes with nearly 1,000 hotels, retail­ers and busi­nesses in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries. The company opera­tes a large fleet of e‑bikes and makes it possi­ble to offer e‑bikes and e‑cars to its custo­mers, guests and employees. Hotel busi­nesses in parti­cu­lar bene­fit from this by incre­asing their occu­p­ancy rates and gene­ra­ting addi­tio­nal reve­nue. Follo­wing the rental, the bikes that have been used by the custo­mers are compre­hen­si­vely serviced and resold to the specia­li­zed trade and private indi­vi­du­als. The inno­va­tive combi­na­tion of trends in e‑mobility and tourism ensu­res Green­strom a market-leading posi­tion and makes it one of the fastest growing compa­nies in Austria.

Coope­ra­tion to acce­le­rate development
Greenstorm’s mana­ging direc­tors Richard Hirsch­hu­ber and Phil­ipp Zimmer­mann (photo) want to use the coope­ra­tion with Bregal Mile­stone to once again acce­le­rate the company’s growth, drive expan­sion and further deve­lop the e‑commerce offe­ring. With the networ­king of e‑mobility and tourism, the company wants to be a leader in Europe. Green­storm has recei­ved seve­ral awards for its deve­lo­p­ment in its still young past — such as the German Inno­va­tion Award and the Tyro­lean Inno­va­tion Award. The team has been active in the mobi­lity sector since 2009, and Green­storm is curr­ently repre­sen­ted in Austria, Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy, Croa­tia and Slovenia.

“Bregal Milestone’s invest­ment and hands-on support will help us achieve our ambi­tious growth targets. We are plea­sed to have found an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner with a broad inter­na­tio­nal network. In the coming years, we will expand the successful Green­storm model to addi­tio­nal custo­mers and new regi­ons, extend our leader­ship in the field of elec­tro­mo­bi­lity, and build a strong cross-natio­nal e‑commerce presence,” empha­size Greenstorm’s mana­ging direc­tors Richard Hirsch­hu­ber and Phil­ipp Zimmermann.

“We are exci­ted to work with the Green­storm team to launch the next phase of growth. Green­storm offers a unique e‑mobility propo­si­tion to its custo­mers and the team’s stra­tegy will drive strong growth in the coming years. Greenstorm’s e‑commerce presence in the mobi­lity and travel space is parti­cu­larly promi­sing. We look forward to working toge­ther to further deve­lop this aspect of the busi­ness and deli­ver profi­ta­ble growth,” commen­ted Jan Bruenn­ler, Mana­ging Part­ner at Bregal Mile­stone. The capi­tal comes from Bregal Milestone’s €400 million fund dedi­ca­ted to invest­ments in high-growth Euro­pean compa­nies. The invest­ment volume is usually between 20 and 60 million euros.

About Green­storm
Green­storm Mobi­lity GmbH from Kufstein, Austria, provi­des its custo­mers with e‑bikes, elec­tric cars as well as char­ging stati­ons with an inno­va­tive rental concept. Greenstorm’s custo­mers include hotels, compa­nies and retail­ers in Austria, Italy, Germany, Switz­er­land, Croa­tia and Slove­nia. The hotel indus­try gene­ra­tes addi­tio­nal reve­nue and achie­ves higher occu­p­ancy rates by working with Green­storm. At the end of the rental period, the company services the used top-of-the-line e‑bikes and offers them for sale. Here, Green­storm has set itself the goal of beco­ming Europe’s largest dealer network for used top e‑bikes. With this concept, Green­storm addres­ses not only B2B custo­mers such as hote­liers and sports retail­ers, but also end customers.

Curr­ently, the company employs 59 people. In 2017, it achie­ved fourth place in the growth ranking of Austrian compa­nies. This year, Green­storm not only recei­ved the Tyro­lean Inno­va­tion Award, but was also hono­red with the German Inno­va­tion Award. In addi­tion, Green­storm was among the fina­lists of the EY Entre­pre­neur Of The Year compe­ti­tion in the “Start-ups” cate­gory. Inter­na­tio­nally, the company is on an expan­sion course and, in addi­tion to Austria, Germany, Switz­er­land and Italy, has also been active in Croa­tia and Slove­nia since 2018. www.greenstorm.eu

Consul­tant Greenstorm: 
Reed Smith and Eisen­ber­ger & Herzog as legal counsel.

Consul­tant Bregal Milestone:
Shear­man & Ster­ling, Dorda Attor­neys at Law, EY, Deloitte and OC&C Stra­tegy Consul­tants supported.

Munich, London, Paris — Follo­wing its invest­ment in the West­pha­lian company 7days at the begin­ning of the year, the Euro­pean private equity firm Silver­fleet Capi­tal is start­ing to imple­ment its buy & build stra­tegy: With the support of Silver­fleet Capi­tal, the specia­list for work­wear in the health­care sector is taking over the Danish company Praxis Herning A/S, thus opening up addi­tio­nal sales markets. The private sellers of the majo­rity shares also include the two mana­ging direc­tors Jesper Rasmus­sen and Søren Wort­mann, who will conti­nue to remain on board in their func­tions and take a retroac­tive stake. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Praxis was foun­ded in 1995 and is based in the Danish textile capi­tal Herning. The company specia­li­zes in the design, produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of clot­hing for health­care profes­sio­nals. The product port­fo­lio includes tops such as t‑shirts or polo shirts, pants and shoes. Praxis prima­rily serves custo­mers from the Scan­di­na­vian region (Sweden, Norway, Finland) in addi­tion to Denmark.

Foun­ded in 1999, 7days from Lotte near Osna­brück is one of Europe’s leading specia­lists in medi­cal work­wear. A parti­cu­lar focus of the product range, which compri­ses more than 2,000 artic­les, is on furnis­hing medi­cal and dental prac­ti­ces in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, France, Belgium and the Nether­lands. Simi­lar to Praxis, 7days markets its items online via webshop and news­let­ter as well as via catalog.

Joachim Braun, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal and respon­si­ble for 7days, says: “7days and Praxis are ideal part­ners based on their focus, stra­tegy and busi­ness philo­so­phy. Both stand for high-quality mate­ri­als and work­man­ship as well as opti­mal comfort at an attrac­tive price-perfor­mance ratio. The tie-up is the first step in our growth stra­tegy for 7days, which aims to streng­then our dome­stic market posi­tion as well as tap into other regi­ons and addi­tio­nal custo­mer segments.”

“With Praxis, we have found the perfect part­ner for ente­ring the Scan­di­na­vian market,” say Cars­ten Meyer and Ulrich Dölken, the mana­ging direc­tors of 7days. “We are now a big step closer to our goal of further expan­ding our market leader­ship in Europe. We are very plea­sed to bring Jesper and Søren on board, as both our busi­ness model and our busi­ness culture are a perfect fit.”

Jesper Rasmus­sen, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Praxis: “It is great to now become part of the 7days Group with our company Praxis. 7days is a strong part­ner with whom we want to leverage many more market and sales poten­ti­als from now on.”

The Silver­fleet team entrus­ted with the tran­sac­tion includes Munich-based invest­ment experts Joachim Braun, Benja­min Hubner and Jan Kux.
7days was advi­sed by McDer­mott (Legal Corpo­rate, Germany), Moalem Weitemeyer Bendt­sen (Legal Corpo­rate, Denmark), Latham & Watkins (Legal Tax), Shear­man & Ster­ling (Legal Finan­cing) and Deloitte (Finan­cial & Tax Denmark).

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years and curr­ently mana­ges around €1.2 billion with its 30-strong invest­ment team in Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a U.K. manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a U.K. provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, a British opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses; 7days, a West­pha­lian supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth through its “buy to build” invest­ment stra­tegy. As part of this stra­tegy, Silver­fleet is acce­le­ra­ting the growth of its subsi­dia­ries by inves­t­ing in new products, produc­tion capa­city and employees, instal­ling successful retail formats or making follow-up acqui­si­ti­ons. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods. Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the UK and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (1).

Aachen — S‑UBG AG, Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs-Gesell­schaft für die Regio­nen Aachen, Krefeld und Mönchen­glad­bach, toge­ther with its new mana­ging direc­tor Ralph Bauer, acqui­res 100 percent of the shares in Schif­fer Service GmbH as part of a manage­ment buy-in. As his succes­sor, Ralph Bauer will take over the sole manage­ment of the logi­stics company from foun­der Rolf Schif­fer as of 01.01.2019. In the future share­hol­der struc­ture, S‑UBG will hold 25 percent of the company’s shares.

Busi­ness areas with strong sales
Rolf Schif­fer foun­ded Schif­fer Service GmbH in 1995, from which today’s core busi­ness emer­ged. This is divi­ded into the three areas of logi­stics, pack­a­ging and fulfill­ment (order proces­sing in e‑commerce). Fulfill­ment employees take care of accep­ting orders, picking, pack­ing goods and products, as well as ship­ping to the end custo­mer and subse­quent returns manage­ment. More than half of the company’s sales are gene­ra­ted here.

“Online trade — and with it the mail-order busi­ness — has been growing steadily for years,” says Ralph Bauer. “Howe­ver, many retail­ers do not see their core compe­tence in logi­stics, but in bran­ding as well as marke­ting and shy away from corre­spon­ding invest­ments. Here, the fulfill­ment we offer is a suita­ble solution.”

After the take­over, Rolf Schif­fer will be available as a consul­tant for another three months, ensu­ring a tran­si­tion without loss of know-how and know­ledge. His succes­sor, Ralph Bauer, gained years of expe­ri­ence in sales and marke­ting after gradua­ting with a degree in busi­ness admi­nis­tra­tion. The 50-year-old took on person­nel manage­ment tasks at an early stage in both family-owned compa­nies and multi­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons, was a member of the manage­ment board and is thus ideally prepared for his new task.

Deputy remains on board
“Due to the product and service diver­si­fi­ca­tion in recent years, Schif­fer Service GmbH is very well posi­tio­ned,” says Bern­hard Kugel (photo), CEO of the S‑UBG Group. “High flexi­bi­lity, relia­bi­lity and long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships help the company to build a good repu­ta­tion that gene­ra­tes many custo­mer inqui­ries. In addi­tion, Schif­fer is active in growth markets with all three busi­ness units, and so we expect the busi­ness to conti­nue to deve­lop healt­hily and successfully in the future,” adds Günther Bogen­rie­der, who closely accom­pa­nied the take­over as S‑UBG’s project manager.

“Thanks to the strong network of my succes­sor Ralph Bauer, the company will conti­nue to grow and streng­then its core compe­ten­cies in the future,” Rolf Schif­fer is certain. “In addi­tion, we are also solidly posi­tio­ned at the manage­ment level with Michael Pauly, Deputy Mana­ging Direc­tor and entrus­ted with the busi­ness for more than 15 years.”

About S‑UBG Group:
The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in the provi­sion of equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (S‑VC GmbH) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for over 30 years. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. In 1997, the share­hol­der savings banks estab­lished an early-stage fund under S‑VC GmbH to finance startups.

In 2018, toge­ther with Spar­kasse Aachen, Kreis­spar­kasse Heins­berg, Stadt­spar­kasse Mönchen­glad­bach, NRW.BANK and DSA Invest GmbH, Seed Fonds III für die Region Aachen & Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG was laun­ched, provi­ding around 21.5 million euros in seed capi­tal for the start-up scene in the region. As the succes­sor to the two fully finan­ced seed funds, it stimu­la­tes the deve­lo­p­ment of future-orien­ted tech­no­lo­gies in the Aachen econo­mic region and was exten­ded to the Mönchen­glad­bach region in 2018. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in over 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a top posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz Group. Further infor­ma­tion: www.s‑ubg.de; www.seedfonds-aachen.de

Solingen/ Munich — AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co. KG, advi­sed by Munich-based AFINUM Manage­ment GmbH, acqui­res as lead inves­tor and majo­rity share­hol­der toge­ther with INVISION and the manage­ment team Ledlen­ser GmbH & Co. KG (“Ledlen­ser”) from Leather­man Tool Group, Inc. (“Leather­man”). The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the volume of the transaction.

Head­quar­te­red in Solin­gen, Germany, with produc­tion faci­li­ties in Yanjiang, China, Ledlen­ser (www.ledlenser.com) is one of the world’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of high-quality LED flash­lights and head­lamps for profes­sio­nal, outdoor and ever­y­day appli­ca­ti­ons. The company was foun­ded in 1994 and is conside­red the inven­tor of the LED flash­light. The products are charac­te­ri­zed by a high degree of inno­va­tion, by outstan­ding quality and by an appe­al­ing design. The company secu­res its compre­hen­sive know-how with a strong rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment depart­ment and more than 100 patents. End custo­mers include indus­trial compa­nies, public orga­niza­ti­ons — such as police or fire depart­ments — and outdoor enthu­si­asts. The company holds a strong market posi­tion in nume­rous count­ries in Europe and Asia.

Toge­ther with the manage­ment team, AFINUM and INVISION plan to push ahead with inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion in the coming years. Like­wise, conti­nuous product inno­va­tions are inten­ded to win addi­tio­nal custo­mers in the various end markets. The invest­ment in Ledlen­ser repres­ents the fourth plat­form invest­ment of AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG. AFINUM is an inde­pen­dent manage­ment-owned invest­ment company with offices in Munich, Zurich, Vienna and Hong Kong, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe.

Advi­sor to seller Kloft Leather­man: Taylor Wessing
Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Taylor Wessing, led by Hamburg-based part­ner Bern­hard Kloft, provi­ded legal advice to Leather­man on the sale as part of a struc­tu­red bidding process.

Munich — Golding Capi­tal Part­ners (Golding) has alre­ady recei­ved € 215 million in capi­tal commit­ments for its infra­struc­ture invest­ment program Golding Infra­struc­ture 2018 at first closing. With the third gene­ra­tion of the invest­ment stra­tegy deve­lo­ped in 2012 and proven in two prede­ces­sor funds, Golding under­lines its posi­tion as one of the leading inde­pen­dent provi­ders of infra­struc­ture invest­ments in Europe.

The Golding Infra­struc­ture 2018 invest­ment program follows a conser­va­tive invest­ment stra­tegy and offers early ongo­ing distri­bu­ti­ons with an attrac­tive total port­fo­lio yield of 7% to 8% p.a. Net IRR. The fund plans to build up a broadly diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of around 200 infra­struc­ture projects in the Euro­pean and North Ameri­can markets. At the same time, important sectors such as energy, trans­por­ta­tion, utili­ties and social infra­struc­ture are to be covered by the port­fo­lio. Invest­ments are plan­ned in around 15 infra­struc­ture funds (prima­ries and secon­da­ries) with a focus on conser­va­tive core / core plus invest­ments and brown­field projects as well as selec­tive co-invest­ments. Co-invest­ments in parti­cu­lar offer insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors the oppor­tu­nity to achieve a targe­ted geogra­phic or secto­ral focus and thus support a rapid port­fo­lio build-up.

Golding was able to attract a total of 20 insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors for the current invest­ment program at the first closing. Inves­tors include insu­rance compa­nies, pension funds, banks and savings banks. Almost 80 percent of the volume was subscri­bed by exis­ting inves­tors in the two infra­struc­ture prede­ces­sor funds. “We are plea­sed with the strong recep­tion and contin­ued confi­dence of our inves­tors. We have main­tai­ned our conser­va­tive stra­te­gic approach and have high-performing and distri­bu­tion-orien­ted port­fo­lios,” said Huber­tus Theile-Ochel, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Golding. “Long-stan­ding port­fo­lio rela­ti­onships and substan­tial subscrip­tion levels make us a rele­vant part­ner even for mana­gers who are in high demand. From this, we gene­rate signi­fi­cant advan­ta­ges for our inves­tors. We have alre­ady been able to subscribe to three high-cali­ber target funds for the current program,” adds Dr. Matthias Reicher­ter, Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer at Golding. Further invest­ments for the coming months are alre­ady under review. Over­all, the port­fo­lio is to be built up over around three years with broad diversification.

The attrac­ti­ve­ness of the infra­struc­ture asset class has led to an increase in compe­ti­tion. This is why infra­struc­ture funds must also incre­asingly engage in complex tran­sac­tions and correctly assess project risks in order to achieve the returns and distri­bu­tion levels expec­ted by inves­tors. Deal sourcing is beco­ming the defi­ning issue. “Only expe­ri­en­ced teams can handle comple­xity respon­si­bly and achieve an attrac­tive risk-adequate return,” Reicher­ter explains. Against this back­drop, Golding’s infra­struc­ture team focu­ses on specia­list fund mana­gers with diffe­ren­tia­ted stra­tegy, in-depth market know­ledge and estab­lished network, who are able to execute complex tran­sac­tions and thus iden­tify attrac­tive deals even in an increased compe­ti­tive environment.

“The current envi­ron­ment requi­res a lot of exper­tise and strong market access. Despite fierce compe­ti­tion and the huge volume of invest­ments gathe­ring in capi­tal markets world­wide, Golding was able to secure attrac­tive invest­ments — both prima­ries and complex struc­tu­red secon­da­ries as well as co-invest­ments. As a result, we have alre­ady succee­ded in inves­t­ing around 800 million euros in the infra­struc­ture asset class alone since the begin­ning of the year,” comm­ents Jeremy Golding (photo), foun­der and CEO of Golding.

About Golding Capi­tal Partners
Golding Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH is one of the leading inde­pen­dent asset mana­gers for private equity, private debt and infra­struc­ture in Europe. With a team of around 90 employees in Munich, Luxem­bourg, New York and Tokyo, Golding Capi­tal Part­ners supports insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in buil­ding their invest­ment stra­tegy and mana­ges assets of more than €7 billion. The more than 160 insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors include insu­rance compa­nies, pension funds, foun­da­ti­ons as well as banks, savings banks and coope­ra­tive banks.

Munich — FSN Capi­tal V (“FSN”) acqui­res the majo­rity shares in the Rame­der Group. A corre­spon­ding purchase agree­ment was signed with the previous share­hol­ders. Rame­der has been active since 1996 and, with 200 employees, is one of the leading B2B and B2C dealers in the areas of trai­ler hitches, bicy­cle racks and roof boxes in Europe. The two mana­ging direc­tors Dirk Schö­ler and Stefan Bertels­ho­fer remain share­hol­ders in the Rame­der Group as part of a reverse shareholding.

FSN is one of the leading private equity inves­tors in Scan­di­na­via with a focus on medium-sized compa­nies. In addi­tion to offices in Oslo, Stock­holm and Copen­ha­gen, FSN has had an office in Munich since spring 2018. The acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Rame­der is FSN’s first tran­sac­tion in Germany.

Advi­sor FSN Capi­tal: Henge­ler Muel­ler provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to FSN on the transaction.
The part­ners Dr. Daniel Wiegand (lead), Dr. Daniel Möritz (both Corporate/M&A, Munich), Daniela Böning (Finan­cing), Hendrik Bocken­hei­mer (Labor Law) (both Frank­furt) and Dr. Thors­ten Mäger (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Coun­sel Dr. Gunther Wagner (Tax, Munich) as well as asso­cia­tes Dr. Achim Speng­ler, Dr. Vero­nika Wimmer, Dr. Sebas­tian Siller, Dr. Johan­nes Baumann (all Corporate/M&A, Munich), Till Hiemenz-Muel­ler, Fran­ziska Dechamps (both Finan­cing, Frank­furt), Dr. Marius Mayer (Frank­furt), Vicki Treib­mann (Düssel­dorf) (both Labor Law), Dr. Anja Balitzki, Laura Delgado Pazos (both Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Matthias Roth­kopf (Intellec­tual Property/IT) and Dr. Norman Koschmie­der (Public Commer­cial Law) (both Düsseldorf).

Hamburg — Fiel­mann Ventures GmbH, a wholly owned subsi­diary of Fiel­mann A, has acqui­red around 20 per cent of the shares in augmen­ted reality specia­list Fitting­Box S.A. as part of a capi­tal increase. The stra­te­gic invest­ment in the French tech­no­logy company is a consis­tent step in Fielmann’s digi­tiza­tion stra­tegy. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the exact purchase price.

Marc Fiel­mann (photo), Chair­man of the Manage­ment Board of Fiel­mann AG: “With 13 patents, Fitting­Box is the world leader in the field of 3D fitting of glas­ses and sunglas­ses. With this invest­ment, we are deepe­ning our stra­te­gic coope­ra­tion. Toge­ther we are working on the online purchase of glas­ses in Fiel­mann quality. This requi­res inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies such as
the 3D try-on, but also the milli­me­ter-precise 3D fitting of glas­ses. This is how Fiel­mann is digi­tiz­ing the opti­cal indus­try to the bene­fit of custo­mers without compro­mi­sing on quality.”

Thomas Rützel, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Fiel­mann Ventures GmbH: “Our invest­ment in Fitting­Box is the result of a detailed analy­sis. Fitting­Box has deve­lo­ped a 3D fitting tech­no­logy that is clearly supe­rior to all rele­vant alter­na­ti­ves. This tech­no­logy is a key compo­nent in the digi­tal plat­form that Fiel­mann Ventures is deve­lo­ping with part­ners for the opti­cal industry.”

Benja­min Hakoun, Mana­ging Direc­tor and co-foun­der Fitting­Box S.A.: “We are thril­led to have Fiel­mann, one of the world’s leading opti­cal compa­nies, as our stra­te­gic part­ner. Thanks to the invest­ment, we can deve­lop our tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons even faster and open up new sales markets.
Our two compa­nies are united by a strictly custo­mer-orien­ted corpo­rate culture. Toge­ther, we will further expand FittingBox’s posi­tion as the leading tech­no­logy solu­tion for omnich­an­nel eyewear purcha­sing, accom­pany­ing the wearer throug­hout the entire custo­mer jour­ney, online and in-store. We are very plea­sed to have Squair Law as our legal advi­sor and CapM Advi­sors as our finan­cial advi­sor in closing this investment.
have supported.”

Ariel Chou­kroun, CTO and co-foun­der Fitting­Box S.A.: “Fiel­mann has deca­des of expe­ri­ence, knows the needs of spec­ta­cle wearers like no other company. This puts Fitting­Box in a posi­tion to align our tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons even better with the wishes of the custo­mers. On the one hand, spec­ta­cle wearers bene­fit from this, and on the other hand, of course, our custo­mers, i.e. retail­ers and manu­fac­tu­r­ers, also bene­fit. Kreaxi and LBO France remain share­hol­ders in Fitting­Box. They have enab­led the growth of our company with their early investments.”

In the next few weeks, Fiel­mann will inte­grate the 3D fitting into the new omnich­an­nel consul­ting process
in the test market Austria, is test­ing the solu­tion both in its bran­ches and online. The roll­out of the new system in Germany will follow in 2019.

About Fiel­mann Ventures GmbH
Fiel­mann Ventures GmbH was foun­ded in August 2012 as an inde­pen­dent subsi­diary of Fiel­mann AG based in Hamburg. Fiel­mann Ventures deve­lops and promo­tes products, tech­no­lo­gies and sustainable busi­ness models for the future of the opti­cal industry.

About Fiel­mann AG
Fiel­mann stands for eyewear fashion at a fair price, opera­tes over 700 bran­ches across Europe. 24 million people wear glas­ses from Fiel­mann; in Germany, the listed family company sells every second pair of glas­ses. Fiel­mann covers all levels of value crea­tion in optics, is a desi­gner, manu­fac­tu­rer and optician.

About Fitting­Box S.A.
Foun­ded in 2006, Fitting­Box (www.fittingbox.com) is the world’s leading provi­der of augmen­ted reality tech­no­logy such as 3D try-on for eyeglas­ses and sunglas­ses. The company is head­quar­te­red in Toulouse, France, and also opera­tes a sales company in Miami, USA. Fitting­Box deve­lops inno­va­tive tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons and digi­tal content for the opti­cal indus­try, has the world’s largest data­base of frame photos and 3D models. In the more than 10-year history of the company, Fitting­Box has alre­ady recei­ved nume­rous awards and prizes in the field of rese­arch and innovation.

Stutt­gart — Stutt­gart-based invest­ment company Finexx has star­ted inves­t­ing from its first fund closed in mid-Novem­ber 2018. In 2017, Finexx had alre­ady acqui­red mino­rity shares in the welding specia­list WIDOSas a co-part­ner of the Hanno­ver Finanz Group, and now the first majo­rity share­hol­ding has been reali­zed with GSE Vertrieb Biolo­gi­sche Nahrungs­er­gän­zung & Heil­mit­tel GmbH from Saar­brü­cken. The tran­sac­tion, which has alre­ady been comple­ted, took place as part of a succes­sion plan: The seller of the shares is foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor Michael Gracher; the two other mana­ging direc­tors remain on board and conti­nue to be among the share­hol­ders. GSE has been on the market since 1994 and deve­lops and distri­bu­tes food supple­ments on an orga­nic certi­fied basis through natu­ral food retailers.

The volume of Finexx Fund I is 35 million euros, most of which comes from insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds. Invest­ments are made across all sectors in small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs) with sales of 10 million euros or more. Further prere­qui­si­tes are sustainable earning power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model as well as a quali­fied manage­ment team. Finexx commits five to 20 million euros of equity capi­tal in each case.

Finexx Mana­ging Direc­tor Matthias Heining: “GSE is excel­lently posi­tio­ned in the market. Toge­ther with the accom­plished manage­ment and dedi­ca­ted employees, we now want to move to the next stage of deve­lo­p­ment — this includes an expan­sion of product deve­lo­p­ment, sales, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and online busi­ness. We see excel­lent future pros­pects for GSE in view of incre­asingly health-conscious and orga­nic-orien­ted consumers.”

Such a growth stra­tegy is in line with Finexx’s invest­ment philo­so­phy: “In addi­tion to long-term orien­ted, relia­ble busi­ness models, we are prima­rily concer­ned with profes­sio­nal further deve­lo­p­ment,” explains Dr. Markus Seiler, also Mana­ging Direc­tor of Finexx. “We see oursel­ves as an insti­tu­tio­nal family share­hol­der who speaks the language of family-run compa­nies and who brings indus­try expe­ri­ence, user know­ledge and an excel­lent network to the table without inter­fe­ring in day-to-day opera­ti­ons.” Dr. Seiler, for exam­ple, has many years of expe­ri­ence as a mana­ging direc­tor in family-owned and group compa­nies in the indus­trial and tech­no­logy sectors (inclu­ding GEA Group and Brand Group); Heining was mana­ging direc­tor of the renow­ned invest­ment company BWK in Stutt­gart and in various family-owned compa­nies for seve­ral years. Toge­ther, they combine 30 years of tech­ni­cal and commer­cial exper­tise and can point to signi­fi­cant succes­ses. “In the current envi­ron­ment, we still see a lot of poten­tial and need to support exci­ting compa­nies and successful entre­pre­neurs with drive — we expect to see more tran­sac­tions,” Heining said.

About Finexx
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is a consul­ting company foun­ded in 2013 that specia­li­zes in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies. Typi­cal fields of acti­vity are growth and acqui­si­tion finan­cing as well as the support of chan­ges in the share­hol­der struc­ture and succes­sion planning.

Finexx invests long-term funds (equity capi­tal of between 5 and 50 million euros), mainly in the form of majo­rity share­hol­dings, in compa­nies from the German-spea­king region, inclu­ding insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds. These have sales of EUR 10 million or more, a quali­fied manage­ment team, and can demons­trate sustainable earnings power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model.

The team has many years of indus­trial and manage­ment expe­ri­ence as well as profound know-how in the invest­ment sector — both are brought to bear for the successful further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies and in the asso­cia­ted change proces­ses. Finexx supports manage­ment by provi­ding active commer­cial and tech­ni­cal advice without inter­fe­ring with day-to-day opera­ti­ons, as well as a cross-indus­try network. www.finexx.de

Frank­furt a. M. — A mid-cap fund advi­sed by Triton (Triton Smal­ler Mid-Cap Fund, “TSM”) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in NORRES Group. With a team led by Dr. Pär Johans­son, Part­ner at the Colo­gne office, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek provi­ded legal advice to Triton in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion. The aim of the part­ner­ship is to expand NORRES’ expan­sion strategy.

NORRES is a manu­fac­tu­rer of indus­trial hoses with head­quar­ters in Gelsen­kir­chen and produc­tion sites in Germany, China and the USA. The indus­trial hoses are used for pneu­ma­tic convey­ing of various types of media such as solids, gases as well as liquids in diffe­rent indus­tries. Around 300 employees work for the company, which was foun­ded in 1889.

“We want to support NORRES by inves­t­ing in acce­le­ra­ted growth and the contin­ued inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the company. We look forward to working with the manage­ment team and contri­bu­ting our exper­tise and available resour­ces to further our shared vision of an even stron­ger company,” said Peder Prahl (pictu­red), Direc­tor of Gene­ral Part­ners for the Triton Funds.

About Triton
The Triton funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Europe and support their posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. They focus on compa­nies in the indus­trial, services and consu­mer goods/healthcare sectors.

Triton’s goal is to successfully deve­lop its port­fo­lio compa­nies in the long term by working toge­ther as part­ners. Triton and its manage­ment strive to gene­rate posi­tive change and growth through the sustainable impro­ve­ment of opera­tio­nal proces­ses and struc­tures. At present, Triton’s port­fo­lio includes 36 compa­nies with total sales of around EUR 12.7 billion and appro­xi­m­ately 82,000 employees. — The Triton funds are advi­sed by expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment profes­sio­nals based in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Italy, the UK, the US, China, Luxem­bourg and Jersey. www.triton-partners.de

About NORRES
NORRES was foun­ded in 1889 and focu­ses on the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and sale of indus­trial hoses for pneu­ma­tic convey­ing of diverse media types (e.g. solids, gases and liquids) for a variety of end markets (inclu­ding fume and dust extra­c­tion, agri­cul­ture, food & phar­maceu­ti­cals, plas­tics and wood proces­sing). The company is head­quar­te­red in Gelsen­kir­chen, Germany, and employs appro­xi­m­ately 300 people at three produc­tion sites (D, CN, USA) and five sales and warehouse loca­ti­ons (CZ, FR, PL, TW, GB).

Advi­sor to Triton: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Pär Johans­son, Dr. Phil­ipp Jansen (both lead), Dr. Chris­toph Schork, LL.M., Tim Remmel, LL.M., (all Private Equity, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Verena Hoene, LL.M. (IP/IT), Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Labor Law), all Colo­gne; Dr. Kai Bandilla, Sen Gao (both Corporate/M&A), Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax), Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (Anti­trust), all Hamburg; Mathis Dick, LL.M. (Real Estate), Düsseldorf

The team led by Colo­gne-based part­ner Dr. Pär Johans­son had alre­ady advi­sed Triton on the acqui­si­tion of BFC Group in Febru­ary 2018.

Munich, Germany — AHT, the global market leader in commer­cial plug-in refri­ge­ra­tion and free­zer systems for food retail­ers, is being sold by private equity inves­tor Bridge­point to Daikin Europe N.V., a subsi­diary of Daikin Indus­tries Ltd. in Japan.

The company, head­quar­te­red in Rottenmann/Styria, Austria, is present in over 100 count­ries with its core products — ready-to-plug-in refri­ge­ra­tion and free­zer systems for the food retail sector. Commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion equip­ment with built-in compres­sor (plug-in) is gradu­ally repla­cing equip­ment with exter­nal refri­ge­ra­tion compres­sor and is the fastest growing segment in the commer­cial food refri­ge­ra­tion and free­zer market. The advan­ta­ges of plug-in units are lower total cost of owner­ship as well as shorter instal­la­tion times. AHT looks back on an instal­led base of more than one million devices. In addi­tion to the sale of products, the company’s range of services includes the provi­sion of compre­hen­sive plan­ning, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance services. The company’s four produc­tion sites are loca­ted in Austria, China, Brazil and the USA.

Bridge­point acqui­red AHT in Novem­ber 2013. The company gene­ra­ted net sales of €481 million for 2017 and has achie­ved average sales growth of 12% per year over the past 10 years.

Michael Davy, Part­ner at Bridge­point and Chair­man of AHT’s Board of Direc­tors, said, “AHT has evol­ved in recent years from a largely Euro­pean-focu­sed company to a global leader in its segment that conti­nues to expand its foot­print to include other attrac­tive inter­na­tio­nal markets. The company has been instru­men­tal in the indus­try-wide shift from units with exter­nal refri­ge­ra­tion compres­sors to plug-in systems. The latter are easier for custo­mers to install compared to tradi­tio­nal systems and are less expen­sive as well as more envi­ron­men­tally friendly to operate. We wish the company contin­ued success under its new owner­ship as it conti­nues to expand geogra­phi­cally and grow its product portfolio.”

Under Bridge­point, signi­fi­cant invest­ments have been made in the company. In the past three years alone, over 70 million euros have been inves­ted in the deve­lo­p­ment of new products, the expan­sion of produc­tion in Austria, and the estab­lish­ment of the new produc­tion faci­li­ties in Brazil and the USA. The expan­sion of produc­tion capa­city in China has also enab­led AHT to reduce its manu­fac­tu­ring costs while further expan­ding its market share in Europe.

Market obser­vers believe that plug-in refri­ge­ra­tion systems will conti­nue to outper­form the over­all global refri­ge­ra­tion market. This is due to the growing accep­tance of these systems, the upco­ming repla­ce­ment cycle of alre­ady instal­led equip­ment, and the incre­asing consu­mer demand for frozen and refri­ge­ra­ted food.

Frank Elsen, Mana­ging Direc­tor of AHT, added: “We have deve­lo­ped stron­gly since the invest­ment by Bridge­point more than four years ago and are now a market leader in our segment. We will not rest on our laurels and are plea­sed to have Daikin as our new owner, a part­ner who under­stands our busi­ness very well. Daikin supports our inno­va­tion stra­tegy and plan­ned further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, espe­ci­ally in emer­ging markets, which will allow us to offer AHT’s tech­no­logy and after-sales service to addi­tio­nal new custo­mer groups in our target markets in Asia and Latin America.”

Masa­tsugu Minaka, Presi­dent of Daikin Europe, said: “With this tran­sac­tion, Daikin adds AHT cooling systems to its compre­hen­sive range of proprie­tary air condi­tio­ning products, services and solu­ti­ons. This will enable Daikin to offer the complete range of air condi­tio­ning and cooling systems from a single source in the future. Refri­ge­ra­tion and free­zing systems are of great importance for one of the world’s most signi­fi­cant socie­tal chal­lenges — the shelf life of food and the reduc­tion of food waste, espe­ci­ally in emer­ging and deve­lo­ping count­ries. The cooling systems sector offers great poten­tial to our exis­ting advan­ced tech­no­lo­gies in energy conser­va­tion, heat exch­an­gers and refri­ge­ra­tion control.”

Advi­sors Bridge­point: Bridge­point was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by JP Morgan on M&A, PwC on finan­cing and tax, and Fresh­fields on legal.

About Bridge­point
Bridge­point is an inter­na­tio­nal private equity firm. With assets under manage­ment of 18 billion euros and capi­tal raised of over 28 billion euros, the company focu­ses on acqui­ring well-mana­ged compa­nies in growth sectors. Bridgepoint’s stra­tegy is to support busi­nesses and manage­ment teams by inves­t­ing in expan­sion, opera­tio­nal trans­for­ma­tion, or conso­li­da­tion through acquisitions.

Frank­furt am Main — Fina­tem, a leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment company focu­sing on German medium-sized compa­nies, sells SCHOLLENBERGER Kampf­mit­tel­ber­gung GmbH (“Schol­len­ber­ger” or “Schol­len­ber­ger Group”) to SOCOTEC Group, Guyan­court, France (“SOCOTEC” or “SOCOTEC Group”). The SOCOTEC Group is one of the leading Euro­pean service provi­ders in the field of measu­re­ment, test­ing and certi­fi­ca­tion of cons­truc­tion and infra­struc­ture projects. SOCOTEC gene­ra­tes annual sales of EUR 700 million in 25 count­ries with 200,000 custo­mers and employs around 7,000 people. Dr. Boris Töller and Klaus Löhle will conti­nue to be respon­si­ble for the manage­ment of the Schol­len­ber­ger Group after the take­over by SOCOTEC.

The Schol­len­ber­ger Group, with around 400 employees at its head­quar­ters in Celle and 8 other loca­ti­ons, is the market leader in Germany and Austria in the field of civi­lian explo­sive ordnance dispo­sal. The group offers its custo­mers all services rela­ted to the tech­ni­cal explo­ra­tion and unco­ve­ring of warfare agents in endan­ge­red areas. In Germany and Austria, it is a compul­sory legal obli­ga­tion for the deve­lo­per to ensure that the soil is free of explo­sive ordnance before any work is carried out.

In 2016, the Schol­len­ber­ger Group was acqui­red by Fina­tem and the mana­ging direc­tors of the Schol­len­ber­ger Group Klaus Löhle and Dr. Boris Töller, as part of a manage­ment buy-out from the Celler Brun­nen­bau Group, and was supple­men­ted in 2018 by GeoFact GmbH, Bonn, which specia­li­zes in geophy­si­cal analy­sis services. “Our common goal was to deve­lop Schol­len­ber­ger into the clear market and, above all, quality leader in the field of explo­sive ordnance dispo­sal,” Fina­tem part­ner Eric Jung­blut points out. “Toge­ther with Fina­tem, we at Schol­len­ber­ger have intro­du­ced indus­trial stan­dards in the areas of sales and resource manage­ment and control­ling that are leading and trend-setting in the explo­sive ordnance dispo­sal indus­try,” elabo­ra­tes Dr. Boris Töller, mana­ging part­ner of the Schol­len­ber­ger Group.

“The posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment of the Schol­len­ber­ger Group is another exam­ple of our successful invest­ment and value enhance­ment stra­tegy. We focus our invest­ments on compa­nies with unique selling propo­si­ti­ons and abso­lute quality stan­dards in growing markets, where we see deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial that we can leverage toge­ther,” explains Fina­tem Mana­ging Direc­tor Dr. Robert Hennigs .

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the details of the transaction.

Company Profile Finatem
As an inde­pen­dent part­ner-mana­ged invest­ment company based in Frank­furt, Fina­tem invests in compa­nies with busi­ness acti­vi­ties or know-how, parti­cu­larly in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land, through majo­rity share­hol­dings. The focus is on medium-sized compa­nies from tradi­tio­nal indus­tries with a sales volume of between EUR 25 million and EUR 125 million and a clear growth poten­tial. With its exis­ting exten­sive natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence in private equity and indus­try, Fina­tem is a relia­ble part­ner for its port­fo­lio compa­nies and supports them in the chal­lenges of market globalization.

Albdruck/ Zug (CH) — INVISION has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the German family-owned company ABC Design GmbH as part of a succes­sion plan. The members of the foun­ding Fischer family remain invol­ved and conti­nue to play key opera­tio­nal roles.

ABC Design is the leading manu­fac­tu­rer of strol­lers and access­ories in the German market. The company, based in Albbruck DE, sells station wagons, sports strol­lers, car seats, high chairs and access­ories, cove­ring a wide range of needs for young fami­lies. Thanks to the strong team in Albbruck and with the help of long-stan­ding and stable supplier rela­ti­onships, ABC Design can offer high-quality strol­lers at fair prices. In-house quality manage­ment enables ABC Design to guaran­tee the highest stan­dards of safety and quality, which are appre­cia­ted by specia­list dealers and end custo­mers alike. This is confirmed by the good custo­mer response as well as by Stif­tung Waren­test, which places ABC Design strol­lers in the top ranks as a price-perfor­mance leader.

The foun­ders Eva & Diet­mar Fischer built up the successful company from 1989 to 2011 and mana­ged it both opera­tio­nally and stra­te­gi­cally. In 2011, their son Bernd Fischer joined the manage­ment team, while Eva Fischer contin­ued to help shape the company in the area of design and Diet­mar Fischer as an advi­sory board member.

The foun­ding family will conti­nue to hold a stake in the company along­side INVISION and will conti­nue to perform all opera­tio­nal roles as before. Under the leader­ship of the two mana­ging direc­tors Bernd Fischer and Jörg Zehe, the focus conti­nues to be on the conti­nuous streng­thening of the market leader­ship in Germany and the expan­sion into promi­sing inter­na­tio­nal markets.

Eva & Diet­mar Fischer, foun­ders and co-part­ners of ABC Design, comment: “We are happy to have found a relia­ble and strong part­ner in INVISION, who is moti­va­ted to successfully conti­nue the company in the same style and with the same culture.”

Bernd Fischer, mana­ging part­ner of ABC Design, adds: “INVISION is a part­ner who is just as convin­ced of ABC Design’s busi­ness model as we are and who is looking to the future with joy and verve. The focus of further deve­lo­p­ment is on conti­nuous growth with an uncom­pro­mi­sing focus on quality and price, but now with a strong co-part­ner at our side.”

Martin Spirig, Part­ner at INVISION (Photo) says: “We are thril­led that with ABC Design we are once again able to parti­ci­pate in a leading medium-sized company in Baden-Würt­tem­berg. We parti­cu­larly appre­ciate the Fischer family’s contin­ued active role as co-part­ners and in the opera­tio­nal manage­ment of the company. For INVISION, the focus is always on ensu­ring that the company succes­sion is a good solu­tion for the foun­ding family, manage­ment, employees, custo­mers and suppli­ers. Toge­ther with the Fischer family, we have succee­ded in doing this with ABC Design.”

About ABC Design
ABC Design (www.abc-design.de) designs, deve­lops, sources, markets and sells strol­lers in a variety of styles. Foun­ded in 1989, the family-owned company has estab­lished itself as the market leader in Germany thanks to its strikin­gly good price-perfor­mance ratio. ABC Design is active on a variety of commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels and can thus address and serve whole­sa­lers, retail­ers and end custo­mers alike. The company employs around 40 people, most of whom are active at the head­quar­ters in Albbruck DE.

About Invi­sion
Since its foun­da­tion in 1997, Invi­sion has successfully deve­lo­ped into one of the leading invest­ment compa­nies for corpo­rate succes­sion and growth finan­cing in Europe. Invi­sion has inves­ted more than EUR 750 million of equity in over 50 compa­nies during this time, achie­ving sustainable value growth. Invi­sion sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner for foun­ders, entre­pre­neurs and manage­ment teams. In its enga­ge­ments, Invi­sion places parti­cu­lar empha­sis on under­stan­ding the speci­fic needs of compa­nies and entre­pre­neurs and deve­lo­ping custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons. Invi­sion invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies, espe­ci­ally in succes­sion constel­la­ti­ons. www.invision.ch.

Frank­furt — Jones Day advi­sed Aurora Resur­gence on the sale of Alltub Group (“Alltub”) to One Equity Part­ners. Terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. Aurora Resur­gence is a subsi­diary of Aurora Capi­tal Group, a Los Ange­les-based private equity firm that mana­ges over $3 billion in assets,

Foun­ded in 2005 as a spin-off of alumi­num produ­cer Alcan, Alltub is a market leader in specialty alumi­num and lami­nate pack­a­ging for the cosme­tics, phar­maceu­ti­cal, food and indus­trial markets. Head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam, the group opera­tes a global manu­fac­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion plat­form with loca­ti­ons in the Czech Repu­blic, France, Germany, Italy and Mexico, serving major custo­mers around the globe. With sales of over 150 million euros in 2017 and more than 1,400 employees, the group has grown steadily in recent years.

“It has been a great expe­ri­ence working with Alltub and insti­tu­ting a number of successful initia­ti­ves that have resul­ted in growth and profit expan­sion,” said Andrew Fohrer, Prin­ci­pal at Aurora Resur­gence. “We are plea­sed to have parti­ci­pa­ted in Alltub’s tremen­dous success and appre­ciate the efforts of Oliver Hoell and his team in deli­ve­ring a great result for our inves­tors. Today’s tran­sac­tion repres­ents a terri­fic outcome for the busi­ness and we wish the team all the best as they enter an exci­ting new chap­ter of growth.”

“It has been a privi­lege to part­ner with Aurora, and we are grateful for the opera­tio­nal exper­tise and stra­te­gic guidance they have provi­ded us over the past seven years,” said Oliver Hoell, CEO of Alltub. “The dedi­ca­tion of our skil­led work­force will allow us to conti­nue expan­ding into new markets and deli­ve­ring custo­mer satis­fac­tion. We look forward to working with One Equity Part­ners as we enter this new phase in our deve­lo­p­ment and put our ambi­tious growth plans into action.”

“One Equity Part­ners has signi­fi­cant expe­ri­ence in the pack­a­ging indus­try and a nota­ble track record of buil­ding successful compa­nies,” said Johann-Melchior von Peter, Senior Mana­ging Direc­tor at One Equity Part­ners. “Alltub fits perfectly into our port­fo­lio. With a resi­li­ent busi­ness model and the clear poten­tial to become a world-leading tube and aero­sol player, Alltub is an ideal plat­form for buy-and-build oppor­tu­ni­ties in a conso­li­da­ting market.”

Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor and Jones Day acted as legal advi­sor to Aurora and Alltub.

The Jones Day team was led by My Linh Vu-Grégo­ire, photo (Part­ner, M&A, Frankfurt/ Amsterdam/ Paris). The follo­wing addi­tio­nal Jones Day attor­neys were invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion: Dr. Sascha H. Schmidt (Of Coun­sel, Banking, Finance & Secu­ri­ties, Frank­furt), Dr. Holger Neumann (Part­ner, Public Law and Regu­la­tion, Frank­furt), Chris­tian A. Krebs (Part­ner, M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Johan­nes Zöttl (Part­ner, Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Markus Hamann (Of Coun­sel, Public Law and Regu­la­tion, Frank­furt), Bastiaan Kout (Asso­ciate, M&A, Amster­dam), Menno Geusens (Asso­ciate, M&A, Amster­dam) as well as lawy­ers from Jones Day’s offices in London, Milan, Mexico City, Munich, Paris, Pitts­burgh and Washington.

About Jones Day
Jones Day is a global law firm with more than 2,500 lawy­ers in 43 offices on 5 conti­nents. Our firm philo­so­phy is charac­te­ri­zed by a focus on long-term, sustainable client service, mutual respect and seam­less colla­bo­ra­tion among the attor­neys in our part­ner­ship, outstan­ding legal exper­tise in all prac­tice areas and juris­dic­tions, and shared values that put our clients’ inte­rests first.

London - IK Invest­ment Part­ners is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in Dort­mund-based Infra­data Group through IK VIII Funds from Water­land Private Equity Fund V (“Water­land”).

Foun­ded in 2004 in the Nether­lands, Infra­data is a leading Euro­pean provi­der of cyber­se­cu­rity and secure network solu­ti­ons. Beyond the Nether­lands, the company is repre­sen­ted in Germany, the UK, France, Belgium, Poland and the USA and is pursuing ambi­tious growth plans. Infra­data is bene­fiting from two mega­trends, the rising volume of data and the increase in cyber secu­rity thre­ats. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the transaction.

As part of the tran­sac­tion, Infradata’s foun­der and CEO, Leon de Keij­zer will tran­si­tion to the Board of Direc­tors. Nino Tomov­ski, curr­ently Inter­na­tio­nal Vice Presi­dent, will be appoin­ted CEO of Infra­data as of Janu­ary 1, 2019.

Norman Bremer (foto), Part­ner at IK Invest­ment Part­ners said: “Our decis­ion to back Infra­data was driven by two promi­nent mega­trends, namely the increase of cyber­se­cu­rity thre­ats in recent years, and rising data consump­tion. We are exci­ted to be back­ing a manage­ment team with a fanta­stic track record and a highly inno­va­tive service offe­ring. We are espe­ci­ally impres­sed with the company’s multi-coun­try foot­print and its outstan­ding people. We look forward to helping expand Infradata’s capa­bi­li­ties both through orga­nic and acqui­si­tive growth oppor­tu­ni­ties and buil­ding it into a truly Euro­pean leader.”

About Infra­data
Foun­ded by Leon de Keij­zer in 2004, Infra­data is a leading pan-Euro­pean provi­der of secure networ­king and cyber­se­cu­rity solu­ti­ons. The company is head­quar­te­red in Leiden, the Nether­lands. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.infradata.com.

About IK Invest­ment Partners
IK Invest­ment Part­ners (“IK”) is a Pan- Euro­pean private equity firm focu­sed on invest­ments in the Nordics, DACH region, France, and Bene­lux. Since 1989, IK has raised more than €9.5 billion of capi­tal and inves­ted in over 116 Euro­pean compa­nies. IK funds support compa­nies with strong under­ly­ing poten­tial, part­ne­ring with manage­ment teams and inves­tors to create robust, well-posi­tio­ned busi­nesses with excel­lent long-term prospects.

About Water­land Private Equity
Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment group that acts as an active share­hol­der in its port­fo­lio compa­nies, play­ing a key role in their stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment, growth and perfor­mance. Water­land has offices in Belgium (Antwerp), the Nether­lands (Bussum), UK (Manches­ter), Germany (Munich and Hamburg), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen), Switz­er­land (Zurich) and Poland (Warsaw) and curr­ently mana­ges €6 billion of inves­tor commit­ments. To date, Water­land has made invest­ments in over 470 companies.