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News-Kategorie: Private Equity

Afinum acquires stake in secure messaging provider Threema

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich/ Pfäf­fi­kon (Switz­er­land) — Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by Afinum Manage­ment GmbH, acqui­res a stake in Threema GmbH. Toge­ther with the foun­ders Martin Blat­ter, Manuel Kasper and Silvan Enge­ler, who will remain signi­fi­cantly invol­ved after the tran­sac­tion, Afinum will support the growth course of the past years. Toge­ther with Afinum, the company intends to further expand its own market posi­tion as the leading Euro­pean secure messen­ger for private and corpo­rate customers.

Threema (www.threema.ch), based in Pfäf­fi­kon, Switz­er­land, is a leading Euro­pean secure messa­ging provi­der for private users, public insti­tu­ti­ons as well as compa­nies. With Threema’s soft­ware solu­ti­ons, neither meta­data nor chat content is stored, which is a strong diffe­ren­tia­tor from other commer­cial messen­gers. This reflects the primary goal of ensu­ring custo­mer data secu­rity and privacy. Threema’s app for private users is used by custo­mers in over 90 count­ries. The corpo­rate custo­mer solu­tion Threema Work has become the market leader in the DACH region in recent years and is used by a large number of DAX 30 compa­nies, govern­ment agen­cies, NGOs and educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons. — Threema is to become open source.

Threema was foun­ded in 2014 by the three soft­ware deve­lo­pers Martin Blat­ter, Manuel Kasper and Silvan Enge­ler, who will conti­nue to lead the company. By ente­ring into this part­ner­ship, Threema lays the foun­da­tion for conti­nuity and gains resour­ces to grow beyond German-spea­king Europe. Threema will conti­nue to improve its own soft­ware and deve­lop addi­tio­nal features to conti­nue provi­ding custo­mers with the most secure secure messen­ger. Thanks to the inno­va­tive cross-plat­form multi-device solu­tion, Threema will also be usable on multi­ple devices in paral­lel in the future, without leaving perso­nal data on a server. In addi­tion, Threema will fully disc­lose the source code of Threema apps in the coming months to allow anyone to check the secu­rity and func­tion­a­lity of Threema itself and verify that the published source code matches the instal­led app.

The invest­ment in Threema is the ninth plat­form tran­sac­tion of Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co. KG.

About AFINUM
AFINUM Manage­ment GmbH is an inde­pen­dent manage­ment-owned invest­ment company with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe.

Clifford Chance advises Maguar Capital on acquisition of HRworks

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance has The new private equity mana­ger Maguar Capi­tal has acqui­red HR soft­ware provi­der HRworks with its first funds (Maguar I Fund). A select group of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, inclu­ding Aber­deen Stan­dard Invest­ments, EMZ Part­ners, Golding Capi­tal Part­ners and LFPE, are co-inves­t­ing with the Maguar I Fund.

The acqui­si­tion finan­cing is provi­ded by Joh. Beren­berg, Goss­ler & Co.KG provi­ded. The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close in Septem­ber 2020.

HRworks is an inte­gra­ted Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) provi­der of HR soft­ware with a focus on the SME segment (small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses) in Germany. The company focu­ses on key HR func­tions such as time manage­ment, travel, people manage­ment, recruit­ment and employee bene­fits. HRworks was foun­ded in 1999 and curr­ently serves 210,000 users and over 1,700 custo­mers. The company opera­tes a scalable tech­no­logy plat­form and curr­ently employs 60 FTEs in its offices in Berlin, Frank­furt and Frei­burg im Breisgau.

Maguar Capi­tal is a German private equity mana­ger focu­sing exclu­si­vely on small cap soft­ware invest­ments in the DACH region. Foun­ded in 2019 by Arno Poschik, Gunther Thies and Matthias Ick, Maguar specia­li­zes in part­ner­ships with foun­der-led B2B soft­ware compa­nies that have an EBITDA of circa one million to six million euros. Maguar supports these compa­nies in reali­zing their growth potential.

Clif­ford Chance Finance Part­ner Barbara Mayer-Traut­mann said, “We are plea­sed to advise Maguar, the new private equity mana­ger, on this tran­sac­tion in turbu­lent times in the highly dyna­mic tech­no­logy-rela­ted private equity market.”

Arno Poschik, foun­der of Maguar, comm­ents: “It was important, espe­ci­ally for this tran­sac­tion, to have Clif­ford Chance, an expe­ri­en­ced legal advi­sor in the private equity sector, on our side. The Clif­ford Chance team impres­sed us with its effi­ci­ency and commer­cial approach. We hope that more invest­ments will follow shortly.”

Advi­sor Maguar Capi­tal GmbH: Clif­ford Chance
Manage­ment Part­ner Barbara Mayer-Traut­mann (Finance, Munich)

About Clif­ford Chance
Clif­ford Chance, one of the world’s leading law firms, is present for its clients with around 3,400 legal advi­sors in all major busi­ness centers around the world. In Germany, Clif­ford Chance is repre­sen­ted by around 300 lawy­ers, audi­tors, tax advi­sors and soli­ci­tors in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

Weil advises Advent International on the acquisition of a stake in Aareon

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

London/ Frankfurt/ Munich — Finan­cial inves­tor Advent Inter­na­tio­nal acqui­res a 30% stake in Aareon AG. Accor­ding to Aareal Bank AG, the purchase price for the invest­ment amounts to EUR 260 million. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the company was paid approx. EUR 960 million. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, with closing expec­ted in Q4 2020. The London and German offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed the finan­cial inves­tor Advent Inter­na­tio­nal on the acqui­si­tion of a 30% stake in Aareon AG

Mainz-based Aareon AG is a leading Euro­pean provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the property sector and a subsi­diary of Aareal Bank AG, a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of finan­cing solu­ti­ons and services, parti­cu­larly in the property sector.

Advi­sor Advent: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The combi­ned London/German Weil team was led on this tran­sac­tion by Corpo­rate Part­ners Jona­than Wood (London) and Dr. Ansgar Wimber, photo (Frank­furt) and was supported by Coun­sel Max Oppen­hei­mer and Ellie Fialho (both Corpo­rate, London), Manuel-Peter Fringer (Corpo­rate, Munich), Benja­min Rapp (Tax, Munich) and Svenja Wach­tel (Liti­ga­tion, Munich) as well as Asso­cia­tes Sebas­tian Bren­ner, Kai Neumann (both Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Florian Wessel, Andreas Fogel, Sandra Kühn, Corne­lia Tu (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Barbara Sand­fuchs (IP/IT Law, Munich), Markus Cejka (Finance, Frank­furt), Mareike Pfeif­fer and Lili­anna Ranody (both Labor Law, Frankfurt).

About Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley and Washing­ton, D.C.

Deutsche Beteiligungs AG invests in congatec Holding AG

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) invests in conga­tec Holding AG (conga­tec), a leading supplier of compu­ter modu­les for indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. In the context of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), DBAG Fund VIII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, will acquire the majo­rity of the shares from the foun­ding share­hol­ders. DBAG will invest around 23 million euros along­side the fund; in future, it will hold around 20 percent of the shares. In addi­tion, the conga­tec manage­ment will also parti­ci­pate. The closing of the purchase agree­ment is subject to the appr­oval of the anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is sche­du­led for the fourth quar­ter of 2020. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The MBO of conga­tec Holding AG is the second invest­ment of DBAG Fund VIII, which invests in medium-sized compa­nies — mainly in German-spea­king count­ries. The fund’s invest­ment period had star­ted on August 1, 2020; in the middle of the month, DBAG had struc­tu­red the fund’s first tran­sac­tion with the MBO of Multi­mon AG.

Global market leader in computer-on-modules
conga­tec Holding AG (www.congatec.com), head­quar­te­red in Deggen­dorf, Bava­ria, is a fast-growing tech­no­logy company in the field of embedded compu­ting with a focus on high-perfor­mance so-called compu­ter-on-modu­les (CoM) and indus­trial single-board compu­ters (SBC). conga­tec focu­ses on the hard­ware design of CoMs, which account for around 80 percent of sales. CoMs are used for speci­fic appli­ca­ti­ons within a broa­der system, for exam­ple in indus­trial robots, image proces­sing or ultra­so­nic devices, and typi­cally have to meet speci­fic requi­re­ments, for exam­ple high relia­bi­lity as well as longe­vity even under adverse condi­ti­ons, real-time proces­sing or zero error tole­rance, often imple­men­ted in small sizes. CoMs are complete compu­ting units, they consist of a proces­sor, memory and proces­sor peri­pherals and are opti­mi­zed for speci­fic appli­ca­ti­ons. CoMs are essen­tial prere­qui­si­tes for advan­cing digi­tiza­tion because, for exam­ple, they make it possi­ble to network physi­cal and virtual objects and have them work toge­ther through infor­ma­tion and commu­ni­ca­tion tech­no­lo­gies. CoMs are also needed for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence applications.

In the compu­ter-on-module segment, the company, foun­ded in 2004, is the global market leader with a broad custo­mer base ranging from start-ups to inter­na­tio­nal blue-chip compa­nies. conga­tec has subsi­dia­ries in the USA, Taiwan, China, Japan and Austra­lia as well as in Great Britain, France and the Czech Repu­blic. 270 employees gene­ra­ted $126 million in reve­nue in 2019. This reve­nue is spread across a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons — as a result, the company has so far hardly been affec­ted by the Covid 19 pandemic.

Growth through inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and new proces­sor types
More than two thirds of congatec’s custo­mers come from the Euro­pean econo­mic area, and the share of sales to custo­mers in the USA or Asia is growing. This is expec­ted to acce­le­rate in the coming years. In addi­tion to grea­ter inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, an expan­sion of the product range to include CoMs for new proces­sor types is also expec­ted to drive the company’s growth. A key driver here is also the rapidly growing demand for higher-perfor­mance compu­ting solu­ti­ons in edge appli­ca­ti­ons, among others, in which CoMs in a network provide compu­ting power in real time on a decen­tra­li­zed basis — unlike cloud solu­ti­ons. In addi­tion, congatec’s RTS Hyper­vi­sor is an inno­va­tive soft­ware solu­tion that can set new stan­dards in terms of real-time perfor­mance — both as a stand-alone soft­ware solu­tion and in conjunc­tion with the CoMs produ­ced by congatec.

“We expect contin­ued strong growth in digi­tiza­tion,” said Dr. Rolf Schef­fels (photo), member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board, on the occa­sion of the contract signing. He contin­ued, “The pande­mic has given another strong boost to the ‘Inter­net of Things’ and ‘Indus­try 4.0’ — this will give a further boost to demand for the compu­ter compon­ents requi­red for this.” In recent years, DBAG has been inten­si­vely invol­ved with compa­nies in the embedded elec­tro­nics sector and has alre­ady inves­ted in a compa­ra­ble busi­ness model with its stake in duagon Holding AG. “This expe­ri­ence has now paid off in the assess­ment of the invest­ment oppor­tu­nity,” said DBAG board member Dr. Scheffels.

The Chair­man of congatec’s Manage­ment Board, Jason Carlson, today poin­ted to the diverse market poten­tial: “In DBAG, we have found a part­ner for the further deve­lo­p­ment of our company that is well versed in key end markets for our custo­mers and brings finan­cing exper­tise and M&A expe­ri­ence to the table — with DBAG and DBAG Fund VIII, we are well posi­tio­ned to take advan­tage of market opportunities.”

About Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the new focus sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 2.5 billion euros.

Family Office KIRK KAPITAL A/S acquires majority stake in Scanmetals Germany

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Hamburg — A team led by Dr. Jörg Schewe, Part­ner at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek in Hamburg, provi­ded legal advice to Danish recy­cling company Scan­me­tals A/S and its inves­tor KIRK KAPITAL A/S on the acqui­si­tion of 85 percent of the shares in inde­pen­dent Scan­me­tals Deutsch­land GmbH. With the tran­sac­tion, Scan­me­tals A/S takes over a recy­cling plant in Germany and can increase its annual metal reco­very from 30,000 to 45,000 tons. KIRK KAPITAL A/S, mino­rity inves­tor in Scan­me­tals A/S, has supported the company and manage­ment in the transaction.

Scan­me­tals A/S is a recy­cling company foun­ded in 2002 based on sustainable tech­no­logy for opti­mal use of resour­ces. Through inno­va­tive and effec­tive solu­ti­ons, the recy­cling company reco­vers and refi­nes metal­lic waste from inci­ne­ra­tors. Scan­me­tals A/S has opera­ti­ons in Slagelse, Denmark and Birming­ham, UK.

The share­hol­ders of KIRK KAPITAL A/S are direct descen­dants of Ole Kirk Kris­ti­an­sen, the foun­der of LEGO, namely Gunhild Kirk Johan­sen (3rd gene­ra­tion), Casper Kirk Johan­sen (4th gene­ra­tion), Morten Kirk Johan­sen (4th gene­ra­tion) and Anders Kirk Johan­sen (4th gene­ra­tion). Since 2007, part of the Kirk Johan­sen family’s asset and invest­ment acti­vi­ties have been conso­li­da­ted in KIRK KAPITAL A/S.

Advi­sors to KIRK KAPITAL A/S / Scan­me­tals A/S: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Jörg Schewe (M&A/Corporate, Lead)
Chris­toph Proch­nau, LL.B. (M&A/Corporate, Due Diligence)
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax)
Dr. Kai Erhardt (Corpo­rate Finance, Acqui­si­tion Financing)
Jana Maria Siemens, LL.B. (Labor Law, Due Diligence)
Katha­rina Waszc­zyn­ski (Commer­cial Contracts, Due Dili­gence), all Hamburg

Scalable Capital raises Series D financing round of EUR 50 million

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — The law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed Scalable Capi­tal GmbH on its largest finan­cing round to date. Fresh capi­tal of €50 million was raised as part of the Series D finan­cing round. This brings the total finan­cing volume since Scalable Capi­tal was foun­ded to 116 million euros.

Scalable Capi­tal is the largest digi­tal asset mana­ger in Europe with over two billion euros in assets under manage­ment. In June 2020, Scalable Capi­tal also laun­ched a neo-broker, a digi­tal plat­form where custo­mers can trade stocks, ETFs and funds. The funds now raised will be used to expand Scalable Capital’s leading posi­tion as a digi­tal asset mana­ger and to further acce­le­rate growth in the brokerage and B2B business.

In addi­tion to a new inves­tor, exis­ting inves­tors Black­Rock, HV Holtz­brinck Ventures and Tengel­mann Venturesalso parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round.

Legal advi­sors to Scalable Capi­tal GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz, Photo (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Isabelle Vran­cken (Senior Asso­ciate), Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate, both Corpo­rate M&A)

MOOG: Marc Sälzer (Tax Law)
Inhouse: Dr. Alexis Dará­nyi (Chief Legal Offi­cer), Florian von Kampen (Senior Legal Counsel)

Large financing round: Solarisbank receives 60 million euros

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Hamburg — Sola­ris­bank has secu­red the highest finan­cing round in its history, amoun­ting to 60 million euros. The post-money valua­tion increa­ses to 320 million euros as a result of the capi­tal increase. “Since we were not under any time pres­sure, the Corona crisis did not really affect our funding process,” CEO Roland Folz told us. “Due to high demand from inves­tors, we actually raised more capi­tal than origi­nally planned.”

With the funding behind it, Sola­ris­bank — which has grown exclu­si­vely orga­ni­cally since its foun­ding in 2016 — can even consider larger tran­sac­tions. Sola­ris could thus take over Wire­card Bank AG, at least in parts.

Asked about this scena­rio, Sola­ris­bank CEO Folz told us yester­day, “It’s never good news when a compe­ti­tor gets into trou­ble. Because what ulti­m­ately makes compa­nies better is compe­ti­tion.” Howe­ver, it is true that “Wire­card Bank’s services are simi­lar to ours. Depen­ding on how things deve­lop, we could ther­e­fore certainly be some­thing like the natu­ral alter­na­tive for many of the competitor’s customers.”

The lead inves­tor is venture capi­ta­list Holtz­brinck Ventures, which has not yet been one of the share­hol­ders. That a German VC specia­list is the lead inves­tor in such a large round (and even more so, after not having been invol­ved at all before) is, to our recoll­ec­tion, rare in the German fintech sector. But it shows that local venture capi­tal play­ers no longer auto­ma­ti­cally shy away from larger rounds. Early­bird also contin­ued to play a lively role in N26’s most recent mega-fundings.

In addi­tion to Holtz­brinck, Vulcan Capi­tal (the invest­ment arm of the foun­da­tion of the late Micro­soft co-foun­der Paul Allen), another Ameri­can VC called Storm Ventures, and the Samsung Cata­lyst Fund, which belongs to the Korean tech­no­logy group of the same name, are also new on board. Of the legacy inves­tors, Yabeo, BBVA, SBI Group, ABN Amro, Global Brain, Hegus and Lake­star went along. Sola­ris­bank head of stra­tegy Layla Qassim: “We had a slight over­hang of stra­te­gic share­hol­ders so far. That’s why we focu­sed a bit more on finan­cial inves­tors this time around.”

Inte­res­t­ing: The press release menti­ons that Deut­sche Bank supported the round as “private place­ment agent”. “In our first two finan­cing rounds, we got by without an accom­pany­ing bank. This time we deli­bera­tely chose a diffe­rent path — because: A company at our stage can use good friends. And with Deut­sche Bank we have now found such a friend,” says CEO Folz. The obvious ques­tion as to whether this also means that a decis­ion has alre­ady been made as to which finan­cial insti­tu­tion could one day accom­pany Sola­ris­bank to the stock exch­ange, was not answe­red by Folz with the equally obvious sentence: “Of course, it will be Deut­sche Bank”. Instead, he empha­si­zed that an IPO was not on the agenda for the next two years in any case, and that it was only “one conceiva­ble option among seve­ral” for the time after that.

What is to happen now with the 60 million euros? ‑Capture the losses expec­ted at least for this year and next Drive Euro­pean expan­sion. Howe­ver, Sola­ris­bank (employees curr­ently: 310) intends to conti­nue to do this prima­rily from Berlin; foreign offices are to be opened only in isola­ted cases.

 

Unigestion Private Equity raises direct and secondary funds

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Geneva — Uniges­tion, the inde­pen­dent specia­li­zed asset mana­ger, comple­ted the third closing of its private equity direct fund Uniges­tion Direct II in May, brin­ging the total size of the fund to 375 million euros.

The final target figure is 600 million euros. In June, the fund also comple­ted its second invest­ment. In addi­tion, the first closing of the secon­dary fund Uniges­tion Secon­dary V, with a total volume of EUR 228 million (EUR 700 million final target volume), took place on June 10.

The success of these deals reflects inves­tors’ appe­tite for expo­sure to direct and secon­dary market tran­sac­tions in small and mid-sized compa­nies in the private equity market in the current econo­mic environment.

As the impact of the COVID-19 pande­mic is felt in finan­cial markets, Uniges­tion anti­ci­pa­tes a growing number of attrac­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties going forward, as a result of lower valua­tions, limi­ted avai­la­bi­lity of debt capi­tal and an increase in poten­tial sellers.

Both funds conti­nue to attract well-known inves­tors from North America, Austra­lia and Europe, inclu­ding pres­ti­gious corpo­ra­ti­ons, pension funds and high net worth investors.

Uniges­tion Direct II
Uniges­tion Direct II’s stra­tegy is to build a port­fo­lio of direct invest­ments in small and medium-sized compa­nies in sectors whose growth is driven by long-term trends. The fund invests in compa­nies that are resi­li­ent on their own merits thanks to their strong market posi­tio­ning, manage­ment and finan­cial strength. This gives inves­tors expo­sure to a port­fo­lio of robust compa­nies that are able to execute their growth plans regard­less of market conditions.

With more than 20 years of direct invest­ment expe­ri­ence, Uniges­tion parti­ci­pa­tes in tran­sac­tions as both a co-signer and co-initia­tor/initia­tor, toge­ther with fund mana­gers specia­li­zing in small and mid-sized compa­nies and other invest­ment part­ners in Europe, North America and Asia. Uniges­tion takes an active role during due dili­gence and is able to create favorable tran­sac­tion condi­ti­ons in most cases.

With a global team of 40 private equity profes­sio­nals, Uniges­tion sources direct invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties from its network of more than 500 invest­ment part­ners, inclu­ding specia­li­zed fund mana­gers, spon­sors and other indus­try experts, as well as directly from busi­ness owners.

Uniges­tion Secon­dary V
Uniges­tion Secon­dary V invests in small, non-auction secon­dary market tran­sac­tions with a volume of less than EUR 50 million, focu­sing on port­fo­lios of high-quality compa­nies with attrac­tive valua­tions. With more than two deca­des of expe­ri­ence, Uniges­tion is one of the pioneers in the global secon­dary market. The exper­tise includes, in parti­cu­lar, custo­mi­zed and often more complex liqui­dity solutions.

Uniges­tion acqui­res secon­dary market tran­sac­tions from its broad network of Gene­ral Part­ners (GPs), Limi­ted Part­ners, Small Inter­me­dia­ries and selec­ted specia­li­zed Secon­dary Direct Mana­gers. Unigestion’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the global small and mid-cap market gives it access to tran­sac­tions outside the hunting grounds of other secon­dary inves­tors. As such, Uniges­tion is able to offer a port­fo­lio of secon­dary market tran­sac­tions that are typi­cally uncor­re­la­ted to the broa­der secon­dary market.

Uniges­tion follows a thorough due dili­gence process, which is why the focus is on port­fo­lios of compa­nies with solid busi­ness models and clear exit oppor­tu­ni­ties. Conse­quently, returns are deter­mi­ned by future company perfor­mance and are not depen­dent on leverage or discounts.

“These fund closures are a testa­ment to our long track record of inves­t­ing in small and mid-sized compa­nies. We focus on small and medium-sized compa­nies opera­ting in attrac­tive sectors where growth is not depen­dent on macroe­co­no­mic condi­ti­ons. Ther­e­fore, we are convin­ced that we will bene­fit from the oppor­tu­ni­ties arising from the excep­tio­nal condi­ti­ons we are curr­ently expe­ri­en­cing,” says Chris­to­phe De Dardel, Head of Private Equity at Uniges­tion.

Paragon acquires the WEKA group of companies

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — Para­gon Part­ners, one of the leading private equity firms in Europe, acqui­res all shares in WEKA Firmen­gruppe, a leading provi­der of specia­list infor­ma­tion, soft­ware, trai­ning & services for the DACH region and France.

Dr. Edin Hadzic (photo), co-foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Para­gon Part­ners, says: “WEKA is an impres­sive success story, which we as a new share­hol­der want to conti­nue with the manage­ment team and employees. We want to conti­nue to streng­then the diver­si­fied struc­ture and the entre­pre­neu­rial culture of the group of compa­nies. The further deve­lo­p­ment of markets, products and the digi­tiza­tion of corpo­rate proces­ses will conti­nue to be a prio­rity in the future. Targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons to comple­ment the port­fo­lio will remain part of the corpo­rate stra­tegy. We welcome WEKA to the Para­gon family and look forward to working with them.”

Wolf­gang Mate­rna, Mana­ging Direc­tor of WEKA Holding: “I am deligh­ted to have found in Para­gon Part­ners a share­hol­der with excel­lent refe­ren­ces, deter­mi­na­tion and relia­bi­lity who, thanks to his expe­ri­ence in the media indus­try, brings with him all the prere­qui­si­tes for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the WEKA Group and with whom we see the future of WEKA, our employees and our busi­ness part­ners in good hands. We are deligh­ted to be part of the Para­gon family. The manage­ment and employees of the WEKA Group will also give their all for the successful conti­nua­tion of the busi­ness in the new share­hol­der structure.”

About WEKA
WEKA was foun­ded in 1973 by Werner and Karin Mützel as a specia­list publi­shing house for admi­nis­tra­tion and indus­try. Over the past deca­des, WEKA has deve­lo­ped into a diver­si­fied media group and has taken a leading market posi­tion by offe­ring a broad range of specia­list infor­ma­tion and formats. The WEKA group of compa­nies is head­quar­te­red in Kissing (Germany) and compri­ses 23 compa­nies in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and France. WEKA gene­ra­tes annual sales of around EUR 250 million and employs a total of 1,500 people.

In the “Busi­ness Infor­ma­tion & Educa­tion” segment, WEKA offers expert know­ledge via print, digi­tal (e.g. online content/databases, soft­ware, e‑learning) and face-to-face formats (e.g. semi­nars, conti­nuing educa­tion and trai­ning). The focus is on regu­la­tory and/ or tech­ni­cal know­ledge and the inno­va­tions based on it in speci­fic niches, such as occu­pa­tio­nal safety, hazar­dous mate­ri­als, law and taxes, or denti­stry. Content is prepared in such a way that it can be directly applied in prac­tice and thus seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into the customer’s workflow.

The “Busi­ness Commu­ni­ca­tion” segment provi­des specia­list infor­ma­tion via print (prima­rily maga­zi­nes) and digi­tal, event and service formats for various indus­tries. These include, for exam­ple, indus­tries such as elec­tro­nics, ITC and buil­ding tech­no­logy. The focus is on jour­na­li­stic brands as well as speci­fic data and services that inform parti­ci­pants and inte­res­ted parties in the respec­tive target markets. www.weka-holding.de

About Para­gon Partners
Foun­ded in 2004, Para­gon is today one of the leading private equity compa­nies in the German-spea­king region with more than EUR 1.2 billion in equity under manage­ment. Para­gon works closely with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to ensure sustainable growth and improve opera­tio­nal proces­ses. The invest­ment port­fo­lio spans various indus­tries (e.g., Industrial/ Profes­sio­nal Services, IP Manage­ment, Media Analy­tics) and curr­ently compri­ses 14 compa­nies. The company is based in Munich, Germany. www.paragon.de

BayBG acquires minority stake in SAV

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich/Nuremberg — The clam­ping tech­no­logy company SAV GmbH, Nurem­berg, announ­ces a capi­tal increase. The new capi­tal comes from BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, which takes over 20 percent of the company’s shares as a mino­rity share­hol­der and at the same time contri­bu­tes a silent part­ner­ship. BayBG’s invest­ment will enable SAV, which has annual sales of €27 million at sites in Nurem­berg, Mitt­weida and Göppin­gen, to conti­nue its deve­lo­p­ment into an engi­nee­ring specia­list and thus successfully complete the restruc­tu­ring process of recent years.

As one of the few full-range suppli­ers, SAV can draw on many years of exper­tise in magne­tic, rotary and statio­nary clam­ping and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons, giving the company a high level of solu­tion compe­tence for all clam­ping tech­no­logy requi­re­ments in a wide range of indus­tries. Well-known compa­nies from the fields of mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, trans­port and traf­fic, agri­cul­tu­ral tech­no­logy, aero­space and medi­cal tech­no­logy are among SAV’s custo­mer port­fo­lio. Inde­pen­dent product deve­lo­p­ments form a focal point of the further orientation.

SAV is also incre­asingly rely­ing on intel­li­gent auto­ma­tion concepts, such as the robot cell deve­lo­ped in-house. Martin Schach­erl, Mana­ging Direc­tor of SAV, is very plea­sed with the new inves­tor: “With BayBG, we have gained a very expe­ri­en­ced new part­ner. The newly acqui­red network and the addi­tio­nal capi­tal give us the free­dom to leverage growth poten­tial, for further deve­lo­p­ments and for opening up new markets. We are convin­ced that the coope­ra­tion will be very successful for both sides.”

Thomas Becher, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger of BayBG, adds: “We were parti­cu­larly convin­ced by the expe­ri­en­ced and compe­tent SAV manage­ment team. With its consis­tent further focus on beco­ming an engi­nee­ring specia­list, the company is tapping addi­tio­nal poten­tial as a provi­der of clam­ping tech­no­logy solutions.”

About BayBG
With an inves­ted volume of more than 300 million euros, BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH is one of the largest venture capi­tal and private equity inves­tors and provi­ders of mezza­nine finance for medium-sized compa­nies. It curr­ently has a commit­ment of over 300 million euros. With its venture capi­tal and equity invest­ments, it enables medium-sized compa­nies and start-ups to imple­ment inno­va­tion and growth projects, arrange for company succes­sion or opti­mize their capi­tal structure.

EQT Infrastructure II sells Hector Rail to Ancala Infrastructure

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

GOF advi­ses EQT Infra­struc­ture II in connec­tion with the sale of Hector Rail Group to Ancala Infrastructure

Munich, June 18, 2020 — Corpo­rate law firms Vinge and Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed EQT Infra­struc­ture II in connec­tion with the conclu­sion of an agree­ment to sell Hector Rail Group (photo: Hector Rail) to Ancala’s Euro­pean Infra­struc­ture Fund II. Vinge acted as lead coun­sel; GOF advi­sed on the German legal aspects of the transaction.

Hector Rail is the largest private rail freight opera­tor in Scan­di­na­via and has signi­fi­cant opera­ti­ons in Germany. With a fleet of over 100 loco­mo­ti­ves and 400 employees, inclu­ding about 250 drivers, the company trans­ports goods for a wide range of custo­mers. — EQT Infra­struc­ture II had acqui­red Hector Rail in Novem­ber 2014.

Legal advi­sors EQT:
Vinge, Stock­holm: Daniel Rosvall, Karl Klacken­berg, Milad Kamali, Olivia Belding (all M&A), Mikael Ståhl, Axel Jans­son (both Banking/Finance), Mathilda Pers­son (Commer­cial Agree­ments) and Kris­toffer Säll­fors (Regu­la­tory).
Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich: Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Banking/Finance, Lead), Thomas Becker (of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Software), Chris­to­pher Ghabel (Senior Asso­ciate, Banking/Finance), Karl Ehren­berg (Asso­ciate, M&A).
Held Jagut­tis, Colo­gne: Dr. Simeon Held, Dr. Malte Jagut­tis, Bernard Altpe­ter (all Regulatory)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

SMP advises proptech Homeday on Euro 40 million financing round

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Berlin — SMP advi­sed Berlin-based proptech Home­day on its latest finan­cing round. The joint venture consis­ting of Axel Sprin­ger and Purple­bricks is again inves­t­ing in the company. As part of this finan­cing round with a total volume of 40 million euros, the joint venture increa­ses its stake in Home­day to over 54%. Accor­ding to its own state­ments, the online portal, which specia­li­zes in the brokerage of brokers, plans to invest the capi­tal raised in tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment and further expan­sion. Home­day recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice from SMP part­ners Martin Scha­per and Peter Möllmann.

About Home­day
Home­day is a proptech company based in Berlin. In 2015, Home­day was foun­ded by Stef­fen Wicker, Dmitri Uvarov­ski and Phil­ipp Reichle and has since been broke­ring real estate agents across Germany via its online plat­form. The tech­no­logy company employs around 200 people and 180 inde­pen­dent Home­day brokers across Germany.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

Advi­sors to Home­day: SMP Schnitt­ker Möll­mann Partners
Dr. Martin Scha­per, Photo (Lead), Partner
Dr. Peter Möll­mann, Partner

Lilium air cab receives USD 35 million from Tesla investor Baillie Gifford

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — British inves­tor Bail­lie Gifford is inves­t­ing $35 million in Munich-based air cab deve­lo­per Lilium. Gifford is Tesla’s largest inves­tor after Elon Musk.

Most recently, Chinese Inter­net group Tencent, Atomico, Frei­geist and LGT inves­ted $240 million in the company. A total of 275 million was thus inves­ted in Lilium in the current invest­ment round. In this latest round of funding, Lilium reaches a billion-dollar valua­tion. The air cab manu­fac­tu­rer was foun­ded in 2015 by four engi­neers Daniel Wiegand, Sebas­tian Born, Patrick Nathen and Matthias Meiner.

The German startup has deve­lo­ped an all-elec­tric passen­ger jet (photo Lilium) that can take off and land vertically.

Waterland: Althera umbrella brand for physiotherapy chain

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Gelsen­kir­chen / Hamburg — The physio­the­rapy service provi­der Reha­con , which opera­tes in more than 120 faci­li­ties nati­on­wide, has intro­du­ced a new umbrella brand, ATHERA. At the same time, majo­rity share­hol­der Water­land Private Equity is conti­nuing the buy-and-build stra­tegy at its port­fo­lio company and inte­gra­ting two more physio­the­rapy provi­ders into the group: GANTZE Zentrum für Gesund­heit and Physio­the­ra­pie Rosita Boose will in future be part of the high-growth health­care brand from Gelsen­kir­chen. The tran­sac­tions, the details of which have been agreed not to be disc­lo­sed, are expec­ted to be comple­ted in July.

ATHERA, form­erly Reha­con, has been successfully opera­ting physio­the­rapy prac­ti­ces in Germany for more than 25 years and has become one of Germany’s leading provi­ders in the field of physio­the­rapy and reha­bi­li­ta­tion, employ­ing nearly 1,000 people. The Group’s new umbrella brand stands for a uniform promise of quality for pati­ents and employees; the gradual roll-out of the new image will be flan­ked by targe­ted invest­ments in the infra­struc­ture of the faci­li­ties and the expan­sion of the service port­fo­lio. The inde­pen­dent invest­ment company Water­land had joined the company about a year ago; since then, the group has grown by six acquisitions.

Water­land is now conti­nuing this dyna­mic growth course and is making two further add-on acqui­si­ti­ons with ATHERA: GANTZE Zentrum für Gesund­heit, based in Wert­in­gen, Bava­ria, covers reha­bi­li­ta­tion programs and preven­tion cour­ses with a broad service port­fo­lio in addi­tion to the areas of physio­the­rapy, hand therapy and occu­pa­tio­nal therapy. Physio­the­rapy Rosita Boose is also one of the market leaders in her region (Halle, Saale). In addi­tion to the physio­the­rapy services with a focus on manual therapy, the prac­tice offers a wide range of preven­tion courses.

“Through the acqui­si­ti­ons, we are streng­thening our prac­tice network in southern and eastern Germany and expan­ding our range of services in important key areas,” says ATHERA CEO Albrecht Grell. “The new part­ners thus join a group that has been able to faci­li­tate the smooth conti­nua­tion of prac­ti­ces for the bene­fit of pati­ents and staff, espe­ci­ally during a chal­len­ging time like the Corona lock­down that is behind us. In the Corona crisis, the strength of our large network of prac­ti­ces and the high level of commit­ment of our employees were again clearly demons­tra­ted. For exam­ple, employees were gran­ted paid special leave for child­care and short-time allo­wan­ces were topped up. Stron­ger prac­ti­ces supported those that strug­g­led more.”

Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner of Water­landadds: “Buy-and-build stra­te­gies pursue the idea of crea­ting market leaders. Through our focu­sed approach, we have built an excel­lently posi­tio­ned group of compa­nies that is strong enough to make acqui­si­ti­ons even in diffi­cult times. We stand by contracts nego­tia­ted before the Covid 19 pande­mic without compro­mise and look forward to the two new part­ners in our group. GANTZE Center for Health and Physio­the­rapy Rosita Boose will become part of a company that conti­nues to streng­then through a large network of experts, exch­an­ges with each other and the in-house trai­ning faci­lity ATHERA Academy.”

Water­land has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care market. In addi­tion to MEDIAN, the leading private provi­der in Germany with more than 120 reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics, the company port­fo­lio in this sector also includes the ATOS clinic group, which specia­li­zes in ortho­pe­dics, the care service provi­der Schö­nes Leben, and the sports and fitness aggre­ga­tor Hansefit.

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 (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the United King­dom (Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, six billion euros in equity funds are under management.

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.

Alpha Foods sells to Vendis Capital’s portfolio company Sylphar

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Berlin — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Osborne Clarke has advi­sed Alpha Foods on the sale of its food busi­ness to Vendis Capital’s port­fo­lio company Sylphar.

Fast-growing OTC company Sylphar, which part­ne­red with Vendis Capi­tal in May 2017 to acce­le­rate its growth both orga­ni­cally and through buy-and-build acqui­si­ti­ons, has moved a step closer to its goal of beco­ming one of Europe’s leading omnich­an­nel play­ers in consu­mer health with the acqui­si­tion of Alpha Foods, an estab­lished supplier of dietary supple­ments and vegan nutri­tion products to the German market.

Alpha Foods, foun­ded by Wolf­gang Dorf­ner, deve­lops, markets and distri­bu­tes a range of nutri­tio­nal supple­ments and vegan nutri­tio­nal products, which are sold through the company’s own web store as well as Amazon. Due to his former acti­vi­ties at Face­book and Google, Wolf­gang Dorf­ner has profound know-how regar­ding online plat­forms and was thus able to build a passio­nate online commu­nity for Alpha Foods.

Wolf­gang Dorf­ner will join Sylphar to further drive Alpha Foods’ growth and bring his online marke­ting exper­tise to the other brands in the group.

The Osborne Clarke team, led by Robin Eyben (Corporate/M&A), consis­ted of Thies Gold­ner, Alex­an­dra Nautsch (both Corporate/M&A), Konstan­tin Ewald, Leonie Schnei­der (both IP/IT) and Florian Merkle (Tax). Also invol­ved were lawy­ers from Osborne Clarke Belgium: David Haex, Laurant De Pauw (both Corpo­rate, M&A) and Benja­min Docquir (IP/IT). From Best Friends law firm Venable (USA), Thomas Baxter (Corporate/M&A) supported.

Silver Investment Partners acquires specialty pharmaceutical distributor Lucien Ortscheit

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Saarbrücken/ Frank­furt a. Main — Silver Invest­ment Part­ners (SIP) acqui­res specialty phar­maceu­ti­cal distri­bu­tor Lucien Ortscheit. King & Wood Malle­sons (KWM) advi­sed Silver Invest­ment Part­ners (SIP) on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Lucien Ortscheit GmbH (Lucien Ortscheit).

Lucien Ortscheit, based in Saar­brü­cken, Germany, is a leading inter­na­tio­nal specialty phar­maceu­ti­cal distri­bu­tor with a focus on unli­cen­sed medi­ci­nes and clini­cal trial compa­ra­tors. The company trades world­wide in medi­ci­nes that are tempo­r­a­rily unavailable or unap­pro­ved in the target coun­try. Lucien Ortscheit was foun­ded in 1963 and taken over by the Kloos family in 2002. Since its foun­da­tion, the company has steadily deve­lo­ped and today alre­ady counts seve­ral thousand custo­mers from over 60 count­ries among its widely diver­si­fied and loyal custo­mer base.

SIP is an inde­pen­dent inves­tor for equity finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. As an entre­pre­neu­rial, expe­ri­en­ced and relia­ble part­ner, SIP is invol­ved in majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments in compa­nies with sales between 5 and 100 million euros, with a focus on compa­nies with sales between 10 and 50 million euros.

The previous owners, the Kloos family, will retain a mino­rity stake in the company. Mr. Kloos will conti­nue to be respon­si­ble for the opera­tio­nal busi­ness as Mana­ging Direc­tor in the medium term. SIP supports Lucien Ortscheit’s sustainable growth stra­tegy. To further deve­lop the company, growth oppor­tu­ni­ties such as inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, expan­sion of the product range and further suita­ble acqui­si­ti­ons in the natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal attrac­tive niche market are to be exploited.

Advi­sors Silver Invest­ment Part­ners: King & Wood Mallesons
Dr. Michael Roos (Part­ner), Dr. Peter Polke (Coun­sel), Dr. Katrin Thoma (Asso­ciate), Lorenz Liebsch (Asso­ciate), Simon Brandt (PSL) (all Corporate/M&A);
Markus Hill (Part­ner), Vikto­ria Rosbach (Asso­ciate) (both Tax)

CGS: Portfolio company EOL Packaging Experts acquires majority stake in BMS Maschinenfabrik

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Hano­ver — The private equity inves­tor CGS Manage­ment AG(CGS) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in BMS Maschi­nen­fa­brik GmbH, Pfat­ter, through its port­fo­lio company, EOL Pack­a­ging Experts GmbH, Kirchlen­gern. Ebner Stolz accom­pa­nied the tran­sac­tion on the buyer side by prepa­ring a finan­cial and tax due diligence.

The inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting EOL Group, consis­ting of EOL Pack­a­ging Experts GmbH and its subsi­dia­ries, A+F Auto­ma­tion + Förder­tech­nik GmbH, Kirchlen­gern, and Stan­dard-Knapp Inc., Portland/USA, has many years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and marke­ting of end-of-line pack­a­ging machi­nes and systems.

With this new invest­ment, the EOL Group is further advan­cing its stra­te­gic plan­ning and orien­ta­tion to be the market leader for end-of-line pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons for the food and beverage indus­try. BMS Maschi­nen­fa­brik GmbH is an estab­lished system provi­der for inno­va­tive sort­ing systems, modern dry parts solu­ti­ons and flexi­ble repack­a­ging solutions.

Ebner Stolz has alre­ady advi­sed CGS on various tran­sac­tions in the past. In the course of the majo­rity invest­ment in BMS Maschi­nen­fa­brik GmbH, Ebner Stolz supported CGS in the context of a finan­cial and tax due diligence.

Team Ebner Stolz: Hans-Peter Möller, photo (lead part­ner), Stef­fen Fleit­mann (both finan­cial due dili­gence), Chris­tian Mertens, Karina Minich (tax due diligence)

 

Optimas Group sells its companies to Accursia Capital

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — GSK Stock­mann advi­sed Opti­mas Group on the sale of its compa­nies in Germany, Italy, Belgium and Bulga­ria to Munich-based Accur­sia Capi­tal.

Opti­mas is the world’s leading indus­trial distri­bu­tor and service provi­der specia­li­zing in fastening and supply chain solu­ti­ons for manu­fac­tu­r­ers looking to improve effi­ci­ency and profi­ta­bi­lity. Opti­mas is owned by Ameri­can Indus­trial Part­ners, a New York (USA) based private equity firm focu­sed on the mid-cap segment.

The four compa­nies, with a total of around 230 employees and annual sales of around EUR 70 million, will operate under the name “Strong­hold” in the future.

Nunzi­ante Magrone Studio Legale Asso­ciato (Rome) advi­sed on the Italian legal aspects of the transaction.

Advi­sor Opti­mas Group: GSK Stockmann
Dr. Markus Söhn­chen (F’oto), Dr. Gerhard Gündel (Corporate/M&A), Domi­nik Berka (Tax), Dr. Phil­ipp Kuhn (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Lieor Koblenz (Corporate/M&A), Nicole Depa­rade (Labor Law)

About Accur­sia Capital
Our stra­tegy pursues a long-term invest­ment hori­zon. The over­ri­ding objec­tive is to expand the indus­trial holding company by acqui­ring comple­men­tary compa­nies and to increase the compe­ti­ti­ve­ness of the indi­vi­dual holdings through syner­gies. Our invest­ment focus is on compa­nies with increased poten­tial for opera­tio­nal value growth.

We take respon­si­bi­lity for our port­fo­lio. We support our port­fo­lio compa­nies in all opera­tio­nal, finan­cial and stra­te­gic issues with the aim of incre­asing their compe­ti­ti­ve­ness and profi­ta­bi­lity. In addi­tion to capi­tal for invest­ment and growth, we support the manage­ment of the acqui­red compa­nies with exten­sive entre­pre­neu­rial experience.

Daetwyler: Management buy-out supported by BPE

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Hamburg, Walters­hau­sen — Daet­wy­ler has sold its civil engi­nee­ring busi­ness to repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the exis­ting manage­ment team. The manage­ment buy-out was supported by the Hamburg-based invest­ment company BPE, which has specia­li­zed in tran­sac­tions in the German SME sector for over 20 years (photo: BPE manage­ment team).

Daet­wy­ler Seal­ing Tech­no­lo­gies Deutsch­land GmbH, inclu­ding the asso­cia­ted opera­ting real estate, is being sold. The company combi­nes the civil engi­nee­ring busi­ness with elas­to­mer profiles for appli­ca­ti­ons in tunnels, civil engi­nee­ring and track super­s­truc­tures at the German site in Walters­hau­sen. Around 180 employees gene­rate annual sales of appro­xi­m­ately CHF 40 million. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transactions.

Follo­wing the previously announ­ced sale of the Distrelec and Nedis distri­bu­tion compa­nies, the Daet­wy­ler Group will in future focus on high-growth, high-margin seal­ing compon­ents for attrac­tive global markets such as health­care, mobi­lity, oil & gas, food & beverage and gene­ral industry.

About Daet­wy­ler Holding Inc.
Datwy­ler is a leading provi­der of high-quality, system-criti­cal elas­to­mer compon­ents. Datwy­ler is focu­sing on high-quality, system-criti­cal elas­to­mer compon­ents and has leading posi­ti­ons in attrac­tive global markets such as health­care, mobi­lity, oil & gas and food & beverage. With its reco­gni­zed core compe­ten­cies and tech­no­lo­gi­cal leader­ship, the company deli­vers added value to custo­mers in the markets served. Datwy­ler concen­tra­tes on markets that offer oppor­tu­ni­ties to create more value and sustain profi­ta­ble growth. With a global presence with more than 20 opera­ting compa­nies, sales in over 100 count­ries and more than 7,000 employees Datwy­ler, head­quar­te­red in Switz­er­land, gene­ra­tes annual sales of more than CHF 1,000 million. The Group has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exch­ange since 1986 (secu­rity no. 3048677).

About BPE Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH
Philo­so­phy: “As a specia­list in manage­ment buy-outs/ins, we have been turning mana­gers into entre­pre­neurs since 1998 and streng­thening, crea­ting or safe­guar­ding the inde­pen­dence and inno­va­tive strength of German SMEs.” The company’s philo­so­phy is to provide more than just equity. The aim is to work towards opti­mi­zing the company after it has been taken over by support­ing its opera­tio­nal manage­ment. This may include an opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic realignment to be initia­ted by the manage­ment of the company, the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and realiza­tion of orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth poten­tial in order to sustain­ably increase the value of the company.

Maxburg Capital acquires saracus consulting group

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — Maxburg Betei­li­gun­gen III (“Maxburg”), an invest­ment company advi­sed by Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the sara­cus consul­ting group. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive tax advice to Maxburg in connec­tion with the tran­sac­tion. Photo: Moritz Greve, foun­der of Maxburg Capi­tal Partners.

sara­cus consul­ting deve­lops custo­mi­zed on-premise and cloud-based solu­ti­ons in the areas of Data Manage­ment, Data Warehouse, Data Analy­tics & Data Science as well as Busi­ness Intel­li­gence. Current focus topics are the cloud migra­tion of analy­ti­cal and dispo­si­tive systems as well as the analy­sis of big data using AI-based methods such as self-lear­ning algo­rithms or neural networks. The company was foun­ded in 1991. Custo­mers include insu­rance compa­nies, finan­cial service provi­ders and public administration.

Maxburg is an invest­ment company focu­sed on the German-spea­king region, which invests with a flexi­ble mandate along the capi­tal struc­ture in priva­tely held as well as listed compa­nies. The Maxburg invest­ment compa­nies have capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling around EUR 600 million at their disposal.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive tax advice to Maxburg with the follo­wing Munich team: Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Lead, Tax Law), Gerald Herr­mann (Coun­sel, Tax Law), Tobias Deschen­halm (Asso­ciate, Tax Law).

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners regu­larly advi­ses Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners on tax matters, most recently for exam­ple on the acqui­si­tion of majo­rity stakes in the tech­no­logy company STARFACE GmbH and GfS — Gesell­schaft für Sicher­heits­tech­nik mbH.

VR Equitypartner portfolio company Kälte Eckert buys Gartner, Keil & Co

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt am Main / Mark­grö­nin­gen — Kälte Eckert GmbH, a refri­ge­ra­tion equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer based in Mark­grö­nin­gen, Germany, has acqui­red Gart­ner, Keil & Co Klima- und Kälte­tech­nik GmbH. The seller of the shares is the hitherto sole share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor Frank Keil, who will conti­nue to manage the company opera­tio­nally. The aims of the part­ner­ship are to expand the service network and the quali­fied employee base and to bundle know-how. For the port­fo­lio company of VR Equi­typ­art­ner (photo: Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor), this is the second add-on acqui­si­tion within a few months: Only in Novem­ber 2019, the merger with Günther Kälte­tech­nik laid the foun­da­tion for a successful plat­form strategy.

Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, Part­ner at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, advi­sed Kälte Eckert GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of Gart­ner, Keil & Co Klima- und Kälte­tech­nik GmbH.

Gart­ner, Keil & Co. Klima- und Kälte­tech­nik GmbH specia­li­zes in consul­ting and sales of indi­vi­dua­li­zed systems in the fields of refri­ge­ra­tion and air condi­tio­ning tech­no­logy, cold storage tech­no­logy, cold and deep-freeze rooms as well as special plant engi­nee­ring. Foun­ded in 1990, the company is based in Neuluß­heim, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, and employs 16 people.

Kälte Eckert GmbH has focu­sed on special plant engi­nee­ring for commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion with an empha­sis on indus­trial kitchens, indus­trial refri­ge­ra­tion and air condi­tio­ning. In addi­tion, the company is the nati­on­wide tech­no­logy leader in the field of alter­na­tive ecolo­gi­cal coolants. Custo­mers include Daim­ler, UniCre­dit and LBBW. The company was foun­ded in 1966 and is now mana­ged by Michael Eckert and Holger Eckert, the sons of the company founder.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in finding stra­te­gic solu­ti­ons to complex finan­cing issues. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio includes around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.

Herschlein’s team most recently advi­sed Kälte Eckert on its merger with Günther Kälte­tech­nik GmbH in Novem­ber 2019.

Advi­sors to VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (Lead, Corpo­rate), Stuttgart
Char­lotte Schmitt, LL.M. (Corpo­rate, M&A), Stuttgart

About VR Equitypartner
VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in finding stra­te­gic solu­ti­ons to complex finan­cing issues. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio includes around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.

Investcorp Technology Partners acquires majority stake in AVIRA

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Tett­nang — Euro­pean tech­no­logy inves­tor Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Avira Holding GmbH & Co KG and ALV GmbH & Co KG (“Avira”) for US $180 million. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the sellers and the Avira manage­ment in the course of the transaction.

Avira is a multi­na­tio­nal company for soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the field of cyber secu­rity and anti-virus programs with head­quar­ters in Tett­nang, Baden-Würt­tem­berg. Avira serves both the OEM (origi­nal equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer) and consu­mer end markets and protects over 500 million end devices world­wide. Foun­ded in 1986, the company focu­ses on anti-malware, threat intel­li­gence and IoT solu­ti­ons. Avira soft­ware protects against viru­ses and malware and provi­des users with secu­rity for online iden­tity as well as for finan­ces and other private data.

The buyer, Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners, focu­ses on inves­t­ing in mid-market tech­no­logy compa­nies with a focus on data, analy­tics, IT secu­rity and fintech/payments. The Avira acqui­si­tion is the seventh deal from the $400 million fourth tech­no­logy fund and the third acqui­si­tion of a soft­ware company in the DACH region in 18 months, noted Gilbert Kami­e­niecky (pictu­red), mana­ging direc­tor and head of Investcorp’s tech­no­logy private equity divi­sion.

Advi­sors to AVIRA: P+P provi­ded legal and tax advice with the follo­wing Munich team
Otto Haber­stock, M.C.J. (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Private Equity), Gerald Herr­mann (Coun­sel, Tax), Laura Grei­mel (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity), Annika Jung­in­ger (née Anders, Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity).

DMK sells sanotact to family office of the Piëch-Nordhoff family

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Zeven — REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance advi­sed DMK Group on the sale of its subsi­diary sanot­act GmbH to the family office of the Piëch-Nord­hoff family through its invest­ment arm FLOTTE Holding.

sanot­act is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal specialty suppli­ers of nutri­tio­nal supple­ments, such as effer­ve­s­cent tablets with vitamins and mine­rals and lactase products, which are sold in Europe, Asia and Africa. In Germany, sanot­act is mainly repre­sen­ted in drugs­to­res and food retail­ers. With 190 employees, sanot­act produ­ces and distri­bu­tes not only dietary supple­ments but also func­tional confec­tion­ery, espe­ci­ally breath fres­he­ners and dextrose products. Many consu­mers are fami­liar with the colorful dextrose rolls of the “intact” brand from phar­macies; with a market share of 60 percent, sanot­act has been the market leader there for more than 30 years. Through focu­sed expan­sion of the product range and the deve­lo­p­ment of new, inter­na­tio­nal sales markets, the company has deve­lo­ped very successfully in recent years.

DMK Group wants to focus on its core compe­tence dairy products in the future and has ther­e­fore deci­ded to divest under the lead of REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance. FLOTTE Holding was able to prevail in a compe­ti­tive M&A bidding process against natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal stra­te­gic inte­res­ted parties, finan­cial inves­tors and other family offices. The manage­ment has inves­ted in the company toge­ther with FLOTTE and will conti­nue the successful growth strategy.

With sales of 5.6 billion euros and 7,700 employees, DMK Group is the largest dairy coope­ra­tive in Germany and one of the leading dairy compa­nies in Europe. The product port­fo­lio ranges from cheese, dairy products and ingre­di­ents to baby food, ice cream and whey products with brands such as MILRAM, Olden­bur­ger, Unie­kaas, Alete and Humana.

The acqui­rer FLOTTE Holding is the invest­ment arm of the Piëch-Nord­hoff family, which is in the process of buil­ding a direct invest­ment port­fo­lio focu­sed on sustainable companies.

About REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance
REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance specia­li­zes in advi­sing on the sale and acqui­si­tion of compa­nies (M&A), MBO/MBI and struc­tu­ring of finan­cing. As “M&A specia­list for medium-sized compa­nies” REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance offers perso­nal M&A consul­ting for owner- and family-mana­ged compa­nies with a turno­ver between EUR 10 million and EUR 100 million as well as their share­hol­ders and inves­tors. Foun­der Kai Sessing­haus (photo) has 25 years of expe­ri­ence in this segment and is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced M&A advi­sors for medium-sized tran­sac­tions in Germany.

Air Liquide sells Schülke to financial investor EQT

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt — Baker McKen­zie advi­ses the French indus­trial gases group Air Liquide on the plan­ned sale of the Schülke Group to the Swedish finan­cial inves­tor EQT. In a bidding process for the sale of Schülke, EQT prevai­led as the bidder. The sale is subject to labor consul­ta­ti­ons and regu­la­tory appr­ovals. In addi­tion to EQT, inves­tors Ardian, PAI and Plati­num were also among the inte­res­ted parties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the tran­sac­tion volume.

Foun­ded in 1889 in Hamburg, Schülke & Mayr GmbH (today: Schülke) is an inter­na­tio­nal leader in the fields of hygiene infec­tion preven­tion(photo: products to prevent conta­mi­na­tion and infec­tion, among others). It supplies disin­fec­tants, anti­sep­tics, preser­va­ti­ves, bioci­des, medi­cal skin care products, deodo­rants and system clea­ners. Schülke employs more than 1,250 people world­wide, distri­bu­tes its products in more than 100 count­ries and, in addi­tion to Germany, also manu­fac­tures in France and Brazil. Schülke’s sales in 2019 were around 335 million euros.

Air Liquide is the global market leader in gases, tech­no­lo­gies and services for indus­try and health­care. With more than 50,000 employees in 80 count­ries, Air Liquide supplies oxygen, nitro­gen, hydro­gen and other gases to more than 2 million custo­mers and patients.

An inter­na­tio­nal team of Baker McKen­zie lawy­ers is advi­sing Air Liquide on the legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion. The advice included the prepa­ra­tion and support of the bidding process and the draf­ting of contracts and nego­tia­ti­ons with seve­ral bidders as well as the carve-out of Schülke from the Air Liquide Group. — In 2019, Baker McKen­zie alre­ady advi­sed Schülke on the sale of its Tech­ni­cal Bioci­des divi­sion to Vink Chemicals.

Legal advi­sor Air Liquide: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Corporate/M&A: Dr. Florian Kästle (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Ulrich Weide­mann (Coun­sel, Frankfurt)

Advi­sors to EQT: Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger (Munich)
Dr. Wessel Heukamp (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Juliane Hilf (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Michael Ramb (Berlin; both Public Commer­cial Law), Dr. Uta Itzen (Anti­trust Law; Düssel­dorf), Dr. Michael Josen­hans (Finance Law; Frank­furt), Dr. David Beutel (Tax), Dr. René Döring (Labor Law; Frank­furt), Juliane Ziebarth (Anti­trust Law; Düsseldorf).

Latham & Watkins: Domi­nic Newcomb (London), Thomas Weit­kamp (Munich), William Lam (London).

Shell Ventures joins InstaFreight

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Berlin — Shell Ventures has announ­ced an invest­ment in Berlin-based digi­tal freight forwar­der Inst­aFreight. The company said it wanted to “help shape the future of the Euro­pean trans­port market”. Follo­wing the funding round, Inst­aFreight will coope­rate with the new backer in expan­ding its digi­tal offe­rings for freight opera­tors in Europe, he said, aiming to further acce­le­rate the digi­tiza­tion of road freight and the trans­for­ma­tion of the freight market.

Most recently, the New York hedge fund 683 Capi­tal had inves­ted a double-digit million sum in Inst­afreight toge­ther with the exis­ting inves­tors. Instafreight’s target group is B2B custo­mers who want to send indi­vi­dual pallets or complete truck­loads on their way. Photo Inst­aFreight (left to right): Markus J. Doetsch, Chief Tech­no­logy Offi­cer, Phil­ipp Ortwein, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor, Maxi­mi­lian Schae­fer, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Director.

Conti­nue growth
The bottom line is that fleet opera­tors are offe­red a conve­ni­ent way to get the right deal, track their vehic­les as they trans­port goods across Europe, and get paid quickly and relia­bly. “The freight forwar­ding indus­try is alre­ady under­go­ing a profound trans­for­ma­tion, in which digi­tal approa­ches are beco­ming more successful and more preva­lent,” belie­ves Phil­ipp Ortwein, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of Inst­aFreight. The company said it intends to use the capi­tal raised to conti­nue its rapid growth, further improve its tech­no­logy and make its services available to even more ship­pers and freight carri­ers across Europe.

Colla­bo­ra­tion in the further deve­lo­p­ment of services
By part­ne­ring with Inst­aFreight, SHELL aims to help carri­ers opti­mize their utiliza­tion with matching busi­ness, become more profi­ta­ble and provide them with real-time visi­bi­lity. Jermaine Saal­tink, Venture Prin­ci­pal of Shell Ventures, was convin­ced by the manage­ment team and the rapid growth that the digi­tal freight forwar­der has achie­ved in a short time. The coope­ra­tion should be more than a one-time finan­cial invest­ment. The two compa­nies will work closely toge­ther on the further deve­lo­p­ment of services. The part­ner­ship opens up the oppor­tu­nity to deve­lop new mobi­lity solu­ti­ons as well as expand and scale exis­ting trans­por­ta­tion solu­ti­ons and drive growth in freight brokerage in inter­na­tio­nal markets, Shell Ventures believes.

About Inst­afreight: The digi­tal freight forwarder
Inst­aFreight sees itself as a digi­tal freight forwar­der for road freight in Europe. Foun­ded in 2016, the company repor­tedly employs more than 100 people across Europe and carries out more than 5,000 trans­ports per month. The digi­tal plat­form bund­les the cargo space of more than 10,000 freight compa­nies, which ship­pers can access.

ARQIS advises coparion and SG Group on Alstin entry into Neodigital insurance company

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS accom­pa­nied the second finan­cing round at Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung AG, a digi­tal property and casu­alty insurer from Neun­kir­chen, on the side of the exis­ting inves­tors, copa­rion and the Schnei­der­Gol­ling Group. In addi­tion to ALSTIN Capi­tal, Mr. Cars­ten Maschmeyer’s venture capi­tal fund (photo), Deut­sche Rück­ver­si­che­rung AG also parti­ci­pa­ted. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the amount of the investment.

Neodi­gi­tal was foun­ded in 2016 by Dirk Witt­ling and Stephen Voss as a consis­t­ently digi­ti­zed insu­rance company and was the first comple­tely digi­tal insu­rance company with a BaFin license in the German market. With market-leading digi­tal proces­ses and an indi­vi­du­ally confi­gura­ble insu­rance buil­ding block, Neodi­gi­tal offers the market an insu­rance-as-a-service model that is unpar­al­le­led in terms of modu­la­rity and perfor­mance. As an insurer, Neodi­gi­tal works with a high degree of auto­ma­tion in ongo­ing opera­ti­ons and claims proces­sing. But also through digi­tal end-to-end commu­ni­ca­tion, Neodi­gi­tal is a pioneer in a market that is often only orien­ted towards new busi­ness and recom­mends itself as an alter­na­tive to pure inven­tory manage­ment systems.
Market parti­ci­pants can use Neodi­gi­tal to quickly and easily deve­lop their own comple­tely digi­ti­zed insu­rance products and launch them on the market imme­dia­tely. In order to catch up digi­tally, the insu­rance indus­try in Germany will be even more depen­dent on digi­tal as-a-service solu­ti­ons in the future.

“We are very plea­sed that our comple­tely digi­tal approach has not only convin­ced custo­mers, sales part­ners and other insu­rance compa­nies, but that we have also been able to inspire new inves­tors with our unique insu­rance-as-a-service model,” explains Stephen Voss, Foun­der and Chief Marke­ting and Sales Offi­cer of Neodi­gi­tal. “The expan­ded group of inves­tors confirms the success of our end-to-end digi­tal busi­ness model and allows us — just one and a half years after ente­ring the market — to signi­fi­cantly expand our offering.”

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze’s team regu­larly advi­ses both clients; toge­ther, for exam­ple, on their entry into Neodi­gi­tal. SG Group most recently on a dive­st­ment to Clark and copa­rion on nume­rous venture investments.

Advi­sor to the inves­tors Schnei­der­Gol­ling and copa­rion: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (lead), Nima Hanifi-Atash­gah, Kamil Flak (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Mirjam Boche (M&A/insurance law)

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.

Afinum acquires LEMCO PRECISION

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich, Janu­ary 2020 — Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by Afinum Manage­ment GmbH, indi­rectly acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Swiss Inter­con­nect Holding SA (“LEMCO PRECISION”). Toge­ther with entre­pre­neur and long-time CEO André Rezzo­nico, who will remain a mino­rity share­hol­der after the tran­sac­tion, Afinum aims to conti­nue the growth of recent years by expan­ding its busi­ness in core inter­na­tio­nal markets and broa­de­ning its product range to include even smal­ler diame­ter cont­acts. Photo (from left): Dr. Gernot Eisin­ger, Dr. Thomas Bühler, both Mana­ging Partners.

LEMCO PRECISION (www.lemco-precision.ch) manu­fac­tures cont­acts for data trans­mis­sion and current flow that are small in diame­ter, high in comple­xity and suita­ble for highly deman­ding appli­ca­tion envi­ron­ments. Because the company guaran­tees the highest quality and zero-defect tole­rance, the cont­acts are used in highly func­tion-criti­cal elec­tro­nics in areas such as commer­cial avia­tion, non-auto­mo­tive trans­por­ta­tion, aero­space, defense, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, indus­trial and other appli­ca­ti­ons. Over the past two deca­des, the company has been able to build very stable rela­ti­onships with the major connec­tor manu­fac­tu­r­ers in North America and Europe. In addi­tion, acqui­si­ti­ons have been comple­ted and compe­ten­cies built up in recent years to gain complete control of the value chain, from the deve­lo­p­ment of a cont­act to surface treat­ment or various other addi­tio­nal services. The company holds a strong posi­tion in a market that is expec­ted to conti­nue to grow rapidly based on the trends of an incre­asing number of end-use appli­ca­ti­ons, an incre­asing density of elec­tro­nics per appli­ca­tion, and a surge in data traf­fic and power flow per elec­tro­nic equipment.

LEMCO PRECISION was foun­ded in 1965 and acqui­red in 1995 by CEO André Rezzo­nico toge­ther with a group of inves­tors. Head­quar­te­red in Monthey, French-spea­king Switz­er­land, the Group employs appro­xi­m­ately 235 people and will gene­rate sales of appro­xi­m­ately 56 MCHF in 2019. By focu­sing on an attrac­tive market segment and buil­ding up highly auto­ma­ted produc­tion faci­li­ties, the company has succee­ded in growing rapidly and profi­ta­bly in recent years. Afinum and André Rezzo­nico aim to address the next phase of growth by buil­ding on long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships, streng­thening the inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness, expan­ding the product range to include small diame­ter cont­acts, and incre­asing the capa­city and effi­ci­ency of the produc­tion faci­li­ties in Switz­er­land as well as worldwide.

The invest­ment in LEMCO PRECISION is the eighth plat­form invest­ment of Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG.

About Afinum
Afinum is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company owned by the manage­ment with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, which specia­li­zes in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe.

Fund managed by ECM acquires majority stake in SIS

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt am Main/Amelinghausen — The fund German Equity Part­ners V (“GEP V” or the “Fund”), mana­ged by the inde­pen­dent German invest­ment company ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”), has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy service provi­der SIS GmbH (“SIS”). SIS specia­li­zes in ther­mal off-gas clea­ning and degas­sing and is an inter­na­tio­nal leader in redu­cing emis­si­ons from vola­tile hydro­car­bons in the oil and gas indus­try through the use of mobile combus­tors. The company’s foun­der Guido Soyk will conti­nue to hold a signi­fi­cant stake in SIS and will lead the company into the next phase of its deve­lo­p­ment as mana­ging part­ner. As part of the tran­sac­tion, sales mana­ger Martin van der Veen will be appoin­ted as second mana­ging direc­tor. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the transaction.

Toge­ther with ECM, the company intends to invest in its further deve­lo­p­ment as well as the targe­ted expan­sion of its manage­ment and sales struc­tures in order to realize the full poten­tial of the solu­ti­ons offe­red by SIS in the exis­ting core market of the oil and gas indus­try and to deve­lop new oppor­tu­ni­ties in further inter­na­tio­nal markets as well as in the chemi­cal indus­try and shipping.

Envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy at the inter­face of occu­pa­tio­nal safety and climate protec­tion SIS was foun­ded in 2008, based in Ameling­hau­sen, with the aim of impro­ving occu­pa­tio­nal safety in the clea­ning of process plants and tanks. For this purpose, as well as for tempo­rary repla­ce­ment when requi­red by custo­mers, the company uses mobile and flexi­ble combus­tion cham­bers deve­lo­ped in-house, which help to avoid the emis­sion of vola­tile hydro­car­bons that are harmful to the envi­ron­ment and to health, as well as being highly flamma­ble. The mobile combus­tors are provi­ded in shifts with appro­priate skil­led person­nel and on-site service as well as comple­men­tary equip­ment as part of a fully inte­gra­ted and compre­hen­sive service and solu­tion offering.

Over the past five years, incre­asingly strin­gent emis­si­ons regu­la­tion as a result of the further deve­lo­p­ment of envi­ron­men­tal and climate policy has become a key driver of demons­tra­ted busi­ness growth. SIS custo­mers include leading global compa­nies in the oil, gas and chemi­cal indus­tries such as BASF, BP, Exxon Mobil, DowChe­mi­cal, Sabic, Shell and Total. Reali­zing growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the core market and opening up the chemi­cal indus­try and ship­ping for SIS solu­ti­ons with ECM as an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner In Germany and the Nether­lands, SIS has a market-leading posi­tion in its previous core indus­try — the Euro­pean refi­nery indus­try. The company still sees considera­ble growth poten­tial here. In addi­tion, there are still great oppor­tu­ni­ties for the use of the solu­ti­ons offe­red by SIS, espe­ci­ally in France and Spain as well as other count­ries in Western Europe.

Another poten­ti­ally large target market is the Euro­pean chemi­cal indus­try, where SIS alre­ady has excel­lent refe­rence custo­mers in BASF and Dow Chemi­cal. In addi­tion, demand for SIS solu­ti­ons is also incre­asing in the ship­ping indus­try. The 15 largest seaports in Europe, as well as nume­rous inland ports, trans­port products that emit vola­tile hydro­car­bons on a large scale. With refe­rence projects in the ports of Rotter­dam, Wilhelms­ha­ven and Bilbao, SIS is excel­lently posi­tio­ned for further growth in this segment. ECM has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in support­ing growth and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­te­gies in medium-sized compa­nies, which has been proven with nume­rous invest­ments in a wide range of industries.

In part­ner­ship with ECM, SIS intends to expand its exis­ting manage­ment and sales struc­tures and make the tran­si­tion from an owner-mana­ged to a manage­ment-mana­ged company. The common goal is to syste­ma­ti­cally seize the growth oppor­tu­ni­ties that present them­sel­ves through a broa­der market approach in the future and targe­ted expan­sion into previously untap­ped sectors and count­ries. In addi­tion to stra­te­gic know-how, ECM also brings a long-stan­ding indus­try network to this part­ner­ship. Guido Soyk, foun­der and CEO of SIS, stated: “We are proud to have been able to deve­lop SIS into the leading company in an extre­mely inte­res­t­ing and incre­asingly rele­vant niche for the reduc­tion of emis­si­ons from fugi­tive hydro­car­bons. In order to fully realize the further growth poten­tial for our solu­ti­ons, we have been looking for a part­ner that fits our mid-sized iden­tity, but at the same time has proven that it can successfully accom­pany ‘hidden cham­pi­ons’ such as SIS on their way to the next stage of deve­lo­p­ment. We look forward to opening a new chap­ter in the history of SIS toge­ther with ECM.”

Alex­an­der Schön­born, Invest­ment Direc­tor at ECM, added: “SIS not only has an impres­sive product and service offe­ring, but also an outstan­ding market posi­tion. It is clear that demand for SIS solu­ti­ons will conti­nue to grow in the face of climate change and incre­asingly strin­gent regu­la­tion of hazar­dous emis­si­ons. Howe­ver, growing beyond a certain size and core market is often a chall­enge for foun­ders. As a growth part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies, we have alre­ady successfully accom­pa­nied this process many times and are plea­sed to support SIS on this path with our expe­ri­ence as well as our indus­try network.”

Advi­sors to ECM Equity: GEP V was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Milbank (legal and struc­tu­ring), Andro­schin & Part­ner (market due dili­gence), Ebner Stolz (finance & tax) and Willis (insu­rance).

Alex­an­der Schön­born, Florian Kähler and Chris­toph Demers are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion at ECM. SIS was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by CFC Corpo­rate Finance Contor and Dr. Thomas Bister (M&A and Legal).

About ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”)
ECM is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company based in Frank­furt am Main. ECM acted or acts as mana­ger respec­tively advi­sor of the equity funds German Equity Part­ners I‑V with an aggre­ga­ted equity of more than EUR 1 billion. The funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished, medium-sized compa­nies in the context of growth invest­ments and succes­sion arran­ge­ments as well as corpo­rate spin-offs. www.ecm.pe.de

About SIS GmbH (“SIS”)
SIS, head­quar­te­red in Ameling­hau­sen, Germany, is the inter­na­tio­nal market leader in the opera­tion of mobile ther­mal exhaust gas clea­ning systems and comple­men­tary equip­ment. The services and tech­no­lo­gies offe­red by SIS play a key role for custo­mers in redu­cing emis­si­ons (espe­ci­ally vola­tile hydro­car­bons). SIS helps them comply with even the stric­test envi­ron­men­tal regu­la­ti­ons. The port­fo­lio of mobile emis­sion control equip­ment is unique on the market in terms of size, quality and safety standards.

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