Munich — Funds advi­sed by DPE Deut­sche Private Equity Manage­ment III GmbH (“DPE”) have sold their stake in SERCOO Group, one of the leading German provi­ders of services for opera­tors of biogas plants and combi­ned heat and power plants and the corre­spon­ding engine tech­no­logy. The buyer was the tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment and energy service provi­der Elevion Group, which will become a leading service provi­der for biogas plants, decen­tra­li­zed coge­nera­tion and engine conver­sion as a result of the acquisition.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion. POELLATH advi­sed DPE on tax law in the context of the tran­sac­tion under the leader­ship of Dr. Michael Best.

Foun­ded in 2014 and based in Lingen (Ems), Lower Saxony, SERCOO Group is one of Germany’s leading service provi­ders in the Energy and Indus­trial Services busi­ness area, cove­ring the entire value chain of biogas plants, CHP units and engi­nes, as well as rota­ting equip­ment. In 2014, DPE acqui­red a stake in the then BU Bücker & Essing GmbH as part of a buy-and-build stra­tegy with the aim of crea­ting a leading German tech­ni­cal service provi­der in the context of the energy tran­si­tion. Within the past 9 years, eight compa­nies have been successfully acqui­red and inte­gra­ted. As a result, the Group has signi­fi­cantly increased the breadth of its product range and the depth of its value chain. Today, SERCOO Group is one of the leading one-stop-shop provi­ders in this field and thus contri­bu­tes signi­fi­cantly to the expan­sion of an inde­pen­dent and decen­tra­li­zed energy supply as well as to the sustainable reduc­tion of CO2 emissions.

Mark Sude­row (photo © DPE), Part­ner at DPE, added: “DPE belie­ves in inves­t­ing in busi­ness models that make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society. That is why we have been inves­t­ing in various compa­nies in the “Rene­wa­ble Ener­gies” sector since 2008.

DPE is an inde­pen­dent German invest­ment company and is one of the largest growth capi­tal provi­ders in Germany. DPE invests in medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and focu­ses on indus­tries with posi­tive long-term deve­lo­p­ment pros­pects. DPE was foun­ded in 2007 and has since inves­ted in 40 compa­nies that have comple­ted more than 100 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons and now employ more than 10,000 people. DPE has total assets under manage­ment of appro­xi­m­ately 3 billion euros.

Consul­tant DPE: 

PwC (M&A), Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek (Legal), Ebner Stolz (Finan­cial), Pöllath (Struc­ture) and Crescendo Part­ners (Manage­ment Coaching) advised.