Munich — With retroac­tive effect from Decem­ber 31, 2018, Munich-based invest­ment company ASC Invest­ment Sarl (“ASC”) is acqui­ring Canon Germany’s prin­ting services busi­ness with over 300 employees. In the course of concen­t­ra­ting on its core busi­ness (sales of prin­ting systems and solu­ti­ons), Canon Germany had commis­sio­ned Bryan Garnier ’s German team to find a buyer with expe­ri­ence in the indus­try who would syste­ma­ti­cally deve­lop the prin­ting services and value-added services busi­ness. ASC Invest­ment Sarl was advi­sed by Reed Smith.

Canon Deutsch­land Busi­ness Services GmbH (CBS) is a prin­ting and docu­ment manage­ment service provi­der with 45 loca­ti­ons across Germany, whose custo­mers include well-known finan­cial service provi­ders, univer­si­ties and the German govern­ment. Canon acqui­red this busi­ness unit as part of the take­over of Dutch compe­ti­tor Océ in 2010. CBS has tradi­tio­nally focu­sed on provi­ding on-premise and tran­sac­tional prin­ting services, but is incre­asingly moving into the docu­ment outsour­cing space by selling value-added services such as scan­ning and digi­tiza­tion, docu­ment manage­ment and archi­ving, and design services. Last but not least, this area is to be further expan­ded with the support of the new owner.

About ASC
ASC is an invest­ment company with offices in Luxem­bourg and Munich and a focus on carve-out tran­sac­tions (corpo­rate spin-offs) in Europe. ASC Invest­ment is backed by fami­lies and entre­pre­neurs and specia­li­zes in putting non-core divi­si­ons of inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons on their own feet. The focus is always on deve­lo­ping a long-term stra­tegy for the future. ASC makes use of an exten­sive network of entre­pre­neurs, mana­gers and specia­lists from the rele­vant indus­tries for busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment. In recent years, ASC has successfully comple­ted four simi­lar tran­sac­tions and will provide CBS with a strong team of experts with indus­try experience.

Advi­sor ASC: Reed Smith
The Reed Smith team was led by Global Corpo­rate Group Florian Hirsch­mann, photo (Part­ner), Silvio McMi­ken, Tobias Schulz (all M&A/Corporate) and Thomas Gierath (Tax/ Partner).

Advi­sors to Canon:Bryan, Garnier & Co 
Bryan, Garnier & Co acted as Canon’s exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor, setting up a bidding process that included both private equity and stra­te­gic pros­pec­tive buyers. Bryan Garnier has advi­sed on nume­rous tran­sac­tions in the busi­ness services sector, inclu­ding, for exam­ple, the sale of Xerox Rese­arch Center Europe to Naver, the sale of Conduent’s parking services busi­ness to Andera Part­ners and the acqui­si­tion of Danish Woon­z­org­net by care services provi­der Orpea.