ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — Oakley Capi­tal Fund IV and other co-share­hol­ders have sold their shares in Cont­abo to KKR. Cont­abo is a fast-growing cloud infra­struc­ture and hosting provi­der based in Munich, Germany, offe­ring simple, easy-to-use cloud services to small busi­nesses, deve­lo­pers, prosumers and gamers. With a global network of 24 data centers on four conti­nents, Cont­abo serves a diverse mix of more than 250,000 custo­mers across a wide range of indus­tries. Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Oakley Capi­tal Fund IV and other co-share­hol­ders on the sale of Cont­abo to KKR.

The exit will gene­rate a gross return in excess of 10x MM and over 100% IRR to Fund IV. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Oakley Capi­tal Fund V (“Fund V”) will acquire a mino­rity stake in Cont­abo along­side majo­rity inves­tor KKR, to bene­fit from the anti­ci­pa­ted future growth of the busi­ness. t

Advi­sors to Oakley Capi­tal Fund IV and other co-share­hol­ders: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker (photo), Dr. David Huth­ma­cher, Dr. Chris­toph Jerger (all lead, all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Anna Schwan­der (Corpo­rate), Dr. Thomas S. Wilson (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion, Brussels); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Thomas Diek­mann, Dr. Marcus Comman­deur, Lukas Fell­höl­ter, Juliane Hubert, Dr. Tamara Zehen­t­bauer (all Private Equity/M&A)

Advi­sors to Oakley Capi­tal Fund V: Kirk­land & Ellis, London

Jacob Traff, David Higgins (both lead); Asso­ciate: Kars­ten Silber­na­gel (all Private Equity/M&A)

About Kirk­land & Ellis
With more than 3,000 lawy­ers in 19 offices world­wide, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firms. The Munich team provi­des focu­sed advice in the areas of private equity, M&A, corpo­rate, capi­tal markets, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and tax law.

News

Wies­ba­den — Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Hessen (“MBG H”) can look back on a successful fiscal year 2021. As a central point of cont­act for medium-sized compa­nies in capi­tal-inten­sive inno­va­tion and growth phases, it appro­ved 15 new invest­ments in the past fiscal year (previous year: 13) with a total volume of 5.8 million euros (previous year: 4.7 million euros). Disbur­se­ments in the micro­mez­za­nine area were also increased year-on-year from EUR 516,000 (12 appli­ca­ti­ons in 2020) to EUR 910,000 (16 appli­ca­ti­ons in 2021). At the end of the fiscal year, MBG H had thus inves­ted in a total of 98 Hessian companies.

The past fiscal year was not only a successful year for MBG H, but also a very special one: In Septem­ber, it cele­bra­ted its 50th anni­ver­sary — while Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH (“BMH”), which mana­ges MBG H, cele­bra­ted its 20th anni­ver­sary. As a subsi­diary of Helaba, the SME invest­ment and venture capi­tal company BMH has been bund­ling all public invest­ment inte­rests and finan­cing instru­ments for start-ups and SMEs in Hesse since 2001.

MBG H provi­des mezza­nine capi­tal to small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses in Hesse in the form of silent part­ner­ships over a period of ten years. The invest­ment focus here is on compa­nies that are estab­lished in their market and have inte­res­t­ing inno­va­tion and growth pros­pects. “Even after two years of Corona — or perhaps precis­ely because of it — we see how many crea­tive ideas are emer­ging in our state. How many compa­nies have deve­lo­ped new ideas, have new perspec­ti­ves and are confi­dent about the future,” Jürgen Zabel, Mana­ging Direc­tor of BMH since 2005, is plea­sed to say and adds: “Where we could, we supported these compa­nies, accom­pa­nied them so that toge­ther with us they could survive the crisis as well as possible.”

As a silent part­ner, MBG H has taken on the respon­si­bi­lity of being a relia­ble and strong part­ner even in diffi­cult times: with inten­sive consul­ta­ti­ons, defer­ral of inte­rest and redemp­tion payments to improve liqui­dity or the increase of addi­tio­nal equity capi­tal. In the curr­ently published annual report, MBG H pres­ents three port­fo­lio compa­nies to show by way of exam­ple that in addi­tion to all the facts and figu­res, the people with their ideas and visi­ons, with their plans and their drive are never lost sight of:

3spin to extin­gu­ish virtual fires

The young company 3spin helps — not only — to extin­gu­ish virtual fires by provi­ding programs in augmen­ted reality with which compa­nies can train their employees using the lear­ning plat­form. In addi­tion, 3spin enables other compa­nies to easily imple­ment AR programs themselves.

Truck light­ing from PROPLAST

PROPLAST GmbH specia­li­zes in the light­ing of commer­cial vehic­les. On the one hand, these can be stan­dard head­lights, but on the other hand, the most crea­tive truckers also rely on the exper­tise of the Hessi­ans to put their vehic­les in the best light.

All-round care through Curmundo

Finally, Curmundo GmbH offers services rela­ted to nursing care. And is parti­cu­larly successful at it — not least because the care service works with a flat hier­ar­chy and many digi­tal opti­ons, without losing sight of the patients.

“These are three compa­nies that could hardly be more diffe­rent — and which have deve­lo­ped well in recent years despite all the crises,” knows Dr. Stef­fen Huth, Mana­ging Direc­tor of BM H since 2021, and adds: “We at MBG H are very plea­sed that we can conti­nue to support the compa­nies in going their way. We provide funding so that the compa­nies can realize their visi­ons for the future, so that they can finance ideas and inno­va­tions, buy equip­ment and goods, pay new employees.”

In this context, MBG H supports company take­overs as well as start-ups in the long term — without ambi­ti­ons for a quick exit and short-term profits.

About BMH

Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH (“BMH”), head­quar­te­red in Wies­ba­den, was foun­ded in 2001 and is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Hessen-Thürin­gen Giro­zen­trale (Helaba). Through Wirt­schafts- und Infra­struk­tur­bank Hessen (WIBank), BMH Hessen is actively invol­ved in the econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties of the State of Hesse. As a medium-sized invest­ment and venture capi­tal company, BMH bund­les public invest­ment inte­rests and finan­cing instru­ments for early-stage, growth and medium-sized compa­nies in Hesse. BMH curr­ently mana­ges seven invest­ment funds with an inves­ted invest­ment volume of around 125 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion, BMH has inves­ted over 250 million euros in a total of more than 500 compa­nies. The main areas of invest­ment include the soft­ware & IT, life scien­ces, mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring, indus­trial goods, profes­sio­nal services and e‑commerce sectors. More infor­ma­tion about BMH and its funds: www.bmh-hessen.de

News

Colo­gne, Germany, June 09, 2022 — Data insight company Consu­mer Edge has acqui­red Qent­nis GmbH. As a result, the two compa­nies now operate jointly in the USA and Europe, two of the world’s most important consu­mer markets.

Consu­mer Edge is a leading data analy­tics company focu­sed on the inter­na­tio­nal consu­mer market, based in New York, USA. The acqui­si­tion of the Berlin-based startup is Consu­mer Edge’s response to the growing demand for accu­rate, always-on consu­mer spen­ding data and expands its compre­hen­sive offe­ring of multi­na­tio­nal, consu­mer-focu­sed alter­na­tive data and rese­arch solu­ti­ons to the pan-Euro­pean market.

About Consu­mer Edge

Foun­ded in 2009 by CEO Bill Peco­ri­ello, Consu­mer Edge is a data analy­tics solu­ti­ons provi­der focu­sed on the global consu­mer market. They provide key play­ers in the invest­ment and busi­ness land­scape with best-in-class alter­na­tive data products and tools to enable advan­ced stra­te­gic decis­ion making. Consu­mer Edge’s suite of products, consis­ting of data feeds, templa­tes, and visua­liza­tion plat­forms, provi­des opti­mal insight into consu­mer beha­vior by linking nume­rous privacy-compli­ant data types across geogra­phies. This allows for actionable insights that are supported by the near real-time market intel­li­gence and bench­mar­king capa­bi­li­ties available at the retailer, brand and item levels. https://consumer-edge.com

About Qent­nis GmbH

Qent­nis is a German, Berlin-based data company that provi­des unique insights for insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and corpo­ra­ti­ons. Qent­nis’ core busi­ness is the coll­ec­tion, proces­sing, allo­ca­tion and aggre­ga­tion of anony­mi­zed tran­sac­tion data. The offer is aimed at insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, the private equity sector and compa­nies that want to learn more about market and company trends in order to form and vali­date invest­ment hypo­the­ses. Qent­nis was foun­ded in 2019 by Bene­dikt Ernst and Simon Kröger with IONIQ Group as the main inves­tor. https://www.qentnis.com

Advisor:inside Consu­mer Edge: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich, Photo (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Jona­than Görg (Tran­sac­tions), Associate
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Anna Eick­meier (IP/IT, Data Protec­tion), Senior Associate
Stefan Rich­ter (Tax), Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Tax), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Chris­toph Lütten­berg (Corpo­rate), Associate

The YPOG team worked closely with a team from Lowen­stein Sand­ler, led by Alex D. Leibo­witz, on U.S. legal matters and part­ne­red with boutique law firms Push Wahlig Work­place Law on employ­ment law matters, and KNPZ Attor­neys at Law on busi­ness law matters.

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Corpo­rate, Funds, Liti­ga­tion, Tax, Tran­sac­tions, IP/IT, Notary Services, Banking + Finan­cial Services and FinTech + Block­chain. The YPOG team advi­ses 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. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 90 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law as well as www.linkedin.com/company/ypog.

News

Coburg / Munich — Venture capi­tal inves­tor group HZG laun­ches its first venture capi­tal fund, the HZG Addi­tive Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech Fund, with a volume of EUR 60 million. The fund’s inves­tor base includes expe­ri­en­ced entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors, as well as major family offices. POELLATH advi­sed HZG Group on the launch of the HZG Addi­tive Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech Fund.

Based in Coburg, Bava­ria, HZG Group is compri­sed of venture capi­tal invest­ments, busi­ness angel invest­ments and its own rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment center with a clear focus on the field of addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring (3D prin­ting). The company’s invest­ment focus is on early-stage invest­ments in inno­va­tive start-ups in the DACH region. The invest­ment focus is on all areas of addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring and rela­ted indus­trial fields: from machi­nes and proces­ses to appli­ca­ti­ons and services in the context of Indus­try 4.0, such as machine lear­ning, robo­tics, auto­ma­tion, Inter­net of Things (IoT) and AI appli­ca­ti­ons. In the future, two to three invest­ments per year are planned.

The foun­ders and mana­ging part­ners of HZG Group, Kers­tin Herzog and Frank Cars­ten Herzog, look back on more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in 3D prin­ting and, in addi­tion to their know-how and under­stan­ding of the indus­try, comple­ment the equity invest­ment with a corre­spon­ding network and their passion for technology.

Addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring is beco­ming incre­asingly important in more and more indus­tries. Just under half of German compa­nies expect to manu­fac­ture end products addi­tively as early as 2022, accor­ding to manage­ment consul­tants EY.

POELLATH advi­sedHZG Group on all contrac­tual and regu­la­tory aspects of fund struc­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion during the launch of the fund as well as on inves­tor nego­tia­ti­ons with the follo­wing Berlin team:
Dr. Philip Schwarz van Berk, LL.M. (London) (Part­ner, Private Funds)
Katha­rina Schrö­ter (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)
Dennis Fordan (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)

News

Elms­horn — The share­hol­ders and foun­ders of The Quality Group GmbH (“TQG”), based in Elms­horn near Hamburg, are selling their shares to CVC Fund VIII, which is mana­ged by CVC Capi­tal Part­ners (“CVC”). All exis­ting share­hol­ders parti­ci­pate indi­rectly in the company as future mino­rity share­hol­ders. Menold Bezler advi­sed The Quality Group GmbH on this transaction.

TQG is a specia­list in sports nutri­tion such as protein powders, dietary supple­ments and low-sugar foods and was formed at the end of 2020 by the merger of seve­ral compa­nies, mainly known for the brands “ESN” and “MORE NUTRITION”. TQG employs a total of around 360 people. Distri­bu­tion is largely online via the company’s own store, social media and part­ner­ships with influen­cers, as well as food retail­ers. The share­hol­ders Benja­min Burk­hardt and Chris­tian Wolf will remain opera­tio­nally active in the company.

CVC is a leading private equity firm and has been active in the German market for more than 30 years. Toge­ther with the foun­ders, CVC intends to conti­nue TQG’s growth path via the expan­sion of logi­stics, an expan­ded product port­fo­lio and the inter­na­tio­nal CVC network.

A Menold Bezler team led by Vladi­mir Cutura advi­sed the share­hol­ders of TQG on all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion. The firm alre­ady advi­sed TQG in Decem­ber 2020 on the merger of the compa­nies behind “ESN” and “MORE NUTRITION” and on the subse­quent acqui­si­tion of GOT 7 Nutri­tion GmbH & Co KG.

Advi­sors to The Quality Group GmbH: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)

Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner, Lead), Thomas Futte­rer, Nicole Brandt, LL.M, Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Jens Schmelt (Part­ner), Hans­jörg Frenz, LL.M. (Part­ner), Dr. Jan Nehring-Köppl (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Julia Schnei­der (Part­ner), Markus Kleinn (both IP), Dr. Jochen Bern­hard (Part­ner), Eliana Koch-Heint­ze­ler, Daniel Klass (all Anti­trust), Dr. Aris Joann­idis (Part­ner), Dr. Monika König (Part­ner), Dr. Caro­lin Reichert (Part­ner), Dr. Markus Augen­schein, Isabelle Hörner, Janina Dinke­la­ker (all Commer­cial), Dr. Frie­der Werner (Part­ner), Alex­an­dra Heidel­ber­ger (both Labor Law), Marc Ehrmann, LL.M. (Part­ner), Elisa Dyballa (both Real Estate Law), Stef­fen Foll­ner (Part­ner, Banking & Finan­cing), Dr. Cars­ten Ulbricht (Part­ner), Vari­nia Iber, Caro­lin Nemec (all IT Law), Nico Haldy (Part­ner), Clemens Mauch, Sarah Roßmann (all Tax), Jan Schmei­sky (Part­ner, Auditing)

Advi­sor CVC: Will­kie Farr & Gallagher

Lead part­ners Georg Linde and Dr. Matthias Schudlo; part­ners Patrick Meiisel, Sebas­tian Fitz­Ge­rald, Dr. Jasmin Dett­mar; coun­sel Timo­thy Sawyer; and asso­cia­tes Phil­ipp Oehler­king, Sebas­tian Bren­ner and Xian­rui Wang.

About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a part­ner­ship-struc­tu­red commer­cial law firm based in Stutt­gart. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

About CVC

CVC is a leading private equity and invest­ment advi­sory firm with a network of 25 offices throug­hout Europe, Asia and the U.S. and appro­xi­m­ately €123 billion of assets under management.

News

Frank­furt and Munich — Oakt­ree has laun­ched a public take­over offer for Deut­sche Euro­Shop AG. A consor­tium of private invest­ment funds mana­ged and advi­sed by Oakt­ree Capi­tal Manage­ment, L.P. and CURA Vermö­gens­ver­wal­tung, the family office of the Otto family and parent company of the ECE Group, has announ­ced its decis­ion to launch a volun­t­ary public take­over offer for all no-par value shares of Deut­sche Euro­Shop AG through Hercu­les BidCo GmbH, which will be indi­rectly control­led by the consor­tium. Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP advi­sed Oakt­ree in connec­tion with its public tender offer for Deut­sche Euro­Shop AG.

The total value for share­hol­ders of EUR 22.50 per share repres­ents a substan­tial premium of 44.0 percent over Deut­sche EuroShop’s unaf­fec­ted share price of EUR 15.63 per share at the close of trading on May 20, 2022. — Deut­sche Euro­Shop is a major shop­ping center inves­tor that owns a port­fo­lio of 21 high-quality shop­ping centers in prime loca­ti­ons in Germany and attrac­tive cities in Central and Eastern Europe.

The offer is a stra­te­gic invest­ment in Deut­sche Euro­Shop to ensure that the company can respond to exis­ting chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties in the current retail envi­ron­ment. Over the past two years, vola­ti­lity in the retail sector has increased due to pande­mic-rela­ted closures, supply chain disrup­ti­ons, and gene­ral consu­mer uncer­tainty caused by the war in Ukraine.

Advi­sor to Oakt­ree: Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP

The firm was led by Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Wilhelm Rein­hardt (Frank­furt) and Clai­bourne Harri­son (London); Part­ners Alan Samson (Real Estate, London), Sandy Bhogal (Tax, London), Coun­sel Anne­kat­rin Pels­ter (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Dr. Dennis Seif­arth (Corpo­rate, Munich) and James Chand­ler (Tax, London).

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 1,600 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.

News

Grün­wald near Munich/ London — The invest­ment specia­lists SOLUTIO, Grün­wald near Munich, and Pantheon, London, have successfully closed their second joint private debt secon­dary fund. Like its prede­ces­sor product, SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Debt II invests in funds that pool private corpo­rate loans (private debt). The final closing took place in May 2022 at 510 million euros. This is double the amount of the first fund of this type, SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Debt I, which closed in Febru­ary 2020 at EUR 250 million.

“During the Covid pande­mic, it became appa­rent that the private debt asset class is more stable than the public finan­cial markets. This is also eviden­ced by the very good perfor­mance of our first fund over the past two years,” said SOLUTIO CEO Robert Massing. “Our offe­ring is getting a lot of tail­wind because insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors are very inte­res­ted in invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties with an attrac­tive risk-reward profile and low volatility.”

“The doubling of volume in the second fund compared to the first reflects the gene­ral market trend — private debt is curr­ently gaining signi­fi­cant market share globally,” said Ralph Günther, Part­ner and Head of DACH Region at Pantheon. “On the one hand, many banks are incre­asingly with­dra­wing from the lending busi­ness due to regu­la­tory pres­sure. Second, there is a catch-up poten­tial of private debt compared to the longer estab­lished asset class of private equity.”

Like its prede­ces­sor product, SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Debt II invests in medium-sized compa­nies (mid-market) prima­rily in Europe and North America. Once again, 75 to 85 percent of the funds raised will be used for senior loans (senior debt), inclu­ding unitran­che, and 15 to 25 percent for subor­di­na­ted / other debt. The main focus here is again on loans for compa­nies held by private equity compa­nies (“corpo­rate spon­so­red deals”). In the past, these have mostly repor­ted low default rates.

More than 90 percent of the fund port­fo­lio is hedged against rising inte­rest rates and infla­tion with so-called floa­ting instru­ments. If central banks conti­nue to raise inte­rest rates, as is widely expec­ted, then port­fo­lio returns would also conti­nue to rise.

SOLUTIO AG and Pantheon also operate this fund as a part­ner­ship in a joint venture. Pantheon is one of the leading private market fund mana­gers with a global presence (Ameri­cas, Europe, Asia) and 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private finan­cial markets.

SOLUTIO AG

SOLUTIO AG, foun­ded in Munich in 1998, deve­lops inno­va­tive invest­ment concepts espe­ci­ally for the needs of German and Austrian insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in the field of real assets. SOLUTIO initia­tes invest­ment concepts exclu­si­vely toge­ther with mana­gers who have a proven track record of above-average success. The company itself also parti­ci­pa­tes in all invest­ment concepts. In the past 24 years, SOLUTIO AG and its joint venture part­ners have laun­ched a total of 20 invest­ment programs in the asset clas­ses of private equity, infra­struc­ture, private debt and real estate with a total volume of over 6.5 billion euros.

News

Stutt­gart — FLEX Capi­tal acqui­res output manage­ment specia­list for OMS subsi­diary Form­ware with Heuking. A team led by Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein provi­ded legal advice to the private equity fund FLEX Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of the output manage­ment specia­list Raster­punkt (RP Output Manage­ment GmbH) for its OMS Group. With the tran­sac­tion, the Form­ware subsi­diary of the OMS Group is to further expand its OMS processes.

Raster­punkt has indus­try exper­tise in admi­nis­tra­tion, banking, insu­rance, utili­ties and retail and is an important link in the value chain between custo­mers and soft­ware part­ners for Form­ware and the OMS Group.

The two German medium-sized soft­ware pioneers Form­ware and NIC form the OMS group of compa­nies, which offers a fully compre­hen­sive and uncom­pli­ca­ted product for the auto­ma­ted crea­tion and digi­tal or postal dispatch of docu­ments. The two compa­nies enable custo­mers to merge the data of exten­sive recur­ring commu­ni­ca­tion proces­ses via various commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels and to gene­rate, send and archive invoices, contracts, orders, etc. in a fully auto­ma­ted digi­ta­li­zed manner and in an audit-proof manner.

Foun­ded in 1989 in Stutt­gart, Raster­punkt serves more than 100 custo­mers and offers compre­hen­sive exper­tise, flexi­bi­lity and profes­sio­nal solu­ti­ons in the area of consul­ting for output manage­ment and consul­ting services. Raster­punkt works with all major OMS soft­ware vendors and has exten­sive indus­try knowledge. 

FLEX Capi­tal is a next-gene­ra­tion private equity fund that invests in profi­ta­ble and growing compa­nies in the German Inter­net and soft­ware midmar­ket. FLEX Capi­tal is backed by six entre­pre­neurs Chris­toph Jost, Peter Walec­zek, Andreas Etten, Jan Becker, Felix Haas and Dr. Robert Wuttke, who have foun­ded nume­rous compa­nies them­sel­ves and made more than 140 tech invest­ments. Curr­ently, the FLEX port­fo­lio includes eleven port­fo­lio compa­nies across four platforms.

Advi­sor to FLEX Capi­tal: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Stuttgart
Dr. Emanuel Teich­mann (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Stuttgart
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg
Timo Daniel Trefzger (Labor Law), Hamburg

News

Stuttgart/ Reutin­gen — Menold Bezler advi­sed the Reut­lin­gen-based high-tech engi­nee­ring company Manz AG on a cash capi­tal increase without share­hol­ders’ subscrip­tion rights amoun­ting to appro­xi­m­ately 10% of the share capi­tal. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. (Photo: Daim­ler Truck)

The capi­tal increase through the issue of 774,408 new shares is rela­ted to a coope­ra­tion agree­ment on a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Daim­ler Truck AG in the field of elec­tro­mo­bi­lity. As a result of the invest­ment, Daim­ler Truck AG will become Manz AG’s new anchor share­hol­der. The proceeds of 30.6 million euros will be used to finance Manz AG’s further growth.

With curr­ently around 1,400 employees, the Manz Group deve­lops and builds produc­tion solu­ti­ons for various sectors and indus­tries in Germany, Slova­kia, Hungary, Italy, China and Taiwan. Manz AG was foun­ded in 1987 and has been listed on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (ISIN: DE000A0JQ5U3) since 2006. In fiscal 2021, the Group gene­ra­ted sales of around EUR 227 million.

Menold Bezler provi­ded legal advice on the capi­tal increase. The team led by Guido Quass has been working for Manz AG on corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law issues for many years.

Advi­sors to Manz AG: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Dr. Guido Quass (Part­ner), Dr. Björn Stau­din­ger (both Stock Corpo­ra­tion and Capi­tal Markets Law); Dr. Jochen Bern­hard (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law)

About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a part­ner­ship-struc­tu­red commer­cial law firm based in Stutt­gart. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Munich/ Röden­tal — Active Capi­tal Company (ACC) has acqui­red the shares in Werner Lieb GmbH & Co KG (LIEB). LIEB is a German mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring company and a specia­list in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons with a focus on the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. With this next plat­form invest­ment, ACC is expan­ding its port­fo­lio in Germany, bene­fiting from its imple­men­ta­tion-orien­ted invest­ment approach and many years of expe­ri­ence in mecha­ni­cal engineering.

Expan­sion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the offe­ring for the semi­con­duc­tor industry
Hart­wig Oster­meyer, Part­ner at ACC: “LIEB is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to grow with the incre­asing demand for chip produc­tion capa­city, espe­ci­ally in Europe. LIEB stands for more than 65 years of highest mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring compe­tence and quality stan­dards and has built an excel­lent repu­ta­tion and custo­mer base in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try over the last years.” ACC sees great poten­tial through further inno­va­tion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. “LIEB has an impres­sive deve­lo­p­ment pipe­line and we will invest in commer­cia­li­zing these solu­ti­ons to an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base.”
Secu­red company succes­sion of family-owned SMEs.

Stef­fen Lieb, Lieb’s previous co-part­ner, says: “We star­ted this process to secure succes­sion for our company and have found not only a trust­wor­thy new share­hol­der, but a true part­ner who will actively support LIEB in achie­ving its stra­te­gic goals.” His brot­her and previous co-part­ner Michael Lieb adds, “We are impres­sed by the tech­ni­cal exper­tise, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and proac­tive approach and are convin­ced that ACC is the right part­ner for our family legacy.”

About LIEB

LIEB, based in Röden­tal, Germany, was foun­ded in 1955 by Werner Lieb, the grand­fa­ther of the current mana­ging part­ners Stef­fen and Michael Lieb.… The core compe­tence lies in the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of specia­li­zed auto­ma­tion systems that increase the effi­ci­ency and quality of high-precis­ion produc­tion proces­ses. In recent years, the company has specia­li­zed in auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try; these machi­nes are now used by leading chip manu­fac­tu­r­ers world­wide. www.werner-lieb.de

About Active Capi­tal Company

ACC is an inde­pen­dent, execu­tion-orien­ted inves­tor focu­sed on SMEs in the Nether­lands and Germany. ACC invests in compa­nies in the fields of indus­try, technical
Whole­sale and busi­ness services with sales between €10 million and €100 million. Through an entre­pre­neu­rial and proac­tive approach, ACC sustain­ably maxi­mi­zes the value of its invest­ments. In this context, ACC supports the manage­ment in the imple­men­ta­tion of stra­te­gic projects and brings in its exten­sive part­ner network. ACC is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its fourth fund and began opera­ti­ons in Germany in 2019 with its invest­ment in Schahl­LED and successful trans­for­ma­tion. ACC has offices in Amster­dam and Munich. www.activecapitalcompany.com/de

Advi­sor ACC: ARQIS (Düsseldorf/Munich)

Mauritz von Einem (lead), Johan­nes Landry, Benja­min Bandur (all Private Equity), Jens Knip­ping, Jasmin Stucken­b­rock (both Tax), Marcus Noth­hel­fer, Nora Meyer-Strat­mann, Rolf Tichy (all IP/Commercial), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard, Fran­ziska Resch (both Real Estate), Tobias Neufeld, Daniel Schle­mann (both Data Privacy), Anja Mark­worth, Thi-Kieu-Chinh Nguyen, Julia Rege­nauer (all Labor/Pensions)

News

Bergamo/ Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) invests in MTW Holding SpA (“Metal­works”), a group of Italian manu­fac­tu­r­ers of metal and plas­tic access­ories for the luxury goods indus­try. Metal­works was foun­ded by Bravo Capi­tal Part­ners in 2016 and has evol­ved with a buy-and-build stra­tegy and a successful realignment of its busi­ness stra­tegy. In a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), DBAG Fund VIII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, will acquire a majo­rity stake in MTW Holding SpA. Luxem­part SA, a Luxem­bourg-listed company and inves­tor in Bravo Capi­tal, and the manage­ment team will parti­ci­pate as mino­rity share­hol­ders; the former owners and foun­ders of the company, who are curr­ently invol­ved in MTW Holding, will also become invol­ved again.

DBAG Fund VIII will invest up to 60 million euros, of which 13 million euros are attri­bu­ta­ble to DBAG. The fund will then hold around 62 percent of the shares in the holding company (DBAG: 14 percent). The closing of the purchase agree­ment is sche­du­led for the second quar­ter. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The current MBO is the seventh invest­ment of DBAG Fund VIII. The fund has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies since mid-2020. Last year, DBAG foun­ded the subsi­diary DBAG Italia and opened an office in Milan. Led by Giovanni Revoltella, four local members of the DBAG invest­ment team now work there. With PM Flex (2020) and Itelyum (2021), the DBAG port­fo­lio so far includes two invest­ments in Italian companies.

Under the umbrella of MTW Holding (www.mtwh.it/en, based in Castelli Cale­pio near Bergamo), three compa­nies operate that comple­ment each other in terms of product range and custo­mer rela­ti­ons: Metal­works, Mengoni & Nassini and FGF. The group designs and produ­ces high-quality fashion access­ories for luxury fashion brands. Typi­cal examp­les are belt buck­les, clasps or fittings for hand­bags, shoes and clot­hing, but also jewelry or emblems of the iconic brands, which are mainly repre­sen­ted globally. These products are made of metals such as brass, zamak, stain­less steel or plas­tic. Crucial to the company’s success is its ability to turn custo­mers’ design ideas into a finis­hed, high-quality product within a matter of days. Proxi­mity to high-end Italian and French fashion brands, for whom inno­va­tion and crea­ti­vity are parti­cu­larly important, also plays a major role. At the same time, they expect a relia­bly high quality of the parts that are proces­sed in their products.

The group employs 250 people at its sites near Bergamo and Florence; it also recently opened a branch in Paris to deepen rela­ti­ons with French luxury goods brands. The Group serves a market that has grown globally by an average of six percent over the past 25 years. 2021 sales were around 60 million euros, 16 percent more than in the pre-Corona year 2019. The market losses caused by the Corona crisis were thus offset within one year.

“The Group has an estab­lished posi­tion in a resi­li­ent market that is growing faster than the natio­nal product,” said Tom Alzin, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board, on the occa­sion of the MBO. “We want to help ensure that the manage­ment team can conti­nue the buy-and-build stra­tegy to expand the company’s geogra­phic foot­print.” Corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons have been a signi­fi­cant part of DBAG’s value enhance­ment stra­te­gies for years. In the past year alone, twelve invest­ments from the DBAG port­fo­lio comple­ted 25 corpo­rate acquisitions.

“Our agenda for the coming years includes not only corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons,” said Cesare Luzz­ana, CEO of Metal­works Holding, “but also orga­nic growth through inno­va­tive, sustainable mate­ri­als for exis­ting and new customers.”

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 One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing share of equity invest­ments is accoun­ted for by compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services and soft­ware, and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner. Assets mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to 2.5 billion euros.

News

Berlin/ Regensburg/ Munich — A fund advi­sed by Elvas­ton Capi­tal (“Elvas­ton”) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in iS Soft­ware Group (“iS Soft­ware”), a German soft­ware deve­lo­per for the energy and water indus­try. The seller was WZ Energy Holding GmbH (“WZ Energy”). POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to Elvas­ton in connec­tion with the acquisition.

Based in Regens­burg, iS Soft­ware has been deve­lo­ping and distri­bu­ting stable and modern soft­ware solu­ti­ons for small and medium-sized compa­nies in the energy and water indus­try for more than 25 years. The company supports and accom­pa­nies its appro­xi­m­ately 300 custo­mers with indi­vi­dual concepts and solu­ti­ons as well as forward-looking tech­no­lo­gies. iS Soft­ware employs about 120 people at 5 loca­ti­ons and focu­ses on current topics, such as the new market commu­ni­ca­tion 2022, Redis­patch 2.0, new billing models or the SMGWA connection.

Elvas­ton is an entre­pre­neur-led invest­ment company based in Berlin, specia­li­zing in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Elvas­ton acqui­res majo­rity stakes and provi­des equity capi­tal to finance growth. The port­fo­lio includes succes­sion solu­ti­ons for entre­pre­neurs and fami­lies, group spin-offs and buy-and-build concepts in indus­tries with conso­li­da­tion poten­tial, growth finan­cing in the form of equity capi­tal increa­ses and tran­sac­tions in listed companies.

Consul­tant Elvas­ton: POELLATH

Dr. Tim Kauf­hold (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust Law, Frank­furt a.M.)
Dr. Moritz Klein (Coun­sel, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Frank­furt a.M.)
Nemanja Burgić, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Matthias Ober­bauer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)

About POELLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 150 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings regu­larly list our consul­tants as leading experts in their field.

News

Bonn / Berlin — AMCS and Quen­tic announ­ced that the compa­nies have reached an agree­ment for the purchase of Quen­tic GmbH — a leading provi­der of EHSQ and ESG report­ing — by AMCS. The acqui­si­tion is supported by AMCS’ inves­tors, inclu­ding Clear­lake Capi­tal Group, which is joining forces with AMCS for its next phase of growth. High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) will sell its shares as part of the deal. For HTGF, it is one of the most profi­ta­ble investments.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to close in the coming weeks. Follo­wing regu­la­tory appr­oval, Quen­tic will become part of AMCS.

The tran­sac­tion will give HTGF the third highest multi­ple in its fund history. The seed inves­tor from Bonn had alre­ady inves­ted in Quen­tic in 2008, accom­pa­nied it inten­si­vely for 14 years and was able to contri­bute signi­fi­cantly to the deve­lo­p­ment of the start-up through close exch­ange. HTGF reco­gni­zed the great market poten­tial of EHSQ and ESG report­ing early on. Inves­t­ing in sustainable start-ups has been an important focus of the fund since the begin­ning: Quen­tic is a leading provi­der in the field of stan­dar­di­zed soft­ware solu­ti­ons for occu­pa­tio­nal safety, envi­ron­men­tal manage­ment and sustainability.

AMCS is a leading global provi­der of inte­gra­ted soft­ware and vehicle tech­no­logy for the envi­ron­ment, recy­cling and resour­ces sectors. As part of AMCS, Quentic’s market posi­tion is to be further expan­ded. AMCS is fully aligned with Quentic’s mission to enable orga­niza­ti­ons around the world to sustain­ably manage their people, busi­ness and envi­ron­men­tal proces­ses at all levels.

The sale is a mile­stone. The foun­ding team alre­ady set the course in 2007/2008 with a view to cloud tech­no­lo­gies, the SaaS busi­ness model and then visio­nary topics such as EHSQ and ESG. “I am very happy for the three foun­ders, all of whom are still in opera­tio­nal roles, as well as all Quen­tic employees about this great success and of course to have expe­ri­en­ced this long, as well as extre­mely successful jour­ney toge­ther,” said Markus Kreß­mann, Part­ner at HTGF

“HTGF accom­pa­nied us as an inves­tor and stra­te­gic part­ner at a very early stage. For a soft­ware company like us, HTGF’s network and indus­try know­ledge are very important. We thank them for their valuable coope­ra­tion and support!” Markus Becker, CEO and co-foun­der of Quentic

Quen­tic GmbH is a spin-off of the Berlin Univer­sity of Applied Scien­ces and was supported in the early phase by an EXIST start-up grant from the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and Tech­no­logy. HTGF remained on board for seve­ral finan­cing phases and supported the company in further follow-up financing.

Today, the company has 250 employees at over 14 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Europe. Its custo­mers include more than 900 medium-sized compa­nies as well as major global corporations.

About Quen­tic
Quen­tic is a leading Soft­ware as a Service (SaaS) solu­tion provi­der for HSEQ and ESG manage­ment. The Quen­tic plat­form compri­ses ten indi­vi­du­ally combi­nable specia­list modu­les and thus offers the best prere­qui­si­tes for effi­ci­ent manage­ment in the areas of occu­pa­tio­nal safety, risks & audits, events & obser­va­tions, hazar­dous subs­tances, control of work, legal compli­ance, online instruc­tions, proces­ses, envi­ron­men­tal manage­ment and sustaina­bi­lity. They are comple­men­ted by the Quen­tic app for mobile report­ing and by powerful analy­sis opti­ons, as well as clear and daily updated dash­boards on HSEQ key data in Quen­tic Analy­tics. Over 900 custo­mers have built their custo­mi­zed and powerful HSEQ manage­ment plat­form with Quen­tic soft­ware solu­ti­ons, streng­thening their organization’s sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted Envi­ron­ment, Social and Gover­nance (ESG) respon­si­bi­lity areas. The inte­gra­tive soft­ware is suita­ble to support complete manage­ment systems accor­ding to ISO 14001, ISO 50001 and ISO 45001.
Quen­tic is head­quar­te­red in Berlin, Germany, and employs more than 250 people. Subsi­dia­ries are loca­ted in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Nether­lands, France, Spain and Italy.

News

Paris/ Frank­furt — BMW and Merce­des-Benz are selling their joint car-sharing subsi­diary “Share Now”, foun­ded in 2019, to the French-Italian car group Stellan­tis. Through the sale, they want to have more funds for other projects. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the merger control authorities.

Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Bird & Bird has advi­sed Free2move (Stellan­tis Group) on the acqui­si­tion of Share Now, a joint venture between BMW Group and Merce­des-Benz Mobi­lity AG formed in 2019.

Advi­sors BMW Group and Merce­des-Benz Mobi­lity AG: Hogan Lovells
Niko­las Zirn­gibl (Part­ner, Munich) and Thiemo Woertge (Asso­ciate, Munich) on corporate/M&A aspects; Falk Loose (Part­ner, Munich) on tax aspects; Falk Schoe­ning (Part­ner, Munich) on merger control aspects.

Free2move (Stellan­tis Group) was advi­sed by the follo­wing Bird & Bird attorneys:

France: Inter­na­tio­nal Lead and Coor­di­na­tion Carole Bodin (Part­ner), Sofia El Biyed and Céline Sol (Asso­cia­tes), all Corporate/M&A, Anne-Char­lotte Le Bihan (Part­ner) and Claire Bratel (Asso­ciate), both IP, Ariane Mole (Part­ner), Oriane Zubce­vic and Marine Besson (Asso­cia­tes), all Data Protec­tion, Boris Martor (Part­ner) and Raphael Weiss (Asso­ciate), both Regu­la­tory; Alex­andre Vuchot (Part­ner), Stéphane Leri­che (Asso­ciate) and Sacha Bettach (Asso­ciate), all Commercial/Tech & Comms, all Paris.

Germany: led by Dr. Kai Kerger (Part­ner), Johanna Schind­ler and Tamara Böhmert (Asso­cia­tes), all Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt, Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg (Part­ner, Munich) and Dr. Miriam Ball­hau­sen (Part­ner, Hamburg), both Commercial/Tech & Comms, Dr. Markus Körner (Part­ner, Munich), IP;Dr. Matthias Lang (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf) Regu­la­tion; Dr. Barbara Geck (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Labor Law.

Spain, Italy, Nether­lands: Lour­des Ayala (Part­ner, Madrid), Alberto Salvadé (Part­ner, Milan) and Pauline Vos (Part­ner — The Hague) all Corporate/M&A coor­di­na­ted the audits in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Racine acted with Bastien Thomas (Part­ner), Fran­çois Aubin and Céci­lia Pataut (Asso­cia­tes) as advi­sors to Free2move on merger control aspects.

PwC advi­sed Free2Move on the tax aspects of the tran­sac­tion with Delphine Bocquet (Part­ner, Paris) and Julien Marti­nez (Asso­cia­tes, Paris), Ralf Ulrich Brau­na­gel (Part­ner, Frank­furt) and Wiebke Henning (Asso­cia­tes, Frank­furt) and on the employ­ment aspects with Fanny Marchiset (Part­ner, Paris).

News

Munich, Germany — Life science inves­tors Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+ are advi­sing on a EUR 60 million (USD 63 million) Series B finan­cing for Tubu­lis GmbH. All exis­ting inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round, inclu­ding Bayern Kapi­tal (with Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern 2), BioMed­Part­ners, copa­rion, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), OCCIDENT and Seven­ture Partners.

The new capi­tal will be used to advance Tubu­lis’ proprie­tary pipe­line of uniquely assem­bled anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes (ADCs) toward clini­cal evalua­tion and launch programs for a range of solid tumor indi­ca­ti­ons. The new capi­tal is expec­ted to enable the company to realize the true thera­peu­tic poten­tial of ADCs through further inno­va­tion in new drug clas­ses and the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of novel cancer targets.

Tubu­lis uses proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies to deve­lop novel drugs whose mecha­nisms of action go deep at the root cause of the dise­ase in ques­tion. The goal is to expand the thera­peu­tic poten­tial of anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes (ADCs) to enable more targe­ted and effec­tive therapy of cancer as well as other diseases.

Andera Part­ners was foun­ded over 20 years ago and is a key player in private equity invest­ments inside and outside France. Andera teams manage more than €3.2 billion of invest­ment capi­tal in life scien­ces (Andera Life Scien­ces), growth and buyout capi­tal (Andera MidCap, Andera Expan­sion, Andera Crois­sance, Andera Co-Invest), non-spon­sor tran­sac­tions (Andera Acto), and envi­ron­men­tal trans­for­ma­tion (Andera Infra). The Andera Life Scien­ces team has raised over €1.1 billion through the BioDis­co­very family of funds and is curr­ently inves­t­ing from the BioDis­co­very 6 fund.

Evotec is a life science company with a unique busi­ness model dedi­ca­ted to disco­ve­ring, deve­lo­ping and deli­ve­ring highly effec­tive thera­peu­tics to pati­ents. The company’s multi­mo­dal plat­form includes a unique combi­na­tion of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies, data and science for the disco­very, deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of world-class phar­maceu­ti­cal products.

Fund+ is a Belgian venture capi­tal firm that invests in inno­va­tive Euro­pean life scien­ces compa­nies deve­lo­ping drugs, medi­cal devices and diagno­stics, with a focus on pati­ent-centric approa­ches and large unmet medi­cal needs. With over €200 million in assets under manage­ment, Fund+ has a solid track record since 2015, inves­t­ing in 17 port­fo­lio compa­nies with two major exits.

Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+ were advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Baker McKenzie’s Corporate/M&A and Life Science teams. They regu­larly advise phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies, finan­cial inves­tors, stra­te­gic inves­tors and biotech­no­logy compa­nies on natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal health­care tran­sac­tions. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed, among others, Alle­cra Thera­peu­tics on an exclu­sive license and supply agree­ment with ADVANZ PHARMA, MODAG on a stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with Teva, Chord Thera­peu­tics on its sale to Merck KGaA, LSP as lead inves­tor in a EUR 20 million Series A equity finan­cing of Inno­va­tive Mole­cu­les, Numab Thera­peu­tics in a CHF 100 million cross-over finan­cing, Cata­lYm in a EUR 50 million Series B finan­cing led by Vesa­lius Capi­tal, Casdin Capi­tal as lead inves­tor in DNA Script’s USD 50 million exten­ded Series B equity finan­cing round, and Chr. Hansen Holding in its acqui­si­tion of Jenne­wein Biotechnology.

Legal Coun­sel Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+: Baker McKenzie
Lead Part­ner Julia Braun, LL.M. (Part­ner, Munich); Corporate/M&A: Bert­hold Hummel (Part­ner, Munich), Dr. Julia Rossie (Asso­ciate, Munich)
Tran­sac­tional IP: Julia Schie­ber (Senior Asso­ciate, Zurich)
Foreign Trade Law: Alex­an­der Ehrle, Kimber­ley Fischer (both Asso­cia­tes, Berlin)
Employ­ment Law: Dr. Matthias Köhler (Part­ner, Berlin), Kers­tin Schmie­del (Asso­ciate, Berlin)

News

Madrid/ Munich — Tele­fó­nica Tech has acqui­red BE-terna, a leading Euro­pean provi­der of Micro­soft cloud solu­ti­ons for cloud-based indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons, for up to €350 million (inclu­ding poten­tial profit sharing). The acqui­si­tion posi­ti­ons Tele­fó­nica Tech as one of the leading Euro­pean provi­ders of Micro­soft solu­ti­ons and secu­res its presence in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, the Adria­tic and Scan­di­na­via. — Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed DPE Deut­sche Private Equity and other co-inves­tors on the sale of BE-terna Group to Tele­fó­nica Tech. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance.

Tele­fó­nica Tech will acquire 100 percent of the shares of BE-terna Group from Deut­sche Private Equity and other mino­rity share­hol­ders. The tran­sac­tion is subject to a valua­tion of BE-terna at 13.7 times gross opera­ting income (EV/OIBDA), taking into account syner­gies and expec­ted 2022 results. BE-terna gene­ra­ted pro forma sales of €121 million in 2021, show­ing a year-on-year growth rate of 30 percent. The tran­sac­tion will be comple­ted in the coming weeks follo­wing clearance by the German compe­ti­tion authorities.

BE-terna was foun­ded in 2005 and has a highly quali­fied team of more than 1,000 employees at 28 loca­ti­ons, inclu­ding Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, the Adria­tic and Scan­di­na­via. As one of the five largest cloud Micro­soft Dyna­mics part­ners in Europe, BE-terna specia­li­zes in driving digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion prima­rily based on Micro­soft solu­ti­ons, but also works with Infor, UI Path and Qlik to opti­mize busi­ness proces­ses for diffe­rent industries.

The acqui­si­tion expands Tele­fó­nica Tech’s geogra­phic reach and profes­sio­nal and mana­ged services capa­bi­li­ties across Europe and under­lines its ambi­tion to become a leading provi­der of tech­ni­cal services in Europe. The acqui­si­tion of BE-terna once again demons­tra­tes Tele­fó­nica Tech’s growth story, with reve­nues approa­ching the 1 billion euro mark at the end of 2021 and growing by 33.6 percent year-on-year.

Advi­sor to Tele­fó­nica Tech: Clif­ford Chance
Lead part­ner Stefan Bruder, photo © Clif­ford Chance (Frank­furt) and Simon Schmid (Düssel­dorf, both Corporate/M&A).

Inhouse at Tele­fó­nica, Diego Colchero Paetz (Gene­ral Coun­sel Tele­fó­nica Tech) and Miguel Basterra Marti­nez de San Vicente (Direc­tor Legal M&A Tele­fó­nica) led the tran­sac­tion team.

Legal advi­sors to DPE Deut­sche Private Equity: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Kilian Helm­reich (Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Lead), Isabelle Vran­cken (Senior Asso­ciate), Karl Ehren­berg (Senior Asso­ciate), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A)

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.

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.

News

Hamburg / Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed Aon Versi­che­rungs­mak­ler Deutsch­land GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of Karl Köll­ner GmbH Versi­che­rungs­mak­ler and Karl Köll­ner GmbH & Co KG Marine Insu­rance Brokers. Aon thus conti­nues its growth and further expands its port­fo­lio in the ship­ping, trans­port and logi­stics sector.

The divi­sion broker Karl Köll­ner, based in Hamburg, serves important major clients in the tradi­tio­nal divi­si­ons such as Property and has outstan­ding exper­tise in Marine Cargo and Hull. “Aon and Karl Köll­ner will comple­ment each other very well,” comm­ents Kai Büch­ter, CEO Aon D‑A-CH. “On the one hand, there is a broker with first-class indus­try exper­tise and, on the other, a major broker with a broad product range and inter­na­tio­nal network. Our custo­mers will bene­fit from this merger.”

The ARQIS team led by Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (photo) regu­larly acts for Aon, most recently in the acqui­si­tion of TRIUM GmbH Insu­rance Broker, a broker specia­li­zing in risk manage­ment in the real estate sector.

Advi­sor Aon: ARQIS

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead), Kamil Flak, Dr. Nima Hanifi-Atash­gah, Laura Rizzi, Jasmin Stucken­b­rock, Hannah Potter (all M+A); Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard, Tim Brese­mann (Real Estate), Tobias Neufeld, Daniel Schle­mann (Data Law); Dr. Mirjam Boche, Dr. Fried­rich Gebert, Luise Schü­ling (Insurance/Supervisory Law); Marcus Noth­hel­fer, Nora Meyer-Strat­mann, Rolf Tichy, Natha­lie Winter­meier (IP/IT); Sina Janke (Compli­ance); Jens Knip­ping (Tax); Anja Mark­worth, Constanze Eberz, Jana Ammen, Carina Grahs, Julia Rege­nauer (Labor Law).

 

News

Munich / Kaisers­lau­tern — Liberta Part­ners (“LIBERTA”), with the support of BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, acqui­res KKS Kemm­ler Kopier Systeme GmbH (“KKS”), a service provi­der in the field of mana­ged services for office infra­struc­ture, in the course of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship. The previous sole share­hol­der, Axel Kemm­ler, remains active in the company as mana­ging direc­tor and shareholder.

The company’s core compe­ten­cies are Mana­ged Print Services (MPS) and include in parti­cu­lar the manage­ment of prin­ter infra­struc­ture. This includes the opti­miza­tion, analy­sis and auto­ma­tion of prin­ting, scan­ning and copy­ing proces­ses at custo­mers. In addi­tion, the company offers solu­ti­ons in the area of digi­tal docu­ment manage­ment systems (DMS) and is curr­ently expan­ding this area signi­fi­cantly. The company was foun­ded in 1998 by Axel Kemm­ler and curr­ently employs 34 people. KKS is head­quar­te­red in Kaisers­lau­tern, with addi­tio­nal bran­ches in Pirma­sens and Landau. As the regio­nal market leader, KKS serves around 2,150 custo­mers in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Company foun­der Axel Kemm­ler commen­ted on the part­ner­ship as follows: “With LIBERTA, we have an opera­tio­nal part­ner at our side who acts with long-term and fore­sight. With our custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons, for the modern office infra­struc­ture, we plan to expand our custo­mer base and to speci­fi­cally extend our service port­fo­lio. LIBERTA will actively support us in our further deve­lo­p­ment. I am looking forward to the joint tasks and goals.”

Nils von Wietz­low, Part­ner of LIBERTA (Photo, © Liberta) and respon­si­ble for succes­sion solu­ti­ons, adds: “We are very plea­sed that Axel Kemm­ler has chosen LIBERTA to jointly shape the company’s future stra­tegy. The excel­lent repu­ta­tion in the market and the conso­li­da­ted custo­mer base will form the basis for further growth. In this context, the digi­ta­liza­tion trend of office infra­struc­ture, in the German SME sector, is the key poten­tial. We plan to map growth both orga­ni­cally and inorganically.”

This is the tenth invest­ment of Liberta Part­ners Fund II, which closed in Octo­ber 2019. The fund invests in group spin-offs and succes­sion situa­tions of family busi­nesses with a strong focus on support­ing the opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment of its port­fo­lio companies.

About Kemm­ler Kopier Systeme GmbH

Kemm­ler Kopier Systeme GmbH, based in Kaisers­lau­tern, was foun­ded in 1998 by Axel Kemm­ler and estab­lished as a market leader in the field of mana­ged services for office infra­struc­ture, with a regio­nal focus on Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate. KKS curr­ently employs 34 people at three loca­ti­ons, serving around 2,150 custo­mers. The company’s core compe­tence is Mana­ged Print Services (MPS) and includes the manage­ment of prin­ter infra­struc­ture. In parti­cu­lar, the opti­miza­tion, analy­sis and auto­ma­tion of prin­ting, scan­ning and copy­ing proces­ses at custo­mers. www.kks-kl.de

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in succes­sion situa­tions and corpo­rate spin-offs. These are actively deve­lo­ped as part of the long-term “100% Core & Care” concept and bene­fit from Liberta Part­ners’ inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial under­stan­ding. Liberta Part­ners’ team curr­ently consists of 15 employees working in M&A, corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment and legal, as well as an active indus­try advi­sory board. www.liberta-partners.com

News

Darmstadt/ Munich — Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed the foun­der and sole share­hol­der of asphalt­gold GmbH & Co KG on the sale to Arklyz Group. The Asphalt­gold foun­der will remain with the company as mana­ging direc­tor after the tran­sac­tion has been completed.

Foun­der Dani Benz has deve­lo­ped Asphalt­gold, based in Darm­stadt, into one of the leading online stores for snea­k­ers, street­wear clot­hing and life­style products in the top-tier segment since its foun­ding in 2008. In addi­tion to the online store, the company, which now has more than 200 employees, also opera­tes a flag­ship store in Darmstadt.

Arklyz Group, based in Stans, Switz­er­land, is active in the sports, life­style and athlei­sure sectors. Arklyz Group’s holdings include inter­na­tio­nal street­wear retailer The Athlete’s Foot and sports sock manu­fac­tu­rer Intersocks.

Legal advi­sors to the seller: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)
MOOG, Darm­stadt: Marc Sälzer, LL.M. (taxes)

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.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Dantherm Group (Dantherm), a company from the DBAG Fund VIII port­fo­lio, acqui­res Trotec GmbH. Trotec is a foun­der-mana­ged company that manu­fac­tures and sells mobile air condi­tio­ning products. The tran­sac­tion is predo­mi­nantly debt finan­ced. DBAG Fund VIII is also support­ing the tran­sac­tion with a capi­tal injec­tion of up to 15 million euros, of which the co-invest­ment by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) accounts for almost one quar­ter. As part of the tran­sac­tion, company foun­der Detlev von der Lieck is taking a signi­fi­cant stake in the newly formed group and will in future be a member of the company’s advi­sory board.

DBAG Fund VIII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Dantherm in Novem­ber 2021 as part of a manage­ment buyout and inves­ted 99 million euros, of which DBAG accoun­ted for a good 22 million euros. The oppor­tu­nity to achieve a leading posi­tion in Europe through inor­ga­nic growth is a central compo­nent of the value enhance­ment stra­tegy. The current tran­sac­tion will result in a broa­de­ning of geogra­phic market coverage and product offe­ring, as well as the addi­tion of an incre­asingly important sales chan­nel. Both compa­nies combine sales of around 360 million euros and employ a total of 950 people.

Trotec (www.trotec.de) deve­lops, produ­ces and sells trans­por­ta­ble and statio­nary devices for air dehu­mi­di­fi­ca­tion, cooling, heating and venti­la­tion as well as air filters, which are used in indus­try, commerce and by private custo­mers. In 2021, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around 170 million euros with such and other products. Like Dantherm (www.danthermgroup.com), it also bene­fi­ted from the pande­mic, which among other things led to higher demand for air filters. Trotec was foun­ded in 1994 and now employs 350 people at loca­ti­ons in ten count­ries, most of them at its head­quar­ters in Heins­berg (North Rhine-Westphalia).

While Dantherm mainly supplies busi­ness custo­mers, just under a third of Trotec’s sales are gene­ra­ted with private custo­mers. With an online portal that is successful in seve­ral languages, it is expan­ding sales oppor­tu­ni­ties, because Dantherm’s busi­ness has so far been conduc­ted mainly through whole­sa­lers and other statio­nary forms of distribution.

The market for mobile and statio­nary air-condi­tio­ning equip­ment is growing at an annual rate of between four and six percent, which is faster than the natio­nal product as a whole. Market growth is driven by climate change and the well­ness trend, among other factors, but also by stric­ter regu­la­ti­ons for more effi­ci­ent energy use.

“Dantherm and Trotec comple­ment each other perfectly,” Dantherm CEO Bjarke Brøns commen­ted on the tran­sac­tion; “the merger offers signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties given the diffe­rent market chan­nels, large product range, tech­no­logy plat­form and syner­gies in the combi­ned supply chain.” And, “We see good growth oppor­tu­ni­ties — orga­ni­cally in our busi­ness, inor­ga­ni­cally in the imple­men­ta­tion of our acqui­si­tion stra­tegy.” Trotec foun­der Detlef von der Lieck added: “I am deligh­ted that Dantherm and Trotec are joining forces with DBAG Fund VIII as a strong share­hol­der. This gives the employees and the company, which I foun­ded almost 30 years ago, excel­lent pros­pects for the future.”

“We are plea­sed that we have once again been able to gain the trust of a company foun­der who sees DBAG as the best part­ner for the further deve­lo­p­ment of his company,” said DBAG Manage­ment Board member Jannick Hune­cke now also with regard to DBAG’s most recent four invest­ments, which were also agreed with company founders.

About DBAG

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. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing share of equity invest­ments is accoun­ted for by compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services and soft­ware, and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deloitte Legal streng­thens its cross-loca­tion Dispute Reso­lu­tion & Liti­ga­tion team at its Frankfurt/Main office. Fran­cis Bellen (54) will be appoin­ted part­ner at Deloitte Legal as of May 1, 2022.

Fran­cis Bellen has repre­sen­ted clients in liti­ga­tion, arbi­tra­tion and alter­na­tive dispute reso­lu­tion for over 20 years. Most recently, he was with Reed Smith. His work focu­ses on dispu­tes in the areas of corpo­rate, commer­cial and busi­ness law, anti­trust claims for dama­ges, post‑M&A dispu­tes, and banking and finance law.
At Deloitte Legal, Fran­cis Bellen will in parti­cu­lar support the Dispute Reso­lu­tion & Liti­ga­tion service line led by Michael Falter. Fran­cis Bellen joins toge­ther with Iris Kruse, who joins Deloitte Legal as Coun­sel. With this addi­tion, the Dispute Reso­lu­tion & Liti­ga­tion service line grows to over 15 highly specia­li­zed attorneys.

Michael Falter, Head of Service Line Dispute Reso­lu­tion: “We are very plea­sed to welcome Fran­cis Bellen and Iris Kruse. With their outstan­ding expe­ri­ence as liti­ga­tors and arbi­tra­tors, we are further expan­ding our service offe­ring at the Frank­furt office and adding exper­tise in important areas of inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law, such as avia­tion and banking.”

Thomas Northoff, Mana­ging Part­ner Deloitte Legal, adds: “I am convin­ced that the addi­tion of Fran­cis Bellen will again signi­fi­cantly support and streng­then the alre­ady very successful deve­lo­p­ment of our advi­sory services in the area of liti­ga­tion, arbi­tra­tion and alter­na­tive dispute reso­lu­tion. His focus on corpo­rate, commer­cial and busi­ness law dispu­tes, post‑M&A dispu­tes as well as banking and finance law is an excel­lent fit with our Frank­furt office and our local expertise.”

Commen­ting on his moti­va­tion for the move, Fran­cis Bellen says, “What attracts me to Deloitte Legal is its compel­ling stra­tegy to expand its Dispute Reso­lu­tion service offe­ring, parti­cu­larly in the inno­va­tive manage­ment of mass liti­ga­tion and complex dispu­tes. I am very much looking forward to working with an outstan­ding cross-func­tional team.”

About Deloitte Legal and Deloitte

Deloitte Legal refers to the legal advice prac­ti­ces of the member compa­nies of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted, its affi­lia­tes or affi­lia­tes that provide legal services.

Deloitte refers to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted (“DTTL”), its global network of member firms and its affi­lia­tes (coll­ec­tively, the “Deloitte Orga­niza­tion”). DTTL (also refer­red to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and their affi­lia­tes are legally sepa­rate and inde­pen­dent enti­ties that cannot bind or obli­gate each other with respect to third parties. DTTL, each DTTL Member Company and Affi­lia­tes shall be liable only for their own acts and omis­si­ons and not for those of others. DTTL itself does not provide any services to clients. www.deloitte.com/de/UeberUns.

Deloitte is a leading global provi­der of audit and assu­rance, risk advi­sory, tax advi­sory, finan­cial advi­sory and consul­ting and rela­ted services; legal services in Germany are provi­ded by Deloitte Legal. Our global network of member firms and affi­lia­tes in more than 150 count­ries (coll­ec­tively, the “Deloitte orga­niza­tion”) provi­des services to four out of five Fortune Global 500® companies.

News

Dusseldorf/ Paris — Cycle Capi­tal and Deme­ter, leading clean­tech-focu­sed asset mana­gers, announ­ced the successful first finan­cing close for their new Circu­lar Inno­va­tion Fund (“CIF”) of $160 million and €150 million, respec­tively, with parti­ci­pa­tion from anchor inves­tor L’Oréal.

Anchor inves­tor L’Oréal is contri­bu­ting 50 million euros through its sustaina­bi­lity program L’Oréal for the Future. The fund also bene­fits from a broad range of inves­tors, inclu­ding stra­te­gic inves­tor Axens, family offices such as Haltra and Claridge, as well as private inves­tors and the fund managers.

Through this fund, the fund mana­gers are pooling their resour­ces to scale circu­lar, sustainable and profi­ta­ble growth solu­ti­ons from North America, Europe and Asia that posi­tively contri­bute to climate change miti­ga­tion and the circu­lar use of resour­ces in a variety of sectors, inclu­ding new mate­ri­als, pack­a­ging, recy­cling and waste, logi­stics, eco-effi­ci­ent proces­ses and design. The fund will leverage the invest­ment mana­gers’ expe­ri­ence in venture capi­tal, private equity and infra­struc­ture in the clean­tech sector to address the growing need for market-ready solu­ti­ons and provide capi­tal for talen­ted, entre­pre­neu­rial teams to imple­ment these innovations.

The CIF is a sustainable inno­va­tion fund clas­si­fied as “Article 9″ under the EU Regu­la­tion on sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted disclo­sure requi­re­ments in the finan­cial services sector. The Fund’s robust, relia­ble, and inno­va­tive impact measu­re­ment metho­do­logy includes due dili­gence and ongo­ing moni­to­ring of criti­cal non-finan­cial metrics, inclu­ding green­house gas emis­si­ons reduc­tions, resource use, and diver­sity within port­fo­lio compa­nies’ invest­ment hori­zons. Fund mana­gers’ compen­sa­tion is also based on the achie­ve­ment of a selec­tion of prede­fi­ned impact targets.

- “In a context of ’now or never,’ as stated in the latest IPCC report, private compa­nies like L’Oréal must play a grea­ter role in support­ing solu­ti­ons that are criti­cal to the future of our planet and huma­nity. At L’Oréal, we believe that impact inves­t­ing is a powerful tool to address the biggest envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges and acce­le­rate the neces­sary green trans­for­ma­tion. Through the Circu­lar Inno­va­tion Fund, we are joining forces with other commit­ted play­ers to scale circu­lar and profi­ta­ble solu­ti­ons for sustainable growth.” — Alex­an­dra Palt, Chief Corpo­rate Respon­si­bi­lity Offi­cer and CEO of Fonda­tion L’Oréal.

Invest­ments in early-stage venture capi­tal funds

Follo­wing the initial closing, CIF announ­ces indi­rect invest­ments in two early stage funds focu­sed on circu­lar inno­va­tion — the U.S. Closed Loop Venture Fund II and the Euro­pean Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy Fund (“ECBF”).

Foun­ded in 2014, Closed Loop Part­ners is a New York-based invest­ment firm that includes venture capi­tal, growth capi­tal, private equity and cata­ly­tic capi­tal, and an inno­va­tion center focu­sed on advan­cing the circu­lar economy. The company’s venture capi­tal arm, Closed Loop Ventures Group, laun­ched in 2017 with one of the first venture capi­tal funds to invest in early-stage disrup­tive compa­nies deve­lo­ping breakth­rough solu­ti­ons to acce­le­rate the tran­si­tion to a circu­lar economy. In 2021, the Group laun­ched its second risk fund to build on this stra­tegy. To date, the team has made more than 30 invest­ments in both funds, targe­ting high early-stage returns.

ECBF is the first venture fund to invest exclu­si­vely in high-growth compa­nies in the Euro­pean bioe­co­nomy, inclu­ding the circu­lar economy. The fund aims to make sustainable invest­ments in our future and acce­le­rate the tran­si­tion from a fossil-based to a bio-based economy. In this way, ECBF supports compa­nies with high inno­va­tion poten­tial, attrac­tive returns and sustainable impact.
CIF will also spon­sor a global acce­le­ra­tion program through a part­ner­ship with Cycle Momen­tum. The program provi­des support for seed/series A stage start­ups with cohorts in Europe, North America and Asia over 3 years.

The CIF invest­ment team is actively explo­ring a variety of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and welco­mes inqui­ries from and colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with foun­ders and co-investors.

About Cycle Capital
Cycle Capi­tal is a sustainable inves­tor and a leading private clean­tech venture capi­tal invest­ment plat­form with $600 million in assets under manage­ment. With offices in Mont­real and Toronto, as well as Qing­dao, China, and a presence in New York and Seat­tle, Cycle Capi­tal invests throug­hout North America and China in growing and commer­ci­ally successful compa­nies that have deve­lo­ped tech­no­lo­gies to reduce green­house gas emis­si­ons and opti­mize resour­ces and proces­ses. Cycle Capi­tal is the foun­der of the Cycle Momen­tum Acce­le­ra­tor and Cana­dian co-chair of the Beyond the Billion Initia­tive — an inter­na­tio­nal campaign to mobi­lize a consor­tium of inves­tors to support women foun­ders. cyclecapital.com.

About Deme­ter
Deme­ter is a large Euro­pean invest­ment plat­form dedi­ca­ted to ecolo­gi­cal change. Deme­ter mana­ges over 1 billion euros and has alre­ady made 200 invest­ments since 2005. Deme­ter invests between 1 and 30 million euros to support compa­nies at all stages of deve­lo­p­ment: inno­va­tive start­ups, high-growth SMEs and infra­struc­ture projects. The 38-strong team works in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Greno­ble, Metz, Madrid and Düssel­dorf. Deme­ter is a respon­si­ble and commit­ted inves­tor and signa­tory to nume­rous initia­ti­ves such as PRI (Prin­ci­ple for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment), CDP (Carbon Disclo­sure Project), iC20, The Shift Project and gender diver­sity initia­ti­ves. All new Deme­ter funds are clas­si­fied as “Article 9″ under the frame­work of the new Euro­pean regu­la­tion on sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted disclo­sure requi­re­ments in the finan­cial services sector. www.demeter-im.com.

L’Oréal
For over 110 years, L’Oréal, the world’s leading beauty care company, has been dedi­ca­ted to one thing: fulfil­ling the beauty desi­res of people around the world. Our goal to create the beauty that moves the world defi­nes our approach to beauty as inclu­sive, ethi­cal, gene­rous, and commit­ted to social and envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity. With our broad port­fo­lio of 35 inter­na­tio­nal brands and our ambi­tious sustaina­bi­lity commit­ments under our L’Oréal for the Future program, we offer the best in quality, effi­cacy, safety, honesty and respon­si­bi­lity to ever­yone around the world.

News

Frank­furt a. Main — The foun­ders and inves­tors (inclu­ding Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH, Fraun­ho­fer e.V. and High- Tech Grün­der­fonds) of Arioso Systems GmbH (the “Share­hol­ders”) have sold their shares in Arioso Systems GmbH (“Arioso”) to Bosch Sensor­tec GmbH, a subsi­diary of Robert Bosch GmbH (“Bosch”). Will­kie advi­sed all share­hol­ders inclu­ding the foun­ders and inves­tors (among others Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH, Fraun­ho­fer e.V. and High- Tech Grün­der­fonds) of Arioso Systems GmbH (the “Share­hol­ders”) on the sale of their shares in Bosch Sensor­tec GmbH.

The share­hol­ders have agreed to sell Arioso, a Fraun­ho­fer IPMS spin-off for the commer­cia­liza­tion of Nano­sco­pic Elec­tro­sta­tic Drive (NED) μSpea­ker- tech­no­logy, to Bosch. — Arioso’s product port­fo­lio includes gene­ral and custom microelec­tro­me­cha­ni­cal systems (MEMS) and appli­ca­tion-speci­fic inte­gra­ted circuits (ASIC).

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in Q2 2022.

Foun­ded in 2019, Arioso aims to become a leading provi­der of μSpea­ker tech­no­logy for the ultra-mobile audio world. Unlike conven­tio­nal spea­k­ers and the few other MEMS spea­k­ers available, Arioso’s tiny MEMS spea­k­ers contain neither a diaphragm nor magnets, but are made enti­rely of sili­con. They can be mass-produ­ced inex­pen­si­vely using stan­dard proces­ses for comple­men­tary metal oxide semi­con­duc­tors, making them easily scalable for the mass market.

Will­kie advi­sed on all aspects of the tran­sac­tion, KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed on IP, IT and data protec­tion issues.

Advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of Arioso Systems GmbH: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP

Part­ner Miriam Steets, Foto (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Jens-Olrik Murach (Anti­trust, Brussels), Coun­sel Wulf Kring (Tax, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Andrej Popp, Nils Bock (both Corporate/M&A), Martin Waskow­ski (Labor Law) and Aurel Hille (Anti­trust, all Frankfurt).

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm of more than 1,000 lawy­ers with offices in Brussels, Chicago, Frank­furt, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Milan, New York, Palo Alto, Paris, Rome, San Fran­cisco and Washing­ton. The firm is head­quar­te­red in New York at 787 Seventh Avenue, Tel: +1 212 728 8000.

The KNPZ team included part­ner Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath and asso­ciate Chris­toph Jenal (both Hamburg).

News

Munich, Germany — Kinexon, provi­der of the world’s most advan­ced full-stack solu­tion for real-time connec­ti­vity, intel­li­gence and auto­ma­tion, has raised a USD 130 million Series A funding round. In addi­tion to lead inves­tor Thomas H. Lee Part­ners, L.P. (THL), BMW i Ventures, Inc. and the Tele­kom Inno­va­tion Pool (TIP), Deut­sche Tele­kom AG’s stra­te­gic invest­ment fund. Bird & Bird LLP advi­sed Kinexon on its USD 130 million Series A.

The funding will enable Kinexon to acce­le­rate inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and scale its opera­ting system for networked and auto­ma­ted processes.

Kinexon is a pioneer in the core elements of IoT. Kinexon deli­vers cloud soft­ware for captu­ring, opti­mi­zing and auto­ma­ting proces­ses in produc­tion, logi­stics and sports. Head­quar­te­red in Munich, the company now has more than 300 employees in Munich and Chicago. Kinexon laun­ched the world’s most cost-effec­tive UWB sensor, enab­ling a variety of profi­ta­ble IoT appli­ca­ti­ons. Kinexon makes connec­ti­vity and precise indoor loca­liza­tion of indus­trial assets ready for the mass market for the first time.

Advi­sor Kinexon: Bird & Bird Attor­neys at Law

Lead Part­ner Stefan Münch, Coun­sel Michael Gass­ner, Coun­sel Andrea Schlote, Asso­ciate Daniel Gloor, all Corporate/M&A, Part­ner Dr. Henri­ette Picot, Commer­cial, all Munich, Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann, Finan­cing and Finan­cial Regu­la­tion, Frank­furt, Part­ner Dr. Stephan Wald­heim, Asso­ciate Tietze Tamy, both EU & Anti­trust, Düsseldorf.

Advi­sors to Thomas H. Lee Part­ners, L.P. (THL): Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Attila Oldag, Dr. Sebas­tian Häfele (both lead, both M&A/Private Equity), Dr. Alex­an­der M.H. Längs­feld (Debt Finance), Daniel Hiemer (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Thomas Diek­mann, Jan Mahlke (both M&A/Private Equity), Phil­ipp Büch­ler (Debt Finance), Dr. Tobias Stuppi (Tax)
— Kirk­land & Ellis, Chicago: Ted M. Fran­kel, P.C., Kyle P. McHugh (both M&A/Private Equity)
— Kirk­land & Ellis, London: John Patten (Tech­no­logy & IP Transactions)

News

Pfäf­fi­kon (CH) — The Ufenau Conti­nua­tion III (“UC III”) fund was successfully closed with a volume of EUR 563 million. The fund was set up to invest in the two compa­nies Corius and Altano toge­ther with the manage­ment teams. The fund will provide addi­tio­nal capi­tal to support the compa­nies’ strong growth and conti­nue the successful buy-&-build stra­tegy that Ufenau V star­ted in 2017.

UC III was capi­ta­li­zed by a group of renow­ned inves­tors, led by StepStone Group as senior lead and Five Arrows Secon­dary Oppor­tu­ni­ties as junior lead, along­side seve­ral exis­ting inves­tors in Ufenau. We are proud that we were able to attract such a high-cali­ber group of inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors for this tran­sac­tion. In addi­tion, we were able to offer our Ufenau V inves­tors a “win-win” solu­tion, with the oppor­tu­nity to earn a very attrac­tive return, or to conti­nue the buy-&-build stra­tegy for Corius and Altano by inves­t­ing in UC III.

Over the past five years, Ufenau V, in successful part­ner­ship with the manage­ment teams, has driven the strong orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth of Corius and Altano, estab­li­shing them as market leaders in the D/A/CH region. Both groups have great poten­tial to further conso­li­date their respec­tive sectors and also expand inter­na­tio­nally. As a result, both compa­nies have increased their sales more than tenfold and made a total of more than 50 acqui­si­ti­ons in the last five years. UC III will conti­nue the successful invest­ment stra­tegy of Ufenau V and use the new capi­tal for further acqui­si­ti­ons and invest­ments to successfully imple­ment the expan­sion plans of Corius and Altano.

Ralf Flore (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Ufenau: “We are plea­sed to have successfully closed UC III and to be able to move forward with the next chap­ter in the deve­lo­p­ment of Corius and Altano. On behalf of the Ufenau team, I would like to thank the new and exis­ting inves­tors who have chosen to parti­ci­pate in UC III. Further, our thanks go to the manage­ment teams of Corius and Altano who have done an outstan­ding job and we look forward to conti­nuing these successful part­ner­ships. We are very confi­dent about the next phase and look forward to conti­nuing to support the expan­sion and success of both companies.”

Advi­sor Ufenau Capi­tal Partners:

PJT Park Hill: exclu­sive place­ment agent
Stephen­son Harwood
Legal advice: GÖRG, Arendt & Meder­nach and Walder Wyss as legal advi­sors for the UC III transaction.

About Ufenau Capi­tal Partners

Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent Swiss invest­ment group based on Lake Zurich, which advi­ses private and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors on their invest­ments in corpo­rate invest­ments. Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners focu­ses on majo­rity invest­ments in service compa­nies in the DACH region, Spain as well as in the Bene­lux region active in Busi­ness Services, Health­care, IT Services, Educa­tion & Life­style and Finan­cial Services. Since 2011, Ufenau has inves­ted in over 240 service compa­nies in Europe. Through a renow­ned group of expe­ri­en­ced indus­try part­ners (owners, CEOs, CFOs), Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners pursues an active, value-crea­ting invest­ment approach on an equal footing with entre­pre­neurs and mana­gers. Ufenau closed its seventh fund with a volume of EUR 1.0 billion in the first quar­ter of this year and mana­ges a total cumu­la­tive capi­tal of EUR 2.5 billion.

About StepStone Group

StepStone is a leading global private market invest­ment firm provi­ding custo­mi­zed invest­ment, advi­sory and data solu­ti­ons to some of the world’s most sophisti­ca­ted inves­tors. StepStone mana­ges more than $548 billion in private markets assets. StepStone’s clients include some of the world’s largest public and private pension and sove­reign wealth funds, insu­rance compa­nies, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices and private wealth clients. StepStone is a leading inves­tor in the secon­dary market and acts as a solu­tion-orien­ted stra­te­gic part­ner for private equity spon­sors. Through Decem­ber 31, 2021, StepStone has ente­red into more than $7.4 billion in 156 inves­tor-parti­ci­pa­tion and GP-led tran­sac­tions under its private equity secon­dary program.

About Five Arrows Secon­dary Opportunities

Five Arrows Secon­dary Oppor­tu­ni­ties (“FASO”) is part of the Roth­schild & Co. group’s merchant banking busi­ness with EUR 18 billion in assets under manage­ment world­wide. Five Arrows deploys Roth­schild & Co. capi­tal, along with that of a select group of leading insti­tu­tio­nal and private inves­tors, through a series of funds specia­li­zing in primary and secon­dary private equity, multi-mana­ger funds and co-invest­ments, and senior and subor­di­na­ted debt. The company has offices in New York, Los Ange­les, San Fran­cisco, London, Paris and Luxembourg.

FASO has been provi­ding custo­mi­zed liqui­dity solu­ti­ons to inves­tors and gene­ral part­ners (“GPs”) for nearly two deca­des. Its proven exper­tise in complex tran­sac­tions makes FASO one of the most relia­ble part­ners for GP-led secon­dary tran­sac­tions in Europe. FASO also shares the guiding prin­ci­ples of Roth­schild & Co Group, a stra­te­gic and respon­si­ble finan­cial services part­ner known for its crea­tive thin­king and inno­va­tive invest­ment solu­ti­ons combi­ned with a commit­ment to abso­lute discretion.

 

News

Bonn, Germany — Fagron, a global leader in phar­maceu­ti­cal manu­fac­tu­ring, announ­ced on April 14 that it has acqui­red Hiper­Scan, the German market leader in the secure iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of start­ing mate­ri­als in phar­macies. High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) is selling its shares after having closely supported the team around Dr. Alex­an­der Wolter and Michael Thoma since 2008.

The Dres­den-based tech­no­logy company Hiper­Scan is a specia­list in near-infrared (NIR) spec­tro­scopy and emer­ged in 2006 as a spin-off from the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tute for Photo­nic Micro­sys­tems (IPMS) to deve­lop inno­va­tive analy­sis systems for phar­macies and other indus­tries. With the Apo-Ident analy­sis system, which is speci­ally desi­gned for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of start­ing mate­ri­als and is used in over 5,500 phar­macies, Hiper­Scan has achie­ved market leader­ship in this segment in Germany and today employs over 50 people.

Fagron is a global leader in the phar­maceu­ti­cal manu­fac­tu­ring of perso­na­li­zed medi­ci­nes, focu­sed on provi­ding perso­na­li­zed medi­cine to hospi­tals, phar­macies, clinics and pati­ents in 35 count­ries around the world. Foun­ded in 1990, the company has over 3,000 employees world­wide. As part of the Fagron family, new markets may open up for HiperScan’s tech­no­logy to further enhance safety and drive the future of perso­na­li­zed medicine.

“HTGF joined us shortly after we were foun­ded, which enab­led us to deve­lop Fraun­ho­fer IPMS Dresden’s scan­ning grating tech­no­logy into a market-ready product. Then we gradu­ally evol­ved from a tech­no­logy provi­der to an estab­lished provi­der of indus­try solu­ti­ons that is now conside­red the gold stan­dard in German phar­macies. As part of Fagron, we can help drive the future of perso­na­li­zed medi­cine,” Dr. Alex­an­der Wolter, CEO at HiperScan.

“I have a special connec­tion with Hiper­Scan: On the one hand, the company was my first invest­ment in 2008 as a young invest­ment mana­ger at that time! On the other hand, Hiper­Scan is a prime exam­ple for seed finan­cing of tech­no­lo­gi­cally very deep compa­nies. This is all the more true since Hiper­Scan was foun­ded with MEMS tech­no­logy out of the Fraun­ho­fer IPMS. With Fagron, Hiper­Scan has now found a perfect new owner.” Explains Dr. Andreas Olmes, Prin­ci­pal at High-Tech Gründerfonds.

“We at Fraun­ho­fer Venture first came into cont­act with the Hiper­Scan spin-off idea in 2004. Mana­ging Direc­tor Alex­an­der Wolter was among the first parti­ci­pants in a now estab­lished educa­tio­nal measure for pros­pec­tive foun­ders. At the same time, the Hiper­Scan spin-off idea was supported by the prede­ces­sor program of the current AHEAD program and recei­ved further inter­nal funding after its foun­da­tion with the goal of manage­ment expan­sion.” Manfred Stöger, Invest­ment Mana­ger at Fraun­ho­fer Venture.

 

News

Hamburg — A private equity fund initia­ted by Hamburg-based family office Lennertz & Co. is taking a mino­rity stake in the inno­va­tion leader for elec­tri­fi­ca­tion tech­no­logy in the commer­cial vehicle sector. pepper motion GmbH is the world’s first digi­tal OEM in the auto­mo­tive indus­try for series-ready conver­sion and retro­fit­ting (retro­fit­ting) of trucks and buses.

The engi­nee­ring company from Denken­dorf, Germany, successfully closed a Series A finan­cing round in the amount of almost EUR 30 million at the end of March 2022. Lennertz & Co. was the lead inves­tor with around 40% of the capi­tal increase. Other inves­tors include the Würth Group.

“At pepper, as an entre­pre­neu­rial and owner-mana­ged family office, we were convin­ced by both the unique tech­no­logy in the produc­tion-ready retro­fit­ting of trucks and buses and the share­hol­ders’ engi­nee­ring exper­tise in the auto­mo­tive sector, built up over 20 years,” says Phil­ipp Lennertz (photo), mana­ging part­ner of Lennertz & Co. “In this context, tech­no­logy and service make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to achie­ving global climate targets. Accor­din­gly, we see high growth poten­tial for pepper, not only in the dome­stic and Euro­pean markets, but also globally in a market that will grow by leaps and bounds in a very short time.”

Capi­tal for series produc­tion and further markets

In addi­tion to the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company’s proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies, the capi­tal raised is inten­ded in parti­cu­lar to support the ramp-up of series produc­tion with stra­te­gic part­ners and the phase of market entry in other Euro­pean count­ries that has alre­ady begun. For pepper motion, Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Poland in parti­cu­lar are among the key markets in Europe.

Poten­tial custo­mers include large exis­ting fleet owners, such as trans­por­ta­tion or truck­ing compa­nies, for whom it is diffi­cult to meet the emis­si­ons targets requi­red for their fleets by 2030. A major advan­tage for pepper motion is that the company’s multi-award-winning retro­fit­ting concept is curr­ently conside­red unbeata­ble on the market in terms of sustaina­bi­lity and total cost of ownership.

“The proof of concept has long been provi­ded with our vehic­les and etro­fit elec­tri­fi­ca­tion kits. We lead the inter­na­tio­nal retro­fit­ting indus­try as a trend­set­ter and set the stan­dards for German engi­nee­ring, inno­va­tion and quality that fleet opera­tors in the public trans­port and transport/logistics sectors can rely on,” says Andreas Hager, Mana­ging Direc­tor at pepper motion.

About Lennertz & Co.

As an entre­pre­neu­rial and owner-mana­ged family office, Lennertz & Co. is exclu­si­vely focu­sed on the success of its clients’ invest­ments. The invest­ment recom­men­da­ti­ons are in line with the perso­nal prefe­rence of the clients. They bene­fit from the inde­pen­dence of Lennertz & Co. and the exclu­si­vity of the invest­ment opportunities.

Lennertz & Co. also has a large number of autho­riza­tion certi­fi­ca­tes from the German Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity (BaFin) and is thus subject to nume­rous quali­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive requi­re­ments of both BaFin and the Deut­sche Bundesbank.

Lennertz & Co. shares its clients’ demand for fast, profound and secure decis­i­ons. In order to thoroughly examine the emer­ging oppor­tu­ni­ties in the venture and growth capi­tal, private equity and block­chain segments for its clients, Lennertz & Co. has a compe­tent team at its dispo­sal that can look back on deca­des of expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion, the advi­sory board consists of renow­ned indus­try, venture capi­tal and private equity experts such as Prof. Dr. Hein­rich von Pierer, Prof. Dr. Klaus Wuche­rer, Stefan Theis, Daniel Thung, Daniel Milleg and Florian Heinemann.

About pepper motion

The German, priva­tely finan­ced company with head­quar­ters in Denken­dorf and offices in Garching near Munich, Pader­born and Vienna (Austria) employs more than 100 people. As the first digi­tal OEM in the world (without its own warehousing and manu­fac­tu­ring), pepper offers inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion (retro­fit­ting) of used and new commer­cial vehic­les such as trucks in distri­bu­tion trans­port, buses in local public trans­port (LPT) and muni­ci­pal vehicles.

With its holi­stic approach exten­ding to tele­ma­tics, char­ging infra­struc­ture, fleet manage­ment and auto­no­mous driving, the company designs quickly imple­men­ta­ble and cost-effec­tive solu­tion packa­ges for the sustainable mobi­lity trans­for­ma­tion and a “second life” for exis­ting commer­cial vehicles.

News

Munich/ Hamburg — Adevinta’s mobile.de GmbH (“mobile.de”), Germany’s largest vehicle market­place, has acqui­red Null-Leasing DSB Deutsch­land GmbH (“Null-Leasing.com”), a provi­der of digi­tal leasing services in Germany. The tran­sac­tion will enable mobile.de to expand its offe­ring and further extend its exis­ting range of products and services. POELLATH advi­sed mobile.de on this transaction.

mobile.de GmbH was foun­ded in 1996 and now employs around 270 people in Germany. The company says it is Germany’s largest vehicle market for buying and selling vehic­les, with around 1.5 million cars adver­ti­sed and around 16.9 million indi­vi­dual users per month. The offer includes the entire range of new and used cars, commer­cial vehic­les and motor­cy­cles. As a “one-stop store,” mobile.de also offers finan­cing and leasing solu­ti­ons. mobile.de is a subsi­diary of Adevinta, a Norwe­gian provi­der of online clas­si­fieds, which now opera­tes digi­tal market­places in 15 countries.

Foun­ded in 2016 in Hamburg, Null-Leasing.com is one of the fastest growing online car leasing market­places for new and used cars in Germany. The acqui­si­tion of Null-Leasing.com expands mobile.de dealers’ access to clear and compre­hen­sive leasing offers and enables them to better market their vehic­les from leasing to finan­cing to cash sales.

mobile.de consul­tants: POELLATH

Dr. Matthias Bruse, Photo (Part­ner, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Tim Jung­in­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead Part­ner, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk (Senior Asso­ciate, IP, Frankfurt)
Jonas Rohde (Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)

Advi­sors Null-Leasing.com: Huth Diet­rich Hahn from Hamburg
Oliver Förs­ter and Dr. Gunnar Matschernus

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