ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — Private equity inves­tor Altor has acqui­red a majo­rity stake of 80% in Kommu­nal­kre­dit Austria AG on behalf of Altor Funds. Altor will part­ner with the bank’s exis­ting owners and manage­ment. — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance advi­sed Altor on behalf of Altor Funds on the signing of the agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake of 80% in Kommu­nal­kre­dit Austria AG.

Altor will support Kommu­nal­kre­dit with addi­tio­nal capi­tal to conti­nue its growth trajec­tory and become the leading sustainable infra­struc­ture plat­form in Europe. The exis­ting long-term share­hol­ders, Inter­ri­tus, Trinity Invest­ment Manage­ment and the Austrian Asso­cia­tion of Muni­ci­pa­li­ties, will remain mino­rity shareholders.

Kommu­nal­kre­dit was foun­ded in 1958 and is a provi­der of finan­cing solu­ti­ons for infra­struc­ture and energy projects throug­hout Europe. Head­quar­te­red in Austria and with a team of 350 full-time employees, Kommu­nal­kre­dit has become a leading specia­list infra­struc­ture bank, finan­cing some 200 projects over the past seven years with a focus on green trans­for­ma­tion and rene­wa­ble energy. With total assets of EUR 4.4 billion, Kommu­nal­kre­dit is expec­ted to gene­rate net inte­rest income of around EUR 120 million in 2022, repre­sen­ting an impres­sive annual growth rate of over 50% in recent years.

Altor Equity Part­ners is a private equity firm focu­sed on lever­a­ged buyouts and growth capi­tal invest­ments in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and the DACH region. Since their incep­tion, Altor funds have recei­ved a total of more than 10 billion euros in commit­ments. The funds are inves­ted in more than 85 mid-sized, predo­mi­nantly Nordic compa­nies, with the aim of crea­ting value through growth initia­ti­ves and opera­tio­nal improvements.

Paal Weberg (photo © Altor), Co-Mana­ging Part­ner at Altor: “Kommu­nal­kre­dit has a unique posi­tion as a finan­cing part­ner for some of the most promi­nent green trans­for­ma­tion projects and we believe that toge­ther we can build the Euro­pean cham­pion in sustainable infra­struc­ture finan­cing. Altor will support Kommu­nal­kre­dit with capi­tal and resour­ces to streng­then its capa­bi­li­ties. In doing so, we can build on our expe­ri­ence inves­t­ing in other leading finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and Green Tran­si­tion Champions.”

Kommu­nal­kre­dit and Altor are united in their vision to promote the tran­si­tion to a green and sustainable future. Both insti­tu­ti­ons have alre­ady gained exten­sive expe­ri­ence in finan­cing the tran­si­tion to a sustainable economy through their invest­ments and invol­vement in sustainable infra­struc­ture and energy projects across Europe.

The Clif­ford Chance team advi­sing Altor on this tran­sac­tion was led by part­ners Dr. Thomas Krecek (Frank­furt) and Dr. Mark Aschen­bren­ner (Munich, both Corporate/Private Equity). Clif­ford Chance worked closely with Wolf Theiss (Lead Part­ners: Andrea Grit­sch and Florian Kusznier) on all Austrian legal matters.

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

Landshut/Munich — Munich-based tech company Enmacc, opera­tor of the largest digi­tal OTC energy trading plat­form for gas and elec­tri­city in Europe, has announ­ced the second and final closing of a Series B finan­cing round — three months after the first closing with a volume in the eight-digit euro range. Now Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active growth inves­tors in the German high-tech finan­cing land­scape, is also joining Enmacc’s circle of inves­tors with funds from the Bava­rian Growth Fund. Lead inves­tor is Alan­tra with the Climate Energy Tran­si­tion Fund and previous inves­tors such as 10x Group are also incre­asing their commitment.

Enmacc GmbH was foun­ded in Munich in 2016 and has since estab­lished itself as an alter­na­tive to tradi­tio­nal brokers and exch­an­ges for Euro­pean whole­sale energy trading with its digi­tal OTC (over the coun­ter) energy trading plat­form. As the Euro­pean market leader, the Munich-based energy company specia­li­zes in over-the-coun­ter futures trading in gas, elec­tri­city and green power certi­fi­ca­tes. The plat­form is based on the world’s leading RFQ tech­no­logy, which enables energy trad­ers, port­fo­lio and risk mana­gers to share their trading inte­rest within seconds and thus receive imme­dia­tely compa­ra­ble offers from multi­ple trading part­ners. In doing so, Enmacc elimi­na­tes inef­fi­ci­ent and time-consum­ing market condi­ti­ons such as trading via tele­phone and e‑mail, and contri­bu­tes signi­fi­cantly to impro­ving trad­ers’ liqui­dity — espe­ci­ally when tradi­tio­nal order books of exch­an­ges and brokers show only few price quotes.

Jens Hart­mann, CEO of Enmacc, explains: “We are very plea­sed to have the trust and support of Bayern Kapi­tal as a long-term part­ner. The funding will allow us to expand our reach and improve our plat­form so that we are even better equip­ped for the rapidly evol­ving energy market and the need for decarbonization.”

“Enmacc has estab­lished itself as one of the leading compa­nies within the energy indus­try in just a few years with its inno­va­tive approach to digi­tiz­ing the energy market,” commen­ted Monika Steger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “We see Enmacc as an important player in shaping the future of the indus­try and are proud to support the company as it conti­nues on its journey.”

Bastien Gambini (photo © Alan­tra), Mana­ging Part­ner at Alan­tra: “Enmacc has done an impres­sive job of digi­tally trans­forming gas and elec­tri­city trading, quickly gaining a large custo­mer base in a conser­va­tive market. We believe that the unique combi­na­tion of supe­rior tech­no­logy and indus­try exper­tise will make Enmacc successful across a broad spec­trum of energy and envi­ron­men­tal commo­dity trading. With its plat­form, the company is posi­tio­ning itself as a global market leader in energy trading and a pioneer for an acce­le­ra­ted energy transition.”

About Enmacc
Enmacc is the largest OTC energy trading plat­form in Europe. Deve­lo­ped by trad­ers for trad­ers, Enmacc digi­ti­zes the energy trading process — the digi­tal market­place enables members to trade faster, more compre­hen­si­vely and with grea­ter control. Enmacc is trus­ted by over 450 custo­mers and hosts a growing network of nearly 2000 trad­ers from various insti­tu­ti­ons — inclu­ding utili­ties, indus­trial compa­nies, energy trading houses and muni­ci­pal utilities.

In addi­tion to elec­tri­city and gas, envi­ron­men­tal goods such as guaran­tees of origin and emis­sion certi­fi­ca­tes will also be traded on the plat­form in the coming months. Enmacc was foun­ded in Munich in 2016 and has since evol­ved into a leading B2B tech­no­logy company with a diverse and growing team. www.enmacc.com

About Alan­tra

Alan­tra is an inter­na­tio­nal finan­cial services company with over 555 employees from 35 count­ries in 25 offices. We are a global company. We do not have a head office. Each market in which we operate is as important as the other. Each employee is as valuable as the other. And that means that each customer’s needs are as important as the next.

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.

 

News

Munich — Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s largest center for inno­va­tion and start-ups, is laun­ching CIRCULAR REPUBLIC, a unique combi­na­tion of forces in the field of Circu­lar Economy. True sustaina­bi­lity and thus climate neutra­lity can only be achie­ved if we succeed in massi­vely redu­cing resource consump­tion and rethin­king estab­lished proces­ses. This enorm­ous chall­enge offers both compa­nies and start-ups immense busi­ness poten­tial and a wide range of oppor­tu­ni­ties for inno­va­tive busi­ness models. They can be crucial in making Europe more resi­li­ent by making it less depen­dent on global supply chains in the long term.

Climate and energy crisis, popu­la­tion growth, species extinc­tion, fragile supply chains and incre­asing resource scar­city: Circu­lar Economy is a key to solving exis­ten­tial crises. In line with the vision of a sustainable and people-cente­red future for Germany and Europe, Unter­neh­mer­TUM aims to create a central plat­form for the bund­ling and active shaping of such ideas in Munich. Circu­lar economy is unders­tood as a rege­ne­ra­tive econo­mic system in which resour­ces are kept in cycles and whose goal is to decou­ple value crea­tion from resource consump­tion.

Circu­la­rity works best in the ecosys­tem

CIRCULAR REPUBLIC supports compa­nies and start-ups in further deve­lo­ping their inno­va­tions and ideas for the Circu­lar Economy in line with market requi­re­ments and trans­forming them into concrete busi­ness models. In addi­tion, the initia­tive networks compa­nies and start-ups with rele­vant play­ers from science, busi­ness and the venture capi­tal indus­try. In this context, the inno­va­tion ecosys­tem of Unter­neh­mer­TUM plays a crucial role: The initia­tive speci­fi­cally offers access to the latest rese­arch findings from the field of Circu­lar Economy at Tech­ni­sche Univer­si­tät München and itself provi­des advice on entre­pre­neu­rial issues and chal­lenges. A central service also consists of directly networ­king compa­nies and start-ups in so-called “multi-stake­hol­der projects” and acting as a joint plat­form for the exch­ange of know­ledge and expe­ri­ence. Ideally, the projects deve­lo­ped will then find their way into concrete application.

The initia­tive was laun­ched with foun­ding part­ner BMW AG. The first part­ner compa­nies include SAP, PreZero and Tengel­mann.

Inter­di­sci­pli­nary foun­ding trio

To be able to fully address the field of Circu­lar Economy, you need diverse perspec­ti­ves and a team with very diffe­rent back­grounds. The foun­ding team of the initia­tive includes Dr. Susanne Kadner, Dr. Matthias Ball­weg and Niclas Mauß (Photo © CIRCULAR REPUBLIC). Kadner previously initia­ted and led the Circu­lar Economy Initia­tive Germany. Before joining CIRCULAR REPUBLIC, Ball­weg was respon­si­ble for SYSTEMIQ’s global Circu­lar Economy acti­vi­ties and Mauß initia­ted and estab­lished Germany’s largest Circu­lar Economy rese­arch network at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich.

Multi-stake­hol­der approach

The first “multi-stake­hol­der project” will focus on the textile indus­try — one of the least circu­lar sectors of all. Start-ups alre­ady offer nume­rous partial solu­ti­ons here — such as recy­cling tech­no­lo­gies — but there is a lack of a cross-indus­try solu­tion that is now being jointly deve­lo­ped. Another project will subse­quently revolve around the recy­cling of batte­ries. The findings deve­lo­ped in the initia­tive — for exam­ple, on the start-up land­scape in the Circu­lar Economy sector — will also be shared with the public. A speci­ally initia­ted festi­val will take place in Munich from Novem­ber 15–18, 2023, and aims to bring toge­ther outstan­ding play­ers in the circu­lar economy.

Dr. Matthias Ball­weg, Co-Foun­der and Direc­tor of CIRCULAR REPUBLIC, says: “The global deve­lo­p­ments around climate, lack of resour­ces or supply shorta­ges, as well as the accom­pany­ing regu­la­tory conse­quen­ces show: In the 30s of this century, there will no longer be a successful busi­ness model based on the explo­ita­tion of primary raw mate­ri­als. The Circu­lar Economy will be the key to solving the climate crisis and at the same time the driving force for inno­va­tion and prospe­rity in Europe. The large number of start­ups working on the topic of the Circu­lar Economy — we have iden­ti­fied almost 400 of them in Germany alone — is another indi­ca­tor that this is where the future lies.“
https://www.unternehmertum.de//circular-republic


CIRCULAR REPUBLIC

The Circu­lar Economy is the basis for a prospe­rous, resi­li­ent and sustainable economy. As part of Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s largest center for inno­va­tion and startup, CIRCULAR REPUBLIC empowers compa­nies and start­ups to realize circu­lar economy inno­va­tions and deve­lop new busi­ness models. As a plat­form, the initia­tive networks rele­vant actors and thus aims to set system-chan­ging impul­ses along the entire value chain.

News

Berlin — Capi­ton has announ­ced the closing of its EUR 248 million “capi­ton Quan­tum” conti­nua­tion fund. In addi­tion to exis­ting and new capi­ton inves­tors, high-profile blue-chip secon­dary inves­tors led by Eura­zeo and Uniges­tion have also inves­ted in capi­ton Quan­tum. capi­ton Quan­tum has reinves­ted in Raith and AEMtec, two leading indus­trial tech­no­logy compa­nies origi­nally acqui­red by capi­ton Fund V in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

The Conti­nua­tion Fund capi­ton Quan­tum was estab­lished to invest in the compa­nies AEMtec GmbH(“AEMtec”) and Raith GmbH (“Raith”). This will provide the compa­nies with addi­tio­nal capi­tal and time to conti­nue the very successful growth stra­te­gies that have been imple­men­ted in both compa­nies since capiton’s entry via the capi­ton V fund. AEMtec is one of the leading specia­lists in the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of complex opto- and microelec­tro­nic modu­les through to complete systems. Raith is a leading provi­der of precis­ion tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for nano-fabri­ca­tion, elec­tron beam litho­gra­phy, focu­sed ion beam manu­fac­tu­ring, nano-engi­nee­ring and reverse engi­nee­ring applications.

The conti­nua­tion fund will provide addi­tio­nal capi­tal to Raith and AEMtec to acce­le­rate their orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth and allow the capi­ton team to conti­nue inves­t­ing in both compa­nies to support their next phase of growth. Both compa­nies were origi­nally acqui­red by the capi­ton V fund. Raith, a leading equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer in the nano­tech­no­logy sector, has alre­ady been part of the capi­ton port­fo­lio since 2016, and capi­ton inves­ted in AEMtec, a full-service provi­der of state-of-the-art microelec­tro­nic and opto­elec­tro­nic systems, in 2019.

We are very plea­sed to have attrac­ted a high cali­ber group of blue chip secon­dary inves­tors led by Eura­zeo and Uniges­tion along­side exis­ting and new capi­ton LPs. This under­lines the strong convic­tion in favor of robust German SMEs even in times of considera­ble market volatility.

Under capiton’s owner­ship, Raith and AEMtec have focu­sed on capa­city expan­sion, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and impro­ving their tech­no­logy offe­ring. Toge­ther with the two manage­ment teams, we will conti­nue to execute on a combi­na­tion of orga­nic initia­ti­ves and trans­for­ma­tive bolt-on acqui­si­ti­ons. Both manage­ment teams will remain heavily invested.

Chris­toph Karbenk, Mana­ging Part­ner at capi­ton, comm­ents: “On behalf of the entire capi­ton team, I would like to thank the group of inves­tors who supported us in this tran­sac­tion as well as the manage­ment teams who have done an excel­lent job to date. We are very exci­ted to conti­nue this successful part­ner­ship and take both compa­nies to the next level. The tran­sac­tion gene­ra­tes strong returns for our exis­ting capi­ton V LPs, who have been given the full option to either gene­rate liqui­dity or parti­ci­pate in the next chap­ter of both companies.”

Dr. Ralf Jede, CEO of Raith, said: “We are very proud to have deve­lo­ped Raith into the world market leader for nano­fa­bri­ca­tion equip­ment. Many thanks to the great commit­ment of all Raith employees and the trustful part­ner­ship with capi­ton. We very much look forward to working with capi­ton Quan­tum to realize further highly attrac­tive growth opportunities.”

Jan Trom­mers­hau­sen, CEO of AEMtec, said, “We look forward to the next chap­ter of our part­ner­ship with capi­ton, with all AEMtec employees remai­ning stron­gly commit­ted to the company. We are exci­ted to be able to leverage inter­na­tio­nal buy-and-build oppor­tu­ni­ties to further streng­then our posi­tion as a leading full-service provi­der of advan­ced micro- and opto­elec­tro­nic systems.”

Consul­tant Capiton:

UBS Private Funds Group, a fully inte­gra­ted part of UBS Invest­ment Bank, as exclu­sive secon­dary advisor

Legal advice: Stephen­son Harwood, POELLATH, BMH Bräu­ti­gam and Ashurst

EY (tax and struc­tu­ring advice), Houli­han Lokey (debt advice), Deloitte (legal and finan­cial due dili­gence), Roland Berger (commer­cial due dili­gence) and Kroll (fair­ness opinion).

The main inves­tors were advi­sed by Hogan Lovells. The tran­sac­tion was nota­ri­zed by CMS Hasche Sigle.

BMH BRÄUTIGAM advi­sed finan­cial inves­tor capi­ton in the context of the newly laun­ched 248 million Euro fund “capi­ton Quan­tum” on the acqui­si­tion of the stakes in the leading German high-tech compa­nies Raith and AEMtec.

 

News

Landshut/Munich — Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active inves­tors in the German high-tech finan­cing land­scape, is inves­t­ing in tado°. The Munich-based scale-up is the Euro­pean market leader for intel­li­gent indoor climate manage­ment and deve­lops energy-effi­ci­ent ther­mo­stats to opti­mize energy consump­tion in resi­den­tial buil­dings. The inves­ted funds come from the ScaleUp-Fonds Bayern, the largest of the invest­ment funds mana­ged by Bayern Kapi­tal. Other inves­tors in the finan­cing round with a total volume of EUR 43 million include Kiko Ventures, Swis­scanto and Trill Impact Ventures as lead inves­tor; previous inves­tors, inclu­ding Noven­tic and Target Part­ners, among others, also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round.

With energy prices rising across Europe, house­holds are incre­asingly looking for ways to reduce high energy costs. An effec­tive method for cost reduc­tion and energy saving is promi­sed by the effi­ci­ent services and products of tado GmbH. Since its foun­ding in 2011, the Munich-based company has been deve­lo­ping consu­mer-friendly and energy-effi­ci­ent ther­mo­stats that are compa­ti­ble with over 95% of all house­holds in Europe across manu­fac­tu­r­ers and can be instal­led by consu­mers them­sel­ves. The energy-saving features reduce custo­mers’ heating costs by an average of 22%. By combi­ning smart ther­mo­stats with time-varia­ble energy rates, a home’s energy use can be shifted to times when energy prices are low. To acce­le­rate its market entry in this area, tado° recently acqui­red aWAT­Tar, a pioneer in energy load shif­ting and time-varia­ble energy offers. Toge­ther, the two compa­nies are now plan­ning to signi­fi­cantly expand their bund­led offe­ring to reduce costs and CO2 emis­si­ons for customers.

tado° sold around three million smart ther­mo­stats by the end of 2022 and doubled its busi­ness with smart ther­mo­stats and service offe­rings in 2022. The step into profi­ta­bi­lity is now to follow in 2023. In order to reach even more house­holds, tado° is plan­ning to work more closely with housing asso­cia­ti­ons that manage a large number of apart­ments for this purpose. A new, adapted product line is to be laun­ched for this market segment this year.

Chris­tian Deil­mann, Co-Foun­der and Chief Product Offi­cer at tado°, comm­ents, “As the market leader in smart indoor climate manage­ment, now is the right time to bring our unique energy manage­ment offe­rings to the mass market. We look forward to strong part­ner­ships with the new investors.”

“With tado°, we have inves­ted in a company that makes the problem of high energy consump­tion in resi­den­tial buil­dings, espe­ci­ally through heating and cooling, more effi­ci­ent and addres­ses it with a sustainable and cost-saving approach,” explains Monika Steger (photo © Bayern Kapi­tal), Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “The strong reve­nue growth of the past years proves that with the closed finan­cing round, tado° has the tools to become one of the world’s leading play­ers for intel­li­gent indoor climate manage­ment. We look forward to support­ing the company in its further expan­sion plans.”

Bavaria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs Hubert Aiwan­ger says: “Espe­ci­ally in times of crisis, we need inno­va­tive ideas. tado° has its finger on the pulse with its energy-effi­ci­ent ther­mo­stats. We ther­e­fore support such ambi­tious high-tech compa­nies with our ScaleUp Fund Bava­ria. We thus help you as a co-invest­ment part­ner to realize large finan­cing rounds in parti­cu­larly capi­tal-inten­sive expan­sion phases.”

The ScaleUp Fund Bava­ria was initia­ted by the Bava­rian state govern­ment in July 2021 and has since been mana­ged by Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern. A prere­qui­site for parti­ci­pa­tion by the ScaleUp Fund Bava­ria is a demons­tra­bly successful, scalable busi­ness model based on an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy, ideally secu­red by property rights, with sustainable unique selling points and clear compe­ti­tive advan­ta­ges. Like all funds mana­ged by Bayern Kapi­tal, ScaleUp-Fonds Bayern never invests in compe­ti­tion, but exclu­si­vely in close coope­ra­tion and always on equal terms with private investors.

About tado°

tado° is the Euro­pean market leader for intel­li­gent indoor climate manage­ment. As the only cross-manu­fac­tu­rer plat­form, tado°’s Smart Ther­mo­stats and Services are compa­ti­ble with any type of heating or cooling system. Custo­mers bene­fit from energy-saving tech­no­lo­gies such as geofen­cing and window-open detec­tion and varia­ble-time rates. tado° was foun­ded in 2011 and has its company head­quar­ters in Munich. With 180 employees, tado° is revo­lu­tio­ni­zing the way energy is used at home, for more comfort, effi­ci­ency and in harm­ony with nature. www.tado.de

About Bayern Kapital

Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.

Examp­les of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has been invol­ved in early on include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Theva, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion and many more.
www.bayernkapital.de

News

Berlin — Venture capi­tal inves­tors Burd­a­Prin­ci­pal Invest­ments, Sequoia Capi­tal India and Vorwerk Ventures are merging their port­fo­lio company and co-living opera­tor Habyt with its US coun­ter­part Common. Habyt, as the largest co-living company in Europe and Asia, will join US market leader Common to form the largest global co-living operator.

Foun­ded in Berlin in 2017 and led by CEO Luca Bovone, Habyt Group is backed by major inves­tors from around the world, inclu­ding P101, Vorwerk Ventures, DI Capi­tal Solu­ti­ons, Burd­a­Prin­ci­pal Invest­ments, Sequoia Capi­tal India and Mitsu­bi­shi. Common is based in the U.S. and provi­des stream­li­ned manage­ment of multi­fa­mily proper­ties through tech­no­lo­gi­cal, design and opera­tio­nal inno­va­tions. With more than $110 million in venture capi­tal invest­ments, Common provi­des excep­tio­nal expe­ri­en­ces for renters in more than 10 metro­po­li­tan areas across the United States.

The merged company now opera­tes in more than 40 cities and 14 count­ries on three conti­nents, mana­ging more than 30,000 units ranging from co-living to studios to tradi­tio­nal rental housing. Both Habyt and Common tripled their busi­ness in 2022 and expect further growth in 2023. The new merged company is expec­ted to be profi­ta­ble as early as 2023.

About Burd­a­Prin­ci­pal Investments

BPI is a unit of Hubert Burda Media that provi­des long-term growth capi­tal for fast-growing digi­tal tech­no­logy and media compa­nies. Hubert Burda Media is one of the largest Euro­pean media and tech­no­logy groups, which has been successfully inves­t­ing in Inter­net-based compa­nies since 1998.

About Sequoia India and Southe­ast Asia

Sequoia helps bold foun­ders build excep­tio­nal compa­nies, from idea to IPO and beyond. Sequoia India and Southe­ast Asia actively works with foun­ders from a wide range of compa­nies across all indus­tries, inclu­ding BYJUs, Carou­sell, Druva, GoTo, OYO Rooms, Toko­pe­dia, True­cal­ler, Zomato and nume­rous others. By part­ne­ring with Sequoia, start­ups bene­fit from over 50 years of expe­ri­ence and lessons lear­ned from early colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with compa­nies like Airbnb, Alibaba, Apple, Drop­box, Google, Linke­dIn and Stripe. From the begin­ning, univer­si­ties, foun­da­ti­ons and other non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons have formed the foun­da­tion of Sequoia’s inves­tor base. www.sequoiacap.com/india/ and www.sequoiacap.com/sea/.

About Vorwerk Ventures

Vorwerk Ventures is an inde­pen­dent venture capi­tal fund that emer­ged from the Vorwerk Group at the end of 2019 and is charac­te­ri­zed by a strong commit­ment to consu­mer-facing and digi­tal compa­nies. Head­quar­te­red in Berlin, Vorwerk Ventures curr­ently mana­ges assets of nearly €500 million and is constantly on the lookout for promi­sing projects. Start­ing with seed and Series A invest­ments of € 1 million up to € 10 million, Vorwerk Ventures offers ongo­ing support and provi­des up to € 15 million for subse­quent finan­cing rounds.

Advi­sors Burd­a­Prin­ci­pal Invest­ments, Sequoia Capi­tal India and Vorwerk Ventures: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Tobias Lovett (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate
Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (M&A), Partner
Barbara Hasse (M&A), Associate

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. 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 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

News

Frank­furt a. M. — The sale of Onven­tis to Keen­sight by Main Capi­tal Part­ners is another very successful exit for Main and under­lines the track record of top quar­tile returns. Main Capi­tal inves­ted in Onven­tis in 2019, helping the company become a leading source-to-pay (S2P) provi­der for mid-market compa­nies. Keen­sight, a reco­gni­zed tech­no­logy-focu­sed inves­tor specia­li­zing in pan-Euro­pean growth buyouts, will support Onven­tis in its next phase of growth.

Foun­ded in 2000 and head­quar­te­red in Stutt­gart, Germany, the company’s offe­ring mana­ges the source-to-pay proces­ses of direct and indi­rect mate­ri­als in stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal purcha­sing. Keen­sight, who have been inte­res­ted in the spend manage­ment soft­ware space for years, iden­ti­fied Onven­tis as a market leader early on and reco­gni­zed that Onven­tis stood out for its strong product offe­ring, clear stra­te­gic vision and seam­less execu­tion. Keen­sight will support Onven­tis on its jour­ney to beco­ming an inter­na­tio­nal SaaS cham­pion in the midmar­ket. Throug­hout the part­ner­ship, the entire Onven­tis manage­ment team will remain on board and co-invest with Keen­sight Capital.

During the Main invest­ment period, the company evol­ved from a company focu­sed on the DACH region to a leading pan-Euro­pean provi­der of spend manage­ment soft­ware with local offices in the Nether­lands, Sweden and Austria. During this period, the company became an attrac­tive Rule-of-40 company with a strong focus on recur­ring reve­nue growth and an increase in total reve­nue of more than 2.0x. In addi­tion, Main Capi­tal supported Onven­tis with two stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons in the areas of spend analy­tics and invoice manage­ment to expand the group’s product offe­ring and streng­then its inter­na­tio­nal presence. These achie­ve­ments were also recently reco­gni­zed by Spend Matters, which ranked Onven­tis as one of the top ‘Provi­ders to Watch’.

Frank Schmidt, CEO of Onven­tis, commen­ted, “Onven­tis has a promi­sing future ahead of it and we look forward to start­ing this new chap­ter with Keen­sight as our new part­ner. We believe their exper­tise will drive our growth and look forward to working toge­ther. We would like to expressly thank Main Capi­tal Part­ners for the good coope­ra­tion and their support in the rapid imple­men­ta­tion of our jointly defi­ned growth strategy.”

Yuri Mikhalev, Part­ner at Keen­sight Capi­tal, added: “We are proud to welcome Onven­tis to our port­fo­lio and look forward to working with the team to streng­then the group’s growth and expand the company’s offe­ring and geogra­phic reach. We iden­ti­fied this company as a leading cloud procu­re­ment provi­der, and Onven­tis’ alre­ady outstan­ding market posi­tio­ning, strong brand and attrac­tive profile convin­ced us of the company’s high caliber.”

Sven van Berge Henegou­wen (Photo © Main Capi­tal Part­ners), Mana­ging Part­ner at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, concluded, “We congra­tu­late Onven­tis on ente­ring the next phase of growth with Keen­sight. The company has shown great promise over the past few years and we are proud to have supported Onven­tis with two very stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons that signi­fi­cantly increase custo­mer value. We wish the company, manage­ment and employees all the best for the future.”

About Onven­tis

Onven­tis has been a cloud pioneer for the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of procu­re­ment and finance proces­ses since 2000. Onven­tis Buyer cloud soft­ware is an all-in-one procu­re­ment system that helps compa­nies with all procu­re­ment opera­ti­ons to achieve finan­cial control, process effi­ci­ency, and cost savings while comply­ing with corpo­rate poli­cies and laws. Onven­tis Buyer stream­li­nes and auto­ma­tes all proces­ses from procu­re­ment source to payment, inclu­ding colla­bo­ra­tion with suppli­ers in the network. The Onven­tis network connects busi­ness proces­ses of buyers and suppli­ers — simply and secu­rely. World­wide, more than 1,000 compa­nies with appro­xi­m­ately 450,000 users in the Onven­tis network handle an annual procu­re­ment volume of over 10 billion euros with more than 50,000 suppliers.

About Keen­sight Capital

Keen­sight Capi­tal (“Keen­sight”), one of Europe’s leading growth buyout firms, is dedi­ca­ted to helping entre­pre­neurs execute their growth stra­te­gies. For over 20 years, the Keen­sight Capi­tal team has used its know­ledge of invest­ment and growth indus­tries to make long-term invest­ments in profi­ta­ble compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and reve­nues of between €10 million and €400 million. Drawing on its exper­tise in tech­no­logy and health­care, Keen­sight iden­ti­fies the best invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in Europe and works closely with manage­ment teams to deve­lop and execute their stra­te­gic vision. Keen­sight Capital’s success has earned it a Gold Award from the Private Equity Exch­ange & Awards for the last six conse­cu­tive years, for the best Euro­pean Growth Private Equity Fund.

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH region and the Nordic count­ries. Main has nearly 20 years of expe­ri­ence streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams of its port­fo­lio compa­nies as a stra­te­gic part­ner to realize sustainable growth and build excel­lent soft­ware groups. Main employs 60 people and has offices in The Hague, Stock­holm, Düssel­dorf, Antwerp and the USA (Boston). As of Octo­ber 2021, Main has over €2.2 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has inves­ted in more than 150 soft­ware compa­nies to date. These compa­nies have crea­ted jobs for about 9000 employees.

News

London/ Munich — Offi­cium GmbH (“Offi­cium”), a port­fo­lio company of Arcus Euro­pean Infra­struc­ture Fund 3 SCSp (“AEIF3”), a fund mana­ged by Arcus Infra­struc­ture Part­ners LLP (“Arcus”), conti­nues its growth path and has successfully comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of Alpham­ess GmbH in Bochum, North Rhine-West­pha­lia (“Alpham­ess”). Offi­cium is one of Germany’s leading inde­pen­dent meter­ing service provi­ders in the field of heating and opera­ting cost billing and equip­ment rental for the housing indus­try. Alpham­ess is Officium’s tenth acqui­si­tion in the last two years. It under­lines the success of the conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy of leading inde­pen­dent suppli­ers. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

With the now comple­ted acqui­si­tion of Alpham­ess, Offi­cium is expan­ding its presence in North Rhine-West­pha­lia. The members of the exis­ting manage­ment team will support the next phase of Alpham­ess’ busi­ness development.

Volker Wylach, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Alpham­ess GmbH, comm­ents: “We are plea­sed to take the next stra­te­gic step with the strong plat­form Offi­cium. Officium’s compre­hen­sive know-how will allow us to deve­lop in a targe­ted manner and improve our effi­ci­ency even further. This will bene­fit both our custo­mers and our employees.”

Stefano Brug­nolo, Part­ner at Arcus Infra­struc­ture Part­ners, explains: “The German market for meter­ing services is highly fremen­ted and has been on a conso­li­da­tion course for years. Offi­cium, as one of the leading inde­pen­dent provi­ders in this attrac­tive segment, is an ideal plat­form for small to medium-sized compa­nies that want to grow without giving up their iden­tity. We support Offi­cium in pushing its buy-and-build stra­tegy even further in the future.”

Stephan Kier­meyer, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Offi­cium GmbH, adds: “With Alpham­ess, we now have another strong part­ner that opti­mally comple­ments our service port­fo­lio. With the tenth acqui­si­tion, we are once again streng­thening our market posi­tion and incre­asing our presence in North Rhine-Westphalia.”

Advi­sors Offi­cium: Noerr (Legal) and Alva­rez & Marsal (Finan­cial)

About Offi­cium

Offi­cium GmbH is one of the leading inde­pen­dent measu­re­ment service provi­ders in the field of heating and opera­ting cost billing and equip­ment rental for the housing indus­try. The company has been estab­lished as a plat­form invest­ment in 2020. As an umbrella company, Offi­cium mana­ges nume­rous regio­nal provi­ders and has a presence prima­rily in Berlin, Bran­den­burg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-West­pha­lia (for exam­ple, Düssel­dorf and Duis­burg), Meck­len­burg-Western Pome­ra­nia, Saxony-Anhalt (Dessau-Roßlau), Saxony (Dres­den and Chem­nitz), Thurin­gia, and Bava­ria (Upper and Lower Fran­co­nia). Custo­mers are prima­rily small and medium-sized property manage­ment compa­nies and private land­lords. More than one million measu­ring units are now supplied. — www.officium.gmbh

About Arcus Infra­struc­ture Partners 

Arcus Infra­struc­ture Part­ners LLP is an inde­pen­dent fund mana­ger focu­sed exclu­si­vely on long-term invest­ments in Euro­pean infra­struc­ture. Arcus invests on behalf of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors through discre­tio­nary funds and dedi­ca­ted co-invest­ment vehic­les and, through its subsi­dia­ries, curr­ently mana­ges invest­ments with a total enter­prise value of over EUR 19 billion (as of Septem­ber 30, 2022). Arcus targets mid-sized, value-add infra­struc­ture invest­ments, focu­sing on compa­nies in the digi­tal tech­no­logy, trans­por­ta­tion, logi­stics and indus­trial, and energy sectors. — www.arcusip.com

News

Grün­wald /Eningen unter Achalm — G&N Holding GmbH (“G&N” or “G&N Group”), a port­fo­lio company of AURELIUS Wachs­tums­ka­pi­tal, has acqui­red Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik GmbH & Co KG (“Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik”). The company offers high-quality services in the field of tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment for fire alarm systems, secu­rity tech­no­logy as well as IT and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons technology.

A signi­fi­cant share of sales is gene­ra­ted with main­ten­ance and service. In addi­tion, Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik has its own 24/7 service and emer­gency call center. The company’s head­quar­ters are loca­ted in Enin­gen unter Achalm. A further four bran­ches are loca­ted on Lake Cons­tance, in Ulm, in Allgäu and in Heil­bronn. G&N’s exis­ting loca­ti­ons in southern Germany will be suita­bly expan­ded. The opera­tio­nal manage­ment of Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik by Björn Renz and Jörg Schwarz will conti­nue in the long term after the tran­sac­tion. In addi­tion, Björn Renz remains signi­fi­cantly invol­ved and streng­thens the exis­ting manage­ment of the G&N Group.

The acqui­si­tion repres­ents the fourth add-on acqui­si­tion of the G&N Group and streng­thens its market posi­tion as a leading manu­fac­tu­rer-inde­pen­dent service provi­der throug­hout Germany. This unders­cores AURELIUS Growth Capital’s active approach to expan­ding port­fo­lio compa­nies through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons of market participants.

“The exis­ting manage­ment team around Björn Renz has achie­ved impres­sive growth and deve­lo­ped the company into one of the region’s leading service provi­ders in the secu­rity and commu­ni­ca­ti­ons tech­no­logy sector in southern Germany. We are proud to work with Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik to streng­then the market posi­tion of the G&N Group in Germany,” said Nico Vitense, Mana­ging Part­ner at AURELIUS Wachstumskapital.

“A part­ner­ship between the G&N Group and Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik signi­fi­cantly streng­thens our market posi­tion in the econo­mic­ally strong region of Southern Germany. We are very much looking forward to working with Björn Renz and Jörg Schwarz and their entire team,” commen­ted Stefan Carle (Mana­ging Direc­tor and Co-CEO of G&N) and Chris­tian Dahl (Mana­ging Direc­tor and Co-CEO of G&N).

“We value the G&N Group as a long-stan­ding confi­dant in the market. With AURELIUS growth capi­tal behind us, we are convin­ced that we can conti­nue to expand the company sustain­ably and build on the histo­ri­cal growth. The team and I are looking forward to the future toge­ther and the next steps,” added Björn Renz (Mana­ging Direc­tor of Renz Sicherheitstechnik).

On the part of AURELIUS Growth Capi­tal, Mana­ging Part­ner Nico Vitense and his team mana­ged the transaction.

Advi­sor AURELIUS Growth Capital

Blue­mont Consul­ting (Markus Frän­kel, Commer­cial Due Diligence),
Ebner Stolz (Jörg Scho­berth, Finan­cial and Tax Due Diligence)
Kuzaj Witt­mann & Part­ner (Hans-Jörg Witt­mann, legal due dili­gence and legal advice).

AURELIUS is a pan-Euro­pean alter­na­tive invest­ment group with offices in London, Luxem­bourg, Munich, Amster­dam, Stock­holm, Madrid, Milan, Berlin and Düssel­dorf. AURELIUS has exten­sive opera­tio­nal exper­tise as well as expe­ri­ence and is thus in a posi­tion to acce­le­rate the value crea­tion process in its port­fo­lio companies.

The main invest­ment plat­forms are the AURELIUS Euro­pean Oppor­tu­ni­ties IV Fund and the exch­ange-traded AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN: DE000A0JK2A8, stock exch­ange symbol: AR4), which acquire group spin-offs and compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in the midmar­ket sector. The core element of the invest­ment stra­tegy is to grow the port­fo­lio compa­nies with a team of nearly 100 in-house opera­tio­nal taskforce experts.

AURELIUS is also active in the busi­ness areas of growth capi­tal, real estate and alter­na­tive forms of finan­cing. AURELIUS Growth Capi­tal parti­ci­pa­tes in LBO tran­sac­tions for midmar­ket succes­sion solu­ti­ons. AURELIUS Real Estate Oppor­tu­ni­ties focu­ses on real estate invest­ments with sustainable value enhance­ment poten­tial through active manage­ment. AURELIUS Finance Company offers flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for compa­nies throug­hout Europe.

News

The Hague — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) today announ­ced its part­ner­ship with Dutch invoi­cing soft­ware specia­list WeFact. This stra­te­gic part­ner­ship was formed to jointly acce­le­rate WeFact’s natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal growth. Under the leader­ship of the manage­ment team and supported by Main’s exper­tise in the inter­na­tio­nal soft­ware market, WeFact will streng­then its market posi­tion and further deve­lop its product port­fo­lio to provide even grea­ter value to its custo­mers and partners.

WeFact was foun­ded in 2005 and is based in Eersel, the Nether­lands. The company is a modern SaaS provi­der of invoi­cing soft­ware that faci­li­ta­tes the sending of invoices, the crea­tion of quota­ti­ons and the proces­sing of inco­ming invoices, so that custo­mers have conti­nuous insight and control over their admi­nis­tra­tion. With a go-to-market stra­tegy focu­sed on product-driven growth, WeFact serves more than 10,000 custo­mers in the Nether­lands, Belgium and nume­rous other Euro­pean count­ries. More than 750 accoun­ting firms work as distri­bu­tion part­ners for WeFact and recom­mend WeFact as the ideal online invoi­cing and manage­ment solu­tion for entrepreneurs.

Growth acce­le­ra­tion

WeFact and Main will work closely toge­ther to acce­le­rate both dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal growth. The growth stra­tegy includes deepe­ning and broa­de­ning the product offe­ring, (inter)national sales by the inter­nal team and by part­ners, and explo­ring oppor­tu­ni­ties for stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. The focus of this stra­tegy is on acce­le­ra­ting orga­nic growth, inclu­ding the expan­sion of the part­ner network and increased inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. In addi­tion, the orga­nic growth stra­tegy will be acce­le­ra­ted through selec­tive stra­te­gic combi­na­ti­ons with other market players.”

Roel Kort­ing, CEO of WeFact, said, “We look forward to working with Main and buil­ding WeFact into a leading inter­na­tio­nal company toge­ther. The combi­na­tion of Main’s exten­sive know­ledge and inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence with our tech­ni­cal and commer­cial exper­tise is an excel­lent fit. This puts us in an excel­lent posi­tion to realize our ambi­tious growth plans and the further profes­sio­na­liza­tion of our company. In short, we are the same company, with the same people, the same core values, the same service and the same ambi­ti­ons. Howe­ver, now with the rein­force­ment of Main as our stra­te­gic partner.”

Jeroen Blox, Chief Tech­no­logy Offi­cer of WeFact, adds, “To grow and support WeFact, we need a strong and expe­ri­en­ced part­ner that fits our unique WeFact culture. We have found this kind of part­ner in Main. The drive to deve­lop the best product has remained unch­an­ged for 18 years. With Main as our part­ner, we can ensure conti­nuity for our custo­mers while our perfor­mance-driven team focu­ses on capi­ta­li­zing on new growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the market­place. This part­ner­ship will enable us to deepen and expand our product offe­ring and further roll out WeFact internationally.”

Ivo van Deude­kom (photo © Main Capi­tal), Invest­ment Direc­tor at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, summa­ri­zes: “We have known the foun­ders and the manage­ment team of WeFact for many years and are impres­sed by the way they have built the company in a sustainable and fast growing way. That’s why we’re exci­ted to work with WeFact and support the company in its next phase. WeFact is a leading soft­ware provi­der in the billing and manage­ment soft­ware market with an extre­mely modern product. With WeFact, sole proprie­tors, small busi­ness owners and SMBs can be unbur­dened and gain more insight, control and effi­ci­ency for their orga­niza­tion. So we’re really looking forward to working toge­ther to make the custo­mer base even bigger and more international.”

About WeFact

Foun­ded in 2005 and based in Eersel (North Brabant, the Nether­lands), WeFact has become a leading soft­ware deve­lo­per for invoi­cing and admi­nis­tra­tion. WeFact provi­des a powerful solu­tion for sending invoices, crea­ting quotes, and proces­sing inco­ming invoices so busi­ness owners can get and stay in control of their admi­nis­tra­tion. The company makes its plat­form available to more than 10,000 entre­pre­neurs in the Nether­lands, Belgium and nume­rous other Euro­pean compa­nies. More than 750 accoun­ting firms act as distri­bu­tors for WeFact, recom­men­ding it as the ideal online invoi­cing and manage­ment solu­tion for entre­pre­neurs. WeFact employs around 17 people. https://www.wefact.nl

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in Bene­lux, DACH and the Nordic count­ries. Main has nearly 20 years of expe­ri­ence streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams of its port­fo­lio compa­nies as a stra­te­gic part­ner to realize sustainable growth and build excel­lent soft­ware groups. Main employs 60 people and has offices in The Hague, Stock­holm, Düssel­dorf, Antwerp and Boston (USA). As of Octo­ber 2021, Main had over €2.2 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has inves­ted in more than 150 soft­ware compa­nies to date. These compa­nies have crea­ted jobs for about 9000 employees.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Stan­dard Char­te­red, through its SC Ventures arm, is inves­t­ing with Landes­bank Baden-Würt­tem­berg (LBBW) and Frank­furt-based finan­cial soft­ware specia­list Comyno in block­chain soft­ware provi­der SWIAT, which was foun­ded by Deka­bank in Febru­ary 2022. The invest­ment is part of the first finan­cing round for the further deve­lo­p­ment of SWIAT. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Stan­dard Char­te­red, Deka­Bank and LBBW will each hold a 30 percent stake in SWIAT, while Comyno will hold a 10 percent stake.

The goal of the new joint venture is to use SWIAT to create a uniform stan­dard for proces­sing block­chain-based secu­ri­ties. The new “SWIFT” for digi­tal assets, so to speak. In the future, the decen­tra­li­zed finan­cial infra­struc­ture will enable secu­ri­ties lending, repurchase agree­ments, deri­va­ti­ves and bond issues to be sett­led in real time. SWIAT stands for Secure World­wide Inter­bank Asset Trans­fer and is an enter­prise block­chain plat­form where banks control the nodes. www.swiat.io

Advi­sor Stan­dard Char­te­red: Allen & Overy 

The Allen & Overy team was led by part­ner Dr. Hans Scho­ne­weg and senior asso­ciate Juliane Dieck­mann-Keden (both Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and further included part­ners Dr. Udo Olgem­öl­ler (Public Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Jens Matthes (IP, Düssel­dorf) as well as coun­sel Dr. Ioan­nis Thanos (Anti­trust) and Dr. Daniel Bolm (Real Estate). The team also included senior asso­cia­tes Dr. Marcus Macken­sen (Corporate/Private Equity, all Hamburg), Anna Kräling (IP), Catha­rina Glugla (Data Protec­tion) and Florian Annu­schat (Tax Law, all Düssel­dorf), asso­cia­tes Dr. Stephan Bühner (Public Law, Frank­furt), Chan­tal Ahne­feld (Labor Law), Chris­tin Schlorf, Juliana Palavra Gorgueira (all Hamburg), Florian Diehl (Frank­furt) as well as Tran­sac­tion Offi­cer Dario Barbato (all Corporate/M&A, Hamburg).

 

News

Stutt­gart — TRUMPF Venture II GmbH (“TRUMPF Venture”) made an invest­ment of 13 million euros in the Series D finan­cing round of Munich-based medtech company iThera Medi­cal GmbH (“iThera Medi­cal”). TRUMPF Venture recei­ved legal and tax advice on this tran­sac­tion from Heuking Part­ner in Stutt­gart. In addi­tion to TRUMPF Venture, exis­ting inves­tors such as Bayern Kapi­tal again parti­ci­pa­ted with money from the Bava­rian Growth Fund. Further invest­ments were made by the Euro­pean Coun­cil Fund of the EU Commis­sion, Mey Capi­tal Matrix and Fluxu­nit. The company intends to use the capi­tal to deve­lop its own diagno­stic product to market matu­rity and to obtain regu­la­tory appr­oval in Europe and the USA.

TRUMPF Venture is a stra­te­gic as well as corpo­rate venture capi­tal inves­tor specia­li­zing in the promo­tion of promi­sing start-ups in the indus­try world­wide. TRUMPF Venture posi­ti­ons itself as a long-term deve­lo­p­ment part­ner. TRUMPF Venture usually seeks mino­rity stakes of between five and 25 percent.

iThera Medi­cal is a start-up for optoa­cou­stic imaging in medi­cal diagno­stics. A new deve­lo­p­ment of the company is the so-called MSOT tech­no­logy (Multis­pec­tral Optoa­cou­stic Tomo­gra­phy). Through this tech­no­logy, dise­ase patterns such as cancer or fibro­sis can be diagno­sed. By conver­ting light energy into sound waves, diffe­rent types of tissue in the body can thus be charac­te­ri­zed, diffe­ren­tia­ted and displayed in 3D images.

iThera Medi­cal was foun­ded in 2010 as a spin-off of Helm­holtz Zentrum München.

Advi­sors to Trumpf Venture GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, LL.M. (lead), Anika Lisa Dasch­mann (both Private Equity / Venture Capi­tal), Antje Münch, LL.M. (IP), all Stuttgart;
Laura-Feli­cia Bokranz, LL.M. (Univer­sity of Cape Town), Chris­toph Hexel (both Labor Law), both Düssel­dorf; Cécile Corbet, LL.M. (Patent Law), Frankfurt;
Dr. Martin Schel­len­berg (Public Law), Dr. Sarah Slavik-Schulz (Tax Law), both Hamburg

News

Hamburg / Munich — Water­land Private Equity has laun­ched two new funds — with capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling four billion euros. Despite a chal­len­ging econo­mic envi­ron­ment, nume­rous insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors thus provi­ded Water­land with more fresh capi­tal than ever before. In the DACH region, too, the Euro­pean mid-market inves­tor specia­li­zing in buy & build stra­te­gies can thus conti­nue its success story even stronger.

Waterland’s ninth fund (“WPEF IX”) has a volume of 3.5 billion euros and will invest as usual in medium-sized compa­nies in frag­men­ted growth markets. With the “Water­land Part­ner­ship Fund I”, an addi­tio­nal fund was estab­lished for mino­rity share­hol­dings, e.g. in selec­ted former port­fo­lio compa­nies of Water­land. Funds amoun­ting to 500 million euros are now available here. Fund­rai­sing for both funds was comple­ted in just four months and signi­fi­cantly excee­ded the origi­nal target.

“Capi­tal commit­ments from top-class insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors from all over the world are not a matter of course in these tense and cautious times. Howe­ver, the commit­ment of many exis­ting and new inves­tors shows that our invest­ment philo­so­phy and the nume­rous success stories are sustain­ably convin­cing,” says Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs (photo © Water­land), Mana­ging Part­ner at Water­land in Hamburg. In two deca­des, the company has comple­ted appro­xi­m­ately 1,000 tran­sac­tions, foun­ding and deve­lo­ping more than 150 new plat­forms to build successful long-term market leaders. The expe­ri­en­ced buy & build inves­tor imple­ments an average of appro­xi­m­ately ten add-on acqui­si­ti­ons for each of its port­fo­lio companies.

Five new plat­forms in the DACH region in 2022

Water­land is active in Bene­lux, DACH, Scan­di­na­via, Poland, France as well as in the British Isles and recently also in Spain. In the DACH region, Water­land initia­ted five strong plat­forms through majo­rity acqui­si­ti­ons last year: Duven­beck (a leading Euro­pean logi­stics service provi­der), the Sleepco Group (merger of the premium bed manu­fac­tu­r­ers RUF and BRUNO from Germany and the Belgian LS Bedding), Lions­Home (a leading Euro­pean product compa­ri­son plat­form), the Swiss commu­ni­ca­ti­ons consul­tancy Team Farner and the soft­ware solu­ti­ons provi­der MT. In addi­tion, more than 20 stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons were made for the port­fo­lio — despite a very tense and compe­ti­tive situa­tion in nume­rous sectors.

For the new year 2023, Dr. Gregor Hengst, part­ner at Water­land in Munich, sees­De­spite the vola­tile macroe­co­no­mic envi­ron­ment, there are attrac­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties in our target region. For exam­ple, tech­no­logy-based services and health­care remain inte­res­t­ing for us. In addi­tion, we are iden­ti­fy­ing and moni­to­ring other frag­men­ted markets where our strong buy & build approach can come into play. In the current envi­ron­ment of increased vola­ti­lity, our close colla­bo­ra­tion with port­fo­lio compa­nies on their resi­li­ence and sustainable posi­tio­ning remains an important focus — we are expan­ding our team in the 13 Euro­pean offices for this purpose.”

In Germany and Switz­er­land, Water­land is curr­ently inves­ted in the follo­wing compa­nies in addi­tion to Duven­beck, Sleepco, Lions­Home, Farner and MT: MEDIAN (reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinic opera­tor), Schö­nes Leben Group (care faci­li­ties), Fit/One (fitness studios), Hanse­fit (company fitness offe­rings), Athera (physio­the­rapy), coeo (receiv­a­bles manage­ment), Horn & Company (manage­ment consul­ting), Leupold (pack­a­ging), Serrala (payment and finance soft­ware), netgo (IT services), Skay­link (cloud services), enreach (unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), mrge (adtech), Netrics (mana­ged cloud services) and GOD (enter­prise software).

About Water­land

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

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The firm ranks fifth globally in the 2020 HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings and eighth among global private equity firms in the 2020 Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report. In addi­tion, Real Deals awarded Water­land the title of Pan-Euro­pean House of the Year 2020 at the PE Awards.
www.waterland.de

 

News

Düssel­dorf — NRW.BANK has laun­ched the fourth gene­ra­tion of its venture fund, NRW.Venture. The volume amounts to 150 million euros, which is another 50 million euros more than in previous fund gene­ra­ti­ons. Indi­vi­dual invest­ments of up to EUR 15 million are possi­ble, compared with 10 previously. NRW.BANK is thus respon­ding to the sustained growth in finan­cing requi­re­ments in the market. The invest­ment focus is on future-orien­ted topics such as climate tech or the digi­ta­liza­tion of indus­try, busi­ness and administration.

Econo­mics Minis­ter Mona Neubaur: “With NRW.BANK’s fourth venture fund, we have an offer that even better meets the finan­cing needs of high-growth start-ups. The previous fund gene­ra­ti­ons have alre­ady shown that inno­va­tive and future-orien­ted start-ups in North Rhine-West­pha­lia find the best condi­ti­ons for successful deve­lo­p­ment. We are buil­ding on this and signi­fi­cantly incre­asing the fund volume available, with a parti­cu­lar focus on future topics such as ClimateTech.”

Michael Stöl­ting (Photo © NRW.BANK), Member of the Mana­ging Board of NRW.BANK: “In the fight against climate change, we need inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in North Rhine-West­pha­lia. Start-ups can play an essen­tial role here. At NRW.BANK, we make sure that promi­sing ideas do not fail due to financing.”

Between 20 and 30 new invest­ments are plan­ned by the end of 2027. In indi­vi­dual cases, the fund then invests up to 15 million euros in a company over seve­ral finan­cing rounds — toge­ther with private-sector co-inves­tors. Howe­ver, the commit­ment of NRW.Venture does not only include capi­tal, but also further support, among others in the areas of company buil­ding and gover­nance development.

Invest­ment focus

The invest­ment focus of the NRW.Venture funds is on indus­tries such as infor­ma­tion and commu­ni­ca­tion tech­no­logy, IT secu­rity, digi­tal economy, Inter­net of Things, life scien­ces, digi­tal health, inno­va­tive cross-sectional tech­no­lo­gies, new mate­ri­als, clean­tech as well as sustaina­bi­lity tech­no­lo­gies and agri­cul­tu­ral tech­no­lo­gies. In NRW.Venture IV, special atten­tion is also paid to start-ups in the Climate Tech segments as well as those that can support indus­try, busi­ness and admi­nis­tra­tion in the digi­tal transformation.

Prede­ces­sor fund: 68 invest­ments, many successful exits
The previous fund gene­ra­ti­ons of NRW.Venture have inves­ted in 68 start-ups, a signi­fi­cant number of which have alre­ady led to successful exits. Among them most recently, for exam­ple, the Bochum-based company phenox, which deve­lops, produ­ces and sells medi­cal tech­no­logy products for the treat­ment of strokes and vascu­lar dise­a­ses. NRW.Venture sold its shares in the company in April 2022 to Wallaby, a stra­te­gic inter­na­tio­nal part­ner of phenox.

The last fund to date, NRW.Venture III, star­ted its invest­ment period in 2018, ending with the end of 2022 and 22 invest­ments. Despite its early phase, this fund has also alre­ady recor­ded two successful exits.

News

Munich — The Life­Fit Group has expan­ded its brand port­fo­lio and acqui­red the Fitness­LOFT Group.
Fitness­LOFT is a leading opera­tor of fitness studios in the Full Service Best Price (FSBP) segment and opera­tes 27 studios in Bremen, Hamburg, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt with more than 65,000 members. Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed Life­Fit Group on the acqui­si­tion of Fitness­LOFT Group.

Life­Fit Group is a leading fitness and health plat­form in Germany, combi­ning seve­ral fitness brands from the boutique, premium and full service best price segments under one roof. Fitness First is the Group’s best-known brand.

GOF provi­ded legal support to Life­Fit in all phases of the tran­sac­tion process.

Legal advi­sors Life­Fit: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Heiner Feld­haus (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Karl Ehren­berg, LL.M. (Melbourne) (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Matthias Uelner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)

Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law, Munich: Ingo Sappa (Labor Law)

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

Berlin/Cologne — The funding of The Rain­fo­rest Company has a total volume of € 36 million and was led by Kalt­roco Ltd. Katjes Green­food parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round via a secon­dary. This is one of the largest finan­cing rounds in the German food tech sector in 2022 and the largest invest­ment amount recei­ved by a women-led food tech company in Europe to date. A YPOG team co-led by Johan­nes Janning and Benja­min Ullrich advi­sed Katjes Green­food on this finan­cing round for food startup The Rain­fo­rest Company.

The Rain­fo­rest Company achie­ved impres­sive growth rates in 2018 follo­wing the entry of Katjes Green­food. Thanks to a successful multich­an­nel stra­tegy with listings in more than 12,000 retail loca­ti­ons world­wide and a strong D2C busi­ness, the startup has alre­ady achie­ved sales of € 20 million. In order to further expand the company’s success, the addi­tio­nal capi­tal will be used for inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and product expansion.

Albana Rama (photo © THe Rain­fo­rest Company) is foun­der of The Rain­fo­rest Company, the Euro­pean pioneer of sustainable super­foods with a focus on açaí, the “super­food” from the Brazi­lian rain­fo­rest. There are curr­ently two natu­ral, vegan products: The frozen açaí puree of the tropi­cal fruit, which is curr­ently parti­cu­larly popu­lar for prepa­ring healthy bowls and deli­cious smoothies, and the world’s first açaí bowl-to-go in blueberry, mango and ginger flavors.

About Katjes Greenfood

Katjes­green­food GmbH & Co. KG, based in Düssel­dorf, toge­ther with its two sister compa­nies Katjes Fassin GmbH & Co. KG and Katjes Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH & Co. KG, form the Katjes Group. As a legally inde­pen­dent invest­ment company, it invests in growth compa­nies in the food indus­try that are rede­fi­ning the future of nutri­tion with inno­va­tive and sustainable products. In addi­tion to finan­cial invest­ments, a profound network and in-depth exper­tise in food retail­ing are the central pillars on the basis of which the port­fo­lio compa­nies are built into market leaders and the iconic brands of tomorrow.

About The Rain­fo­rest Company

Since 2016, The Rain­fo­rest Company has been on a mission to provide 100% natu­ral foods to make a lasting diffe­rence in the lives of its custo­mers across Europe. The company specia­li­zes in the vegan life­style, super­foods, acai-based products, orga­nic and healthy foods, and trans­pa­rent sustaina­bi­lity. The Rain­fo­rest Company was foun­ded in 2016 and is based in Berlin.

Consul­tant Katjes Green­food: YPOG
Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner (elect)
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Partner

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. 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 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

News

Paris/ Frank­furt a. M. — Montagu, a leading Euro­pean private equity firm, is plea­sed to announce that it has agreed to sell Main­care, a provi­der of soft­ware for French public hospi­tals and health autho­ri­ties, to Doca­poste, the digi­tal arm of the French Post Office. — The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the French compe­ti­tion authority.

Main­care offers a compre­hen­sive range of hospi­tal infor­ma­tion systems in France, where it is a leader in elec­tro­nic health records and solu­ti­ons for hospi­tal manage­ment, inter­ope­ra­bi­lity and tele­me­di­cine. With its inte­gra­ted soft­ware suite, the company helps public hospi­tals, payers and insu­r­ers imple­ment successful digi­tal stra­te­gies for the bene­fit of patients.

Since acqui­ring Main­care in 2018, Montagu has worked with the company to respond to the rapidly chan­ging needs of poli­cy­ma­kers and hospi­tals, parti­cu­larly in the wake of the Covid 19 pande­mic. Signi­fi­cant invest­ment in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment led to the deve­lo­p­ment of a new gene­ra­tion of elec­tro­nic health records and the moder­niza­tion of Maincare’s tech­no­logy to ensure that its products are inter­ope­ra­ble, SaaS-enab­led and at the fore­front of inno­va­tion in cybersecurity.

Under Montagu’s leader­ship, Maincare’s busi­nesses acqui­red in the past were brought toge­ther orga­niza­tio­nally and tech­no­lo­gi­cally to deve­lop a common vision and stra­tegy for the company and drive effi­ci­en­cies. Led by a strong and unified manage­ment team, the chan­ges helped create a custo­mer-centric culture that puts the needs of medi­cal staff and pati­ents at the center of the organization.

Guil­laume Jaba­lot, Part­ner at Montagu: “Main­care is an excel­lent exam­ple of Montagu’s stra­tegy to part­ner with leading compa­nies that offer important products and services. We are proud of the success that Main­care has achie­ved, and we are confi­dent that the company will conti­nue to thrive under Docaposte’s leadership.”

Fran­çois-Xavier Floren, CEO of Main­care, commen­ted, “Part­ne­ring with Doca­poste will allow us to address one of the biggest chal­lenges in our market — the importance of provi­ding custo­mers with long-term support from a trus­ted part­ner present in soft­ware, hosting and services. Over the past two years, with Montagu’s support, we have successfully imple­men­ted a trans­for­ma­tion plan aimed at impro­ving one of the persis­tent chal­lenges of the French hospi­tal system by giving time back to care­gi­vers.” The manage­ment team and all Main­care employees are confi­dent that the part­ner­ship with Doca­poste will bring further signi­fi­cant value to our custo­mers and the market.”

 

News

Cologne/ Berlin — In the latest finan­cing round of the AI-based trans­la­tor DeepL, venture capi­tal inves­tor Atomico was advi­sed by YPOG. In addi­tion to Atomico, IVP, Besse­mer Venture Part­ners and WiL as well as exis­ting inves­tors Bench­mark and btov parti­ci­pa­ted in the funding.

The Colo­gne-based startup emer­ged from the online diction­ary Linguee in 2017 and curr­ently offers 29 languages. Reve­nues are gene­ra­ted prima­rily from paid services, which include more features and privacy opti­ons than the free and open-access version. The company’s latest round of funding demons­tra­tes the incre­asing commer­cial importance of AI-based busi­ness models to the market and profes­sio­nal sectors.

Foun­der & CEO Jaros­law “Jarek” Kuty­low­ski is a passio­nate deve­lo­per and star­ted working on perso­nal projects he found useful and suita­ble for ever­y­day use at the age of 10. He later earned a docto­rate in compu­ter science with a focus on mathe­ma­tics. His fond­ness for languages and new tech­no­lo­gies led him into the world of AI trans­la­tion, in large part due to his multi­l­in­gual back­ground and sensi­bi­li­ties, having been born in Poland and raised in Germany.

The new capi­tal will be used for further rese­arch acti­vi­ties and the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company’s soft­ware. Further­more, DeepL is working on addi­tio­nal services and features and plans further inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

About Atomico

Atomico invests in emer­ging tech foun­ders in Series A and beyond — with a parti­cu­lar focus on Europe — lever­aging its exten­sive opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence to acce­le­rate their growth. Since its foun­ding in 2006, Atomico has worked with over 100 ambi­tious teams — inclu­ding those at Klarna, Super­cell, Graph­core, Compass, Messa­ge­Bird, Master­class, Atten­tive Mobile, Pipedrive and Hinge Health. Atomico’s team of foun­ders, inves­tors and opera­tio­nal leaders has been respon­si­ble for global expan­sion, hiring and marke­ting at compa­nies ranging from Skype and Google to Twit­ter and Uber. The company curr­ently has $4 billion in assets under management.

About DeepL

DeepL is a German company that aims to elimi­nate language barriers around the world through the use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. Since 2017, the company has offe­red DeepL Trans­la­tor, a machine trans­la­tion system that achie­ves the best trans­la­tion quality in the world accor­ding to blind tests, at www.DeepL.com. In addi­tion, DeepL provi­des profes­sio­nal products for compa­nies, entre­pre­neurs and trans­la­tors. To date, more than one billion people have used the services of DeepL. The company is led by foun­der and CEO Jaros­law Kuty­low­ski and backed by inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors such as Bench­mark and btov.

Advi­sor Atomico: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Tobias Lovett (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate
Dr. Matthias Schatz (Corpo­rate), Partner
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Andreas Bergt­hal­ler (Corpo­rate), Senior Associate
Pia Meven (Tran­sac­tions), Associate
Dr. Chris­toph Lütten­berg (Corpo­rate), Associate

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. 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 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

News

Düssel­dorf — NRW.BANK is one of the first German finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons to issue a digi­tal bearer bond under the Elec­tro­nic Secu­ri­ties Act. This makes it one of the pioneers in the digi­tiza­tion of this still very analog area in the secu­ri­ties market. Auto­ma­ted emis­sion process increa­ses speed

“The hand­ling of our first digi­tal bond issue is another consis­tent step for us to actively shape the tech­no­lo­gi­cal trans­for­ma­tion in the finan­cial sector,” says Gabriela Pant­ring (photo © NRW.Bank), member of NRW.BANK’s Mana­ging Board. “A fully digi­tal issue signi­fi­cantly stream­li­nes the process while ensu­ring trans­pa­rency. It demons­tra­tes our commit­ment to digi­tiza­tion in the secu­ri­ties sector.”

The issue of the digi­tal bond with a volume of €20 million, two-year matu­rity and a coupon of 2.875% was hand­led via Deut­sche Börse Group’s D7 plat­form. The issu­ance of the bond was supported by LBBW.

The D7 plat­form replaces the tradi­tio­nal vault with a digi­tal secu­ri­ties regis­ter. This is an important first step that will enable further digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of subse­quent sett­le­ment proces­ses. — NRW.BANK’s digi­tal bearer bond is listed on the Düssel­dorf Stock Exch­ange under WKN NWB1W2.

In summer 2021, the Elec­tro­nic Secu­ri­ties Act (eWpG) crea­ted the legal basis for issuing digi­tal secu­ri­ties. Issuers are no longer requi­red to depo­sit certi­fi­ca­tes of secu­ri­ties in paper form with Deut­sche Börse subsi­diary Clearstream. Veri­fi­ca­tion and storage is also now no longer done in analog, but in a digi­tal emis­si­ons register.

In 2019, NRW.BANK had alre­ady become the first deve­lo­p­ment bank to process a promis­sory note loan tran­sac­tion on a same-day and paper­less basis via block­chain. This was follo­wed in Septem­ber 2020 by the first block­chain-based and thus fully digi­tal and legally secure own issue of a promis­sory note loan.

About NRW.BANK
NRW.BANK is the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­pha­lia. It supports its owner, the state of NRW, in its struc­tu­ral and econo­mic policy tasks. In its three promo­tion fields “Economy”, “Housing” and “Infrastructure/Municipalities”, NRW.BANK uses a broad range of promo­tion instru­ments: from low-inte­rest deve­lo­p­ment loans to equity finan­cing and advi­sory services. It works toge­ther with all banks and savings banks in NRW on a compe­ti­tion-neutral basis. In its promo­tion acti­vi­ties, NRW.BANK also takes into account exis­ting offers from the fede­ral govern­ment, the state and the Euro­pean Union. www.nrwbank.de

News

Frank­furt am Main / Bous — KTP Kunst­stoff Palet­ten­tech­nik GmbH (KTP) has acqui­red the majo­rity of shares in K2 PAK of Koper, Slove­nia. KTP was supported in this by the Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner, which holds a mino­rity stake in the Saar­land-based company. KTP is one of the Euro­pean market leaders in the produc­tion and deve­lo­p­ment of foldable large contai­ners and large load carri­ers as well as pallets and carrier systems made of plas­tic. With the acqui­si­tion of K2 PAK, KTP is streng­thening its busi­ness area around the inner pack­a­ging of trans­port boxes, lever­aging valuable syner­gies between the two compa­nies and conti­nuing its long-term growth strategy.

KTP had alre­ady acqui­red a majo­rity stake in K2 PAK at the begin­ning of 2022; the stake was now signi­fi­cantly increased again at the turn of the year. The remai­ning shares remain with the mana­ging part­ner Marco Krmac. For more than two deca­des, the family-owned company K2 PAK has been deve­lo­ping and supp­ly­ing advan­ced indus­trial reusable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons made of a wide variety of mate­ri­als as an inner packer, provi­ding opti­mum protec­tion for custo­mers’ compon­ents during trans­port. There are alre­ady long-stan­ding busi­ness rela­ti­onships with KTP — the inte­gra­tion will enable further syner­gies to be lever­a­ged and deve­lo­p­ment and inno­va­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties to be driven forward.

KTP Kunst­stoff Palet­ten­tech­nik GmbH, based in Bous (Saar­land), has specia­li­zed in the manu­fac­ture and deve­lo­p­ment of foldable large contai­ners and large load carri­ers as well as pallets and carrier systems made of plas­tic since 1988. The advan­ta­ges of the KTP contai­ners are the ease of use and the space saving due to volume reduc­tion. In addi­tion, resour­ces are conser­ved — both through the use of recy­cled raw mate­ri­als and the possi­bi­lity of retur­ning them to the raw mate­rial cycle, and thanks to the lower trans­port weight. VR Equi­typ­art­ner (VREP) had acqui­red a mino­rity stake in KTP at the end of 2011 to support manage­ment in exploi­ting the company’s further growth poten­tial and driving inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. From its head­quar­ters in Bous and its Chinese sales loca­tion in Taicang, KTP now exports its products to over 100 countries.

“The 2022 finan­cial year was the best in KTP’s history,” says a deligh­ted KTP Mana­ging Direc­tor Martin Hent­schel: “We also acqui­red a majo­rity stake in K2 PAK, thus ente­ring the inner pack­a­ging market. This expands our offer to our custo­mers, increa­ses our compe­ti­ti­ve­ness and enhan­ces custo­mer proximity.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner, also welco­mes the new part­ner­ship: “With the acqui­si­tion of K2 PAK, KTP is conti­nuing its successful growth story: after the strong expan­sion of produc­tion capa­ci­ties, the ongo­ing diver­si­fi­ca­tion out of the auto­mo­tive sector into other indus­tries and the successful inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, the acqui­si­tion of K2 PAK is a real game chan­ger. The addressa­ble market has increased signi­fi­cantly and now offers custo­mer access through both trans­port boxes and inner packaging.”

The tran­sac­tion team of VR Equi­typ­art­ner: Sarah Oster­mann, Simone Weck

Advi­sor VR Equitypartner:
Finan­cial Due Dili­gence: ECOVIS CF, Ljubljana, with Chris­toph Geymayer
Legal due dili­gence and legal advice: CMS REICH-ROHRWIG HAINZ / Senica & Part­ners, Ljubljana, with Aleš Lunder

News

Baienfurt/ Munich — The previous share­hol­ders of Hobe Tools Holding GmbH, FTSA Betei­li­gungs GmbH, INTEGRA Treu­hand­ge­sell­schaft mbH Steu­er­be­ra­tungs­ge­sell­schaft, AURELIUS Growth Invest­ments S.à r.l. and Hobe Mana­ging Direc­tor Dr. Jens-Jörg Eßer, have sold all their shares in Hobe to Indu­trade Switz­er­land AG. The tran­sac­tion took place within the frame­work of a compe­ti­tive bidding process.

Hobe GmbH is a niche manu­fac­tu­rer of micro-precis­ion tools foun­ded in 1971 and based in Baien­furt, Germany. The main custo­mers are compa­nies in indus­tries such as medi­cal tech­no­logy, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, elec­tro­nics, cons­truc­tion and metrology.

Indu­trade is an inter­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy and indus­trial group foun­ded in 1978 with more than 200 affi­lia­ted compa­nies in around 30 count­ries. Indu­trade gene­ra­ted sales of 21.7 billion Swedish kronor in 2021 and is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm.

Hobe will be inte­gra­ted into Indutrade’s DACH busi­ness area.

Advi­sor to seller: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich

Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs, Foto (Lead), Dr. Germar Enders (Coun­sel; both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Phil­ipp Schäuble (Labor Law), Nina Siewert, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Fabian Appa­doo, Dr. Robert Feind, LL.M., Sebas­tian Gerst­ner, Benja­min Macie­jew­ski, LL.M., Matthias Wein­gut (all Corporate/M&A)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,200 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: https://www.mwe.com/de/

News

Hungen/ Wetz­lar — Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance a leading German M&A consul­ting boutique with a focus on medium-sized succes­si­ons, accom­pa­nies bgm baugrund­be­ra­tung GmbH (“bgm”, photo © bmg), specia­li­zed in soil and subsoil inves­ti­ga­tion, in the successful sale of the company to VINCI Ener­gies. bgm will hence­forth operate under the guise of Omexom — VINCI Ener­gies’ brand for energy infrastructures.

Foun­ded in 2008 by Mathias Müssig, bgm specia­li­zes in soil and subsoil inves­ti­ga­ti­ons. The company offers consul­ting services in the fields of engi­nee­ring geology, inves­ti­ga­tion of conta­mi­na­ted sites, geother­mal energy, preser­va­tion of evidence as well as control tests in the field of earthworks and compac­tion controls in asphalt paving.

“With the added exper­tise of bgm, we are expan­ding our port­fo­lio in over­head line cons­truc­tion for subsoil inves­ti­ga­ti­ons at pylon sites. Compa­nies in this market segment are rare and we are plea­sed to be able to offer our custo­mers a wide range of plan­ning services,” says Dr. Jochen Röhm, Omexom Divi­sion Mana­ger, into whose divi­sion the company will be inte­gra­ted. “We warmly welcome the team of bgm as a new member in our Omexom family and wish all colle­agues a successful start.”

“We are convin­ced that in VINCI Ener­gies we have found a buyer that provi­des our company with the right frame­work for contin­ued growth and future deve­lo­p­ment. We are deligh­ted to become part of VINCI Ener­gies. On the one hand, this will enable us to bene­fit from a network of specia­lists and share and, on the other, streng­then our own compe­ten­cies,” says Mathias Müssig, who will remain on the manage­ment board with Jörn Martini as head of the new busi­ness unit.

“The entire cons­truc­tion and energy indus­try is facing a radi­cal change, or is alre­ady expe­ri­en­cing it to a large extent. With VINCI Ener­gies, bgm will have a strong stra­te­gic part­ner at its side in the future, which will certainly contri­bute to the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company,” sums up Sebas­tian Wissig, project mana­ger at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor. “Due to the common stra­te­gic goals of bgm and VINCI Ener­gies, the process was very cons­truc­tive on both sides from the very begin­ning, so that we were able to work out a good and future-orien­ted solu­tion in close coor­di­na­tion with all parties and successfully conclude the tran­sac­tion,” adds Phil­ipp Panther, project employee at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and part of the team around Sebas­tian Wissig.

About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor GmbH, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, is one of the leading M&A consul­ting firms in the German SME sector. The team of almost 30 experts accom­pa­nies medium-sized entre­pre­neurs exclu­si­vely through the entire sales process. “Our task is to safe­guard life’s work,” is how we see oursel­ves. In doing so, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, and which protects the iden­tity of their compa­nies to a special degree. Thanks to their excel­lent access to medium-sized compa­nies, Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance have also estab­lished them­sel­ves as a strong part­ner at the side of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal major compa­nies and inves­tors in acquisitions.
www.nachfolgekontor.de www.sonntagcf.com

About Omexom

Omexom is VINCI Ener­gies’ brand for energy infra­struc­tures. Omexom supports its custo­mers in all tasks rela­ted to the imple­men­ta­tion of the energy tran­si­tion. Omexom’s goal is to work with its custo­mers to create solu­ti­ons for sustainable energy and mobi­lity supply. The offe­ring covers the entire range of services for energy infra­struc­tures: From engi­nee­ring to main­ten­ance of all infra­struc­tures for power gene­ra­tion, trans­mis­sion and distri­bu­tion and that up to the end consumer’s elec­tri­city meter inclu­ding all energy-rela­ted services for muni­ci­pa­li­ties and commu­ni­ties. In Germany, Omexom opera­tes nati­on­wide for network opera­tors, public utili­ties, muni­ci­pal energy suppli­ers, trade and indus­try as well as for Deut­sche Bahn.
2021: 3.7 billion euros in sales, of which 675 million euros in Germany // 23,500 employees, of which 3,800 in Germany // 435 busi­ness units, of which 75 in Germany // 37 countries
www.omexom.de

About VINCI Energies

In a chan­ging world, VINCI Ener­gies is acce­le­ra­ting the envi­ron­men­tal tran­si­tion by play­ing a concrete role in shaping two profound trans­for­ma­ti­ons: Digi­ta­liza­tion and the energy tran­si­tion. As a market-orien­ted inte­gra­tor of custo­mi­zed, cross-tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons, we support our custo­mers in imple­men­ting tech­no­lo­gies that bene­fit society and protect the envi­ron­ment — from plan­ning through imple­men­ta­tion and opera­tion to main­ten­ance. With our 1,800 regio­nally based, agile and inno­va­tive busi­ness units, we are invol­ved in the energy-rela­ted decis­i­ons, infra­struc­tures and proces­ses of our custo­mers and ensure grea­ter relia­bi­lity, effi­ci­ency and sustaina­bi­lity every day.
2021: 15.1 billion euros sales // 85,700 employees // 1,800 busi­ness units // 57 countries
www.vinci-energies.com

News

Amster­dam / Munich — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt (“BUKO”), two leading provi­ders of outsour­ced traf­fic and secu­rity manage­ment solu­ti­ons in the Nether­lands. Equis­tone will work with current share­hol­der Scheybe­eck Parti­ci­pa­ties, the Burger family’s family office, as well as the exten­ded manage­ment team that will take a reverse stake in the company as part of the transaction.

It was important for Scheybe­eck Parti­ci­pa­ties to find a highly expe­ri­en­ced part­ner who could support the compa­nies’ growth ambi­ti­ons with strong finan­cial back­ing and a large inter­na­tio­nal network. BUKO CEO Robert Emme­rich will conti­nue to lead both compa­nies as Mana­ging Direc­tor. The part­ner­ship with Equis­tone will focus prima­rily on further expan­ding the market presence in the Nether­lands as well as targe­ted expan­sion into neigh­bor­ing count­ries, supported by strong market dyna­mics. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion authorities.

BUKO was foun­ded in 1962 in the Nether­lands and consists of three busi­ness units: BUKO Infra­sup­port, BUKO Trans­port and BUKO Waakt. BUKO Trans­port is not part of this tran­sac­tion. BUKO Infra­sup­port specia­li­zes in offe­ring end-to-end outsour­cing solu­ti­ons in tempo­rary traf­fic manage­ment. With its compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of services — from the design, plan­ning, permit­ting, provi­sion and coll­ec­tion, as well as the manage­ment of requi­red road signage and safety equip­ment for on-site road works — Infra­sup­port parti­cu­larly serves contrac­tors and autho­ri­ties invol­ved in utility-rela­ted, urban and rural road works. BUKO Waakt is a provi­der of tempo­rary secu­rity solu­ti­ons with a focus on camera surveil­lance, intru­sion detec­tion systems as well as access control systems, which are used espe­ci­ally on cons­truc­tion sites of resi­den­tial and public buildings.

The two busi­ness units BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt combine strong exper­tise with a custo­mer- and result-orien­ted approach, high-quality equip­ment and a convic­tion for the highest safety stan­dards. In this way, the company is making an important contri­bu­tion to ensu­ring the prescri­bed safety measu­res around road and cons­truc­tion projects and to meeting the incre­asing safety regu­la­ti­ons in the best possi­ble way. With seve­ral thousand projects comple­ted each year and its firmly estab­lished long-stan­ding and trus­ting custo­mer rela­ti­onships, the company is conside­red one of the largest provi­ders of custo­mi­zed traf­fic and secu­rity solu­ti­ons in the Nether­lands. It curr­ently employs more than 350 people and gene­ra­tes annual sales of around 70 million euros.

The part­ner­ship with Equis­tone is expec­ted to further drive the company’s contin­ued growth and deve­lo­p­ment. The main focus here is on making opti­mum use of the strong market momen­tum, prima­rily driven by further invest­ments in infra­struc­ture asso­cia­ted with digi­tiza­tion and the energy tran­si­tion, as well as in road main­ten­ance, and on incre­asing the company’s geogra­phi­cal presence.

“I am very plea­sed to part­ner with Equis­tone, espe­ci­ally due to their indus­try exper­tise gained in their nume­rous invest­ments in rele­vant port­fo­lio compa­nies, their presence in the rele­vant regi­ons, and their part­ner-like and excep­tio­nally strong team. I look forward to taking the growth of our company to the next level while main­tai­ning our family culture,” said Robert Emme­rich, CEO of BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt.

“BUKO is alre­ady excel­lently posi­tio­ned — Equis­tone wants to take advan­tage of this in a targe­ted manner and support BUKO in further streng­thening its service offe­ring as well as its market posi­tion in the Nether­lands through orga­nic growth,” explains Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Part­ner in Equistone’s Amster­dam office. “In addi­tion, Equis­tone will focus on incre­asing the market pene­tra­tion of certain regi­ons in the Nether­lands and will also explore the possi­bi­lity of expan­ding into neigh­bor­ing count­ries through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons,” added Tanja Berg, invest­ment direc­tor at Equistone.

The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Tanja Berg (photo) and Josh Aalbers.

Advi­sor Equistone:
PwC (Finan­cial, Tax, IT, and Debt Advi­sory), DC Advi­sory (M&A), Roland Berger and Munich Stra­tegy (Commer­cial), Vesper and Clif­ford Chance (Legal).

Consul­tant BUKO:
Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (M&A), Deloitte (finan­cial, tax advi­sory), Strategy& (commer­cial) and De Brauw Blackstone West­br­oek (legal).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in the Nether­lands, Germany, Switz­er­land, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since incep­tion, equity has been inves­ted in more than 170 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around six active invest­ments in Bene­lux. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. In addi­tion, the “Equis­tone Reinvest­ment Fund” was recently laun­ched, from which it is possi­ble to reinvest in mino­rity posi­ti­ons follo­wing sales of port­fo­lio compa­nies from the main funds. www.equistonepe.com

News

Frank­furt — KKR, a leading global inves­tor, has appoin­ted Harald Dürr (photo) as Mana­ging Direc­tor of KKR’s Client and Part­ner Group (CPG) to lead its Family Capi­tal client busi­ness in the DACH region. In his role, Harald Dürr will focus on expan­ding KKR’s offe­ring for family offices and further streng­thening KKR’s posi­tio­ning in the DACH region. He also beco­mes part of KKR’s Family Capi­tal team in EMEA, which was estab­lished in 2014 to build long-term, trus­ted rela­ti­onships with high net worth fami­lies and entrepreneurs.

Harald Dürr spent more than 25 years at Deut­sche Bank, where he held various manage­ment posi­ti­ons and was respon­si­ble for the Family Capi­tal divi­sion, most recently as Senior Rela­ti­onship Mana­ger and Mana­ging Direc­tor in Frank­furt. In these roles, he focu­sed on complex client situa­tions and became a trus­ted advi­sor to some of the bank’s most important clients, inclu­ding family offices, busi­ness foun­ders and entre­pre­neurs. He also helped the bank increase its market share among the top 500 fami­lies in Germany.

Previously, he was a member of the advi­sory board of two German medium-sized compa­nies, where he addi­tio­nally advi­sed an inter­na­tio­nal wealthy family in connec­tion with their German invest­ments. Chris­tian Ollig, Part­ner and Head of DACH at KKR, said: “We are very plea­sed to have Harald Dürr join our growing team. With his exten­sive expe­ri­ence in serving family offices and entre­pre­neurs, Harald is an excel­lent addi­tion to our Client and Part­ner Group in the DACH region. We are plea­sed to have Harald Dürr join our team and lead KKR’s rela­ti­onships with this special group of inves­tors as we conti­nue to expand our presence in Germany.”

Harald Dürr, Mana­ging Direc­tor, CPG at KKR in Germany, said: “I am deligh­ted to join KKR’s team in Frank­furt. I look forward to lever­aging my expe­ri­ence, know­ledge and network in the German asset manage­ment market to further streng­then KKR’s exten­sive offe­ring in the DACH region and attract new inves­tors in the growing family capi­tal space.”

Harald Dürr’s appoint­ment is part of KKR’s ongo­ing efforts to expand its team in the DACH region and follows a number of appoint­ments in KKR’s Client and Part­ner Group, inclu­ding the appoint­ment of Hagen Raab as a Direc­tor in 2018 and Steven Bayly as a
Mana­ging Direc­tor in 2021, as well as the appoint­ment of Moritz Mondo­vits, who joined KKR in 2022 as Prin­ci­pal toge­ther with Hanna Kunz­mann as Asso­ciate. KKR’s Client and Part­ner Group is respon­si­ble for advi­sing and serving KKR’s Limi­ted Part­ners and works to further diver­sify KKR’s client base. The team is respon­si­ble for attrac­ting new inves­tors from all regi­ons and from various insti­tu­ti­ons. By incre­asingly expan­ding its capa­bi­li­ties in this area, KKR aims to address the growing importance of family offices and intro­duce them to the full range of KKR’s invest­ment opportunities.

About KKR

KKR is a leading global inves­tor provi­ding alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, capi­tal markets and insu­rance solu­ti­ons. The focus is on gene­ra­ting attrac­tive invest­ment returns through a long-term and disci­pli­ned invest­ment approach, employ­ing highly skil­led profes­sio­nals and support­ing growth at its invest­ment proper­ties and in the commu­ni­ties where KKR has a presence. KKR finan­ces funds that invest in private equity, credit products, real assets, and — through stra­te­gic part­ners — hedge funds. KKR’s insu­rance subsi­dia­ries offer reti­re­ment, life and reinsu­rance products under the manage­ment of Global Atlan­tic Finan­cial Group. www.kkr.com, Twit­ter @KKR_Co.

News

Wess­ling / Munich. — Deut­sche Aircraft Holdings (DAH), the sole owner of the compa­nies in the Deut­sche Aircraft Group, recently secu­red an important mino­rity inte­rest in DAH Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, which is jointly held by OHB and AFK.

The invest­ment is being made through a joint venture between aero­space company OHB SE and invest­ment company AFK Enter­prise AG, and will drive the deve­lo­p­ment of new green avia­tion tech­no­lo­gies inclu­ding D328eco™, an envi­ron­men­tally friendly version of the proven Do328® short-range passen­ger aircraft manu­fac­tu­red by Deut­sche Aircraft GmbH. Under the agree­ment, the inves­tors have the option of acqui­ring further shares up to a majo­rity stake at a later date.

Deut­sche Aircraft’s D328 series is based on the proud heri­tage of Dornier, and Deut­sche Aircraft holds the type certi­fi­cate for the Do328®. With new propul­sion systems, latest gene­ra­tion avia­tion tech­no­logy and more seats, the D328eco will set new stan­dards for envi­ron­men­tally friendly short-haul flying. Deut­sche Aircraft is also inves­ti­ga­ting various alter­na­tive fuels and future climate-neutral propul­sion systems as part of its product road­map. The Do328 is the last commer­cial aircraft to date to have been deve­lo­ped and built enti­rely in-house by a German company — and this will also be the case with the D328eco.

The invest­ment in DAH is subject to the appr­oval of the German govern­ment, which is support­ing the deve­lo­p­ment of the D328eco with a large-volume deve­lo­p­ment cost loan and is also support­ing the deve­lo­p­ment of clean avia­tion initia­ti­ves at Deut­sche Aircraft. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first quar­ter of 2023, once regu­la­tory appr­ovals and other custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons are satisfied.

Advi­sors to Deut­sche Aircraft Holdings (DAH): SKW Schwarz
Lead Part­ner Dr. Kolja Petro­vicki toge­ther with Cohen & Gresser (US law, UK law) and Carey Olsen (Cayman Islands law).

Consul­ting Attor­neys: Dr. Kolja Petro­vicki, LL.M. (UPenn), (Corporate/M&A, lead), Dr. Oliver M. Bühr (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Tatjana Schroe­der (Restruc­tu­ring), Alex­an­der Möller, Sabrina Hoch­brück­ner (both Labor Law), Stefan Skulesch (Tax) (all Frank­furt); Dr. Klaus Jankow­ski, Maria Rothä­mel (both Public Law, both Berlin), Heiko Wunder­lich (Tax); Eva Bona­cker (Merger Control) (both Munich).

About SKW Schwarz

SKW Schwarz is an inde­pen­dent law firm with 130 lawy­ers, four loca­ti­ons and a common claim: We think ahead. As a full-service law firm and member of TerraLex, we are globally networked and advise in all rele­vant areas of busi­ness law. Also in an area that is parti­cu­larly important for compa­nies: the future. We analyze, create clarity and provide advice today in the key legal areas of tomorrow.

About AFK Enterprise

AFK Enter­prise AG, based in Switz­er­land, the indus­trial arm of the AFK Kumar Family Office, is a private family office char­ged with the preser­va­tion, manage­ment and growth of the AFK Kumar family’s wealth. AFK makes stra­te­gic invest­ments across a broad spec­trum of markets, with a focus on equity and growth capi­tal. With its inter­na­tio­nal focus, AFK actively pursues and enga­ges in a variety of high-tech invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in Europe, the U.S. the Middle East, India, Asia, and emer­ging markets.

About OHB SE

OHB SE is a German space and tech­no­logy group and one of the leading inde­pen­dent forces in the Euro­pean space indus­try. With many years of expe­ri­ence in the realiza­tion of sophisti­ca­ted projects, OHB SE is excel­lently posi­tio­ned in inter­na­tio­nal compe­ti­tion and offers its custo­mers a broad port­fo­lio of inno­va­tive products in the three busi­ness units: Space Systems, Aero­space and Digi­tal. The company employs around 3,000 people and gene­ra­tes total sales of around one billion euros.

About Deut­sche Aircraft GmbH

Deut­sche Aircraft is Germany’s new targe­ted OEM. Deut­sche Aircraft’s new D328eco™ aircraft, based on the legacy of avia­tion pioneers, is desi­gned to signi­fi­cantly reduce opera­ting and main­ten­ance costs and lower the over­all carbon foot­print. This is in line with Deut­sche Aircraft’s vision and stra­te­gic road­map to support a more sustainable future for avia­tion. The D328eco will offer maxi­mum flexi­bi­lity as it can run on exis­ting avia­tion gaso­line as well as 100% H2-PtL. The aircraft is assem­bled in the paper­less finis­hing line (FAL) in Leipzig/Germany. All para­me­ters are in high demand in the current avia­tion envi­ron­ment, and there is alre­ady increased inte­rest in the D328eco among poten­tial custo­mers and partners.

News

Gelsenkirchen/ Munich — Komatsu announ­ced today that it has ente­red into an agree­ment to acquire GHH Group GmbH (GHH), a manu­fac­tu­rer of machi­nes for under­ground mining, tunnel­ing and foun­da­tion engi­nee­ring head­quar­te­red in Gelsen­kir­chen, Germany. The GHH Group deve­lops and produ­ces vehic­les for under­ground and tunnel cons­truc­tion. Komatsu, head­quar­te­red in Tokyo, opera­tes as a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of cons­truc­tion, mining, forestry and indus­trial equip­ment in more than 140 count­ries. Komatsu was advi­sed by Henge­ler Müller in this transaction.

GHH was foun­ded in the 1960s and is now part of the German Schmidt Kranz Group. The company offers a wide range of machi­nes focu­sing on loaders and arti­cu­la­ted dump trucks in the medium-seam mining, narrow-gauge and civil engi­nee­ring market segments. With this acqui­si­tion, Komatsu will acquire GHH’s facto­ries and conver­sion capa­bi­li­ties in key markets in addi­tion to its robust product offe­ring and talen­ted workforce.

We are very exci­ted about this acqui­si­tion as it repres­ents a great oppor­tu­nity for Komatsu to expand its under­ground mining equip­ment offe­ring and acce­le­rate new product deve­lo­p­ment through syner­gies with Komatsu’s exis­ting team and product offe­ring,” said Peter Salditt, presi­dent and CEO of Komatsu Mining Corp. “With the addi­tion of GHH’s facto­ries and rebuild opera­ti­ons in key markets in Europe, South Africa, India and Chile. We also want to use it to streng­then produc­tion and service capa­ci­ties for our customers.”

Komatsu intends to conti­nue GHH’s excel­lent service and plans to operate as usual after the acqui­si­tion. The combi­ned team will then work toge­ther to expand Komatsu’s under­ground mining equip­ment offe­ring and help custo­mers access products in new areas.

“GHH is plea­sed to embark on a new jour­ney with a strong player in the mining world. This opens up tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties for our people and our products to evolve and grow beyond what we had hoped for,” said Dr. Jan Petzold, CEO of GHH Group. “This is the next logi­cal step in beco­ming a true global player, and we look forward to beco­ming part of the Komatsu family.”

In fact, GHH may be conside­red a rock in the indus­try, with roots dating back to 1758. At its peak as a mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring conglo­me­rate, it had almost 100,000 employees. Indus­trial giants like MAN, Roland and MTU were once among them. In 1995, GHH Fahr­zeuge GmbH split off as a specia­list for under­ground equip­ment. Within 25 years, the manu­fac­tu­rer advan­ced to become a real player in the world market.

GHH supplies almost ever­y­thing that is on wheels in deep mining and espe­ci­ally in raw mate­rial mining. GHH exports its loaders, dump trucks, concrete mixers, and shove­lers around the globe. This includes dril­ling rigs, anchor hand­ling equip­ment and tunnell­ing machi­nes from Mine Master as well as flat travel­ling loaders from GHH Mining Machi­nes. A dense part­ner network under­pins the company’s claim to be a “total solu­tion provi­der” offe­ring ever­y­thing from a single source. The offi­cial closing of the acqui­si­tion is sche­du­led for the first half of 2023.

Under the ongo­ing medium-term manage­ment plan “DANTOTSU Value — Toge­ther, to ‘The Next’ for sustainable growth,” Komatsu is working to expand its under­ground hard­rock mining offe­rings and create new value for custo­mers by deve­lo­ping new equip­ment, proces­ses and tech­no­lo­gies that will help opera­ti­ons reach the next level for the work­place of the future and create a more sustainable envi­ron­ment for the next generation.

About Komatsu
Komatsu deve­lops and supplies tech­no­lo­gies, equip­ment and services for the cons­truc­tion, mining, fork­lift, indus­trial and forestry markets. For a century, the company has crea­ted value for its custo­mers through manu­fac­tu­ring and tech­no­logy inno­va­tion, and colla­bo­ra­ted with others to enable a sustainable future where people, busi­nesses and the planet thrive together.

 

News

Munich, Germany — French private equity firm PAI Part­ners (“PAI”) has acqui­red Savory Solu­ti­ons Group, a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of flavor and func­tional solu­ti­ons for the food sector. The seller was Inter­na­tio­nal Flavors & Fragran­ces Inc. (“IFF”). The merger is still subject to the usual regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the second quar­ter of 2023. POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the manage­ment of Savory Solu­ti­ons Group in connec­tion with the sale.

Savory Solu­ti­ons Group, parti­cu­larly under the Wiberg and Piasa brands, offers a range of value-added savory ingre­di­ents and blends. The solu­ti­ons are used by food manu­fac­tu­r­ers, butchers as well as food­ser­vice opera­tors to improve texture and taste and extend the shelf life of their products. The company opera­tes 17 produc­tion sites and nine inno­va­tion sites and employs over 1,800 people. Savory Solu­ti­ons Group serves more than 11,000 custo­mers in Europe, North America and Asia. The Group gene­ra­tes sales of around 470 million euros.

Toge­ther with PAI, Savory Solu­ti­ons Group will conti­nue to acce­le­rate the busi­ness through inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion in Europe and North America, both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons, parti­cu­larly in the attrac­tive vege­ta­ble and clean label segments. — The acqui­si­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close by the second quar­ter of 2023.

French private equity firm PAI Part­ners invests in market-leading compa­nies around the world with a strong focus on the food and consu­mer goods industries.

Advi­sor Savory Solu­ti­ons Group: POELLATH, Munich

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Investments)
Jan Lukas Jung­claus, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participations)
Ida Süß, LL.M. (UCLA) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Associates)

About PAI Partners

PAI Part­ners is a leading private equity firm inves­t­ing in market-leading compa­nies world­wide. PAI Part­ners mana­ges €26.4 billion of buyout funds and has comple­ted 92 invest­ments in 11 count­ries since 1994 with a tran­sac­tion value of over €72 billion. PAI has built an outstan­ding track record of working with ambi­tious manage­ment teams where unique perspec­tive, unmat­ched indus­try expe­ri­ence and long-term vision enable compa­nies to reach — and go beyond — their full poten­tial. www.paipartners.com.

News

Munich — FCF Fox Corpo­rate Finance GmbH (FCF) publishes the latest “Indus­trial IoT Venture Capi­tal Report”. This first-ever report, which exami­nes Euro­pean venture capi­tal funding trends in deep-tech verti­cal indus­trial IoT, reve­als a bifur­ca­ted trend.

Indus­trial IoT, the sub-verti­cal of IoT that focu­ses on indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons of IoT, is domi­na­ted by large indus­trial groups but also by a large number of start-ups that offer inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in areas such as hard­ware and senso­ric, soft­ware & analy­tics and connec­ti­vity. In its latest report, FCF has high­ligh­ted VC invest­ments but also exit acti­vi­ties (trade sale and IPO) of start­ups from the verti­cal, focus on Euro­pean start­ups in the obser­va­tion period 2017 — Q3 2022.

A look at the deve­lo­p­ment of invest­ment volu­mes and the number of deals reve­als a split picture: Although finan­cing volu­mes have increased signi­fi­cantly from EUR 650 million in 2017 to EUR 914 million in 2022. The number of deals, howe­ver, has been steadily decli­ning since 2019, from 407 to 163 deals in 2022. The decline in the number of deals thus began even before the gene­ral cooling of the venture capi­tal market since around the begin­ning of 2022. Nevert­hel­ess, the rising volu­mes indi­cate that the sector is still attrac­tive for inves­tors and is thus successfully holding its own against slumps in other verticals.

Matu­rity of the sector increa­ses — Out of the garage, into the factory

More volume with fewer deals natu­rally means higher average and median volu­mes per deal. In 2022 in parti­cu­lar, the invest­ment volume was largely driven by three mega deals — KINEXON with EUR 119 million, Descar­tes with EUR 107 million, and Nexxiot with a volume of EUR 102 million. In turn, the gene­rally decli­ning shares of seed & early-stage deals over time indi­cate a steadily growing matu­rity of the vertical.

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