ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Hano­ver / Frank­furt a. M. — The invest­ment company NORD Holding is laun­ching a small cap fund with a target volume of appro­xi­m­ately € 125 million. This is accom­pa­nied by the opening of a new office in Frank­furt am Main with a small cap team that has been well estab­lished for many years. Equity invest­ments of up to € 25 million per invest­ment in medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region with an EBITDA of up to € 5 million (majo­rity invest­ments and selec­tive mino­ri­ties) are to be made.

NORD Holding, with its more than 50-year history and successful track record in the mid cap segment, is expan­ding its acti­vi­ties in the German-spea­king small cap sector. The new small cap vehicle will be provi­ded with € 50 million by NORD Holding so that the first invest­ments can be made imme­dia­tely. The target volume of the new small cap fund is € 125 million, which will be provi­ded by NORD Holding’s exis­ting inves­tor network and new fund investors.

The stra­te­gic expan­sion of the NORD Holding acti­vi­ties is a conti­nua­tion of the successful growth course of the tradi­tio­nal company from Hano­ver. Most recently, NORD Holding was alre­ady one of the most active German medium-sized inves­tors in 2020 and 2021.

The value crea­tion approach for the stra­te­gic further deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and the focus on sectors and digi­tiza­tion will also be pursued by the small cap team in the future. Thus, the new port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the broad exper­tise of the entire NORD Holding organization.

For the new office in Frank­furt am Main a complete team around Jan Markus Drees could be won. In addi­tion to him, Maxi­mi­lian Fink­bei­ner, Johan­nes Fleck (photo) and Marga­rita Decker are also moving to NORD Holding. The team has a successful track record and many years of collaboration.

Andreas Bösen­berg (photo left), Mana­ging Direc­tor of NORD Holding, says: “Setting up a dedi­ca­ted small cap fund is the logi­cal deve­lo­p­ment of NORD Holding’s successful growth course. We are plea­sed to welcome our new colleagues.”

About NORD Holding

With a history of more than 50 years and assets under manage­ment of € 2.5 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity and asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany (www.nordholding.de). The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund investments.

The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group divisions/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king countries.

The Fund Invest­ments busi­ness unit targets the micro and small cap segment of mid-market-orien­ted private equity funds in Europe. The focus here is on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor investor.

News

Berlin — Raue has compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed German air cab company Volo­c­op­ter on a Series E finan­cing round worth €153 million. Volo­c­op­ter plans to use the new capi­tal to acce­le­rate certi­fi­ca­tion of the elec­tric passen­ger air cab and its launch in initial cities.

The first signing of the Series E finan­cing round was led by new South Korean inves­tor WP Invest­ment. In addi­tion, Honey­well also parti­ci­pa­ted for the first time. Many exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding Atlan­tia, Whysol and btov Part­ners, also re-inves­ted in this finan­cing round. Even before the latest round of finan­cing, the company had surpas­sed the magic unicorn mark for start­ups with a valua­tion of around EUR 1.5 billion.

Raue advi­sed Volo­c­op­ter, as in the previous finan­cing rounds, in a lead role and compre­hen­si­vely on the Series E finan­cing, in parti­cu­lar on the corpo­rate, avia­tion, foreign trade and regu­la­tory aspects of the project.

About Volo­c­op­ter

Volo­c­op­ter brings Urban Air Mobi­lity (UAM) to the world’s mega­ci­ties and aims to improve the quality of life for people in cities with a whole new kind of mobi­lity. To this end, Volo­c­op­ter is working with part­ners to deve­lop a sustainable and scalable UAM ecosys­tem, inclu­ding infra­struc­ture and opera­ti­ons. Volocopter’s family of air vehic­les offers passen­gers (Volo­City and Volo­Con­nect) and goods (Volo­Drone) fast, safe and emis­sion-free flights directly to their destination.

Advi­sor Volo­c­op­ter GmbH, Essen/Bruchsal: Raue, Berlin

Prof. Dr. Andreas Nelle (Part­ner, Lead, Corporate/M&A, PE/VC), Dr. Michael Gläs­ner (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, PE/VC), Fabian Massen­berg (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/ M&A, PE/VC), Dr. Michael Berg­mann (Part­ner, Foreign Trade Law, Anti­trust Law), Dr. Peter Roegele (Coun­sel, for Finan­cial Market Regu­la­tion / Invest­ment Law), Dr. Johan­nes Modest (Asso­ciate, Foreign Trade Law, Anti­trust Law).

About Raue

Raue is an inter­na­tio­nally active law firm based in Berlin. She provi­des compre­hen­sive advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public enti­ties on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and conten­tious dispu­tes. www.raue.com.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery has appoin­ted Belden Inc. on the complete acqui­si­tion of the NetMo­dule Group. As a result of the stra­te­gic merger, NetMo­dule will become part of Belden’s Indus­trial Network Solu­ti­ons (INS) busi­ness unit. Remo Viscardi, CEO of NetMo­dule AG, forms the new dual leader­ship toge­ther with Dr. Thomas Nies­sen, VP Busi­ness Deve­lo­p­ment INS.

Network infra­struc­ture provi­der Belden Inc. head­quar­te­red in St. Louis, USA, was foun­ded in 1902 and opera­tes manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

NetMo­dule AG, head­quar­te­red in Bern, is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of commu­ni­ca­tion products for M2M and IoT. Foun­ded in 1998, the company now has offices in Basel and Winter­thur and subsi­dia­ries in Frank­furt and Hong Kong.

Against the back­ground of its proven exper­tise in the tech sector, the McDer­mott team led by part­ner Norman Wasse had alre­ady advi­sed Belden on the acqui­si­tion of network secu­rity soft­ware provi­der macmon secure GmbH.

Advice to Belden Inc.: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt

Norman Wasse, LL.M. (Lead), Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Lisa Schick­ling (both Asso­cia­tes; all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Kian Tauser, Dr. Gero Burwitz (Munich), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel), Dr. Isabella Dennin­ger (Asso­ciate, Munich; all Tax), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Commercial/Regulatory, Munich), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt, LL.M., Dr. Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel), Markus Cejka, LL.M. (Asso­ciate; all Finance), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer, Tina Zeller, Elena Platte, LL.M. (both Asso­cia­tes; all Real Estate), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski, Lukas Deutz­mann (Asso­ciate; both Labor Law, both Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chris­tian L. Masch, Isabella Kätzl­meier (Asso­ciate; both IT/IP, both Munich), Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Thomas P. Conag­han, Chris­tine Corkran Kret­kow­ski (both Corporate/M&A, both Washing­ton, DC), Timo­thy S. Shuman (Tax, Washing­ton, DC)
Loyens & Loeff, Zurich: Andreas Hinsen (Corporate/M&A), Fabian Sutter (Tax), Gilles Pitschen (Corporate/M&A)

News

Hamburg / Borken / Waltrop — The netgo group (“netgo”), a fast-growing IT provi­der with bran­ches in many parts of Germany, is once again expan­ding its port­fo­lio of services: Follo­wing seve­ral acqui­si­ti­ons in the past two years, ckn Compu­ter GmbH & Co. KG (“ckn Compu­ter”) from Waltrop, a proven specia­list for the DATEV ecosys­tem as well as IT solu­ti­ons with a focus on tax consul­ting firms and audi­tors, is now joining the group. The sellers of the majo­rity shares are ckn foun­ders and share­hol­ders Oliver Günter and Stefan Koch-Niehus — both will remain on board as mana­ging directors.

ckn Compu­ter was foun­ded in 1988 and, toge­ther with its subsi­diary Diva­con, has sites in Düssel­dorf and Kassel in addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Waltrop. Through the conti­nuous deve­lo­p­ment of its service and sales network, ckn has estab­lished itself as a high-perfor­mance IT service provi­der, parti­cu­larly in the Rhine-Ruhr region and in central Germany. Thanks to its compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of services, the company is uniquely posi­tio­ned among its custo­mers, with a focus on tax consul­ting firms and audi­ting compa­nies. Its services include the setup and ongo­ing opera­tion of complex IT infra­struc­tures and local networks for server systems, clients, prin­ting and copy­ing systems. With the inno­va­tive cloud solu­tion “ckn PART­NERasp”, the most important compon­ents of IT can be outsour­ced to the protec­ted DATEV data center. The company, which is one of the largest and most important part­ners for DATEV and its clients thanks to its maxi­mum certi­fi­ca­tion as a “Solu­tion Part­ner”, curr­ently employs around 70 people.

Water­land Private Equity has held a majo­rity stake in netgo group, which was foun­ded in 2007, for more than two years. Since the part­ner­ship was laun­ched, netgo has been able to signi­fi­cantly expand its presence in the highly frag­men­ted German market for IT service provi­ders through a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy. With a total of eight acqui­si­ti­ons since Waterland’s entry, netgo has both broa­dened its port­fo­lio of IT services for SMEs and gained new custo­mers and market share throug­hout Germany, and now reports group sales of over EUR 300 million.

With ckn, netgo is expan­ding its port­fo­lio to include solu­ti­ons that opti­mally meet the special requi­re­ments of tax consul­tancies, busi­ness law firms and their clients in parti­cu­lar. In addi­tion, the Group is comple­men­ting its range of services in the DATEV field, above all with the areas of DATEV payroll and docu­ment manage­ment as well as the appli­ca­tion service provi­der and hosting busi­ness in DATEV infra­struc­tures. As a result, the fast-growing group will operate in the future as one of the largest provi­ders of DATEV IT outsour­cing solu­ti­ons active throug­hout Germany.

“ckn Compu­ter is an important part of netgo’s stra­te­gic road­map towards a one-stop store for medium-sized custo­mers and, with its comple­men­tary loca­ti­ons in Waltrop and Kassel, once again streng­thens the group’s presence across Germany,” comm­ents Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner of Water­land, on the acquisition.

Dr. Oliver Mauss, CEO of netgo group, adds: “With ckn, we will be by far the largest provi­der of DATEV IT outsour­cing solu­ti­ons nati­on­wide and will be able to address the needs of tax consul­ting firms, audi­ting compa­nies and their clients even better with group-wide expertise.”

“For ckn, beco­ming part of a strong group like netgo means the contin­ued deve­lo­p­ment of our long-term, entre­pre­neu­rial success; custo­mers and part­ners will bene­fit from the streng­thening in service and offe­ring. We are very much looking forward to the coope­ra­tion,” says Stefan Koch-Niehus, mana­ging part­ner at ckn.

Water­land alre­ady has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the digi­ta­liza­tion, IT and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors: the Water­land port­fo­lio in these areas in the DACH region includes GOD (soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment), enreach (unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), Skay­link (cloud services) and Netrics (enter­prise IT).

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, over nine billion euros in equity funds are under management.

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.

News

Wetz­lar / Rüssels­heim / Bad Homburg — ELIQUO WATER GROUP GmbH, specia­list for muni­ci­pal water and waste­wa­ter tech­no­logy, takes over all shares of the Gesell­schaft für Elektro‑, Auto­ma­ti­sie­rungs- und Leit­tech­nik mbH (GEAL mbH) in the course of the perspec­tive age succes­sion. For GEAL, the tran­sac­tion process was exclu­si­vely mana­ged by the M&A consul­ting boutique Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor. The previous owners, Chris­tian Schön and Michael Wein­del, will initi­ally conti­nue to run the busi­ness to ensure an opti­mal transition.

The company GEAL specia­li­zes in the auto­ma­tion of water and waste­wa­ter faci­li­ties, as well as remote moni­to­ring and control of trans­por­ta­tion and infra­struc­ture networks. GEAL, head­quar­te­red in Rüssels­heim, Hesse, was foun­ded in 1996 by five former employees of the elec­tri­cal company AEG. In addi­tion to the plan­ning, deli­very, programming, assem­bly, instal­la­tion and commis­sio­ning of control and process control systems, the service scope also includes the coor­di­na­tion of suppli­ers and a 24/7 on-call service.

Mana­ging part­ners of GEAL are Chris­tian Schön and Michael Wein­del. Schön is the last of the five foun­ding part­ners, having alre­ady reti­red four of the five foun­ders. Wein­del has been streng­thening the company since 2001 and has been a member of the manage­ment team since 2006. In order to secure the succes­sion of the company, Schön and Wein­del sell the company to ELIQUO in a share deal. In the future, GEAL will comple­ment ELIQUO’s port­fo­lio. Estab­lished on the market as a group of compa­nies since 2014 and with many deca­des of expe­ri­ence, ELIQUO, as one of the largest German muni­ci­pal plant cons­truc­tors for water and waste­wa­ter tech­no­logy with its more than 500 employees, bund­les the Euro­pean acti­vi­ties of SKion Water GmbH in this field.

“The long-term perspec­tive of our employees and custo­mers was parti­cu­larly important to us,” says Chris­tian Schön, Mana­ging Direc­tor at GEAL. “Through a regu­la­ted tran­si­tion and the extre­mely good coope­ra­tion with ELIQUO in the tran­sac­tion process, we look forward to a future full of oppor­tu­ni­ties.” “With ELIQUO, we were able to find an ideal part­ner for the succes­sion at GEAL,” explains Sebas­tian Wissig, who, along with Phil­ipp Spel­kus, is the project mana­ger at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor. “The syner­gies of the two compa­nies and the level of part­ner­ship were alre­ady clear in the initial discus­sions — toge­ther they form a stable foun­da­tion for provi­ding opti­mum support to the custo­mers of both companies.”

Gauke Reit­sma, CEO of ELIQUO, explains: “Our auto­ma­tion team is perfectly comple­men­ted by GEAL. GEAL’s custo­mers, in turn, can now also bene­fit from our range of services in the field of mecha­ni­cal and elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring, e.g. control cabi­net cons­truc­tion. In addi­tion, digi­tal networ­king is beco­ming incre­asingly important for the infra­struc­ture of muni­ci­pal water and waste­wa­ter plants. GEAL’s in-depth exper­tise in the field of digi­ta­liza­tion enables us to expand this compe­tence in-house. This puts us in an even better posi­tion for the future. We are very plea­sed to welcome the GEAL team to the Group.”

About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor / 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

ELIQUO WATER GROUP
As a subsi­diary of SKion Water GmbH, ELIQUO bund­les all acti­vi­ties of muni­ci­pal water, waste­wa­ter and sludge treat­ment in Europe. With more than 500 employees and over 30 years of expe­ri­ence in the market, the company focu­ses on plant engi­nee­ring. ELIQUO’s products and services include ther­mal pres­sure hydro­ly­sis (THD), vacuum degas­sing of digested sludge, sludge drying, the 3. and 4th treat­ment stage, energy effi­ci­ency projects and nutri­ent reco­very solu­ti­ons. ELIQUO’s mission is to reduce the carbon foot­print of water­works and waste­wa­ter treat­ment plants and to sustain­ably protect our most precious resource: Water. — www.eliquowater.com

SKion Water
SKion Water GmbH is a tech­no­logy and solu­ti­ons provi­der foun­ded by entre­pre­neur Susanne Klat­ten, as well as a plant manu­fac­tu­rer in muni­ci­pal and indus­trial water and waste­wa­ter tech­no­logy. In addi­tion, SKion Water invests in inno­va­tive water tech­no­logy compa­nies, provi­ded that the respec­tive tech­no­logy fits into the port­fo­lio. In addi­tion to ELIQUO, Ovivo, Envi­ro­wa­ter Group, Paques, Ecopre­neur, ADASA, inCTRL and Matten are other opera­ting subsi­dia­ries of SKion Water. — www.skionwater.com

 

News

Munich — The listed Lindab Group, a leading venti­la­tion company in Europe is acqui­ring the German Felde­rer AG. A multi­di­sci­pli­nary team of Deloitte Legal advi­sed Felde­rer Holding GmbH and Klaus-Phil­ipp Felde­rer, CEO and owner of Felde­rer, on the sale of all shares in Felde­rer AG to Lindab Group. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close in the second quarter.

Felde­rer AG is one of the largest distri­bu­tors of venti­la­tion and air condi­tio­ning tech­no­logy in Germany. It was foun­ded in 1979 and is based in Feld­kir­chen near Munich. The company gene­ra­tes annual sales of around EUR 70 million and employs 160 people.

The listed Lindab Group, as a leading venti­la­tion company in Europe, deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets products and systems for a healthy indoor climate. The Lindab Group achie­ved sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 965 million in 2021 and is estab­lished in 20 count­ries with around 4,500 employees.

“Toge­ther with Lindab there are great deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for Felde­rer AG in the German market, which will bene­fit our custo­mers, our part­ners and our employees. We look forward to a dyna­mic coope­ra­tion with our strong and sustainable part­ner Lindab,” says Klaus-Phil­ipp Felderer.

Advi­sor Lindab Group: Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners advi­ses Lindab Group on its stra­te­gic expan­sion in the German market for venti­la­tion tech­no­logy. In this capa­city, Proven­tis Part­ners initia­ted and supported the tran­sac­tion as exclu­sive buyside M&A advi­sor. The Proven­tis Part­ners tran­sac­tion team: Ulrich Schnei­der (Part­ner, Hamburg) and Henrik Huchel (Analyst, Hamburg).

Advi­sor Felde­rer AG: Deloitte Legal

The Deloitte Legal team led by Eike Fietz (photo) consis­ted of Simon Maier (both Corpo- rate/M&A, Munich) and Dr. Marc Spiel­ber­ger (Labor Law, Munich). Dr. Michael Reich (Pinsent Masons) advi­sed Felde­rer from an anti­trust perspective.

The buyer was advi­sed by the law firms kallan (tran­sac­tion) and ROCAN (anti­trust).

News

Munich, March 3, 2022 — Silver­fleet Capi­tal has advi­sed its port­fo­lio company, Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen GmbH to Atlas Copco Group. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance and is expec­ted for the second quar­ter of 2022.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal is a pan-Euro­pean private equity firm specia­li­zing in buy-to-build stra­te­gies of mid-market compa­nies in the UK, France, Germany, Bene­lux and Scandinavia.

Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen (photo) deve­lops and sells indus­trial pumps for the biogas and waste­wa­ter sectors as well as the food, beverage and cosme­tics indus­tries. The company employs 265 people and has produc­tion faci­li­ties in Germany as well as a global sales and service network.

The Atlas Copco Group is a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of sustainable indus­trial produc­ti­vity solu­ti­ons, head­quar­te­red in Stock­holm with opera­ti­ons in more than 180 count­ries. In 2020, Atlas Copco achie­ved sales of 10 billion euros with around 40,000 employees.

Advi­sor Silver­fleet Capi­tal: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich

Dr. Tobias Kopp­mann (Lead), Thomas Sauer­milch (New York; both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Henrik Holz­ap­fel (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Richard Gräbe­ner (both IP Liti­ga­tion), Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Raymond Paretzky (Coun­sel, Trade, Agri­cul­ture & EU Regu­la­tory, Washing­ton, DC), Dr. Chris­tian Rolf (Labor, Frank­furt), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel), Nina Siewert (both Tax, both Frank­furt), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Regu­la­tory), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion). Deniz Tschamm­ler (Regu­la­tory), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion); Asso­cia­tes: Matthias Wein­gut, Benja­min Macie­jew­ski, Bene­dikt Gloß­ner, Dr. Fabian Appa­doo, Ana A. Koff, Nicole Yoon (both New York; all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Kiemle (IP Liti­ga­tion, Düssel­dorf), Max Kütt­ner (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Ilva Woeste (Labor Law)

News

Wetzlar/Jena/Ditzingen — The TRUMPF Group, one of the world’s leading high-tech compa­nies for machine tools, lasers and elec­tro­nics for indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons, has acqui­red an 80 percent stake in Active Fiber Systems GmbH (AFS), a fiber laser specia­list based in Jena, Germany. AFS was advi­sed by sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, one of the leading M&A consul­tancies in the German SME sector. Fabian Schmidt and his team of experts for tran­sac­tions in the high-tech sector were respon­si­ble for the project.

AFS, based in Jena, Thurin­gia, deve­lops and manu­fac­tures ultras­hort pulse fiber laser systems, which are mainly used in science and rese­arch. The company, which today has 37 employees, was foun­ded in 2009 as a spin-off of the Fraun­ho­fer IOF Jena and the Insti­tute of Applied Physics at Fried­rich Schil­ler Univer­sity Jena. In addi­tion to basic rese­arch, appli­ca­ti­ons include the gene­ra­tion of extre­mely short-wave­length light with high cohe­rence, bio-medi­cal imaging, and mate­ri­als proces­sing. “AFS works very close to rese­arch and deve­lops laser systems at the highest level,” Schmidt said. “TRUMPF is the ideal buyer here, preser­ving AFS’ strengths in its excel­lent envi­ron­ment and jointly streng­thening its posi­ti­ons in scien­ti­fic, indus­trial and medi­cal lasers.”

Through the majo­rity share­hol­ding, TRUMPF will in the future prima­rily focus on crea­ting synergy effects in rese­arch as well as further deve­lo­ping its own ultras­hort pulse laser port­fo­lio. Over­all, the busi­ness is to be expan­ded in the growing segment for science and indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. Foun­ded in 1923 and based in Ditzin­gen, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, Germany, the TRUMPF Group is repre­sen­ted by more than 70 subsi­dia­ries in almost all Euro­pean count­ries, in North and South America, and in Asia, and is a leader in machine tools for flexi­ble sheet metal proces­sing and in indus­trial lasers. In 2020/21 the Group gene­ra­ted sales of 3.5 billion euros with around 14,800 employees.

About the Trumpf Group

Our task is to further deve­lop and digi­tally network produc­tion tech­no­logy, to make it even more econo­mical, precise and future-proof — that is . In doing so, we want to make produc­tion and its upstream and down­stream proces­ses more effi­ci­ent. We are buil­ding the indus­trial world of tomor­row. We are the market and tech­no­logy leader in machine tools and lasers for indus­trial manu­fac­tu­ring, and our inno­va­tions are effec­tive in almost every indus­try. Our soft­ware solu­ti­ons pave the way to the smart factory, and in indus­trial elec­tro­nics we enable high-tech proces­ses. (Sales Euro 3.5 billion in fiscal 2020/21.). www.trumpf.com

About sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, based in Wetz­lar, Hesse, is one of the leading M&A consul­tancies for German medium-sized compa­nies. 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 the process, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, with an anony­mi­zed bidding process that provi­des special protec­tion for the iden­tity of their compa­nies. At the begin­ning of 2021, succes­sion plan­ning was carried out in-house with a so-called manage­ment buy-out by team. The take­over by an eight-strong manage­ment team headed by mana­ging direc­tors Patrick Seip and Julian Will ensu­res that consul­ting services will conti­nue to be provi­ded at eye level in the future.

In the Refi­ni­tiv League Table 2021, sonn­tag corpo­rate finance ranks 11th and is thus once again one of the most active M&A consul­ting bouti­ques in the medium-sized segment. www.sonntagcf.com

News

Berlin — Recrui­ting startup Zenjob has raised a total volume of € 45 million in its latest finan­cing round. This was led by Aragon Global, foun­ded in 2001 by Ann Dias (pictu­red), with rene­wed parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tors inclu­ding Acton Capi­tal, Atlan­tic Labs, Forestay and AXA Venture Part­ners. — A YPOG team co-led by Benja­min Ullrich and Adrian Haase provi­ded compre­hen­sive consul­ting services to the Berlin-based startup Zenjob.

Zenjob is a digi­tal staf­fing company that matches workers with suita­ble part-time jobs across nume­rous indus­tries, inclu­ding e‑commerce, logi­stics, retail, and services. To date, the company has placed over one million jobs in Germany and the Netherlands.

The addi­tio­nal capi­tal will be used for the company’s Euro­pean expan­sion. To this end, Zenjob will launch in the UK later this year and invest in other Euro­pean markets. Zenjob will also expand its acti­vi­ties in Germany and the Nether­lands. In addi­tion, the tech­no­logy plat­form is being further deve­lo­ped to enable new data-driven
Enable auto­ma­tion capa­bi­li­ties for Zenjob’s rapidly growing custo­mer base. In addi­tion to the expan­sion of job cate­go­ries, the team will also be enlarged.

Consultant:inside Zenjob: YPOG

Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Dr. Adrian Haase (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Chris­tiane Schnitz­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Associate

About Zenjob

Zenjob is a digi­tal recruit­ment market­place that matches workers with tempo­rary part-time jobs. With the Zenjob app, talents find and book jobs on an hourly basis and can flexi­bly decide when, where and for whom they work. Each month, more than 40,000 workers are hired in indus­tries such as logi­stics, e‑commerce, retail and services. Zenjob was foun­ded in 2015 by Fritz Trott, Cihan Aksa­kal and Frede­rik Fahning in Berlin and curr­ently employs over 350 people.

About YPOG

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

News

Munich — BMH BRÄUTIGAM advi­sed early stage inves­tor UVC Part­ners on the €4.3 million finan­cing round of Munich-based e‑mobility startup Deep­drive. In addi­tion to UVC Part­ners, Bayern Kapi­tal with its Bava­rian Growth Fund and the expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels Jonas Rieke (COO Perso­nio) and Peter Mertens (former Chief Deve­lo­p­ment Offi­cer of Audi and Volvo) are also parti­ci­pa­ting in the round.

Deep­drive, foun­ded in 2021 by Stefan Ender and Felix Poern­ba­cher, is deve­lo­ping a gearless, elec­tric wheel hub drive whose compact, light­weight design allows the drive to be inte­gra­ted into the wheel. With this cost-effi­ci­ent, scalable and, above all, range- and torque-strong plug-and-play plat­form, Deep­drive aims to revo­lu­tio­nize the auto­mo­tive indus­try and give carma­kers new free­dom in struc­ture and design. The fresh capi­tal is to be inves­ted prima­rily in opti­mi­zing the tech­no­logy, expan­ding the team and serving the immensely high demand for proto­ty­pes in the market.

Andreas Unseld (photo), part­ner at UVC Part­ners: “With the Deep­Drive tech­no­logy, elec­tric mobi­lity can realize its full poten­tial and finally outper­form conven­tio­nal combus­tion vehicles.”

BMH BRÄUTIGAM regu­larly advi­ses on finan­cing rounds both on the part of inves­tors and on the part of the company. The cont­act to UVC Part­ners was estab­lished through the consul­ting of the Early­bird invest­ment in Aleph Alpha, in which UVC Part­ners also participated.

Consul­tant UVC: BMH BRÄUTIGAM
Dr. Alex­an­der Wulff, Maxi­mi­lian Frink (both Venture Capital)

About Deep­Drive
Deep­Drive is a Munich-based e‑mobility start-up that deve­lops inno­va­tive power­trains for elec­tric vehic­les. The power­trains are 20% more effi­ci­ent than current state of the art, can be produ­ced at low cost and allow the motor to be inte­gra­ted into the wheel thanks to their compact, light­weight design. This enables new vehicle archi­tec­tures that can solve the problems of exis­ting EV concepts through high cost savings, a signi­fi­cantly higher range and far better space effi­ci­ency. Deep­Drive was foun­ded in 2021 and curr­ently employs 8 people. www.deepdrive.tech

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a Munich- and Berlin-based early-stage venture capi­tal firm that invests in Euro­pean B2B start­ups in the areas of enter­prise soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies, and mobi­lity. The fund typi­cally invests between € 0.5m — 10m initi­ally and up to € 30m in total per company. Port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s leading inno­va­tion, and busi­ness crea­tion center. With over 300 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM can draw from many years of expe­ri­ence in estab­li­shing young compa­nies. This coope­ra­tion enables UVC Part­ners to offer start­ups unique access to talent, indus­try custo­mers, and other finan­cial part­ners. www.uvcpartners.com

News

Munich / Pfung­stadt — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) acquire a majo­rity stake in eperi, a leading provi­der of cyber­se­cu­rity soft­ware for cloud appli­ca­ti­ons. The sellers of the secu­rity specia­list from Pfung­stadt, Hesse, are the venture capi­tal compa­nies Evolu­tion Equity Part­ners and btov. Elmar Eperiesi-Beck, foun­der and CEO of eperi, will conti­nue to lead the company as Mana­ging Direc­tor and will retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company. The further scaling and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the company as well as a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy are to be the focus of the new part­ner­ship. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Since its foun­da­tion in 2014, Eperi GmbH, head­quar­te­red in the Rhine-Main area, has become a leading provi­der of cyber­se­cu­rity solu­ti­ons for data protec­tion and secu­rity in on-premise, hybrid and multi-cloud envi­ron­ments. The company has many years of expe­ri­ence in the field of data encryp­tion for cloud appli­ca­ti­ons and an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base with a focus on (large) compa­nies from the finan­cial, health­care and indus­trial sectors. eperi’s solu­ti­ons allow custo­mers to use any type of IT infra­struc­ture and soft­ware appli­ca­ti­ons in a secure and compli­ant manner. With eperi, custo­mers can take full advan­tage of the cloud without worry­ing about data secu­rity, compli­ance and liability.

With the recently concluded part­ner­ship, the successful course of the data secu­rity specia­list is now to be further advan­ced: Toge­ther with the foun­der and CEO of eperi, Elmar Eperiesi-Beck, the focus will be on expan­ding part­ner manage­ment and the orga­niza­tion. With further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy, the company’s growth trajec­tory is to be taken to a new level.

“We were looking for a part­ner who not only brings capi­tal strength, but above all can support us on our future growth path through relia­bi­lity and many years of expe­ri­ence in the further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies. With Equis­tone we have found such a part­ner,” eperi foun­der and CEO Elmar Eperiesi-Beck comm­ents on the tran­sac­tion. “Espe­ci­ally when it comes to driving inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and imple­men­ting buy-&-build stra­te­gies, we rely on Equistone’s expe­ri­ence and support to acce­le­rate our company’s success trajec­tory once again together.”

“For us, the acqui­si­tion of eperi marks another important mile­stone in the addi­tion of high-growth and future-orien­ted IT compa­nies to our tradi­tio­nal port­fo­lio. eperi has deve­lo­ped into a leading inter­na­tio­nal company with an outstan­ding custo­mer and part­ner network in only a short period of time — not least due to its founder’s many years of expe­ri­ence in cloud secu­rity,” explains Dr. Marc Arens, Senior Part­ner and Coun­try Head DACH/NL at Equistone.

“Nume­rous inter­na­tio­nal patents illus­trate the inno­va­tive and modern approach behind eperi’s tech­no­lo­gies — this is exactly what we want to leverage to sustain­ably acce­le­rate growth toge­ther with the foun­der and manage­ment team. eperi stands for preven­ting third parties from acces­sing criti­cal data at any time while enab­ling the use and bene­fits of a scalable hybrid or multi-cloud infra­struc­ture as well as any type of soft­ware appli­ca­tion for all users,” commen­ted Sebas­tian Wint­gens, Direc­tor at Equis­tone Part­ners Europe.

“We are plea­sed to support eperi along its strong growth path and to work with the company’s manage­ment to estab­lish it as an inter­na­tio­nal cyber­se­cu­rity cham­pion,” added Chris­toph Wüste­meyer, Invest­ment Mana­ger at Equis­tone Part­ners Europe.

Dr. Marc Arens, Sebas­tian Wint­gens and Chris­toph Wüste­meyer are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equistone.
Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by BCG (Commer­cial), Code & Co. (Tech­no­logy), Bird & Bird (IP & Regu­la­tion), PWC (Finan­cial & Tax), and Pöllath (Legal & Contrac­tual Documentation).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 50 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests 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 its foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 160 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. www.equistonepe.com

About Eperi Ltd.
Eperi GmbH, head­quar­te­red in the Rhine-Main area, is a leading provi­der of cyber­se­cu­rity solu­ti­ons for data protec­tion and secu­rity in on-premise, hybrid and multi-cloud envi­ron­ments. eperi’s inno­va­tive and easy-to-use solu­ti­ons allow its end users to use any type of IT infra­struc­ture and soft­ware appli­ca­ti­ons in a secure and compli­ant manner. The advan­ta­ges of the cloud can thus be opti­mally exploi­ted without having to worry about data secu­rity, compli­ance and liabi­lity. With seve­ral inter­na­tio­nal patents, eperi acts as a pioneer for inno­va­tive and relia­ble multi-cloud tech­no­logy and supports its custo­mers’ ESG efforts by protec­ting private data. The inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base of the cloud secu­rity specia­list includes in parti­cu­lar (large) compa­nies from the finan­cial, health­care and indus­trial sectors.

News

Paris/Frankfurt — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed French inves­tors Hy24 and Mirova on the acqui­si­tion of stakes in German Hy2gen AG, a pionee­ring green hydro­gen company. The record invest­ment of EUR 200 million is the largest private capi­tal increase in the green hydro­gen sector to date and is provi­ded by Hy24 and Mirova toge­ther with Caisse de dépôt et place­ment du Québec (CDPQ) and stra­te­gic inves­tor Tech­nip Energies.

Hy24, a joint venture between Ardian, a leading global private invest­ment firm, and FiveT Hydro­gen, an invest­ment mana­ger focu­sed exclu­si­vely on clean hydro­gen invest­ments, is the world’s largest clean hydro­gen infra­struc­ture plat­form. Mirova is a subsi­diary of Nati­xis Invest­ment Mana­gers that focu­ses on sustainable investments.

Hy2gen AG, based in Wies­ba­den, Germany, deve­lops, finan­ces, builds and opera­tes plants world­wide for the produc­tion of green hydro­gen and hydro­gen-based e‑fuels. These products are used to create carbon-neutral and compe­ti­tive fuels and indus­trial solu­ti­ons. The capi­tal from this finan­cing round will be used to build faci­li­ties in seve­ral count­ries that produce green hydro­gen-based fuels, or “e‑fuels,” for marine, land trans­por­ta­tion, avia­tion and indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. In southern France, the company foun­ded by Cyril Dufau-Sansot has been opera­ting a produc­tion faci­lity for Sustainable Avia­tion Fuels (SAF, Hynovera project) since Octo­ber 2021. The fresh capi­tal is to be used to open up many more loca­ti­ons — for exam­ple in Canada and Norway.

Advi­sors Hy24 and Mirova: Bird & Bird
Part­ner Sibylle Weiler, Lead (Finance & Energy, Head of the inter­na­tio­nal Bird & Bird Hydro­gen Group and coun­sel in France and Germany), Coun­sel Olivier Fazio (Due Dili­gence and leading multi­ju­ris­dic­tional legal due dili­gence, to review projects in France, Germany, Norway and Canada), Part­ner Xavier Leroux (Corpo­rate), all Paris.
The German team consis­ted of the part­ners Dr. Hans Peter Leube, LL.M. (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Marc Seeger (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Matthias Lang (Energy) and Dr. Stephan Wald­heim (Anti­trust, all Düssel­dorf) as well as Coun­sel Dr. Chris­tina Lorenz (Corporate/M&A, Munich) and Asso­cia­tes Jan Medele, Felix Spind­ler (both Corporate/M&A), Anja Holter­mann (Energy) and Tamy Tietze (Anti­trust, all Düsseldorf).

Nomura Green­tech acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor to Hy2gen.
Société Géné­rale acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor to Hy24 and Mirova.
Legal advi­sors included Baker Tilly on behalf of Hy2gen, Bird & Bird on behalf of Hy24 and Mirova, Jones Day on behalf of CDPQ and Clif­ford Chance on behalf of Tech­nip Energies.

About Bird & Bird
Bird & Bird is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 lawy­ers in 30 offices in 21 count­ries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia Paci­fic and North America. In Germany, we are repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, Hamburg and Munich. We focus our consul­ting in parti­cu­lar on indus­trial sectors that are deve­lo­ping new tech­no­lo­gies and helping to shape digi­ta­liza­tion. www.twobirds.com.

News

Baar-Zug, Switz­er­land — Part­ners Group, a leading global mana­ger of private market assets, has recei­ved a total of USD 8.5 billion from its clients for its third direct infra­struc­ture program. The program is based on Part­ners Group’s third direct infra­struc­ture fund, which recei­ved $6.4 billion in new capi­tal commit­ments. In addi­tion, commit­ments of $2.1 billion were made from other private market programs and custo­mi­zed client solu­ti­ons that will invest in paral­lel with the program.

Juri Jenk­ner, Part­ner, Head Private Infra­struc­ture, says: “We are grateful for the contin­ued trust our clients have placed in our trans­for­ma­tive invest­ment stra­tegy. We believe our thema­tic invest­ment approach and plat­form expan­sion capa­bi­li­ties uniquely posi­tion us to build a port­fo­lio of next-gene­ra­tion infra­struc­ture projects for our clients.”

The comple­tion of the fund­rai­sing follows an intense period of invest­ment acti­vity for Part­ners Group. In 2021, a total of $5.4 billion was inves­ted in infra­struc­ture assets and compa­nies that reflect Part­ners Group’s thema­tic invest­ment philo­so­phy. These include: EOLO, Italy’s leading fixed wire­less broad­band access provi­der; GREN, one of the largest district heating plat­forms in the Baltic States; Unity Digi­tal, a wire­less tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons infra­struc­ture plat­form in the Phil­ip­pi­nes; Dimen­sion Rene­wa­ble Energy, a distri­bu­ted energy plat­form focu­sed on commu­nity solar and battery storage in the U.S.; Resi­li­ent, a distri­bu­ted water infra­struc­ture plat­form in the U.S. and Canada; and North Star, a Euro­pean opera­tor of specia­li­zed vessels for offshore wind maintenance.

The rema­in­der of the program will invest on behalf of inves­tors globally and will focus on infra­struc­ture in stra­te­gic thema­tic areas rela­ted to the over­ar­ching Giga themes of Digi­ta­liza­tion & Auto­ma­tion, New Living and Decar­bo­niza­tion & Sustaina­bi­lity. In doing so, Part­ners Group pursues a plat­form expan­sion stra­tegy that targets compa­nies or assets in infra­struc­ture sub-sectors that are show­ing above-average growth due to trans­for­ma­tive trends.

Part of the program is inves­ted in next-gene­ra­tion infra­struc­ture that contri­bu­tes to impro­ved sustaina­bi­lity and supports the UN Sustainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goals. Ther­e­fore, clean energy, water treat­ment and reuse, and data centers powered by rene­wa­ble energy are among Part­ners Group’s thema­tic focus areas. Once inves­ted, the ESG & Sustaina­bi­lity team works hand-in-hand with the invest­ment teams to deve­lop ESG-focu­sed value crea­tion initia­ti­ves for each invest­ment project.

Esther Peiner, Mana­ging Direc­tor, Private Infra­struc­ture Europe, comm­ents: “We strive to gene­rate sustainable returns for our inves­tors while crea­ting a posi­tive impact for our wider stake­hol­ders. Our approach consists of thema­tic invest­ments combi­ned with prac­ti­cal, plat­form-based value crea­tion stra­te­gies. They aim to deve­lop next-gene­ra­tion infra­struc­ture and gene­rate returns that are protec­ted from econo­mic insta­bi­lity. Given the uncer­tainty caused by the pande­mic and the infla­tion concerns that still exist, this approach is more rele­vant than ever.”

Inves­tors in Part­ners Group’s third direct infra­struc­ture program include both new and exis­ting clients, inclu­ding public and corpo­rate pension funds, sove­reign wealth funds, insu­rance compa­nies, endow­ment funds and foun­da­ti­ons. Appro­xi­m­ately one-third of the capi­tal commit­ments came from outside Part­ners Group’s Euro­pean home market, reflec­ting growing inves­tor demand for globally diver­si­fied and thema­ti­cally focu­sed infra­struc­ture port­fo­lios. Part­ners Group’s foun­ders, part­ners and other employees have also inves­ted signi­fi­cantly in the program.

Vitto­rio Laca­gnina, Mana­ging Direc­tor, Client Solu­ti­ons, concludes, “The successful comple­tion of the fund­rai­sing reflects the solid perfor­mance of our trans­for­ma­tive invest­ment stra­tegy and resi­li­ence of the port­fo­lio, which we have demons­tra­ted in the face of a protra­c­ted pande­mic and rising infla­tion. The program bene­fits from a sizable seed port­fo­lio charac­te­ri­zed by strong invest­ment acti­vity, poten­ti­ally miti­ga­ting the J‑curve. The program was laun­ched in a market envi­ron­ment where acce­le­ra­ting beha­vi­oral and struc­tu­ral chan­ges are crea­ting compel­ling oppor­tu­ni­ties for insti­tu­tio­nal investors.”

Part­ners Group’s previous flag­ship direct infra­struc­ture fund curr­ently has a net IRR of 15.5% and a net TVPI of 1.51x (fund closed in 2018; perfor­mance as of Septem­ber 30, 2021. Past perfor­mance is not indi­ca­tive of future results. There can be no assu­rance that simi­lar results will be achie­ved in the future. Values are for illus­tra­tive purpo­ses only).

News

Munich — REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance advi­sed the listed Danish H+H Group on the majo­rity take­over of DOMAPOR GmbH & Co KG — a manu­fac­tu­rer of aerated concrete and sand-lime bricks based in Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern — and the acqui­si­tion of the Fran­co­nian aerated concrete manu­fac­tu­rer Greisel.

H + H conti­nues its growth course in the aerated concrete and sand-lime brick sector. The acqui­si­ti­ons of Grei­sel and DOMAPOR repre­sent a further stra­te­gic mile­stone in the expan­sion of the Group’s German busi­ness and produc­tion capa­ci­ties. Greisel’s plant in Feucht­wan­gen provi­des H + H with an aerated concrete presence in Bava­ria for the first time. At the same time, DOMAPOR’s market posi­tion and coverage in nort­hern Germany will be further signi­fi­cantly strengthened.

H+H Inter­na­tio­nal A/S, based in Copen­ha­gen, is one of the leading produ­cers of wall-buil­ding mate­ri­als in Europe. The group of compa­nies opera­tes 29 plants in Germany, the United King­dom, Poland and Switz­er­land and achie­ved sales of over EUR 400 million in 2021.

REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance has compre­hen­si­vely supported the H+H Group as M&A advi­sor in the initia­tion, struc­tu­ring and nego­tia­tion of the two transactions.

About REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance

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

 

News

Hamburg — Liberty Fashion Holding GmbH is chan­ging its owner­ship struc­ture: inves­tor Peter Wolf — who previously alre­ady held a mino­rity stake — has taken over all shares in the women’s fashion chain from invest­ment company Arca­dia and CEO Peter Fried­rich. With the reor­ga­niza­tion, Liberty’s busi­ness model is to be consis­t­ently deve­lo­ped into a rele­vant omni-chan­nel player with the expan­sion of its online busi­ness but also of its bricks-and-mortar retail. The tran­sac­tion was finan­ced prima­rily with mezza­nine capi­tal from VR Equi­typ­art­ner, one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The role of Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners supported the inves­tor Peter Wolf in the initia­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the tran­sac­tion as M&A advi­sor. Proven­tis Part­ners prepared the busi­ness plan for Liberty Fashion, imple­men­ted the struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion with the finan­cing part­ners and accom­pa­nied the share­hol­der nego­tia­ti­ons until the successful conclu­sion of the contract.

About Liberty Fashion
Liberty has been opera­ting as a statio­nary textile retailer for women’s outer­wear from its head­quar­ters in Lübb­ecke, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, since 1976. With its products in the upper mid-price segment, the fashion chain store caters to the target group of women between 40 and 55 years of age, with a focus on casual fashion. With its more than 500 employees in around 114 company-owned stores and the online store (www.liberty-woman.com/), it curr­ently serves the German market exclu­si­vely. The stores are charac­te­ri­zed by easily acces­si­ble premium loca­ti­ons in pede­strian zones of medium-sized cities with a popu­la­tion of 40,000 or more. The product range is largely produ­ced in Europe, which gene­ra­tes flexi­ble and short lead times and has a posi­tive effect on supply capa­bi­lity — both in the long term and in the current tight supply situation.

Advi­sor to inves­tor Peter Wolf: Proven­tis Partners
Ulrich Schnei­der, photo (Part­ner, Hamburg) and Timo Stahl­buhk (Direc­tor, Hamburg).

About Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A advi­sory firm whose clients include a majo­rity of mid-sized family busi­nesses, corpo­rate subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With more than 30 M&A advi­sors, Proven­tis Part­ners is one of the largest inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancies in the German-spea­king region and looks back on 20 years of M&A expe­ri­ence and more than 300 comple­ted tran­sac­tions. The M&A consul­tants with offices in Düssel­dorf, Hamburg, Munich and Zurich are active in the sectors Indus­tri­als & Chemi­cals, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT, Health­care and Energy & Sustaina­bi­lity. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — enables Proven­tis Part­ners to assist clients in 30 count­ries in key markets world­wide. Mergers Alli­ance members, with over 200 M&A profes­sio­nals, provide Proven­tis Part­ners, and thus its clients, with unique access to local markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

News

Munich — With the support of the AUCTUS Group, which recently acqui­red a majo­rity stake in MAI Marke­ting Auto­ma­tion Intel­li­gence GmbH (“MAI Group”), MAI Group has estab­lished a new holding company consis­ting of seven exis­ting service compa­nies. POELLATH advi­ses digi­tal agen­cies on merger with MAI Group and sale of majo­rity stake to AUCTUS Capital.

The agen­cies crsd, Digi­tal­be­ra­tung, Hanse CRM, Kamano, Klaro Media, Leonex and media­worx have joined forces for this purpose. Toge­ther they form a group with 300 employees at six loca­ti­ons in Hamburg, Berlin, Colo­gne, Munich, Pader­born and Vienna. MAI Group’s services range from campaign stra­tegy and concep­tion to crea­tion and bran­ding, soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment and tech­no­logy imple­men­ta­tion. The agency group is headed by Oliver Czok and Klaus-Stephan Wendt, who foun­ded the adver­ti­sing agency deep­blue networks in Hamburg back in 2001 and later sold it to Scholz & Friends.

MAI Group, head­quar­te­red in Hamburg, Germany, is a leading holding company for modern digi­tal and data services in the German-spea­king region, brin­ging toge­ther the best digi­tal and data service provi­ders to help compa­nies opti­mize costs and increase reve­nue by acqui­ring new custo­mers and main­tai­ning opti­mal custo­mer loyalty.

AUCTUS Capi­tal Part­ners AG is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company foun­ded by entre­pre­neurs with a fund capi­tal of over EUR 800 million, which curr­ently mana­ges 47 plat­form invest­ments in various sectors of the economy.

POELLATH advi­sed theowners of the digi­tal agen­cies in connec­tion with the sale and a re-invest­ment as well as the merger into a holding company with the follo­wing team:

Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Berlin/Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Taxes, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Part­ner, Cartel, Frankfurt)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, M&A/VC, Berlin/Munich)
Markus Döll­ner, LL.M. (London) (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, IP/IT, Frankfurt)

Consul­tant AUCTUS Group: BUB MEMMINGER & PARTNER

Dr. Peter Memmin­ger, LL.M. (Miami) of fully advi­sed the AUCTUS Group with a team from various disci­pli­nes and lead struc­tu­red the transaction.

News

Munich — Norton Rose Fulbright has advi­sed mobi­lity budget startup MOBIKO GmbH on a finan­cing round by Swiss insu­rance group Baloise. Baloise invests a seven-figure sum in MOBIKO. In addi­tion to Baloise and the exis­ting inves­tors Audi Busi­ness Inno­va­tion GmbH and mantro GmbH, the startup Family Office based in Wein­gar­ten is also invol­ved in the finan­cing round.

The startup company MOBIKO (short for mobi­lity quota) offers employ­ers a monthly flexi­ble digi­tal mobi­lity budget for all employees. With this tool, each employee uses his or her budget indi­vi­du­ally and is rewarded for envi­ron­men­tally friendly mobi­lity beha­vior. MOBIKO was deve­lo­ped by Audi Busi­ness Inno­va­tion toge­ther with the Munich-based company mantro and spun off as an inde­pen­dent GmbH in 2018.

Audi Busi­ness Inno­va­tion GmbH (ABI) is a wholly owned subsi­diary of AUDI AG and focu­ses on the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of digi­tal concepts and products. ABI provi­des relia­ble IT plat­forms for AUDI AG and the Volks­wa­gen Group.

mantro GmbH, based in Munich, supports medium-sized compa­nies and corpo­ra­ti­ons in the deve­lo­p­ment of new digi­tal busi­ness models. With more than 16 years of expe­ri­ence and 28 foun­ded ventures, mantro has become a specia­list for digi­ta­liza­tion and company building.

The Startup Family Office builds up young compa­nies with venture capi­tal and active support from expe­ri­en­ced entre­pre­neurs from medium-sized busi­nesses in a targe­ted manner and supports foun­ders holi­sti­cally, effec­tively and sustain­ably in the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive solutions.

“The concept of MOBIKO convin­ced us, as it can change the mobi­lity of compa­nies and their employees in a sustainable way. With MOBIKO’s mobi­lity budget, employ­ers can cover the indi­vi­dual needs of their employees and consider all mobi­lity solu­ti­ons. This maxi­mum flexi­bi­lity, combi­ned with incen­ti­ves, leads to signi­fi­cantly more envi­ron­men­tally friendly mobi­lity beha­vior,” says Patrick Wirth (photo), Head of Mobi­lity Unit at Baloise. The Swiss insu­rance group Baloise employs around 7,700 people and is among the top 5 Swiss insu­r­ers for private indi­vi­du­als and compa­nies. Baloise was foun­ded in 1863 and gene­ra­tes annual sales of appro­xi­m­ately CHF 9 billion. Core markets are Switz­er­land, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Advi­sors to MOBIKO GmbH: Norton Rose Fulbright
Lead Part­ner Sebas­tian Frech (Corpo­rate, M&A, Venture Capital);
Part­ner Dr. Tim Scha­per (Anti­trust), Asso­cia­tes Sebas­tian Eisen­hut (Corpo­rate, M&A, Venture Capi­tal), Mari­anne Milo­va­nov (Corpo­rate, M&A, Venture Capi­tal) and Rese­arch Asso­ciate Dennis Hoetzl.

Audi was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by the law firm GLNS in Munich.

Advi­sor Baloise: Law firm YPOG, Berlin

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 4,000 lawy­ers in over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal companies.

We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice in all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal, regu­la­tory, compli­ance and gover­nance matters. This enables us to provide our clients with prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face.

The Swiss asso­cia­tion Norton Rose Fulbright helps to coor­di­nate the acti­vi­ties of Norton Rose Fulbright members, but does not provide legal advice to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in more than 50 cities world­wide, inclu­ding London, Hous­ton, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney and Johan­nes­burg. www.nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices

News

Zurich — Syz Capi­tal, the private markets invest­ment boutique, today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in SK Pharma Logi­stics, a provi­der specia­li­zing in the storage, hand­ling, repack­a­ging and distri­bu­tion of phar­maceu­ti­cal products. With the support of the Syz family and in close part­ner­ship with Satur­nus Capi­tal, Syz Capi­tal aims to drive the growth of this strong market leader and acce­le­rate its expan­sion to ensure the company conti­nues to soar.

SK Pharma is a family-run company based in Biele­feld, Germany, provi­ding services to phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies in Europe and world­wide. The indus­try leader specia­li­zes in phar­maceu­ti­cal, medi­cal, cosme­tic and dietary products. The company’s offe­ring covers the entire logi­stics value chain and provi­des complete solu­ti­ons for customers.

With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28% over the last three years, the company can look back on remar­kable growth that exceeds that of the German health­care indus­try over the last ten years by a factor of seven. The company expects further growth as the regu­la­tory envi­ron­ment beco­mes more strin­gent and the indus­try as a whole is expec­ted to grow steadily over the next few years.

Marc Syz, Mana­ging Part­ner of Syz Capi­tal (photo), says: “We believe this is a unique oppor­tu­nity to help the family busi­ness expand its busi­ness and foot­print, both through orga­nic growth and acqui­si­ti­ons, and thus conso­li­date the rela­tively frag­men­ted sector serving inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers. With SK Pharma, we have indeed found another niche leader, a so-called “hidden cham­pion”, which offers a strong plat­form for future value creation.

The deal also illus­tra­tes the value crea­tion poten­tial for our clients’ port­fo­lios and how Syz Capi­tal is unlo­cking unique synergy oppor­tu­ni­ties in private equity and alter­na­tive investments.”

Syz Capi­tal is an invest­ment boutique specia­li­zing in private markets, offe­ring exclu­sive access to niche private equity and alter­na­tive investments.

Joscha Boehm, Mana­ging Part­ner of Satur­nus Capi­tal and Phil­ipp Schwei­zer, Part­ner at Satur­nus Capi­tal, who execu­ted this tran­sac­tion toge­ther with Syz Capi­tal, commen­ted, “We look forward to working closely with the foun­ders and the manage­ment team to further deve­lop SK Pharma in the coming years. We believe SK Pharma is extre­mely well posi­tio­ned as a well-mana­ged company to conti­nue to grow and gain market share.” Satur­nus Capi­tal is a private equity firm focu­sing on mid-market tran­sac­tions in the DACH region.

The acqui­si­tion repres­ents another important mile­stone for Syz Capi­tal in the family busi­ness sector. Both Satur­nus and Marc Syz will join SK Pharma’s board, which includes the Krone family and Phil­ippe Milliet, a former member of Galenica’s execu­tive commit­tee and vete­ran indus­try veteran.

Stephan Krone, CEO of SK Pharma Logi­stics GmbH, added: “In our view, Syz Capi­tal and Satur­nus Capi­tal, with their exten­sive expe­ri­ence in inves­t­ing in family busi­nesses, are the ideal part­ners to guide SK Pharma through its next growth phase and beyond, crea­ting value for our custo­mers and part­ners. They have a clear growth stra­tegy for the future. The manage­ment team and myself are looking forward to the part­ner­ship and to buil­ding SK Pharma into a major Euro­pean player in the logi­stics sector for the phar­maceu­ti­cal industry.”

About the Syz Group

Syz Group is a family-owned Swiss finan­cial group that focu­ses on good long-term invest­ment perfor­mance, robust risk manage­ment and perso­na­li­zed custo­mer service. In a family of entre­pre­neurs that has been successful for centu­ries, the company was co-foun­ded in 1996 by Eric Syz, who now runs it with his two sons and a team of indus­try experts. Stable and secure — the Syz Group’s equity capi­ta­liza­tion is almost double the regu­la­tory requi­re­ment in Switzerland.

News

Stuttgart/ Munich — The inves­tor Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Theo­bald Soft­ware GmbH (“Theo­bald Soft­ware”). Foun­der and share­hol­der Patrick Theo­bald will with­draw from the manage­ment in the future, but will conti­nue to hold an inte­rest in the company. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close by the end of Febru­ary 2022. POELLATH advi­sed the manage­ment of Theo­bald Soft­ware in the context of the sale regar­ding the manage­ment participation.

Stutt­gart-based Theo­bald Soft­ware GmbH is a leading global provi­der of intel­li­gent inter­faces for the inte­gra­tion of SAP and non-SAP systems into Micro­soft envi­ron­ments and third-party systems for BI / Analy­tics as well as data­ba­ses, analy­tics plat­forms and cloud solu­ti­ons. From its five offices in Europe, the USA and Asia, the company serves over 3,500 custo­mers of all sizes and from all sectors, inclu­ding nume­rous medium-sized compa­nies and a large majo­rity of DAX-listed companies.

Bregal entre­pre­neu­rial capi­tal is part of a family busi­ness built over gene­ra­ti­ons. The invest­ment company focu­ses on compa­nies that have strong manage­ment teams and are conside­red market leaders or “hidden cham­pi­ons” in their respec­tive segments. Bregal and Theo­bald Soft­ware intend to jointly drive the company’s growth course succes­si­vely across addi­tio­nal target markets, inclu­ding through invest­ments in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, in order to further expand its tech­no­logy leader­ship in the area of SAP interfaces.

POELLATH advi­sed the manage­ment of Theo­bald Soft­ware GmbH in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion with the follo­wing Munich team:
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Manage­ment Participation/ Private Equity)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation/ Private Equity)

News

Frank­furt am Main/Berlin — German Equity Part­ners V (“GEP V” or the “Fund”), a fund mana­ged by the inde­pen­dent German private equity firm ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”), has inves­ted in the Berlin-based social media and influen­cer marke­ting specia­list Inter­mate Group, consis­ting of Inter­mate Media GmbH (“Inter­mate”) and TRUEMATES GmbH (“True­ma­tes”), through a part­ner­ship investment.

The fast-growing social media agency Inter­mate and the “social first” produc­tion company True­ma­tes specia­lize in the concep­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of social media and influen­cer campaigns on all social plat­forms as well as the produc­tion of the corre­spon­ding content. The Group is a leader in Germany, parti­cu­larly in campaigns and the deve­lo­p­ment of brand chan­nels for compa­nies on the fast-growing social media plat­form TikTok.

Toge­ther with ECM, the company foun­ders Ales­san­dro De Pasquale, Jörn Mecher, Philip Papen­dieck, Sonja Wolff and Phil­ipp Wolff want to conti­nue the success story of the Inter­mate Group and expand the enorm­ous poten­tial in the fast-growing area of social media and influen­cer marke­ting as well as in social commerce, which is expec­ted to grow about three times as fast as tradi­tio­nal online commerce by 2025. The foun­ders remain substan­ti­ally invol­ved and will conti­nue to lead and deve­lop the Inter­mate Group as mana­ging part­ners. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the transaction.

Philip Papen­dieck, co-foun­der, part­ner and CEO of Inter­mateIn order to posi­tion our clients and part­ners as the stron­gest play­ers in their indus­try in the social and influen­cer market, we will conti­nue to invest in our crea­tive and stra­te­gic infra­struc­ture, content studios, recrui­ting and social talent, as well as in our tech­no­logy. In addi­tion, we will expand our own formats Daily Pie and the VERTIES, also under the aspect of social commerce and meta­verse. With ECM, we have found a part­ner who, toge­ther with us, is rapidly expan­ding an agency model of the future, both tech­no­lo­gi­cally and crea­tively. The part­ner­ship now gives us the tail­wind to further main­tain and expand the market posi­tion we have built up within our seven years of existence.”

Florian Kähler, Part­ner and Mana­ging Direc­tor of ECM (photo), added: “The Inter­mate Group has an impres­sive market posi­tion in the rapidly growing market for social media marke­ting in Germany, for which we also see great poten­tial in the coming years. Buil­ding on Intermate’s proprie­tary tech­no­logy, we want to conti­nue the company’s success story toge­ther and expand into new markets and busi­ness areas. I look forward to part­ne­ring with Inter­mate Group’s ambi­tious and dyna­mic manage­ment team.”

Inter­mate connects successful brands with young generations
on social media platforms

Inter­mate was foun­ded in Berlin in 2015, initi­ally under the name Insta Media. In 2016, the company was rena­med Inter­mate. With a rapidly growing team, Inter­mate is one of the leading agen­cies for social media and influen­cer marke­ting in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company’s strong focus on crea­tors in parti­cu­lar has enab­led it to estab­lish an outstan­ding posi­tion in the social space. For influen­cer selec­tion, campaign plan­ning, and report­ing, Inter­mate uses a complex, proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gi­cal ecosys­tem. Using its unique tech­no­logy plat­form, Inter­mate has signi­fi­cantly acce­le­ra­ted its proces­ses and work­flows in these areas, achie­ving unique and effec­tive social media and influen­cer campaigns for clients.

In recent years, Inter­mate has imple­men­ted a number of successful campaigns for major clients and inter­na­tio­nal brand compa­nies from all indus­tries, inclu­ding Volks­wa­gen, Beiers­dorf and Deich­mann. The produc­tion of elabo­rate formats takes place in the company’s own studio in Berlin Char­lot­ten­burg with the spin-off produc­tion company True­ma­tes, which focu­ses prima­rily on verti­cal video content. In total, the Group curr­ently employs around 110 people in its two produc­tion studios in Berlin and its four office loca­ti­ons in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Vienna. The profi­ta­ble company has grown rapidly in recent years, doubling its work­force since 2018 and tripling its reve­nue. Inter­mate and True­ma­tes and its own formats Daily Pie and VERTIES now operate under the new name Inter­mate Group.

ECM brings entre­pre­neu­rial and stra­te­gic exper­tise, rele­vant network, and deep expe­ri­ence in imple­men­ting growth strategies

The invest­ment company ECM has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the imple­men­ta­tion of growth and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­te­gies, which it has alre­ady brought to bear in nume­rous part­ner­ship invest­ments. With ECM’s exper­tise, Inter­mate plans to conti­nue the pace of growth seen in recent years. The part­ners see great poten­tial in parti­cu­lar in the struc­tu­rally growing market for social commerce and in the busi­ness with influen­cer campaigns on the social media plat­form TikTok, which is gaining stron­gly in importance. In the German-spea­king markets, Inter­mate is one of the abso­lute specia­lists for social media and influen­cer marke­ting campaigns on the plat­form, which is parti­cu­larly popu­lar with youn­ger generations.

In the coming years, the Berlin-based company intends to build on its leading market posi­tion in this area toge­ther with ECM and also expand in other Euro­pean count­ries. Ambi­tious growth plans are also being pursued by Inter­mate, with ECM’s support, to expand other chan­nels such as the self-built and opera­ted plat­forms Daily Pie, the number one enter­tain­ment chan­nel on TikTok, and VERTIES, a content crea­tor award on TikTok presen­ted by the agency. Against this back­drop, the part­ners intend to adapt Inter­mate Group’s orga­niza­tio­nal struc­tures to its highly scaled busi­ness and streng­then opera­tio­nal excel­lence. Beyond orga­nic growth, Inter­mate Group plans to evaluate suita­ble add-on acqui­si­ti­ons with ECM’s support.

Great growth poten­tial in social commerce
and with influen­cer campaigns on TikTok.

The growth plans are supported by the expec­ted dyna­mic market growth in the coming years. Digi­tal consul­tancy OMMAX predicts that the German market for influen­cer marke­ting alone will grow from €1.1 billion in 2020 to €2.3 billion in 2024. On average, OMMAX expects the market to grow by around 20 percent annu­ally. The reason for the expec­ted leap in market growth is, in parti­cu­lar, incre­asing social media consump­tion. In 2021, about 90 percent of all smart­phone users were active on social media, each of whom had nearly nine social media accounts on average. The wide­spread use of social media makes it incre­asingly attrac­tive for compa­nies to promote their brands on the various plat­forms with the help of influen­cer campaigns. They enable them to reach youn­ger gene­ra­ti­ons Y and Z in particular.

GEP V was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Milbank (legal and struc­tu­ring), OMMAX (commer­cial), Ebner Stolz (finance & tax), Houli­han Lokey (debt advi­sory) and Willis Towers Watson (insu­rance). Florian Kähler, Tim Krume and Bene­dikt Müller are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion at ECM. Inter­mate was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (M&A) as well as Hyac­inth and GLNS (legal & struc­tu­ring), KPMG (finance) and the tax firm Brunow (tax).

About ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”)

ECM is a trus­ted part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies and entre­pre­neurs in German-spea­king Europe. Since 1995, ECM has laun­ched the GEP I‑V equity funds with a total volume of more than €1 billion and is curr­ently inves­t­ing from the fifth fund GEP V (€325 million). The funds invest prima­rily in leading medium-sized compa­nies with attrac­tive growth poten­tial in the course of succes­sion plan­ning, part­ner­ship invest­ments and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.ecm-pe.de

About Inter­mate Group (“Inter­mate” and “True­ma­tes”)

With over 110 employees and offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Vienna, the Inter­mate Group is one of the largest social agen­cies in DACH. With its own produc­tion company True­ma­tes, its own content studios, a holi­stic in-house deve­lo­ped influen­cer tech­no­logy and the influen­cer and social agency Inter­mate, the group has been able to estab­lish a leading posi­tion in the social market with its strong crea­tor-centric focus.

Through a close connec­tion directly to the plat­forms and by means of its own tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture, the Inter­mate Group offers the complete value chain on social media from a single source: influen­cer campaigns, crea­tor-centric social media manage­ment, content produc­tion and perfor­mance ads. Through its own inven­tory and formats, such as the TikTok show Daily Pie with nearly 1,000,000 follo­wers or the VERTIES, the “Oscars” of TikTok crea­tors, Inter­mate Group can demons­tra­bly bring first-hand social exper­tise to clients’ stra­te­gies and concepts. These now include compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons such as o2 Tele­fó­nica, Beiers­dorf, Volks­wa­gen, the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Health, ALDI Nord and HUAWEI. www.intermate-group.de

News

Colo­gne — With Eneco Ventures and Sparta Capi­tal, two estab­lished funds from the rene­wa­ble energy sector are inves­t­ing in Sunvigo’s revo­lu­tio­nary busi­ness model. Sparta and Eneco, which are provi­ding the bulk of the new finan­cing, are inves­t­ing a total of €10 million toge­ther with exis­ting inves­tors such as Ecosum­mit, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and Über­mor­gen Ventures. Deut­sche Kredit­bank AG (DKB) is provi­ding a further 5 million euros in debt capi­tal to finance the PV systems. While the current energy crisis has driven both young and estab­lished compa­nies into insol­vency, Sunvigo has been able to secure new invest­ments and even protect its custo­mers from rising elec­tri­city prices.

Since its foun­ding in 2020, Sunvigo has alre­ady provi­ded hundreds of custo­mers with easy access to afforda­ble solar power. In the first year after its foun­da­tion, the custo­mer base increased more than tenfold.

Entry of two renow­ned inves­tors sets the course for strong growth

Eneco Ventures and Sparta Capi­tal are now inves­t­ing in Sunvigo’s contin­ued growth and vision. “We believe there is a large market for Sunvigo’s product. We also see many poten­tial syner­gies, for exam­ple with Eneco’s subsi­diary Licht­Blick, the largest green power provi­der in Germany,” said Hans W. Cool, Invest­ment Direc­tor of Eneco Ventures.

“Sunvigo offers a trus­ted solu­tion for the tran­si­tion to a low-carbon world. This part­ner­ship is an important mile­stone for Sparta and we look forward to support­ing Sunvigo’s manage­ment team in the years to come,” said Guil­laume Sarlat, Head of Sustaina­bi­lity Invest­ment at Sparta Capital

“Through Sparta, we are able to work with one of the leading inves­tors in this field and gain access to inter­na­tio­nal capi­tal markets to expand finan­cing for our solar systems,” on the inves­tor selec­tion Dr. Michael Peters, foun­der of Sunvigo and solar expert (center photo).

In addi­tion, exis­ting inves­tors Ecosum­mit, HTGF, Über­mor­gen Ventures and a family office are again parti­ci­pa­ting in the finan­cing round, thus confir­ming their confi­dence in the solar energy provi­der. DKB is also incre­asing the finan­cing volume for the solar plants by a further 5 million euros in borro­wed capital.

Digi­tiza­tion, expan­sion of the Green Power Commu­nity and streng­thening of the Sunvigo team

Foun­ders Bastian Bauwens, Dr. Michael Peters and Dr. Vigen Niko­gos­ian will use the fresh capi­tal to further expand the Green Power Commu­nity, improve the custo­mer expe­ri­ence, espe­ci­ally through digi­ta­liza­tion, and further opti­mize inter­nal proces­ses. Sunvigo also wants to expand in terms of person­nel. The company now employs over 50 people and plans to grow stron­gly in all areas this year. In the future, Sunvigo will network its plants in virtual power plants, making solar power from the Sunvigo Commu­nity available to all elec­tri­city custo­mers. The team can make good use of the rein­force­ment, because the demand for solar energy is huge.

“In recent months, demand has increased rapidly. Many people are over­whel­med by the current sharp rise in elec­tri­city prices and are wonde­ring what they can do about the rising costs. Swit­ching to solar energy provi­des a hedge against rising prices. But until now, you had to put up with a lot of comple­xity for that. With Sunvigo one can have now finally both — protec­tion against rising prices by the solar plant on the own roof and nevert­hel­ess the power supply remains as simple as with a clas­si­cal elec­tri­city contract, explains Dr. Michael Peters, foun­der of Sunvigo and solar expert.

About Sunvigo

Sunvigo is revo­lu­tio­ni­zing the use of solar power for homeow­ners. Unlike PV system sellers or renters, the company is an energy provi­der and offers homeow­ners a power contract that includes solar. This means: Sunvigo installs and opera­tes the solar system. The custo­mer only pays for the elec­tri­city consu­med and does not have to worry about the costly opera­tion and finan­cing of the solar system. If desi­red, solu­ti­ons for battery storage and char­ging devices for elec­tric cars can be inte­gra­ted into the elec­tri­city contract. For more info, visit www.sunvigo.de. Sunvigo is funded by leading inves­tors, inclu­ding High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, Über­mor­gen Ventures, Eneco Ventures and Sparta Capital.

About DKB

Deut­sche Kredit­bank AG (DKB), head­quar­te­red in Berlin, is part of the BayernLB Group and serves busi­ness and private custo­mers with its more than 4,500 employees. With total assets of 126.9 billion euros, it is one of the top 20 banks in Germany. More than 4.8 million people are DKB custo­mers. They conduct their banking tran­sac­tions conve­ni­ently and secu­rely online. DKB indus­try experts provide perso­nal support to busi­ness custo­mers at 25 DKB loca­ti­ons throug­hout Germany. As a part­ner to compa­nies and muni­ci­pa­li­ties, the bank specia­li­zed early on in promi­sing sectors in Germany: Housing, health­care, care, educa­tion, agri­cul­ture, infra­struc­ture and rene­wa­ble ener­gies. DKB is one of the market leaders in many of these sectors. DKB atta­ches great importance to sustainable action: As a #geld­ver­bes­se­rer, it ther­e­fore focu­ses on a sustainable lending busi­ness. www.dkb.de

About Eneco Ventures

Eneco is a leading energy supplier in Europe and consists of a group of compa­nies opera­ting mainly in the field of rene­wa­ble energy and inno­va­tion. Toge­ther with its custo­mers, part­ners and more than 3,000 employees, Eneco is pursuing the goal of provi­ding sustainable energy for all and beco­ming climate neutral as early as 2035. Eneco Ventures is the invest­ment arm of Eneco that invests in promi­sing young compa­nies driving the energy transition.

About Sparta Capi­tal Management

Sparta Capi­tal Manage­ment Ltd. was foun­ded by Franck Tuil, a former mana­ger at Elliott Manage­ment Corpo­ra­tion. The first fund was laun­ched in Septem­ber 2021 with initial capi­tal commit­ments of over $500 million. It is a global multi-stra­tegy fund that invests in both public and private markets and across the capi­tal struc­ture, with a focus on finan­cing the energy transition.

About About Tomor­row Ventures

Über­mor­gen Ventures is a Swiss invest­ment company that supports early-stage start­ups in climate tech and decar­bo­niza­tion across Europe. The firm’s funda­men­tal invest­ment hypo­the­sis is that there is an urgent need to deve­lop solu­ti­ons to the climate crisis and that this repres­ents a tremen­dous busi­ness oppor­tu­nity for start­ups through the decar­bo­niza­tion of products, proces­ses, services or busi­ness models. Über­mor­gen Ventures is led by four Mana­ging Part­ners with a strong back­ground and track record in early-stage startup finan­cing and aims to build a port­fo­lio of compa­nies that save more than one million tons of CO2 annually.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 650 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €4 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,800 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 150 companies.

News

Amster­dam / Munich / Rosen­heim — Egeria acqui­res Isoplus, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of pre-insu­la­ted pipe systems for district heating supply. Egeria, a family-owned, pan-Euro­pean invest­ment company, will acquire 100% of the shares in Isoplus, based in Germany. Isoplus is a leading Euro­pean supplier of pre-insu­la­ted pipe systems with an outstan­ding market posi­tion in the district heating supply sector. In the future, the exis­ting manage­ment will run the company as co-owners and imple­ment the growth stra­tegy toge­ther with Egeria. The acqui­si­tion is subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and is expec­ted to close in the first quar­ter of 2022. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Isoplus was foun­ded in 1974 and has become a leader in the Euro­pean district heating market. The company opera­tes 8 produc­tion sites, employs appro­xi­m­ately 1,200 people and is active in over 30 countries.

Isoplus’ main market, district heating, is conside­red a key element in the tran­si­tion to CO2-neutral heat gene­ra­tion. With many years of expe­ri­ence and a complete product port­fo­lio, as well as a broad Euro­pean market posi­tion, Isoplus is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from this attrac­tive and dyna­mic market, which is driven by a clear need for the expan­sion of envi­ron­men­tally friendly heat. Egeria’s invest­ment provi­des the company with the finan­cial back­ing and opera­tio­nal support to further acce­le­rate growth and deve­lop the company into a leading provi­der of sustainable, envi­ron­men­tally friendly heating services throug­hout Europe.

Hannes Rumer (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner DACH at Egeria in Munich: “We are impres­sed by Isoplus’ growth story. Through conti­nuous entre­pre­neur­ship, Isoplus has estab­lished a leading posi­tion in an attrac­tive market. The company is a great plat­form for future growth, and we want to further streng­then its posi­tion as a leading provi­der of sustainable, envi­ron­men­tally friendly heating solu­ti­ons. We look forward to working with manage­ment and support­ing the company in its next phase of growth.”

Wolf­gang Blum­schein, Roland Hirner and Jörg Kauschat, Isoplus Manage­ment: “We are deligh­ted to have Egeria as a new main share­hol­der of Isoplus. In recent years, we have conti­nuously deve­lo­ped Isoplus into one of the market leaders for district heating pipes. We are convin­ced that Isoplus is ready to acce­le­rate its growth as a provi­der of sustainable heating services and see Egeria as the ideal part­ner to realize the next phase of growth.”

Advi­sor to Egeria: Clif­ford Chance
Led by part­ner Dr. Nicole Englisch and senior asso­ciate Sina Schwirz (both Corporate/ M&A/ Private Equity, Munich).

About Isoplus Group
Isoplus is a leading supplier of ther­mally insu­la­ted pipe systems, mainly for district heating. In addi­tion to ther­mally insu­la­ted pipes, Isoplus also offers joint instal­la­tion services and coating services for other indus­trial pipes and products. Isoplus’ services include design, project manage­ment, produc­tion, cons­truc­tion super­vi­sion, instal­la­tion, docu­men­ta­tion and network moni­to­ring. The company has a broad custo­mer base of local utili­ties, muni­ci­pa­li­ties and contrac­tors served through a direct sales force. www.isoplus.de/home.html

About Egeria
Egeria is an inde­pen­dent pan-Euro­pean invest­ment company foun­ded in 1997 and focu­sed on medium-sized compa­nies. Egeria invests in healthy compa­nies with growth poten­tial. Egeria belie­ves in buil­ding great compa­nies toge­ther with entre­pre­neu­rial manage­ment teams (Boldly Buil­ding Together).

Egeria Private Equity Funds holds invest­ments in 13 compa­nies in the Nether­lands and the DACH region, while Egeria Ever­green holds invest­ments in 7 compa­nies. Egeria’s port­fo­lio compa­nies gene­rate combi­ned sales of more than EUR 2.4 billion and employ around 12,500 people. Other acti­vi­ties of the Egeria Group are Egeria Real Estate Invest­ments, Egeria Real Estate Deve­lo­p­ment and Egeria Listed Invest­ments. In 2018, Egeria laun­ched “Egeriado,” a corpo­rate giving program that supports projects in the fields of art, culture and social welfare. www.egeriagroup.com

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

Munich, Germany — Curtiss-Wright Corpo­ra­tion (Curtiss-Wright) has sold CWFC Phoe­nix Group (Phoe­nix) to Liberta Part­ners. Curtis-Wright was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Reed Smith.

Phönix, based in Volk­mar­sen, Germany, is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality valves for chemi­cal, petro­che­mi­cal, nuclear and conven­tio­nal power plants as well as for the oil and gas industry.

Liberta Part­ners, a Munich-based multi-family holding company, acqui­red Curtiss-Wright’s shares in a corpo­rate carve-out follo­wing Curtiss-Wright’s stra­te­gic decis­ion to focus on the defense sector.

The Reed Smith team that advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion was led by Constan­tin Conrads, Part­ner in the Munich Global Corpo­rate Group, who was the lead advi­sor on the sale of the company and nego­tia­ted the purchase agree­ment, Peter Teare, Part­ner in the London Global Corpo­rate Group, and Rita Gnoth-Novak, Senior Associate.
The entire Reed Smith team in Munich, Frank­furt and London included part­ners David Ashmore, William Sutton, Dr. Martin Bünning, Jan Weiss­ger­ber and Dr. Anette Gärt­ner as well as asso­cia­tes Phil­ipp Berg­mann, Heidi Paget-Brown and Frie­de­rike Wilde-Detmering.

Advi­sor Liberta Part­ners: Arqis in Munich
Dr. Mauritz von Einem, Benja­min Bandur and Rolf Tichy.

In-house Liberta:
Chris­tian Szczesny (Gene­ral Cousel). EC M&A from Frank­furt was invol­ved as M&A advisor.

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies predo­mi­nantly based in German-spea­king count­ries with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, in parti­cu­lar in corpo­rate spin-offs and succes­si­ons. The company actively deve­lops invest­ments as part of its long-term “100% Core & Care” concept. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from Liberta Part­ners’ inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence. Liberta Part­ners’ team consists of M&A, corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment and legal profes­sio­nals as well as an active advi­sory board. www.liberta-partners.com

About Curtiss-Wright

Curtiss-Wright Corpo­ra­tion is an inno­va­tive engi­nee­ring company provi­ding advan­ced products, systems and services in flow control, motion control and surface treat­ment tech­no­lo­gies for the defense, energy and commercial/industrial markets. As the succes­sor company to Glenn Curtiss and the Wright Brot­hers, Curtiss-Wright has a long tradi­tion of desig­ning and manu­fac­tu­ring inno­va­tions and prides itself on its long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships. The company employs around 9,700 people world­wide. www.curtisswright.com.

About Phoe­nix Group

The Phönix Group supplies the chemi­cal indus­try, refi­ne­ries and conven­tio­nal power plants world­wide with high-quality special valves in all stan­dards (DIN, ANSI, ASME, etc.). Nume­rous product and system certi­fi­ca­ti­ons ensure opti­mum safety and relia­bi­lity of Phoe­nix valves. The Phoe­nix Group is the world’s tech­no­lo­gi­cal leader in the field of bellows valves. The product range also includes globe valves, gate valves, control valves, meter­ing line valves, change-over valves, check valves, strai­ner basket filters, high-pres­sure valves, and a wide range of special valves such as alky­la­tion valves and safety valves for the aero­space indus­try. State-of-the-art proces­sing tech­no­logy, highly quali­fied employees, constant coope­ra­tion with inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards orga­niza­ti­ons, sales offices in important markets and subsi­dia­ries in France and the USA ensure a high level of custo­mer service. www.cw-valvegroup.com/About/phonix

About Reed Smith

Reed Smith is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms with more than 1,700 lawy­ers in 30 offices in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.reedsmith.com.

 

 

News

Munich — ARQIS advi­sed Dr. Simon Consul­ting GmbH on the sale of its subsi­dia­ries FuG Elek­tro­nik GmbH (Schechen/Rosenheim) and Guth High Voltage GmbH (Salach/ Göppin­gen) as part of a succes­sion plan. Both compa­nies, which curr­ently have a combi­ned work­force of around 170, will be taken over by Singa­pore-based XP POWER LTD. from Febru­ary 1, 2022.

FuG deve­lops and distri­bu­tes DC low, medium and high voltage power supplies. Guth deve­lops and distri­bu­tes DC high voltage power supplies and compon­ents. Both compa­nies have been successfully active in their respec­tive indus­tries for many years, have estab­lished a market-rele­vant posi­tion with conti­nuous growth and most recently gene­ra­ted sales of approx. 18 million euros. The sale to XP Power opens up far-reaching oppor­tu­ni­ties for the compa­nies to expand their inter­na­tio­nal presence and conti­nue their sustainable growth path, while finding a solu­tion for share­hol­der succes­sion and secu­ring both sites.

The ARQIS team around Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (photo) and Dr. Mauritz von Einem advi­sed Dr. Simon Consul­ting GmbH not only on all aspects of the company sale and the reor­ga­niza­tion of service rela­ti­onships, but also in the area of real estate.

Consul­tant Dr. Simon Consul­ting GmbH: ARQIS 
Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem and Dr. Mauritz von Einem (both Lead; M&A); Part­ners: Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der (M&A), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate); Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping (Tax); Mana­ging Asso­ciate: Benja­min Bandur (M&A); Associates:

Anselm Graf (Corpo­rate), Fran­ziska Resch (Real Estate)

News

Munich/Amsterdam — Amadys, a leading provi­der of passive network compo­nent solu­ti­ons for utility infra­struc­ture in the Bene­lux region and port­fo­lio company of Equis­tone Part­ners Europe, is acqui­ring the two sales specia­lists SKG Netz­werk­tech­nik GmbH and Muth Kommu­ni­ka­ti­ons­tech­nik GmbH. Follo­wing the market entry in Germany through the acqui­si­tion of tso GmbH in early 2021, the two acqui­si­ti­ons mark the next important mile­stone in Amadys’ buy & build stra­tegy. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Amadys, head­quar­te­red in Belgium, offers a wide range of solu­ti­ons in the field of passive network compon­ents for utility networks — with a focus on tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, water, gas and elec­tri­city — as well as for indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone, toge­ther with the manage­ment team, acqui­red the Belgian end-to-end systems inte­gra­tor in Decem­ber 2019; since then, Amadys has been conti­nuously expan­ding and deve­lo­ping its market posi­tion with a targe­ted buy-&-build stra­tegy. The acqui­si­ti­ons of SKG and Muth repre­sent another important mile­stone for Amadys, follo­wing the market entry in Germany in 2021 — both in the expan­sion of its DACH presence and in its stra­tegy to become a leading pan-Euro­pean full-service provi­der for connec­ti­vity solutions.

SKG Netz­werk­tech­nik was foun­ded in 1978 as part of the SKB-GROUP and is one of the leading Austrian suppli­ers of active and passive products for tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and data­com networks. Head­quar­te­red in Schwe­chat, Austria, the company, toge­ther with its Slova­kian subsi­diary FCS Fiber Compon­ents Slova­kia, serves a broad custo­mer base with a focus on the digi­tal infra­struc­ture, energy, and tech­no­logy and cons­truc­tion sectors. Thanks to its many years of exper­tise in the fiber optics sector, SKG and its solu­ti­ons have estab­lished them­sel­ves as a relia­ble part­ner for their customers.

Muth Kommu­ni­ka­ti­ons­tech­nik GmbH, based in Kabel­s­ke­tal near Leip­zig, is one of Germany’s leading specia­list whole­sa­lers for elec­tri­cal and commu­ni­ca­ti­ons tech­no­logy. The company was foun­ded in 1991 and focu­ses on the distri­bu­tion of antenna tech­no­logy for satel­lite and broad­band cable systems as well as products for data and network tech­no­logy — espe­ci­ally from the copper and fiber optic sector. The distri­bu­tion specia­list offers its custo­mers a broad product port­fo­lio from well-known manu­fac­tu­r­ers and in some cases acts as an exclu­sive logi­stics part­ner. With more than 1900 m² of warehouse space, Muth guaran­tees its custo­mers a high deli­very capa­city as well as fast deli­very times and, toge­ther with its exten­sive product know-how, has estab­lished itself as a well-known and relia­ble part­ner for its customers.

With the acqui­si­tion of the two compa­nies, which are excel­lently posi­tio­ned in their count­ries, Amadys reali­zes another mile­stone on its way to beco­ming a pan-Euro­pean full-service provi­der for connec­ti­vity solu­ti­ons: “The acqui­si­ti­ons of SKG and Muth mark an important step in the joint buy & build stra­tegy. Amadys has signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its geogra­phic foot­print over the past two years with loca­ti­ons in the Bene­lux, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Slova­kia — ideal condi­ti­ons to further drive the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the group with the support of strong market dyna­mics”, comm­ents Tanja Berg, Invest­ment Direc­tor in Equistone’s Munich office (photo), the transaction.

“I am very plea­sed that SKG will become part of the Amadys Group,” adds Alex­an­der Trem­mel, mana­ging part­ner at SKB Indus­trie­hol­ding GmbH. “SKG serves an attrac­tive market that is poised to grow signi­fi­cantly due to increased data traf­fic and explo­ding demand for high-speed band­width. Toge­ther with Amadys, SKG will be able to further expand its market position.”

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 Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests 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 over 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands and Belgium. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. www.equistone.de

About Amadys
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.amadys.be.

About SKG
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.skg.at

About Muth GmbH
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.muth.kt.de

News

Frank­furt — Eight Advi­sory, the Euro­pean tran­sac­tion and trans­for­ma­tion advi­sory firm, conti­nues its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion with the opening of its fourth office in Germany, adding further exper­tise in carve-outs and trans­for­ma­tion proces­ses to its service port­fo­lio in Germany.

Eight Advisory’s pan-Euro­pean network with offices in France, Germany, the UK, Belgium, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands will thus be further expan­ded to provide compre­hen­sive support to corpo­rate and private equity clients in complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. The DACH region is now the company’s second largest market after France, with addi­tio­nal offices in Frank­furt am Main, Munich, Hamburg and Zurich. In 2021 alone, the region advi­sed nume­rous well-known clients from the private equity and corpo­rate sectors on over 70 tran­sac­tions and projects. The steadily growing team of curr­ently 45 consul­tants — inclu­ding eight part­ners — demons­tra­tes the strong presence in the German-spea­king markets and covers the stra­te­gi­cally important busi­ness areas of Tran­sac­tion Advi­sory, M&A Tax, Trans­for­ma­tion, Infra­struc­ture and Project Finance as well as Restruc­tu­ring and Perfor­mance Improvement.

The Colo­gne office of Eight Advi­sory is headed by Curt-Oliver Luch­ten­berg, who has joined Eight Advi­sory toge­ther with other highly expe­ri­en­ced colle­agues. Curt-Oliver will lead the trans­for­ma­tion prac­tice in Germany. The local team can draw on the consul­ting and sector exper­tise of the 600 experts in Eight Advisory’s inter­na­tio­nal network.

Curt-Oliver Luch­ten­berg, 50, has dedi­ca­ted hims­elf to stra­tegy, trans­for­ma­tion and restruc­tu­ring consul­ting since his studies at the Euro­pean Busi­ness School in Oestrich-Winkel. After his early years on the stra­tegy team at Mitchell Madi­son Group and the restruc­tu­ring team at Roland Berger, he contin­ued his career at two Big Four consul­ting firms, first in the Opera­tio­nal Tran­sac­tion Services Prac­tice and later in the Stra­tegy Group of another Big Four firm.

From an opera­tio­nal perspec­tive, Curt-Oliver Luch­ten­berg has led major spin-offs, carve-outs, inte­gra­ti­ons and stra­tegy projects for well-known clients such as Siemens Energy, E.ON, Liberty Global, Lanxess, Heidel­berg­Ce­ment and Deut­sche Bahn, as well as assis­ting medium-sized compa­nies and private equity clients with complex transformations.

Curt-Oliver Luch­ten­berg: “No other tran­sac­tion advi­sory firm has such a broad and deep spec­trum of solu­ti­ons and services to offer and is as expe­ri­en­ced, inde­pen­dent, focu­sed and flexi­ble as Eight Advi­sory. It has always been my central guiding prin­ci­ple to support my custo­mers only to the extent that they really need it — without, of course, disre­gar­ding the tech­ni­cal and content-rela­ted necessities.”

“We are very plea­sed to have Curt-Oliver join us as a Trans­for­ma­tion Part­ner in Germany. His proven expe­ri­ence in hand­ling signi­fi­cant tran­sac­tions will streng­then our team and enhance our market coverage,” said Michael Wahl, Mana­ging Part­ner of Eight Advi­sory in Germany.

About Eight Advisory

Eight Advi­sory advi­ses entre­pre­neurs, CEOs, inves­tors and banks on tran­sac­tions, trans­for­ma­ti­ons, infra­struc­ture projects and project finan­cings as well as restruc­tu­rings and perfor­mance impro­ve­ment. Eight Advi­sory is a Euro­pean group with 600 employees, inclu­ding 74 part­ners, and with offices in Germany, France, the UK, Belgium, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. As a foun­ding member of Eight Inter­na­tio­nal, the company can draw on a global network of more than 3,600 specia­lists in over 30 count­ries in Europe, America, Asia and Ocea­nia. https://de.8advisory.com

News

Munich — The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) and the port­fo­lio company TIMETOACT GROUP, a leading provi­der of IT services for medium-sized compa­nies, corpo­ra­ti­ons and public insti­tu­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land, have acqui­red the soft­ware trans­for­ma­tion expert PKS Soft­ware GmbH. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) and TIMETOACT GROUP on the finan­cing of the add-on acqui­si­tion of PKS Soft­ware GmbH.

The long-stan­ding part­ner­ship between the two compa­nies will now be contin­ued and expan­ded under the umbrella of the TIMETOACT GROUP. The current PKS mana­ging direc­tors Heidi Schmidt and Roland Zurawka will conti­nue to manage the company. In addi­tion, Heidi Schmidt will become a share­hol­der in TIMETOACT GROUP.

The TIMETOACT GROUP, head­quar­te­red in Colo­gne, Germany, curr­ently compri­ses eight specia­li­zed corpo­rate brands at 16 loca­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land: ARS, CLOUDPILOTS, edcom, IPG, nova­Capta, synaigy, TIMETOACT and X‑INTEGRATE.

Foun­ded in 1991, PKS specia­li­zes in the custo­mer-speci­fic further deve­lo­p­ment of busi­ness-criti­cal indi­vi­dual soft­ware. The focus is on support­ing compa­nies in opti­mi­zing grown soft­ware land­scapes in such a way that they can colla­bo­rate with their custo­mers and suppli­ers effi­ci­ently, in line with the times and without errors.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team included part­ner Winfried M. Carli and asso­ciate Daniel Wagner (both Munich-Finance).

Respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of TIMETOACT are Frank Fuchs and Chris­tian Koch. TIMETOACT was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by AC CHRISTES & PARTNER (Finan­cial & Tax) and de Ange­lis Attor­neys at Law (Legal).

The PKS share­hol­ders were advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Steu­er­erkanz­lei Sera­fini (Finan­cial & Tax) and Geiß­ler Rechts­an­wälte (Legal).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 25 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling has offices in Frank­furt and Munich. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. www.shearman.com.

News

Berlin — Circula GmbH (www.circula.com) successfully closed a EUR 12 million Series A finan­cing round. The VC fund Alstin Capi­tal, which is backed by entre­pre­neur Cars­ten Maschmeyer, as well as the VC funds Peak (Nether­lands) and Storm Ventures (USA) joined the finan­cing round. Invest­ments were also made by exis­ting share­hol­ders, inclu­ding Capna­mic, WenVest Capi­tal and Personio.

The Berlin-based soft­ware-as-a-service fintech is the first to combine fully digi­tal employee expense reports, digi­tal employee bene­fits and a smart corpo­rate credit card into one product.

Circula is deve­lo­ping a compre­hen­sive Employee Finance App that allows employees to digi­tally process expen­ses, such as out-of-pocket expen­ses and travel expen­ses, and employee bene­fits in a tax-compli­ant manner. In addi­tion, employees receive corpo­rate credit cards with real credit lines, cash backs and real-time state­ments that are fully inte­gra­ted with Circula work­flows. Circula soft­ware is opti­mi­zed for seam­less inte­gra­tion into accoun­ting proces­ses and complies with Euro­pean tax standards.

Thanks to the conti­nuous expan­sion of the product, the start-up run by the two foun­ders Niko­lai Skatch­kov and Roman Leicht has recently been able to signi­fi­cantly increase its custo­mer and reve­nue base. Circula’s appro­xi­m­ately 1,000 custo­mers include Ebner Stolz, DFL, McMak­ler, Infarm and Orthomol.

Consul­tant Circula : LUTZ | ABEL
The team consis­ted of Dr. Lorenz Jelling­haus, photo © LUTZ | ABEL (lead), Constanze Hach­mann and Maxi­mi­lian Franz (all VC, Hamburg).

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