ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Vienna/ Helsinki — Round2 Capi­tal, the leading Euro­pean reve­nue-based finance provi­der, is further expan­ding its commit­ment to the Nordic tech market by inves­t­ing a total of EUR 4 million in the Finnish SaaS company Vainu in seve­ral tran­ches. The invest­ment fund, based in Vienna, Berlin and Stock­holm, has alre­ady been working with Vainu since 2019 and has provi­ded both reve­nue-based finance and equity in the current round. With the fresh capi­tal, Vainu was able to trans­form its busi­ness, doubling its annual average custo­mer value (ACV) while syste­ma­ti­cally moving away from the small and stan­da­lone custo­mer segment.

Vainu is a leading soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) provi­der that offers its custo­mers an enter­prise infor­ma­tion plat­form that enables them to achieve compre­hen­sive sales and marke­ting perso­na­liza­tion through real-time enter­prise data.
The Helsinki-based company curr­ently employs 130 people and has alre­ady part­ne­red with Round2 Capi­tal in 2019. The fast-growing Euro­pean invest­ment fund, which supports the growth of leading SaaS compa­nies through reve­nue-based finan­cing and selec­tively with equity solu­ti­ons, has since inves­ted a total of €4 million in Vainu.

“Over the last three years, we have inves­ted a lot of time and effort in buil­ding solu­ti­ons that are needed by mid-market and large custo­mers as well as large enter­pri­ses. At the end of the day, it comes down to the reach and quality of the data and our ability to deli­ver proprie­tary infor­ma­tion in a modern way. Some­ti­mes it’s our native CRM connec­tions, some­ti­mes it’s our online plat­form, and some­ti­mes it’s the APIs we need. A good exam­ple of our capa­bi­li­ties in the enter­prise space is our new Vainu deve­lo­per portal that we are laun­ching today,” explains Mikko Honka­nen, one of the co-foun­ders of Vainu.

“Vainu plays a criti­cal role in enab­ling sales and marke­ting teams across Nort­hern Europe to keep their custo­mer data up-to-date and ready to use. I am convin­ced that the finan­cing struc­ture offe­red by Round2 fits very well with the needs of the company and crea­tes a solid basis for the next phase of Vainu’s deve­lo­p­ment,” said Jan Hille­red, Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Round2 Capital.

Fore­cast: 40-fold growth in reve­nue-based financing

Sales-based finan­cing has been growing rapidly for years and is regarded as a fast and compa­ra­tively simple form of invest­ment that enables compa­nies to expand sustain­ably without having to dispose of company shares. Accor­ding to a recent study by Allied Market Rese­arch, the market for reve­nue-based finan­cing is expec­ted to grow 40-fold over the next five years, to more than $40 billion. An important factor for this is that a new market is deve­lo­ping in Europe for forms of finan­cing that repre­sent an alter­na­tive to tradi­tio­nal equity. Reve­nue Based Finan­cing is an inno­va­tive form of finan­cing that takes advan­tage of the unique charac­te­ristics of soft­ware compa­nies, recur­ring reve­nue and intan­gi­ble assets.

About Vainu

Vainu is buil­ding an enter­prise data plat­form that helps B2B compa­nies perso­na­lize sales and marke­ting at scale. The company coll­ects and analy­zes a vast amount of struc­tu­red and unstruc­tu­red online infor­ma­tion and makes this real-time busi­ness insight easily actionable directly within its custo­mers’ exis­ting systems.
Head­quar­te­red in Helsinki, Finland, the company laun­ched in 2014 and now helps more than 10,000 sales, marke­ting and data profes­sio­nals better under­stand their custo­mers and pros­pects and create targe­ted busi­ness profiles and segments.

About Round2 Capital

Round2 Capi­tal is a fast growing Euro­pean invest­ment company with offices in Vienna, Berlin and Stock­holm. It is a strong part­ner for Euro­pean compa­nies with digi­tal and sustainable busi­ness models. Head­quar­te­red in Vienna since 2017, Round2 Capi­tal is the pioneer of reve­nue-based finan­cing in Europe. The company is active in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries and has a focus on Germany, Switz­er­land, Austria and Scan­di­na­via. To date, Round2 Capi­tal has inves­ted in 23 compa­nies. With the invest­ment in Vainu, Round2 Capi­tal further expands its market posi­tion in Finland. www.round2cap.com

News

Frank­furt am Main / Hamburg — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner is selling its shares in the Remscheid-based measu­re­ment and control tech­no­logy specia­list GHM Group. The shares of VR Equi­typ­art­ner and Bayern LB Private Equity GmbH i.L., which was previously also invol­ved, will be taken over by the Hamburg-based invest­ment company GENUI. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to anti­trust and foreign trade clearance. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

As a specia­list in the field of measu­re­ment and control tech­no­logy, the GHM Group opera­tes in the busi­ness areas of indus­trial sensors and elec­tro­nics, envi­ron­men­tal measu­re­ment tech­no­logy, and mobile measu­re­ment equip­ment. The company has loca­ti­ons in Germany and Italy and is also present world­wide with sales repre­sen­ta­ti­ves. Custo­mers are mainly from the mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring, trans­port tech­no­logy, envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy, meteo­ro­logy, water treat­ment and labo­ra­tory equip­ment sectors.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner inves­ted in the GHM Group in 2013. Since then, a successful buy-and-build stra­tegy has been imple­men­ted with two add-on tran­sac­tions (Delta Ohm and Val.Co) in Italy and the company has been further deve­lo­ped with a focus on profi­ta­ble growth.

“We have achie­ved a lot at GHM over the past years. I am plea­sed that we have thus been able to lay a stable foun­da­tion for profi­ta­ble growth at GHM under the new share­hol­der struc­ture,” explains Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner, adding, “I am convin­ced that we have found the ideal new part­ner for the company in GENUI, because the company under­stands SMEs and brings a broad range of exper­tise to the table.”

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH at a glance

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. www.vrep.de.

The tran­sac­tion team at VR Equitypartner:
Jan Markus Drees, Maxi­mi­lian Fink­bei­ner, Marga­rita Decker, Jens Schöf­fel, Simone Weck

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

M&A: Stephens Europe Ltd (Stephens), Gerhard Gleich and Robin Brandenbusch

Finan­cial / Tax: Warth & Klein Grant Thorn­ton AG, Harald Weiß (Finan­cial) and Dr. Stefan Hahn (Tax)

Legal: Noerr Part­ner­schafts­ge­sell­schaft mbB (NOERR), Dr. Martin Neuhaus and Gerrit Henze

News

Stutt­gart — Alex­an­der Stein acqui­res 51 percent of the shares in the French Société des Produits d’Ar­ma­gnac (SPA) from Pernod Ricard. The shares were acqui­red via the Stutt­gart-based invest­ment company Clouds­weeper GmbH. Bene­dikt Raisch, Sala­ried Part­ner at Heuking’s Stutt­gart office, provi­ded legal advice to entre­pre­neur Alex­an­der Stein on the acquisition.

SPA, head­quar­te­red in Eauze, the so-called capi­tal of Arma­gnac in southwes­tern France, was foun­ded in the 1930s. The company owns the Marquis de Montes­quiou (photo) and Comte de Lauvia Arma­gnac brands. SPA is well estab­lished in the main Arma­gnac markets such as France, the United King­dom, Russia and the United States and has an excep­tio­nal stock of aged eaux-de-vie.

Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion, the Marquis de Montes­quiou and Comte de Lauvia brands will be streng­the­ned in France and abroad. Alex­an­der Stein will be supported by Pernod Ricard in the new deve­lo­p­ment stra­tegy for the two brands.

Alex­an­der Stein, a well-known inno­va­tor in the spirits indus­try, has been working successfully with Pernod Ricard for years. Its premium gin brand Monkey 47 was fully acqui­red by Pernod Ricard in 2020. The two part­ners recently colla­bo­ra­ted to launch a bour­bon whis­key with haba­nero distil­late called Horse with No Name. Alex­an­der Stein also recei­ved legal support for this project from the Heuking team led by Bene­dikt Raisch.

Advi­sor Alex­an­der Stein: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Bene­dikt Raisch (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate M&A), Stuttgart

News

Düsseldorf/ Munich/ Osna­brück — ARQIS advi­sed zwei.7, the family office behind Osna­brück-based entre­pre­neur Kars­ten Wulf, as lead inves­tor in the Series A finan­cing round of Berlin-based health tech company Lindera GmbH.

In its finan­cing round, Lindera was able to secure one of the largest invest­ments in the care sector in the DACH region to date. Through the four new inves­tors advi­sed by ARQIS and with the parti­ci­pa­tion of the exis­ting group of share­hol­ders from the Rhein­gau Foun­ders envi­ron­ment, the company is thus solidly finan­ced for the coming years.

With its AI-based 3D motion track­ing tech­no­logy, Lindera enables flexi­ble motion analy­sis for all areas of the health­care sector — from geria­tric care to ortho­pe­dics and geria­trics to neuro­logy, rehab and therapy. By combi­ning medi­cal know­ledge and intel­li­gent AI tech­no­logy, precise gait para­me­ters can be gene­ra­ted and scien­ti­fi­cally vali­da­ted via the camera of a smart­phone or tablet. Lindera part­ners with leading compa­nies and univer­si­ties around the world to help people safely reach the limits of their mobi­lity with precise assess­ments as they age, play sports, and undergo therapy.

Zwei.7 is a single family office foun­ded by entre­pre­neur Kars­ten Wulf and specia­li­zes in inves­t­ing in compa­nies in the context of growth capi­tal and succes­sion plan­ning and incre­asingly in the tech­no­logy sector but also in real estate on a sustainable basis. zwei.7 brings exten­sive entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence in the further deve­lo­p­ment of invest­ments and has its own team to realize real added value for its port­fo­lio compa­nies in important areas such as stra­tegy, human resour­ces, sales, and digitalization.

The ARQIS team around Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem acted as consul­tants for zwei.7 for the first time and in this case accom­pa­nied three other entre­pre­neurs from Osna­brück in their co-invest­ments with zwei.7.

Advi­sor two.7: ARQIS (Düsseldorf/ Munich)

Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Lead), Dr. Mauritz von Einem (both Corporate/ Venture Capi­tal), Tobias Neufeld (Data Privacy), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Lisa-Marie Niklas (Labor), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial); Coun­sel: Sina Janke (Compli­ance), Jens Knip­ping (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur (Lead Due Dili­gence), Anselm Graf, Louisa Graf (all Corporate/ Venture Capi­tal), Tim Brese­mann (Real Estate), Eva Kraszkie­wicz, Daniel Schle­mann (both Data Protec­tion), Virgi­nia Mäurer (Labor Law), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann, Rolf Tichy (both IP & Commercial).

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 60 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law and Risk, the firm is geared towards provi­ding holi­stic advice to its clients.

News

Munich/ Karls­ruhe — The law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH, Bad Homburg, on an add-on acqui­si­tion for its port­fo­lio company proci­lon Group GmbH inclu­ding acqui­si­tion finan­cing by UniCre­dit Bank AG. Proci­lon acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Karls­ruhe-based soft­ware house intar­sys GmbH.

Since its foun­da­tion in 1996, intar­sys has become one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of solu­ti­ons for elec­tro­nic trust services such as signa­tures, seals, time stamps, veri­fi­ca­tion and preser­va­tion services and PDF/A implementations.

The proci­lon Group, head­quar­te­red in Taucha near Leip­zig and with offices in Berlin and Dort­mund, was foun­ded in 2001 and advi­ses custo­mers on all aspects of infor­ma­tion secu­rity and data protection.

GOF regu­larly advi­ses Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen on tran­sac­tions, parti­cu­larly in the tech­no­logy sector.

Legal advi­sors to Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz, Photo (Part­ner), Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner; both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Finance), Isabelle Vran­cken (Senior Asso­ciate), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Asso­ciate), Dr. Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate; all Corporate/M&A), Chris­to­pher Müller (Asso­ciate, Finance)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus

Gütt Olk Feld­haus (GOF) is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these areas of exper­tise, Gütt Olk Feld­haus also provi­des liti­ga­tion services.

News

Munich/ Frank­furt — Vision Health­care, a consu­mer health­care company with an exten­sive port­fo­lio of self-care brands and over-the-coun­ter products in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries, has acqui­red Vitamaze GmbH (Vitamaze). Vision Health­care is head­quar­te­red in Belgium.

Vitamaze, based in Heidel­berg, Germany, was foun­ded in 2015 and is a leading Euro­pean supplier of vitamins, mine­rals and dietary supple­ments (VMS). The company opera­tes predo­mi­nantly through Amazon and e‑pharma channels.

Vision Healthcare’s exten­sive VMS and digi­tal marke­ting exper­tise provi­des Vitamaze with opti­mal condi­ti­ons for further growth, based on the company’s own expe­ri­ence in sales via Amazon and e‑pharma chan­nels. At the same time, Vision Health­care Group bene­fits from Vitamaze’s exper­tise. The acqui­si­tion is in line with Vision Healthcare’s corpo­rate stra­tegy to further expand its leading direct-to-consu­mer health­care tech­no­logy plat­form for VMS and beauty and perso­nal care products in Europe.

Allen & Overy has exten­sive exper­tise in the life scien­ces sector. This enab­led the team to deve­lop a deep under­stan­ding of the busi­ness chal­lenges as well as the regu­la­tory envi­ron­ment on the mandate. The Life Scien­ces prac­tice at Allen & Overy compri­ses around 20 specia­list lawy­ers in Germany and covers the full range of legal issues, inclu­ding cross-border clients. Globally, the divi­sion has more than 90 specia­lists with a deep yet tech­ni­cal under­stan­ding of the entire life scien­ces sector.

Advi­sors Vision Health­care: Allen & Overy
Lead part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Veith and asso­ciate Linda Mayer (both Corporate/ M&A/ Life Scien­ces, Munich) as well as coun­sel Dr. Roman Kasten (Corporate/Private Equity, Frank­furt) and Eda Zhuleku (Life Sciences/Medical Law, Munich). The exten­ded team also included part­ners Dr. Heike Weber (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Jens Matthes (IP, Düssel­dorf) as well as coun­sel Dr. Sebas­tian Schulz (Labor Law) and Peter Wehner (Pensi­ons). The team also included senior asso­cia­tes Stefa­nie Günther (life sciences/public law, all Frank­furt), Catha­rina Glugla (data protec­tion), Anna Kräling (IP, both Düssel­dorf) and asso­cia­tes Sven Bisch­off (tax law) and Barbara Angene (employ­ment law, both Frankfurt).

Senior Asso­ciate Alvaro Sanchez-Bordona (Madrid) advi­sed on Spanish law.

About Allen & Overy

Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,500 employees, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 550 part­ners, in more than 40 loca­ti­ons world­wide. An up-to-date over­view of Allen & Overy’s offices can be found here: allenovery.com/locations.

Allen & Overy is repre­sen­ted in Germany at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg and Munich with appro­xi­m­ately 220 lawy­ers, inclu­ding 49 part­ners. The lawy­ers advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies prima­rily in the areas of banking, finance and capi­tal markets law, corpo­rate law and M&A, tax law as well as other areas of busi­ness law. www.allenovery.de

News

Berlin — The US finan­cial inves­tor Tiger Global has acqui­red a stake in Hive Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH. Hive Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH’s Series A finan­cing round was led by Tiger Global as lead inves­tor; other inves­tors included Acti­vant and the
exis­ting inves­tors Early­bird and Picus. A total of around 34 million US dollars was inves­ted as part of the finan­cing round. — Tiger Global was advi­sed by Gleiss Lutz on this transaction.

Hive hand­les the entire fulfill­ment process for online retail­ers, from goods receipt at its own warehouse in Berlin to ship­ping to end custo­mers. With the Hive app, sellers receive precis­ely tail­o­red logi­stics analy­ses, fore­casts and sugges­ti­ons, for exam­ple, for the procu­re­ment of items with low stock levels.

About Tiger Global
Tiger Global is a private equity and venture capi­tal inves­tor with invest­ment focus in the Inter­net and tech­no­logy sectors with over $60 billion in assets under manage­ment. Since 2001, the company has inves­ted in tech­no­logy compa­nies in over 30 countries.

Gleiss Lutz has regu­larly advi­sed Tiger Global on its acti­vi­ties in Germany for many years, most recently on invest­ments in fintech unicorn Mambu, legal tech start-up BRYTER and the
soft­ware company Talon.One and on the sale of the stake in Flaschenpost.

Advi­sor Tiger Global: Gleiss Lutz 
Dr. Ralf Mors­häu­ser (Part­ner, Munich), Dr. Daniel Heck (Coun­sel, Hamburg; both Lead), Dr. Patrick Moss­ler (Part­ner), Dr. Michael Knier­bein (both Hamburg), Dr. Tobias Falk­ner (Coun­sel, Munich, all Corporate/M&A), Konrad H.J. Discher (Coun­sel, Real Estate, Frank­furt), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Schilde (both IP/IT, Berlin), Dr. Jens Günther (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Bögl­mül­ler, Dr. Eva Hols­ter­mann-Heup (all Labor Law, Munich), Simon Clemens Wegmann (Data Protec­tion, Berlin), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Aylin Hoffs, Matthias Hahn (all Public Commer­cial Law, Düsseldorf).

News

Munich — Germany’s most successful foun­ders, inclu­ding Bastian Nomi­nacher from Deca­corn Celo­nis and Jochen Engert, Daniel Krauss and André Schwämm­lein from the mobi­lity plat­form Flix­bus, are inves­t­ing in the new fund from UVC Part­ners. The venture capi­tal firm raised a total of EUR 255 million for its third fund, inclu­ding an oppor­tu­nity fund. In addi­tion to the top foun­ders, the inves­tors also include estab­lished family offices, such as those of the Strüng­mann, Klat­ten and Schörg­hu­ber fami­lies. With its unique ecosys­tem, UVC Part­ners aims to pave the way for the next gene­ra­tion of Euro­pean Unicorns.

In addi­tion to Bastian Nomi­nacher from Germany’s first Deca­corn Celo­nis and Jochen Engert, Daniel Krauss and André Schwämm­lein from the mobi­lity plat­form Flix­bus, the foun­ders of CANCOM and fos4X are among those who have inves­ted in the new fund from UVC Part­ners. UVC Part­ners has been working with many of these top foun­ders for years on a basis of trust. “Our own success story is closely intert­wi­ned with UVC Part­ners,” says Jochen Engert, foun­der of Flix­bus. “Having bene­fi­ted from the UVC ecosys­tem oursel­ves on a wide variety of levels in recent years, we know from our own expe­ri­ence how precis­ely UVC Part­ners can iden­tify the game­ch­an­gers of tomor­row and lead them to success. That’s why we’re inves­t­ing in the fund oursel­ves today and believe in the start­ups that will soon bene­fit from it.”

Bastian Nomi­nacher, co-CEO and co-foun­der of Germany’s first Deca­corn Celo­nis, has also been follo­wing UVC Part­ners’ success story for a long time. “It is admi­ra­ble what UVC Part­ners has built toge­ther with Unter­neh­mer­TUM over the past years. Nume­rous start­ups have been able to bene­fit from UVC Part­ners’ expe­ri­ence in buil­ding their busi­ness and ente­ring the market over the past years and I am proud to be part of this unique ecosys­tem in the TU Munich startup environment.”

Inves­t­ing in the game­ch­an­gers of tomorrow

UVC Part­ners’ third fund builds on the success of its two prede­ces­sors, incre­asing the invest­ment volume of the first tenfold. “The fact that foun­ders we have known for a long time and some of whom we have inves­ted in oursel­ves are now inves­t­ing in our fund is a great confir­ma­tion of our work,” says Johan­nes von Borries, Mana­ging Part­ner of UVC Part­ners. “With the new fund, we want to pick up right where we left off and once again invest in the game­ch­an­gers of tomorrow.”

In addi­tion to successful foun­ders, estab­lished family offices, such as those of the Strüng­mann, Klat­ten and Schörg­hu­ber fami­lies, as well as expe­ri­en­ced inves­tors such as Ann-Kris­tin Achleit­ner, also rely on UVC Part­ners’ fund. “I have been obser­ving and follo­wing the deve­lo­p­ment of UVC Part­ners for many years and am convin­ced that they will play an essen­tial role in a new Euro­pean wave of start-ups that successfully bring funda­men­tal inno­va­tions to market,” says Ann-Kris­tin Achleitner.

Unique ecosys­tem

One of the key reasons for UVC Part­ners’ success story: the unique ecosys­tem that the venture capi­tal firm provi­des to its start­ups. With its direct connec­tion to Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s largest center for start-ups and inno­va­tion, UVC Part­ners sits in the middle of an estab­lished network of rese­arch, start-ups, medium-sized compa­nies, DAX corpo­ra­ti­ons and family offices. At the same time, UVC Part­ners can draw on the resour­ces of Unter­neh­mer­TUM: 5,000 course-parti­ci­pa­ting talents from TU Munich each year, 100 corpo­rate part­ners and 300 employees, inclu­ding, for exam­ple, 30 highly specia­li­zed arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence experts at the Initia­tive for Applied AI. This enables UVC Part­ners to opti­mally support start-ups throug­hout Europe with market entry, recrui­ting, networ­king or tech­no­lo­gi­cal issues.

Florian Biller, foun­der of Capmo, was also convin­ced by this special mixture of exper­tise, network and part­ner­ship. “Whether it’s recrui­ting, finding the best follow-on inves­tors, or networ­king within the B2B SaaS commu­nity, we certainly would­n’t be where we are today without UVC Part­ners,” says Biller. “That’s exactly why we value UVC Part­ners’ advice as an expe­ri­en­ced and foun­der-focu­sed voice on our board.”

After the successful fund­rai­sing, the work for UVC Part­ners is just begin­ning. “Toge­ther with the game­ch­an­gers of tomor­row, we want to make the world more sustainable, more effi­ci­ent and better,” says Dr. Ingo Pott­hof, Mana­ging Part­ner of UVC Part­ners. “We have shown in the past that we can contri­bute inten­si­vely to this with our entire ecosys­tem, inclu­ding invest­ments in Flix­bus, KONUX, Isar Aero­space, Capmo, TWAICE and many others. Now we want to conti­nue our successful course with the next gene­ra­tion of top founders.”

News

Paris / Zurich — The infra­struc­ture divi­sion of Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, and FiveT Hydro­gen, an invest­ment plat­form specia­li­zing in clean hydro­gen, have jointly laun­ched Hy24, www.hy24partners.com. As the world’s largest clean hydro­gen infra­struc­ture invest­ment plat­form, Hy24, a joint venture company owned 50/50 by the two part­ners, will invest in projects criti­cal to global decarbonization.

Hy24 is targe­ting €1.5 billion for its first fund, making the plat­form the mana­ger of the industry’s largest clean hydro­gen infra­struc­ture fund. The fund alre­ady has commit­ments of €800 million from a number of leading indus­trial and finan­cial inves­tors, all of whom are alre­ady invol­ved in clean hydro­gen. The initia­tive for the fund can be traced back to two inves­tor groups:

Air Liquide, Total­Ener­gies and VINCI Conces­si­ons are commit­ted to the deve­lo­p­ment of low-carbon and rene­wa­ble hydro­gen and have each pled­ged €100 million in funding as anchor investors.
Plug Power, Chart Indus­tries and Baker Hughes, FiveT’s foun­ding inves­tors, will also support the new fund as anchor investors.
In addi­tion, the major South Korean group Lotte Chemi­cal and AXA, one of the world’s leading insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, will invest in the new fund as anchor inves­tors. Other major inter­na­tio­nal indus­trial groups with exten­sive commit­ments to carbon neutra­lity also plan to parti­ci­pate in the initia­tive. So far, these include Groupe ADP, Ball­ard, EDF and Schaeff­ler — with other part­ners expec­ted to join shortly.

The inter­na­tio­nal selec­tion process under which Hy24 was chosen as the invest­ment vehicle and the enga­ge­ment of indus­trial inves­tors was led by Société Générale.

Hy24 plans to bring toge­ther more inter­na­tio­nal insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and indus­try play­ers to fund hydro­gen projects around the world on a large scale.

Hy24 combi­nes Ardian’s proven infra­struc­ture invest­ment exper­tise and asset manage­ment capa­bi­li­ties with FiveT Hydrogen’s exten­sive access and expe­ri­ence in the hydro­gen value chain. This combi­na­tion crea­tes the largest and most convin­cing part­ner for energy compa­nies and inves­tors who want to contri­bute to the expan­sion of the hydro­gen infra­struc­ture. It also responds to the enorm­ous demand from govern­ments, compa­nies and inves­tors who want to support global climate targets with their invest­ments in hydro­gen. Recent analyses[2] show that by 2050, up to 100 tril­lion people will have to live on the streets. US dollars of invest­ment in hydro­gen will be requi­red to achieve green­house gas neutrality.

Hy24’s first fund is laun­ched under Article 9 of the Sustainable Finance Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion (“SFDR”) as an impact fund with the aim of redu­cing global carbon emis­si­ons. It will scale proven tech­no­lo­gies into mature infra­struc­ture assets that gene­rate predic­ta­ble cash flows and offer inves­tors exclu­sive access to a new asset class with the poten­tial to grow at a pace compa­ra­ble to rene­wa­ble energy. The port­fo­lio will be diver­si­fied across diffe­rent regi­ons (Europe, Ameri­cas and Asia) and across the value chain: from upstream projects such as green hydro­gen produc­tion to down­stream projects such as vehicle fleet and refue­ling stati­ons. The value crea­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties are signi­fi­cant and include both job crea­tion and decar­bo­niza­tion — espe­ci­ally in sectors where progress has been slow.

Mathias Burg­hardt, Head of Ardian Infra­struc­ture and Member of Ardian’s Execu­tive Commit­tee, said: “We are proud to have been selec­ted by some of the world’s leading indus­trial compa­nies and inves­tors to lead this initia­tive. The Euro­pean Union has only recently announ­ced the streng­thening of its efforts to achieve climate goals. Just before the start of the UN Climate Change Confe­rence in 2021, it is a great respon­si­bi­lity to lead such a plat­form. In the field of rene­wa­ble ener­gies, we are one of the inves­tors from the very begin­ning. Today, our plat­form has a capa­city of 7.5 GW for heat and rene­wa­bles. We expect a simi­larly promi­sing deve­lo­p­ment in the hydro­gen sector. Moreo­ver, the joint venture is exactly in line with Ardian Infrastructure’s way of working. We are confi­dent that Hy24 will play a leading role in acce­le­ra­ting hydro­gen deploy­ment, as buil­ding hydro­gen capa­city is criti­cal to decar­bo­ni­zing our economies.”

Pierre-Etienne Franc, co-foun­der and CEO of FiveT Hydro­gen, said, “This is a major step forward for FiveT Hydro­gen. Through this unique part­ner­ship, we expect to mobi­lize €15 billion in invest­ments that will serve as a cata­lyst for the rapid expan­sion of the indus­try. The world urgen­tly needs to acce­le­rate the energy tran­si­tion and reduce carbon emis­si­ons, inclu­ding in energy-inten­sive, hard-to-contain sectors like trans­por­ta­tion and indus­trial production.”

Hy24’s Board of Direc­tors consists of Laurent Fayol­las (Presi­dent), Pierre-Etienne Franc (CEO), Amir Sharifi (Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer), Nico­las Brahy (Gene­ral Coun­sel, Public Affairs and ESG Direc­tor) and Sébas­tien Pail­lat (Mana­ging Direc­tor, Invest­ments). A recruit­ment process is curr­ently under­way to build a dedi­ca­ted global team that will operate in France, Switz­er­land, the US and Singapore.

About Hy24

The Hy24 joint venture was estab­lished jointly by Ardian and FiveT Hydro­gen as the first major global invest­ment plat­form focu­sed exclu­si­vely on hydro­gen infra­struc­ture. It grew out of an initia­tive laun­ched by leading indus­trial compa­nies: Air Liquide, Total­Ener­gies, VINCI Conces­si­ons, Plug Power, Baker Hughes, Chart Indus­tries and AXA, a leading insti­tu­tio­nal investor.

The new invest­ment plat­form combi­nes exten­sive indus­trial exper­tise with the ability to acce­le­rate the scaling of hydro­gen solu­ti­ons along the entire value chain. These include produc­tion, conver­sion, storage, supply and use. HY24 will support large early-stage projects as well as stra­te­gic projects to become major energy infra­struc­tures. hy24partners.com

About Ardian

Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging over US$114 billion in assets for its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its inves­tors. With the objec­tive of achie­ving posi­tive results for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties promote indi­vi­du­als, compa­nies and econo­mies world­wide. Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy is aligned with the three guiding prin­ci­ples of excel­lence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

The company has a global network of more than 750 employees and 15 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its more than 1,200 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate. www.ardian.com

News

Berlin — The new WORLD FUND VC aims to invest €350 million to support foun­ders who are using tech solu­ti­ons to fight the climate crisis and help decar­bo­nize the planet. — A team led by YPOG part­ners Fabian Euhus and Helder Schnitt­ker provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the World Fund (WF World Fund Manage­ment GmbH).

With more than 60 inves­tors, inclu­ding current and former Euro­pean tech foun­ders, the World Fund was initia­ted by global search engine Ecosia and focu­ses on tech­no­lo­gies that can reduce carbon emis­si­ons in areas such as energy, trans­por­ta­tion, food and agri­cul­ture, manu­fac­tu­ring and buil­dings. The World Fund invests in early- and growth-stage compa­nies with the highest climate perfor­mance poten­tial (CPP), focu­sing on emis­si­ons reduc­tion poten­tial of at least 100 mega­tons of CO2 emis­si­ons per year in indus­tries such as energy, trans­por­ta­tion, cons­truc­tion, food and agri­cul­ture. To assess and measure CPP, the World Fund has deve­lo­ped its own metho­do­logy in exch­ange with Project Draw­down, with Crane and with TU Berlin.

The manage­ment team consists of part­ners Tim Schu­ma­cher, inves­tor and entre­pre­neur, VC inves­tor Daria Saha­rova, sustaina­bi­lity inves­tor Craig Douglas, and climate tech thought leader Dani­jel Visevic . The World Fund has set a goal of cutting two giga­tons of emis­si­ons by 2040 — equi­va­lent to four percent of all global emis­si­ons. With this commit­ment, the World Fund puts the health of the planet at the center of every decis­ion it makes, because climate return is an early indi­ca­tor of finan­cial return. From compa­nies deve­lo­ping alter­na­tive prote­ins to energy storage solu­ti­ons and smart char­ging infra­struc­ture as a service, the World Fund targets breakth­rough compa­nies that have the poten­tial to become market leaders. The need for venture capi­tal in climate tech­no­logy is over­whel­ming: a recent study by the German Energy Agency found that Germany alone needs €22.7 billion to achieve a posi­tive climate impact by 2030.

About World Fund

The first closing of the World Fund is plan­ned for the first half of 2022; the fund has alre­ady star­ted with initial invest­ments. His motto: We back entre­pre­neurs buil­ding climate tech for a rege­ne­ra­tive world. www.worldfund.vc

Consul­tant World Fund: YPOG
Dr. Fabian Euhus (Co-Lead/­Cor­po­rate, Struc­tu­ring), Partner
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Co-Lead/­Ta­xes), Partner
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Partner
Joel El-Qalqili (Struc­tu­ring, Impact & ESG), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Stefa­nie Nagel (Corpo­rate, Regu­la­tory), Associate
Anto­nia von Treu­en­feld (Impact & ESG), Associate
Dr. Fried­rich Wöhlecke (Taxes), Associate

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions, IT/IP and nota­rial services. 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 70 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Magdeburg/ Munich — One of Germany’s largest energy service provi­ders is being sold. The Swedish invest­ment fund EQT sells its 75 percent stake in Magde­burg-based Getec. The buyer is Infra­struc­ture Invest­ments Fund (“IIF”), an invest­ment firm advi­sed by J.P. Morgan Invest­ment Manage­ment. — GEH, the family holding company of company foun­der Karl Gerhold, is also selling its shares. EQT holds 75 percent of the shares, Gerhold the remai­ning 25 percent. The autho­ri­ties still have to approve the tran­sac­tion. Closing is expec­ted at the end of the first quar­ter of 2022.

As various media repor­ted a few weeks ago, Getec could be valued at twenty times its Ebitda of around 200 million euros in the event of a sale — that would be around 4 billion euros inclu­ding debt. The high valua­tion is supported by the fact that Ebitda margins in this sector are often in the double-digit range, espe­ci­ally for busi­nesses with good capa­city utiliza­tion. Compa­nies in this segment are ther­e­fore very profitable.

G+E GETEC, head­quar­te­red in Magde­burg, Germany, offers indus­trial and real estate compa­nies custo­mi­zed, effi­ci­ent and sustainable energy solu­ti­ons desi­gned and imple­men­ted by highly quali­fied engi­nee­ring teams. The company was foun­ded in 1993 by Dr. Karl Gerhold and today opera­tes more than 11,500 power gene­ra­tion plants in nine Euro­pean count­ries with more than 5.2 GWth total instal­led capa­city and over 2,200 employees. G+E GETEC is highly inte­gra­ted into its custo­mers’ opera­ti­ons and provi­des essen­tial services under long-term contracts.

Since the acqui­si­tion of EQT Infra­struc­ture as the new majo­rity share­hol­der in 2017, GEH and EQT Infra­struc­ture have jointly taken a number of initia­ti­ves to future-proof GETEC. The company was driven by a new manage­ment team of expe­ri­en­ced execu­ti­ves led by CEO Thomas Wagner and supported by a high-cali­ber indus­try advi­sory board. Key achie­ve­ments include the deve­lo­p­ment of a world-class sales func­tion, the opti­miza­tion of G+E GETEC’s opera­ti­ons, the digi­ta­liza­tion of the equip­ment port­fo­lio and the expan­sion of the range of envi­ron­men­tally friendly solutions.

In addi­tion to strong orga­nic growth, G+E GETEC, with the support of EQT Infra­struc­ture and GEH, has deve­lo­ped from a German to a Euro­pean market leader through six large-scale mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons and has estab­lished a strong foot­hold in Switz­er­land, Italy and the Netherlands.

GETEC Ener­gie Holding, EQT Infra­struc­ture and the manage­ment of G+E GETEC are confi­dent that IIF is the right part­ner to conti­nue this excep­tio­nal progress and further G+E GETEC’s mission to support indus­trial and real estate custo­mers across Europe on their decar­bo­niza­tion journey.

Matthew LeBlanc, Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer at IIF, says: “We are exci­ted to invest in G+E GETEC, a leading sustainable energy services company and a stra­te­gic plat­form uniquely posi­tio­ned to cata­lyze the energy tran­si­tion across Europe. We look forward to buil­ding on the unpar­al­le­led track record of growth and inno­va­tion that EQT Infra­struc­ture, Dr. Karl Gerhold and the manage­ment team have demons­tra­ted. We look forward to the signi­fi­cant addi­tio­nal invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties to support the coll­ec­tive growth ambi­ti­ons of G+E GETEC’s custo­mers and employees.”

News

Bochum/ Hanburg — Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners sells Tenado to Reva­lize Inc, a US port­fo­lio company of private equity fund TA Asso­cia­tes. DLA Piper advi­sed Reva­lize, Inc. on the acqui­si­tion of German CAD soft­ware provi­der Tenado. The acqui­si­tion of Tenado is a stra­te­gic addi­tion to Revalize’s exis­ting suite of soft­ware solu­ti­ons, which includes CPQ, design, mode­ling, simu­la­tion and data analytics.

Tenado, head­quar­te­red in Bochum, Germany, specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment of CAD soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the metal and wood trades, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, fire protec­tion and traf­fic management.
Head­quar­te­red in the U.S., Reva­lize is a leading global provi­der of indus­try-speci­fic reve­nue opera­ti­ons soft­ware for manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, their distri­bu­tors and their plan­ners across a wide range of indus­tries. The company’s soft­ware solu­ti­ons include tools for impro­ved shop­ping expe­ri­en­ces, sales cycles and manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses through a SaaS plat­form for CPQ, PIM, design appli­ca­ti­ons, engi­nee­ring simu­la­ti­ons, visua­liza­tion tools, AR/VR and more.

About Maxburg Capi­tal Partners

Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners is an invest­ment manage­ment company focu­sed on the German-spea­king region. Foun­ded by three part­ners with many years of expe­ri­ence as entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors in public and private equity, Maxburg focu­ses on long-term corpo­rate invest­ments with the aim of achie­ving lasting and sustainable value growth.

Based on seve­ral funds and a total fund volume of € 600 million, Maxburg has an excep­tio­nally flexi­ble invest­ment mandate: we actively invest across the entire range of capi­tal struc­tures — from equity to near-equity finan­cing opti­ons such as mezza­nine and mezza­nine-like forms of invest­ment. We hold both majo­rity and mino­rity inte­rests in compa­nies. In addi­tion, Maxburg has the option of taking an active share­hol­der role in listed compa­nies. Our finan­cings range from €10 million to €100 million per tran­sac­tion. www.maxburg.com

The DLA Piper team in Germany was jointly led by Part­ner Dr. Benja­min Para­mes­wa­ran and Coun­sel Dr. Phil­ipp Clemens (both Corpo­rate, Hamburg) and also included Part­ner Semin O (Anti­trust, Frank­furt) and Senior Asso­ciate Frie­de­rike Rickers (Corpo­rate, Hamburg). In the U.S., Reva­lize was advi­sed by corpo­rate part­ner Brad­ley Gersich and supported by of coun­sel Michael Cubell.

About DLA Piper
DLA Piper is one of the world’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.dlapiper.com

News

Frank­furt am Main/ Fürth — VR Equi­typ­art­ner acqui­res a mino­rity stake in the Solec­trix Group based in Fürth. The part­ner­ship is inten­ded in parti­cu­lar to leverage further growth poten­tial. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Solec­trix specia­li­zes in complex “high-end elec­tro­nics” solu­ti­ons for the medi­cal tech­no­logy, auto­mo­tive, film and manu­fac­tu­ring indus­tries. As an inno­va­tor and inde­pen­dent full-service provi­der, Solec­trix deve­lops and manu­fac­tures sophisti­ca­ted embedded elec­tro­nics on behalf of custo­mers and also offers speci­ally deve­lo­ped elec­tro­nic compon­ents and systems “off-the-shelf”. One focus is on FPGA tech­no­logy for image proces­sing solu­ti­ons. Here, Solec­trix supports its custo­mers throug­hout the entire deve­lo­p­ment chain, from the concept study to system design (hard­ware confi­gu­ra­tion and soft­ware programming) and proto­type deve­lo­p­ment to product certi­fi­ca­tion. The focus is on complex medium-sized and large projects that require exten­sive know-how. The sale of our own products forms the core of our future growth stra­tegy. With its more than 100 highly specia­li­zed employees, the company is excel­lently posi­tio­ned in a market that is growing over the long term.

The sellers are the three foun­ding part­ners and mana­ging direc­tors Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and Jürgen Stei­nert. All of them will conti­nue to be available to the company in the long term, both as majo­rity share­hol­ders and as mana­ging direc­tors. In addi­tion, the port­fo­lio for embedded systems in the medi­cal tech­no­logy, imaging, auto­mo­tive, indus­trial / plant engi­nee­ring sectors is to be further deve­lo­ped toge­ther with VR Equi­typ­art­ner, and the supra­re­gio­nal distri­bu­tion of the company’s own products is to be expan­ded. If there is an appro­priate stra­te­gic fit, acqui­si­ti­ons are also to be realized.

“With VR Equi­typ­art­ner, we have found a long-term orien­ted, capi­tal-strong and expe­ri­en­ced equity inves­tor. Due to the Corona pande­mic, the process was delayed, but the mutual trust in VR Equitypartner’s mino­rity concept was built all the stron­ger,” Jürgen Stei­nert, Mana­ging Part­ner of the Solec­trix Group, looks back and adds: “Solec­trix has grown steadily in recent years — so we are plea­sed that the new inves­tor will support us in lever­aging further growth potential.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner, rein­forces the joint venture: “Solec­trix is a highly attrac­tive company with excel­lent manage­ment and a moti­va­ted and tech­ni­cally specia­li­zed team in a growing market. Our goal of the coope­ra­tion is to conti­nue the success story — for the custo­mers and the employees in the region. ”

About VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH 

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. www.vrep.de

The tran­sac­tion team at VR Equitypartner:
Michael Vogt, Klaus Schnei­der, Ömer Kaya, Alex­an­der Koch, Frank Wildenberg

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

Finan­cial: SGP Schnei­der Geiwitz GmbH Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft Steu­er­be­ra­tungs­ge­sell­schaft (Michael Hinter­hol­zer and team)

Commer­cial: Blue­mont Consul­ting GmbH (Markus Frän­kel and team)

Legal / Tax: McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP (Dr. Michael Cziesla, Norman Wasse, Dr. Heiko Kermer and Dr. Marion von Grönheim)

News

Munich, Germany — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Block­dae­mon, the world’s largest block­chain infra­struc­ture company for node manage­ment (NFT) and staking, on its acqui­si­tion of German company Anyblock Analy­tics to expand its NFT offe­ring and grow its Euro­pean presence.

Anyblock is an infra­struc­ture plat­form that provi­des API, on-chain analy­tics tools, moni­to­ring and node hosting services for various block­chain networks. As part of the acqui­si­tion, the Anyblock team joins Block­dae­mon, and the estab­lish­ment of a local presence in Germany conti­nues Blockdaemon’s expan­sion in Europe.

The acqui­si­tion signi­fi­cantly streng­thens Blockdaemon’s port­fo­lio of offe­rings, parti­cu­larly through the expan­sion of its multi-chain API suite, Ubiquity. As Block­dae­mon also deepens its infra­struc­ture support for the NFT space, Anyblock’s team and tools will help support tran­sac­tions behind the NFT ecosystem.

Consul­tant Block­dae­mon: Bird & Bird
Part­ner Stefan Münch, Corporate/M&A, Coun­sel Michael Gass­ner and Asso­ciate Marcel Nurk, all Corporate/M&A, Munich, Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann and Asso­ciate Timo Förs­ter, both Finan­cing & Finan­cial Regu­la­tion, Frank­furt, Part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg and Asso­ciate Goek­han Kosak, both Tech & Comms/Commercial, Part­ner Dr. Ralph Panzer, Coun­sel Sandy Gerlach and Asso­cia­tes Gizem Erdo­gan and Sven Fischer, all Labor Law, Asso­ciate Domi­nic Igel, IP, all Munich, Part­ner Dr. Stephan Wald­heim and Asso­ciate Tamy Tietze, both Anti­trust, Düsseldorf.

Back­ground:
A parti­cu­lar chall­enge in the tran­sac­tion was the regu­la­tory analy­sis of the busi­ness, which includes both services and tran­sac­tions rela­ted to tokens. Most tokens have been trea­ted as finan­cial instru­ments by the German regu­la­tor BaFin since 2013 and conse­quently most services rela­ted to them are also regu­la­ted finan­cial services. With over eight years of expe­ri­ence in the field of crypto-assets and crypto-regu­la­tion, the Bird & Bird team was able to bring this tran­sac­tion to a close without delay.

Block­dae­mon has grown stron­gly in the past year, incre­asing its valua­tion by 70 times. The company has also deployed more than 25,000 nodes, aver­a­ged more than $10 billion in deployed assets per month, and greatly expan­ded its global foot­print in cloud regi­ons and diver­si­fied data centers. The addi­tion of two new stra­te­gic inves­tors — Tiger Global Manage­ment and JPMor­gan — to Block­dae­mon demons­tra­tes the respec­ted firms’ confi­dence in the company’s deve­lo­p­ment and growth, and their incre­asing inte­rest in cryp­to­cur­ren­cies and block­chain as they become more mainstream.

News

Friedberg/ Frank­furt a.M. — Mainova AG has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the energy service provi­der mobi­heat GmbH. Mainova was advi­sed by McDer­mott Will & Emery on this transaction.

The tran­sac­tion will also include mobiheat’s foreign compa­nies in Austria and Switz­er­land. The sellers of the shares are Ener­gie­ver­sor­gung Offen­bach AG (EVO) and the mobi­heat foun­ders. “There is a lot going on in the energy sector, it’s all about new oppor­tu­ni­ties, future viabi­lity and stra­te­gic part­ner­ships — and this is also the case at Mainova AG,” explains Norman Wasse, Part­ner at McDermott.

mobi­heat GmbH, based in Fried­berg, Bava­ria, specia­li­zes in mobile heating, cooling and steam control centers in German-spea­king count­ries. The acqui­si­tion of mobi­heat will enable Mainova to further expand its own energy services business.

Advi­sors to Mainova AG: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Norman Wasse, LL.M. (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Kian Tauser, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax), Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski (Labor, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt, LL.M., Dr. Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel; both Finance), Dr. Chris­tian L. Masch (IT/IP, Munich), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer (Real Estate), Dr. Alexa Ningel­gen (Public Law, Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Lisa Schick­ling, Dr. Marion von Grön­heim (both Corporate/M&A), Carina Kant (Anti­trust Law, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Lukas Deutz­mann (Labor Law, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Isabella Kätzl­meier (IT/IP, Munich), Fran­ziska Leub­ner (Labor Law, Munich), Elif Sultan Üzüm­ovali (Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Tina Zeller (Real Estate)

News

Hamburg — Hamburg-based family office Lennertz & Co. has closed its second venture capi­tal fund with a Euro­pean focus and conti­nues the fund series with Lennertz & Co. Venture Europe III. Its prede­ces­sor fund invests at least 70 percent in selec­ted target funds such as Cherry Ventures, DN Capi­tal, North­zone, Project A or Target Global. The successful concept of leading VC funds and direct invest­ments is thus continued.

“Due to stron­gly increased valua­tions of the inves­ted compa­nies, we have closed the second Venture Europe fund. Key contri­bu­tors to this decis­ion were invest­ments in the neobro­ker Trade Repu­blic, the event plat­form Hopin, the 10-minute deli­very service Flink or the foreign payment service provi­der Remitly, which attrac­ted a lot of atten­tion from users and inves­tors in recent months,” says Phil­ipp Lennertz (photo), mana­ging part­ner of Lennertz & Co.

Like­wise, direct invest­ments had a signi­fi­cant impact on the perfor­mance of the second venture capi­tal fund focu­sed on Europe. For exam­ple, Lennertz & Co. inves­ted in the digi­tal insu­rance specia­list Wefox with the fund. Another invest­ment was made in the Munich-based start-up Konux, which is conside­red a leader in AI-supported moni­to­ring of track systems. Also in the port­fo­lio is a direct invest­ment in Sorare. The company opera­tes a fantasy soccer game that allows play­ers to buy/sell and manage a virtual team using digi­tal player cards. The game uses a tech­no­logy based on the block­chain system Ethereum.

The special fund concept of Lennertz & Co has proven itself. 70 percent of the capi­tal is inves­ted in very good target funds. Their port­fo­lios include compa­nies such as Trade Repu­blic, Hopin and Flink, which have alre­ady made a name for them­sel­ves. 30 percent is inves­ted in direct invest­ments such as the digi­tal insu­rance specia­list Wefox, which now also enjoys a high valuation.

“More than ever, we are convin­ced of our concept of a mix of invest­ments in the best venture capi­tal teams in Europe and direct invest­ments,” says Phil­ipp Lennertz. “We see that the local venture capi­tal scene is well on the way to coming of age. Young Euro­pean compa­nies with first-class digi­tal busi­ness models curr­ently offer a high poten­tial for success, in which we want to parti­ci­pate with our clients. That is why we are conti­nuing the fund series with Lennertz & Co. Venture Europe III and have alre­ady star­ted investing.”

About Lennertz & Co.

Lennertz & Co. is an owner-mana­ged family office with a clear focus on the further deve­lo­p­ment and value enhance­ment of its clients’ assets. For this purpose, their indi­vi­dual family, busi­ness and asset situa­tions are exami­ned in detail and on an ongo­ing basis, taking into account the legally and fiscally rele­vant frame­work conditions.
The invest­ment recom­men­da­ti­ons are in line with the perso­nal prefe­ren­ces of the clients. They bene­fit from the inde­pen­dence of Lennertz & Co., for exam­ple in the assess­ment of global invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, their selec­tion and their discreet implementation.

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

News

Frank­furt am Main — ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners acted as IPO advi­sor to Veganz Group AG (the “Company” or “Veganz”) the Berlin-based purely plant-base­d/­ve­gan food company awarded Germany’s most inno­va­tive food brand in 20211), on its successful initial public offe­ring (“IPO”) on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Frank­fur­ter Wertpapierbörse).

In the course of the road­show process, all 547,120 offe­red ordi­nary bearer shares with no par value of the Company (“Shares”) were placed with inves­tors in the IPO at EUR 87.00 per Share. The place­ment compri­sed 388,733 new shares from a capi­tal increase, 87,024 exis­ting shares from the holdings of the selling share­hol­ders as well as an over-allot­ment consis­ting of 71,363 exis­ting shares from the holdings of the lending share­hol­ders. Ther­e­fore, the total volume of the IPO amounts to around EUR 47.6 million.

Gross proceeds from the sale of the new shares in the IPO amount to around EUR 33.8 million. Veganz intends to use the net proceeds prima­rily for the estab­lish­ment of the new produc­tion site near Berlin as well as invest­ments in the further orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth, e.g. for rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, expan­sion of field force, marke­ting and further expan­sion in selec­ted Euro­pean countries.

“Since our foun­da­tion more than 10 years ago we at Veganz are pioneers, setting stan­dards in our markets. Having accom­plished the first ‘vegan IPO’ in Germany is another mile­stone in our history. We welcome all new inves­tors at Veganz and cordi­ally invite ever­yone to parti­ci­pate with us in the poten­tial of the vegan food market. Now, it is about imple­men­ting our growth stra­tegy and fully seize the oppor­tu­ni­ties for Veganz”, reflects Jan Bredack, foun­der and CEO of Veganz.

The shares of Veganz carry the inter­na­tio­nal secu­ri­ties iden­ti­fi­ca­tion number (ISIN) DE000A3E5ED2, the German Secu­ri­ties Code (Wert­pa­pier-Kenn-Nummer (WKN)) A3E5ED and the ticker symbol VEZ.

ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners acted as IPO advi­sor to the Company.

About Veganz

Veganz — Good for you, better for ever­yone — is the brand for plant-based food. Foun­ded in Berlin in 2011, Veganz became known as the Euro­pean vegan super­mar­ket chain. With a colorful and life-affir­ming company philo­so­phy, Veganz mana­ged to break open the vegan niche and estab­lish the plant-based nutri­tion trend on the market. The current product port­fo­lio includes around 120 products (101 active products as of Septem­ber 30, 2021) across 17 cate­go­ries and is available in more than half of all Euro­pean count­ries and in 22,264 points of sale (POS) globally as of June 30, 2021, exclu­ding Veganz’ own three stores in Berlin, Germany. In addi­tion, the Veganz product port­fo­lio is conti­nuously being expan­ded to include high-quality, inno­va­tive items and the sustainable value chain is constantly being impro­ved. For this commit­ment, Veganz was the only German company to be voted one of the top inno­va­tive brands and Germany’s most inno­va­tive food brand in an exclu­sive Handels­blatt ranking in 2021.

About ACXIT

ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading inter­na­tio­nal corpo­rate finance and finan­cial advi­sory firm for mid-market clients, and entre­pre­neurs in Europe and beyond. Since 1998, we offer our clients compre­hen­sive corpo­rate finance advi­sory services inclu­ding M&A and capi­tal markets advi­sory as well as debt and stra­te­gic advi­sory. As an inde­pen­dent, priva­tely owned firm we main­tain offices and repre­sen­ta­ti­ons in Frank­furt, Munich, Zurich and New York as well as strong alli­ances in the UK and France. Our clients are corpo­ra­ti­ons, family-owned busi­nesses, entre­pre­neurs, finan­cial spon­sors and family offices.

Tran­sac­tion Team ACXIT Capi­tal Partners:
Jens Tschau­der, Mana­ging Partner
Chris­tian Ende­richs, Director
Simon Vorwerk, Analyst
Julius Ohlen­busch, Analyst

Good­win advi­sed Berlin-based Veganz Group AG on all corpo­rate law issues in connec­tion with the imple­men­ta­tion and struc­tu­ring of its IPO.
The Good­win team was led by Dr. Markus Käpplin­ger (Part­ner, Corpo­rate) with support from Heiko Penn­dorf (Part­ner, Tax), Felix Krüger (Coun­sel, Tax) and asso­cia­tes Jochim Robert, Bastian Schmack (both Corpo­rate) and commer­cial lawyer Nadine Gommel (Corpo­rate).

In close coope­ra­tion with the Good­win team, the law firm NOERR (led by Dr. Laurenz Wieneke) advi­sed on all capi­tal market law issues.

News

Munich — LEONI AG, Nurem­berg, a global provi­der of products and solu­ti­ons for energy and data manage­ment in the auto­mo­tive and other indus­tries, has deci­ded to sell its majo­rity stake in Adap­tri­city, a cloud-based Swiss network analy­sis plat­form and premium provi­der of smart grid solu­ti­ons, as part of its stra­te­gic focus on the wiring systems busi­ness. Proven­tis Part­ners advi­sed LEONI on this transaction.

The buyer is the inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting Secure Meters Ltd. head­quar­te­red in Udai­pur, Raja­sthan, India. The acqui­rer is from Proven­tis Part­ners’ Mergers Alli­ance network and was advi­sed by Singhi Advi­sors (India). For Secure Meters, Adaptricity’s modu­lar and cloud-based solu­tion plat­form for distri­bu­tion grid opera­tors repres­ents an ideal stra­te­gic addi­tion to its own product port­fo­lio. Secure Meters plans to invest in further expan­sion of the tech­no­logy and inte­grate Adaptricity’s products into its inter­na­tio­nal sales acti­vi­ties. Adap­tri­city will operate as a wholly owned subsi­diary of Secure Meters Group.

Gerd Schus­ter, Head of Stra­tegy and M&A at LEONI AG: “Proven­tis supported us throug­hout the M&A process with its profound indus­try know­ledge in the energy sector and its Mergers Alli­ance network.”

The role of Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners acted as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor to LEONI in the prepa­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the tran­sac­tion. In addi­tion to the imple­men­ta­tion of a struc­tu­red sales process, the consul­ting services included the prepa­ra­tion of marke­ting and tran­sac­tion docu­ments, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and approach of poten­tial inves­tors inclu­ding manage­ment presen­ta­ti­ons as well as support in the due dili­gence and nego­tia­tion of the tran­sac­tion. Proven­tis Part­ners worked with Singhi Advi­sors, its Mergers Alli­ance part­ner in India, who advi­sed the buyer on this tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion team of Proven­tis Part­ners: Pierre Schnei­der (Part­ner, Munich), Flo- rian Liepert (Direc­tor, Munich) and Petr Maxmi­lian Hajkr (Senior Asso­ciate, Munich).

About LEONI AG
LEONI AG, Nurem­berg, is a global supplier of products and solu­ti­ons for energy and data manage­ment in the auto­mo­tive and other indus­tries. LEONI’s largest custo­mer base is the global auto­mo­tive, commer­cial vehicle and supplier indus­try, for which the company deve­lops and produ­ces both stan­dard and special cables as well as custo­mer-speci­fic wiring systems and rela­ted compon­ents. www.leoni.com

About Secure Meters Ltd.
Secure Meters Ltd. is a priva­tely held Indian multi­na­tio­nal company with opera­ti­ons in India, the United King­dom, Austra­lia, Sweden, Italy and the Middle East. Secure Meters is a solu­tion provi­der in the field of reve­nue manage­ment, power quality and energy effi­ci­ency and is active with its product solu­ti­ons in more than 50 count­ries. Secure Meters deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets products for measu­ring and moni­to­ring energy consump­tion and has instal­led over 50 million meters world­wide and is one of the leading suppli­ers of smart and prepaid meters for elec­tri­city and gas. www.securemeters.com

About Adap­tri­city AG
Since its foun­ding in 2014 as a spin-off company of ETH Zurich, Adap­tri­city AG, based in Zurich, has estab­lished itself as a Smart­Grid inno­va­tion driver in the German-spea­king region. Adaptricity’s soft­ware tools enable the merging of tradi­tio­nal network plan­ning with data-based algo­rithms. The object of the company is, among other things, the deve­lo­p­ment, distri­bu­tion and licen­sing of soft­ware products for the simu­la­tion, opti­miza­tion, plan­ning and moni­to­ring of power distri­bu­tion networks, as well as the provi­sion of consul­ting services in the field of distri­bu­tion network opera­tors. Their inno­va­tive grid analy­tics tools combine tradi­tio­nal grid plan­ning prac­ti­ces with data-driven algo­rithms to ensure that all meter­ing data available on the power grid (e.g., smart meter data) is used opti­mally. www.adaptri- city.com

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. The members of the Mergers Alli­ance, with its more than 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. www.proventis.com

News

USA — DoorDash (NYSE: DASH) is acqui­ring Wolt, a leading food deli­very plat­form in an all-stock deal worth appro­xi­m­ately EUR 7 billion; EQT Ventures and EQT Growth will exit their holdings in Wolt and receive DoorDash stock as part of the transaction

EQT Ventures led the early Series‑A finan­cing round for Wolt in 2016 and has since been a close part­ner and advi­sor to Wolt, parti­ci­pa­ting in all subse­quent finan­cing rounds. EQT Growth inves­ted in Wolt’s latest USD 530 million round of finan­cing in Janu­ary 2021

Since its foun­ding in Finland in 2014, the Helsinki-based company has expan­ded to 23 count­ries and today employs over 4,000 people
Today it was announ­ced that DoorDash (NYSE: DASH) has ente­red into a defi­ni­tive agree­ment to acquire Wolt (the “Company”) for appro­xi­m­ately EUR 7 billion in an all-stock tran­sac­tion, subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and other custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons for tran­sac­tions of this type. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the EQT Ventures I fund (“EQT Ventures”) and EQT Growth are exiting their holdings in Wolt and recei­ving shares in DoorDash. DoorDash is a tech­no­logy company that connects consu­mers with their favo­rite local and natio­nal busi­nesses in more than 7,000 cities across the United States, Canada, Austra­lia and Japan. With the acqui­si­tion of Wolt, DoorDash will add a signi­fi­cant inter­na­tio­nal presence.

Wolt was estab­lished in 2014 in Helsinki, Finland, by CEO Miki Kuusi and co-foun­ders, who had a vision of crea­ting a truly tech-orien­ted company that would make it easy and fun to disco­ver great food deli­vered directly to home or office. Wolt’s plat­form and data-driven deli­very infra­struc­ture provide custo­mer conve­ni­ence and new reve­nue oppor­tu­ni­ties for both restau­rants and retail­ers. It has grown rapidly and today opera­tes across 23 count­ries and employs over 4,000 people.

EQT Ventures was one of Wolt’s earliest inves­tors and has parti­ci­pa­ted in all subse­quent finan­cing rounds, during which it has played a pivo­tal role in support­ing the Company to become one of the largest private tech­no­logy compa­nies in Europe. EQT Growth joined the jour­ney in Janu­ary 2021 as part of Wolt’s latest growth finan­cing round, show­ca­sing EQT’s ability to “back its winners” over time and across the EQT plat­form. Today, EQT Ventures and EQT Growth combi­ned are Wolt’s largest shareholders.

Johan Svan­ström, Part­ner within EQT Growth’s Advi­sory Team and Wolt board member since 2018, and Lars Jörnow, Part­ner within EQT Ventures’ Advi­sory Team and part of the initial invest­ment team for Wolt when the fund led the Series A, commen­ted, “We are thril­led to see Wolt and DoorDash join forces. EQT Ventures origi­nally inves­ted in a small, tech-obses­sed and gritty Finnish team that was looking for a hands-on and invol­ved invest­ment part­ner. Through our close working rela­ti­onship and supported by capi­tal invest­ments from EQT Ventures, and subse­quently EQT Growth, today Wolt is one of Europe’s most successful private tech­no­logy compa­nies. It has been a plea­sure support­ing CEO Miki Kuusi and the team in buil­ding and scaling the company and we look forward to follo­wing them for years to come.”

Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt, said, “The entire EQT plat­form has been criti­cal in our growth and success over recent years. EQT Ventures were one of our earliest backers and have remained with us ever since. In 2021, we were deligh­ted to welcome EQT Growth to the fold as part of our latest funding round. Today, I’m incre­di­bly exci­ted to announce that Wolt is joining forces with the DoorDash team to start our next chapter.”

The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and other custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons for tran­sac­tions of this type. The DoorDash equity issued as part of the tran­sac­tion will be valued at $206.45 per share, based on DoorDash’s 30 day VWAP as of Novem­ber 3, 2021.

EQT Ventures and EQT Growth were advi­sed by law firm DLA Piper.

News

Greifs­wald — Great success for Nebula Bioci­des GmbH, three inves­tors decide to invest in the Greifs­wald-based start-up. This brings the start-up a signi­fi­cant step closer to its goal of obtai­ning appr­oval for and laun­ching the highly effec­tive disin­fec­tant Sporo­san® on the market.

With a total invest­ment of 1.6 million euros, the start-up Nebula Bioci­des, foun­ded in 2019, can now take off: the appr­oval of the novel disin­fec­tion process Sporo­san® is supported by High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern mbH (MBMV) and a stra­te­gic inves­tor from the clea­ning and disin­fec­tion equip­ment sector as part of a seed financing.

“We are very plea­sed to have a strong busi­ness part­ner and, with HTGF and MBMV, two expe­ri­en­ced and network-strong finan­cial inves­tors on board,” said Dr. Jörn Winter, CEO of Nebula Biocides

Toge­ther with his colle­ague Dr. Ansgar Schmidt-Bleker, also foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Nebula Bioci­des GmbH, he had disco­vered the novel disin­fec­tion process in 2016. As part of their work at the Leib­niz Insti­tute for Plasma Rese­arch and Tech­no­logy e.V. (INP), the physi­cists iden­ti­fied the subs­tance peroxi­ni­trite acid as an effec­tive agent and deve­lo­ped the Sporo­san® process on this basis. In this process, two start­ing compon­ents react with each other for a short time and have a highly disin­fec­ting effect during this period.

Sporo­san® not only kills bacte­ria and viru­ses; even stub­born bacte­rial spores have no chance of survi­val thanks to the new process,” says Schmidt-Bleker, empha­si­zing the broad effi­cacy of the disin­fec­tant. In the future, this will also prevent infec­tions with the dange­rous hospi­tal germ Clos­tri­dio­ides diffi­cile, which leads to severe diar­rhea and is often fatal, espe­ci­ally in previously ill pati­ents. The Greifs­wald rese­ar­chers have thus achie­ved a breakth­rough — to date there is no disin­fec­tant in the world with a compa­ra­bly strong and rapid effect that is at the same time envi­ron­men­tally friendly and gentle in use.

The signi­fi­cance and poten­tial of the active ingre­di­ent were also reco­gni­zed by the three inves­tors, whose parti­ci­pa­tion will now make it possi­ble to finance the studies requi­red for approval.

“We are very proud to welcome Nebula Bioci­des to our port­fo­lio with their distinctly disrup­tive chemis­try inno­va­tion. The under­ly­ing tech­no­logy promi­ses to create nume­rous sustainable appli­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties,” Dr. Niko­laus Raupp, Invest­ment Mana­ger at High-Tech Gründerfonds

With the help of the inves­tors, the company, which now consists of a team of five, can pursue two paths at once: First, it is aiming for appr­oval as a biocide, so that Sporo­san will be available to ever­yone as a hand and surface disin­fec­tant from 2028. In paral­lel, the Nebula team is working inten­si­vely on solu­ti­ons for the spori­ci­dal repro­ces­sing of medi­cal devices with the aim of marke­ting the disin­fec­tant itself as a medi­cal device. With the stra­te­gic inves­tor, an indus­trial part­ner has alre­ady been found who would like to use Sporo­san® for its products; market launch is expec­ted in 2024. Howe­ver, the start-up is alre­ady recei­ving inqui­ries from other inte­res­ted compa­nies from a wide range of indus­tries every week, which only further unders­cores the scope of Greifswald’s inno­va­tion in the health­care, phar­maceu­ti­cal and food industries.

About Nebula Bioci­des GmbH
Nebula Bioci­des GmbH was foun­ded in 2019 as a spin-off from the Leib­niz Insti­tute for Plasma Science and Tech­no­logy e.V. (INP) by the scien­tists Dr. Jörn Winter, Dr. Ansgar Schmidt-Bleker and the direc­tor of INP Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Welt­mann in Greifs­wald. With the aim of provi­ding compre­hen­sive protec­tion against infec­tious agents, the company deve­lops appli­ca­tion-orien­ted disin­fec­tion solu­ti­ons that relia­bly kill not only bacte­ria and viru­ses but also stub­born bacte­rial spores. www.nebula-biocides.de

About Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern mbH
Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern mbH (MBMV) has been support­ing regio­nal SMEs with project finan­cing for over 28 years. It closes finan­cing gaps and at the same time puts the equity base of small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses on a broa­der footing and makes it possi­ble to realize promi­sing ideas or promi­sing busi­ness stra­te­gies. MBMV is also a relia­ble part­ner for start-ups and entre­pre­neurs. www.mbm‑v.de

News

Hamburg — A team led by YPOG part­ner Jörn Wöbke (photo) provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the share­hol­ders of KRONGAARD AG, head­quar­te­red in Hamburg, in connec­tion with the entry of the private equity inves­tor Maxburg as majo­rity share­hol­der in KRONGAARD AG and the return parti­ci­pa­tion of the sellers.

Since 2008, KRONGAARD AG has been a part­ner for compa­nies that want to respond quickly, flexi­bly and effi­ci­ently to their daily and medium-term chal­lenges in a know­ledge-based, networked and digi­tal economy. As a specia­li­zed service provi­der with a port­fo­lio of 20,000 highly quali­fied experts, KRONGAARD brings toge­ther well-known compa­nies from the DAX, the MDAX and the upper midmar­ket with inde­pen­dent consul­tants. Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners is a private equity fund focu­sed on the German-spea­king region. Maxburg focu­ses on long-term corpo­rate invest­ments with the aim of perma­nent and sustainable value enhance­ment and mana­ges seve­ral funds with a total fund volume of € 600 million.

Consul­tant KRONGAARD AG: YPOG
Dr. Jörn Wöbke (Lead/M&A, Corpo­rate Law), Partner
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Taxes), Partner
Dr. Moritz Diek­gräf (M&A, Corpo­rate Law), Senior Associate
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Senior Associate
Johan­nes Schmidt (M&A, Corpo­rate Law), Associate

News

Frank­furt am Main — Duff & Phelps, A Kroll Busi­ness, a leading global provi­der of valua­tion, corpo­rate finance, gover­nance, risk manage­ment and trans­pa­rency services and digi­tal products, is expan­ding its German tran­sac­tion advi­sory prac­tice with the addi­tion of a new Mana­ging Direc­tor: Oliver Runkel, based in Frank­furt am Main, will be respon­si­ble for Stra­tegy and Commer­cial Due Dili­gence for the German-spea­king markets.

Oliver Runkel brings over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in stra­te­gic consul­ting and evalua­tion of corpo­rate tran­sac­tions. During this period, 12 years of which at Part­ner level, he has successfully comple­ted over 200 stra­tegy and commer­cial due dili­gence (CDD) projects for private equity firms and compa­nies in various sectors. A parti­cu­lar focus was on the indus­trial, indus­trial tech­no­logy and B2B services sectors.

Prior to joining Duff & Phelps, he was a part­ner in EY’s stra­tegy and commer­cial due dili­gence advi­sory prac­tice (EY-Parthe­non) for the private equity sector, as well as helping to build the pan-Euro­pean Diver­si­fied Indus­trial Products prac­tice. In this role, he led more than 60 commer­cial due dili­gence and value crea­tion projects with tran­sac­tion values ranging from €50 million to €800 million. Prior to that, he was a part­ner at an inter­na­tio­nal stra­tegy boutique specia­li­zing in CDD, where he led the Global Indus­tri­als Products Prac­tice with a strong focus on private equity. He began his career in stra­tegy consul­ting at Accenture.

“Oliver is an expe­ri­en­ced stra­tegy and commer­cial due dili­gence consul­tant with an excel­lent track record. We are exci­ted to have him join our rapidly growing team and further streng­then our Commer­cial, Finan­cial and Tax, Opera­tio­nal and Tech­no­logy due dili­gence services,” said Andreas Stöck­lin, Head of EMEA Corpo­rate Finance and Coun­try Head Germany at Duff & Phelps, “Thanks to his excel­lent indus­try know­ledge, we are successfully deve­lo­ping our compre­hen­sive Tran­sac­tion Advi­sory solu­ti­ons and will be able to support our clients even more effec­tively in the future.”

About Duff & Phelps, A Kroll Business
The Duff & Phelps Corpo­rate Finance Prac­tice provi­des compre­hen­sive advi­sory services throug­hout all phases of a tran­sac­tion. Duff & Phelps’ inter­na­tio­nal indus­try specia­lists operate in 30 count­ries around the world, helping clients achieve corpo­rate objec­ti­ves in the areas of M&A, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and due dili­gence. Duff & Phelps is known for tech­ni­cal exper­tise, objec­tive advice, and top-notch execu­tion. www.duffandphelps.com.

About Kroll
Kroll is a leading global provi­der of valua­tion, gover­nance, risk manage­ment and trans­pa­rency services and digi­tal products. We support our clients in the areas of busi­ness valua­tions, inves­ti­ga­ti­ons, cyber secu­rity, corpo­rate finance, restruc­tu­ring, data analy­tics, and regu­la­tory and compli­ance. Kroll has around 5,000 experts in 30 count­ries world­wide. www.kroll.com.

News

Hamburg — H.I.G. Capi­tal (“H.I.G.”), a leading global alter­na­tive invest­ment firm with over $45 billion of equity capi­tal under manage­ment, is plea­sed to announce that an affi­liate has signed a defi­ni­tive agree­ment to sell CONET (the “Company”) to IK Invest­ment Part­ners. H.I.G. acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Company in 2017. The tran­sac­tion is subject to clearance by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

CONET is a leading digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion part­ner focu­sed on public sector clients and with a dedi­ca­ted SAP prac­tice. The Company offers its blue-chip custo­mer base services and solu­ti­ons in the areas of IT consul­ting, soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment and high-secu­rity IT opera­ti­ons. CONET, foun­ded in 1987 and head­quar­te­red in Hennef, Germany, employs over 1,100 specia­lists across 13 loca­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Croatia.

With the support of H.I.G., the Company imple­men­ted a compre­hen­sive expan­sion stra­tegy both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. CONET bene­fit­ted from H.I.G.’s substan­tial exper­tise and exten­sive network in the IT services sector as well as its expe­ri­ence in successfully execu­ting buy-and-build stra­te­gies. After H.I.G.’s initial invest­ment in 2017, CONET comple­ted three stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons which broa­dened its service offe­ring. During the past four years, CONET’s manage­ment more than doubled the Company’s reve­nue and streng­the­ned the Company’s posi­tion as a leading, inte­gra­ted and trus­ted part­ner for the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of its diver­si­fied custo­mer base.

Anke Höfer, CEO of CONET, said: “H.I.G.’s trust­wor­thy and support­ive guidance was an essen­tial element for CONET to conti­nue its excep­tio­nally successful growth by expan­ding geogra­phi­cally and by adding addi­tio­nal IT and consul­ting solu­ti­ons. Toge­ther, we have successfully grown CONET into a leading and trus­ted digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion part­ner for our customers.”

Dr. Holger Klein­garn, Mana­ging Direc­tor at H.I.G., said: “We are deligh­ted to have supported CONET in its successful growth trajec­tory towards a leading digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion provi­der. CONET demons­tra­tes H.I.G.’s ability to deve­lop compa­nies through a sustainable combi­na­tion of orga­nic growth and acqui­si­ti­ons, while at the same time further opti­mi­zing the service port­fo­lio to offer inte­gra­ted solu­tion for customers.”

Chris­tian Kraul-von Renner, Mana­ging Direc­tor at H.I.G. said: “The coope­ra­tion between CONET’s manage­ment team and H.I.G. has been excel­lent. Today, the Company is perfectly posi­tio­ned for further growth, and we wish the manage­ment team contin­ued success in the future.”

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the transaction.

About CONET
CONET has been a trus­ted IT part­ner for SAP, infra­struc­ture, commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment since 1987. Accor­ding to the latest survey by leading German IT publi­ca­tion Chan­nel­part­ner, CONET is ranked #2 among medium-sized German IT systems and consul­ting compa­nies. Custo­mers from indus­try and commerce, the public, as well as defense and secu­rity sectors alike, value CONET’s commit­ment to quality. CONET’s product solu­ti­ons for Criti­cal Control Room Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, Custo­mer Colla­bo­ra­tion, Enter­prise Content Manage­ment and Busi­ness Process Manage­ment are in use world­wide. CONET curr­ently employs more than 1,100 busi­nesses and IT specia­lists at 13 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Germany, Austria and Croa­tia. For more infor­ma­tion, please refer to the CONET website at www.conet.de.

About H.I.G. Capital
H.I.G. is a leading global alter­na­tive assets invest­ment firm with over $45 billion of equity capi­tal under manage­ment.* Based in Miami, and with offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Ange­les, San Fran­cisco, and Atlanta in the U.S., as well as inter­na­tio­nal affi­liate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, H.I.G. specia­li­zes in provi­ding both debt and equity capi­tal to small and mid-sized compa­nies, utili­zing a flexi­ble and opera­tio­nally focu­se­d/va­lue-added approach.

Since its foun­ding in 1993, H.I.G. has inves­ted in and mana­ged more than 300 compa­nies world­wide. The firm’s current port­fo­lio includes more than 100 compa­nies with combi­ned sales in excess of $30 billion. For more infor­ma­tion, please refer to www.higcapital.com.

News

Frank­furt a. M./ Flörs­heim — Vendis Capi­tal, an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in the Euro­pean consu­mer goods market, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in BlueBrixx and Model Car World. Foun­der and CEO Klaus Kiunke, who will conti­nue to hold a mino­rity stake, is co-inves­t­ing with Vendis Capi­tal to further drive the company’s growth and deve­lo­p­ment. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Vendis Capi­tal on this transaction.

BlueBrixx and Model Car World are two leading omnich­an­nel compa­nies based in Flörs­heim. Foun­ded in 2017, BlueBrixx is a direct-to-consu­mer brand that offers a variety of Noppen­stein sets for adult enthu­si­asts. In addi­tion, the port­fo­lio also covers various special topics such as archi­tec­ture, cars, trains, aero­space and adven­ture. Model Car World was foun­ded in 2001 and is one of the leading suppli­ers of model cars in Europe.

Vendis Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company specia­li­zing in the Euro­pean consu­mer goods market. The invest­ment in BlueBrixx and Model Car World is the fifth invest­ment of the Vendis Capi­tal III fund laun­ched in 2019 and the fourth invest­ment in Germany overall.

Advi­sors to Vendis Capi­tal: Shear­man & Sterling
Part­ners Winfried M. Carli (Munich-Finance) and Sven Opper­mann (Frank­furt-Finance).

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. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

News

Colo­gne — With a team led by Dr. Oliver Bött­cher and Kris­tina Schnei­der from the Colo­gne office, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed Compleo Char­ging Solu­ti­ons AG on the acqui­si­tion of E.ON subsi­diary innogy eMobi­lity Solu­ti­ons GmbH (“ieMS”).

The acqui­si­tion of ieMS, which has been under nego­tia­tion since July, will create one of Europe’s leading full-service provi­ders of char­ging tech­no­logy at the Dort­mund loca­tion. With the purchase, Compleo takes over the entire work­force as well as all custo­mer rela­ti­onships of ieMS, as well as the subsi­diary of ieMS in Germany and the United King­dom. The busi­ness of ieMS’s US subsi­dia­ries remains excluded from the agree­ment. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted at the turn of the year 2021/2022.

The team led by Colo­gne-based Heuking part­ners Bött­cher and Schnei­der has alre­ady compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed Compleo on the acqui­si­tion of wallbe GmbH (now Compleo Connect GmbH) in the 1st half of 2021.

Compleo Char­ging Solu­ti­ons AG is one of the leading full-service provi­ders of char­ging tech­no­logy for elec­tric vehic­les in Europe. The company supports its busi­ness custo­mers with its char­ging tech­no­lo­gies as well as its char­ging stati­ons, the backend of the char­ging infra­struc­ture and, if requi­red, also with plan­ning, instal­la­tion, main­ten­ance and service. Compleo’s offe­ring includes both AC and DC char­ging stati­ons. DC char­ging stati­ons from Compleo are the first DC char­ging stati­ons on the market that comply with cali­bra­tion laws. The company is head­quar­te­red in Dort­mund, Germany, with product faci­li­ties loca­ted in Pader­born, Germany, in addi­tion to Dort­mund. In doing so, the manu­fac­tu­rer focu­ses on inno­va­tion, safety, consu­mer-friend­li­ness and cost-effec­ti­ve­ness. Compleo star­ted produc­tion of the first char­ging stati­ons in 2009. The fast-growing company curr­ently employs more than 400 people. Since Octo­ber 2020, Compleo has been listed in the Prime Stan­dard segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (ISIN: DE000A2QDNX9). In April 2021, Compleo acqui­red 100 percent of the shares in wallbe GmbH, now Compleo Connect GmbH.

As a tech­no­logy company with over 12 years of expe­ri­ence, ieMS deve­lops and produ­ces char­ging hard­ware as well as digi­tal services for elec­tro­mo­bi­lity. The char­ging hard­ware can be control­led using ieMS soft­ware services as well as third-party systems. The ieMS eMobi­lity backend alre­ady networks around 200,000 char­ging points in around 30 count­ries world­wide. innogy eMobi­lity Solu­ti­ons has its own sites in Germany, the UK, the USA and the Phil­ip­pi­nes and is a wholly owned subsi­diary of the E.ON Group.

Advi­sors to Compleo Char­ging Solu­ti­ons AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Oliver Bött­cher, Kris­tina Schnei­der, LL.M., (both lead part­ners), both Cologne
Michael Kömpel (all Corpo­rate, M&A), Colo­gne, Dr. Ruben A. Hofmann, Dr. Peter J. Fries (both IP), both Colo­gne, Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe, Ebru Köroglu (both Capi­tal Markets), both Colo­gne, Prof. Dr. Martin Reufels, LL.M., Markus Schmül­l­ing, Dr. Chris­toph Katern­dahl (all Labor Law), all Cologne
Dipl.-Kfm. Dr. Thors­ten Leis­b­rock (Pensi­ons), Colo­gne, Dr. Lutz M. Keppe­ler, Svea Kunz (both IT, all Colo­gne), both Cologne;
Tim Peter­mann (distri­bu­tion law), Fabian G. Gaffron, Dr. Sarah Slavik-Schulz (tax), all Hamburg;
Beatrice Stange, LL.M., Michael Vetter, LL.M. (both Anti­trust Law), both Düsseldorf
Marc Baltus (Energy Law), Düssel­dorf, Mathis Dick, LL.M. (Real Estate Law), Düssel­dorf, Dr. Susanne Stau­der (Compli­ance), Düsseldorf;
Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn (Due Dili­gence), Peter M. Schäff­ler (Tax Due Dili­gence) both Munich;
Michael Neises, Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel, Michèle von Lewin­ski (all Finan­cing) all Frankfurt

News

Mühl­heim a.d. Ruhr/ Düssel­dorf — NETWORK acted as debt advi­sor to Invi­sion, an invest­ment company, in struc­tu­ring and raising growth finan­cing for Lipo­Cli­nic Dr. Heck GmbH (“Lipo­Cli­nic”), a global leader in lipe­dema surgery.

Tran­sac­tion
Invi­sion is support­ing Lipo­Cli­nic with growth finan­cing and is pursuing its successful expan­sion stra­tegy with exis­ting manage­ment while prio­ri­tiz­ing pati­ent care quality. NETWORK successfully struc­tu­red and raised growth finan­cing for Invi­sion as debt advisor.

The Lipo­Cli­nic was foun­ded by the surgeon Dr. Falk-Chris­tian Heck in Mülheim an der Ruhr and performs more than 3,000 opera­ti­ons annu­ally in Germany at two loca­ti­ons. Since its foun­da­tion, the Lipo­Cli­nic has been deve­lo­ping new stan­dards for surgi­cal treat­ment with sustain­ably effec­tive surgi­cal methods. With an excel­lently trai­ned team of doctors and 80 employees as well as modern tech­ni­cal equip­ment, the Lipo­Cli­nic offers pati­ents first-class medi­cal know-how, inno­va­tive treat­ment methods and proven service quality. www.lipo-clinic.de

About INVISION

INVISION is the leading address when it comes to indi­vi­dual succes­sion solu­ti­ons as well as corpo­rate and growth finan­cing. As an invest­ment company based in Switz­er­land and Germany, we focus on medium-sized compa­nies in Europe, in parti­cu­lar the DACH region. — We bring many years of expe­ri­ence and are proud of our large network of busi­ness part­ners. Since our foun­ding in 1997, we have successfully supported more than 60 compa­nies in reali­zing their growth plans — parti­cu­larly in topics rela­ted to inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, inno­va­tion and product deve­lo­p­ment, the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of busi­ness proces­ses, and the imple­men­ta­tion of targe­ted addi­tio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons. Strong rela­ti­onships are an important prere­qui­site for our success. As a trus­ted part­ner, INVISION ensu­res that life’s work conti­nues and entre­pre­neu­rial success stories are writ­ten. www.invision.ch

About Network Corpo­rate Finance

Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have estab­lished oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002. www.ncf.de

News

Munich — The Munich-based secu­rity company sdm SE achie­ves an IPO. A total of 336,060 shares were placed at a unit price of 3.50 euros per share. The shares origi­nate enti­rely from a capi­tal increase. As a result, sdm recei­ved gross issue proceeds of 1,176,210 euros. With the capi­tal from the IPO, sdm intends to imple­ment its M&A stra­tegy and acce­le­rate growth.

The share is expec­ted to be listed on the Düssel­dorf Stock Exch­ange from Novem­ber 3, 2021. In addi­tion, sdm is aiming for an Xetra listing. The issuing compa­n­ion is Wege­rich, Prof. Dr. Hofmann, Zanti­o­tis & Söhne AG.

sdm SE is the holding company of the opera­ting subsi­dia­ries sdm Sicher­heits­dienste München and W&W Dienst­leis­tun­gen. Foun­ded in 1999, the group is one of the leading secu­rity service provi­ders in the Munich metro­po­li­tan region. sdm specia­li­zes in plant and property protec­tion, trans­port of valu­ables and money as well as the orga­niza­tion of events and perso­nal protec­tion. The more than 300 employees have exten­sive know­ledge in the areas of first aid and fire protec­tion and receive regu­lar trai­ning. In 2020, sdm gene­ra­ted sales of 10.4 million euros and an opera­ting profit of 0.88 million euros.

Advi­sors to sdm SE: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe, Photo (Lead Part­ner, PArt­ner Capi­tal Markets Law), Colo­gne, Made­leine Zipperle, Colo­gne, Meike Dres­ler-Lenz, Colo­gne, Anna Rich­ter, LL.M., Colo­gne, Ebru Köroglu, Cologne

News

Zug (CH) — Part­ners Group, which specia­li­zes in private equity and other private market invest­ments, has acqui­red what it says is a “signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake” in Swiss watch­ma­ker Breit­ling from British invest­ment firm CVC Capi­tal Part­ners, which has control­led the watch­ma­king group for just over four years and has perfor­med very well under the leader­ship of Geor­ges Kern, who was previously head of IWC. The tran­sac­tion was on behalf of clients, accor­ding to a Part­ners Group state­ment. The amount of the invest­ment was not disclosed.

As the NZZ writes, it should be around 25%. The parties are silent about the price, “but 700 million Fr. it should be, if not a little more,” notes the NZZ.

New two finan­cial investors

Accor­ding to Part­ners Group, the goal is to work with CVC and Breitling’s manage­ment to drive the watchmaker’s deve­lo­p­ment into a “leading neo-luxury watch brand.” The co-foun­der of Part­ners Group, Alfred Gant­ner, beco­mes a member of the Board of Direc­tors of the Gren­chen-based watch­ma­king group.

Initial public offe­ring in a few years

Daniel Pindur, CVC repre­sen­ta­tive on Breitling’s board of direc­tors, said, “With Part­ners Group coming on board for the next four to five years, we’re also brin­ging new exper­tise on board.” The plan, he said, is to take Breit­ling public on the Swiss stock exch­ange in a few years. Well-known consu­mer brands or even luxury brands have not been the core busi­ness of the Zug-based asset mana­ger until now. But Alfred Gant­ner admits that he hims­elf has been a big fan ever since his wife gave him a Breit­ling as a fiftieth birth­day present three years ago.

“We also star­ted to look at the brand and the watch indus­try with Part­ners Group at that time, and for the last two years we have been talking with CVC and Geor­ges Kern about a possi­ble enga­ge­ment,” he tells NZZ. “We like how Breit­ling sets itself apart from the tradi­tio­nal, exclu­sive watch brands. The focus on casual luxury and invol­vement in trend sports such as surfing, triath­lon and biking is in keeping with the spirit of the times.”

They would also have liked to buy the whole company, but CVC wanted to remain invol­ved for good reasons and also retain control. “That’s not a problem for us because we’ve known CVC for over twenty years and have made seve­ral joint invest­ments,” Gant­ner said. Part­ners Group could well imagine remai­ning invol­ved for seve­ral years beyond a poten­tial IPO.

Breit­ling CEO Geor­ges Kern says: “The beauty of private equity is that you can act extre­mely quickly.” He is on the phone with Daniel Pindur from CVC almost every other day, and important decis­i­ons are made immediately.

There are no publicly available figu­res on Breitling’s busi­ness perfor­mance. Accor­ding to esti­ma­tes, the new team around Geor­ges Kern has been able to increase sales, which had been around CHF 400 million at the time of the take­over, to around CHF 700 million in the past four years, accor­ding to the NZZ. and even with higher margins thanks to growing direct sales. Profit at Ebitda level is expec­ted to be around CHF 175 million, accor­ding to a source quoted by Reuters.

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