ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt a. Main — High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), toge­ther with co-inves­tors Bayern Kapi­tal, the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, and TEV, has successfully sold its stake in Munich-based soft­ware company metoda. metoda is a leading provi­der of soft­ware-as-a-service solu­ti­ons for real-time market analy­sis in online retail. The new owner is Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners. The three early-stage inves­tors had first inves­ted in metoda toge­ther with seve­ral busi­ness angels as part of the seed round in 2013, and in 2015 they reaf­firmed their commit­ments as part of a Series A finan­cing round.

metoda GmbH is one of the world’s leading provi­ders of real-time market analy­ses in the field of e‑commerce. The world of online commerce is highly dyna­mic, so market parti­ci­pants need to rely on auto­ma­ted tools to gain an over­view of the market situa­tion and their compe­ti­tors. The Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) solu­ti­ons from metoda offer a solu­tion for this, with which the product data (prices, avai­la­bi­lity, ship­ping costs or deli­very times) of online retail­ers world­wide, inclu­ding Amazon, are conti­nuously recor­ded and analy­zed in a data protec­tion-compli­ant manner. The former start-up’s service enables retail­ers to adjust their own prices and assort­ment in real time to deve­lo­p­ments in the market. With “Amazon Adver­ti­sing AI”, metoda also offers an easy-to-use solu­tion for the auto­ma­tic crea­tion and analy­sis of adver­ti­sing on Amazon.

With a team of 50 employees, metoda today serves more than 200 blue-chip and mid-sized compa­nies, coor­di­na­tes around 50,000 adver­ti­sing campaigns per month, and proces­ses more than one billion e‑commerce data points from 28 count­ries every day.The new majo­rity share­hol­der is Maxburg Betei­li­gun­gen III (“Maxburg”), a fund advi­sed by Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners, an invest­ment company focu­sed on the German-spea­king region with capi­tal commit­ments of € 600 million from the RAG Foun­da­tion. Maxburg focu­ses on long-term corpo­rate invest­ments with the goal of perma­nent and sustainable value enhance­ment and alre­ady holds stakes in seve­ral soft­ware and tech­no­logy companies.

“High-Tech Grün­der­fonds has actively supported the path from start-up to rele­vant indus­try player from the very begin­ning and reco­gni­zed the poten­tial of the idea behind metoda early on. It is impres­sive what the metoda team around Stefan Bures and Robert Schmidtke has crea­ted. We are convin­ced that Maxburg is the right part­ner to successfully accom­pany the company in its further growth.” Romy Schnelle (photo), part­ner at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds.

For Stefan Bures, foun­der and CEO of metoda GmbH, the tran­sac­tion is another important mile­stone in the deve­lo­p­ment of the company: “We are convin­ced that in Maxburg we have found an entre­pre­neu­rial, long-term orien­ted part­ner who will accom­pany us on our future path. At the same time, we would like to thank our previous inves­tors, without whom our success story would not have been possible.”

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal curr­ently mana­ges eleven invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 385 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 310 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 275 inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 7,500 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable companies.

About TEV
TEV (Tengel­mann Ventures) has been inves­t­ing in start-ups in the consu­mer inter­net, digi­tal services and emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies sectors since 2009. With around 50 invest­ments, Tengel­mann Ventures is one of the most important venture capi­tal inves­tors in Germany. Its best-known invest­ments include compa­nies such as Zalando (IPO), Deli­very Hero (IPO), Klarna, Scalable Capi­tal and data Artisans.
www.tev.de

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported almost 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups from the fields of digi­tal busi­ness models, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €2.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,600 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

News

Munich — Water­land Private Equity (“Water­land”) acqui­res majo­rity stakes in the three IT service provi­ders Beck et al, binary and direkt gruppe. The compa­nies will be united in a new plat­form in the rapidly growing mana­ged enter­prise cloud market. In the future, the new group will offer a compre­hen­sive range of end-to-end solu­ti­ons in the areas of private cloud and public cloud in the DACH region and thus support compa­nies in the digi­tiza­tion of busi­ness proces­ses and on their way to the cloud. The sellers of the shares are the respec­tive foun­ders of the three compa­nies, who will all remain on board in manage­ment posi­ti­ons and will take a signi­fi­cant stake in the new group of companies.

Advi­sor to Water­land on the three tran­sac­tions: Henge­ler Mueller
Active are the part­ners Dr. Daniel Wiegand (Lead, M&A), Dr. Daniel Möritz (M&A), Dr. Matthias Schei­fele (Tax) (all Munich), Dr. Thors­ten Mäger (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Labor Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Vera Jung­kind (Public Commer­cial Law), Coun­sel Patrick Wilke­ning (Intellec­tual Property/IT) (both Düssel­dorf) as well as Asso­cia­tes Elisa­beth Kreu­zer, Dr. Florian Dendl, Florian Braun, Daniel Blagoje­vic, Niels Chris­tian Schwai­ger, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schlü­ter, Anto­nia Wege­ner (all Corporate/M&A), Marius Marx, Tobias Schwab (both Tax) (all Munich), Anne Broll (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Anja Balitzki (Anti­trust), Dr. Matthias Roth­kopf (Intellec­tual Property/IT) and Dr. Cars­ten Bormann (Public Commer­cial Law) (all Düsseldorf).

News

Munich — Carbon manu­fac­tu­rer Black­wave from Tauf­kir­chen has successfully comple­ted a second round of finan­cing with the support of the startup network BayStartUP. While the former share­hol­ders Cera­vis and Unger Capi­tal Manage­ment have increased their invest­ments, two new inves­tors, Profes­sor Rudolf Schwarz, owner of IABG, and CK Venture Capi­tal GmbH from Munich with the busi­ness angels Conny Hörl and Katja Ruhnke, have joined the company. In total, Black­wave was able to raise a seven-figure sum with the help of BayStartUP to expand the current 16-member team and signi­fi­cantly increase its production.

Black­wave is a company in the light­weight cons­truc­tion sector that deve­lops and produ­ces highly complex compon­ents made of carbon that cannot be manu­fac­tu­red using conven­tio­nal produc­tion methods. The compon­ents are charac­te­ri­zed by low weight as well as high stabi­lity. In addi­tion, Black­wave is also expe­ri­men­ting with new approa­ches to incor­po­rate screws, holes and threads in the produc­tion process to expand the range of appli­ca­ti­ons for its products.

“The comple­ted finan­cing round was an important step for us to turn our ambi­tious goals into reality,” said Bastian Behrens, CEO at Black­wave. “We will use the money both to open up further markets, such as medi­cal tech­no­logy, and to further auto­mate our produc­tion to become even more compe­ti­tive. Of course, the current econo­mic situa­tion also has an impact on our company. It’s reassu­ring to know that our inves­tors are fully behind us even now.”

Katja Ruhnke (photo), CEO at CK Venture Capi­tal GmbH, says: “I became aware of Black­wave through BayStartUP. Above all, the untap­ped poten­tial of carbon fiber-rein­forced plas­tics in the field of light­weight cons­truc­tion fasci­na­ted me from the very begin­ning. Moreo­ver, behind the name Black­wave is a highly moti­va­ted team that has alre­ady maste­red a number of chal­lenges in an outstan­ding manner. Black­wave meets all the requi­re­ments to be successful in the long term and to become a leader in light­weight construction.”

Whether in aero­space, auto­mo­tive, sports, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring or medi­cal tech­no­logy, compa­nies in these sectors are always on the lookout for ways to save weight, costs, fuel or mini­mize the amount of force requi­red. At the same time, the compon­ents must be extre­mely resistant to defor­ma­tion and tempe­ra­ture fluc­tua­tions. In space travel, compon­ents must be able to with­stand tempe­ra­tures from ‑150 to +175 degrees Celsius without beco­ming brittle or deforming. The Black­wave company specia­li­zes in solving precis­ely these requi­re­ments and, as an inno­va­tion driver, is play­ing a decisive role in shaping the field of light­weight construction.

Blackwave’s busi­ness centers on carbon fiber rein­forced plas­tic and a manu­fac­tu­ring process that uses pres­sure and heat to press the mate­rial into shape. The result is compon­ents that come from a single mold and are very resi­li­ent. Previous manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses only allo­wed the produc­tion of simple, flat geome­tries, which consider­a­bly limits the areas of appli­ca­tion for carbon. Blackwave’s carbon compon­ents can not only replace metal­lic compon­ents, they are also ligh­ter and more resi­li­ent. Examp­les from space travel show that each kilo­gram of payload causes 30 to 100 kg of addi­tio­nal weight for rocket and fuel. Conver­sely, a kilo­gram of weight saved can be worth seve­ral thousand euros. The new manu­fac­tu­ring process also provi­des more design opti­ons. Dril­ling holes to insert screws and threads into carbon compon­ents inju­res the fiber struc­ture and weak­ens the stabi­lity of the mate­rial. Black­wave can inte­grate func­tional elements into the manu­fac­tu­ring process, which opens up comple­tely new indus­trial appli­ca­tion possi­bi­li­ties and enables custo­mers to deve­lop inno­va­tive products with enhan­ced functionalities.

Black­wave foun­ders Bastian Behrens and Raphael Setz met at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich at the Formula Student Team. “We have very ambi­tious goals. In the short term, we will really ramp up produc­tion again and addi­tio­nally auto­mate it. This means that we will also be able to handle large series produc­tion. In the long term, we want to have our own carbon part in space by 2026 and take on a pionee­ring role in the field of complex and highly func­tional carbon compo­si­tes,” says Bastian Behrens, CEO of Blackwave.

To date, its custo­mers include renow­ned compa­nies from the aero­space, auto­mo­tive and sports sectors, inclu­ding Airbus, ESA, MT Aero­space, Pratt & Whit­ney as well as Porsche and M GmbH.

About BayStartUP
BayStartUP is the Bava­rian startup network for foun­ders, inves­tors and compa­nies. With the Bava­rian Busi­ness Plan Compe­ti­ti­ons, an exten­sive coaching offer and Europe’s largest inves­tor network, it supports start­ups in opti­mi­zing their stra­tegy, buil­ding their busi­ness and finding start-up and growth capi­tal. For private and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, BayStartUP ensu­res a quali­fied deal flow and offers startup insights at exclu­sive busi­ness angel meetings and inves­tor confe­ren­ces. With nati­on­wide startup indus­try matchings and concep­tual offers, BayStartUP advi­ses estab­lished compa­nies on the deve­lo­p­ment of suita­ble stra­te­gies for coope­ra­tion with start­ups. Through BayStartUP, foun­ders have cont­act oppor­tu­ni­ties with around 300 active busi­ness angels as well as over 100 insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. Since 2015, BayStartUP has broke­red over €263 million in capi­tal in 259 actively mana­ged finan­cing rounds, each with a volume of between €50,000 and €6 million. Compa­nies supported by BayStartUP are active on the market with more than 13,100 employees and gene­rate a turno­ver of almost 1.4 billion euros (as of 2017). These include eight IPOs and success stories such as Flix­bus, eGym, Maga­zino, Voxel­jet, numa­res, Transpo­reon and va-Q-tec AG.

About Black­wave
Black­wave deve­lops and produ­ces complex light­weight compon­ents with sophisti­ca­ted 3D geome­tries from carbon for compa­nies in the auto­mo­tive, aero­space, sports equip­ment and mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring sectors. The tech­no­logy, which is based on the prin­ci­ple of hot extru­sion, enables signi­fi­cant weight savings while keeping costs low. The company, based in Tauf­kir­chen, was foun­ded in 2016 and has alre­ady been able to file a promi­sing patent in the field of carbon SMC. www.blackwave.de.

News

Frank­furt a. Main — Network Corpo­rate Finance has deci­ded to add Sebas­tian Altmayer, photo (M&A) and Sven Voigt (Debt Advi­sory), two of its direc­tors, to its part­ner­ship. Both part­ners have been active in the corpo­rate finance busi­ness for over 10 years and have successfully imple­men­ted nume­rous natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal transactions.

Sebas­tian Altmayer joined Network Corpo­rate Finance in 2011 and focu­ses on M&A and Equity Capi­tal Markets at our Düssel­dorf office, where he further streng­thens the part­ner base. Sebas­tian Altmayer advi­ses medium-sized compa­nies, inter­na­tio­nal groups and private equity inves­tors on succes­sion solu­ti­ons, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, mergers or measu­res to streng­then the equity base.

Sven Voigt has been with Network Corpo­rate Finance since 2008, initi­ally in our M&A team in Düssel­dorf and since 2013 in Frank­furt, where he has focu­sed on provi­ding finan­cing advice to private equity inves­tors and compa­nies. As a new Part­ner, he is respon­si­ble, toge­ther with Diet­rich Stol­ten­burg, for the Debt Advi­sory divi­sion in Frank­furt. In this context, Sven Voigt advi­ses on all issues rela­ted to acqui­si­tion finan­cing, refi­nan­cing and restructuring.

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 been able to estab­lish oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002.

 

News

Düssel­dorf — The heristo Group has dive­s­ted its 51-year-old stake in Like­Meat, one of Germany’s leading suppli­ers of vegan meat alter­na­ti­ves. The purcha­ser of LikeMeat’s majo­rity stake is US-based Foods United Inc. The heristo Group was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Deloitte Legal Düsseldorf.

The heristo Group is a family-run group of compa­nies present in the german and inter­na­tio­nal markets in the meat finis­hing, deli­ca­tes­sen, pet food and whole­sale and foreign trade of food products, with a wide range of products and Services. It is one of the largest compa­nies in the German food indus­try, the largest Euro­pean produ­cers of pet food and the global trading compa­nies. The group gene­ra­tes about two-thirds of its turno­ver from the produc­tion of private labels.

Like­Meat deve­lops contem­po­rary products for an enjoya­ble, modern and balan­ced diet and stands for a wide range of plant-based meat substi­tu­tes. Foun­ded in 2013 as a German start-up company based in Düssel­dorf, the company expan­ded rapidly and has been offe­ring its products in other Euro­pean count­ries as well as in the USA since 2017. Like­Meat now has a total of around 100 employees at its produc­tion faci­lity in Oss, the Nether­lands, as well as at its head­quar­ters in Düsseldorf.

Foods United pursues a stra­tegy of buil­ding up and expan­ding an exten­sive port­fo­lio of invest­ments in the meat substi­tu­tes market, focu­sing on the entire value chain: from raw mate­rial procu­re­ment to produc­tion to marke­ting. The majo­rity share­hol­der of Foods United is the billionaire Swiss inves­tor Blue Hori­zon Corpo­ra­tion AG. In addi­tion to Blue Hori­zon, many other inves­tors are invol­ved in Foods United.

Dr. Michael von Rüden (photo) and his team from Deloitte Legal has been a regu­lar member of the heristo Group since 2016 and has alre­ady accom­pa­nied the company on various M&A tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding the sale of Paul­sen Food in 2017 and the sale of Günther Janßen Handels GmbH in 2019. As part of this tran­sac­tion, in the highly dyna­mic envi­ron­ment of plant substi­tu­tes for poul­try and meat, they were once again able to draw on their exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the food industry.

Consul­tant heristo Group: Deloitte Legal
Dr. Michael von Rüden, LL.M. (USA) (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Lead), André Giesen, EMBA (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Horst Heinzl, M.C.L. (HKU) (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf).

About Deloitte/Deloitte Legal
Deloitte provi­des audi­ting, risk advi­sory, tax advi­sory, finan­cial advi­sory and consul­ting services to compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons from all sectors of the economy; Legal advice is provi­ded in Germany by Deloitte Legal. With a global network of member compa­nies in more than 150 count­ries, Deloitte combi­nes excel­lence with world-class perfor­mance and helps clients solve their complex busi­ness chal­lenges. Making an impact that matters – for around 312,000 Deloitte employees, this is a common mission state­ment and indi­vi­dual ambi­tion at the same time.

Deloitte Legal refers to the legal advice prac­ti­ces of the member compa­nies of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted, its affi­lia­tes or affi­lia­tes that provide legal services. Deloitte refers to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted (“DTTL”), a “private limi­ted company limi­ted by guaran­tee” (limi­ted liabi­lity company under UK law), its network of member compa­nies and its affi­lia­tes. DTTL and each of its member compa­nies are legally inde­pen­dent and inde­pen­dent. DTTL (also called “Deloitte Global”) does not provide services to clients.

News

Munich — Start-up Nera­Care GmbH, a specia­list in skin cancer risk assess­ment, has secu­red EUR 8 million in a Series A finan­cing round. MIG Funds 10, 14 and 16, BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft and Synvie GmbH parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. LUTZ | ABEL as legal advi­sor to the inves­tors MIG-Fonds and BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft has the lead in this Series‑A finan­cing round.

The round was led by MIG Fonds 10, 14 and 16 — other inves­tors include BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft and Synvie GmbH. Nera­Care is active in the field of precis­ion medi­cine against black skin cancer, defen­ding its unique posi­tion. The start-up deve­lops and markets gene expres­sion tests to deter­mine the risk of recur­rence in mali­gnant mela­n­oma. With the help of such a mela­n­oma diagno­sis, doctors will be able to make a relia­ble progno­sis in the future and make infor­med treat­ment decis­i­ons: Pati­ents with low-risk tumors will thus be spared unneces­sary drug thera­pies, while those pati­ents with incon­spi­cuous but higher-risk tumors and ther­e­fore more in need of treat­ment can be identified.

LUTZ | ABEL provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice on the finan­cing round.
Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch (VC/M&A, Munich) was the lead part­ner. The teams also included: Jan-Phil­lip Kunz (VC/M&A, Munich), Dr. Sebas­tian Sumal­vico (VC/M&A, Munich), Cars­ten Huch-Hall­wachs (IP, Munich) and Andreas Kössel (Labor Law, Munich). Nera­Care GmbH was advi­sed by Honert (Sven Frit­sche, Kai-Clemens Wehlage), the foun­ders were advi­sed by CMS (Dr. Tilman Weichert) and the manage­ment by Diss­mann Orth (Dr. Martin Lohse). The inves­tor Synvie GmbH was advi­sed by Pinsent Masons (Chris­tian Lang).

News

Munich — Latham & Watkins LLP advi­sed CDH Invest­ments (CDH) on the acqui­si­tion of a signi­fi­cant stake in WOW Tech Group, a leading global provi­der of premium sensory health and well­ness products. The manage­ment of WOW Tech Group as well as the exis­ting inves­tors will remain share­hol­ders of WOW Tech Group and will conti­nue to hold stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal func­tions. WOW Tech Group was advi­sed by ARQIS Attor­neys at Law .

As one of the world’s leading suppli­ers, WOW Tech Group specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­ture and marke­ting of high-quality products for lovemaking.

CDH, with offices in Singa­pore, Hong Kong and Beijing, mana­ges assets of appro­xi­m­ately USD 20 billion. The company has invest­ments in over 150 compa­nies focu­sed on consu­mer goods and health­care industries.

Latham & Watkins LLP advi­sed CDH with the follo­wing team:
Dr. Rainer Trau­gott (Part­ner, Lead, Munich), Susanne Decker (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Hanno Witt, Dr. Thomas Diek­mann, Dr. Hendrik Ley, Anja Schind­ler, Dr. Andreas Holzgreve, (all Asso­ciate, Private Equity), Dr. Ulf Kieker (Coun­sel, Tax), Thomas Weit­kamp (Part­ner), Ludwig Zesch, Phil­ipp Büch­ler (both Asso­ciate, all Banking and Finance, all Munich), Joachim Gritt­mann (Coun­sel, Regu­la­tory, Frank­furt), Dr. Jana Dammann (Coun­sel, Hamburg) Jan Voll­kam­mer (Asso­ciate, both Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Anne Kleff­mann (Part­ner), Annika Juds (Asso­ciate, both Labor Law, Munich) as well as lawy­ers from Latham’s Hong Kong office.

Advi­sors WOW Tech Group: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
ARQIS advi­sed Johan­nes Graf Plet­ten­berg, the foun­der and CEO of WOW Tech Group (WOW Tech), a Berlin-based sex toy manu­fac­tu­rer, in connec­tion with the sale of his busi­ness shares to Singa­pore-based private equity group CDH Invest­ments (CDH) and his subse­quent re-invest­ment in the target group.
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead; Corporate/M&A); Coun­sel: Dr. Stepha­nie Lenze (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Corporate/M&A); Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Labor Law)

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed the German single family office MAGNUS Holding on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in DREHTAINER GmbH.

DREHTAINER GmbH is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of special contai­ners and special vehicle compon­ents. With the new majo­rity owner, the company is coun­ting on constant busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment in the long term; toge­ther with the new owner, growth in key markets is also to be driven forward.

DREHTAINER deve­lops and produ­ces modu­lar systems for infra­struc­tures and vehic­les whose level of protec­tion can be custo­mi­zed. The inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base of the owner-mana­ged company includes nume­rous NATO armed forces as well as OEMs in the defense and aero­space industries.

The single family office MAGNUS Holding is a long-term orien­ted inves­tor that supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their sustainable deve­lo­p­ment. The focus is on the aero­space and defense, medi­cal tech­no­logy and phar­maceu­ti­cal primary pack­a­ging sectors.

Advi­sors to MAGNUS Holding: SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte, Munich
Dr. Matthias Nord­mann, Photo (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Eva Bona­cker (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Heiko Wunder­lich (Tax Law), Hanna Karl (Coun­sel, Labor Law), Stefan C. Schi­cker, LL.M. (IP), Dr. Katrin Hansen (Asso­ciate, Commercial)

SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte is an inde­pen­dent German law firm with over 130 lawy­ers in five loca­ti­ons. SKW Schwarz advi­ses compa­nies ranging from owner-mana­ged busi­nesses to listed stock corpo­ra­ti­ons, as well as private clients, in all major areas of natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness law.

News

Geneva, Switz­er­land — Firmenich announ­ced that it has ente­red into exclu­si­vity with Ardian, Tike­hau Capi­tal and family share­hol­ders to acquire Les Déri­vés Rési­ni­ques et Terpé­ni­ques (“DRT”). DRT is a world leader in plant-based chemis­try, mainly from pine trees, and is one of the leading suppli­ers globally of high quality, rene­wa­ble ingredients.

“I am thril­led to bring DRT’s unique capa­bi­li­ties for deve­lo­ping sustainable ingre­di­ents to Firmenich. This propo­sed combi­na­tion builds on our busi­ness part­ner­ship of more than 30 years and our estab­lished track record of successful co-deve­lo­p­ment in a long-stan­ding joint venture,” said Patrick Firmenich, Chair­man of the Board, Firmenich. “We thank Ardian and Tike­hau Capi­tal for their strong steward­ship and we are deligh­ted to welcome all DRT colle­agues to Firmenich. We share the same passion for our custo­mers, sustaina­bi­lity, as well as strong family values.”

“Firmenich would be the ideal home for DRT,” said Thibault Basquin, Head of Ameri­cas Invest­ment and Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout. “I would like to warmly thank Laurent Laba­tut and his team for our part­ner­ship over the past few years. Ardian has enab­led DRT to acce­le­rate its growth, invest in new projects and enhance its sustaina­bi­lity approach. Firmenich has been an important stra­te­gic part­ner for DRT for many years and would be uniquely posi­tio­ned to bring DRT’s product deve­lo­p­ment capa­bi­li­ties to the next level. As a family-owned busi­ness that is commit­ted to inno­va­tion, Firmenich will provide a great envi­ron­ment for DRT’s colleagues.”

Emma­nuel Lail­lier, Head of Private Equity at Tike­hau Capi­tal added: “Tike­hau Capi­tal has supported DRT’s growth stra­tegy and global deve­lo­p­ment for six years. We are today very plea­sed to help bring DRT and Firmenich toge­ther, which is a key step for the conti­nua­tion of its development.”

“DRT would further streng­then our leading Perfu­mery & Ingre­di­ents busi­ness enab­ling us to offer our custo­mers the world’s best palette of rene­wa­ble and sustainable ingre­di­ents,” said Gilbert Ghos­tine, CEO, Firmenich. “DRT would bring new capa­bi­li­ties in health & nutri­tion, cosme­tics, as well as a number of new markets, inclu­ding adhe­si­ves, coatings and agri­cul­ture. This acqui­si­tion rein­forces our presence in France, which is our second largest market where we have been estab­lished for more than 120 years. I look forward to part­ne­ring with all our custo­mers to support their trans­for­ma­tion for a sustainable future.”

“We share a long-stan­ding rela­ti­onship with Firmenich as it is one of our main part­ners,” explains Laurent Laba­tut, CEO of DRT. “Firmenich is renow­ned for its cutting-edge rese­arch that feeds into the broa­dest and finest ingre­di­ents palette. Our joint inno­va­tion capa­bi­li­ties would open up new oppor­tu­ni­ties to support our clients across our entire product port­fo­lio. Toge­ther we look forward to opening a new chap­ter with a shared ambi­tion to design best-in-class sustainable ingre­di­ents for our customers.”

DRT is at the fore­front of deve­lo­ping sustainable, rene­wa­ble and natu­rally-deri­ved ingre­di­ents from terpe­nes and rosin deri­va­ti­ves. DRT offers green alter­na­ti­ves for a range of appli­ca­ti­ons and markets. Foun­ded in 1932 and head­quar­te­red in Dax, France, DRT deve­lo­ped a unique, back­ward inte­gra­ted busi­ness model over many deca­des, inclu­ding access to sustainable raw mate­ri­als, best-in-class extra­c­tion and distil­la­tion capa­bi­li­ties and advan­ced inno­va­tion proces­ses. DRT has been a family-owned company for most of its history and has grown thanks to its commit­ment to long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with its suppli­ers and its customers.

DRT has a turno­ver in excess of €550 million, employs more than 1,500 people around the world and is opera­ting through a global foot­print with four produc­tion sites loca­ted in France, two in the USA, two in India and one in China.

Finan­cial terms of the deal have not been disc­lo­sed. The propo­sed tran­sac­tion remains subject to seve­ral condi­ti­ons inclu­ding the consul­ta­tion of the rele­vant employee repre­sen­ta­ti­ves and custo­mary appr­ovals by the anti­trust authorities.
Firmenich was advi­sed by Gold­man Sachs Inter­na­tio­nal, Raphaël Finan­cial Advi­sory and Bredin Prat. Ardian was advi­sed by Citigroup, Roth­schild & Co, Latham & Watkins and White & Case.

About Firmenich
Firmenich is the world’s largest priva­tely-owned perfume and taste company, foun­ded in Geneva, Switz­er­land, in 1895. Driven by its purpose to create posi­tive emoti­ons to enhance well­be­ing, natu­rally, Firmenich has desi­gned many of the world’s best-known perfu­mes and tastes, brin­ging delight to over four billion consu­mers every day. Renow­ned for its world-class rese­arch and crea­ti­vity, as well as its leader­ship in sustaina­bi­lity, each year, Firmenich invests 10% of its turno­ver in R&D to under­stand and share the best that nature has to offer respon­si­bly. Firmenich had an annual turno­ver of 3.9 billion Swiss francs at the end of June 2019. More infor­ma­tion about Firmenich is available at www.firmenich.com.

About DRT
Foun­ded in 1932, DRT specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment of gum rosin and turpen­tine extra­c­ted from pine resin. DRT’s head office is loca­ted in Dax, France and sells its products around the world. DRT has a diver­si­fied product port­fo­lio of more than 300 ingre­di­ents addres­sing a variety of end markets. DRT opera­tes 9 manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties either directly or with joint venture part­ners. More infor­ma­tion about DRT is available at www.drt.fr

About Ardian
Ardian is a world-leading private invest­ment house with assets of US$ 96bn mana­ged or advi­sed in Europe, the Ameri­cas and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees. It keeps entre­pre­neur­ship at its heart and focu­ses on deli­ve­ring excel­lent invest­ment perfor­mance to its global inves­tor base. Through its commit­ment to shared outco­mes for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties fuel indi­vi­dual, corpo­rate and econo­mic growth around the world.

Holding close its core values of excel­lence, loyalty and entre­pre­neur­ship, Ardian main­ta­ins a truly global network, with more than 680 employees working from fifteen offices across Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), the Ameri­cas (New York, San Fran­cisco and Sant­iago) and Asia (Beijing, Singa­pore, Tokyo and Seoul). It mana­ges funds on behalf of around 1,000 clients through five pillars of invest­ment exper­tise: Fund of Funds, Direct Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Real Estate and Private Debt. More infor­ma­tion about Ardian is available at https://www.ardian.com/fr

About Tike­hau Capital
Tike­hau Capi­tal is an asset manage­ment and invest­ment group which mana­ges € 25.8bn of assets under manage­ment (as at 31 Decem­ber 2019) and share­hol­ders’ equity of € 3.1 billion (as at 30 June 2019). The Group invests in various asset clas­ses (private debt, real-estate, private equity, capi­tal markets stra­te­gies), inclu­ding through its asset manage­ment subsi­dia­ries, on behalf of insti­tu­tio­nal and private inves­tors. Control­led by its mana­gers, along­side leading insti­tu­tio­nal part­ners, Tike­hau Capi­tal employs more than 500 staff (as at 30 Septem­ber 2019) in its Paris, London, Amster­dam, Brussels, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, New York, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo offices.

News

Munich, Frank­furt a. Main — High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), toge­ther with co-inves­tors Bayern Kapi­tal and seve­ral busi­ness angels, is taking a stake in Munich-based iATROS GmbH as part of a two million euro seed finan­cing. The digi­tal health startup has deve­lo­ped a tele­me­di­cine solu­tion that enables data-driven treat­ment of cardio­logy pati­ents. Thus, iATROS addres­ses clinics as well as pati­ents directly.

The funds from the seed round will be used to expand the work­force and further deve­lop the soft­ware. The opera­tio­nal launch is plan­ned for later this year.

iATROS was foun­ded in 2019 by two cardiac specia­lists, Prof. Alex­an­der Leber, MD, and Geor­ges von Degen­feld, MD, as well as Patrick Pala­cin, Prof. Wolf­ram Winter, and Jens Schä­fer. The deve­lo­p­ment of the plat­form aims to connect cardiac pati­ents more closely and perma­nently with their medi­cal provi­ders. The core of the solu­tion is the app-based, conti­nuous doctor-pati­ent connec­tion in the form of digi­tal health plans as well as a manu­fac­tu­rer-inde­pen­dent inte­gra­tion of mobile health sensors (so-called smart weara­bles). This invol­ves the perma­nent coll­ec­tion of pati­ent health data to assist physi­ci­ans with diagno­stics, medi­ca­tion sche­du­ling and auto­ma­ted alerts using arti­fi­cial intelligence.

Via the app, heart pati­ents are profes­sio­nally accom­pa­nied and remin­ded to take measu­re­ments or medi­ca­tion. In addi­tion, the app offers pati­ents the oppor­tu­nity to self-assess their health status. In emer­gen­cies, they can cont­act a tele­car­dio­lo­gist around the clock (24/7) at the touch of a button. The iATROS plat­form is desi­gned to help make medi­cal care for cardiac pati­ents more effi­ci­ent and prevent dise­a­ses such as strokes or heart attacks.iATROS’ solu­tion addres­ses one of the largest areas of the German health­care system: the field of cardio­logy, for exam­ple, accounts for around 16 percent of total health­care costs in Germany. Cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­ase is the leading cause of death, accoun­ting for 39 percent of all cases. In addi­tion, around 1.7 million pati­ents are trea­ted as inpa­ti­ents for cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­a­ses in this coun­try every year.

Roman Huber (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal: “Compared to other sectors, the health­care indus­try is still not very digi­ti­zed. A large market with considera­ble growth poten­tial will open up here in the coming years. Espe­ci­ally in cardio­logy, digi­tal solu­ti­ons offer signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve pati­ents’ therapy and quality of life. That’s what makes iATROS’ well-desi­gned solu­tion so exciting.”

iATROS GmbH is one of the most inno­va­tive start-ups in digi­tal medi­cine. The compe­tence of the foun­ders, the tech­no­logy as well as the deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in this busi­ness field convin­ced us to invest, says Dr. Juri Bach, Invest­ment Mana­ger of HTGF.

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Hano­ver — He has been active in the invest­ment busi­ness for more than 20 years: Robert Pauli (photo), a graduate engi­neer, comes from a family busi­ness hims­elf and knows what makes medium-sized compa­nies tick. At HANNOVER Finanz, an equity part­ner specia­li­zing in SMEs, his respon­si­bi­li­ties include port­fo­lio development.

Robert Pauli has been a part­ner in the HANNOVER Finanz Group since March 2020. The 46-year-old comes from a medium-sized family busi­ness in Colo­gne and disco­vered his passion for the invest­ment busi­ness early on. “Private equity should help to main­tain medium-sized compa­nies and support them in succes­sion and growth,” is Robert Pauli’s convic­tion. After study­ing elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring in Colo­gne, the graduate engi­neer went on to study busi­ness in London, gradua­ting with an M.A. in Busi­ness and Manage­ment. He then joined the invest­ment company Nord Holding in 1999 and was invol­ved in nume­rous corpo­rate tran­sac­tions. He was employed at the invest­ment company, which origi­nally belon­ged to NordLB, until 2017 — most recently as a member of the manage­ment board and was respon­si­ble for port­fo­lio deve­lo­p­ment. From 2017, the father of two and convin­ced Hano­ver­ian by choice mana­ged epa Dosier­tech­nik GmbH in Colo­gne, where he arran­ged the succes­sion in his parents’ busi­ness. He will conti­nue to be asso­cia­ted with his family busi­ness as a shareholder.

About the HANNOVER Finanz Group
Foun­ded in 1979, the HANNOVER Finanz Group has more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence as an equity part­ner for SMEs. The private equity house based in Hano­ver and Vienna is one of the first venture capi­ta­lists for the D‑A-CH region in Germany. Well-known compa­nies such as Fiel­mann, Ross­mann and AIXTRON have reali­zed their growth with equity capi­tal from the HANNOVER Finanz Group and taken advan­tage of its entre­pre­neu­rial support. The Group also invests in company succes­si­ons and medium-sized struc­tu­red carve-outs or spin-offs. The basis for the long-term invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies are the curr­ently five active ever­green funds with an unli­mi­ted term.

The inves­tors are mainly insu­rance compa­nies or profes­sio­nal pension funds. HANNOVER Finanz’s commit­ments range from tradi­tio­nal indus­tries to trade and new tech­no­lo­gies. Since its foun­da­tion, the equity part­ner for SMEs has been growing conti­nuously, and with it the number of successfully comple­ted invest­ments. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties are mainly growth finan­cing and succes­sion plan­ning for solid medium-sized compa­nies with annual sales of 20 million euros or more. In addi­tion to majo­rity share­hol­dings, the HANNOVER Finanz Group is one of the few invest­ment compa­nies in Germany to acquire mino­rity inte­rests. The port­fo­lio curr­ently includes 35 companies.

News

Graz/Frankfurt/Freiburg — The globally active high-tech company AVL List GmbH has acqui­red shares in FIFTY2 Tech­no­logy GmbH, based in Frei­burg. FIFTY2 has deve­lo­ped the inno­va­tive soft­ware tool Preon­Lab, which enables the simu­la­tion of previously unrea­lizable fluid dyna­mics use cases.

A successful sales part­ner­ship has alre­ady exis­ted between the two compa­nies for seve­ral years. The entry of AVL as a share­hol­der now rein­forces this part­ner­ship. With this step, AVL streng­thens and expands its simu­la­tion compe­ten­cies. Compared to conven­tio­nal solu­ti­ons, Preon­Lab opens up new possi­bi­li­ties for custo­mers to simu­late fluids in consider­a­bly less time, with less effort and impres­sive display capa­bi­li­ties. This simu­la­tion tech­ni­que is used in parti­cu­lar by the auto­mo­tive industry.

AVL is the world’s largest inde­pen­dent company for the deve­lo­p­ment, simu­la­tion and test­ing of power­train systems (hybrid, combus­tion engi­nes, trans­mis­si­ons, elec­tric motors, batte­ries and soft­ware) for passen­ger cars, commer­cial vehic­les and large engi­nes. AVL employs over 10,400 people world­wide. In 2018, sales amoun­ted to 1.75 billion euros.

FIFTY2 Tech­no­logy GmbH was foun­ded as a startup in 2015. Rese­arch on the Preon­Lab soft­ware tool began a decade ago at the Univer­sity of Frei­burg and is based on using mathe­ma­tics and compu­ter code to create simu­la­ti­ons that repli­cate nature. Physi­cal simu­la­ti­ons can help provide insights early in the deve­lo­p­ment cycle in many areas of engi­nee­ring. Engi­neers are thus enab­led to produce more inno­va­tive and safer products.

FIFTY2 Tech­no­logy GmbH and its two foun­ding share­hol­ders and mana­ging direc­tors, Markus Ihmsen and Jens Corne­lis, were compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by an M&A team from the commer­cial law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner (FGvW) in Frei­burg, led by part­ner Dr. Hendrik Thies. The cont­act between FIFTY2 and FGvW came about through a recommendation.

AVL List GmbH was advi­sed by the Frank­furt office of CMS Hasche Sigle, led by Dr. Jochen Schlot­ter.

Advi­sor to FIFTY2 Tech­no­logy GmbH and its foun­ding share­hol­ders: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, Freiburg
Dr. Hendrik Thies, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Jan Henning Martens, Part­ner (Corpo­rate, Start­ups, Venture Capital)
Dr. Stefan Lammel, Part­ner (Corpo­rate Finance)
Dr. Morton Douglas, Part­ner (IP)
Dr. Matthias Jüne­mann, Part­ner (Family Law/Inheritance Law)

News

Hamburg — The HR plat­form Work­Ge­nius recei­ves another finan­cing round of USD 7 million from Axel Sven Sprin­ger, John Jahr and Oliver Heine. Work­Ge­nius has crea­ted a plat­form to shape the future of work — from task descrip­tion to finis­hed result — for both free­lan­cers and companies.

Entre­pre­neurs Axel Sven Sprin­ger, Oliver Heine, John Jahr and a Swiss family office alre­ady inves­ted €8.5 million in the Hamburg-based human resour­ces startup in 2018. The company was foun­ded in 2012 by Daniel Barke and Marlon Litz-Rosen­zweig and was form­erly known as Mylitt­le­job. Repo­si­tio­ned, it has now estab­lished itself as a plat­form for finding, mana­ging and paying free­lan­cers. Around USD 20 million has alre­ady flowed into Work­Ge­nius. The startup employs 75 people.

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Hamburg — The Hamburg-based family office Lennertz & Co. inte­gra­tes the estab­lished German fund of funds company for U.S. tech­no­logy funds, BPE Fund Inves­tors from Hamburg. Since 2001, the manage­ment of BPE Fund Inves­tors around Dr. Andreas Odefey, Aman Miran Khan and Arne Fieder­ling conti­nuously culti­va­ted the network and exclu­sive access to “top addres­ses” among US tech­no­logy funds. German insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors as well as wealthy private inves­tors have since subscri­bed to shares in three funds of funds that inves­ted venture capi­tal in pionee­ring fund addres­ses for venture capi­tal in the USA, such as Bain Capi­tal Ventures, Canaan Part­ners, Khosla Ventures, Klei­ner Perkins, NEA or TCV. In this way, inves­tors were alre­ady invol­ved at a very early stage in compa­nies such as Beyond Meat, Face­book, FitBit, Netflix, Square, Twit­ter, Tesla or Work­day and were able to profit accor­din­gly from the dispro­por­tio­nate increa­ses in value of these companies.

“BPE Fund Inves­tors has meti­cu­lously built an extre­mely viable German invest­ment bridge out of Hamburg to the attrac­tive venture capi­tal market in the US. We are plea­sed to conti­nue the exis­ting funds of funds of BPE Fund Inves­tors under Lennertz & Co.”, says Phil­ipp Lennertz, Mana­ging Part­ner of the Hamburg-based family office Lennertz & Co. “Disrup­tive tech­no­lo­gies are finan­ced espe­ci­ally in the US and conti­nue to promise high growth poten­tial for exam­ple in the areas of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and Big Data, Digi­tal Health and Precis­ion Medi­cine as well as Connec­ti­vity and Consu­mer Beha­vior”, says Dr. Odefey of BPE Fund Inves­tors. “As a succes­sor solu­tion for our fund of funds busi­ness, we are convin­ced that the Hamburg-based family office will, in the long term, further tap the great poten­tial of the U.S. venture capi­tal indus­try for German inves­tors, as seen by BPE Fund Inves­tors,” said Dr. Andreas Odefey of BPE Fund Investors.

Arne Fieder­ling joins the team of Lennertz & Co. as Mana­ging Direc­tor of BPE Fund Inves­tors. He will both ensure conti­nuity in the manage­ment of BPE’s exis­ting funds and work toge­ther with a compe­tent team at Lennertz & Co. on the further deve­lo­p­ment of the fund of funds concept. Like Arne Fieder­ling, the team members at Lennertz & Co. also look back on many years of venture capi­tal and private equity expe­ri­ence and have worked for Bain Capi­tal, BC Part­ners, Gold­man Sachs, McKin­sey and Swift Capi­tal, among others.

“With the inte­gra­tion of BPE Fund Inves­tors, we have succee­ded in speci­fi­cally expan­ding our alre­ady exis­ting plat­form for “alter­na­tive invest­ments” for our clients,” says Phil­ipp Lennertz (photo). Accor­din­gly, the Family Office crea­ted the Lennertz & Co. US Venture and Growth Fund I for its clients a few weeks ago. The port­fo­lio of this fund of funds shall consist of at least 70% U.S. early stage and growth capi­tal funds. In addi­tion, a maxi­mum of 30% of the fund volume is to be allo­ca­ted to direct and co-invest­ments. In addi­tion, it is charac­te­ri­zed by strong diver­si­fi­ca­tion through the selec­tion of seve­ral funds, resul­ting in parti­ci­pa­tion in more than 100 port­fo­lio compa­nies. The product’s target funds include well-known names such as Andre­es­sen Horo­witz, First­Mark, Insight Part­ners, Klei­ner Perkins and NEA.

In addi­tion to being able to invest in the major U.S. venture capi­tal funds, clients can also take expo­sures to Euro­pean venture capi­tal funds. In addi­tion, clients can parti­ci­pate in Lennertz & Co.’s Family Equity Fund, which provi­des direct and indi­rect invest­ments in German and Euro­pean small- and mid-cap compa­nies. The plat­form is comple­ted by the possi­bi­lity to make pre-IPO invest­ments. In the recent past, Lennertz & Co. inves­ted for its clients in compa­nies such as Pinte­rest, Airbnb, 23andMe and Meituan.

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 situa­tion is conside­red 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 clients’ perso­nal prefe­ren­ces. 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.

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Munich / Rein­bek — P+P Pöllath + Part­ners has advi­sed Derm­a­ph­arm Holding SE on the acqui­si­tion of Aller­g­o­pharma GmbH & Co KG, a subsi­diary of Merck KGaA, based in Rein­bek near Hamburg. Through Derm­a­ph­arm Betei­li­gungs GmbH, the company acqui­res 100% of the shares in the Merck subsidiary.

The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant regu­la­tory autho­rity; closing is expec­ted by the end of the second quar­ter of 2020.

Derm­a­ph­arm Holding SE, head­quar­te­red in Grün­wald, Germany, focu­ses on the produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of high-quality derma­to­lo­gi­cal and aller­go­lo­gi­cal phar­maceu­ti­cals. Aller­g­o­pharma is a company specia­li­zed in desen­si­tiza­tion for allergies.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Derm­a­ph­arm Holding SE in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion with the follo­wing multi­di­sci­pli­nary and multi­site team:

Dr. Matthias Bruse, LL.M., Photo (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Dr. Matthias Werner (Coun­sel, Real Estate, Berlin)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, IP/M&A, Frankfurt)
Jasmin Wagner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich)
Dr. Jesko von Mirbach, LL.M., EMBA (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Berlin)
Dr. Lena Hummel (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich)

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Wall­dorf / Munich — GSK Stock­mann has provi­ded legal advice to MP Musik­han­del GmbH & Co KG, a Wall­dorf-based company of the Session Group, on the acqui­si­tion of the opera­tio­nal busi­ness of Musik Produk­tiv GmbH & Co KG in Ibben­bü­ren. The seller is the private equity company Part­ner­Fonds AG from Munich.

For over 45 years and with over 70 employees, Musik Produk­tiv has been a leading trading company in the specia­list music trade, opera­ting nati­on­wide in both the statio­nary and the growing online and mail order business.

With its brick-and-mortar stores as well as its constantly growing online store, the Session Group is one of the largest compa­nies in the music retail sector in Germany.

GSK Stock­mann advi­sed the buyer with a team led by Dr. Markus Söhn­chen on all M&A rele­vant legal issues. GSK Stockmann’s M&A team has regu­larly acted on various retail and online tran­sac­tions in the past and ther­e­fore has exten­sive retail expertise.

Advi­sors to MP Musik­han­del GmbH & Co KG: GSK Stockmann
Dr. Markus Söhn­chen, Photo (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Phil­ipp Kuhn (Labor Law), Sascha Zentis (Real Estate), Dr. Raoul Kreide (Corporate/M&A), Domi­nik Berka (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Inga Henrich, Lieor Koblenz (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Martin Hossen­fel­der (IP/IT).

News

Munich — Munich-based early-stage inves­tor yabeo Impact has made an invest­ment in Wega­tech. yabeo is expan­ding its impact inves­t­ing busi­ness with its latest invest­ment in Wega­tech. The new invest­ment plat­form yabeo Impact focu­ses exclu­si­vely on compa­nies with a soci­ally or envi­ron­men­tally rele­vant focus and is aiming for an invest­ment volume of around 50 million euros for the Alter­na­tive Invest­ment Fund. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed yabeoImpact on the transaction.

yabeo Impact’s invest­ment stra­tegy is aligned with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goals (SDGs). The focus here is on Clean­Tech, Agri­cul­tur­eTech and Food­Tech on the envi­ron­men­tal impact side, and on inclu­sion and educa­tion on the social impact side.

Wega­tech, based in Munich, Germany, plans and installs sustainable energy tech­no­logy for private house­holds, combi­ning photo­vol­taic systems, elec­tri­city storage, e‑charging columns and elec­tri­city-powered heat pump heating systems. Since its foun­ding, Wega­tech custo­mers have been able to save more than five million tons of CO2 and produce over 13.3 giga­watts of green elec­tri­city to date.

Advi­sor yabeo Impact: P+P Pöllath + Partners
— Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
— Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
— Markus Döll­ner (Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)

News

Grün­wald near Munich / London — The invest­ment specia­lists SOLUTIO, Grün­wald near Munich, and Pantheon, London, have successfully closed their first joint private debt secon­dary fund. SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Debt I invests in funds that pool private corpo­rate loans (private debt). This is the world’s first invest­ment program with this focus that we know of. The final closing took place in Febru­ary 2020 above the plan­ned hard cap target volume of EUR 250 million.

Between 75 and 85 percent of the funds raised will be used for senior loans (senior debt), inclu­ding unitran­che, and between 15 and 25 percent for subor­di­na­ted / other debt. The main focus is on loans for compa­nies held by private equity compa­nies (“corpo­rate spon­so­red deals”). In the past, these have mostly repor­ted low default rates.

SOLUTIO AG and Pantheon (UK) LLP operate the fund as part­ners in a joint venture. Pantheon is one of the leading fund of funds mana­gers with a global presence (Ameri­cas, Europe, Asia) and mana­ges $47 billion in client assets under manage­ment. The company has over 35 years of expe­ri­ence in private finan­cial markets.

“What makes the invest­ment approach special is that we get a clear infor­ma­tion advan­tage by acces­sing Pantheon’s invest­ment plat­form,” said SOLUTIO CEO Robert Massing (photo). “We gain insight into Pantheon’s exten­sive primary invest­ments in private equity, allo­wing us to best explore oppor­tu­ni­ties in the secon­dary private debt space.”

“Private debt is beco­ming incre­asingly popu­lar as an alter­na­tive asset class and is no longer a niche product. This is also shown by the growing secon­dary market in this segment,” said Ralph Günther, Part­ner and Head of DACH Region at Pantheon. Invest­ments in the secon­dary market are gene­rally less risky than in the primary market, as defaults and impairm­ents have alre­ady been facto­red into the valua­tion. “Such more secu­rity-orien­ted tran­sac­tions have a place in a well-diver­si­fied port­fo­lio.” Pantheon has inves­ted more than 1.5 billion euros in credit-orien­ted funds since 1997.

SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Debt I invests in medium-sized compa­nies (mid market) prima­rily in Europe and North America.

About SOLUTIO AG
SOLUTIO AG, foun­ded in Munich in 1998, deve­lops inno­va­tive invest­ment concepts espe­ci­ally for the needs of German and Austrian insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in the field of real assets. SOLUTIO initia­tes invest­ment concepts exclu­si­vely toge­ther with mana­gers who have a proven track record of above-average success. The company itself also parti­ci­pa­tes in all invest­ment concepts. Over the past two deca­des, SOLUTIO AG and its joint venture part­ners have laun­ched a total of 16 invest­ment programs in the asset clas­ses of private equity, infra­struc­ture and private debt with a total volume of over 4.7 billion euros.

News

Munich — Hörmann Digi­tal Betei­li­gungs GmbH, a Hörmann KG company mana­ged by Thomas Martin and Chris­toph Hörmann, has acqui­red a signi­fi­cant stake in the listed company ORBIS AG. In addi­tion, Hörmann Digi­tal Betei­li­gungs GmbH has acqui­red the right to expand its share­hol­ding in the future.

In a first step, Hörmann Digi­tal Betei­li­gungs GmbH acqui­red a total of appro­xi­m­ately 23% of the shares of ORBIS AG from seve­ral share­hol­ders and at the same time fully subscri­bed to a cash capi­tal increase of ORBIS AG, which was issued under exclu­sion of share­hol­ders’ subscrip­tion rights. This results in a total share­hol­ding of around 28%. The Hörmann Group and ORBIS AG have also signed a coope­ra­tion agree­ment for the expan­sion of exis­ting busi­ness rela­ti­onships in the field of digi­tiza­tion. — The share purcha­ses are curr­ently still subject to appr­oval by the German and Austrian anti­trust authorities.

Further­more, Hörmann Digi­tal Betei­li­gungs GmbH has obtai­ned the right from the curr­ently largest share­hol­der of ORBIS AG, GMV AG, to acquire the latter’s remai­ning shares in ORBIS AG, around 15%, in the future, thus incre­asing its share­hol­ding to a total of 43%.

In the course of the tran­sac­tion, Hörmann Digi­tal Betei­li­gungs GmbH was advi­sed by a specia­li­zed team of Rödl & Part­ner with regard to legal issues concer­ning the acqui­si­tion of the share­hol­dings and capi­tal market obli­ga­ti­ons. Part­ner Dr. Oliver Schmitt (Munich) led the compre­hen­sive legal (purchase) contract draf­ting and nego­tia­tion support from the initial discus­sions to the signing of the contract, assis­ted in the tran­sac­tion prepa­ra­tion and coor­di­na­tion and advi­sed on all capi­tal market law issues.

About Hörmann Digi­tal Betei­li­gungs GmbH
Hörmann Digi­tal Betei­li­gungs GmbH is a company of the Hörmann Group based in Stein­ha­gen, West­pha­lia, an owner-mana­ged, world-leading manu­fac­tu­rer of doors, gates, windows and frames.

About ORBIS AG
ORBIS AG is a leading IT consul­ting company in support­ing the digi­ta­liza­tion of busi­ness proces­ses of medium-sized compa­nies as well as inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons. As a listed company, the Company’s shares are admit­ted to trading on the regu­la­ted market (Gene­ral Standard).

Consul­tant Hörmann: RÖDL & PARTNER
Dr. Oliver Schmitt, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A, Capi­tal Markets), Munich, over­all coordination
Mario Schulz, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Corporate/M&A, Capi­tal Markets), Munich — Legal
Tobias Reiter, Senior Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A, Capi­tal Markets), Munich — Legal
Elisa­beth Schmidt, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A, Capi­tal Markets), Munich — Legal
Juliane Krafft, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A, Capi­tal Markets), Munich — Legal

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal private equity inves­tor Bridge­point acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Phar­ma­Zell from DPE Deut­sche Private Equity and Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Phar­ma­Zell is a leading inde­pen­dent manu­fac­tu­rer of Active Phar­maceu­ti­cal Ingre­di­ents (API) in the highly stable and specia­li­zed API market. There, the company has a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of more than 70 active ingre­di­ents and is an indus­try leader in a full range of products for the treat­ment of respi­ra­tory, inflamm­a­tory and liver dise­a­ses driven by life­style chan­ges. Many of the company’s products require special treat­ment proces­ses and/or tech­no­lo­gies. Phar­ma­Zell, head­quar­te­red in Raub­ling (near Munich), opera­tes four state-of-the-art produc­tion and R&D sites in Germany, Italy and India and employs over 900 people worldwide.

Bridge­point mana­ges more than €29 billion in assets provi­ded by global inves­tors. These include public and private pension funds, asset mana­gers, family offices, inde­pen­dent autho­ri­ties and insu­rance compa­nies around the world.

Advi­sors Phar­ma­Zell: P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the manage­ment around CEO Oliver Bolzern.
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, MPP, M&A/Private Equity)
Dr. Roman Sten­zel (Coun­sel, MPP, M&A/Private Equity)
Silke Bande­ner (Asso­ciate, MPP, M&A/Private Equity, all Munich)

News

Munich — In the sale of its medi­cal divi­sion to the Texas medi­cal device manu­fac­tu­rer Ortho­fix Medi­cal Inc. WITTENSTEIN SE was advi­sed by Rödl & Part­ner. Ortho­fix Medi­cal is thus taking over the FITBONE® and FITSPINE® medi­cal product port­fo­lio of WITTENSTEIN subsi­diary WITTENSTEIN intens GmbH.

As a certi­fied supplier, WITTENSTEIN intens GmbH deve­lops, produ­ces and sells intel­li­gent implants for ortho­pae­dics and trau­ma­to­logy as well as controll­able mecha­tro­nic drive systems for medi­cal technology.

During a tran­si­tio­nal phase of appro­xi­m­ately two years, produc­tion will initi­ally remain at the current Igers­heim site and only sales will be hand­led centrally by Ortho­fix Medi­cal. The sale will not affect the employ­ment contracts of the affec­ted employees of WITTENSTEIN intens GmbH. — In addi­tion to respon­si­bi­lity for employees, WITTENSTEIN’s primary focus in the tran­sac­tion with Ortho­fix was to secure exis­ting rela­ti­onships with specia­list clinics and patients.

With the intro­duc­tion of the FITBONE® System, Ortho­fix Medi­cal beco­mes the only medi­cal device manu­fac­tu­rer in the ortho­pe­dic field to offer a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of inter­nal and exter­nal limb leng­thening solutions.

In the context of the tran­sac­tion, WITTENSTEIN was supported by a specia­li­zed and cross-disci­pli­nary tran­sac­tion team from Rödl & Part­ner as advi­sors on legal and tax tran­sac­tion issues.

About WITTENSTEIN
WITTENSTEIN SE, based in Igers­heim in the Main-Tauber district, stands for inno­va­tion, precis­ion and excel­lence in the world of mecha­tro­nic drive tech­no­logy, both natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally. The Group compri­ses six inno­va­tive busi­ness units, each with its own subsi­dia­ries: servo gear units, servo drive systems, medi­cal tech­no­logy, minia­ture servo units, inno­va­tive gear tech­no­logy, rotary and linear actua­tor systems, nano­tech­no­logy, and elec­tro­nic and soft­ware compon­ents for drive technology.

About Ortho­fix Medical
Ortho­fix Medi­cal is a global manu­fac­tu­rer of medi­cal devices, inclu­ding high-quality rege­ne­ra­tive and recon­s­truc­tive solu­ti­ons for ortho­pe­dic and spine surge­ons. Ortho­fix is head­quar­te­red in Lewis­ville, Texas, USA.

Advi­sors to WITTENSTEIN SE: Rödl & Partner
Dr. Oliver Schmitt, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A), Munich, Over­all Project Manage­ment — Legal
Michael Beder, Asso­ciate Part­ner, (Corporate/M&A), Munich — Legal
Clau­dia Geercken, Senior Asso­ciate, (Corporate/M&A), Munich — Legal
Dr. Dagmar Möller-Gosoge, Part­ner, (Tax Law), Munich — Tax
Simone Rupp, Asso­ciate Part­ner, (Tax Law), Munich — Tax

News

Vier­sen / Munich — As part of a succes­sion plan, funds advi­sed by Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal have acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the hidden cham­pion EA Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik. The goal of the long-term part­ner­ship is to conti­nue EA’s successful history and further growth. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed the banks on acqui­si­tion finan­cing of EA Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik by Bregal.

EA-Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik GmbH & Co KG is Germany’s leading manu­fac­tu­rer in labo­ra­tory power supply, high perfor­mance power supplies and elec­tro­nic loads. In 1974, Helmut Nolden foun­ded the company with the vision of deve­lo­ping highly quali­fied power supply systems for all appli­ca­ti­ons. Today, EA-Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik is a globally active, medium-sized company.

What began in 1974 in a base­ment work­shop with the first deve­lo­p­ment of fixed-voltage power supplies for the labo­ra­tory and hobby sector has quickly deve­lo­ped into one of the most sought-after suppli­ers of highly complex solu­ti­ons. Today, EA produ­ces on 10,000m² at its main site in Vier­sen, has subsi­dia­ries in China as well as in the USA and employs about 250 people. Foun­ded by Mana­ging Direc­tor Helmut Nolden, the company has been growing stron­gly for years, supp­ly­ing custo­mers in the indus­trial, alter­na­tive energy, elec­tro­che­mi­cal, process tech­no­logy and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors. EA devices for test­ing high-perfor­mance elec­tri­cal compon­ents also make an important contri­bu­tion to the global deve­lo­p­ment of electromobility.

EA opera­tes in a market that is expe­ri­en­cing high growth and bene­fiting from long-term macro trends such as incre­asing elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, rising connec­ti­vity (smart home, IoT and Indus­try 4.0), shorter product life cycles and grea­ter battery usage. Bregal comm­ents: “We are looking forward to working toge­ther in this promi­sing envi­ron­ment and expect EA to conti­nue on its path of sustainable success through its high level of inno­va­tion, excel­lent custo­mer rela­ti­onships and broad product diver­sity. Toge­ther with the manage­ment and employees, we also want to open up new growth paths and future pros­pects, such as by further streng­thening EA’s presence in the USA and Asia, laun­ching new inno­va­tive products, and making further invest­ments in the Vier­sen site, inclu­ding a signi­fi­cant expan­sion of produc­tion capacity.”

Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed a consor­tium of banks led by Commerz­bank on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in EA Elek­tro-Auto­ma­tik, a leading supplier of power elec­tro­nics, by Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal advi­sed funds as part of a succes­sion plan.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team led by part­ner Winfried M. Carli (Germany-Finance) included Sven Opper­mann (Germany‑M&A/Finance).

About Bregal Entre­pre­neu­rial Capital
Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal curr­ently mana­ges around 2.5 billion euros (assets under manage­ment), of which 1.2 billion euros are available for new invest­ments. — Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal is part of a family busi­ness that has grown over gene­ra­ti­ons. The focus is on majo­rity or mino­rity share­hol­dings, prima­rily in medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. These invest­ments are inde­pen­dent of deve­lo­p­ments on the finan­cial markets. With pati­ent capi­tal, an entre­pre­neu­rial approach and a spirit of part­ner­ship, we can focus on the success of our invest­ments and help them create sustainable value. Parti­cu­larly important are finan­cial stabi­lity, a high degree of flexi­bi­lity, short decis­ion-making paths and a high degree of entre­pre­neu­rial free­dom for the companies.

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 24 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. 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

Coll­ec­tia is a provi­der of debt coll­ec­tion and debt purchase services with more than 13,000 corpo­rate custo­mers in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany.

Munich, London, Brøndby — Euro­pean private equity firm Silver­fleet Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Coll­ec­tia A/S, a credit manage­ment service provi­der based in Brøndby, Denmark. Details of the tran­sac­tion will not be disclosed.

Coll­ec­tia was foun­ded in 1998 and today is a rapidly growing provi­der of debt coll­ec­tion and debt purchase services. Head­quar­te­red in Brøndby, the company opera­tes mainly in the Danish market and has also estab­lished a smal­ler market presence in Sweden, Norway and Germany. With more than 175 employees, Coll­ec­tia curr­ently hand­les more than 600,000 active cases for appro­xi­m­ately 13,000 corpo­rate clients.

Coll­ec­tia has a mature proprie­tary tech­no­logy plat­form as well as an exten­sive credit data­base and advan­ced data analy­tics capa­bi­li­ties. This makes Coll­ec­tia a clearly diffe­ren­tia­ted company with the poten­tial to gain addi­tio­nal market share in both exis­ting and new markets. In recent years, the company has diver­si­fied its service port­fo­lio: In addi­tion to its core busi­ness of debt coll­ec­tion services, it has expan­ded its receiv­a­bles purcha­sing acti­vi­ties and laun­ched a new credit rating infor­ma­tion service in Denmark. Coll­ec­tia has also made seve­ral acqui­si­ti­ons to expand its presence in Scan­di­na­via and Germany.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has many years of expe­ri­ence in finan­cial services and focu­ses on lever­aging advan­ta­ge­ous macro dyna­mics. In Collectia’s case, incre­asing regu­la­tion in Denmark and across the EU is driving the outsour­cing of debt coll­ec­tion proces­ses to specia­li­zed service provi­ders; also, Coll­ec­tia expects that addi­tio­nal, new regu­la­tion in the coming years will lead to an incre­asing volume of problem loan and debtor port­fo­lios that banks and compa­nies will resell to specialists.

With the invest­ment from Silver­fleet, Coll­ec­tia intends to further acce­le­rate its growth course. The aim is to conti­nue to draw on the excel­lent tech­no­logy-based proces­ses in order to further deve­lop the Coll­ec­tion Solu­ti­ons area. The receiv­a­bles purcha­sing area is to be expan­ded, and the company’s inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion is to be further driven by targe­ted verti­cal niche acquisitions.

Mark Pias­e­cki (photo), Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal, says: “With Coll­ec­tia, we have gained a tech­no­lo­gi­cally savvy company with a core busi­ness in Denmark as a part­ner that offers many oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth on both a natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal level. We look forward to working closely with Collectia’s expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and to buil­ding on past succes­ses and reali­zing the company’s poten­tial together.”

Chris­tian la Cour Valen­tin, CEO of Coll­ec­tia, adds: “Silver­fleet Capi­tal shares our stra­te­gic vision for the future of Coll­ec­tia and under­stands where the parti­cu­lar strengths of our company lie. Toge­ther with its expe­ri­ence, capi­tal strength and network, the company is an ideal part­ner to expand our growth strategy.”

Coll­ec­tia marks the eleventh invest­ment for Silver­fleet Capi­tal from the current fund. The Silver­fleet port­fo­lio includes compa­nies from the UK, France, Bene­lux, Scan­di­na­via and Germany.

At Silver­fleet Capi­tal, Mark Pias­e­cki, Karl Eidem, Robert Knight, Johan Boork and Farhad Tatar were respon­si­ble for the current tran­sac­tion. The invest­ment company was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Houli­han Lokey (M&A), Deloitte (Debt, Commer­cial, Finan­cial & Tax), Bruun & Hjejle, Travers Smith and McFar­la­nes (all Legal), Rud Peder­sen (Regu­la­tory), BearingPoint(IT) and Quan­tum Data Analy­tics (Finan­cial). Debt finan­cing was provi­ded by Alcen­tra and Sydbank.

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years. The 32-strong invest­ment team works from Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Scan­di­na­via is one of the geogra­phi­cal target regi­ons for Silver­fleet Capi­tal; the company is parti­cu­larly active in Denmark. The invest­ment in Coll­ec­tia in 2020 marks Silver­fleet Capital’s fourth plat­form invest­ment in Denmark since 2013; other recent tran­sac­tions include the successful exits of Phase One in 2019 and Cimbria in 2016.

Ten invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a whole­sa­ler and retailer of women’s fashion head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a UK-based manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a provi­der of trai­ning programs based in the United King­dom; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, an escor­ted group tour and cruise opera­tor based in the United King­dom; 7days, a German supplier of medi­cal work­wear; Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe, CARE Fertility, a leading opera­tor of ferti­lity clinics in the United King­dom, and BOA Core­Dux, a leading desi­gner and manu­fac­tu­rer of custom, high-purity metal hoses for criti­cal indus­trial applications.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal also main­ta­ins an invest­ment team specia­li­zing in smal­ler middle-market compa­nies, which has alre­ady made two successful invest­ments: STAXS Conta­mi­na­tion Control Experts, a leading supplier of clean­room access­ories in the Bene­lux (comple­ted in Janu­ary 2019), and Micro­gen Finan­cial Systems, a leading provi­der of trust and fund admi­nis­tra­tion soft­ware for the trust and corpo­rate services industry.

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth by inves­t­ing in compa­nies in its core sectors that bene­fit from speci­fic, long-term trends. Silver­fleet supports these compa­nies in their future growth stra­te­gies. As part of these stra­te­gies, invest­ments are made in orga­nic growth drivers, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons or opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ment proces­ses. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €2.1 billion in 32 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods.

Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 30% of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 33% in the UK and Ireland, 18% in Scan­di­na­via, and 15% in France and the Bene­lux (includes an invest­ment sourced in Belgium and head­quar­te­red in the US).

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has a solid invest­ment track record. Most recently, Silver­fleet sold Phase One, a leading tech­no­logy company in the field of high-end digi­tal camera systems and for image proces­sing soft­ware (invest­ment multi­ple 4.6x); Ipes, a leading provi­der of outsour­cing services for Euro­pean private equity compa­nies (invest­ment multi­ple 3.7x); CCC, one of the leading BPO services provi­ders in Europe; and Cimbria, a Danish manu­fac­tu­rer of agri­cul­tu­ral equip­ment (invest­ment multi­ple cannot be disc­lo­sed for legal reasons); Kalle, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of arti­fi­cial sausage sticks (invest­ment multi­ple 3.5x); OFFICE, a UK-based foot­wear retailer (invest­ment multi­ple 3.4x); and Aesica, a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal CDMO company (invest­ment multi­ple 3.3x).

News

Kirk­caldy, Scotland/ Munich — Shear­man & Ster­ling has advi­sed Frost­krone Food Group (Frost­krone), a port­fo­lio company fund advi­sed by EMERAM, on the finan­cing of its add-on acqui­si­tion of Inno­vate Foods.

Inno­vate Foods, based in Kirk­caldy, Scot­land, manu­fac­tures frozen finger foods and snacks for the whole­sale, retail and food service markets. Foun­ded by Tony Dumbreck, the company is one of the leading finger food manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the UK.

EMERAM is an inde­pen­dent Munich-based invest­ment company for German-spea­king medium-sized compa­nies. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide capi­tal for the further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies with a fund volume of €400 million. EMERAM sees itself as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for compa­nies in the three areas of Consu­mer, Services and Tech­no­logy. — Shear­man & Ster­ling regu­larly advi­ses EMERAM on finan­cing transactions.

Advi­sor to EMERAM: Shear­man & Sterling
Part­ner Winfried M. Carli and Asso­ciate Andreas Breu (Germany-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 24 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. 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

Munich, Frank­furt a. Main — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance has advi­sed global finan­cial inves­tor KKR and Regge­borgh on the sale of tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons company Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser to EQT and OMERS. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the second quar­ter of 2020, subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory approvals.

Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser was foun­ded in 2011. In 2015, KKR acqui­red a majo­rity stake from Dutch inves­tor Regge­borgh. With KKR’s invest­ment, Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser has become the fastest growing provi­der of giga­bit Inter­net connec­tions via fiber-to-the-home (“FTTH”) in Germany. With the opera­tio­nal and finan­cial support of KKR, the company inves­ted over EUR 1.2 billion in fiber-optic infra­struc­ture and its roll-out in under­ser­ved rural and subur­ban commu­ni­ties in Germany. For exam­ple, Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser increased the number of fiber-optic connec­tions to more than 600,000 house­holds and 5,000 companies.

Accor­ding to plans by EQT and OMERS, Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser will be merged with EQT port­fo­lio company inexio to form a leading FTTH provi­der in rural Germany. EQT will hold 51 percent of the combi­ned group, while Cana­dian pension fund OMERS will own 49 percent.

Clif­ford Chance had alre­ady advi­sed KKR on its invest­ment in Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser in 2015. In addi­tion, a Clif­ford Chance team had recently advi­sed Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser on a 1.8 billion refi­nan­cing to further expand fiber infra­struc­ture in Germany.

Clif­ford Chance M&A Part­ner Markus Muhs said of the tran­sac­tion: “We are plea­sed to have advi­sed KKR throug­hout its invest­ment in Deut­sche Glas­fa­ser with a strong team of M&A, finan­cing and regu­la­tory experts. In this tran­sac­tion, we were once again able to contri­bute our indus­try exper­tise and many years of expe­ri­ence in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and tech­no­logy sector.”

The Clif­ford Chance team that advi­sed KKR and Regge­borgh on the sale was led by part­ners Markus Muhs (Munich) and Frede­rik Mühl (Frank­furt, both Corporate/Private Equity/M&A).

About Clif­ford Chance
Clif­ford Chance, one of the world’s leading law firms, is present for its clients with around 3,400 legal advi­sors in all major busi­ness centers around the world. — In Germany, Clif­ford Chance is repre­sen­ted by around 300 lawy­ers, audi­tors, tax advi­sors and soli­ci­tors in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

News

Munich/ London — Norton Rose Fulbrighthas advi­sed the foun­ding share­hol­ders of Munich-based multi­player tech­no­logy startup zeuz on the sale of their company to Impro­ba­ble Worlds Limited.

The Bava­rian startup was foun­ded in 2017 by Manuel Karg, Markus Schnei­der, Sebas­tian Reck­zeh and Roberto Omez­zolli and curr­ently employs 30 people. zeuz’s contai­ner-based approach to hosting and server orchestra­tion provi­des game deve­lo­pers with cost-effec­tive and effi­ci­ent solu­ti­ons, as well as flexi­bi­lity and scala­bi­lity without back-end issues. As part of Impro­ba­ble, zeuz will expand its cost-effec­tive hybrid cloud infra­struc­ture to address new markets and inte­grate its offe­ring with Improbable’s networ­king, co-deve­lo­p­ment and game deve­lo­p­ment businesses.

Impro­ba­ble is a multi­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy company head­quar­te­red in London that makes distri­bu­ted simu­la­tion soft­ware for video games and enter­prise appli­ca­ti­ons. Recently, the company has grown stron­gly through seve­ral acqui­si­ti­ons and also main­ta­ins its own studios in Canada, the USA and the UK. The core product is the multi­player tool SpatialOS.

The Norton Rose Fulbright was led by Munich part­ner Sebas­tian Frech (Corporate/M&A) and also included part­ners David Marshall (London), Dr. Tim Scha­per (Anti­trust), Dr. Uwe Eppler (Tax, both Hamburg) and Matthew Find­ley (Employee Bene­fits, London), coun­sels Dr. Nico­las Daamen (Corporate/M&A) and Dr. Frank Bayer (Tax), asso­cia­tes Sebas­tian Eisen­hut, Sebas­tian Köster, Thomas Widdows, Greg Brana­gan and Julia Gallin­ger, and tran­sac­tion specia­list Tobias Grans.

News

Stutt­gart — Flip, the Stutt­gart-based employee app, has successfully closed a seed finan­cing of 3.6 million euros. Foun­ded in 2018, the startup offers compa­nies a modern plat­form that connects and informs employees across all levels in a legally compli­ant manner. The 3.6 million euros in seed finan­cing will be used for product and team deve­lo­p­ment and expan­sion. Among the custo­mers are Porsche, Bauhaus and Edeka

Flip offers commu­ni­ca­tion at eye level
The employee app enables company-wide sharing and distri­bu­tion of infor­ma­tion to all employees, whether they work in the office, on the shop floor, in the warehouse, in the field, or part-time. The appli­ca­tion is based on a DSGVO-compli­ant data and employee protec­tion concept that was jointly vali­da­ted with experts and works coun­cils from seve­ral DAX compa­nies. Inte­gra­tion opti­ons for exis­ting IT infra­struc­ture allow seam­less connec­tion to exis­ting proces­ses. Flip thus comple­ments and supports exis­ting and future digi­tiza­tion projects in companies.

Capi­tal for new employees, growth and expansion
The main inves­tors LEA Part­ners and Cavalry Vent ures invest in the company toge­ther with Plug and Play Ventures and busi­ness angels such as Jürgen Hambrecht (Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board BASF), Prof. Dr. Kurt Lauk (Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board Magna Inter­na­tio­nal), Florian Buzin (Foun­der Star­face) and Andreas Burike (HR Busi­ness Angel). The capi­tal raised is to be inves­ted prima­rily in the expan­sion of the team and the deve­lo­p­ment of further markets.

Promi­nent custo­mer base
Since its launch in 2018, the young company has alre­ady been able to win seve­ral well-known compa­nies as custo­mers. Among them Porsche, Bauhaus, Edeka, Junge IG Metall, Wüsten­rot & Würt­tem­ber­gi­sche. Parts of the savings banks and Volks­banks are also among the custo­mer base of the Stutt­gart-based startup. Flip is also supported by strong inno­va­tive part­ners such as Deut­sche Telekom.

Flip foun­der and CEO, Bene­dikt Ilg, comm­ents, “Flip is the easiest solu­tion for inter­nal commu­ni­ca­tion in compa­nies of all sizes. We are proud of the deve­lo­p­ment of our company so far and see this invest­ment as a confir­ma­tion of our vision.” Bern­hard Janke from LEA Part­ners states: “As a young company, Flip was able to win well-known custo­mers. The lean solu­tion can be inte­gra­ted into exis­ting IT systems and exis­ting commu­ni­ca­tion proces­ses, even in large orga­niza­ti­ons. With the funding round, we want to further expand the team and product to support the foun­ders in their vision to make digi­tal work­force enga­ge­ment acces­si­ble to all companies.”

Claude Ritter of Cavalry Ventures says, “We believe Flip is setting new stan­dards in this fled­gling market with its safe, light­weight and highly capa­ble product.”

About Flip GmbH
Flip is the easiest, most effi­ci­ent and secure way to inform and connect employees. For this purpose, the company bund­les commu­ni­ca­tion, infor­ma­tion and proces­ses in an appli­ca­tion which not only convin­ces through DSGVO and works coun­cil confor­mity, but also through its simple and intui­tive usabi­lity. Flip can act as a mobile endpoint for the intra­net, giving desk­top and non-desk­top employees equal access to infor­ma­tion. Flip is successfully used by nume­rous custo­mers such as Porsche AG, Wüsten­rot & Würt­tem­ber­gi­sche, Edeka, Bauhaus or the young IG Metall. The company was star­ted in 2018 by Bene­dikt Ilg and Giacomo Kenner and curr­ently employs 30 people at its head­quar­ters in Stuttgart.

About LEA Partners
LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. Based in Karls­ruhe, one of the largest tech­no­logy clus­ters in Europe, LEA Part­ners has mana­ged invest­ments in nume­rous tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. With two invest­ment vehic­les for all company phases and a strong network of opera­tio­nal sector experts as well as stra­te­gic part­ners, LEA Part­ners can contri­bute substan­tial added value to the deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy companies.

News

Osnabrück/Rheine — The Osna­brück-based family equity company zwei.7 acqui­res a stake in the Ossen­berg Group. The Rheine-based company is the market leader for walking aids and fore­arm supports in Germany and, for its part, had taken over the second largest supplier in this market segment — Erwin Kowsky GmbH in Neumüns­ter — in the middle of last year.

The Ossen­berg Group is the leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of aids for the walking impai­red. The tradi­tio­nal company deve­lops, produ­ces and sells fore­arm walking aids, light metal canes and ortho­pe­dic aids. The medium-sized company, with around 100 employees, has been selling its products through specia­list dealers for around six deca­des — in recent years also very successfully worldwide.

Both compa­nies have agreed to further inten­sify the strong growth course of the past years in the future. Former share­hol­der Cars­ten Diek­mann will remain with the company as mana­ging part­ner. Frank Wieditz will leave the company in Febru­ary 2020. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial infor­ma­tion about the transaction.

For the Osna­brück-based two.7 family equity firm, this is the first successful acqui­si­tion in the Health­Care sector, since its foun­da­tion in spring 2018. Kars­ten Wulf (photo), co-owner of the buw Group for more than 30 years, had laun­ched the two.7 Group in Osna­brück after the successful sale of the call center (6,000 employees, sold to Conver­gys in 2016). The company’s goal is to actively invest in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies and, in doing so, to contri­bute Kars­ten Wulf’s deca­des of expe­ri­ence as a medium-sized entrepreneur.

“The Ossen­berg Group has pursued a convin­cing growth stra­tegy in recent years and, as a medium-sized company from Rheine, has built up a quality brand world­wide with its products in the mobi­lity indus­try. Toge­ther we want to conti­nue and expand this course,” says Kars­ten Wulf.

“We are glad to have found an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner in the zwei.7 Group. The expe­ri­ence of Kars­ten Wulf and his part­ner Olaf Bock as successful entre­pre­neurs from Lower Saxony will help us to master the next growth steps. From entre­pre­neur to entre­pre­neur, we discuss at eye level and speak the same language, says Cars­ten Diek­mann, who has mana­ged the Ossen­berg Group in Rheine since 2007.

The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by tax advi­sor / lawyer Dr. Klaus Stein from Osna­brück.

About two.7
The tzwei.7 group was foun­ded in 2018 by Kars­ten Wulf in Osna­brück. The family equity house invests in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies and takes entre­pre­neu­rial risks with equity capi­tal. The aim is to estab­lish and expand a Euro­pean health care clus­ter of small and medium-sized successful compa­nies. The invest­ment in the Ossen­berg Group is the first successfully comple­ted tran­sac­tion in the Health Care portfolio.

About Ossen­berg
The Ossen­berg Group is the leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of ortho­pe­dic aids for the walking impai­red. Foun­ded in 2007 in Rheine in eastern West­pha­lia, the tradi­tio­nal company now sells its products world­wide. Last summer, Ossen­berg took over its compe­ti­tor Erwin Kowsky from Neumüns­ter. The Ossen­berg Group employs around 100 people and repor­ted sales of €16.7 million in 2019.

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