Author: Tatjana Anderer

Müns­ter — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed US finan­cial inves­tor Tiger Global Manage­ment LLC on a multi-million venture capi­tal finan­cing for German start-up Flaschen­post, in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of a mino­rity stake in Flaschen­post. The Müns­ter-based company is recei­ving an invest­ment of €50 million from Tiger Global, which will be used in the first step for natio­nal growth and in the next for inter­na­tio­nal growth.

Bottle Post was foun­ded in 2016: via the company’s website, custo­mers can have drinks deli­vered within two hours. Flaschen­post opera­tes in eight German regi­ons and says it deli­vers up to 50,000 orders a week. Curr­ently, around 1,700 drivers, warehouse staff and office employees work for the company. In addi­tion to Tiger Global , other well-known venture capi­tal funds have inves­ted in Flaschen­post, inclu­ding Cherry Ventures and Vorwerk Ventures.

Tiger Global was foun­ded in New York City in 2001. The venture capi­tal and private equity inves­tor has one of its invest­ment focu­ses in the area of e‑commerce. Gleiss Lutz has regu­larly advi­sed Tiger Global on invest­ments in Germany for many years, such as Hitmeis­ter or Fein­tech­nik Eisfeld (Harry’s).

Advi­sor Tiger Global: Gleiss Lutz
Lead part­ners Dr. Jan Bals­sen (Part­ner, Private Equity) and Dr. Ralf Mors­häu­ser (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, both Munich)
Dr. Olaf Hohle­fel­der (Munich), Dr. Hilmar Hütten (Düssel­dorf), Florian Schorn, Stepha­nie Daus­in­ger (both Munich, all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Iris Bene­dikt-Bucken­leib (Coun­sel, Anti­trust, Munich), Dr. Timo Bühler (Finan­cing Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Stef­fen Krie­ger (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Eva Heup (Munich), Jose­fine Chakrab­arti (Berlin, all Labor Law), Dr. Chris­tian Hamann (Part­ner, Berlin, Data Protec­tion), Dr. Phil­ipp Naab (Coun­sel, Frank­furt, Real Estate), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner, Berlin), Dr. Manuel Klar (Munich), Dr. Matthias Schilde (Berlin, all IP/IT), Dr. Britta Kamp (Stutt­gart, Litigation).

Munich — Only a few months after the take­over by the Munich-based indus­trial holding ADCURAM, the MEA Group has reali­zed an important acqui­si­tion: With Adolf Schrei­ber GmbH (ASM) from Münsin­gen, a tradi­tion-rich specia­list supplier beco­mes part of the inter­na­tio­nal cons­truc­tion supplier head­quar­te­red in Aich­ach. The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been comple­ted; the parties have agreed not to disc­lose details.

ASM, the former Adolf Schrei­ber Metall­wa­ren­fa­brik, was foun­ded in 1872 and focu­sed on the produc­tion of high-quality gratings made of steel and stain­less steel more than 50 years ago. Nume­rous natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers from indus­try, plant engi­nee­ring and cons­truc­tion rely on the company’s expe­ri­ence and high quality stan­dards. ASM produ­ces gratings for them indi­vi­du­ally in diffe­rent sizes, mate­rial thic­k­nes­ses and mesh widths on modern equipment.

As a future part of the Metal Appli­ca­ti­ons busi­ness area, ASM comple­ments MEA’s port­fo­lio with further high-quality stain­less steel gratings and contri­bu­tes important auto­ma­ted manu­fac­tu­ring capa­ci­ties for MEA’s steadily growing order volume.

“With the acqui­si­tion, MEA can further tigh­ten stra­te­gic levers in terms of busi­ness expan­sion with exis­ting custo­mers, deve­lo­p­ment of addi­tio­nal market segments, streng­thening of the distri­bu­tion network as well as further tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment,” says Dr. Phil­ipp Gusinde (photo), CEO of ADCURAM Group AG and member of the advi­sory board at MEA. Tors­ten Wende, Mana­ging Direc­tor of MEA Metal Appli­ca­ti­ons adds: “We plan to expand ASM’s company site in Münsin­gen, Swabia, into a compe­tence center for all of MEA’s high-quality stain­less steel produc­tion. We are very plea­sed to welcome ASM to the MEA Group.” ADCURAM had acqui­red the family-owned company, foun­ded in 1886, in the summer of 2018 and has since been imple­men­ting an ambi­tious stra­tegy for further growth and expan­sion. MEA employs around 700 people and, as one of the leading suppli­ers to the cons­truc­tion indus­try, manu­fac­tures not only special gratings but also, among other things, light wells, windows and drai­nage systems.

About ADCURAM
ADCURAM is a priva­tely owned indus­trial group. ADCURAM acqui­res compa­nies with poten­tial and deve­lops them actively and sustain­ably. For the future growth of the Group, the capi­tal-strong indus­trial holding company has a total of 300 million euros available for acqui­si­ti­ons. With the help of its own 40-strong team of experts, the indus­trial holding company conti­nues to deve­lop the port­fo­lio compa­nies stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally. Toge­ther, the group gene­ra­tes nearly 500 million euros in sales world­wide (2017) with six holdings and over 2,500 employees.

ADCURAM sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial inves­tor and invests in succes­sion plans and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.adcuram.com

About MEA
The MEA Group is an inter­na­tio­nal group of compa­nies with over 130 years of expe­ri­ence in the market, world­wide acti­vi­ties and produc­tion sites in France, the Czech Repu­blic, Roma­nia and China. Inno­va­tive products and solu­ti­ons make the MEA Group one of the leading suppli­ers to the cons­truc­tion indus­try. MEA offers its custo­mers a wide range of products for base­ment cons­truc­tion and drai­nage appli­ca­ti­ons as well as a compre­hen­sive range of gratings. The motto: “BUILDING SUCCESS”. MEA solu­ti­ons make cons­truc­tion profes­sio­nals’ jobs easier, faster and safer, helping them achieve real produc­ti­vity gains.
www.mea-group.com

Berlin | Munich | Paris | Tokyo — ubitri­city Gesell­schaft für verteilte Ener­gie­sys­teme mbH recei­ves €20 million in a new finan­cing round that will enable the company to acce­le­rate growth and further deve­lop its mobile meter­ing tech­no­logy. The invest­ment was made by exis­ting share­hol­ders EDF and Next47 (Siemens’ venture capi­tal subsi­diary) and by Honda Motor Company as a new partner.

ubitri­city has deve­lo­ped a unique smart char­ging and billing solu­tion for smart AC char­ging of elec­tric vehic­les in public and private spaces. With mobile meter­ing tech­no­logy, muni­ci­pa­li­ties, property owners, fleet and fuel card opera­tors, and end users can bene­fit from signi­fi­cantly lower char­ging infra­struc­ture costs as well as free choice of energy provi­der and kilo­watt-hour accu­rate billing.

The new funding is inten­ded to acce­le­rate the expan­sion of char­ging infra­struc­ture, parti­cu­larly lantern char­ging points and char­ging points in real estate deve­lo­p­ments in the UK, Germany, France and the US. In paral­lel, the tech­no­logy will be further deve­lo­ped for the mass market expec­ted from 2020 and the condi­ti­ons for services across the entire spec­trum of V1G and V2G will be created.

“With Honda Motors, we have another strong part­ner on board who shares our vision of a smart elec­tric vehicle that brings the neces­sary tech­no­logy for char­ging and char­ging clean elec­tri­city and for smart char­ging services,” says Dr. Frank Pawlit­schek, CEO and Co-Foun­der of ubitri­city.

The company has made signi­fi­cant progress in deve­lo­ping its mobile meter­ing tech­no­logy, market presence and market access, e.g. in London. In addi­tion, ubitri­city is driving forward the instal­la­tion of char­ging stati­ons in cities as part of the German “Imme­diate Clean Air Program”, with more than 3,000 char­ging points to be instal­led in Berlin, Hamburg and Dort­mund. Success in the highly compe­ti­tive NYCx Climate Action Chall­enge, which is expec­ted to lead to a pilot project in New York, has further confirmed the global inte­rest in the company’s products and tech­no­lo­gies. “We are now putting char­ging points right at people’s door­s­teps — where milli­ons of Euro­peans park their vehic­les today, and at a time when more and more elec­tric vehic­les are being sold,” says Knut Hecht­fi­scher, co-foun­der of ubitricity.

The new capi­tal and the share increase by EDF and Siemens again empha­size the importance of ubitri­city as a key pillar in the elec­tro­mo­bi­lity stra­te­gies of both companies.

Last Octo­ber, the EDF Group unvei­led its elec­tric mobi­lity plan to become the leading energy company in its four largest Euro­pean markets: France, the UK, Italy and Belgium.

In addi­tion, Citelum (100% subsi­diary of the EDF Group) and ubitri­city are working toge­ther to inte­grate ubitricity’s inno­va­tive solu­tion into Citelum’s “Smart City” product line.

About ubitri­city — Gesell­schaft für verteilte Ener­gie­sys­teme mbH
Afforda­ble smart char­ging infra­struc­ture for elec­tric cars where­ver they are parked for longer peri­ods of time was the goal of Knut Hecht­fi­scher and Dr. Frank Pawlit­schek when they foun­ded ubitri­city in 2008. Today, the company is one of the leading provi­ders of intel­li­gent solu­ti­ons for char­ging and billing elec­tric cars. ubitri­city combi­nes tech­ni­cal know-how, such as the deve­lo­p­ment of the mobile elec­tri­city meter, with the possi­bi­li­ties of digi­ta­liza­tion. The result is tech­ni­cally simpli­fied and thus less expen­sive char­ging points that enable the nati­on­wide expan­sion of the char­ging infra­struc­ture. This approach solves the chall­enge of vehicle-speci­fic billing. In the future, the mobile elec­tri­city meter will also enable the grid inte­gra­tion of e‑vehicles as addressa­ble mobile storage devices. Elec­tric cars become mana­geable as part of a distri­bu­ted and mobile storage network and can thus make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the energy tran­si­tion. www.ubitricity.com

Munich — With retroac­tive effect from Decem­ber 31, 2018, Munich-based invest­ment company ASC Invest­ment Sarl (“ASC”) is acqui­ring Canon Germany’s prin­ting services busi­ness with over 300 employees. In the course of concen­t­ra­ting on its core busi­ness (sales of prin­ting systems and solu­ti­ons), Canon Germany had commis­sio­ned Bryan Garnier ’s German team to find a buyer with expe­ri­ence in the indus­try who would syste­ma­ti­cally deve­lop the prin­ting services and value-added services busi­ness. ASC Invest­ment Sarl was advi­sed by Reed Smith.

Canon Deutsch­land Busi­ness Services GmbH (CBS) is a prin­ting and docu­ment manage­ment service provi­der with 45 loca­ti­ons across Germany, whose custo­mers include well-known finan­cial service provi­ders, univer­si­ties and the German govern­ment. Canon acqui­red this busi­ness unit as part of the take­over of Dutch compe­ti­tor Océ in 2010. CBS has tradi­tio­nally focu­sed on provi­ding on-premise and tran­sac­tional prin­ting services, but is incre­asingly moving into the docu­ment outsour­cing space by selling value-added services such as scan­ning and digi­tiza­tion, docu­ment manage­ment and archi­ving, and design services. Last but not least, this area is to be further expan­ded with the support of the new owner.

About ASC
ASC is an invest­ment company with offices in Luxem­bourg and Munich and a focus on carve-out tran­sac­tions (corpo­rate spin-offs) in Europe. ASC Invest­ment is backed by fami­lies and entre­pre­neurs and specia­li­zes in putting non-core divi­si­ons of inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons on their own feet. The focus is always on deve­lo­ping a long-term stra­tegy for the future. ASC makes use of an exten­sive network of entre­pre­neurs, mana­gers and specia­lists from the rele­vant indus­tries for busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment. In recent years, ASC has successfully comple­ted four simi­lar tran­sac­tions and will provide CBS with a strong team of experts with indus­try experience.

Advi­sor ASC: Reed Smith
The Reed Smith team was led by Global Corpo­rate Group Florian Hirsch­mann, photo (Part­ner), Silvio McMi­ken, Tobias Schulz (all M&A/Corporate) and Thomas Gierath (Tax/ Partner).

Advi­sors to Canon:Bryan, Garnier & Co 
Bryan, Garnier & Co acted as Canon’s exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor, setting up a bidding process that included both private equity and stra­te­gic pros­pec­tive buyers. Bryan Garnier has advi­sed on nume­rous tran­sac­tions in the busi­ness services sector, inclu­ding, for exam­ple, the sale of Xerox Rese­arch Center Europe to Naver, the sale of Conduent’s parking services busi­ness to Andera Part­ners and the acqui­si­tion of Danish Woon­z­org­net by care services provi­der Orpea.

Munich — GS Star Hotels, a port­fo­lio company of private equity inves­tor Auctus ( photo: foun­ding part­ner Ingo Krocke) acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Rilano Holding GmbH. With this tran­sac­tion, GS Star Group is consis­t­ently imple­men­ting its growth concept and expan­ding its range of hotels in Germany and Austria. With the acqui­si­tion, GS Star Group grows to a plan­ned sales volume for 2019 of more than 100 million euros.

The Rilano Group opera­tes hotels throug­hout Germany and Austria under the brands The Rilano Hotel, Rilano 24|7 and Rilano Resorts. In total, the Rilano Group’s current hotel port­fo­lio includes eight hotels alre­ady in opera­tion and one under cons­truc­tion. In addi­tion, further hotels are being planned.

The port­fo­lio of the GS Star Group, which also includes Gorge­ous Smiling GmbH, curr­ently compri­ses 79 hotels in Germany, Austria and the Nether­lands. On the one hand, it acts as a fran­chise part­ner for global play­ers such as Inter­con­ti­nen­tal, Hilton or Wynd­ham, and on the other hand, it also opera­tes hotels under its own brand Artho­tel Ana.

By 2020, GS Star Group plans to operate around 100 hotels under manage­ment, making it the fastest growing German hotel group. There are curr­ently also expan­sion plans for other Euro­pean count­ries such as Switz­er­land and the United Kingdom.

Boris Dürr’s team regu­larly advi­ses Auctus on tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding its first entry into the hotel indus­try through the acqui­si­tion of GS Star Group in 2018.

Advi­sor to Auctus: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Boris Dürr, Dr. Oliver Trep­tow (both M&A/Corporate, both lead)
Dr. Arnold Büsse­ma­ker (Finan­cing)
Stef­fen Wilberg (Real Estate)
Peter M. Schäff­ler (Taxes)
Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (Corpo­rate /M&A), all Munich
Dr. Holger Lüders (Labor Law), Düsseldorf

Frank­furt — Advent Inter­na­tio­nal (“Advent”), one of the world’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced private equity firms, has announ­ced that it has signed a binding agree­ment to acquire the methacry­la­tes busi­ness of Evonik Indus­tries AG (“Evonik”) for €3 billion.

The tran­sac­tion compri­ses Evonik’s Methacry­la­tes, Acrylic Products, CyPlus and Methacry­late Resins Busi­ness Lines. The Group’s products include strong brands such as PLEXIGLAS® and are used in diverse end markets, inclu­ding the paints and coatings indus­try, cons­truc­tion, the auto­mo­tive indus­try and health­care. With around 3,900 employees at a total of 18 sites in Germany, North America and Asia, the Verbund gene­ra­ted sales of around 2 billion euros in 2018.

“Evonik’s methacry­la­tes busi­ness is an impres­sive tech­no­logy plat­form with an estab­lished market posi­tion and very attrac­tive growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. We look forward to working with the skil­led employees and manage­ment to estab­lish the Verbund as an inde­pen­dent global market leader in the future,” said Ronald Ayles (photo), mana­ging part­ner and head of the global chemi­cal indus­try prac­tice at Advent International.

With more than 30 successfully execu­ted tran­sac­tions in over three deca­des, Advent is one of the world’s most expe­ri­en­ced private equity inves­tors in the chemi­cal indus­try. Advent invests in well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with high opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic poten­tial. Toge­ther with the manage­ment teams of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and a strong global network of sector teams, exter­nal indus­try experts and opera­tio­nal part­ners, Advent crea­tes sustainable value through reve­nue and earnings growth. Advent also has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the spin-off of complex busi­ness units of large indus­trial companies.

With this exper­tise, Advent will work in part­ner­ship with manage­ment to help estab­lish the methacry­la­tes busi­ness as a strong stand-alone company. As with all its invest­ments, Advent is pursuing a long-term growth approach. Advent’s stra­tegy is to invest heavily in people, tech­no­logy and sites to deve­lop the divi­sion into a global market leader in methacry­la­tes. Advent sees addi­tio­nal poten­tial to further improve its alre­ady estab­lished market posi­ti­ons through invest­ment and expansion.

Advent has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in working with employee-owned German indus­trial compa­nies and atta­ches great importance to close coope­ra­tion with employee repre­sen­ta­ti­ves. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the third quar­ter of 2019, subject to custo­mary tran­sac­tion condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory approvals.

About Advent International
Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion (“Advent”) was foun­ded in 1984 and is one of the world’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment compa­nies. The company has comple­ted over 340 tran­sac­tions in 41 count­ries and mana­ges assets of appro­xi­m­ately €34 billion (as of Septem­ber 30, 2018).

Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH was foun­ded in Germany in 1991 and advi­ses Advent with its Frank­furt-based team of consul­tants. Advent is also one of the leading private equity compa­nies in Germany and has been inves­t­ing in Euro­pean compa­nies since 1990. Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH has advi­sed on invest­ments in 30 compa­nies to date. Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH’s consul­ting focus is on the follo­wing core sectors: chemi­cals and indus­try, finan­cial services and busi­ness services, health­care, retail, consu­mer goods and leisure indus­try, and media and telecommunications.

Advent has successfully inves­ted in the chemi­cal indus­try in recent years. In Germany, examp­les include allnex, a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of synthe­tic resins for the paint and coatings indus­try, and Oxea, a leading supplier of oxo alco­hols and oxo deri­va­ti­ves. In Latin America, Advent also holds stakes in VIAKEM, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of fine chemi­cals, and GTM, a trans­na­tio­nal distri­bu­tor of chemi­cal raw materials.

Frank­furt a. M. — Luxem­bourg-based Lavorel Medi­care S.A. has sold its holding company Lavorel Medi­care Deutsch­land GmbH, owner of the Herford-based Boni­tas Group, to a company of Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion. A team from Luther Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal support for the transaction.

The Boni­tas Group is one of the largest private nursing services in Germany. The 2018 market leader specia­li­zes in the field of criti­cal care and home respi­ra­tion. The company employs almost 4,500 people and, in addi­tion to provi­ding outpa­ti­ent care, opera­tes assis­ted living commu­ni­ties for seni­ors. Boni­tas Holding now opera­tes 50 nursing services, 44 resi­den­tial groups, 6 assis­ted living faci­li­ties, 2 day care faci­li­ties and 1 nursing home.

The Boni­tas Group with its more than thirty subsi­dia­ries belon­ged to the Luxem­bourg-based Lavorel Group. The latter entrus­ted the Luther team led by part­ner Dr. Oliver Kairies with the mandate, which, toge­ther with Luther’s Luxem­bourg office, provi­ded legal advice to the seller during the pre-struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion, the imple­men­ta­tion of the struc­tu­red bidding process, the purchase agree­ment nego­tia­ti­ons and the subse­quent anti­trust proceedings.

Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion with its port­fo­lio company Deut­sche Fach­pflege-Gruppe finally prevai­led as the bidder.

For Lavorel Medi­care S.A.: Luther
Corpo­rate / M&A: Dr. Oliver Kairies (lead), Dr. Thomas Halber­kamp, Dr. Thomas Kuhnle, Jens Röhr­bein, Dr. Sebas­tian Rabe, Dr. Daniel Schub­mann, Dr. Karina Wojto­wicz, Stefan Tolksdorf
Luther, Medi­cal Law / Regu­la­tory: Dr. Hendrik Sehy, Fran­ces Wolf
Luther, Real Estate: Achim Meier, Katha­rina von Hermanni, Irene Nezer-Kasch, Chris­tiane Struppek
Luther, Commer­cial: Jens-Uwe Heuer-James, Dr. Kuuya Chibanguza
Luther, IP / IT: Dr. Kay Oelschlä­gel, Dr. Chris­tian Rabe
Luther, Labor Law: Prof. Dr. Robert von Steinau-Stein­rück, Dr. Hilmar Rölz
Luther, Anti­trust Law: Dr. Helmut Jans­sen, LL.M.
Luther Luxem­bourg: Eric Sublon, Marie Sinni­ger, Michaela Ludowicy

Frank­furt a. M. / Munich — The US private equity inves­tor KKR is taking over Tele München Gruppe (TMG). Accor­din­gly, the US finan­cial inves­tor is buying TMG from the well-known media entre­pre­neur Herbert Kloi­ber, who owned the company for 42 years. Follo­wing appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties, the deal is expec­ted to be comple­ted in April. TMG was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Wirsing Hass Zoller (Legal), and Klee­berg & Part­ner (Tax).

KKR made the invest­ment from Euro­pean Fund IV. A KKR spokes­man did not want to comment on the purchase price or other tran­sac­tion details in response to a FINANCE inquiry. Accor­ding to the company’s own figu­res, TMG most recently gene­ra­ted total opera­ting perfor­mance of 520 million euros with around 1,800 employees. Foun­ded in 1977, the Group produ­ces films, trades in broad­cas­ting licen­ses and holds stakes in TV stati­ons RTL II and Tele 5, among others.

There will be chan­ges in the manage­ment of TMG as a result of the take­over by KKR. Thus, the new owner makes the former CEO of Constan­tin Medien, Fred Kogel, the new Mana­ging Direc­tor. Accor­ding to a press release from TMG, howe­ver, Kloi­ber junior will also remain the mana­ging direc­tor of the “core compa­nies”. Herbert G. Kloi­ber is to serve as a member of an advi­sory board, and will also remain a member of the Super­vi­sory Board of Odeon Film AG until the upco­ming Annual Gene­ral Meeting. As always with such deals, the sale still has to be appro­ved by the autho­ri­ties. The two parties did not provide any infor­ma­tion on the purchase price.

He headed Tele München Gruppe for 42 years, and now Herbert G. Kloi­ber is selling the group to finan­cial inves­tor KKR. This move also has impli­ca­ti­ons for some German broad­cas­ters and produc­tion compa­nies. For exam­ple, TMG holds 31.5 percent of RTL II toge­ther with Disney, while Tele 5 is wholly owned by the Group. TMG also holds a majo­rity stake in Odeon Film AG, while other subsi­dia­ries such as Concorde Film­ver­leih GmbH, Concorde Home Enter­tain­ment GmbH, Clas­art Film- und Fern­seh­pro­duk­ti­ons GmbH and Tele München Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH now also have a new owner.

KKR now wants to make Tele München Gruppe the leading inde­pen­dent plat­form for audio­vi­sual content in Germany and a central point of cont­act for crea­tive talent. The German market offers an “attrac­tive envi­ron­ment to further deve­lop TMG as an inde­pen­dent, market-leading plat­form and to repo­si­tion it in times of digi­tal disrup­tion,” the private equity firm says. As consu­mer demand for high-quality, local but also inter­na­tio­nal content grows, so does the need for “a large inde­pen­dent German content platform.”

“TMG is an attrac­tive middle-market asset and defi­ni­tely fits KKR’s middle-market stra­tegy,” the spokesper­son said. About a year ago, KKR also opened an office in Germany with Chris­tian Ollig (photo) as head. The deal was execu­ted jointly from the London and Frank­furt offices, accor­ding to the spokesper­son. Phil­ipp Freise was respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The long-time KKR mana­ger specia­li­zes in invest­ments in the media sector.

Advi­sors TMG: Wirsing Hass Zoller (Legal), and Klee­berg & Part­ner (Tax)

Munich/Gütenbach — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) acquire a majo­rity stake in RENA Group. The company, head­quar­te­red in Güten­bach in the Black Forest, builds tech­no­lo­gi­cally advan­ced equip­ment for wet-chemi­cal surface treat­ment and employs around 800 people world­wide. The sellers are funds advi­sed by Capvis AG. The manage­ment team around RENA CEO Peter Schnei­de­wind is also taking a stake in the company as part of the change of owner­ship, ther­eby commit­ting itself to RENA for the long term. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The sale is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

RENA was foun­ded in 1993 and is the leading global equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer in the field of wet-chemi­cal surface treat­ment. The globally active high-tech company addres­ses custo­mers from the semi­con­duc­tor sector, medi­cal tech­no­logy as well as the rene­wa­ble energy indus­try and glass proces­sing. With three produc­tion and R&D sites in Germany and Wikroty, Poland, and sales and service loca­ti­ons in Asia, for exam­ple in China and Singa­pore, as well as in North America, the company has a strong inter­na­tio­nal presence. RENA recently achie­ved an annual produc­tion output of over 120 million euros.

Toge­ther with Equis­tone, RENA aims to conti­nue to grow in exis­ting segments and expand its tech­no­lo­gi­cal market leader­ship. The company’s prono­un­ced strength in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment will conti­nue to be a key buil­ding block for this in the future. In addi­tion, part­ner­ships with exis­ting custo­mers are to be inten­si­fied and new custo­mer groups are to be deve­lo­ped for RENA’s inno­va­tive, high-quality machi­nes and systems.

“We are impres­sed by RENA’s market posi­tion, which is based prima­rily on inno­va­tive tech­no­logy, high quality, long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships as well as its strong manage­ment team,” said Stefan Maser (photo), part­ner at Equis­tone. David Zahnd, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Equis­tone, added: “Toge­ther with RENA’s manage­ment team and employees, we intend to consis­t­ently conti­nue the company’s growth trajec­tory, promote rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment and expand into new markets and regions.”

Peter Schnei­de­wind, CEO of RENA, comm­ents: “We are very plea­sed to have Equis­tone as a relia­ble and finan­ci­ally strong new part­ner that will support our further growth. For us, this is a clear sign to secure and expand our sites. Toge­ther with our custo­mers, we will deve­lop addi­tio­nal indi­vi­dual appli­ca­ti­ons and launch new intel­li­gent solu­ti­ons for wet-chemi­cal surface treat­ment — worldwide.”

On the Equis­tone side, Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Tanja Berg are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The mid-market inves­tor was advi­sed by goetz­part­ners (Commer­cial), KPMG (Finan­cial & Tax), Latham & Watkins (Legal), ERM (Envi­ron­men­tal), Sher­man & Ster­ling (Legal Finan­cing) and GCA Altium (Finan­cing).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of Europe’s leading equity inves­tors with a team of more than 35 invest­ment specia­lists in six offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­ding, equity has been inves­ted in more than 140 tran­sac­tions, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 40 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion at the hard cap. www.equistonepe.de

Morbach/ Frank­furt a. M. — Halder has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Conen Group, Morbach, through a manage­ment buy-out. The invest­ment is a succes­sion solu­tion for the owner family, which had foun­ded the company in 1965. Conen specia­li­zes in equip­ping educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons such as schools, kinder­gar­tens and nurse­ries in Western Europe, the Middle East and the USA.

One focus of the busi­ness is tech­ni­cal products for inter­ac­tive lear­ning, e.g. elec­tri­cally adjus­ta­ble mounts for elec­tro­nic displays, which are incre­asingly being used inter­na­tio­nally as lear­ning tools. In addi­tion, there is a wide range of furni­ture for schools and preschools in the core market of Germany and neigh­bor­ing count­ries, with which Conen serves over 1,000 long-stan­ding custo­mers. Through in-house product deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring, Conen reali­zes high verti­cal inte­gra­tion, avai­la­bi­lity and flexi­bi­lity in the imple­men­ta­tion of custo­mer requi­re­ments. Deli­very and instal­la­tion with our own logi­stics in Germany and neigh­bor­ing count­ries ensu­res short deli­very times and high final quality. In 2018, the company employed 225 people and gene­ra­ted sales of €37 million.

Growth poten­tial arises from the incre­asing digi­tiza­tion of educa­tion systems, which has trig­ge­red double-digit growth rates for inter­ac­tive displays inter­na­tio­nally. Conen ther­e­fore plans to expand its coope­ra­tion with moni­tor manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the USA and the Middle East. Germany also has a favorable envi­ron­ment, with high levels of addi­tio­nal govern­ment spen­ding plan­ned for preschool and school in the medium term.

About Halder
Halder has been active as an equity inves­tor in Germany since 1991 and has provi­ded equity capi­tal for succes­sion and growth to 39 medium-sized compa­nies. Halder supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in expan­ding inter­na­tio­nally, focu­sing their stra­tegy and busi­ness model, and inves­t­ing to expand capa­city and finance stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. The invest­ment in Conen is the first invest­ment of the Halder VI fund, which comple­ted its capi­tal raising in Janu­ary 2019.

Frank­furt a. M. — Noval­pina Capi­tal has finan­ced the foun­ders Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie and the manage­ment of NSO Group in their buy-out and advi­sed them on the acqui­si­tion of NSO Group from Fran­cisco Part­ners and other share­hol­ders. — NSO Group is a leading global cyber secu­rity company head­quar­te­red in Luxem­bourg with addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons world­wide (inclu­ding Israel, Cyprus and Bulgaria).

Noval­pina Capi­tal Capi­tal was advi­sed by the Frank­furt, Munich, London and Boston offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in the buyout led by the manage­ment of NSO Group and the acqui­si­tion of NSO Group from Fran­cisco Part­ners and other shareholders.

The manage­ment team and foun­ders of NSO Group today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of the company from global private equity firm Fran­cisco Part­ners. NSO Group deve­lops tech­no­logy that helps govern­ment intel­li­gence and law enforce­ment agen­cies prevent and inves­ti­gate terro­rism and crime to save lives. Estab­lished from the combi­na­tion of Israeli and Euro­pean cyber tech­no­logy compa­nies, NSO Group has since become a global leader in provi­ding cyber intel­li­gence and analy­tics solu­ti­ons to govern­ments. The company has grown rapidly and finis­hed 2018 with reve­nues of $250 million, and dozens of licen­sed customers.

Advi­sors to Noval­pina Capi­tal: Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Weil tran­sac­tion team is led by part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and supported by part­ners Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Ludger Kempf (Tax, Frank­furt), as well as Coun­sel Dr. Heiner Drüke (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer, Madleen Düdder, Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler, Daniel Zhu, Andreas Fogel (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Julia Hübner, Alisa Preis­sler, Kai Yan (all Tax Frank­furt) as well as Boston part­ner Matthew Goul­ding and asso­ciate Michael Messina (both Corporate).
The Weil team invol­ved in the acqui­si­tion finan­cing is led by Frank­furt Finance Part­ner Dr. Wolf­ram Distler and London Finance Part­ner Tom Richards and was supported by Asso­cia­tes Thomas Zimmer­mann (Munich) and Julia Tschi­ckardt (Frank­furt) as well as Alis­tair McVeigh and Conor Camp­bell (both London).
Fran­cisco Part­ners was assis­ted in the tran­sac­tion by Paul Hastings (part­ners Mike J. Kennedy and Jeffrey C. Wolff, San Fran­cisco office).
The foun­ders of NSO Group relied on part­ners Roy Caner and Viva Gayer of EBN & Co. in Tel Aviv.

About Weil
Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding about 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frankfurt/Main, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley, Warsaw and Washing­ton, D.C.

Munich, Germany — EMERAM’s port­fo­lio company frost­krone Tief­kühl­kost GmbH (frost­krone) Rite Stuff Foods, Inc. (Rite Stuff Foods), a U.S. potato snack company. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed frost­krone Frozen Foods on the finan­cing of the add-on acqui­si­tion of Rite Stuff Foods, Inc. advise

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 EUR 350 million. EMERAM sees itself as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for compa­nies in the five sectors of consu­mer goods, retail, indus­trial goods, services and healthcare.

Rite Stuff Foods was foun­ded in 1989 by Thomas J. Madden and is now one of the most important U.S. manu­fac­tu­r­ers of specialty pota­toes, employ­ing more than 230 people. Rite Stuff Foods is head­quar­te­red in Jerome, Idaho, and serves the grocery, food service and various restau­rant markets.

Advi­sor frost­krone Frozen Food: Shear­man & Sterling
The Shear­man & Ster­ling team, led by part­ner Winfried M. Carli, included Of Coun­sel Steven Sher­man, asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu and Magnus Wies­lan­der, and Legal Assistant Constanze Herrle.
Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed EMERAM, among others, on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of frost­krone Group and on the finan­cing of frostkrone’s add-on acqui­si­tion of French snack and finger food manu­fac­tu­rer Piz’wich.

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 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.

The opera­tor of Germany’s largest apart­ment and house portal ImmobilienScout24 is about to be taken over by finan­cial inves­tors. Blackstoneand Hell­man & Fried­man are offe­ring Scout24 owners 46 euros per share, the finan­cial inves­tors announ­ced. Scout24’s manage­ment welco­med the offer, which is around 24.4 percent above the average price of the past three months. As a result, the company could be off the market again after a fairly short history on the stock exch­ange. The purchase price, inclu­ding debt, is expec­ted to be around 5.7 billion euros.

The two finan­cial inves­tors Hell­man & Fried­man and Blackstone compa­nies are now offe­ring 46 euros per Scout24 share in cash, as the MDax-listed company announ­ced in Munich. On the Trade­gate trading plat­form, the shares shot up by almost eleven percent to 46 euros in the morning compared with the Xetra close.

“We believe that this repres­ents an attrac­tive offer with a substan­tial premium, high tran­sac­tion secu­rity and stra­te­gic added value for the company,” said Hans-Holger Albrecht, Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of Scout24.
The purchase price is ther­e­fore around 5.7 billion euros.

The purchase price, inclu­ding debt, amounts to around 5.7 billion euros, the state­ment added. The mini­mum accep­tance thres­hold for the offer is 50 percent plus one share. In addi­tion, the finan­cial inves­tors are hedging against a possi­ble market slump. If the Dax falls too shar­ply — by more than 27.5 percent — the offer will lapse.
Hell­man & Fried­man itself had floa­ted the company on the stock market only three years ago for 30 euros per share. In the mean­time, the shares are almost comple­tely in free float. In July, they had reached their record high of 48.62 euros, but had then fallen back.

Paris/ Frank­furt — Idin­vest Part­ners, the Euro­pean invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in the SME segment, today announ­ced the closing of its second growth capi­tal fund, Idin­vest Growth Fund II (IGF II), with a volume of €340 million, excee­ding its initial target of €300 million. To this end, Idin­vest Growth Fund II has attrac­ted pres­ti­gious inves­tors, more than 75 percent of whom are based outside France.

Since its launch in 2017, the fund has alre­ady inves­ted 50 percent of its funds in a total of 15 compa­nies, inclu­ding Ogury, Secret Escapes, Klaxoon, Vesti­aire Coll­ec­tive, Sophia Gene­tics and the German company iAdvize.

IGF II invests in compa­nies with high growth poten­tial that have alre­ady deve­lo­ped successful products and services that are both appre­cia­ted and adopted by consu­mers. The vast majo­rity of IGF II target compa­nies achieve annual sales of more than €10 million with annual growth rates of more than 50 percent. Compa­nies from the digi­tal economy repre­sent a signi­fi­cant part of this port­fo­lio. Nevert­hel­ess, the fund reta­ins a certain flexi­bi­lity with regard to its invest­ment sectors, which allows it to invest in health­care or other sectors as well.

Benoist Gross­mann (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner, said: “Idin­vest Part­ners is proud to support Euro­pean SMEs at every stage of their life­cy­cle. Our capa­bi­li­ties span the full range of capi­tal struc­ture from early-stage venture capi­tal to expan­sion stage finan­cing. We are plea­sed with the strong demand the fund has met with insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors world­wide and are confi­dent that Idin­vest Growth Fund II will support successful and ambi­tious SMEs on their path to beco­ming global leaders.”

About Idin­vest Partners
Idin­vest Part­ners is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment firm focu­sed on the mid market. With €8 billion in assets under manage­ment, Idin­vest Part­ners has proven exper­tise in venture capi­tal finan­cing for inno­va­tive start­ups, private debt finan­cing for mid-market compa­nies inclu­ding unitran­che, senior as well as subor­di­na­ted finan­cing, primary and secon­dary invest­ments, and private equity advi­sory services. — Foun­ded in 1997 as part of the Alli­anz Group, the company has been inde­pen­dent since 2010. In Janu­ary 2018, Idin­vest Part­ners became part of the Eura­zeo Group, a leading global invest­ment company whose €17 billion in assets under manage­ment (inclu­ding €11 billion from invest­ment part­ners) is inves­ted in a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio consis­ting of more than 300 corpo­rate investments.

For private debt, Idin­vest Part­ners opened an office in Frank­furt in early 2017. Here, four employees curr­ently support port­fo­lio compa­nies and custo­mers in the German market with debt capi­tal solu­ti­ons such as direct loans, take­over loans and asset finance.