ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Paris (Fr) ‑Black­Fin Capi­tal Part­ners, the buyout fund specia­li­zing in finan­cial services, announ­ces the final closing of its €1.8 billion Black­Fin Finan­cial Services Fund IV. The new fund bene­fits from strong demand from insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in Europe (45%), the US (45%) and Asia (10%) and signi­fi­cantly exceeds its initial target of €1.5 billion. The funds raised are 80% higher than those of the most recently laun­ched Black­Fin Finan­cial Services Fund III. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to the appr­oval of the Dutch Central Bank and the Dutch Finan­cial Markets Autho­rity. This means that the private equity company has an 80% higher invest­ment volume in this fund than in its prede­ces­sor, Black­Fin Finan­cial Services Fund III, which closed at EUR 985 million. The fund was backed by exis­ting Black­Fin inves­tors with a 100% re-invest­ment from exis­ting inves­tors and 25 new inves­tors. Black­Fin has a global base of inves­tors with very diverse profiles, inclu­ding pension funds, sove­reign wealth funds, funds of funds, insu­rance compa­nies and family offices. The closing of Fund IV brings BlackFin’s total assets under manage­ment for its comple­men­tary buyout and FinTech stra­te­gies to €4 billion. This conso­li­da­tes BlackFin’s posi­tion as Europe’s leading private equity inves­tor in the finan­cial services sector. With over 110 tran­sac­tions since its incep­tion in 2009, Black­Fin is by far the most active inves­tor in this sector in Europe. Fund IV will conti­nue BlackFin’s diffe­ren­tia­ted invest­ment policy in asset-light segments. Brokerage and insu­rance plat­forms, inde­pen­dent asset mana­gers, asset mana­gers, payment play­ers and provi­ders of finan­cial or back-office soft­ware bene­fit from a parti­cu­larly favorable envi­ron­ment. This takes account of consu­mers’ incre­asing need for advice on finan­cial products, the deve­lo­p­ment of new tech­no­lo­gies and chan­ging regu­la­tion. Black­Fin focu­ses on primary tran­sac­tions where the company acts as a key finan­cial spon­sor and provi­des unique opera­tio­nal support. These off-market tran­sac­tions are one of BlackFin’s parti­cu­lar areas of exper­tise, as is the execu­tion of very complex carve-outs of large finan­cial institutions. 

Fund IV has alre­ady made two investments

The new fund has alre­ady made initial invest­ments in OpGroen, a carve-out of Aon Nether­lands’ private insu­rance busi­ness, and will soon invest in IBS Capi­tal Allies, a leading inde­pen­dent asset mana­ger with €5 billion in assets under manage­ment. Since the closing of Fund III in 2019, Black­Fin has inves­ted heavily in its plat­form. New offices have been estab­lished in London and Amster­dam to expand BlackFin’s Euro­pean presence. It curr­ently employs 50 people, inclu­ding nine part­ners, in five offices. In 2022, the company also reached the closing of its second venture capi­tal fund speci­fi­cally focu­sed on FinTech. Black­Fin Tech II has €390 million in capi­tal, making it the largest FinTech-focu­sed B2B fund in Europe. Laurent Bouy­oux, Presi­dent and Foun­ding Part­ner of Black­Fin, said: “We foun­ded Black­Fin in 2009 with the convic­tion that the trans­for­ma­tion of the Euro­pean finan­cial sector towards a more compe­ti­tive envi­ron­ment was over­due and that inde­pen­dent compa­nies were compe­ting directly with incumb­ents or beco­ming their service provi­ders. 15 years later, our invest­ment thesis has fully mate­ria­li­zed with one of the best track records in Europe and a global base of high cali­ber inves­tors. We are proud to have taken this decisive step for our inves­tors and thank them for their loyal and growing support. With Fund IV, we will conti­nue to pursue the stra­tegy that has made our prede­ces­sor funds so successful.” Black­Fin Capi­tal worked with Rede Part­ners on the inter­na­tio­nal fund­rai­sing, Jasmin Capi­tal on the insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in France and Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP on the legal and regu­la­tory aspects.

About Black­Fin Capi­tal Partners

Foun­ded in 2009, Black­Fin Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent private equity firm specia­li­zing in finan­cial services in Europe. Black­Fin is owned and mana­ged by its nine part­ners, who have worked toge­ther for many years as execu­ti­ves, mana­gers and inves­tors in the Euro­pean finan­cial indus­try. The team consists of a total of 50 invest­ment profes­sio­nals in offices in Paris, Brussels, Amster­dam, Frank­furt and London. Backed by leading insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in Europe, North America and Asia, Black­Fin Capi­tal Part­ners has over €4 billion under manage­ment through its venture capi­tal and buyout funds. www.blackfin.com/

 

News

Frank­furt am Main — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner (“VREP”) has exten­ded its invest­ment in Mr. Wash Auto­ser­vice AG, Essen, and provi­ded further mezza­nine finan­cing. The addi­tio­nal mezza­nine capi­tal is inten­ded to support a multi-year inten­sive invest­ment phase as growth finan­cing: The aim is to expand capa­ci­ties at exis­ting loca­ti­ons and to estab­lish further new loca­ti­ons. Mr. Wash, foun­ded in 1964, is today the market leader in the premium car wash sector with curr­ently 38 loca­ti­ons and around 2,000 employees throug­hout Germany. The range of services extends from exte­rior washing and inte­rior clea­ning to oil change and service station services. The company has recei­ved seve­ral awards for its service quality in recent years. VR Equi­typ­art­ner has been support­ing the family busi­ness in its conti­nuous growth since 2011 by provi­ding seve­ral mezza­nine tran­ches. The funds have been used for exten­sive invest­ments in tech­no­logy, the expan­sion of the range of services — parti­cu­larly in the area of inte­rior clea­ning — and the impro­ve­ment of service quality. Regu­lar custo­mer surveys ensure consis­t­ently high quality. Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner: “We are deligh­ted to expand our long-stan­ding part­ner­ship and conti­nue to support the growth of Mr. Wash. The company has deve­lo­ped enorm­ously and has a stable, but also capi­tal-inten­sive busi­ness. Some­thing like this is gene­rally well suited for the use of mezza­nine capi­tal.” Richard Enning, CEO of Mr. Wash Auto­ser­vice AG, adds: “With VR Equi­typ­art­ner, we have had a relia­ble and uncom­pli­ca­ted part­ner who has supported and accom­pa­nied our growth stra­tegy for years. The mezza­nine capi­tal is an important compo­nent of our over­all finan­cing because it ideally comple­ments bank loans and our inter­nal finan­cing power — and thus supports the invest­ments in our growth.” About VR Equitypartner

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 

The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. Morewww.vrep.de. The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team:
Tim Feld, Jens Schöf­fel, Chris­toph Simmes, Jens Osthoff

News

Munich — Kirk­land & Ellis advi­ses BC Part­ners on the IPO of Sprin­ger Nature.
The offe­ring consists of new shares from a capi­tal increase of EUR 200 million and the sale of exis­ting shares held by BC Part­ners. Sprin­ger Nature’s shares have been traded in the Prime Stan­dard segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange since Octo­ber 4, 2024 (ticker symbol: SPG). The market capi­ta­liza­tion is around € 4.9 billion. Sprin­ger Nature’s IPO was a success. Sprin­ger Nature is a leading global publisher for rese­arch, health and educa­tion. The company is owned by compa­nies control­led by the Georg von Holtz­brinck publi­shing group and funds advi­sed by BC Part­ners. A Kirk­land team had alre­ady advi­sed BC Part­ners on the exten­sion of the invest­ment in Sprin­ger Nature in 2021. 

Advi­sor BC Part­ners: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Attila Oldag (Lead, Private Equity/M&A; photo © Kirk­land), Dr. Anna Schwan­der (Capi­tal Markets); Asso­ciate: Dr. Tamara Zehen­t­bauer (Private Equity/M&A) About Kirk­land

With more than 3,500 lawy­ers in 21 cities in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms for high-cali­ber legal services. The German team specia­li­zes in private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and capi­tal markets, finan­cing and tax law.

www.kirkland.com.

News

Düssel­dorf — In order to streng­then the start-up ecosys­tem in North Rhine-West­pha­lia, NRW.BANK has inves­ted EUR 15 million in Grün­der­fonds Ruhr II in the first closing. The Essen-based early-stage fund raised a total of EUR 31 million from inves­tors. The invest­ment focus is on inno­va­tive, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups from the Ruhr area and neigh­bor­ing regi­ons. “In order to shape the future in North Rhine-West­pha­lia, we need a faster pace of inno­va­tion and more ideas from inno­va­tive start-ups. This needs to be finan­ced,” says Johanna Anto­nie Tjaden-Schulte, Member of the Mana­ging Board of NRW.BANK (photo © NRW.BANK). “With our parti­ci­pa­tion in Grün­der­fonds Ruhr II, we want to do even more to promote the poten­tial that exists in the Ruhr region with its dense rese­arch land­scape and urban envi­ron­ment.” Grün­der­fonds Ruhr II is mana­ged by Ruhr­grün­der Manage­ment GmbH under the leader­ship of Ann-Chris­tin Kortenbrede and Jan Gräfe. Both have exten­sive expe­ri­ence in support­ing young growth compa­nies and are actively shaping the stra­te­gic direc­tion of the fund. The aim is to acquire further fund commit­ments over the next twelve months in order to reach the target volume of 50 million euros. In coope­ra­tion with Initia­tiv­kreis Ruhr and NRW.BANK, Grün­der­fonds Ruhr offers not only early-stage finan­cing but also a strong part­ner network, direct access to the indus­try and valuable know-how for start-ups. The fund focu­ses on compa­nies from the chemi­cals and new mate­ri­als, energy and indus­try, life scien­ces and health­care, logi­stics and digi­tal economy sectors. Initia­tiv­kreis Ruhr and NRW.BANK initia­ted the first edition of Grün­der­fonds Ruhr with a volume of EUR 34.5 million in 2017. To date, invest­ments have been made in ten inno­va­tive start-ups. Further infor­ma­tion on NRW.BANK’s start-up support can be found at www.nrwbank.de/gruender and www.nrwbank.de/venture Further infor­ma­tion on Grün­der­fonds Ruhr can be found at www.gruenderfonds-ruhr.com

About NRW.BANK — Deve­lo­p­ment Bank for North Rhine-Westphalia

NRW.BANK is the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­pha­lia. In close part­ner­ship with its owner, the state of North Rhine-West­pha­lia, it helps to ensure that inno­va­tive start-ups receive the right start-up support. Because: No good idea in North Rhine-West­pha­lia should fail because of finan­cing. To achieve this goal, NRW.BANK provi­des a compre­hen­sive range of equity capi­tal. This covers the entire life cycle of compa­nies: from the pre-seed, start-up and early stages through to the growth and later stages. It places a parti­cu­lar focus on the trans­for­ma­tion topics of sustaina­bi­lity and digi­ta­liza­tion. NRW.BANK also stimu­la­tes the deve­lo­p­ment of the venture capi­tal and private equity market through its acti­vi­ties as an inves­tor in third-party mana­ged funds. In addi­tion to capi­tal, NRW.BANK also provi­des start-ups with its network and know-how.

News

Paris — Aerleum, an inno­va­tive climate-tech start-up specia­li­zing in the capture and use of CO₂, announ­ces the successful comple­tion of its $6 million seed finan­cing led by 360 Capi­tal and HTGF, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Norrs­ken, Bpifrance and Marble. The funding will acce­le­rate the indus­tria­liza­tion of Aerleum’s novel tech­no­logy that converts atmo­sphe­ric CO₂ and low-carbon hydro­gen into synthe­tic fuels (e‑fuels) and chemi­cals, moving sectors that are diffi­cult to decar­bo­nize towards a carbon-neutral future. Aerleum’s breakth­rough solu­tion captures CO₂ in a reac­tor and converts it using proprie­tary bifunc­tional mate­ri­als and precis­ion heating. The company’s tech­no­logy elimi­na­tes some of the most energy-inten­sive steps in the value chain, enab­ling compe­ti­tive, scalable produc­tion of e‑fuels and chemi­cals while drama­ti­cally redu­cing green­house gas emis­si­ons. Aerleum has set itself the most ambi­tious target on the market in terms of time to achieve price parity with fossil fuels. The start-up aims to offer indus­tries such as ship­ping, avia­tion and chemi­cals a viable path to decar­bo­niza­tion without compro­mi­sing on cost or scala­bi­lity. Sébas­tien Fiedo­row, co-foun­der and CEO of Aerleum: “Our mission has been clear from the start: to make e‑fuels as afforda­ble and acces­si­ble as fossil fuels­With this seed round, we are taking a big step forward in scaling our tech­no­logy to meet the urgent need for decar­bo­niza­tion. We intend to trans­form entire indus­tries and enable them to achieve net zero emis­si­ons faster and more effi­ci­ently.” Aerleum not only addres­ses the urgency of the climate crisis, but also solves the econo­mic chal­lenges typi­cally asso­cia­ted with clean energy solu­ti­ons. Unlike tradi­tio­nal proces­ses, which are costly and loca­tion-bound, Aerleum’s inno­va­tion can be deployed globally. It opti­mi­zes co-loca­tion for low-carbon hydro­gen sourcing and provi­des a viable alter­na­tive to fossil fuels for indus­tries around the world. Aerleum’s initial focus is on e‑methanol, a clean, high-energy fuel that is rapidly gaining accep­tance as an important alter­na­tive to fossil fuel in the marine and avia­tion sectors. E‑methanol offers signi­fi­cant bene­fits by redu­cing green­house gas emis­si­ons, lowe­ring air pollut­ants and serving as an excel­lent energy carrier as it remains liquid at ambi­ent tempe­ra­ture, making it easy to trans­port and store. The global e‑methanol market is expec­ted to grow signi­fi­cantly as the ship­ping and avia­tion indus­tries are under incre­asing pres­sure to reduce CO2 emis­si­ons. Aerleum is well posi­tio­ned to lead this transformation. 

What’s next for Aerleum?

With the seed funding secu­red, Aerleum will launch its first full-scale pilot plant. The company will work closely with key indus­try play­ers and custo­mers to deploy its tech­no­logy in sectors where emis­si­ons reduc­tions are criti­cal. “Aerleum’s vision is to trans­form indus­tries and create a circu­lar carbon economy where the CO₂ in the air beco­mes a resource,” said Steven Bardey, co-foun­der and CTO of Aerleum. Reco­gni­tion and support

Aerleum has alre­ady achie­ved great reco­gni­tion and won pres­ti­gious awards, inclu­ding the CMA CGM “Climate Inno­va­tion Chall­enge” Award, the Tech­nip Ener­gies “Clean Mari­time Chall­enge”, the EDF Pulse 2024 Chall­enge, the Prix Pépite and most recently the 2024 i‑lab State Inno­va­tion Chall­enge. The company has recei­ved exten­sive finan­cial support from Bpifrance and the Grand Est region, which has been instru­men­tal in helping Aerleum achieve its mile­sto­nes. In addi­tion, Aerleum is supported by programs such as Air Liquide’s Acce­lair, CMA CGM’s ZEBOX and Semia, all of which provide valuable support in scaling the inno­va­tive solu­tion. “We were exci­ted by Aerleum’s vision of a world where oil is repla­ced by CO2 in the air. This vision is ancho­red in reality, as demons­tra­ted by the first systems and the commer­ci­ally sound busi­ness model, and it paves the way for large-scale appli­ca­ti­ons,” explain Alex­andre Mord­acq and Fran­çois Tison of 360 Capi­tal. “What really sets Aerleum apart is the powerful combi­na­tion of breakth­rough tech­no­logy and a vision to replace pollu­ting chemi­cals like metha­nol with a sustainable, carbon-neutral alter­na­tive. This vision fits perfectly with HTGF’s commit­ment to foste­ring inno­va­tion that not only drives busi­ness growth, but also contri­bu­tes to a more sustainable planet. In just one year, the team has demons­tra­ted remar­kable speed, execu­tion and signi­fi­cant tech­ni­cal mile­sto­nes that unders­core its ability to scale quickly. We look forward to support­ing Aerleum on the next stage of their jour­ney,” says Timo Bertsch from HTGF (photo © TimoBertsch). 

About Aerleum

Foun­ded in 2023 as a spin-off from venture studio Marble, Aerleum is a pionee­ring climate tech­no­logy company at the fore­front of carbon capture and utiliza­tion. Aerleum’s breakth­rough tech­no­logy captures CO₂ from the atmo­sphere and converts it into synthe­tic fuels and chemi­cals. This provi­des a scalable and cost-effec­tive solu­tion for indus­tries looking to intro­duce alter­na­ti­ves to fossil fuel products. Aerleum’s mission is to acce­le­rate the global tran­si­tion to a carbon-neutral economy by giving indus­try the tools to decar­bo­nize without compro­mi­sing perfor­mance or cost effi­ci­ency. About 360 Capital

360 Capi­tal is a venture capi­tal firm that invests in inno­va­tive deept­ech and early-stage digi­tal compa­nies across Europe. The firm has a 25-year track record of helping talen­ted tech­no­logy entre­pre­neurs deve­lop ambi­tious and disrup­tive busi­nesses across a wide range of sectors. 360 Capi­tal is led by a diverse and expe­ri­en­ced team of profes­sio­nals based in Paris and Milan and mana­ges €500 million in assets and an active port­fo­lio of over 60 companies.
More infor­ma­tion: http://www.360cap.vc/ About Marble

Marble is a climate tech­no­logy venture studio that works with scien­tists, engi­neers and opera­tors to create compa­nies that solve tough climate problems. Since its foun­ding in 2021, Marble has alre­ady laun­ched six compa­nies working in clean chemi­cals, geolo­gi­cal hydro­gen, carbon capture, low-carbon concrete and weather control. Further infor­ma­tion: www.marble.studio

About the HTGF — High-Tech Gründerfonds

HTGF is one of the leading and most active early-stage inves­tors in Germany and Europe, finan­cing start-ups in the fields of deep tech, indus­trial tech, climate tech, digi­tal tech, life scien­ces and chemi­cals. With its expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment team, HTGF supports start-ups in all phases of their deve­lo­p­ment into inter­na­tio­nal market leaders. HTGF invests in the pre-seed and seed phase and can make signi­fi­cant invest­ments in further finan­cing rounds. Across all funds, HTGF has over EUR 2 billion under manage­ment. Since its foun­da­tion in 2005, it has finan­ced more than 750 start-ups and reali­zed over 180 successful exits.
Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal as well as 45 compa­nies and family offices.
Further infor­ma­tion can be found at HTGF.de or on Linke­dIn.

News

Munich — Astera Legal has advi­sed Quadriga Capi­tal on the finan­cing of sales­tech group. The fresh capi­tal provi­des sales­tech group with a flexi­ble frame­work for future acqui­si­ti­ons, invest­ments and expan­sion projects, allo­wing the group to further drive its growth stra­tegy and streng­then its posi­tion in the indus­try. The finan­cing was provi­ded by Eura­zeo Global Inves­tor SAS. sales­tech group acqui­res three leading compa­nies in the field of blen­ded lear­ning and soft­ware-based lear­ning expe­ri­ence. Acqui­si­tion under­lines stra­te­gic goal of provi­ding compre­hen­sive solu­ti­ons for digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion in sales and marke­ting. The Frank­furt-based sales­tech group deve­lops and imple­ments tech­no­lo­gies to support and auto­mate sales proces­ses. Its range of services includes solu­ti­ons for data analy­sis, CRM inte­gra­tion and other tools desi­gned to make sales acti­vi­ties more effi­ci­ent. To this end, the company acts as a plat­form for future growth and conti­nuously invests in leading tech­no­logy and consul­ting compa­nies in the mobi­lity, finance, energy and retail sectors. Quadriga Capi­tal is a leading mid-market private equity fund that invests in estab­lished mid-market compa­nies in the health­care, tech­no­logy-enab­led services and smart indus­tries sectors. With the plan­ned acqui­si­ti­ons, Quadriga Capi­tal aims to provide the tech world with a plat­form for long-term, value-crea­ting inno­va­tion and sustainable global growth 

Advi­sor Quadriga Capi­tal: Astera Legal

Dr. Bernd Egbers, photo (Part­ner, leading) Phil­ipp Hogrefe (Senior Asso­ciate) Daniel Kries­mair (Asso­ciate); Clau­dia Kupka (Tran­sac­tion Analyst)

Advi­sor to Eura­zeo Global Inves­tor SAS: Good­win Proc­ter LLP

Winfried Carli (Part­ner, leading), Folko Moroni (Senior Asso­ciate), Rebecca Stöck­lein (Asso­ciate).

About Astera Legal

Astera Legal is a high-end boutique law firm specia­li­zing in advi­sing on all types of dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal complex finan­cing struc­tures. The expe­ri­en­ced team is one of the leading acqui­si­tion finance units in Germany with an excel­lent track record. Clients include private equity firms, credit funds and finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons as well as natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies. With its inter­na­tio­nal network, Astera Legal offers a genuine alter­na­tive to large law firms. www.astera-legal.com

News

Hamburg — HEUKING has advi­sed Five Arrows and CGE Part­ners (CGE) on their invest­ment in Intact, a leading provi­der of end-to-end audit work­flow soft­ware for certi­fi­ca­tion bodies, stan­dard setters and, more recently, enter­pri­ses. The manage­ment and the previous majo­rity share­hol­der, tech­no­logy inves­tor IMCap Part­ners, will retain a stake in the company. Intact digi­ti­zes complex work­flows in the certi­fi­ca­tion proces­ses. The company enables its custo­mers to seam­lessly manage all their core opera­tio­nal proces­ses from audit plan­ning and audit execu­tion to certi­fi­ca­tion appr­oval and invoi­cing in a modu­lar Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) tool. CGE and Five Arrows are working with Thomas Lorber (co-foun­der and CEO of Intact) and his exten­ded manage­ment team to support the next phase of Intact’s ambi­tious growth trajec­tory while main­tai­ning its highly custo­mer-centric approach.
The finan­cial terms of the invest­ment were not disc­lo­sed. “We are deligh­ted to welcome both Five Arrows and CGE Part­ners as inves­tors in Intact. With their strong track record of foste­ring the growth and scaling of inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies, we are confi­dent that this part­ner­ship will propel us forward. Toge­ther, we will further streng­then our capa­bi­li­ties by stra­te­gi­cally inves­t­ing in our products, services and inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, deli­ve­ring even grea­ter value to our custo­mers, employees and stake­hol­ders world­wide,” commen­ted Thomas Lorber, co-foun­der and CEO of Intact. “We have been follo­wing Intact for seve­ral years and have been deeply impres­sed by the company’s deve­lo­p­ment to date. It is rightly reco­gni­zed as a leading provi­der of end-to-end audit work­flow soft­ware and counts some of the largest and most deman­ding certi­fi­ca­tion bodies and stan­dard setters among its custo­mers,” commen­ted Five Arrows. “We are deligh­ted to support the next phase of Intact’s exci­ting growth trajec­tory as certi­fi­ca­tion bodies and stan­dard setters look to moder­nize and digi­tize their work­flows. We share the team’s vision that Intact can bring grea­ter produc­ti­vity, accu­racy and trans­pa­rency to the certi­fi­ca­tion market,” commen­ted CGE Part­ners. “At the time of our invest­ment, Intact was a small, very specia­li­zed and highly inno­va­tive soft­ware company in the field of Test­ing, Inspec­tion and Certi­fi­ca­tion, which fits perfectly with our invest­ment profile. Over the past six years, we have supported the company’s successful growth trajec­tory by inves­t­ing in the orga­niza­tion and provi­ding access to our network and opera­tio­nal exper­tise, all with a strong sense of part­ner­ship,” added IMCap Part­ners. Advi­sor Five Arrows: HEUKING Dr. Jörg Schewe, photo © Heuking (lead, M&A/corporate),
Dr. Henrik Lay (tax law),
Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (anti­trust law),
Chris­toph Proch­nau (M&A/corporate), all Hamburg,
Martin Karwatzki, LL.M. (Insu­rance Law), Cologne,
Caro­line Frohn­wie­ser, Hamburg,
Sarah Radon, LL.M. (both M&A/Corporate), Düsseldorf,
Simon Pommer, LL.M. (Tax Law), Hamburg

News

Chicago/ Frankfurt/ Munich — Subject­Well, a US-based provi­der of digi­tal pati­ent recruit­ment solu­ti­ons, has acqui­red Trials24. This stra­te­gic part­ner­ship will provide pati­ents world­wide with access to inno­va­tive forms of treat­ment. McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed Subject­Well compre­hen­si­vely on this tran­sac­tion. Trials24, head­quar­te­red in Munich, acce­le­ra­tes pati­ent recruit­ment for clini­cal trials world­wide and helps CROs and biophar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies to find pati­ents who are not within reach of their sites. CROs stands for Clini­cal Rese­arch Orga­niza­tion, which takes over tasks in the plan­ning and execu­tion of clini­cal trials. Subject­Well is a port­fo­lio company of Wind­rose Health Inves­tors. Wind­rose invests in compa­nies that specia­lize in services in the health­care indus­try and acqui­red Subject­Well in April 2024. 

Advi­sor Subject­Well: McDer­mott Will & Emery

Holger Ebers­ber­ger (Munich), Dr. Felix Ganzer, photo © MWE (Frank­furt; both lead), Jarrett Szczesny (Chicago; all Private Equity), Jana Grieb (Health­care), Dr. Chris­tian Rolf (Employ­ment), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax; all Frank­furt), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, IT, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Armin Teymouri (Private Equity, Munich), Dr. Lea Hach­meis­ter (Health­care), Constanze Götz (Public Law; both Frank­furt), Janek Joos­ten (Employ­ment Law, Düssel­dorf) With over 160 lawy­ers in 21 offices, McDermott’s Private Equity prac­tice is one of the most active PE law firms world­wide. The prac­tice has been ranked among the top 5 PE firms in health­care by Pitch­book for six conse­cu­tive years and is among the top 10 for PE buyouts and other PE deals. Bloom­berg ranks McDer­mott among the Top 10 Global Mid-Market PE Firms, while The Deal ranks the firm 7th among PE Law Firms. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at pe.mwe.com.

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. https://www.mwe.com/de/

News

Milan/London/Paris/Munich — Ambi­enta SGR SpA (“Ambi­enta”) announ­ces that its plat­form company Cap Vert Group (“Cap Vert”), one of the French market leaders in pruning, has acqui­red N2B Arro­sage (“N2B Arro­sage”). N2B Arro­sage is also based in France and specia­li­zes in the manage­ment of irri­ga­tion systems for urban green spaces. Ambi­enta is one of the largest and leading asset mana­gers in Europe with a focus on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity. N2B Arro­sage designs, installs and main­ta­ins irri­ga­tion systems. The company was foun­ded in 1986, is based in the capi­tal region of Île-de-France and employs more than 30 people. N2B Arro­sage is an estab­lished player in the Île-de-France region, serving a large number of private custo­mers. With the acqui­si­tion of N2B Arro­sage, Cap Vert is expan­ding its water divi­sion and signi­fi­cantly broa­de­ning its offe­ring for private custo­mers in this market segment. The market for irri­ga­tion systems is growing conti­nuously. This growth is mainly driven by muni­ci­pa­li­ties that are expan­ding green spaces and other unsea­led areas in response to global warm­ing in order to achieve a cooling effect in cities. The acqui­si­tion of N2B Arro­sage streng­thens Cap Vert’s ability to respond to these needs and manage large-scale projects. The Cap Vert Group, in line with Ambienta’s invest­ment stra­tegy, contri­bu­tes posi­tively to the company’s envi­ron­men­tal impact metrics — redu­cing CO2 emis­si­ons, preser­ving biodi­ver­sity and, thanks to the acqui­si­tion of N2B Arro­sage, saving water. Smart auto­ma­tic irri­ga­tion enables an opti­mi­zed water flow taking into account para­me­ters such as tempe­ra­ture and humi­dity; for urban green spaces, smart auto­ma­tic irri­ga­tion also contri­bu­tes to the preser­va­tion of vege­ta­tion and biodi­ver­sity as well as to lowe­ring the tempe­ra­ture through water evapo­ra­tion and tran­spi­ra­tion of plants. This also indi­rectly redu­ces CO2 emis­si­ons, as less air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion of indoor spaces is requi­red by lowe­ring the outdoor tempe­ra­ture. Eric Girot, CEO of Cap Vert, commen­ted: “We are very plea­sed to welcome N2B Arro­sage to the Cap Vert Group. We are confi­dent that this part­ner­ship will signi­fi­cantly streng­then our service offe­ring and client port­fo­lio by combi­ning our market leader­ship with N2B’s exper­tise in water manage­ment.” Gwen­aëlle Le Ho Dagu­zan, Part­ner at Ambi­enta, added: “The acqui­si­tion of N2B Arro­sage fits perfectly with our long-term stra­tegy for Cap Vert, seam­lessly alig­ning with our ambi­tion to expand the Group’s presence in promi­sing markets such as water manage­ment, while enhan­cing the over­all service port­fo­lio. This tran­sac­tion under­lines our commit­ment to sustainable growth through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons that deli­ver real value to Cap Vert’s custo­mers and part­ners.” About Ambi­enta
Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity inves­tor specia­li­zing in private equity, public markets and private credit. 

Eric Girot, CEO of Cap Vert, commen­ted: “We are very plea­sed to welcome N2B Arro­sage to the Cap Vert Group. We are confi­dent that this part­ner­ship will signi­fi­cantly streng­then our service offe­ring and client port­fo­lio by combi­ning our market leader­ship with N2B’s exper­tise in water manage­ment.” Gwen­aëlle Le Ho Dagu­zan, Part­ner at Ambi­enta, added: “The acqui­si­tion of N2B Arro­sage fits perfectly with our long-term stra­tegy for Cap Vert, seam­lessly alig­ning with our ambi­tion to expand the Group’s presence in promi­sing markets such as water manage­ment, while enhan­cing the over­all service port­fo­lio. This tran­sac­tion under­lines our commit­ment to sustainable growth through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons that deli­ver real value to Cap Vert’s custo­mers and part­ners.” About Ambi­entaAmbi­enta is a Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity inves­tor specia­li­zing in private equity, public markets and private credit.

From Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges assets of more than 3 billion euros. The focus is on inves­t­ing in private and publicly traded compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services improve resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion. Ambi­enta has made 75 private equity invest­ments to date. In the public equity sector, Ambi­enta has laun­ched one of the world’s largest abso­lute return funds fully focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity and mana­ges a whole range of other sustainable invest­ment products from low-risk multi-asset funds to long-only equity funds. Ambi­enta has also recently laun­ched a private credit stra­tegy, which — as with the other asset clas­ses — focu­ses on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity. www.ambientasgr.com

News

Lever­ku­sen — The state-owned oil company Adnoc from the United Arab Emira­tes intends to take over the German plas­tics group Cove­s­tro for 11.7 billion euros.
Adnoc is offe­ring 62 euros per share and also plans to buy new shares worth almost 1.2 billion euros via a capi­tal increase.
Lever­ku­sen-based Bayer floa­ted its plas­tics divi­sion Cove­s­tro on the stock exch­ange in 2015 and cashed in.
Arab inves­tors are now inte­res­ted in the German company.
The state-owned oil company Adnoc from the United Arab Emira­tes wants to take over the German plas­tics group Covestro.
Accor­ding to its own state­ments, the poten­tial Arab buyer is offe­ring 62 euros per share and valuing the shares in the DAX-listed company at 11.7 billion euros.
The company from Abu Dhabi is also conside­ring buying shares worth almost EUR 1.2 billion from the Lever­ku­sen-based company in a capi­tal increase.
Toge­ther with Covestro’s debt of around three billion euros, Adnoc ther­e­fore intends to invest almost 16 billion euros.
The take­over had been expec­ted for some time.
Covestro’s manage­ment supports the offer. 

News
Eschborn/ San Francisco/ Singa­pore — TPG Rise Climate, a fund specia­li­zing in climate invest­ments as part of TPG’s global impact inves­t­ing plat­form, and GIC, a leading global inves­tor, today signed an agree­ment to acquire Techem Group.
The company will be acqui­red from its exis­ting majo­rity owner Part­ners Group, one of the largest private markets invest­ment mana­gers acting on behalf of its clients, and co-inves­tors CDPQ and Onta­rio Teachers’ Pension Plan.
The total value of the tran­sac­tion is EUR 6.7 billion.
The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first half of 2025, subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory approvals.
The purchase price will be paid in two tran­ches, one at closing of the tran­sac­tion and the remai­ning amount in July 2027.
TPG Rise Climate is one of the world’s largest private equity funds for global climate solu­ti­ons and invests in compa­nies that are signi­fi­cantly driving decarbonization.
Techem repres­ents the largest tran­sac­tion for the fund to date.
GIC is making a signi­fi­cant mino­rity investment.
— Link­la­ters advi­sed the fund TPG Rise Climate and the inves­tor GIC on the acqui­si­tion of the Techem Group.
Foun­ded in 1952, Techem has built one of the largest digi­tal energy services plat­forms in the industry.
Techem is active in 18 count­ries and services more than 13 million homes with over 62 million digi­tal meters.
As a relia­ble, long-term part­ner, Techem supports the real estate indus­try and private land­lords in impro­ving their energy effi­ci­ency in a low-invest­ment and ‑inva­sive manner and in sustain­ably redu­cing energy consump­tion, costs and CO2 emissions.
Techem’s services help to drive the long-term decar­bo­niza­tion of the real estate sector, which accounts for around 40% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emis­si­ons worldwide. 
“With TPG and GIC, we are gaining strong new part­ners who bring with them the digi­ta­liza­tion and plat­form exper­tise that will help us make decisive progress in imple­men­ting our corpo­rate stra­tegy. Toge­ther, we want to further expand and advance our posi­tion as the leading plat­form for the digi­ta­liza­tion and decar­bo­niza­tion of the buil­ding sector in Europe and beyond,” says Matthias Hart­mann, CEO of Techem.
Looking ahead, he says: “Techem has deve­lo­ped into a leading provi­der of a broad range of digi­tal solu­ti­ons with strong growth and a powerful, agile orga­niza­tion. We are very grateful to Part­ners Group and its co-inves­tors CDPQ and Onta­rio Teachers’ for their trust and colla­bo­ra­tion in deve­lo­ping the company over the past years and look forward to buil­ding on this success with TPG and GIC.” “Techem’s tech­no­logy, trans­pa­rent consump­tion data and opti­mi­zed solu­ti­ons for tenants, mana­gers and owners are making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to redu­cing costs and impro­ving the envi­ron­men­tal impact of proper­ties across Europe,” says
Ed Beck­ley, Mana­ging Part­ner of TPG Rise Climate, based in London.
“Energy consump­tion in buil­dings could be signi­fi­cantly redu­ced if effi­ci­ency and demand were better mana­ged. We look forward to support­ing the Techem team in driving and acce­le­ra­ting the reduc­tion of real estate emis­si­ons at scale.” Ang Eng Seng, Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer, Infra­struc­ture at GICsays: “Techem is an estab­lished energy service provi­der with a proven track record. Buil­ding level meter­ing is incre­asingly in demand in conti­nen­tal Europe as consu­mers and regu­la­tors conti­nue to focus on energy effi­ci­ency. We look forward to support­ing the company’s contin­ued growth toge­ther with TPG and its manage­ment.” Further expan­ding a strong digi­tal plat­form Thanks to its strong deve­lo­p­ment in recent years, Techem has excee­ded the one billion euro reve­nue mark — with further growth poten­tial through new digi­tal services and an incre­asingly compre­hen­sive decar­bo­niza­tion offering.
Techem will build on this foun­da­tion with its new part­ners TPG and GIC and further expand its ‘One Digi­tal Plat­form’ in order to tap into considera­ble energy effi­ci­ency poten­tial in the buil­ding sector through exten­sive digi­ta­liza­tion, opti­mize opera­tio­nal proces­ses and increase the living comfort of residents.
Techem will also bene­fit from TPG’s exper­tise in effec­tive decar­bo­niza­tion in achie­ving its own ambi­tious sustaina­bi­lity goals and thus build on the successful efforts of the previous year.
As recently as August, Techem recei­ved an outstan­ding rating of 9.6 — “Negli­gi­ble Risk” — in an ESG risk rating from Morning­star Sustai­na­ly­tics, a global provi­der of ESG data, studies and ratings.
This puts Techem in the top 3 percent of over 16,000 inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies asses­sed. Advi­sors to the funds TPG Rise Climate and GIC: Link­la­ters lead coun­sel Andreas Müller and Dr. Ralph Drebes (both part­ners, Private Equity/M&A, Frankfurt). 

About Techem Techem is a leading service provi­der for smart and sustainable buildings.
The company’s services cover the topics of energy manage­ment and resource protec­tion, healthy living and process effi­ci­ency in real estate.
The company was foun­ded in 1952, is now active in 18 count­ries with over 4,000 employees and services more than 13 million homes.
Techem offers increased effi­ci­ency along the entire value chain of heat and water in real estate as well as rege­ne­ra­tive supply concepts and solutions.
As the market leader in the wire­less remote recor­ding of energy consump­tion in homes, Techem conti­nues to drive forward networ­king and digi­tal proces­ses in real estate.
Modern multi-sensor devices and wire­less smoke alarms with remote inspec­tion, meter­ing point opera­tion, char­ging infra­struc­ture for elec­tro­mo­bi­lity and services for impro­ving the quality of drin­king water in proper­ties complete the port­fo­lio of solu­ti­ons for the resi­den­tial and commer­cial real estate industry.
For more infor­ma­tion, please visitwww.techem.comÜber TPG Rise Climate TPG Rise Climate is the specia­li­zed climate invest­ment stra­tegy of TPG’s global impact inves­t­ing plat­form, which has USD 19 billion under management.
TPG Rise Climate makes climate-rela­ted invest­ments that bene­fit from the deep exper­tise of TPG’s invest­ment profes­sio­nals, stra­te­gic rela­ti­onships with climate-focu­sed compa­nies in the exis­ting TPG port­fo­lio, and a global network of execu­ti­ves and advisors.
The fund takes a broad approach to invest­ment types, from growth equity to value-added infra­struc­ture, and focu­ses on climate solu­ti­ons in the follo­wing themes: clean elec­trons, clean mole­cu­les and mate­ri­als, and nega­tive emissions.
For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.therisefund.com/tpgriseclimate. About GIC GIC is a leading global invest­ment company estab­lished in 1981 to secure Singapore’s finan­cial future.
As the mana­ger of Singapore’s foreign reser­ves, we take a long-term, disci­pli­ned invest­ment approach and are uniquely posi­tio­ned globally across a wide range of asset clas­ses and active strategies.
These include equi­ties, fixed income, real estate, private equity, venture capi­tal and infrastructure.
Our long-term approach, multi-asset capa­bi­li­ties and global network make us an inves­tor of choice.
We strive to add signi­fi­cant value to our investments.
Head­quar­te­red in Singa­pore, we have a global talent group of over 2,300 employees in 11 major finan­cial cities and invest in over 40 countries.
www.gic.com.sg About Part­ners Group Part­ners Group is a leading global private markets invest­ment mana­ger with around 1,800 profes­sio­nals and appro­xi­m­ately USD 150 billion in assets under management.
The firm offers invest­ment programs and custo­mi­zed offe­rings in private equity, private credit, infra­struc­ture, real estate and royalties.
With its roots in Switz­er­land and its US head­quar­ters in Colo­rado, Part­ners Group stands out from other firms in the indus­try. The company uses its diffe­ren­tia­ted culture and opera­tio­nally focu­sed approach to iden­tify attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and deve­lop compa­nies and assets into market leaders. www.partnersgroup.com

News
Hamburg — YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Quan­tum Systems on the expan­sion of its Series B finan­cing round to over €100 million.
The round was led by new inves­tors Notion Capi­tal and Porsche SE.
Exis­ting inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted again.
Quan­tum Systems has deve­lo­ped a clear compe­ti­tive advan­tage through its state-of-the-art drones with inte­gra­ted arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI).
By combi­ning hard­ware, soft­ware and AI, the company is trans­forming busi­ness opera­ti­ons and impro­ving effi­ci­ency in various indus­tries, inclu­ding mining, cons­truc­tion, agri­cul­ture, utili­ties, public safety and defense.
In all of these sectors, the coll­ec­tion, analy­sis and proces­sing of sensor data from the air offers decisive advantages.
With the addi­tio­nal funds of almost 40 million euros now raised — the origi­nal Series B brought Quan­tum Systems 63.3 million euros — the Munich-based company intends to drive forward its global expan­sion and invest in the further deve­lo­p­ment of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and software.
The capi­tal will enable the company to expand its produc­tion capa­ci­ties and invest more in rese­arch and development.
In addi­tion to Notion Capi­tal and Porsche Auto­mo­bil Holding SE, the exis­ting inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted again.
Porsche SE should not be confu­sed with Porsche AG: While SE is respon­si­ble for the asset manage­ment of the Porsche Piech family, AG is respon­si­ble for the auto­mo­bile produc­tion of sports cars as a subsi­diary of the VW Group. About Quan­tum Systems Quan­tum Systems specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, design and produc­tion of small unman­ned aerial systems (sUAS).
The company’s elec­tric verti­cal take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft are desi­gned for maxi­mum flight endu­rance and versa­ti­lity, provi­ding users with a seam­less user experience.
Inte­gra­ting cutting-edge soft­ware capa­bi­li­ties such as edge compu­ting and real-time AI-powered data proces­sing, Quan­tum Systems builds next-gene­ra­tion UAS for secu­rity, defense, public safety, commer­cial and geogra­phic opera­ti­ons custo­mers across Europe.
www.quantum-systems.com.
In Octo­ber 2023, the YPOG team has alre­ady advi­sed Quan­tum Systems on the first round of Series B financing.
Advi­sors Quan­tum Systems: Dr. Adrian Haase (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Hamburg Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Alex­an­dra Stei­fen­sand (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin/Hamburg Dr. Gerrit Breet­holt (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Hamburg About YPOG YPOG is a specia­list law firm for tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and transactions.
The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. 
News

Möglin­gen (D)/ London (UK) — Thoma Bravo, a leading soft­ware invest­ment company with more than $160 billion in assets under manage­ment, has announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the USU product business.
— The combi­na­tion of Thoma Bravo’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence and invest­ment exper­tise in soft­ware with USU’s product port­fo­lio is expec­ted to acce­le­rate the company’s growth and deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for customers.
The exis­ting manage­ment team will conti­nue to lead the USU product business.
The tran­sac­tion is Thoma Bravo’s second invest­ment in Germany within a year and demons­tra­tes the company’s commit­ment to the German enter­prise soft­ware market.
— Benja­min Strehl, curr­ently Co-CEO of USU Soft­ware AG, will become CEO of the USU product business.
Bern­hard Ober­schmidt beco­mes a member of the Manage­ment Board.
The USU product busi­ness provi­des custo­mers world­wide with IT manage­ment solu­ti­ons for mana­ging diffe­rent IT envi­ron­ments and workflows.
As a stra­te­gic part­ner, the company enables its custo­mers to reduce costs, increase produc­ti­vity and manage growing tech­no­lo­gi­cal complexity.
Thoma Bravo will support the USU product busi­ness with its exten­sive network and indus­try expe­ri­ence to expand its product port­fo­lio and geogra­phi­cal presence.
The aim is to estab­lish the USU product busi­ness as a leading pan-Euro­pean provi­der of IT manage­ment solutions.
“With its exper­tise in soft­ware, a culture of colla­bo­ra­tion and a passion to invest in trans­for­ma­tive tech­no­lo­gies, Thoma Bravo is the right part­ner to expand our offe­ring and support our growth ambi­ti­ons. Toge­ther we can create more value for our custo­mers by further deve­lo­ping the USU plat­form and our range of IT solu­ti­ons and expan­ding our part­ner program,” said Bern­hard Ober­schmidt, CEO of USU Soft­ware AG. “We are very exci­ted to invest in USU. We want to build on the company’s impres­sive deve­lo­p­ment, strong commit­ment to its custo­mers and product focus, and support the team as it conti­nues to scale,” said David Tse, Senior Vice Presi­dent at Thoma Bravo.
“We look forward to working with Bern­hard, Benja­min and the entire team to further grow the busi­ness through inno­va­tion and M&A.” “Our invest­ment in USU is the second tran­sac­tion in the DACH region within a year. We see Germany as a signi­fi­cant growth market with strong tech­no­lo­gies and are exci­ted to support this ecosys­tem with another invest­ment,” said Irina Hemmers (photo © Thoma Bravo), Part­ner at Thoma Bravo.
“Thoma Bravo’s invest­ment in the USU product busi­ness fits perfectly with our stra­tegy of part­ne­ring with market-leading soft­ware compa­nies to drive trans­for­ma­tive growth.”
Thoma Bravo will invest in the USU product busi­ness along­side USU Soft­ware AG to acce­le­rate the company’s growth.
USU foun­der Udo Strehl and the Strehl family will also remain invol­ved in the USU product busi­ness and help shape its further growth trajectory.
The busi­ness with leading products for IT service manage­ment, IT asset manage­ment, IT opera­ti­ons manage­ment and know­ledge manage­ment will be mana­ged as an inde­pen­dent unit in the future.
The tran­sac­tion is part of Thoma Bravo’s stra­te­gic expan­sion in the German market and under­lines its focus on inves­t­ing in the growth of inno­va­tive soft­ware compa­nies across Europe.
Subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals, the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the year. Advi­sor USU: USU was advi­sed by Guggen­heim as sole invest­ment banker, Heuking as legal advi­sor and RSM Ebner Stolz with the finan­cial fact book.
Thoma Bravo is supported by Raymond James as finan­cial advi­sor and Kirk­land & Ellis as legal advi­sor. About Thoma Bravo Thoma Bravo is one of the largest soft­ware inves­tors in the world with more than $160 billion in assets under manage­ment as of June 30, 2024. With private equity, growth equity and credit stra­te­gies, the company invests in growth-orien­ted, inno­va­tive compa­nies opera­ting in the soft­ware and tech­no­logy sectors. Thoma Bravo lever­a­ges its deep indus­try know­ledge and proven stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal capa­bi­li­ties to part­ner with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to imple­ment best prac­ti­ces in opera­ti­ons and drive growth initiatives.
Over the past 20+ years, the firm has acqui­red or inves­ted in more than 490 compa­nies with an enter­prise value of over $265 billion, inclu­ding both control­ling and non-control­ling invest­ments. The company has bran­ches in Chicago, London, Miami, New York and San Fran­cisco. thomabravo.com. About USU Soft­ware AG As a leading provi­der of soft­ware and services for IT and custo­mer service manage­ment, USU enables orga­niza­ti­ons to master the demands of today’s digi­tal world.
Global orga­niza­ti­ons use our solu­ti­ons to cut costs, become more agile and reduce risk — with smar­ter services, simp­ler work­flows and better collaboration.
With more than 45 years of expe­ri­ence and loca­ti­ons world­wide, the USU team brings custo­mers into the future.
The USU Digi­tal Consul­ting busi­ness unit remains a wholly owned subsi­diary of USU Soft­ware AG.
http://www.usu.com

News

Hamburg — EIC Fund is inves­t­ing in the start-up Mind­Peak GmbH toge­ther with German lead inves­tor ZEISS Ventures, Hamburg-based Inno­Ven­tu­re­Fund, APEX Ventures and AI.Fund, among others.
The invest­ment was made as an equity invest­ment as part of a Series A finan­cing round under the “Hori­zon Europe Program”.
The finan­cing round had a total volume of 15.3 million US dollars.
EIC was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed by Oppen­hoff on this tran­sac­tion. Mind­Peak, based in Hamburg, deve­lops auto­ma­tion tools for image diagno­sis using state-of-the-art arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and deep learning.
The tools are based on AI algo­rithms and support cancer experts in making relia­ble diagno­ses. The EIC Fund is the special fund of the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil and thus the central invest­ment vehicle of the Euro­pean Commis­sion. It serves to imple­ment the Euro­pean Commission’s EIC Acce­le­ra­tor program, which supports inno­va­tive and sustainable Euro­pean growth compa­nies. The EIC Fund is advi­sed by the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank. The EIC (Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil) was foun­ded in the context of the pilot project “Hori­zon 2020 — the Frame­work Programme for Rese­arch and Inno­va­tion” and was successfully contin­ued in 2021 with the launch of the “Hori­zon Europe Programme”. With a dura­tion from 2021 to 2027 and a total budget of up to €95.5 billion, it is one of the largest funding programs for rese­arch and inno­va­tion world­wide. In 2023, the EIC Fund supported over 100 invest­ment rounds in deep tech compa­nies and secu­red co-invest­ments from 280 other inves­tors worth EUR 1.2 billion.
Oppen­hoff has regu­larly advi­sed the EIC Fund on its invest­ments in German start-ups since 2021. Advi­sor EIC: Oppen­hoff & Part­ner lead Dr. Caro­lin Roßko­then and Myriam Baars-Schil­ling, photo (both Corpo­rate / M&A),Dr.
Martin Bial­luch (Corpo­rate) and Dr. Fee Mäder (IP).
Oppen­hoff regu­larly advi­ses compa­nies in the venture capi­tal sector, most recently advi­sing the EIC Fund on a USD 62 million Series A finan­cing round of Reverion, on the EUR 53 million Series B finan­cing round of Infi­nite Roots and SellerX on the acqui­si­tion of KW-Commerce. About Oppen­hoff & Part­ner The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff deve­lops indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies, insti­tu­ti­ons, stra­te­gic inves­tors and finan­cial investors.
More than 100 lawy­ers advise clients throug­hout Germany in all important areas of commer­cial and tax law. Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a part­ner­ship company regis­tered in the part­ner­ship regis­ter of the Essen Local Court with the regis­tra­tion number PR 1850 and its regis­tered office in Colo­gne. A list of the part­ners autho­ri­zed to repre­sent the company is available at https://www.oppenhoff.eu/de/allgemeine-seiten/impressum.html.

News

Colo­gne — CVC Capi­tal Part­ners Fund VII has sold its 20% mino­rity stake in DKV Mobi­lity Group SE and termi­na­ted its five-year part­ner­ship with the owner family.
CVC was advi­sed by HEUKING on this transaction.
HEUKING also provi­ded advice on stock corpo­ra­tion law, tran­sac­tion finan­cing and regu­la­tory advice on banking super­vi­sory law and merger control aspects. 

DKV Mobi­lity is a leading B2B plat­form for on-the-road payments and solu­ti­ons, serving more than 374,000 busi­ness-to-busi­ness custo­mers from the truck and fleet sector in more than 50 countries.
In 2023, the company gene­ra­ted a tran­sac­tion volume of 17 billion euros and a turno­ver of 714 million euros. 

CVC is a leading global private markets mana­ger, with a focus on private equity, secon­da­ries, credit and infra­struc­ture and a global network of 30 local offices in Europe, Asia and the US with EUR 193 billion in assets under management.

Heuking part­ner Dr. Oliver von Rosenberg
(Photo © Heuking), LL.M., has been working with CVC Capi­tal Part­ners for 20 years on a large number of tran­sac­tions. These include in parti­cu­lar the invest­ment in DKV Mobi­lity Group, the acqui­si­tion of Douglas from Advent, the sale of ista Group to Char­ter­house for EUR 2.4 billion, the acqui­si­tion of a stake in Evonik Indus­tries for EUR 2.4 billion and the subse­quent IPO of Evonik with joint venture part­ner RAG-Stif­tung, the acqui­si­tion of Ruhr­gas Industries/Elster Group for EUR 1.5 billion and the subse­quent sale in a public take­over offer and in 2023 the acqui­si­tion of BORCO Group by Stock Spirits Group, a port­fo­lio company of CVC Capi­tal Part­ners Fund VIII. 

Advi­sor CVC Capi­tal Part­ners: HEUKING

Dr. Oliver von Rosen­berg, LL.M. (lead), Dr. Alex­an­der Jüngst, Mark Ross­broich, LL.M. (all M&A/private equity), all Colo­gne. Raphael Schor­le­mer (M&A / Private Equity), Colo­gne; Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (Anti­trust), Hamburg; Michael Neises; Dr. André Hofmann, LL.M., Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel, Chris­tian Staps, Thalia Roth (all Banking & Finance), all Frankfurt.

News

Berlin/ Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed Aukera Energy on the acqui­si­tion of a photo­vol­taic project in Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate by way of a share deal.
The seller is a German rene­wa­ble energy project developer.
The PV project is expec­ted to have a capa­city of 46 MW for photo­vol­taics and 40 MW for a battery energy storage system (BESS).
It is expec­ted to be ready for cons­truc­tion by the first quar­ter of 2025.
Aukera Ener­gy­Au­kera Energy focu­ses on the deve­lo­p­ment, cons­truc­tion and opera­tion of solar, wind and battery storage projects.
Head­quar­te­red in Brussels with offices in London, Edin­burgh, Berlin, Rome and Bucha­rest, the company is curr­ently deve­lo­ping a pipe­line of 15 GW.
McDermott’s Energy & Infra­struc­ture team regu­larly advi­ses on a wide range of projects and tran­sac­tions in the energy and infra­struc­ture sectors and on issues rela­ting to the energy transition.
Advi­sing on rene­wa­ble energy projects (inclu­ding storage and other energy tran­si­tion issues) is a parti­cu­lar focus of the team. About Aukera Energy Aukera is backed by Atlas­In­vest, a leading private inves­tor with a focus on the energy sector.
“We specia­lize in rene­wa­ble energy invest­ments and deve­lo­p­ment in Europe, from early stage deve­lo­p­ment and co-deve­lo­p­ment to the acqui­si­tion of ready-to-build projects and the cons­truc­tion of the projects them­sel­ves. We are commit­ted to local communities.”
Aukera’s manage­ment team has been working toge­ther for over ten years and has deca­des of combi­ned expe­ri­ence in deve­lo­ping rene­wa­ble energy projects around the world.
Our team has comple­ted more than one hundred rene­wa­ble energy invest­ments and co-developments.
These include successfully deve­lo­ping and exiting the UK’s largest feed-in tariff wind power busi­ness in 2018 and working with Malay­sian state-owned utility Tenaga Nasio­nal Berhad on a $250 million transaction.
https://www.aukera.energy Advi­sors Aukera Energy: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frank­furt Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Uibe­lei­sen, Dr. Simon Grone­berg (Coun­sel, Düssel­dorf; both Energy & Infra­struc­ture), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Meyer (Coun­sel, Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Jan Ischreyt, Constanze Götz (both Energy & Infra­struc­ture) About McDer­mott Will & Emery McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with over 1,400 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: https://www.mwe.com/de/

News

Wetz­lar / Göppin­gen / Wollerau (CH) — Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance, has advi­sed the owner family of MAIBACH Verkehrs­si­cher­heits- und Lärm­schutz­ein­rich­tun­gen GmbH (“MAIBACH”) in the course of a succes­sion plan by the new owner NOLEX AG (“NOLEX”).
MAIBACH was foun­ded in 1946 with its head­quar­ters in Göppin­gen, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, and has since posi­tio­ned itself as a leading specia­list for traf­fic safety and noise protec­tion equip­ment in Germany.
With its three largely inde­pendently opera­ting divi­si­ons — Traf­fic Safety, Reptile and Amphi­bian Protec­tion and Noise Protec­tion Systems — MAIBACH offers its custo­mers a wide range of inno­va­tive and high-quality products as well as services and instal­la­tion work.
MAIBACH’s long-stan­ding custo­mer base includes, in parti­cu­lar, compa­nies from the traf­fic safety and (road) cons­truc­tion sectors. New owner for further growth As part of an age-rela­ted succes­sion, the owner family is now handing over the compa­nies MAIBACH VUL GmbH, based in Göppin­gen, MAIBACH AUS GmbH, based in Strobl am Wolf­gang­see, and MAIBACH VUL GmbH, based in St. Gallen, to the new owner NOLEX.
The Swiss invest­ment holding company based in Wollerau (CH) has focu­sed on the long-term deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized compa­nies in Switz­er­land, southern Germany and Vorarl­berg (AT).
“We are deligh­ted to have found a new, strong part­ner in NOLEX, who will take MAIBACH’s previous success story to a new level in the long term and with compre­hen­sive exper­tise,” says Hans-Dieter Maibach. Stra­te­gic succes­sion plan­ning is beco­ming incre­asingly important For the Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor project team, led by Julian Will, Dennis Minnert and Sebas­tian Ring­leb, the take­over marks the 22nd tran­sac­tion they have supported this year.
“MAIBACH opera­tes in a dyna­mic market envi­ron­ment in which stra­te­gic corpo­rate decis­i­ons are beco­ming incre­asingly important along­side tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions. Road safety tech­no­lo­gies must be conti­nuously deve­lo­ped in order to keep pace with the requi­re­ments of auto­ma­ted and connec­ted driving. At the same time, there is incre­asing pres­sure to find ecolo­gi­cally compa­ti­ble solu­ti­ons that ensure both the protec­tion of amphi­bi­ans and the reduc­tion of traf­fic noise,” explains Dennis Minnert, Senior Asso­ciate at Nachfolgekontor.
Julian Will, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, adds: “A successful succes­sion plan is crucial not only to secure a sustainable market posi­tion, but also to drive forward the long-term deve­lo­p­ment of the company. We are ther­e­fore all the more plea­sed that in NOLEX we have been able to iden­tify the ideal part­ner for our client, with whose support MAIBACH can once again expand its pionee­ring role within the indus­try.” About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor GmbH, toge­ther with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, is one of the leading M&A advi­sory firms in the German SME sector. The team of almost 30 experts accom­pa­nies medium-sized entre­pre­neurs exclu­si­vely through the entire sales process. “Our task is to safe­guard life’s work,” is how we see oursel­ves. In doing so, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, and which protects the iden­tity of their compa­nies to a special degree. Thanks to their excel­lent access to medium-sized compa­nies, Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance have also estab­lished them­sel­ves as a strong part­ner at the side of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal major compa­nies and inves­tors in acqui­si­ti­ons. This is also demons­tra­ted by the top posi­tion recently achie­ved at the Merger­mar­ket League Table. With a total of ten accom­pa­nied tran­sac­tions in the first quar­ter of 2024, the M&A consul­tancy ranks first in Germany.
www.nachfolgekontor.de | www.sonntagcf.com About MAIBACH Verkehrs­si­cher­heits- und Lärm­schutz­ein­rich­tun­gen GmbH MAIBACH.com/ About Nolex www.nolex.ch

News

Munich — Airbus Ventures, one of the most proli­fic inves­tors in space start­ups, has laun­ched a USD 155 million fund to be deployed in the emer­ging space sector as well as the broa­der “deep tech” ecosystem.
Airbus Ventures curr­ently has USD 465 million under manage­ment, with Fund‑Y being the fourth fund laun­ched to date.
“This fund is to explore new oppor­tu­ni­ties, and space is one of them,” Thomas d’Hal­luin, Mana­ging Part­ner of Airbus Ventures, told CNBC.
— The move comes at a time when invest­ment in the space indus­try, parti­cu­larly from venture capi­ta­lists, is reco­ve­ring after two lean years.
Airbus Ventures’ new “Fund‑Y” targets long-term oppor­tu­ni­ties in early-stage deep tech start­ups, which d’Hal­luin defi­nes as “going back to the laws of physics and not being afraid of what’s hard.”
Histo­ri­cally, “deep tech” is a clas­si­fi­ca­tion for compa­nies working on tech­no­lo­gies that face major scien­ti­fic or tech­ni­cal obstacles.
— While Airbus Ventures has tradi­tio­nally deployed the majo­rity of its funding in the U.S., d’Hal­luin explai­ned that Fund‑Y is inten­ded to be global in scope.
In parti­cu­lar, he sees “very strong momen­tum” for space start­ups in Europe and Japan.
Foun­ded in 2016, Airbus Ventures takes a diffe­rent approach to tradi­tio­nal venture capi­tal firms.
The company keeps its distance from its name­sake company, the Euro­pean aero­space company, and more than half of its Fund‑Y comes from exter­nal capi­tal such as insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, private equity and family offices.
About a third of the capi­tal provi­ded by Airbus Ventures so far has gone to the space sector, it said, back­ing 14 pure-play compa­nies in the space, inclu­ding startup Impulse, lunar cargo company ispace and track­ing service LeoLabs.
“This is about pati­ence. Often, and too often, people want instant wins. Space is not a place of instant grati­fi­ca­tion,” said d’Halluin.
He empha­si­zed the importance of funding foun­ders with the “extre­mely rare” trait of great execu­tion and high­ligh­ted Airbus Ventures’ support for Impulse.
The startup was foun­ded by Tom Muel­ler, who is known for deve­lo­ping SpaceX’s rocket engines.
“Impulse was successful in its first mission thanks to Tom’s 17 years of expe­ri­ence at SpaceX,” said d’Halluin.
“This element of human capi­tal that is often negle­c­ted in deep tech dili­gence — this notion of who captures the execu­tion, know­ledge and skills in a parti­cu­lar company — is what we focus on,” he added. 

News

Colo­gne — YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to REWE Group in connec­tion with the $150 million finan­cing round of the Berlin-based express deli­very service Flink.
The total amount consists of $115 million equity and $35 million debt.
In addi­tion to exis­ting inves­tors such as Bond, North­zone and Muba­d­ala, various new inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round.
At the same time, Flink has ente­red into a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Just Eat Takea­way, and a part­ner­ship with REWE Group has been in place since 2021.
These part­ner­ships enable Flink to further inte­grate its services in Europe and thus expand its market presence in Europe.
As part of its expan­sion stra­tegy, Flink plans to open 30 new loca­ti­ons over the next 12 months to expand its range of fast deli­very services and reach more custo­mers. About REWE Group The coope­ra­tive REWE Group is one of the leading retail and tourism groups in Germany and Europe.
In 2023, the company achie­ved a total exter­nal turno­ver of over €92 billion.
Foun­ded in 1927, REWE Group is present in 21 Euro­pean count­ries with around 390,000 employees.
Johan­nes Janning’s team has advi­sed REWE Group seve­ral times in the past, inclu­ding on the €58 million finan­cing round of Infi­nite Roots and most recently on the $61 million finan­cing round of Formo.
Advi­sors REWE: YPOG Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Colo­gne; Matthias Kres­ser (Venture Debt), Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg; Laura Franke (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Project Lawyer, Colo­gne; Nina Ahlert (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Colo­gne; Dr. Matthias Schatz (Corpo­rate), Part­ner, Colo­gne; Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg; Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin The in-house team of REWE Group was led by Dr. Ulrich Flei­scher (Senior Legal Coun­sel — M&A and Financing).
About YPOG YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and transactions.
The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Frank­furt a. M. — Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP has advi­sed Insight Part­ners on the $54 million Series B finan­cing round of Quali­f­yze GmbH (“Quali­f­yze”) with parti­ci­pa­tion of exis­ting inves­tors HV Capi­tal, Harbour­Vest Part­ners, H14 and Cherry Ventures. Quali­f­yze, based in Frank­furt am Main, opera­tes an inte­gra­ted audit manage­ment plat­form that simpli­fies compli­ance audits for life scien­ces compa­nies and serves over 1,200 phar­maceu­ti­cal and health­care compa­nies worldwide.
The plat­form provi­des a centra­li­zed system to manage all aspects of audits and ensu­res the highest quality and compli­ance stan­dards for clients across the indus­try. Insight Part­ners is a global soft­ware inves­tor that part­ners with high-growth tech­no­logy, soft­ware and inter­net start­ups and scale-up compa­nies that are driving trans­for­ma­tive change in their industries.
Insight Part­ners has inves­ted in more than 800 compa­nies globally and had over $80 billion in regu­la­tory assets under manage­ment as of Decem­ber 31, 2023.
Will­kie advi­sed on all aspects of the tran­sac­tion, KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed on IP, IT and data protec­tion issues Advi­sors on the tran­sac­tion: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP The Will­kie team was led by part­ner Miriam Steets (Corporate/M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich) and included part­ners Matthew Haddad (Corporate/M&A/Venture Capi­tal, New York), Dr. Patrick Meiisel (Tax, Frank­furt) and Andrew Silber­stein (Tax, New York), coun­sel Wulf Kring (Tax, Frank­furt) and Martin Waskow­ski (Employ­ment, Frank­furt) as well as asso­cia­tes Denise Kamme­rer (Frank­furt), David Strät­ling (Munich), Marie Moel­le­ring (Frank­furt), Luca Fuhr­mann (Frank­furt), Nils Hörnig (Munich) (all Corporate/M&A), Sascha Wink­ler (Employ­ment, Frank­furt), Dr. Laurin Havlik (Compli­ance, Munich) and Marcel Seemaier (Tax, Frankfurt).
About Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP provi­des leading legal solu­ti­ons to complex, busi­ness-criti­cal issues that span markets and industries.
Our appro­xi­m­ately 1,200 lawy­ers in 15 offices world­wide provide inno­va­tive, prag­ma­tic and sophisti­ca­ted legal services in appro­xi­m­ately 45 prac­tice areas.
Find out more at www.willkie.com. The KNPZ team compri­sed part­ner Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath as well as senior asso­cia­tes Matthias Struck and Jan Schä­fer and asso­cia­tes Moritz Schmitz and Julius Hilde­brandt (all Hamburg).

News

Hamburg — The Hamburg-based Ufenau Capi­tal subsi­diary The Rele­vance Group GmbH (TRG) has acqui­red IMG Inter­ac­tive Marke­ting Group GmbH.
A GÖRG team led by Frank­furt part­ners Dr. Tobias Fenck and Markus Beyer provi­ded The Rele­vance Group with compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice on the transaction.
Foun­ded by Jürgen Rösger, Hamburg-based IMG GmbH has estab­lished itself as a high-end consul­ting agency for digi­tal growth since 2014.
It specia­li­zes in support­ing inter­na­tio­nally active bran­ded goods and service provi­ders (parti­cu­larly from the fast-moving consu­mer goods, auto­mo­tive, retail, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT and commu­ni­ca­ti­ons indus­tries), in parti­cu­lar in the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of new forms of consu­mer commu­ni­ca­tion, espe­ci­ally in the area of mobile commu­ni­ca­tion and advertising.
The company also acts as a “task force” and “think tank” for the top marke­ting manage­ment of sales-orien­ted industries.
Its clients include Luft­hansa, Deut­sche Bahn and Deut­sche Glasfaser.
TRG is a Euro­pean group of compa­nies of a fund advi­sed by Ufenau Capi­tal Partners.
It was foun­ded in Hamburg in 2022 and is a provi­der of data-driven sales and marke­ting optimization.
IMG is alre­ady the sixth part­ner company in the rapidly growing TRG and signi­fi­cantly enri­ches the group’s port­fo­lio in the areas of digi­tal busi­ness, custo­mer expe­ri­ence, orga­nic growth and data analytics.
In addi­tion to IMG, TRG’s network of experts includes five other specia­li­zed part­ner compa­nies in Germany, the Nether­lands and Switz­er­land: Data­lo­gue Group, Data­Lab GmbH, Converto AG, Markt­ef­fect and DirectResearch.
Under the leader­ship of GROUP CEO Andreas Hanne­mann, CFO Jan Kaeten and CPO Peter Joachim Fiegel, TRG aims to become Europe’s leading part­ner for data-driven relevance.
The expan­sion is supported by the Swiss inves­tor group Ufenau Capi­tal Partners.
GÖRG advi­sed TRG on the acqui­si­tion of IMG, inclu­ding corpo­rate, tax, employ­ment and IT law.
In this context, the team led by Dr. Tobias Fenck and Markus Beyer had alre­ady successfully advi­sed Ufenau on its invest­ment in Data­lo­gue. Advi­sor to The Rele­vance Group GmbH: GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB
Dr. Tobias Fenck, Foto (Lead, Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A, Frank­furt am Main) Markus Beyer, LL.M. (Lead, Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A, Frank­furt am Main) Dr. Adal­bert Rödding, LL.M. (Part­ner, Tax, Colo­gne) Jonas Hain (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate Law/M&A, Frank­furt am Main) Dr. Karl-Georg Küsters, LL.B., LL.M. Taxa­tion (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Tax, Colo­gne) Phil­ipp Albert (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main) Fabi­enne Lampe, M.mel. (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) Florian Seidl (Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law, Frank­furt am Main) Dr. Valen­tin Zipfel (Asso­ciate, IP,IT, Commer­cial, Frank­furt am Main) About Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent Swiss invest­ment group based on Lake Zurich.
It focu­ses on majo­rity invest­ments in service compa­nies in the DACH region as well as Spain, Portu­gal, Poland, Bene­lux and the UK, which are active in the areas of busi­ness services, health­care, IT services, educa­tion and finan­cial services.
Since 2011, Ufenau has inves­ted in >350 service compa­nies in Europe.
With an exten­sive circle of renow­ned and expe­ri­en­ced indus­try part­ners (owners, CEOs, CFOs), Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners pursues an active value-added invest­ment approach at eye level with the entrepreneurs.
Ufenau mana­ges EUR 3.0 billion in assets under management.

News

Hattingen/Uelzen — The Rivean subsi­diary Toner­Part­ner Group, one of the leading online retail­ers of prin­ter ink and toner in Europe, is streng­thening its market posi­tion by acqui­ring its compe­ti­tor Trensco.
Rivean Capi­tal has owned the Toner­Part­ner Group since 2021.
— Toner­Part­ner acqui­res 100 percent of Trensco GmbH und Co KG in Uelzen with its sales brands HD Toner and HQ-Fit.
This crea­tes the largest German online distri­bu­tor in this sector with around one million active custo­mers and an annual turno­ver of over 100 million euros.
Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of the French provi­der SAS Rousselle.com in 2021 and the purchase of Druckerpatronen.de one year later, the Toner­Part­ner Group is thus conti­nuing its dyna­mic growth.
“HD Toner serves an impres­sive number of private and busi­ness custo­mers. We see strong growth poten­tial for the company through opti­mi­zed, AI-supported online marke­ting, syner­gies in purcha­sing and the marke­ting of our sustainable products under our own ‘Green Line’ brand to HD Toner custo­mers,” says Toner­Part­ner Group CEO Morten Severon.
He adds: “With products rela­ting to sport and fitness, which are sold under HQ-Fit, the Uelzen-based company has successfully estab­lished a second main­stay that is also of inte­rest to the Toner­Part­ner Group.”
The Trensco products will conti­nue to be sold under the estab­lished HD Toner and HQ-Fit brands.
“The Toner­Part­ner Group provi­des Trensco with comple­tely new growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. Toge­ther with the Toner­Part­ner Group’s strong brands, a highly profes­sio­nal sales plat­form and excel­lent know-how, we know that Trensco and its employees are in the best hands,” empha­size Anja and Patric Weiß, foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors of Trensco.
“With the acqui­si­tion of Trensco, Rivean Capi­tal is inves­t­ing further in the Toner­Part­ner plat­form and signi­fi­cantly expan­ding its market posi­tion. This is another exam­ple of Rivean Capital’s role as a growth part­ner for entre­pre­neurs in the SME sector,” says Andreas Klab, Part­ner and Head of Rivean Capital’s German office. Rivean Capi­tal has owned the Toner­Part­ner Group since 2021. Relo­ca­tion of logi­stics from Hattin­gen to Uelzen in 2025 The Toner­Part­ner Group’s admi­nis­tra­tive loca­tion will remain in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The logi­stics center will move to Uelzen, where Trensco has its own warehouse.
The lease for the logi­stics warehouse in Hattin­gen (North Rhine-West­pha­lia) will expire in the middle of next year due to the landlord’s new deve­lo­p­ment plans. About Rivean Capi­tal Rivean Capi­tal is a leading Euro­pean private equity inves­tor for mid-market tran­sac­tions with acti­vi­ties in the DACH region, the Bene­lux count­ries and Italy.
Funds advi­sed by Rivean Capi­tal manage assets in excess of €5 billion.
Since its foun­da­tion in 1982, Rivean Capi­tal has supported more than 250 compa­nies in reali­zing their growth targets.
In Germany, Rivean Capi­tal is inves­ted in the follo­wing compa­nies in addi­tion to Toner­Part­ner: Data­ci­ders, Green Mobi­lity Holding, ]init[ AG für digi­tale Kommu­ni­ka­tion and Best4Tires.
www.riveancapital.com

News

Colo­gne — Oppen­hoff has once again compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the EIC Fund on its German investments.
This time, the EIC Fund inves­ted in the Munich-based start-up Reverion GmbH toge­ther with the US lead inves­tor Energy Impact Part­ners (EIP) and Honda Motor, among others.
The exis­ting inves­tors Extan­tia Capi­tal, UVC Part­ners, Green Gene­ra­tion Fund, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures and Possi­ble Ventures were also invol­ved in the finan­cing round.
The invest­ment was made as an equity invest­ment as part of a Series A finan­cing round under the “Hori­zon Europe Program”.
The over­sub­scri­bed finan­cing round had a total volume of around 62 million US dollars.
Reverion is a spin-off of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich.
The Clima­te­Tech company builds rever­si­ble, CO2-nega­tive power plants using an inno­va­tive high-tempe­ra­ture fuel cell system.
It thus reali­zes carbon-nega­tive and emis­sion-redu­cing energy gene­ra­tion. The EIC Fund is the special fund of the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil and thus the central invest­ment vehicle of the Euro­pean Commis­sion. It serves to imple­ment the Euro­pean Commission’s EIC Acce­le­ra­tor program, which supports inno­va­tive and sustainable Euro­pean growth compa­nies. The EIC Fund is advi­sed by the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank. The EIC (Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil) was foun­ded in the context of the pilot project “Hori­zon 2020 — the Frame­work Programme for Rese­arch and Inno­va­tion” and was successfully contin­ued in 2021 with the launch of the “Hori­zon Europe Programme”. With a dura­tion from 2021 to 2027 and a total budget of up to €95.5 billion, it is one of the largest funding programs for rese­arch and inno­va­tion world­wide. In 2023, the EIC Fund supported over 100 invest­ment rounds in deep tech compa­nies and secu­red co-invest­ments from 280 other inves­tors worth EUR 1.2 billion.
Oppen­hoff has regu­larly advi­sed the EIC Fund on its invest­ments in German start-ups since 2021. Advi­sor EIC Fund: Oppen­hoff & Part­ner lead Dr. Caro­lin Roßko­then (Corpo­rate / M&A); Dr. Maike Mestmä­cker (Corpo­rate), Dr. Patric Mau (IP), Marvin Roch­ner (Real Estate) and Dr. Cars­ten Bormann (Regu­la­tory).
Oppen­hoff regu­larly advi­ses compa­nies in the field of venture capi­tal, most recently for exam­ple the EIC Fund on the 53 million Euro Series B finan­cing round of Infi­nite Roots or on the invest­ment in the tech start-up STABL Energy as well as SellerX on the acqui­si­tion of KW-Commerce and Beyond­Build on the stra­te­gic merger of spaceOS and Equiem Holdings. About Oppen­hoff & Part­ner The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff deve­lops indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies, insti­tu­ti­ons, stra­te­gic inves­tors and finan­cial investors.
More than 100 lawy­ers advise clients throug­hout Germany in all important areas of commer­cial and tax law. Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a part­ner­ship company regis­tered in the part­ner­ship regis­ter of the Essen Local Court with the regis­tra­tion number PR 1850 and its regis­tered office in Cologne.

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz has advi­sed the Munich-based soft­ware deve­lo­per Probis Soft­ware GmbH on an invest­ment by JLL Spark Global Ventures.
In the course of a Series A finan­cing round, JLL Spark inves­ted the largest share of the parti­ci­pa­ting investors.
Munich-based Probis offers cloud-based soft­ware for multi-project control­ling in the real estate and finance sectors.
Since its foun­da­tion in 2022, the company has comple­ted up to 1,000 projects annually.
JLL Spark Global Ventures is the corpo­rate venture arm of Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).
Since June 2018, JLL Spark has inves­ted over USD 390 million in more than 50 early-stage proptechs.
SKW Schwarz had alre­ady advi­sed Probis Soft­ware GmbH in 2022 on the entry of the inves­tor EKK. Advi­sor Probis Soft­ware GmbH: SKW Schwarz, Munich Dr. Martin Bött­ger, photo © SKW (Corporate/M&A, lead), Dr. Daniel Meßmer (IT); Asso­cia­tes: Chris­tine Wärl (Corporate/M&A), Tamara Ulm (Employ­ment)

News

Colo­gne — Oppen­hoff has advi­sed the Saint-Gobain Group on the sale of the auto­mo­tive supplier FREEGLASS GmbH & Co. KG to Hanno­ver Finanz as part of a carve-out.
Saint-Gobain is a global supplier of mate­ri­als and solu­ti­ons used in the cons­truc­tion sector, among others.
In Germany, the company is prima­rily known for its leading buil­ding mate­rial brands ISOVER, Rigips, Weber and Ecophon as well as for its glass production.
As an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner to the auto­mo­tive indus­try, FREEGLASS deve­lops and produ­ces three-dimen­sio­nal plas­tic compon­ents at its plant near Stuttgart.
Its products include windows and covers with inno­va­tive products that enable the inte­gra­tion of func­tions and sensors.
The company employs 120 people and produ­ces around two million compon­ents per year. Advi­sor Saint-Gobain Group: Oppen­hoff & Part­ner led by Myriam Baars-Schil­ling and Sebas­tian Gutmann included Maike Mestmä­cker (all Corpo­rate / M&A), Dr. Gunnar Knorr (Tax) and Dr. Stefa­nie Minzen­may (Real Estate).
Advi­sor Saint-Gobain Group : Oppen­hoff & Part­ner has been advi­sing on tran­sac­tions of natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies as well as on corpo­rate law matters for decades.
The M&A team, which has recei­ved nume­rous awards in indus­try hand­books, recently advi­sed the Wilms Group on the sale of Südka­bel, the Iveco Group on an agree­ment with Muta­res to trans­fer the MAGIRUS Group, Snow­World on the complete take­over of Alpen­park Neuss and the Austrian Fede­ral Rail­ways ÖBB on the acqui­si­tion of Go-Ahead Deutschland.
The in-house Saint-Gobain team consis­ted of Matthias Zenner, Eva Beutin and Henrik von Wietersheim.

News

Berlin — Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advi­sed Kommu­nal­kre­dit Austria AG on the finan­cing of ther­mondo GmbH in the amount of EUR 20 million for the acqui­si­tion of the solar energy company FeBe­Sol GmbH.
The finan­cing consists of a fixed term loan faci­lity in the amount of EUR 17 million and a revol­ving term loan faci­lity in the amount of EUR 3 million.
Berlin-based ther­mondo GmbH is Germany’s largest heat pump instal­ler with over 600 perma­nent employees.
Since it was foun­ded in 2013, the company says it has repla­ced over 50,000 heating systems in Germany with heat pumps.
ther­mondo is backed by Cana­dian inves­tor Brook­field Infra­struc­ture Part­ners and German inves­tors E.ON, HV Capi­tal, Vorwerk, Rocket Inter­net and 10x.
FeBe­Sol GmbH, based in Sankt Leon-Rot in southern Germany, is a solar energy company foun­ded in 2009 that supports its custo­mers from plan­ning and appli­ca­tion to the instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance of solar systems.
To date, the company has instal­led more than 6,000 photo­vol­taic systems in Germany and abroad.
The acqui­si­tion of FeBe­Sol makes ther­mondo one of the top 10 play­ers on the German photo­vol­taic market and conso­li­da­tes its leading posi­tion on the German B2C heat pump market.
Kommu­nal­kre­dit Austria AG, based in Vienna, is a specia­list bank for infra­struc­ture and energy finan­cing in Europe.
From the provi­sion of debt and subor­di­na­ted capi­tal to mezza­nine and bridge finan­cing and equity, the company offers flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons across the entire capi­tal struc­ture. Kommu­nal­kre­dit Austria was advi­sed by an inter­na­tio­nal team from Norton Rose Fulbright led by Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Bern­hard Fied­ler (Banking/Finance).
In addi­tion, the team consis­ted of Jan Peter Weiland (Coun­sel, London), Lenka Mich­alko (Senior Asso­ciate), Kris­tina Thie­le­mann (Asso­ciate) (both Frank­furt, Banking/Finance) as well as Bernd Dreier (Part­ner, Munich) and Dr. Malte Ingwer­sen (Coun­sel, Hamburg) (both Corporate/M&A).
ther­mondo was advi­sed by Lupp+Partner. About Norton Rose Fulbright Norton Rose Fulbright is a global commer­cial law firm. With more than 3,500 lawy­ers at over 50 loca­ti­ons world­wide in Europe, the USA, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies. We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice in all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal, regu­la­tory, compli­ance and gover­nance matters. This enables us to provide our clients with prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face. Where­ver we operate, we act in accordance with our busi­ness prin­ci­ples of “Quality, Unity and Inte­grity”. We provide legal services of the highest stan­dard and main­tain this level of quality in every cont­act. The Swiss asso­cia­tion Norton Rose Fulbright helps to coor­di­nate the acti­vi­ties of Norton Rose Fulbright members, but does not provide legal advice to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in more than 50 cities world­wide, inclu­ding London, Hous­ton, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney and Johan­nes­burg. For more infor­ma­tion, visit nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices.

News

Munich/Bonn — Rödl & Part­ner has advi­sed Ipsos SA with an inter­di­sci­pli­nary team on a public take­over offer to acquire infas Holding AG, a major player in the field of market, opinion and social rese­arch in Germany.
Ipsos, one of the world’s leading market rese­arch compa­nies, has laun­ched a volun­t­ary public take­over offer for infas Holding AG.
This tran­sac­tion enables Ipsos to combine its inter­na­tio­nal reach and opera­tio­nal know-how with the exper­tise and repu­ta­tion of infas.
This will enable Ipsos to further streng­then its posi­tion as a provi­der of market rese­arch and consul­ting services in Germany.
The Rödl & Part­ner team supported Ipsos with a finan­cial and tax due diligence.
Part­ner James Murphy was respon­si­ble for the over­all project manage­ment and finan­cial due diligence.
The tax due dili­gence was carried out by part­ner Dr. Chris­toph Götz. About Ipsos SA Ipsos claims to be one of the world’s leading market and opinion rese­arch companies.
The company employs around 20,000 people and is repre­sen­ted in 90 countries.
With more than 5,000 clients, Ipsos offers compre­hen­sive rese­arch and analy­sis exper­tise that provi­des deep insights into people’s beha­vior, opini­ons and motives.
In Germany, more than 500 employees work in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Frank­furt and Nuremberg.
The company was foun­ded in 1975 by Didier Truchot and is head­quar­te­red in Paris, France.
Ipsos has been listed on the Paris Stock Exch­ange since 1999. About infas Holding AG infas is a listed, private and inde­pen­dent rese­arch insti­tute based in Bonn, Germany, which conducts natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal ad hoc studies on topics such as the labor market, educa­tion and transport.
Foun­ded in 1959, the company employs 300 people, inclu­ding over 150 scien­tists, and gene­ra­ted a turno­ver of around 50 million euros in 2023.
The company consists of seve­ral subsi­dia­ries, inclu­ding infas Insti­tut für ange­wandte Sozi­al­wis­sen­schaft, infas 360, infas quo and Lutum+Tappert.
infas conducts quali­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive surveys as well as market analy­ses in various subject areas, inclu­ding trans­por­ta­tion and health. Rödl & Part­ner — The agile caret­a­ker for medium-sized global market leaders As lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, busi­ness and IT consul­tants and audi­tors, we are repre­sen­ted at 110 of our own loca­ti­ons in 50 count­ries. Our clients trust our 5,800 colle­agues world­wide. www.roedl.de. Advi­sor to Ipsos SA: Rödl & Part­ner­Ja­mesMurphy, Part­ner, Munich (© Roedl & Part­ner) — Over­all project manage­ment Nick Phil­lips, Mana­ger, London Chris­toph Niederl, Senior Asso­ciate, Munich Tax Services: Dr. Chris­toph Götz, Part­ner, Munich, Dr. Susann Sturm, Mana­ger, Munich Lucas Reilly-Schott, Tax Assistant, Munich

News

Atlanta/ Düsseldorf/ — UPS (NYSE: UPS) announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of Frigo-Trans and its sister company BPL (coll­ec­tively “Frigo-Trans”), indus­try-leading provi­ders of complex health­care logi­stics based in Germany.
Once the acqui­si­tion is fina­li­zed, UPS will enhance its end-to-end capa­bi­li­ties across Europe for UPS Health­care custo­mers who incre­asingly require tempe­ra­ture-sensi­tive and time-sensi­tive logistics.
“Rapid inno­va­tion in the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try is crea­ting the need for more inte­gra­ted refri­ge­ra­ted and frozen supply chains,” said Kate Gutmann, EVP and Presi­dent of Inter­na­tio­nal, Health­care and Supply Chain Solu­ti­ons at UPS.
“Frigo-Trans will help deepen our port­fo­lio of solu­ti­ons for our custo­mers and acce­le­rate our jour­ney to become the global leader in complex health­care logi­stics to meet their needs.”
Frigo-Trans’ network includes a tempe­ra­ture-control­led warehouse cove­ring six tempe­ra­ture zones from cryo­p­re­ser­va­tion (-196°C) to ambi­ent (+15° to +25°C), a pan-Euro­pean cold chain trans­por­ta­tion solu­tion and tempe­ra­ture-control­led and time-criti­cal freight forwar­ding services.
The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first quar­ter of 2025, subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory reviews and approvals.
The value and terms of the tran­sac­tion will not be disc­lo­sed at this time. About Frigo-Trans Frigo-Trans provi­des a compre­hen­sive warehousing and trans­por­ta­tion solu­tion for phar­maceu­ti­cal and biotech customers.
Frigo-Trans utili­zes world-class distri­bu­tion faci­li­ties and a phar­macy-focu­sed, pan-Euro­pean cold chain trans­por­ta­tion network.
Other value-added services include pack­a­ging, hand­ling and inven­tory management.
The Frigo-Trans network is head­quar­te­red in Fußgön­heim, Germany and covers all Euro­pean count­ries. About BPL BPL offers custo­mi­zed trans­port manage­ment for GDP-compli­ant ship­ping of time-criti­cal and tempe­ra­ture-sensi­tive products.
BPL mana­ges a high-quality network of air and sea freight carri­ers and hand­les customs clearance to meet custo­mers’ complex cross-border requirements.
Tempe­ra­ture-control­led pack­a­ging is an addi­tio­nal value-added service.
BPL prima­rily caters to biopharma custo­mers with speci­fic tempe­ra­ture, quality and speed requirements.
BPL is head­quar­te­red in Düssel­dorf, Germany. About UPS UPS (NYSE: UPS) is one of the world’s largest compa­nies, with reve­nues of $91.0 billion in 2023, provi­ding a broad range of inte­gra­ted logi­stics solu­ti­ons to custo­mers in more than 200 count­ries and territories.
The company’s appro­xi­m­ately 500,000 employees pursue a stra­tegy that is simply formu­la­ted and powerfully imple­men­ted: “Moving our world forward by deli­ve­ring what matters”: Custo­mer first.
People led.
Inno­va­tion driven.
UPS is commit­ted to redu­cing its impact on the envi­ron­ment and support­ing the commu­ni­ties we serve around the world.
UPS is also a tire­less advo­cate for diver­sity, equa­lity and inclusion.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit ups.com, about.ups.com and investors.ups.com.

Subscribe newsletter

Here you can read about the latest transactions, IPOs, private equity deals and venture capital investments, who has raised a new fund, how Buy & Build activities are going.

Get in touch

Contact us!
fyb [at] fyb.de

Send email