ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt a. M. — FAZIT-STIFTUNG, which includes Frank­fur­ter Allge­meine Zeitung GmbH as well as Frank­fur­ter Socie­tät GmbH, and Zeitungs­hol­ding Hessen (“ZHH”), owned by Ippen Medi­en­gruppe and the Rempel family’s MDV-Medi­en­gruppe, have reached an agree­ment on the sale of Medi­en­gruppe Frank­furt to ZHH. The sale is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

The Frank­furt Media Group compri­ses the Frank­fur­ter Rund­schau, the Frank­fur­ter Neue Presse with its regio­nal editi­ons, the adver­ti­sing jour­nal Mix am Mitt­woch, the marke­ting company RheinMain.Media, the digi­tal agency Rhein-Main.Net and the Frank­fur­ter Societäts-Druckerei.

Advi­sor to FAZIT-STIFTUNG: Henge­ler Mueller 
Active were the part­ners Dr. Joachim Rosen­gar­ten(photo(Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Alf-Henrik Bischke (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Ernst-Thomas Kraft (Tax, Frank­furt) and Dr. Fabian Alex­an­der Quast (Public Commer­cial Law, Berlin), Coun­sel Dr. Markus Ernst (Tax, Munich) and Asso­cia­tes Dr. Thomas Lang, Till Wans­le­ben (both Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Phil­ipp Otto Neideck (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf) and Dr. Peter Diete­rich (Public Commer­cial Law, Berlin).

News

Munich — Private equity inves­tor EQT sells CBR Fashion Group to Alteri Inves­tors. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the sales price.

With its Street One and Cecil brands, the CBR Fashion Group is one of the five largest women’s fashion manu­fac­tu­r­ers in Germany. The group employs over 1,200 people and supplies more than 8,300 sales outlets in 19 Euro­pean count­ries. In Novem­ber 2017, CBR Fashion Group issued a bond in the amount of 450 million euros through. In the past fiscal year to June 2017, CBR had gene­ra­ted sales of around 579 million euros, with earnings before inte­rest, taxes, depre­cia­tion and amor­tiza­tion (Ebitda) of around 100 million euros, accor­ding to the company. Private equity inves­tor EQT had owned CBR Fashion Group since 2007.

The British invest­ment company Alteri Inves­tors was foun­ded in 2014, the company invests in Euro­pean retail compa­nies. The joint venture part­ner is the invest­ment mana­ger Apollo Global Management.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sedEQT on the manage­ment invest­ment in the tran­sac­tion with the follo­wing Munich team:
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, M&A/PE, MPP)
Dr. Tim Kauf­hold (Coun­sel, M&A/PE, MPP)
Dr. Sebas­tian Sumal­vico (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, MPP)
Matthias Ober­bauer (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, MPP)

P+P Pöllath + Part­ner regu­larly advi­ses EQT on manage­ment invest­ments, for exam­ple on the sale of SAG to SPIE or the sale of BSN medi­cal to the Swedish SCA.

News

Buda­pest (Hungary) / Berlin — Sabine Röth and Clemens Waitz of Vogel Heerma Waitz advi­sed AImo­tive, based in Buda­pest, on a USD 38 million / EUR 32 million Series C finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by B Capi­tal Group and Prime Ventures. Cisco Invest­ments, Samsung Cata­lyst Fund, and Series A and Series B inves­tors Robert Bosch Venture Capi­tal, Inven­ture, Draper Asso­cia­tes and Day One Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted. AImo­tive, active in Auto­no­mous Driving Tech­no­logy, will use the new capi­tal to further deve­lop its proprie­tary auto­no­mous driving tech­no­logy, which is prima­rily based on conven­tio­nally available came­ras combi­ned with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence image processing.

 

Advi­sors to AImo­tive: Vogel Heerma Waitz
Sabine Röth (Part­ner)
Dr. Clemens Waitz (Part­ner)

About­Vo­gel Heerma Waitz
Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media that has been in opera­tion since May 2014 and can draw on a total of more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence of its part­ners and staff in connec­tion with growth capi­tal financings.

About B Capi­tal Group
B Capi­tal Group is a global venture capi­tal firm that invests in pionee­ring indus­trial logi­stics, health­care, fintech and consu­mer enablem­ent compa­nies that are primed to scale across the global stage. Foun­ded in part­ner­ship with The Boston Consul­ting Group, B Capi­tal Group deli­vers unique access to top corpo­ra­ti­ons to match cutting-edge start-ups with the world’s leading CEOs, plat­forms, and brands. www.bcapgroup.com.

About Prime Ventures
Prime Ventures is a leading venture capi­tal and growth equity firm focu­sing on inves­t­ing in high growth Euro­pean tech­no­logy compa­nies. The firm lever­a­ges its capi­tal, expe­ri­ence and network to actively guide its port­fo­lio to become global cate­gory leaders. From its offices in The Nether­lands and the UK the inde­pen­dent part­ner­ship mana­ges over 500 million euro in commit­ted capi­tal. www.primeventures.com.

News

Hamburg — New busi­ness models that contri­bute to corpo­rate know­ledge and its deve­lo­p­ment are worth a whop­ping 85 million to the Otto Group. They are now to be made available for self-foun­da­ti­ons in the startup sector. This is inten­ded to streng­then corpo­rate company buil­ding through Otto Group Digi­tal Solu­ti­ons (OGDS), one of the company’s stra­te­gic pillars

OGDS will focus on the crea­tion of retail-rela­ted start­ups in order to actively shape the digi­tal future of the Otto Group. Two to three new busi­ness models with a focus on logi­stics, e‑commerce and fintech are to be crea­ted each year in the inter­nal company forge.

Since 2012, this model has been an inte­gral part of the digi­tal stra­tegy and successfully imple­men­ted by the company buil­der Liquid Labs; more than ten compa­nies have alre­ady been foun­ded since then. This makes the Otto Group a pioneer in the area of company-owned incubators.

“We solve the chal­lenges of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion with the advan­ta­ges of a startup and the connec­tion to the stra­te­gic assets of the Otto Group. This model gives us a clear compe­ti­tive advan­tage. Unlike exter­nal start­ups, we can take advan­tage of the Group struc­ture, still test our ideas quickly and immensely acce­le­rate the growth of our start­ups,” explains Paul Joze­fak (pictu­red), mana­ging direc­tor of Otto Group Digi­tal Solu­ti­ons and Liquid Labs, in a press release issued by the company yester­day (Tues­day).

“By focu­sing on our own start­ups, we are clearly focu­sing on inno­va­tions for our core busi­ness rather than on quick returns. With our start­ups, we are not only driving our own digi­tiza­tion, but also provi­ding the market with digi­tal solu­ti­ons for the future,” confirms Dr. Rainer Hille­brand, Member of the Group Manage­ment Board respon­si­ble for Group Stra­tegy, E‑Commerce, Busi­ness Intel­li­gence and Deputy Chair­man of the Manage­ment Board.

Previous OGDS start­ups include coll­ec­tAI, an end-to-end digi­tal receiv­a­bles manage­ment provi­der; RISK IDENT, a service that detects frau­du­lent acti­vity during online orde­ring and payment proces­ses in real time; and Border­Guru, a full-service solu­tion for cross-border e‑commerce that is now part of Hermes Group. They have all been able to deve­lop into estab­lished play­ers in the free market, offe­ring added value along their value chain to trading and finan­cial compa­nies in particular.

Other start­ups include Shopping24 Inter­net Group, a provi­der of shop­ping portals and product search engi­nes, Otto Group Media for data-driven adver­ti­sing, and the two idea labs Liquid Labs and Into‑e.

One advan­tage for OGDS is that it can use inter­nal Otto Group assets, such as know­ledge of custo­mer groups, website reach or logi­stics infra­struc­ture as stra­te­gic leverage to acce­le­rate growth and ther­eby build market-rele­vant businesses.

News

Munich / Zurich — In 2017, the pan-Euro­pean equity inves­tor Equis­tone once again under­pin­ned its posi­tion as one of the leading private equity houses targe­ting medium-sized compa­nies in the German-spea­king region. With a total of 17 tran­sac­tions for which the German and Swiss team was respon­si­ble in the past twelve months, the Mittel­stand inves­tor excee­ded the previous year’s figure of 13 deals. In a chal­len­ging market, three compa­nies were acqui­red, three dive­s­ted and eleven acqui­si­ti­ons were made for port­fo­lio companies.

Important invest­ments in the midmarket
In 2017, Equis­tone acqui­red three compa­nies: the refi­ner of fresh meat products Group of Butchers, the street­wear retailer DefShop, and the prefa­bri­ca­ted house group around Bien-Zenker and Hanse Haus. Group of Butchers, based in the Nether­lands, distri­bu­tes meat and sausage products through retail, super­mar­ket chains and out-of-home segments. The meat produ­cer brings toge­ther six local produ­cers in the Nether­lands and Belgium under its umbrella. A stable custo­mer base, sales at a solid level and a perma­nent work­force of 350 employees are the ideal start­ing point for further orga­nic growth and for bene­fiting from market conso­li­da­tion in other regi­ons through stra­te­gic acquisitions.

DefShop is one of the leading multich­an­nel retail­ers for urban street­wear, espe­ci­ally for young people, in Germany. The range includes clot­hing, shoes and access­ories from well-known manu­fac­tu­r­ers such as Adidas and Nike, as well as estab­lished own and licen­sed brands. The artic­les are sold prima­rily via the company’s own online B2C plat­form, but also via statio­nary stores and a network of Euro­pean whole­sale custo­mers. The joint work of manage­ment and Equis­tone on the next phase of growth will focus prima­rily on acce­le­ra­ted growth in the B2C and B2B segments, further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and streng­thening the private label strategy.

In Decem­ber, Equis­tone announ­ced the purchase of Bien-Zenker and Hanse Haus. The compa­nies of the Prefa­bri­ca­ted Houses Group design, produce, sell and build prefa­bri­ca­ted houses in Germany as well as in Switz­er­land and the UK. With Bien-Zenker, Living Haus and Hanse Haus, the Group has three stron­gly posi­tio­ned brands and a broad range of prefa­bri­ca­ted house solu­ti­ons that serve diffe­rent custo­mer and price segments with consis­t­ently high-quality products. A highly frag­men­ted market offers good oppor­tu­ni­ties here, espe­ci­ally for orga­nic growth strategies.

Successful exits after successful development
Equis­tone trans­fer­red three of its port­fo­lio compa­nies to other hands in fiscal 2017. “We focus on the sustainable success of our invest­ments. The goal is to opti­mize the market posi­tion of the compa­nies in our port­fo­lio through process and product inno­va­tions and to realize orga­nic growth toge­ther with the manage­ment and employees,” explains Michael H. Bork, Senior Part­ner and Mana­ging Direc­tor at Equis­tone (Photo) explains: “When we sell a company, it is very important to us to find the right part­ner who will open up further growth poten­tial and take the respec­tive company into the next deve­lo­p­ment phase. We succee­ded in this again last year — for exam­ple with the sale of the Horn­schuch Group to Conti­nen­tal, of EuroAvio­nics to HENSOLDT and of OASE to the US private equity house Argand Part­ners. We expect the favorable envi­ron­ment for exits to conti­nue in 2018, in which capi­tal and the willing­ness to invest on the part of inves­tors meet suita­ble tran­sac­tion candi­da­tes,” Michael H. Bork continues.

Equis­tone had inves­ted in Konrad Horn­schuch AG in 2008, at that time still under the company name Barclays Private Equity, and successfully comple­ted the resale of the group to Conti­nen­tal in March 2017. The company value and the market posi­tion of the surface specia­list from Weiß­bach had deve­lo­ped signi­fi­cantly in recent years. Sales increased during Equistone’s invol­vement from 140 million euros (2008) to appro­xi­m­ately 450 million euros (2016). As part of an ambi­tious buy-and-build stra­tegy, two German and one US company were acqui­red, the product port­fo­lio was massi­vely expan­ded and new produc­tion sites were estab­lished. Toge­ther with Equis­tone, manage­ment succee­ded in over­co­ming the conse­quen­ces of the finan­cial crisis and retur­ning to a sustainable growth path.

In mid-August, the sale of EuroAvio­nics, a manu­fac­tu­rer and global tech­no­logy leader of civil avio­nics systems, to HENSOLDT AG was comple­ted. During the invest­ment period, the company has conti­nuously deve­lo­ped its market posi­tion and global presence, prima­rily through the expan­sion of its product port­fo­lio and inter­na­tio­nal acquisitions.

THE OASE Group, an inter­na­tio­nal specia­list in water gardens, aqua­tics and foun­tain tech­no­logy, was sold in Octo­ber. The company is a highly regarded, strong brand inter­na­tio­nally thanks to sensa­tio­nal instal­la­ti­ons such as the “Dance of the Cranes” in Singa­pore or the multi­me­dia foun­tain instal­la­tion in front of the Petro­nas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. The drivers of orga­nic growth in the period under review were the expan­sion of the product port­fo­lio, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and a targe­ted buy-and-build stra­tegy in neigh­bor­ing segments. With success: during Equistone’s invol­vement, the group’s sales grew from around 100 million euros (2011) to around 155 million euros (2017) while profi­ta­bi­lity increased. OASE employs appro­xi­m­ately 750 people worldwide.

Targe­ted busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment through acqui­si­ti­ons of port­fo­lio companies
Equis­tone has been known in the indus­try for many years for its capi­tal strength, but more importantly for its profound support in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the asset during the invest­ment. “The stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of our port­fo­lio compa­nies is a key element of our invest­ment approach: We help compa­nies to deve­lop their growth poten­tial. Today, 20 medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands rely on our expe­ri­ence, exper­tise and capi­tal strength. For exam­ple, we support market posi­tio­ning and conso­li­da­tion by acqui­ring suita­ble compa­nies that fit the port­fo­lio company’s growth stra­tegy. We intend to conti­nue on this course in 2018,” summa­ri­zes Dr. Marc Arens, Part­ner at Equistone.

In the past year, Equis­tone was able to realize seve­ral add-on acqui­si­ti­ons for its investments:

Sport­group expan­ded its presence in Austra­lia, North America and Asia through five acqui­si­ti­ons and conso­li­da­ted its posi­tion as market leader in the global market for sports surfaces: In addi­tion to SCM, the Austra­lian compa­nies ProGrass, NewTurf and Wm Loud, as well as Malaysia’s Fairm­ont, joined the group in 2017 as renow­ned suppli­ers of arti­fi­cial turf and sports faci­lity surfaces. Sport­group — part of Equistone’s port­fo­lio since mid-2015 and head­quar­te­red in Ingol­stadt — is a specia­list in the design of arti­fi­cial turf and sports field surfaces for major sport­ing events and stadium construction.
VIVONIO, a stra­te­gic alli­ance of major furni­ture manu­fac­tu­r­ers based in Munich, made two stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons in 2017. In March 2017, VIVONIO acqui­red the Dutch company Note­born, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of custom cabi­nets and comple­men­tary products. In Septem­ber, fm Büro­mö­bel Franz Meyer GmbH & Co. KG from Bösel (Lower Saxony) joined the company. The company is focu­sed on manu­fac­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion of office and lounge furni­ture. With both add-ons, VIVONIO aims to expand its presence in Germany as well as inter­na­tio­nally and streng­then its posi­tion as a player in the Euro­pean market.
Since its acqui­si­tion by Equis­tone in August 2016, the Swiss ROTH GROUP — a provi­der of services in the field of fire protec­tion, insu­la­tion and coatings — has alre­ady acqui­red four compa­nies, thus expan­ding its market posi­tion and service port­fo­lio. Two add-ons of these were made in the past year: At the begin­ning of 2017, the Group streng­the­ned its presence in Western Switz­er­land with the acqui­si­tion of INTUM SA, and in Septem­ber ROTH inten­si­fied an exis­ting stra­te­gic part­ner­ship and inte­gra­ted Nyfe­ler + Keller.
Equistone’s port­fo­lio company Case­king, an online retailer of gaming and PC access­ories active in Europe, acqui­red Portugal’s Global­data in Febru­ary and Trigono in Novem­ber. Trigono, based in Sweden with a subsi­diary in Norway, sells hard­ware and soft­ware for retail and busi­ness custo­mers. The acqui­si­tion streng­thens the Case­king Group’s posi­tion in the Scan­di­na­vian market and other key Euro­pean regi­ons. At the same time, Caseking’s broad range of brands should in turn open up growth oppor­tu­ni­ties for its new part­ner Trigono.

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

News

Berlin - The busi­ness climate in the German private equity market impro­ved again in the third quar­ter of 2017. The busi­ness climate index of the German Private Equity Baro­me­ter rose by 4.9 points to 70.2 balance points, signi­fi­cantly excee­ding its record value from the second quar­ter of 2017. The indi­ca­tor for the current busi­ness situa­tion rose by 1.9 points to 70.5 balance points, while the indi­ca­tor for busi­ness expec­ta­ti­ons increased by 8 points to 69.8 balance points.

The deve­lo­p­ment reflects a new record high in the early-stage segment of the private equity market. Here, the busi­ness climate indi­ca­tor rose by 12.8 points to 69.1 balance points. Both the current busi­ness situa­tion (+9.1 to 66.7 balance points) and the busi­ness expec­ta­ti­ons (+16.5 to 71.5 balance points) are picking up significantly.

The VC busi­ness climate is being driven by rising valua­tions of exit and funding oppor­tu­ni­ties, which are reaching new highs. In addi­tion, the fund­rai­sing and inno­va­tion climate remains very good. Assess­ments of the level and quality of deal flow as well as entry prices have also stabi­li­zed at their respec­tive levels after slip­ping in the previous quarter.

The busi­ness climate in the late-stage segment remains excep­tio­nally good. At 71.1 balance points (-0.4), the busi­ness climate indi­ca­tor here in the third quar­ter of 2017 remains only slightly below its best value of the previous quar­ter. Inves­tors’ assess­ment of their current busi­ness situa­tion is slightly worse than in the second quar­ter, but they are some­what more opti­mi­stic about their busi­ness expec­ta­ti­ons. The indi­ca­tor for the current busi­ness situa­tion decreased by 2.6 points to 73.7 balance points, while the indi­ca­tor for busi­ness expec­ta­ti­ons increased by 1.8 points to 68.5 balance points.

The still very good busi­ness climate in the late-stage segment is supported by almost the entire market envi­ron­ment: fund­rai­sing climate, assess­ment of the level and quality of deal flow and exit climate show top values. Entry-level prices remain proble­ma­tic: Dissa­tis­fac­tion with called valua­tions is incre­asing for the sixth quar­ter in a row.

“The unpre­ce­den­tedly good fund­rai­sing climate is now also reaching start-ups,” says Dr. Jörg Zeuner, Chief Econo­mist at KfW, “finan­cing rounds are getting bigger. The latest BVK figu­res show that more than twice as much was inves­ted per start-up in the last two half-years as in 2012 and before. The higher finan­cing rounds are neces­sary in order to prevent dome­stic start-ups from falling behind inter­na­tio­nally from the outset. For local VC inves­tors, the situa­tion still takes some getting used to, as can be seen from their dissa­tis­fac­tion with entry prices.”

Ulrike Hinrichs, Mana­ging Member of the BVK Board, adds: “It is parti­cu­larly plea­sing that the very good mood and opti­mism about the future have now also reached the VC sector. Here, a lot has been done in recent years by all parties invol­ved to advance Germany in start-up finan­cing. Looking at the gene­rally high level of valua­tions, it is important to note that macroe­co­no­mic condi­ti­ons, low inte­rest rates, but also strong company results thanks to the Draghi stimu­lus are contri­bu­ting to these company valua­tions. But this is not private equity or venture capi­tal speci­fic, if you look at the German and inter­na­tio­nal stock indi­ces, which are rushing from record to record these days.”

News

Berlin — Berlin-based startup Home­bell recei­ves new capi­tal tota­ling around €11 million in a Series B finan­cing round. The new inves­tors include (among others) insu­rance compa­nies AXA and Helve­tia as well as Seven­Ven­tures, the finan­cial inves­tor of the ProSiebenSat1 media group. Part of the finan­cing amount flows into TV adver­ti­sing time provi­ded by the ProSiebenSat1 Group. Home­bell was foun­ded in Berlin in Septem­ber 2015.

The company offers online place­ment of handy­man services such as pain­ting or elec­tri­cal work. Home­bell was alre­ady able to coll­ect milli­ons of euros in invest­ments at the start. The inves­tors at the time included Index Ventures, the invest­ment company Lake­star and the Rocket Inter­net fund Rocket Inter­net Capi­tal Part­ners.

With the new money, the plat­form intends to further expand its presence in Germany and the Nether­lands and grow by adding new product cate­go­ries. In the future, for exam­ple, the website will also offer custo­mers inspi­ra­tion and ideas for renovation.

Advi­sor Home­bell: P+P Pöllath + Partners
The P+P Venture Capi­tal Team Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead, VC, Munich/Berlin) and Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, VC, Munich/Berlin) has advi­sed Home­bell since its incep­tion and so also in the current finan­cing round.

News

Berlin — Through its tech­no­logy fund Vision Fund, Japa­nese tele­coms group Soft­Bank is inves­t­ing EUR 460 million in the Berlin-based used car plat­form “Wir kaufen Dein Auto” of Auto1 Group GmbH. Appro­xi­m­ately half of the invest­ment will flow directly into the company in exch­ange for newly issued shares. P+P advi­sed the exis­ting inves­tor DN Capi­tal on the new finan­cing round and on various share sales in connec­tion with the current finan­cing round.

With a valua­tion of EUR 2.9 billion, Auto1, whose best-known current offe­ring is the Wirkaufendeinauto.de plat­form, is now one of the most valuable tech start­ups in Europe. — Auto1 was foun­ded in 2012 by Hakan Koç and Chris­tian Berter­mann. Accor­ding to its own figu­res, the online market­place for the purchase and sale of used cars sold more than 300,000 vehic­les in 2016. Sales in 2016 amoun­ted to 1.5 billion euros.

The startup has recei­ved nearly EUR 900 million in funding so far from inves­tors inclu­ding DN Capi­tal, JP Morgan and Gold­man Sachs. In the last finan­cing round in May 2017, EUR 360 million was raised from VC Target Global and the Scot­tish invest­ment company Bail­lie Gifford, among others.

Soft­Bank had most recently inves­ted in tech­no­logy compa­nies such as the messen­ger service Slack via its $90 billion Vision Fund.

Advi­sor to the previous inves­tor DN Capi­tal: P+P Pöllath + Partners
Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead, VC, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, VC, Munich/Berlin)

News

Schaff­hau­sen (Switzerland)/Greenville, PA (USA)/Weilheim — A consor­tium of finan­cial inves­tors has sold the Zarges Group. These included funds from Baird Capi­tal and Gran­ville, as well as VR Equi­typ­art­ner. The new owner of Zarges is Schaff­hau­sen-based WernerCo, a port­fo­lio company of the Triton IV fund. A purchase price has not yet been disclosed.

WernerCo, a port­fo­lio company of the Triton IV Fund and an inter­na­tio­nal supplier of access products, fall protec­tion equip­ment, and storage and trans­por­ta­tion systems, today comple­ted its acqui­si­tion of the ZARGES Group after recei­ving regu­la­tory appr­ovals. Due to the good comple­ment of the product and service port­fo­lio, WernerCo is able to streng­then its leading posi­tion in Europe through the acqui­si­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction.

“ZARGES is a major market player in conti­nen­tal Europe and will be added to the WernerCo Group port­fo­lio with its attrac­tive brands. Both compa­nies operate in comple­men­tary markets with the same under­stan­ding of product quality, design and deli­very relia­bi­lity. This tran­sac­tion is an important mile­stone for us, conti­nuing our stra­tegy to deli­ver inno­va­tive products and systems to our global custo­mers,” said Edward Geri­cke, Presi­dent of WernerCo’s U.S. busi­ness and current CEO.

“Under the owner­ship of funds mana­ged by Baird Capi­tal and Gran­ville, as well as VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH and the manage­ment team, ZARGES Group has successfully focu­sed on its core acti­vi­ties and achie­ved impres­sive impro­ve­ments,” said Mathias Schirmer, member of the company’s advi­sory board and part­ner at Baird Capital.

“ZARGES is an impres­sive company with a focus on product inno­va­tion and quality. We are convin­ced of the company’s contin­ued posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment and the mutual bene­fits for WernerCo and ZARGES. We look forward to support­ing the growth trajec­tory in the coming years,” says Ruth Linz, Invest­ment Advi­sory Profes­sio­nal and Advi­sor to Triton Funds.

About ZARGES Group
The ZARGES Group, head­quar­te­red in Weil­heim, Germany, is a globally active company with around 800 employees at three produc­tion sites in Europe. The Group sells its products in Germany, France, Sweden, the UK, Denmark, Norway and the Nether­lands, among other count­ries. Inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and in-depth expe­ri­ence with high-quality alumi­num make ZARGES the leading company in three major busi­ness segments: Clim­bing — Pack­a­ging, Trans­port, Storage — Special Cons­truc­tions. ZARGES products combine the many advan­ta­ges of alumi­num, such as high stabi­lity with low weight, corro­sion resis­tance and flexi­bi­lity of use. The company has the right solu­tion for every requi­re­ment and can also offer custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons. Whether from indus­try, trade, service or commerce, custo­mers appre­ciate ZARGES as a relia­ble part­ner and bene­fit from the quality, know-how and compre­hen­sive service they have enjoyed for many years after purcha­sing the products.

Advi­sor TRITON: White & Case
Dr. Hendrik Röhricht (Private Equity/M&A), Gernot Wagner (Capi­tal Markets; both lead), Dr. Bodo Bender (Tax), Dr. Justus Herr­lin­ger, Dr. Lars Peter­sen (both Hamburg), Marc Israel (London), Katar­zyna Czapra­cka (Warsaw; all Anti­trust), Vanessa Schür­mann, Sebas­tian Schrag, Justin Wagstaff (London; all three Banking and Finance), Ingrid Wijn­ma­len (Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Andreas Klein (Dispute Reso­lu­tion); Asso­cia­tes: Simon Rommel­fan­ger, Dr. Jan Eich­städt (both M&A), Anne-Sophie von Köster (Real Estate), Dr. Daniel Valdini (Anti­trust; Hamburg), Andreas Kössel (Labor Law), Irina Schult­heiß (Banking and Finance), Giuditta Caldini (Anti­trust; Brussels), Vero­nika Merjava (Private Equity/M&A; Prague), Claire Jordan (Banking and Finance; New York).

Advi­sor to seller: Gibson Dunn & Crut­cher (Munich)
Dr. Ferdi­nand From­hol­zer (M&A; lead), Dr. Hans-Martin Schmid (tax law), Sebas­tian Schoon (finance law), Michael Walt­her (anti­trust law), Dr. Mark Zimmer (labor law), Kai Gesing (anti­trust law); asso­cia­tes: Sonja Rutt­mann, Dr. Johanna Hauser, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Hoff­mann (all M&A), Daniel Gebauer (real estate law)
Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy (Frank­furt): Dr. Thomas Ingen­ho­ven; Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Katja Lehr, Dr. Tim Löper (all Banking and Finance)

Advi­sors to banks: Weil Gotshal & Manges (New York)
Daniel Dokos (lead), Dr. Wolf­ram Distler (Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Justin Lee, Julia Schum (Frank­furt; all Banking and Finance)

News

Frei­burg — The Bros. Knauf KG, based in Ipho­fen, took over all shares in the Neurup­pin-based family company Opitz Holz­bau GmbH & Co KG at the turn of the year. The globally active manu­fac­tu­rer of buil­ding mate­ri­als and cons­truc­tion systems is thus streng­thening its commit­ment to the future market of light­weight cons­truc­tion. Opitz Holz­bau specia­li­zes in the produc­tion and marke­ting of prefa­bri­ca­ted light­weight cons­truc­tion elements, in this case mainly wooden panel buil­ding elements. With the sale, the family busi­ness sett­les the company succes­sion. Knauf will conti­nue to operate Opitz as an inde­pen­dent company at the exis­ting site.

The family-run tradi­tio­nal company Opitz is one of the leading suppli­ers of carpen­try and prefa­bri­ca­ted cons­truc­tion compa­nies in the field of join­ery, nail plate trus­ses and wooden panel buil­ding elements in Germany. In the modern future factory of Opitz Holz­bau in Neurup­pin (Bran­den­burg), the company manu­fac­tures, among other things, wall, roof and ceiling elements for buil­dings in low-energy and passive cons­truc­tion. Opitz Holz­bau will be contin­ued by Knauf as an inde­pen­dent company. In addi­tion to the clas­sic busi­ness, the sale of wooden panel buil­ding elements, Knauf is plan­ning to manu­fac­ture light­weight steel buil­ding elements for faca­des, walls and ceilings in Neuruppin.

The Knauf Group is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers of buil­ding mate­ri­als and buil­ding systems. Knauf is repre­sen­ted by produc­tion faci­li­ties and sales orga­niza­ti­ons in more than 86 count­ries at over 220 loca­ti­ons world­wide. Knauf plants produce modern drywall systems, plas­ters and access­ories, ther­mal insu­la­tion compo­site systems, paints, flowing screeds and floo­ring systems, machi­nes and tools for the appli­ca­tion of these products as well as insu­la­tion mate­ri­als. In fiscal 2016, the Knauf Group gene­ra­ted annual sales of 6.5 billion euros with around 27,400 employees worldwide.

In the context of the tran­sac­tion, Knauf was advi­sed by a corpo­rate and M&A team of the commer­cial law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner in Frei­burg and Frank­furt under the lead of FGvW part­ner Dr. Barbara Mayer (photo) provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice in all legal areas: from legal due dili­gence to contract nego­tia­ti­ons and labor law issues to the closing. FGvW has acted for Knauf for many years; in parti­cu­lar, FGvW part­ner Gerhard Manz has advi­sed on nume­rous tran­sac­tions for the company in recent years. Opitz Holz­bau was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by lawy­ers from Warth & Klein Grant Thorn­ton in Düsseldorf.

Advi­sor Knauf Group: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Partner
Dr. Barbara Mayer, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A), Freiburg
Gerhard Manz, Part­ner (Corpo­rate, M&A), Freiburg
Julia Rein­hardt, Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate)
Frie­de­rike Schäff­ler, Part­ner (Real Estate, State Aid Law)
Dr. Sabine Schrö­ter, Part­ner (Labor Law), Frankfurt
Susanne Lüdde­cke, Local Part­ner (Labor Law), Frank­furt­A­bout Fried­rich Graf von

About West­pha­len & Partner
Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner is one of the leading inde­pen­dent German commer­cial law firms. The firm’s appro­xi­m­ately 85 lawy­ers, 31 of whom are part­ners, advise compa­nies world­wide from offices in Colo­gne, Frei­burg, Frank­furt am Main, Alicante and Brussels, as well as from coope­ra­tion offices in Shang­hai, São Paulo and Istan­bul. In total, the firm has around 200 employees. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.fgvw.de.

News

Düssel­dorf / London — ARQIS advi­sed Katjes Fassin GmbH & Co KG (Katjes Germany) on its invest­ment in the British start-up Candy Kittens.

Foun­ded in London in 2012 by Jamie Laing (photo left), star of the British TV series ‘Made in Chel­sea’, and Ed Williams (photo right), the company has quickly become one of the UK’s best-known candy brands with its inno­va­tive gour­met sweets in authen­tic flavors and origi­nal pack­a­ging. All products are gluten-free and are made without arti­fi­cial flavors or colors.

ARQIS regu­larly advi­ses the Katjes Group on tran­sac­tions. The firm also advi­sed the confec­tion­ery manu­fac­tu­rer in 2016 on its entry into Veganz, Europe’s pioneer in vegan food, and in previous years on its acqui­si­ti­ons of confec­tion­ery produ­cers Pias­ten and Dallmann.

Advi­sors Katjes Germany: ARQIS Attor­neys at Law 
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP; Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Thomas Chwa­lek (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP; Munich)
Reynolds Porter Cham­ber­lain (London): Nigel Coll­ins et al (UK law)

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 at its current offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 45 lawy­ers advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on the core issues of German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. The focus is on M&A, corpo­rate law, private equity, venture capi­tal, employ­ment law, private clients as well as intellec­tual property and liti­ga­tion. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Paris/Hamburg/Frankfurt/Yantai (China) — The Yantai Taihai Group based in Yantai, China, has taken over the busi­ness opera­ti­ons of the insol­vent Duis­burg Tubes Produc­tion AG (DTP). The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The Chinese group was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by an inter­na­tio­nal M&A team from Bryan Cave in Paris, Hamburg and Frank­furt, led by part­ner Fabrice Bouquier in France and part­ner Dr. Michael Leue and coun­sel Dr. Huber­tus Schrö­der in Germany. In France, the tran­sac­tion was also advi­sed by DeHeng-Shi & Chen Associés.

DTP is parti­cu­larly active in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of precis­ion zirco­nium tubes for use in the nuclear indus­try. The company emer­ged from the French AREVA Group as part of a group carve-out in 2014. In April 2016, DTP had filed an appli­ca­tion to open insol­vency procee­dings in self-admi­nis­tra­tion with the Duis­burg Local Court. Attor­ney Martin Lambrecht of the law firm Lambrecht, Düssel­dorf, was appoin­ted as admi­nis­tra­tor, and Jochen Glück of Pluta Manage­ment GmbH was appoin­ted as restruc­tu­ring direc­tor. Pluta also provi­ded legal advice to DTP under the leader­ship of attor­ney Markus Fünning.

Follo­wing the issu­ance of the clearance certi­fi­cate by the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, the tran­sac­tion has now been successfully closed.

About Yantai Taihai Group 
Yantai Taihai Group is a priva­tely owned Chinese inter­na­tio­nal indus­trial group that is exten­si­vely enga­ged in metal proces­sing and as a supplier to the energy indus­try. In Europe, the Yantai Taihai Group is mainly repre­sen­ted through its invest­ment in the French Manoir Group.

Advi­sor Yantai Taihai Group: Bryan Cave
Fabrice Bouquier, Part­ner (Lead, Corpo­rate, M&A), Paris

Bryan Cave Hamburg
Dr. Michael Leue, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Huber­tus Schrö­der, Coun­sel (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Tonio Sadoni, Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Karacz, Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Martin Lüde­ritz, Coun­sel (Labor Law)
Jens Peters, Asso­ciate (Labor Law)
Domi­nik Weiß, Coun­sel (IP)

Bryan Cave Frank­furt: Stefan Skulesch, Of Coun­sel (Tax)

Deheng-Shi & Chen Asso­ciés Paris
Renlin Shi, Part­ner (Corpo­rate)

About Bryan Cave LLP
Bryan Cave LLP (www.bryancave.com) is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms with appro­xi­m­ately 900 attor­neys in 25 offices throug­hout the United States, Europe and Asia. The firm advi­ses a wide range of clients from corpo­ra­ti­ons to finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and orga­niza­ti­ons to indi­vi­du­als. These include inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons, large and medium-sized family busi­nesses, part­ner­ships, non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons and start-ups.

News

Lotte — Silver­fleet Capi­tal acqui­res 7days Group, a leading specia­list in fashionable work­wear for medi­cal profes­si­ons. Silver­fleet Capi­tal, the Euro­pean private equity firm specia­li­zing in “buy to build”, has signed a binding agree­ment with the invest­ment company Odewald KMU and the company’s foun­ders Marc Staper­feld and Ulrich Dölken to acquire a majo­rity stake. The two foun­ders conti­nue to be invol­ved in the company through a reverse share­hol­ding. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval; the parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

7days designs, manu­fac­tures and distri­bu­tes profes­sio­nal clot­hing for the health­care sector. The exten­sive product range includes, among other things, doctors’ and lab coats, tops such as polo shirts and sweat­shirts, pants, as well as shoes and access­ories; a parti­cu­lar focus is on the range for doctors’ and dentists’ surge­ries. The company, foun­ded in 1999 and head­quar­te­red in Lotte near Osna­brück, is active not only in Germany but also in Austria, Switz­er­land, France, Belgium and the Nether­lands. The design studio and purcha­sing depart­ment are also loca­ted in Lotte; the produc­tion site is in Tangier, Morocco. As a verti­cally inte­gra­ted supplier, 7days sells its artic­les both online via webshop and news­let­ter and tradi­tio­nally via cata­log. The company accepts orders online, by phone or by fax.

Silver­fleet Capital’s commit­ment is inten­ded to support 7days in expan­ding its market posi­tion in Germany and the other exis­ting markets, as well as in deve­lo­ping other regi­ons such as Scan­di­na­via and addi­tio­nal custo­mer segments. The acqui­si­tion is Silver­fleet Capital’s second German invest­ment in the second half of 2017 and the seventh invest­ment from its current fund.

“7days has a strong brand and a loyal core custo­mer base. The company opera­tes as a leader in its indus­try in a specia­li­zed, fast-growing and inter­na­tio­nal market — a text­book invest­ment for us,” says Joachim Braun, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal and respon­si­ble for invest­ment acti­vi­ties in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. “We look forward to working with the expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team led by Marc Staper­feld to further deve­lop the company.”

Marc Staper­feld, foun­der and CEO of 7days adds: “It makes me proud that 7days has grown signi­fi­cantly since its incep­tion. I am deligh­ted that Silver­fleet Capi­tal is now accom­pany­ing us into the next phase of deve­lo­p­ment. With its pan-Euro­pean presence and exten­sive invest­ment expe­ri­ence, Silver­fleet Capi­tal is the ideal part­ner for our further growth plans. The team shares our vision and the values that drive the company’s success.”

The Silver­fleet team entrus­ted with the tran­sac­tion includes Munich-based invest­ment experts Joachim Braun, Benja­min Hubner, Jenni­fer Regehr and Jan Kux. Silver­fleet was advi­sed by Alva­rez & Marsal (Finan­cial), goetz­part­ners(Commer­cial), Noerr (Legal, Corpo­rate), Shear­man & Ster­ling (Legal, Banking), Deloitte (Tax), Herter & Co. (Debt Advi­sory), ecce­le­rate (Digital/Online), KPMG (M&A) and Marsh (Insu­rance).

About 7days Group
Foun­ded in 1999, the 7days Group is a fully inte­gra­ted B2B mail order company of medi­cal and nursing work­wear with a fashion focus. The product range includes, among others, jackets, pants, polo shirts, smocks, shoes and access­ories; indi­vi­dual embro­idery and third-party brands round off the product range. Key success factors are the fashion orien­ta­tion, the high quality stan­dards and the compre­hen­sive custo­mer service.

Advi­sors to Odewald KMU: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Pär Johans­son (lead), Dr. Phil­ipp Jansen, Dr. Chris­toph Schork, LL.M. (all Private Equity, Corporate/M&A), all Cologne
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (Anti­trust Law), all Hamburg

News

Munich / Wallau / Burg­bern­heim — The fund Perusa Part­ners Fund II L.P., advi­sed by the inde­pen­dent Perusa GmbH, toge­ther with other insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, acqui­red the Swiss Secura Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen AG inclu­ding the MÜPRO Group and UBB GmbH as of Janu­ary 23, 2018.

MÜPRO is a leading global provi­der of fastening, noise control and fire protec­tion solu­ti­ons with conso­li­da­ted sales of around EUR 95 million. Its fastening solu­ti­ons are used in buil­dings, commer­cial proper­ties and indus­trial plants, espe­ci­ally in the assem­bly of heating, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy, as well as in the mari­time sector for marine equip­ment and various indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. The aim of the acqui­si­tion is to accom­pany the long-term inter­na­tio­nal growth of the group and to focus MÜPRO on its core compe­ten­cies — deve­lo­p­ment, consul­ting and project support.

The previous company owner, Harald Müller, as well as part of the former Secura manage­ment will focus on buil­ding digi­tal products and services for medium-sized busi­nesses with the newly foun­ded SYMBIONET AG as of Febru­ary 2018. SYMBIONET’s areas of exper­tise are sales soft­ware and plat­form solu­ti­ons, auto­ma­ted logi­stics services as well as online trading and marke­ting services. The foun­da­tion for the new busi­ness model has alre­ady been laid in recent years as part of the digi­tiza­tion process at the Secura Group.

Dr. Chris­tian Hollen­berg (photo), foun­ding part­ner of Perusa, explains, “MÜPRO has an impres­sive history as a leading supplier in this market. In the future, the company will focus enti­rely on its core compe­ten­cies in engi­nee­ring, consul­ting, project support, and the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of high-quality fastening tech­no­logy.” Harald Müller elabo­ra­tes: “The tran­sac­tion provi­des MÜPRO with addi­tio­nal resour­ces to imple­ment its stra­tegy in the long term. Both groups — MÜPRO and SYMBIONET — can now conti­nue to grow profi­ta­bly in the future based on their diffe­rent busi­ness models.”

The buyer Perusa Part­ners Fund II L.P. and its co-inves­tors were advi­sed in the tran­sac­tion by KPMG (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Finan­cial, Tax), Gütt Olk Feld­haus (Legal), Valleé & Part­ner (Logi­stics) and TÜV Süd (Envi­ron­men­tal). Network Corpo­rate Finance struc­tu­red and raised the acqui­si­tion finan­cing as debt advisor.

Secura Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen AG and the seller were advi­sed in the tran­sac­tion by ZETRA Inter­na­tio­nal, Zurich (Exclu­sive M&A Advi­sor), Froriep Legal, Zurich (Legal), Luther Rechts­an­wälte, Frank­furt (Legal), and Tax Part­ner, Zurich (Tax).

About Perusa
Perusa GmbH is an inde­pen­dent consul­ting company that curr­ently advi­ses two funds with €350 million in equity capi­tal and, on a case-by-case basis, co-inves­tors on invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies and group busi­nesses from German-spea­king or Scan­di­na­vian countries.

About MÜPRO
With conso­li­da­ted sales of around EUR 95 million, MÜPRO is one of the leading suppli­ers of fastening and sound insu­la­tion tech­no­logy for buil­dings and ships. Its products can be found in single-family and multi-family homes as well as in large-scale struc­tu­ral projects, in indus­trial plants and on ships. The company, which has been in busi­ness since 1964, has its own sales offices in 14 count­ries as well as sales part­ners in 40 other markets and also masters special areas of fastening tech­no­logy such as clean room and tunnel, preven­tive struc­tu­ral fire protec­tion, fire-tested fastening or fastening for heavy loads.

News

Duisburg/ Colo­gne — With a team led by Dr. Pär Johans­son, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH (Haniel) on the acqui­si­tion of Opti­mar, a leading supplier of auto­ma­ted fish proces­sing systems. The sellers are the Norwe­gian finan­cial inves­tors Credo Part­ners and the company’s manage­ment. The exis­ting manage­ment team around CEO Håvard Sætre will conti­nue to run Opti­mar as part of the Haniel Group. With this acqui­si­tion, Haniel is further expan­ding its port­fo­lio in an inno­va­tive busi­ness area.

Haniel, head­quar­te­red in Duis­burg, is a German family-owned company. There are curr­ently six divi­si­ons in the Haniel port­fo­lio: Bekaert­Des­lee, CWS-boco, ELG, Opti­mar, ROVEMA and TAKKT. In addi­tion, there are finan­cial invest­ments in Ceco­nomy and Metro. With over 13,800 employees, the Haniel Group gene­ra­ted €3.6 billion in reve­nue in 2016.

Opti­mar is a fast-growing Norwe­gian premium supplier of auto­ma­ted fish proces­sing systems. The company deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and installs solu­ti­ons for use on ships, on land and for aquacul­ture. Over the past two years, the company, head­quar­te­red in Ålesund on Norway’s west coast, has grown stron­gly, gene­ra­ting sales of appro­xi­m­ately €115 million in 2017.

Advi­sor Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Pär Johans­son (Lead Partner),
Dr. Chris­toph Schork, LL.M.,
Tim Remmel, LL.M. (all Corporate/M&A), all Cologne
Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (Anti­trust Law), Hamburg

News

Berlin — The initial public offe­ring of Derm­a­ph­arm has star­ted. The offer period runs until Febru­ary 8. The manu­fac­tu­rer has set a range of 26 to 30 euros. The total volume of the offe­ring is thus expec­ted to be around EUR 350 to 404 million. Since Wilhelm Beier (photo), the company’s CEO, only wants to place 25 percent of the shares, he could make a good cut compared to the sale plan­ned in 2016.

A total of 13.455 million shares are to be offe­red to inves­tors. Of these, 3.84 million will come from a capi­tal increase and 7.86 million from Beier and his family. In addi­tion, an over-allot­ment option (green­shoe) for 1.755 million shares owned by the company foun­der is plan­ned. Should all shares be sold, the free float would amount to appro­xi­m­ately 25 percent. Derm­a­ph­arm would thus be valued at 1.4 to 1.6 billion euros. The plan­ned sale to finan­cial inves­tors, which was later cancel­led, was worth 1.1 billion euros a year ago. Accor­ding to media reports, the finan­cial inves­tors BC Part­ners and Nordic Capi­tal each offe­red slightly more than one billion euros. .

The money raised in the IPO — around 100 to 115 million euros from the capi­tal increase — is to be used to expand a produc­tion faci­lity, and a new produc­tion plant is also to be built in Austria. Derm­a­ph­arm also intends to expand inter­na­tio­nally. Further acqui­si­ti­ons are plan­ned, as well as bran­ches in the Bene­lux count­ries and in the Czech Repu­blic and Slova­kia. For share buyers, 50 to 60 percent of profits are to be paid out as divi­dends in the very first year.

New products in the pipeline
New products are also spur­ring expan­sion, with 40 curr­ently in the plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion stages. Of these, 28 are to be brought to market by 2023. In order to make itself look good for the IPO, Derm­a­ph­arm acqui­red two compa­nies, Tromms­dorff and Strath­mann, at the end of last year. Recently, Bio-Diät Berlin has also become part of Dermapharm.

About Derm­a­ph­arm
Derm­a­ph­arm manu­fac­tures off-patent drugs (gene­rics) and sells them prima­rily in Germany, a market which in and of itself can be conside­red very solid, albeit compe­ti­tive. The vitamin D prepa­ra­tion Dekris­tol 20,000 I.U. accoun­ted for around 7.5 percent of sales in 2016.

News

Berlin/ London — Dr. Clemens Waitz and Dr. Simon Pfef­ferle of Vogel Heerma Waitz have advi­sed Titel Media (High­sno­biety) on a USD 8.5 million finan­cing from Felix Capi­tal, London. High­sno­biety, which was foun­ded in 2005 as a snea­ker passion blog, has evol­ved into what is now a high fashion, street­wear and culture website visi­ted monthly by more than 9 million users. The new capi­tal will be used prima­rily for new tech­no­logy and digi­tal media.

About Felix Capital
Felix Capi­tal is a London-based venture fund, was foun­ded in 2014 by Les Gabb,Frédéric Court, Antoine Nussen­baum (from left) For the first fund raised about 100 million euros. Felix Capi­tal focu­ses on e‑commerce, digi­tal media and “connec­ted life”.

Consul­tant: About Vogel Heerma Waitz
Dr. Clemens Waitz (Part­ner)
Dr. Simon Pfef­ferle (Asso­ciate)

About Vogel Heerma Waitz
Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media that has been in opera­tion since May 2014 and can draw on a total of more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence of its part­ners and staff in connec­tion with growth capi­tal financings.

News

Frank­furt a. Main — IPO: Instone Real Estate is accom­pa­nied by Sulli­van & Crom­well to the Prime Stan­dard in Frank­furt a. M.. The resi­den­tial cons­truc­tion specia­list aims to raise 150 million euros with the IPO . The company itself is talking about an IPO in the course of 2018. Howe­ver, many obser­vers suspect that the premiere will take place before Easter and specu­late on a stock market value of one billion euros. On the banking side, Credit Suisse and Deut­sche Bank lead the consortium.

If all goes accor­ding to plan, Instone will place exis­ting shares and newly issued shares via a capi­tal increase. In addi­tion to Instone, the previous share­hol­der, the finan­cial inves­tor Acti­vum SG, also intends to place its shares on the market. Exactly how many papers will be placed has not yet been deter­mi­ned. — Instone intends to invest the lion’s share of the plan­ned stock market proceeds, around 100 million euros, in project deve­lo­p­ment. Another 50 million will be used to repay exis­ting loans.

A few months ago, the value of Instone projects was esti­ma­ted at almost 870 million euros. This includes more than 8,000 apart­ments in major cities and surroun­ding regi­ons throug­hout Germany. The Essen-based group emer­ged from the merger of a former Hoch­tief subsi­diary Formart with real estate deve­lo­per GRK. GRK was essen­ti­ally specia­li­zed in the refur­bish­ment of listed old buil­dings. Formart had been part of Acti­vum since 2014.

On the banking side, Deut­sche Bank and Credit Suisse are in action. The consor­tium also includes Morgan Stan­ley, BNP Pari­bas and Unicredit.

Advi­sors to Instone: Sulli­van & Crom­well (Frank­furt)
Dr. Cars­ten Berrar (lead), Dr. Krys­tian Czer­niecki; Asso­ciate: Phil­ipp Klöck­ner (all capi­tal markets law)
Noerr (Berlin): Felix Blobel (Corpo­rate), Dr. Cars­ten Heinz (Tax)
Nauta Dutilh (Amster­dam): no mentions

Advi­sors to banks: Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger (Frank­furt)
Dr. Mark Strauch (Capi­tal Markets), Rick van Aers­sen (Banking and Finance); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Kai Werner, Ivan Las Heras (both Capi­tal Markets)
Inhouse Legal (Deut­sche Bank; Frank­furt): Joachim Schelm
Inhouse Legal (Credit Suisse; Frank­furt): Dr. Ann-Katrin Wilczek

News

Lübeck/ Bonn - Dräger parti­ci­pa­tes in HTGF III, Europe’s most active early-stage inves­tor, which includes the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft e.V. and renow­ned busi­ness enter­pri­ses from all sectors and disci­pli­nes. HTGF has been a strong driver of successful high-tech start­ups since 2005, provi­ding indus­try with early access to start­ups and tech­no­logy trends.

Chris­toph Schwei­zer, Head of Corpo­rate Stra­tegy & Busi­ness Deve­lo­p­ment at Dräger: “The invest­ment in HTGF III is an important buil­ding block for Dräger to further expand our tech­no­lo­gi­cal compe­ten­cies in a targe­ted manner and thus supports our acti­vi­ties for the deve­lo­p­ment of new busi­ness models. Through HTGF’s network and the seat on the invest­ment commit­tee, we have the oppor­tu­nity to iden­tify inte­res­t­ing deve­lo­p­ments and promi­sing startup compa­nies at an early stage and to parti­ci­pate in them.”

Stef­fen Müller, Head of Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons / New Busi­ness Deve­lo­p­ment at Dräger, adds: “By coope­ra­ting with agile start­ups, we want to signi­fi­cantly streng­then our inno­va­tive power. Dräger’s in-depth know­ledge of custo­mer requi­re­ments and regu­la­ti­ons in the fields of medi­cal and safety tech­no­logy will help to drive the young compa­nies’ deve­lo­p­ment projects forward in a targe­ted and effi­ci­ent manner during the collaboration.”

Dr. Michael Brand­kamp, Mana­ging Direc­tor of HTGF confirms: “Dräger is a company with a long tradi­tion, expe­ri­ence and know-how in the key sectors of medi­cal and safety tech­no­logy. We are very much looking forward to the colla­bo­ra­tion and see great poten­tial for coope­ra­tion with our portfolio.”

In April 2017, Dräger alre­ady acqui­red the majo­rity shares in the Hamburg-based bentekk GmbH, which was seed-finan­ced by HTGF. “The sale of bentekk to Dräger has alre­ady estab­lished a very good rela­ti­onship between Dräger and HTGF. I am convin­ced that we will have many more points of cont­act with our port­fo­lio,” adds Dr. Alex von Fran­ken­berg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of HTGF.

HTGF invests openly across all sectors and is inten­si­vely networked with all play­ers in the startup and inves­tor scene. This is precis­ely what guaran­tees the success of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and sustain­ably streng­thens Germany as a loca­tion for start-ups and business.

About HTGF
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of 886 million euros distri­bu­ted across three funds (272 million euros Fund I, 304 million euros Fund II, target: 310 million euros Fund III), as well as an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady shaped nearly 500 start­ups into compa­nies since 2005. Its team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts focu­ses on high-tech start­ups in the soft­ware, media and Inter­net sectors, as well as hard­ware, auto­ma­tion, health­care, chemi­cals and life sciences.

Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include. the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik and WACKER.

About Drae­ger
Dräger is a leading inter­na­tio­nal medi­cal and safety tech­no­logy company. Dräger products protect, support and save lives. Foun­ded in 1889, Dräger gene­ra­ted sales of over EUR 2.5 billion in 2016. The Lübeck-based company is repre­sen­ted world­wide and employs more than 13,000 people. www.draeger.com

News

Erlangen/Munich/Landshut — GME German Medi­cal Engi­nee­ring GmbH, Erlan­gen, has bought back the shares in the company held by BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft and Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH (owner’s buy-back). The two invest­ment compa­nies had joined the medi­cal tech­no­logy company, which specia­li­zes in derma­to­lo­gi­cal lasers, as inves­tors in 2011 and 2013, respectively.

“The commit­ment of the invest­ment compa­nies enab­led GME to imple­ment a dyna­mic deve­lo­p­ment with balan­ced finan­cing during the growth phase. Our powerful, porta­ble lasers are now in use in more than 40 count­ries,” says Dr. Stefan Schulze, Mana­ging Part­ner of GME. With the conti­nuously incre­asing sales, which now amount to € 5 million annu­ally, earnings also increased and this enab­led the company and its share­hol­ders to exer­cise the option of a buy-back given by the asso­cia­ted compa­nies. “This is a first step towards reali­zing our medium-term goal of 100 percent owner­ship. We are deligh­ted that BayBG and Bayern Kapi­tal have given us this oppor­tu­nity after years of successful coope­ra­tion.” HTGF remains inves­ted for the time being, and will conti­nue to support GME’s development.

Foun­ded in 2011, the high-tech company stands for high-perfor­mance porta­ble laser devices for medi­cine and cosme­tics. GME devices are used, for exam­ple, for perma­nent hair removal, skin tigh­tening or the treat­ment of skin dise­a­ses such as psoria­sis or white skin cancer (acti­nic keratoses).

“Demo­gra­phic deve­lo­p­ments combi­ned with growing health aware­ness and modern beauty ideals mean that demand for derma­to­lo­gi­cally appli­ca­ble devices based on laser and light systems will conti­nue to increase,” BayBG invest­ment mana­ger Otto Hopf­ner is convin­ced. “GME is excel­lently posi­tio­ned with its pionee­ring laser tech­no­logy and will conti­nue on its path to success.” Dr. Natha­lie Weitemeyer, Bayern Kapi­tal, agrees: “GME stands out in this growing market thanks to a number of unique selling points and special features, such as a new tech­no­logy that allows the lasers to be parti­cu­larly compact.” All those invol­ved are satis­fied with the many years of coope­ra­tion: We thank GME for the coope­ra­tion and wish the company contin­ued success,” Hopf­ner and Weitemeyer agreed.

About GME German Medi­cal Engi­nee­ring GmbH
GME was foun­ded in June 2011 by four indus­try experts. Product deve­lo­p­ment takes place in Erlan­gen with a team of expe­ri­en­ced engi­neers and tech­ni­ci­ans. GME combi­nes exten­sive appli­ca­tion know­ledge with state-of-the art elec­tro­nics and robust beam sources desi­gned for conti­nuous use in indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. This allows new deve­lo­p­ments to be imple­men­ted quickly and effi­ci­ently. www.gmeonline.de

About BayBG
BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH is one of the largest private equity and venture capi­tal compa­nies for medium-sized compa­nies. It curr­ently has commit­ments of 315 million euros to around 500 compa­nies. With its venture capi­tal and equity invest­ments, it enables small and medium-sized compa­nies to imple­ment inno­va­tion and growth projects, arrange for company succes­sion or opti­mize their capi­tal struc­ture. Since 1972, BayBG has accom­pa­nied more than 3,000 compa­nies on their path to success. www.baybg.de

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria with equity capi­tal inclu­ding the growth phase. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 238 million euros of venture capi­tal in 250 inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors. www.bayernkapital.de

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) has been a powerful engine for successful high-tech foun­ders since 2005. With know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion, the expe­ri­en­ced team of invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts accom­pa­nies the best compa­nies on their way from foun­da­tion to success. With a volume of EUR 886 million distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has now finan­ced almost 500 start­ups. www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de

News

Hamburg/Frankfurt - Weide­rer HoldingGmbH, based in Deggen­dorf, Germany, has sold its person­nel services divi­sion to the TimePart­ner Group, one of Germany’s leading person­nel service provi­ders. The sale compri­sed all shares held by the Weide­rer Group in Aartos Perso­nal­ser­vice, Weide­rer Perso­nal­dienste and opTEAMum Perso­nal­dienst­leis­tun­gen. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the sales price. The German Fede­ral Cartel Office has alre­ady appro­ved the transaction.

Weide­rer was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by a Bryan Cave M&A team in Hamburg and Frank­furt, led by part­ner Dr. Michael Leue and coun­sel Dr. Huber­tus Schröder.

With the sale, the Weide­rer Group is with­dra­wing from the employee leasing sector after 26 years in order to focus enti­rely on acti­vi­ties in the deve­lo­p­ment of indus­trial proper­ties and the opera­tion of solar plants. In total, more than 1,000 exter­nal employees will be employed in the dive­s­ted busi­ness. The total reve­nue of the compa­nies in the tempo­rary staf­fing sector that are part of Weide­rer Holding GmbH amoun­ted to appro­xi­m­ately €30 million in fiscal year 2016, and an increase to around €36 million is expec­ted for 2017. The dive­s­ted compa­nies operate with a regio­nal focus in Bava­ria and also operate recruit­ment sites in the Czech Republic.

TimePart­ner is a leading German person­nel service provi­der with appro­xi­m­ately 8,000 employees and around 100 bran­ches nati­on­wide. TimePart­ner has been part of the Euro­pean tempo­rary staf­fing group House of HR, based in Roesel­are, Belgium, since 2016. TimePart­ner was legally advi­sed by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek under the lead of Stutt­gart part­ner Dr. Peter Ladwig.

Advi­sor Weide­rer Holding GmbH: Bryan Cave Hamburg
Dr. Michael Leue, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Huber­tus Schrö­der, Coun­sel (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Karacz, Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Martin Lüde­ritz, Coun­sel (Labor Law)
Domi­nik Weiß, Coun­sel (IP)
Bryan Cave Frank­furt: Stefan Skulesch, Of Coun­sel (Tax)

About Bryan Cave LLP
Bryan Cave LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms with appro­xi­m­ately 900 attor­neys in 25 offices throug­hout the United States, Europe and Asia. The firm advi­ses a wide range of clients from corpo­ra­ti­ons to finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and orga­niza­ti­ons to indi­vi­du­als. These include inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons, large and medium-sized family busi­nesses, part­ner­ships, non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons and start-ups. Based on many years of trustful coope­ra­tion, exten­sive legal expe­ri­ence, inno­va­tive strength and a colla­bo­ra­tive corpo­rate culture, we support our clients in the most important econo­mic and finan­cial markets — with a clear focus on tran­sac­tions, liti­ga­tion and regulation.

News

Munich — DLA Piper advi­sed ASC Invest­ment S.à r.l. on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in VITRABLOK Group from Seves Group, a company in the port­fo­lio of Triton III Funds, and on the finan­cing of the tran­sac­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

With more than 300 employees at loca­ti­ons in Europe and the USA, the VITRABLOK Group is the leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­rer of glass blocks for inte­rior and exte­rior archi­tec­tu­ral appli­ca­ti­ons, with a share of more than 40% of the global glass block market. For exam­ple, the elements produ­ced by VITRABLOK can be found on large surfaces in Leip­zig Airport or the Amster­dam Stock Exchange. 

ASC Invest­ment is a Luxem­bourg-based finan­cial inves­tor active throug­hout Europe, specia­li­zing in the acqui­si­tion of medium-sized compa­nies. The VITRABLOK Group repres­ents the first acqui­si­tion of the finan­cial inves­tor, whose struc­ture was also set up by DLA Piper.

The Triton Funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies head­quar­te­red in Europe. The focus here is on compa­nies in the indus­trial, busi­ness services and consu­mer health sectors. The Triton Funds curr­ently have 34 compa­nies in their port­fo­lio with total sales of appro­xi­m­ately 14.3 billion euros.

Advi­sors ASC Invest­ment S.à r.l.: DLA Piper
The inter­na­tio­nal DLA Piper team led by part­ner Florian Hirsch­mann (Private Equity, Munich, Photo) and Part­ner Miros­lav Dubovsky (Corpo­rate, Prague), consis­ted of Senior Asso­ciate Silvio McMi­ken, Asso­ciate Tobias Schulz (both Private Equity, Munich), Coun­sel Robert Hofbauer (Project Finance, Frank­furt), Part­ner Konrad Rohde and Coun­sel Rain­mund Behnes (both Tax, Frank­furt), Part­ners Cathe­rine Pogor­zel­ski and Marcel Bart­nik (both Corpo­rate, Luxem­bourg), Senior Asso­ciate Auré­lien Favier and Ambroise Foers­ter (both Corpo­rate, Luxem­bourg), Asso­ciate Corinna Schu­ma­cher and Fernando Loren­deau (both Corpo­rate, Luxem­bourg), Part­ner Geoffrey Scar­doni and Senior Tax Advi­sor Kim Ngo (both Tax, Luxem­bourg), Senior Asso­ciate Jan Rataj and Petr Samec (both Corpo­rate, Prague), Junior Asso­ciate Jan Metelka (Corpo­rate, Prague), Legal Assistant Vero­nika Roznovska and Pavlina Trcha­li­kova (both Corpo­rate, Prague), Part­ner Ales­san­dro Pier­manni (Corpo­rate, Milan), Lawyer Elena Davanzo (Corpo­rate, Milan), Lead Lawyer Ales­san­dro Ferrari and Lawyer Elena Varese (both IPT, Milan). From DLA Piper’s Atlanta office, Part­ner Kevin Gooch and Asso­ciate Glenn Williams (both Finance & Projects) were also invol­ved in the advisory.

News

Colo­gne — A team led by Dr. Pär Johans­son from Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek ’s Colo­gne office advi­sed Odewald KMU II, a German invest­ment company specia­li­zing in medium-sized compa­nies, on the acqui­si­tion of Langer & Laumann Inge­nieur­büro GmbH from Nordwalde.

Langer & Laumann Inge­nieur­büro GmbH specia­li­zes in the instal­la­tion and moder­niza­tion of door drives for eleva­tors and safety doors on or in machi­nes. The previous mana­ging majo­rity share­hol­ders have taken a reverse stake in the tran­sac­tion. They will conti­nue to lead the group.

The Odewald KMU II Fund has a volume of 200 million euros and invests in a focu­sed manner in attrac­tive target markets in German-spea­king SMEs. The indus­try focus is on profi­ta­ble, fast-growing medium-sized compa­nies in the fields of “German engi­nee­ring”, intel­li­gent services and health­care. The typi­cal invest­ment occa­si­ons are succes­sion arran­ge­ments and/or growth finan­cing. These compa­nies gene­rally gene­rate sales of between 20 and 100 million euros, have entre­pre­neu­rial manage­ment, are very successful opera­tio­nally and occupy a leading posi­tion in the rele­vant market. Equity invest­ments of 5 to 30 million euros are made per transaction.

The acqui­si­tion of Langer & Laumann Inge­nieur­büro GmbH is the third invest­ment of Odewald’s second SME fund, follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of Betten Duscher Group in summer 2016 and Karl Schmidt Group in early 2017, on which Dr. Pär Johans­son and his team also advi­sed Odewald KMU. The Colo­gne M&A team works regu­larly with Odewald KMU and has alre­ady advi­sed on all tran­sac­tions of the first fund.

Advi­sor Odewald KMU II: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Pär Johansson,
Dr. Chris­toph Schork, LL.M. (both M&A),
Tim Remmel, LL.M.,
Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Labor Law),
Dr. Verena Hoene, LL.M. (IP), all Cologne

News

Berlin/Dakar — Partech Ventures announ­ces the launch of the Partech Africa Fund: The fund has a target volume of 100 million euros — more than 57 million euros of which have alre­ady been secu­red. This makes the Partech Africa fund the first fund from a top VC dedi­ca­ted exclu­si­vely to Africa’s rapidly growing tech ecosystem.

Partech Africa focu­ses on early-stage growth finan­cing and aims to help talen­ted Afri­can teams and their tech­no­lo­gies take advan­tage of growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in emer­ging markets with finan­cing between €0.5 and €5 million. Partech Africa is desi­gned as a gene­ra­list tech­no­logy fund whose target sectors range from the finan­cial scene (FinTech, Insur­Tech, new distri­bu­tion models) to online and mobile services (commerce, enter­tain­ment, lear­ning, digi­tal services) to mobi­lity, supply chain services and the digi­tiza­tion of the infor­mal economy.

The fund starts against the back­drop of an emer­ging and fast-growing market. “Tech VC invest­ments in Africa, with ticket sizes ranging from $200,000 to $40 million, have increased almost tenfold in recent years, from $40 million in 2012 to $367 million in 2016. Alre­ady, the sector is growing much faster than the projec­ted $1 billion annu­ally by 2020,” explains Cyril Collon (photo right), Gene­ral Part­ner at Partech Africa. “Most invest­ment rounds in Africa have been led by inves­tors based in the US or EU. The ecosys­tem is ready for local play­ers, with Afri­can teams funding the best Afri­can startups.”

As a key compo­nent of Partech’s global plat­form, Partech Africa will prima­rily bene­fit from the trans­at­lan­tic VC’s vast indus­try exper­tise, unique port­fo­lio support and busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment skills. “Partech’s highly hands-on team with its hands-on menta­lity, which closes more than 70 invest­ments per year, will also greatly bene­fit Afri­can foun­ders,” adds Tidjane Dème (photo left), Gene­ral Part­ner of Partech Africa. “Thanks to our global part­ner network, our dedi­ca­ted busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment teams will help Afri­can start­ups estab­lish and deepen cont­acts with the Euro­pean as well as the U.S. market to make long-term stra­te­gic part­ner­ships and trade agree­ments possible.”

High-profile inves­tors come toge­ther at Partech Africa
The launch of Partech Africa is also supported by key finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, inclu­ding the IFC (member of the World Bank Group), the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) and Aver­roès Finance III (the fund of funds mana­ged by Bpifrance and co-supported by Proparco).

“Tech­no­lo­gi­cal progress can have a huge trans­for­ma­tive impact in Africa, espe­ci­ally in sub-Saha­ran Africa. There is huge untap­ped poten­tial for entre­pre­neu­rial energy here,” said Phil­ippe Le Houé­rou, Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer of IFC. “Africa’s popu­la­tion is very young — there are many people here with strong tech­ni­cal skills and inno­va­tive ideas that can improve the lives of many. What they still lack is the neces­sary finan­cial support. We believe the Partech Africa fund will make an important contri­bu­tion to closing this finan­cing gap and driving entre­pre­neur­ship and growth.”

Partech Africa is also supported by the giant mobile network opera­tor Orange, as well as leading play­ers in emer­ging markets such as Eden­red and JCDe­caux Holding.

“As one of the leading trail­bla­zers in the Afri­can tech­no­logy indus­try, Orange is stron­gly pushing for the next pan-Afri­can digi­tal cham­pi­ons to emerge and grow. Our commit­ment to Partech Africa is an important part of our Orange Digi­tal Ventures Africa initia­tive, which aims to acce­le­rate the growth and scala­bi­lity of inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies,” said Pierre Louette, Deputy Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer of Orange and Chair­man of Orange Digi­tal Investment.

Partech Ventures once again as a trailblazer
In recent years, Partech Ventures has repea­tedly been a pioneer in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal market: The company was one of the first Euro­pean VCs to open an office in Sili­con Valley and has since deve­lo­ped into one of the few successful trans­at­lan­tic as well as pan-Euro­pean play­ers with teams in San Fran­cisco, Paris and Berlin.

“We are exci­ted to now be present on three conti­nents with the opening of our head­quar­ters in Dakar, Sene­gal. Not only does this make us even more global, but it also gives us an even better and more compre­hen­sive under­stan­ding of emer­ging inno­va­tions and global tech trends,” says Phil­ippe Collom­bel, Co-Mana­ging Part­ner of Partech Ventures. “In many areas, we see Afri­can entre­pre­neurs leading the way with their inno­va­tions in a wide variety of emer­ging markets. They’re using digi­tal tools and crea­tive busi­ness models to solve pres­sing problems, tapping into huge, previously untap­ped market segments — and that’s just the beginning.”

About Partech Ventures
Foun­ded in Sili­con Valley in 1982, Partech Ventures is a globally active invest­ment company with offices in Paris, Berlin, San Fran­cisco and Dakar. A large number of the part­ners are them­sel­ves entre­pre­neurs or have held manage­ment posi­ti­ons in tech­no­logy compa­nies. The company opera­tes and invests as a team, helping entre­pre­neurs from Europe, the U.S. and Africa build fast-growing tech­no­logy and digi­tal compa­nies that address large markets on multi­ple conti­nents. To this end, Partech Ventures invests in seed‑, venture- and growth-stage entre­pre­neurs. Since its incep­tion, Partech has successfully comple­ted 21 IPOs and assis­ted in more than 50 major M&A tran­sac­tions. Since 2012, the Partech Ventures team has built a pionee­ring busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment plat­form that fosters busi­ness rela­ti­onships and syner­gies between entre­pre­neurs and stra­te­gic partners.
About Partech Africa partners

Cyril Collon has held various manage­ment posi­ti­ons at mobile and Inter­net compa­nies, always with a consis­tent focus on Africa and the Middle East. Most recently, he spent four years as VP Sales for Europe and Africa at Vers­com Solu­ti­ons, a leading systems inte­gra­tor pionee­ring cloud/SaaS packet voice solu­ti­ons for emer­ging markets. He has also gained network trans­for­ma­tion expe­ri­ence at Genband, worked at UTStar­com to deploy the first IP-based mobile networks in Africa, and worked at Ascend Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, a global leader in infra­struc­ture for Inter­net service provi­ders. Cyril grew up on the Afri­can conti­nent until the age of 18.

Tidjane Dème led Google offices in Africa for over seven years, was respon­si­ble for YouTube stra­tegy in the region, drove major broad­band infra­struc­ture invest­ments, and worked to deve­lop the Afri­can tech ecosys­tem. Prior to joining Google, Tidjane was foun­der and CEO of Common­Sys, an IT consul­ting firm in West Africa. He also worked with Sili­con Valley startup Cosine Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons as well as CapGe­mini to deve­lop large-scale ISP-focu­sed IT solu­ti­ons. Tidjane grew up in Dakar (Sene­gal) until the age of 19.

News

Munich — In 2017, LfA Förder­bank Bayern supported compa­nies and muni­ci­pa­li­ties in the Free State with around 2.3 billion euros. Program-linked promo­tio­nal loans increased by around 6 percent to over EUR 1.7 billion. The increase is due in parti­cu­lar to very strong demand for start-up and growth promo­tion. This was opti­mi­zed last year and recor­ded an increase of around 14 percent. In addi­tion, the Energy Loan for Buil­dings, which was only intro­du­ced in mid-July 2017, was in demand with a commit­ment volume of over EUR 100 million. In total, more than 4,500 compa­nies and muni­ci­pa­li­ties bene­fi­ted from the funding offers.

“The economy in the Free State is in a good posi­tion. And to keep it that way, forward-looking invest­ments in our growth are neces­sary. This is where the LfA comes in, support­ing SMEs in their chal­lenges with a compre­hen­sive, flexi­ble and attrac­tive range of funding. This could be for digi­tiza­tion or a busi­ness succes­sion, for exam­ple. The funding figu­res for 2017 show that the offer has been excel­lently recei­ved and is very well tail­o­red to the needs of small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses,” said Bavaria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs and LfA Board Chair Ilse Aigner.

Dr. Otto Beierl, Chair­man of the Board of LfAadds: “The 2017 funding year was very successful for us. We were once again able to expand our funding perfor­mance for Bava­rian SMEs. In the impro­ved start-up and growth promo­tion alone, we commit­ted loans tota­ling more than 800 million euros. The high demand for the Energy Loan for Buil­dings since its launch last summer also speaks for itself. These invest­ments in the energy effi­ci­ency of corpo­rate buil­dings bene­fit our envi­ron­ment and busi­nesses. Because they save money in the long term thanks to lower energy consump­tion and our repay­ment subs­idy of up to 18.5 percent.”

LfA has been the state-owned specia­list bank for the promo­tion of SMEs in Bava­ria since 1951. As a rule, the deve­lo­p­ment loans are applied for at the compa­nies’ prin­ci­pal banks and are gran­ted through them. In order to streng­then Bava­ria as a busi­ness loca­tion, LfA also supports infra­struc­ture projects.
Infor­ma­tion on finan­cing opti­ons is available from the LfA funding advi­sory service:
Phone 0800 / 21 24 24 0 (free of charge), www.lfa.de

News

Cologne/Aachen — The S‑UBG Group is parti­ci­pa­ting with its venture capi­tal fund (S‑VC GmbH) in the second round of finan­cing in the FinTech company entra­fin GmbH, which was foun­ded in 2015. Also inves­t­ing are the foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors of zeb, a manage­ment consul­tancy specia­li­zing in finan­cial service provi­ders, Prof. Dr. Stefan Kirmße, Prof. Dr. Bernd Rolfes and Dr. Patrick Tege­der, the exis­ting inves­tors Dieter von Holtz­brinck Ventures and the foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors of entra­fin. “We will use the fresh capi­tal to grow further. Our goal is to give signi­fi­cantly more custo­mers access to our inno­va­tive form of purchase finan­cing. To this end, we are conti­nuously deve­lo­ping our trading plat­form as well as our sales chan­nels,” says Chris­toph Bauer (photo, left of co-foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor Dr. Stefan Fenner), Foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of entra­fin GmbH.

FinTech made in NRW: Inno­va­tive model for liqui­dity opti­miza­tion entra­fin has deve­lo­ped a comple­tely digi­tal plat­form for purchase finan­cing, where suppli­ers are paid in full directly after deli­very and buyers can take advan­tage of a flexi­ble payment term of up to 120 days for them­sel­ves. This crea­tes attrac­tive liqui­dity scope for the compa­nies. In this way, entra­fin meets the growing need of SMEs to be able to use finan­cing in an uncom­pli­ca­ted, fast, and flexi­ble manner precis­ely where it is needed at short notice: at the trading busi­ness itself with its goods and services. “Through future further deve­lo­p­ments, we will like­wise be able to offer our custo­mers a quick and easy connec­tion of their eCom­merce solu­ti­ons to our retail plat­form. In this way, we will also consis­t­ently serve the finan­cing needs directly and digi­tally at the point of sale,” explains Bauer.

Medium-sized company finan­cing in transition
“With its purchase finan­cing model and its inno­va­tive, digi­tal initia­tion and proces­sing, entra­fin GmbH is meeting with high demand in the market,” says Harald Heide­mann, CEO of S‑UBG. “The finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies in Germany is under­go­ing change, and entre­pre­neurs are incre­asingly looking for alter­na­ti­ves to tradi­tio­nal bank loans. There is ther­e­fore simi­lar market poten­tial for purchase finan­cing as there is for the alre­ady estab­lished facto­ring. The total volume of the German facto­ring indus­try alone curr­ently amounts to around 217 billion euros a year and has shown an average year-on-year increase of more than eight percent over the last four years,”[2] Heide­mann continues.

The next mile­sto­nes for entra­fin are ther­e­fore clear: a signi­fi­cant expan­sion of sales in the exis­ting sales chan­nels and the digi­tal deve­lo­p­ment of new market segments through the further deve­lo­p­ment of the trading platform.

About S‑UBG Group:
The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, is the leading part­ner in provi­ding equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (S‑VC GmbH) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. In 1997, the share­hol­der savings banks estab­lished an early-stage fund under S‑VC GmbH to finance start­ups. In 2007, the Seed Fonds I Aachen was added, expan­ding the range to include equity capi­tal for tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups. After it was fully finan­ced, a new fund (Seed Fonds II Aachen) was set up in 2012. The third seed fund gene­ra­tion will start at the begin­ning of 2018. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently has invest­ments in over 40 compa­nies in the region and mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately €100 million. Further infor­ma­tion: www.s‑ubg.de

About FinTech Funds:
Dieter von Holtz­brinck Ventures (DvH Ventures) is one of the leading early-stage inves­tors in Europe and invests in tech­no­logy-orien­ted start­ups that deve­lop disrup­tive products and services — from FinTech, Insur­Tech and Big Data to arts and culture, from educa­tion and trai­ning to mobile adver­ti­sing. As an inde­pen­dent venture capi­tal fund, DvH Ventures invests with capi­tal, manage­ment support as well as the charisma of strong brands and large reach of the jour­na­li­stic heavy­weights Handels­blatt, Wirt­schafts­Wo­che, Tages­spie­gel and DIE ZEIT. The manage­ment is formed by Peter Rich­arz and Fabian von Trotha. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.dvhventures.de

About entra­fin:
entra­fin is a FinTech for purchase finan­cing specia­li­zed in SMEs. entra­fin offers its B2B custo­mers a digi­tal finan­cing alter­na­tive for their working capi­tal that is faster, easier, and usually chea­per than the house bank. Custo­mers can initiate and settle trading tran­sac­tions with their suppli­ers in real time via the entra­fin digi­tal trading plat­form — entra­fin pays the suppli­ers’ invoice imme­dia­tely after deli­very and grants the custo­mer a payment term of up to 120 days. The traded goods serve as colla­te­ral. Further infor­ma­tion: www.entrafin.de

News

Puidoux — Follo­wing an initial Series A funding round of 3 million Swiss francs in 2016, DEPsys has recei­ved addi­tio­nal funding of 2 million Swiss francs from exis­ting inves­tors Stat­kraft Ventures and VNT Manage­ment, as well as from a new inves­tor, Swiss single family office Wecken & Cie. These funds will be used to further deve­lop the company’s smart grid solu­tion and thus streng­then its posi­tion on the Euro­pean market. The products and services help grid opera­tors seam­lessly inte­grate the incre­asing number of rene­wa­ble energy sources and elec­tric vehicles.

While the origi­nal funding enab­led the indus­tria­liza­tion of the GridEye solu­tion as well as the estab­lish­ment of a profes­sio­nal corpo­rate struc­ture, the addi­tio­nal funding serves to acce­le­rate the appli­ca­tion deve­lo­p­ment as well as the further deve­lo­p­ment of the inter­na­tio­nal market presence.
With this finan­cing, DEPsys crea­tes a very strong inves­tor base, which lays the foun­da­tion for another round of finan­cing in the double-digit milli­ons by other well-known inves­tors, which in turn will enable the prepa­ra­tion of the upco­ming globa­liza­tion as well as the posi­tio­ning as a world­wide market leader for the unique technology.

“Our solu­tion has matu­red signi­fi­cantly over the past 18 months, and we have been able to deve­lop a clear vision of the power grid of the future in the process,” explains DEPsys CEO Michael De Vivo. “We signed a number of very important inter­na­tio­nal agree­ments and contracts in 2017. This funding gives us the oppor­tu­nity to further streng­then our compe­ti­tive advan­tage and expand our reach.”

“We are very impres­sed by how quickly DEPsys has evol­ved from a clas­sic start-up to a domi­nant market player with dozens of custo­mers around the world. We look forward to further support­ing Michael De Vivo and his great team,” says Stefan Hülsen, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at Stat­kraft Ventures GmbH and member of the DEPsys Board of Directors.

“The DEPsys solu­tion has the poten­tial to become the leading real-time plat­form for low-voltage network manage­ment. Distri­bu­tion network opera­tors speci­fi­cally bene­fit from the “plug & play” concept, its easy instal­la­tion and the elimi­na­tion of a network model, which elimi­na­tes the need for time-consum­ing updates,” says Peter Auner, Part­ner at VNT Management.

Power grids require a balance between power gene­ra­tion and consump­tion. Due to the energy tran­si­tion, the simul­ta­neous gene­ra­tion of elec­tri­city by photo­vol­taic systems or the simul­ta­neous char­ging of elec­tric vehic­les exerts addi­tio­nal pres­sure on the balance of the power grid, which, in the worst case, can cause dange­rous situa­tions and possi­ble faults in the power supply. DEPsys’ GridEye smart grid solu­tion moni­tors, stabi­li­zes and opti­mi­zes the power grid in this new era thanks to high-precis­ion measu­re­ments and advan­ced control algo­rithms in a fully decen­tra­li­zed architecture.

About DEPsys
Foun­ded in 2012, DEPsys AG is a Swiss tech­no­logy company that is a thought leader in the energy market. It provi­des smart solu­ti­ons that allow tradi­tio­nal low-voltage grids to handle the problems posed by the decen­tra­li­zed produc­tion of rene­wa­ble energy sources, such as solar panels, and large loads, such as char­ging infra­struc­ture for elec­tric mobility.

About Stat­kraft Ventures
Stat­kraft Ventures GmbH is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm working with excep­tio­nal entre­pre­neurs who are funda­men­tally chan­ging the energy sector. The company opera­tes an exit stra­tegy and is supported by the Stat­kraft Group, Europe’s largest produ­cer of rene­wa­ble energy. Stat­kraft Ventures invests on gene­ral venture capi­tal terms. The company invests 10 million euros every year.

About VNT Management
VNT is one of the first Euro­pean venture capi­tal compa­nies to focus on clean tech­no­lo­gies, parti­cu­larly rene­wa­ble energy, power elec­tro­nics and energy conser­va­tion. VNT is active in Scan­di­na­via as well as in German-spea­king count­ries. Curr­ently, VNT mana­ges three funds (Power Fond I, II, III) with an invest­ment capi­tal of 157 million euros. VNT invests mainly in tech­no­logy-orien­ted start­ups and growth compa­nies. VNT execu­ti­ves have core expe­ri­ence in the power conver­sion and energy control indus­try. This gives the target compa­nies of the VNT funds the decisive added value. Exten­sive busi­ness expe­ri­ence, active manage­ment and fair play charac­te­rize VNT’s busi­ness principle.

About Wecken & Cie
The single-family office based in Basel invests, among others, in start-up and growth compa­nies with a focus on inter­net, soft­ware, tech­no­logy, medi­cal tech­no­logy in Germany and Europe.

News

Colo­gne — Venture capi­tal inves­tor Endeit Capi­tal and Tengel­mann Ventures invest $34 million in Chron­ext AG, an emer­ging online portal for luxury watches.

Partech Ventures, Capna­mic Ventures, NRW.BANK, InVen­ture Part­ners and Octo­pus Vent ures most recently inves­ted 11 million euros in 2016 in the young company, which is based in Zug, Switz­er­land, in London and in Colo­gne. Previously, around more than $5 million had alre­ady flowed into the watch store, which was laun­ched in 2013. Chron­ext compe­tes in the watch segment with compa­nies such as Chrono24, Horando, Mont­redo and Watch­mas­ter, among others. Chrono24 alre­ady raised 21 million euros in 2015.

Endeit Capi­tal is a VC inves­tor based in Amster­dam and Hamburg that provi­des growth capi­tal to young tech­no­logy companies.

Since 2009, Tengel­mann Ventures has inves­ted in more than 50 compa­nies and is one of the leading venture capi­tal inves­tors in Germany. Many of these compa­nies have become global play­ers and market leaders in their respec­tive market segments. The focus is on early and later stage invest­ments in the areas of consu­mer inter­net, market­places and technology.

CHRONEXT AG (www.chronext.com) was foun­ded in 2013 by Phil­ipp Man and Ludwig Wurlit­zer. The leading e‑commerce company for luxury watches has opened its first store in London, employs around 100 people and has a 250 sqm watch work­shop for quality and authen­ti­city test­ing. With a head office in Zug (Switz­er­land) and further offices in London and Colo­gne, the company is inter­na­tio­nally posi­tio­ned and ensu­res a fast and secure service. CHRONEXT simpli­fies the comple­xi­ties of the watch market and enables a unique buying experience.

Advi­sors to Endeit Capi­tal: CMS Germany
A cross-border team led by Dr. Malte Bruhns and Dr. Stephan Werlen provi­ded legal advice to Endeit Capi­tal. In addi­tion to Endeit Capi­tal and Tengel­mann Ventures, exis­ting inves­tors inclu­ding Partech Ventures, Capna­mic Ventures and Octo­pus Ventures parti­ci­pa­ted in the $34 million finan­cing round. CMS has acted for Endeit Capi­tal on seve­ral occa­si­ons in the past.
Dr. Malte Bruhns, Lead Part­ner, Stephan Weling, Senior Asso­ciate, both Corporate/M&A
CMS Switz­er­land: Dr. Stephan Werlen, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A

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