ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
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

News

Munich — Gleiss Lutz has advi­sed Linde AG in the auction procee­dings for the sale of TEGA ‑Tech­ni­sche Gase und Gasetech­nik GmbH. The buyer is DCC Germany Holding GmbH, a subsi­diary of the Irish company DCC. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the first quar­ter of 2018 follo­wing appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the sales price.

Tega — Tech­ni­sche Gase und Gasetech­nik GmbH specia­li­zes in the liquid gas and refri­ger­ant busi­ness and has five loca­ti­ons throug­hout Germany. It most recently achie­ved annual sales of 75 million euros.

Linde achie­ved sales of €16.948 billion in the 2016 finan­cial year, making it one of the world’s leading gases and engi­nee­ring compa­nies. With around 60,000 employees, the Group is repre­sen­ted in more than 100 countries.

The inter­na­tio­nally active services group DCC is listed on the London Stock Exch­ange in the FTSE 100. In the past fiscal year, the company gene­ra­ted sales of over 12 billion euros.

Sandra Albrecht (M&A) and Georg Terhorst (anti­trust) advi­sed Linde AG on the transaction.

For Linde AG, the follo­wing Gleiss Lutzwas-Team active: Dr. Ralf Mors­häu­ser (Lead), Dr. Rainer Loges (both Part­ner), Dr. Tobias Falk­ner (Coun­sel), Moritz Alex­an­der Riese­ner, Dr. Johan­nes Witt­mann (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Matthias Werner (Coun­sel, IP/IT, all Munich), Dr. Phil­ipp Naab (Coun­sel, Real Estate, Frank­furt), Dr. Johann Wagner (Part­ner), Dr. Hendrik Marchal (Coun­sel), Dr. Jens Wrede (all Tax, all Hamburg), Dr. Petra Lins­meier, Dr. Ingo Brin­ker (both Part­ners), Kath­rin Haag (all Anti­trust, all Munich) and Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner, Public Law, Düsseldorf).

News

Hamburg — Dr. Nils Koffka (55, photo) joins Allen & Overy ’s Hamburg office to head the German private equity prac­tice. The 55-year-old has spent his entire profes­sio­nal career at Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger, and has been a part­ner since 1997.

He is one of the leading lawy­ers for advi­sing on billion-dollar private equity tran­sac­tions: With the move of Dr. Nils Koffka to Allen & Overy LLP, the law firm conti­nues to catch up with the market leaders in Germany. Nils Koffka joins the firm’s Hamburg office as a part­ner. Previously, he worked for Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger, whose private equity prac­tice he played a key role in shaping over the years. Most recently, Nils Koffka confirmed his repu­ta­tion in the field of large cap tran­sac­tions by assis­ting BC Part­ners, which he has been leading for years, in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of Ceram­Tec (€2.6 billion) from Cinven. Other well-known names on his mandate list are Apollo or RHI.

The exact start date at Allen & Overy has not yet been determined.

 

News

Munich — Water­land Private Equity sells its stake in A‑ROSA River Crui­ses Group to Duke Street. The British company, based in London, toge­ther with the manage­ment, is acqui­ring all shares in the market leader for premium river crui­ses on Europe’s water­ways. Water­land Private Equity was advi­sed by Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP.

“We are plea­sed to have found a new inves­tor in Duke Street who will conti­nue to drive the growth of the A‑ROSA River Crui­ses Group,” said Jörg Drei­sow, Mana­ging Part­ner of Water­land. The inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment company acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the leading German river cruise opera­tor in 2009 and has since made a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the company’s growth into the most successful river cruise opera­tor in the German source market. Jörg Eich­ler, CEO of A‑ROSA: “Thanks to the part­ner­ship with Water­land, we have conti­nuously streng­the­ned our leading posi­tion in Europe over the past years.” Since 2009, the premium provi­der of river crui­ses has expan­ded its fleet from six to eleven cruise ships and added the Rhine and the Seine as crui­sing areas. — The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. Confi­den­tia­lity was agreed between the parties regar­ding the finan­cial details of the transaction.

About Water­land Private Equity
Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps entre­pre­neurs achieve their growth objec­ti­ves. With exten­sive finan­cial resour­ces and the dedi­ca­ted profes­sio­nals, Water­land crea­tes the basis for port­fo­lio compa­nies to grow faster both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land acts as an active share­hol­der and plays a key role for the compa­nies in the port­fo­lio in their stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment, growth and perfor­mance. With a team expe­ri­en­ced in the field of entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment, Water­land aims to help ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs achieve a stable market posi­tion in today’s incre­asingly compe­ti­tive world. To date, Water­land has inves­ted in over 400 companies.

Advi­sor Water­land Private Equity: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP
The Will­kie team led by Mario Schmidt and Dr. Stefan Jörgens (both Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and consis­ted of part­ners Dr. Axel Wahl (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Dr. Patrick Meiisel, Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (both Tax, Frank­furt), Jan Wilms, Dr. Jasmin Dett­mar (both Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Chris­tian Rolf (Labor Law, Frank­furt) and asso­cia­tes Dr. Stefan Bührle, Adrian Deng­ler, Erik Göretz­leh­ner, Andreas Knöd­ler and Kars­ten Silber­na­gel (all Corpo­rate, Frankfurt).

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm of more than 650 lawy­ers with offices in New York, Washing­ton, Hous­ton, Paris, London, Milan, Rome, Frank­furt am Main and Brussels.

News

Munich - Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed Asch­heim-based Munich Brand Hub AG on the exch­ange of receiv­a­bles from a bond issued by Laurèl GmbH into shares in Munich Brand Hub AG (so-called “debt-to-equity swap”). The consul­tancy also included the listing of the shares on the Munich Stock Exchange.

Laurèl GmbH is an inter­na­tio­nally active fashion company whose assets were subject to insol­vency procee­dings in self-admi­nis­tra­tion. In 2012, Laurèl GmbH had issued a bond with a total volume of EUR 20 million. The insol­vency plan drawn up as part of the insol­vency procee­dings provi­ded for an offer to bond­hol­ders to acquire shares in Munich Brand Hub AG in exch­ange for the claims arising from this bond. Munich Brand Hub AG is a newly foun­ded company which, in accordance with the insol­vency plan, had previously acqui­red all shares in Laurèl GmbH.

An expe­ri­en­ced team of experts from the Colo­gne and Munich offices of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed Munich Brand Hub AG in connec­tion with the imple­men­ta­tion of the debt-to-equity swap, in parti­cu­lar on the prepa­ra­tion of the secu­ri­ties pros­pec­tus appro­ved by the German Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity on Janu­ary 9, 2018 for the acqui­si­tion offer as well as the struc­tu­ring and imple­men­ta­tion of the indi­vi­dual sett­le­ment steps. The advice mainly concer­ned issues of corpo­rate, capi­tal market and insol­vency law.

Advi­sors to Munich Brand Hub AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Mirko Sickin­ger, LL.M. (lead, photo), Sven Radke, LL.M.
Lena Pfeu­fer (all stock corpo­ra­tion and capi­tal markets law), all Cologne
Boris Dürr, Ricarda Marschall, LL.M. (both Stock Corpo­ra­tion and Capi­tal Markets Law), both Munich, Prof. Dr. Georg Streit (Insol­vency Law), Munich

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) acqui­res an inte­rest in netz­kon­tor nord GmbH (netz­kon­tor), a provi­der of services for the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons indus­try. As part of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), DBAG ECF, which is mana­ged by DBAG, will acquire the majo­rity of shares in netz­kon­tor. The remai­ning shares will remain with the foun­ders and previous sole owners Dirk Müller and Peter Schmidt, who will conti­nue to work for the company as mana­ging part­ners. For its co-invest­ment along­side DBAG ECF, DBAG will invest up to EUR 4.6 million from its balance sheet. The purchase agree­ment was signed at the end of Decem­ber and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in Janu­ary 2018. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

netz­kon­tor is alre­ady the second invest­ment of the DBAG ECF since the start of its first new invest­ment period, DBAG ECF I for short, in June 2017. This means that more than a quar­ter of the commit­ted capi­tal has been drawn down.

netz­kon­tor (www.netzkontor-nord.de) was foun­ded in 2008 and opera­tes with around 100 employees in two busi­ness areas. Under the brand name “netz­kon­tor”, the company offers services rela­ted to the plan­ning and moni­to­ring of the cons­truc­tion of fiber optic networks. The OpenXS subsi­diary hand­les network manage­ment for fiber-optic network opera­tors. The regio­nal focus so far has been on Schles­wig-Holstein. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Flens­burg, netz­kon­tor opera­tes from two other loca­ti­ons. With the recently opened branch in Schwe­rin, the company is also active in Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern. In 2017, netz­kon­tor gene­ra­ted sales of around eight million euros.

Demand for fast Inter­net connec­tions by private house­holds and compa­nies is incre­asing. So far, howe­ver, broad­band expan­sion in Germany has been slug­gish by Euro­pean stan­dards. It is ther­e­fore also supported by subsi­dies from the fede­ral budget. More than 40 million house­holds in Germany are not yet connec­ted to a fiber optic line. In this favorable market envi­ron­ment, netz­kon­tor bene­fits from its good repu­ta­tion as a relia­ble quality provi­der and from its exper­tise in project manage­ment. The company’s regio­nal expan­sion and the diver­si­fi­ca­tion of its custo­mer base are also to be driven forward by corpo­rate acquisitions.

“With the MBO of netz­kon­tor, DBAG is inves­t­ing in a well-posi­tio­ned service company in a fast-growing market,” said Tors­ten Grede, Spokes­man of the Board of Manage­ment of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG on the occa­sion of the signing of the agree­ment. “We intend to support the company in its further deve­lo­p­ment with our exper­tise from DBAG’s exis­ting three invest­ments in this sector.”

“netz­kon­tor should conti­nue to bene­fit from the posi­tive market trend and the growing demand for broad­band connec­tions in the future,” said Peter Schmidt, mana­ging part­ner of netz­kon­tor. “In DBAG, we have found an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner with whose support the deve­lo­p­ment steps requi­red for this will be even easier for us.”

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests along­side DBAG funds in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are parti­cu­larly strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. With this expe­ri­ence, know-how and equity, it streng­thens the port­fo­lio compa­nies in imple­men­ting a long-term, value-enhan­cing corpo­rate stra­tegy. The entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 1.8 billion euros.

News

Frank­furt a. Main — The private equity company Main Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Mann­heim-based soft­ware company JobRou­ter AG. In the context of the sale of its stake, one of the previous share­hol­ders of JobRou­ter AG was advi­sed by an M&A and private equity team of Bryan Cave in Frank­furt, led by Dr. Tobias Fenck.

The new inves­tor will provide the company with further growth capi­tal. The aim of the invest­ment is to expand the busi­ness model for BPM and docu­ment manage­ment, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and stra­te­gic add-on acquisitions.

JobRou­ter AG is an inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­rer of a web-based low-code plat­form for compre­hen­sive enter­prise digi­tiza­tion. The offe­ring includes highly scalable work­flow and docu­ment manage­ment compon­ents that enable busi­ness proces­ses to be mapped and auto­ma­ted digi­tally. The product port­fo­lio also includes stan­dar­di­zed solu­tion templa­tes for rapid busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion, indus­try-speci­fic process solu­ti­ons and a cloud instance in over 18 languages. The company relies on an exten­sive network of more than 160 part­ners. Custo­mers include, for exam­ple, EY, Thomas Cook and ThyssenKrupp.

Advi­sor to share­hol­der JobRou­ter AG: Bryan Cave Frankfurt
Dr. Tobias Fenck, Mana­ging Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A, Private Equity), Stefan Skulesch, Of Coun­sel (Tax), Robert Schind­ler, Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate)

About Main Capital
Main Capi­tal is a private equity inves­tor with an exclu­sive focus on the soft­ware indus­try. In this indus­try, we are the most specia­li­zed party for manage­ment buyouts and later-stage growth capi­tal. With an expe­ri­en­ced team of profes­sio­nals, Main Capi­tal now mana­ges four private equity funds with assets under manage­ment of appro­xi­m­ately 375 million euros. — Main Capi­tal focu­ses exclu­si­vely on estab­lished and growing SaaS and soft­ware compa­nies with an inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion stra­tegy. Since its foun­ding in 2003, Main Capi­tal has built a proven track record and a large network in the soft­ware industry.

Main Capi­tal assists in the reor­ga­niza­tion of company holdings and stri­ves to bring soft­ware compa­nies to a higher level in terms of market posi­tion, busi­ness model and size. Subse­quently, an attrac­tive exit is targe­ted toge­ther with the foun­ders and/or the management.

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. 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

Frankfurt/Main- Shear­man & Ster­ling has advi­sed the exis­ting share­hol­ders of Mein­Auto GmbH, inclu­ding Holtz­brinck Ventures GmbH, Global Foun­ders Capi­tal GmbH & Co Betei­li­gungs KG Nr. 1, Vorwerk Direct Selling Ventures GmbH and Mr. Nico­las Leut­wi­ler, on the sale of their shares to the British invest­ment company HgCa­pi­tal.

Mein­Auto GmbH is the leading Inter­net new car broker in Germany with MeinAuto.de. As a pioneer in the field of online new car sales, the Colo­gne-based company has deve­lo­ped from an up-and-coming start-up to an estab­lished player in the indus­try since its foun­ding in 2007. Today, the portal regis­ters over 16 million website visi­tors annu­ally and coope­ra­tes with over 9,000 auto­mo­bile dealers throug­hout Germany.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team, led by Dr. Alfred Koss­mann, included asso­cia­tes Dr. Aliresa Fatemi and Evelin Moini (all Frank­furt-Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons). In addi­tion, part­ner Simon Burrows (London-Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons), coun­sel Dr. Mathias Stöcker (Frank­furt-Anti­trust) and Dr. Anders Kraft (Frank­furt-Tax) as well as asso­cia­tes Dr. Phil­ipp Jaspers, Sven Opper­mann and Marc Lorenz (all Frank­furt-Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons) advi­sed on the transaction.

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 20 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visitwww.shearman.com/de.

News

Berlin — Osborne Clarke expands its Berlin office with a part­ner. As of Febru­ary, Robin Eyben (39) is trans­fer­ring from Morri­son Foers­ter. He worked there for three and a half years, most recently as a senior associate.

Eyben recently regu­larly advi­sed clients from the tech­no­logy, media and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons indus­tries, prima­rily on finan­cings and tran­sac­tions. He also assis­ted start-ups from incep­tion to exit. After gradua­ting, he initi­ally joined Gibson Dunn & Crut­cher in Benno Schwarz’s team in Munich. Eyben joined Morri­son Foerster’s Berlin office about a year after it opened there.

Osborne Clarke had announ­ced that it would signi­fi­cantly expand its Berlin office. It was staf­fed for seve­ral years by an asso­ciate who was conside­red well-connec­ted in the VC market there. After his depar­ture, howe­ver, the capi­tal office — in compa­ri­son to Colo­gne and to some extent Munich — did not make much progress in VC. Eyben will now work prima­rily with Colo­gne-based VC part­ner Nico­las Gabrysch, who also spends a lot of time in Berlin. An asso­ciate will also be added in March.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in Sjølund A/S (Sjølund), a manu­fac­tu­rer of alumi­num and steel compon­ents for the wind power, rail­road, cons­truc­tion and engi­nee­ring indus­tries. In a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), DBAG ECF, which is mana­ged by DBAG, will acquire around 51 percent of the shares in Sjølund from the current sole owner and CEO Søren Ravn Jensen.

DBAG will invest up to 4.5 million euros from its balance sheet for its co-invest­ment; in future, it will account for around 21 percent of the shares in Sjølund. The remai­ning appro­xi­m­ately 49 percent of the shares will in future be held by Søren Ravn Jensen, who will conti­nue to serve as CEO of the company, and other members of the manage­ment team. The purchase agree­ment was signed at the end of Decem­ber and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in Janu­ary 2018. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Sjølund is the first invest­ment since the start of the first new invest­ment period of the DBAG ECF, or DBAG ECF I, in June 2017. The manage­ment buyout is also the second majo­rity invest­ment by the fund, which has also selec­tively provi­ded funds for MBOs since expan­ding its invest­ment crite­ria in 2016. Previously, the DBAG ECF had exclu­si­vely inves­ted in compa­nies on a mino­rity basis in order to promote their growth.

Since the previous sole owner and CEO Søren Ravn Jensen joined the company in 1994, Sjølund (www.sjoelund.com) has deve­lo­ped into one of the largest suppli­ers in the niche market for complex compon­ents made of bent alumi­num and steel. At the company’s head­quar­ters in Sjølund, Denmark, and at a produc­tion site in China, around 110 employees manu­fac­ture compon­ents that account for only a small propor­tion of their custo­mers’ mate­rial costs, but are nevert­hel­ess complex in many cases and often safety-rele­vant. These compon­ents are always manu­fac­tu­red accor­ding to the speci­fic requi­re­ments of the respec­tive custo­mer and distri­bu­ted globally — also via a third loca­tion in the USA. Sjølund also advi­ses its custo­mers on adap­ting products to the manu­fac­tu­ring process (“Design for Manu­fac­tu­ring”). In this way, the company has built up stable custo­mer rela­ti­onships and a strong market posi­tion. It gene­ra­ted a good half of its total sales of around 31 million euros in the wind power indus­try in fiscal year 2016/2017 (Septem­ber 30), mainly with compon­ents for the nacel­les of wind turbi­nes. In the rail segment, Sjølund supplies train manu­fac­tu­r­ers with struc­tu­ral profiles and compon­ents for exte­rior clad­ding, for exam­ple for the front of the rail­car, the window frames or the boar­ding area.

Sjølund’s sales markets, some of which are not very cycli­cal, are expec­ted to grow signi­fi­cantly in the coming years. Drivers of this deve­lo­p­ment are mega­trends such as the use of rene­wa­ble ener­gies, global popu­la­tion growth and incre­asing urba­niza­tion. On this basis, Sjølund is to conti­nue to grow and expand inter­na­tio­nally — orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons: Busi­ness with exis­ting custo­mers in growth markets such as China and the USA is to be expan­ded; compon­ents for wind turbi­nes are also to be manu­fac­tu­red at the Chinese produc­tion site in the future. German custo­mers curr­ently account for around 35 percent of Sjølund’s sales. Another start­ing point for the stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the company is the realignment of its sales acti­vi­ties. They are to focus more stron­gly on the highly profi­ta­ble mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring sector.

“Sjølund is active in seve­ral growth markets at the same time and has by no means exhaus­ted its poten­tial to serve these markets,” said Dr. Rolf Schef­fels (photo), member of DBAG’s Manage­ment Board, on the occa­sion of today’s contract signing. “We see this, in combi­na­tion with its long-estab­lished custo­mer rela­ti­onships, as the promi­sing basis for the company’s contin­ued posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment — and thus an attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­nity in one of DBAG’s core sectors.”

“Further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the busi­ness is a prere­qui­site for Sjølund to reach the next stage of its deve­lo­p­ment,” commen­ted Søren Ravn Jensen, former sole owner and CEO of Sjølund. “We are plea­sed to have an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner in DBAG at our side who can support us with capi­tal and exper­tise in this important phase.”

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests along­side DBAG funds in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are parti­cu­larly strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. With this expe­ri­ence, know-how and equity, it streng­thens the port­fo­lio compa­nies in imple­men­ting a long-term, value-enhan­cing corpo­rate stra­tegy. The entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 1.8 billion euros.

News

Hamburg - IDEX Health & Science today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of thinXXS Micro­tech­no­logy AG. The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to acce­le­rate growth in the micro­flui­dics consu­ma­bles busi­ness. The share­hol­ders of thinXXS Micro­tech­no­logy AG, inclu­ding the majo­rity share­hol­der PRICAP Venture Part­ners AG, were advi­sed by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek on the sale of their shares to a subsi­diary of IDEX Corpo­ra­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

thinXXS Micro­tech­no­logy, based in Zwei­brü­cken, Germany, is a leading company in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of plas­tic disposable systems for the life scien­ces, point-of-care and vete­ri­nary markets. The acqui­si­tion estab­lishes IDEX Health & Science as a tech­no­logy leader in micro­flui­dics and streng­thens its growth focus on inte­gra­ted opto­flui­dic systems, compon­ents and advan­ced solu­ti­ons for its target industries.

Advi­sors to thinXXS Micro­tech­no­logy AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Part­ner Dr. Michael Dröge, Part­ner Julia Cramer (both lead and M&A/Corporate), Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax), all Hamburg
Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe (Stock Corpo­ra­tion Law), Cologne
Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (Anti­trust Law)
Dr. Florian Wenk, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law)
Dr. Chris­tina Etzel,
Sven Johann­sen (both Vendor Due Dili­gence), all Hamburg

News

Hamburg — Allen & Overy LLP has advi­sed Hamburg-based private bank M.M. Warburg & CO (AG & Co.) KGaA (“Warburg”) on the sale of its subsi­dia­ries Warburg Invest Luxem­bourg S.A. and M.M. Warburg & CO Luxem­bourg S.A. to Apex Group Ltd (“Apex”), a port­fo­lio company of Genstar Capi­tal. The two dive­s­ted subsi­dia­ries manage $50 billion in assets under manage­ment. Apex had previously acqui­red Deut­sche Bank’s Alter­na­tive Fund Service busi­ness, among others. — Warburg and Apex will enter into a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship for Luxem­bourg-based asset manage­ment services.

The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by various regu­la­tory autho­ri­ties. Comple­tion is plan­ned for the second quar­ter of 2018. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the transaction.

By selling its two subsi­dia­ries, Warburg Bank intends to focus even more on growth in the German market and reduce the comple­xity of regu­la­tory requirements.

Advi­sor M.M. Warburg & CO: Allen & Overy Hamburg
The lead part­ner was Hamburg part­ner Dr. Nico­laus Ascher­feld (Corporate/M&A), with part­ners Dr. Heike Weber (Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Alex­an­der Behrens (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt), Dr. Börries Ahrens (Anti­trust, Hamburg) and Daniela Trötscher (Tax, Frank­furt); Of-Coun­sel Frank Herring (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt), Coun­sel Max Lands­hut (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Senior Asso­ciate Marco Zingler (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Dr. Stefan Witte (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Dr. Moritz Meis­ter (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and Dr. David Wagner (Labor Law, Hamburg).

From the Luxem­bourg office, part­ners Andre Marc (Corporate/M&A) and Henri Wagner (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets) as well as coun­sel Cathe­rine Di Lorenzo, Yannick Arbaut, Serge Hoff­mann, Gary Cywie and asso­ciate Franz Kerger advised.

The tran­sac­tion was advi­sed in-house by Dr. Chris­toph Greiner.

About Allen Overy
Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,400 employees, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 550 part­ners, in 44 offices worldwide.

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

News

Munich/ Bern (Switz­er­land) — The BKW Group, head­quar­te­red in Bern, Switz­er­land has acqui­red the WALD + CORBE Group, head­quar­te­red in Hügels­heim, Baden-Würt­tem­berg. Rödl & Part­ner provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the BKW Group. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

 

WALD + CORBE reali­zes natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal projects in the fields of water manage­ment, hydrau­lic engi­nee­ring and infra­struc­ture. In addi­tion, there are services in the fields of ecology, envi­ron­ment and survey­ing. In doing so, WALD + CORBE can draw on broad and deep expe­ri­ence gained from a large number of projects. In recent deca­des, for exam­ple, more than 100 flood reten­tion basins have been plan­ned and super­vi­sed in terms of civil engineering.

Since its foun­ding, the BKW Group has been active in the field of engi­nee­ring and has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the realiza­tion of large-scale projects, infra­struc­ture and power plant cons­truc­tion, as well as in the areas of flood protec­tion and water­course plan­ning. BKW is conti­nuously expan­ding its engi­nee­ring network in Europe. The goal here is to be able to offer holi­stic solu­ti­ons for infra­struc­ture and envi­ron­ment as well as plant design & safety. As an inter­na­tio­nally active energy and infra­struc­ture company, the BKW Group employs around 6,000 people.

The entry of WALD + CORBE adds a valuable member to the BKW Engi­nee­ring network. The BKW Group is thus incre­asingly tapping the southwest of Germany for its services. The company streng­thens BKW’s exis­ting compe­ten­cies mainly in the areas of water manage­ment, hydrau­lic engi­nee­ring and infrastructure.

The BKW Group was advi­sed by a specia­li­zed M&A team of Rödl & Part­ner in the course of the tran­sac­tion. The compre­hen­sive legal advice was provi­ded under the lead of Part­ner Michael Wiehl and by Asso­ciate Part­ner Michael Beder. The acqui­si­tion was supported by Asso­ciate Part­ner Chris­toph Hinz and Part­ner Florian Kaiser from a busi­ness manage­ment and tax perspective.

Rödl & Partner’s proven team has been conti­nuously assis­ting BKW in M&A tran­sac­tions in Germany and abroad for seve­ral years, such as the acqui­si­tion of the Lind­schulte Group in Nort­hern Germany, the acqui­si­tion of ASSMANN BERATEN + PLANEN AG from Berlin, the acqui­si­tion of the Eigen­schenk Group in Bava­ria and the take­over of the photo­vol­taic service provi­der Solare Daten­sys­teme (SDS).

Advi­sor BKW Group: Rödl & Part­ner Nurem­berg — Legal
Michael Wiehl, Attor­ney at Law, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, M&A)
Dr. Michael Braun, Attor­ney at Law, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Labor Law, Legal Due Diligence)
Sebas­tian Dittrich, Attor­ney at Law, Asso­ciate (Legal Due Diligence)

Rödl & Part­ner Munich — Legal
Thomas Fräbel, Attor­ney at Law, Part­ner (M&A, Corpo­rate Law)
Michael Beder, Attor­ney at Law, Asso­ciate Part­ner (M&A, Corpo­rate Law, Anti­trust Law)
Regina Henf­ling, Attor­ney at Law, Senior Asso­ciate (M&A, Corpo­rate Law, Legal Due Diligence)

Rödl & Part­ner Munich — Financial
Chris­toph Hinz, Diplom-Betriebs­wirt, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Project Manage­ment Finan­cial Due Dili­gence); Enrico Diener, Senior Asso­ciate (Finan­cial Due Diligence)

Rödl & Part­ner Nurem­berg — Tax
Florian Kaiser, Tax Advi­sor, Part­ner (Project Manage­ment Tax, Structuring)
Julian Schu­bert, M.Sc., Asso­ciate (Tax Due Diligence)

News

Paris/Munich — Biotech compa­nies were sought-after take­over targets in the past year: With a 54% premium on the share price one month before the take­over announce­ment, biotech compa­nies achie­ved the highest take­over premi­ums world­wide in 2017 — clearly above the five-year average of 45%. That’s accor­ding to an analy­sis by invest­ment bank Bryan, Garnier & Co.

The 1040 global M&A tran­sac­tions that took place in the health­care sector in the first nine months of 2017 were conside­red: 132 acqui­si­ti­ons of biotech compa­nies, 219 of phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies and 689 in the medi­cal tech­no­logy sector. With a compa­ra­tively low 21 percent premium on the respec­tive stock market price one month before the take­over plans were announ­ced, phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies were 33 percen­tage points chea­per to buy than biotech compa­nies. Buyers also paid signi­fi­cant price premi­ums of 44 percent for medi­cal tech­no­logy companies.

“While there were few large deals in 2017 and acqui­si­ti­ons such as Acte­l­ion and Kite were excep­ti­ons, there were a lot of smal­ler tran­sac­tions and biotech compa­nies in parti­cu­lar are beco­ming incre­asingly expen­sive,” empha­si­zed Falk Müller-Veerse, Mana­ging Part­ner of Bryan Garnier in Germany. This is not surpri­sing, as biotech compa­nies are incre­asingly recei­ving appr­ovals for drug candi­da­tes that repre­sent a thera­peu­tic breakth­rough. “And these are exactly the kind of products that the big pharma compa­nies need for their own pipelines.”

Compared to previous years, health­care compa­nies raised record amounts world­wide in 2017: After just nine months, the volume of equity raised (private place­ments), at $9 billion, excee­ded the levels of 2016 ($8.1 billion) and 2015 ($6.1 billion). Equity capi­tal markets acti­vi­ties also increased signi­fi­cantly: In Europe, the volume of public equity (equity raised from the public) rose to EUR 1.5 billion in the first nine months (2016: EUR 860 million); this almost retur­ned to the level of 2015 (EUR 1.8 billion) in the first three quarters.

Incre­asing M&A acti­vity expected
Bryan Garnier expects M&A acti­vity to conti­nue to increase in 2018, not least in view of the incre­asing concen­tra­tion of large phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies on a few stra­te­gic busi­ness areas. Added to this, he said, is the trend toward digi­tiza­tion of health­care, notwi­th­stan­ding the looming threat of cyber-attacks, for which the health­care sector has limi­ted preparedness.

Bryan Garnier’s analysts expect the tax reform in the U.S.A. to lead to anincre­asing propen­sity to buy, espe­ci­ally on the part ofAmeri­can compa­nies. In addi­tion, new forms of therapy promise new growth oppor­tu­ni­ties: Immuno-onco­logy is curr­ently play­ing a major role here, and nume­rous new study results are expec­ted in this area in 2018. In addi­tion, compa­nies pursuing the new trans­for­ma­tive therapy approa­ches such as mRNA, CAR‑T and micro­biome will be parti­cu­larly attrac­tive in the future; the appro­xi­m­ately 11 billion acqui­si­tion of CAR‑T cell specia­list Kite Pharma by Gilead is a good exam­ple of this. Among the successful compa­nies in the field of mRNA is the German company BioNTech, which alre­ady has well-known indus­trial part­ners such as Sanofi, Bayer and Genen­tech.

“Given the good market envi­ron­ment and attrac­tive valua­tions on the capi­tal market, IPOs are also beco­ming more inte­res­t­ing again for many health­care compa­nies as the ulti­mate way to raise capi­tal” empha­si­zed Dr. Nicho­las Hanser, who mana­ges the German-spea­king capi­tal markets busi­ness for Bryan, Garnier & Co from Munich.

About Bryan Garnier & C0
Bryan, Garnier & Co, foun­ded in 1996 in Paris and London, is an invest­ment bank focu­sed on Euro­pean growth compa­nies with offices in London, Paris, Munich and New York. As an inde­pen­dent “full service” invest­ment bank, it offers compre­hen­sive finan­cing advice and support along the entire life cycle of its clients — from initial finan­cing rounds to a poten­tial sale or IPO with subse­quent follow-up finan­cing. The range of services includes equity analy­sis, equity sales and trading, private and public capi­tal raising, and M&A services for growth compa­nies and their inves­tors. The focus is on key growth sectors of the economy such as tech­no­logy (TMT) and health­care, but also smart indus­tries & energy, brand and consu­mer goods, and busi­ness services. Bryan Garnier is a regis­tered broker and licen­sed with the FCA in Europe and FINRA in the US. The company is a part­ner of the London Stock Exch­ange and Euronext.

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