News-Kategorie: Deals

Düssel­dorf — The French medium-sized company LACROIX has acqui­red SAE IT-systems, a specia­list in control tech­no­logy for moni­to­ring and secu­ring power grids and infra­struc­ture in the field of rene­wa­ble ener­gies. Luther advi­sed LACROIX on the transaction.

LACROIX Group, listed on Euron­ext, is an inter­na­tio­nal supplier of tech­ni­cal equip­ment. The company’s goal is to deve­lop tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons for a connec­ted and sustainable world. LACROIX has loca­ti­ons in France, Germany, Poland, Tuni­sia, Spain, Italy and Singapore.
LACROIX provi­des secure, networked equip­ment for the control of smart road infra­struc­ture as well as for the control of water and energy infra­struc­ture. In addi­tion, LACROIX designs and manu­fac­tures elec­tro­nic equip­ment for custo­mers in the auto­mo­tive, home auto­ma­tion, aero­space, manu­fac­tu­ring and health­care industries.
SAE IT-systems deve­lops and produ­ces tele­con­trol and station control tech­no­logy for the appli­ca­tion areas elec­tri­city, gas, heat, water, indus­try and infrastructure.
Toge­ther with SAE IT-systems, the LACROIX Group aims to meet the chal­lenges of tomorrow’s power grids, namely the inte­gra­tion, moni­to­ring and control of rene­wa­ble energy sources, the deve­lo­p­ment of smart distri­bu­tion grids and consump­tion control. With these new capa­bi­li­ties, LACROIX is ente­ring the energy networks and “smart grids” markets.
Among other things, the law firm Luther contri­bu­ted its energy and infra­struc­ture exper­tise to the transaction.

For LACROIX: Luther
M&A/Corporate: Dr. Michael Kröm­ker, MBA (lead), Kamil Flak, Marc Urlichs (all Düssel­dorf), Michael Strö­bel, LL.M. (Stutt­gart)
Anti­trust and Regu­la­tory Law: Guido Jansen (Part­ner), Anne Caro­line Wegner, LL.M. (Part­ner), Franz-Rudolf Groß, Benja­min Schwen­ker, Julia Lech­ten­böh­mer (all Düsseldorf)
Envi­ron­ment Plan­ning Regu­la­tion: Dr. Stefan Alten­schmidt, LL.M. (Part­ner, Düsseldorf)
Real Estate Law: Dr. Phil­ipp Pröbs­ting (Part­ner, Düsseldorf)
Employ­ment Law: Hans-Chris­tian Acker­mann (Part­ner, Düsseldorf)
Tax Law: Nicole Fröh­lich (Part­ner), Ulrich Siege­mund (Part­ner), Ramona Hubracht, LL.M., Nicole Rauer, LL.M., Jessica Lüdde­cke (all Frank­furt am Main)
IP/IT: Sebas­tian Laou­to­u­mai, LL.M. (Essen)
Lacroix Legal Depart­ment: Franck Legrand (Gene­ral Counsel)

Munich, Frank­furt, Zurich ‑Despite strong first half, only 89 LBO finan­cings in 2018 — first decline since 2012. After years of steady growth, the German LBO market has recor­ded a decline for the first time since the end of the finan­cial crisis. The number of comple­ted tran­sac­tions fell to 89 last year compared with 103 in 2017 — a drop of almost 15 percent. Alter­na­tive finan­ciers, on the other hand, contin­ued their success story unde­ter­red in 2018, defy­ing the gene­ral decline in the German LBO market. The market share of debt funds rises to almost 50 percent.

The current MidCap­Mo­ni­tor of the invest­ment bank GCA Altium, which regu­larly pres­ents lever­a­ged buyout finan­cings with a loan volume of between 20 and 500 million euros, shows for the In 2018 as a whole, debt funds accoun­ted for almost half of the German LBO market: At 35 percent, it has again increased signi­fi­cantly compared with 2017 and now amounts to 48 percent. Of the 89 tran­sac­tions in 2018, Debt Funds successfully execu­ted 43 tran­sac­tions. The banks’ market share was still 65 percent in 2017 and has now shrunk to 52 percent with 46 transactions.

The success of alter­na­tive finan­cing parties is based on seve­ral factors. On the one hand, it can be obser­ved that banks are beco­ming more risk-averse in indi­vi­dual tran­sac­tions — espe­ci­ally with cycli­cal compa­nies. More flexi­ble debt funds fill this gap, secu­ring tran­sac­tions that would not have been finan­ced with banks — or only much more conser­va­tively. On the other hand, a signi­fi­cantly increased number of debt funds can now provide volu­mes of EUR 150 million and more per indi­vi­dual tran­sac­tion, making a complex banking club super­fluous. “The time advan­tage of larger, single-source finan­cings now plays a parti­cu­larly frequent role in compe­ti­tive auctions,” comm­ents Johan­nes Schmit­tat, Mana­ging Direc­tor in GCA Altium’s Frank­furt office. It can also be obser­ved that buy-and-build stra­te­gies in parti­cu­lar are being finan­ced via alter­na­tive lenders. “The final matu­rity of the loans, as well as grea­ter flexi­bi­lity in terms, frees up capi­tal for growth through acqui­si­ti­ons,” says Norbert Schmitz, also a mana­ging direc­tor at GCA Altium.

It is also striking that the success of alter­na­tive finan­cing parties is not limi­ted to Germany. Across Europe, 219 LBO tran­sac­tions were finan­ced by debt funds last year. “Compared to 2017, that’s another 22 percent increase,” says Norbert Schmitz. Howe­ver, Q4 saw the first signi­fi­cant quar­ter-on-quar­ter decline of 14 tran­sac­tions (down 23 percent). In addi­tion to Germany with 43 tran­sac­tions, alter­na­tive finan­cing was also used inten­si­vely in the UK (67 tran­sac­tions) and France (48 transactions).

Over­all, GCA Altium does not expect banks to regain lost market share in the near future. On the contrary, a further increase in alter­na­tive finan­cing is expec­ted in 2019.

On the banking side, Commerz­bank contin­ued its successful first half of the year, ranking first for 2018 as a whole with 13 transactions.
Unicre­dit (10) was able to defend its 2nd place, whereas last year’s market leader SEB (9) has to share 3rd place with Bayern LB (9). It is note­wor­thy here that the number of tran­sac­tions finan­ced by banks recor­ded a decrease of 32 percent and, at 46 in 2018, is signi­fi­cantly below the level of 2017 (68).

Even though the London large-cap and high-yield market faced fierce head­winds for low margins and very borrower-friendly terms seve­ral times in 2018, GCA Altium did not see any impact on the German LBO market. “Due to the contin­ued extre­mely compe­ti­tive envi­ron­ment between banks and debt funds, we expect stable condi­ti­ons in the short term,” adds Norbert Schmitz.

About GCA Altium
GCA Altium is the Euro­pean divi­sion of GCA. The global invest­ment bank provi­des stra­te­gic M&A as well as capi­tal markets advi­sory services to growth compa­nies and market leaders. GCA opera­tes globally with over 400 experts in 18 loca­ti­ons in the US, Asia and Europe. Built by the people who run the busi­ness, GCA specia­li­zes in deals that require commit­ment, an unbi­a­sed view, exper­tise and unique networks. www.gcaaltium.com

Stockholm/Berlin — Wine in Black, one of the leading online stores for high-quality wines in Germany, France, the Nether­lands, Austria and Switz­er­land, beco­mes part of the Swedish Viva Group, one of Scandinavia’s largest wine importers. Viva Group plans to further streng­then its growth trajec­tory with the Berlin-based retailer’s e‑commerce capa­bi­li­ties, while Wine in Black will bene­fit from the Swedish market leader’s global supplier rela­ti­onships. The acqui­si­tion alre­ady took place in Q4 2018 and will be formally closed in the coming weeks.

Emil Sall­näs, Mana­ging Part­ner of Viva Group: “Wine in Black has estab­lished a unique posi­tion in some of the largest and most attrac­tive Euro­pean markets for premium wines. We look forward to working with the Wine in Black team in Berlin and our teams in Scan­di­na­via to further acce­le­rate Wine in Black’s growth.”

Wine in Black was foun­ded in 2011. Foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor Stephan Linden (photo on the right) will leave the company after a tran­si­tio­nal phase in mid-2019 to devote hims­elf to new entre­pre­neu­rial projects. Wine in Black will be led by Chris­tian Fricke (photo left), who alre­ady joined Wine in Black as Mana­ging Direc­tor in Febru­ary 2018, and will conti­nue to act entre­pre­neu­ri­ally auto­no­mous and independent.

Stephan Linden: “As a start-up in a very compe­ti­tive market, we were very fort­u­nate to be able to attract such expe­ri­en­ced and successful venture capi­ta­lists as Project A, e.ventures, btov, Black River Ventures and others. After we were able to deve­lop Wine in Black from zero to an eight-digit annual turno­ver, it is now exactly the right time to start the next growth phase of Wine in Black with a stra­te­gic part­ner. The Swedish Viva Group convin­ced us with its very entre­pre­neu­rial approach, global network and deep market under­stan­ding and will help Chris­tian and the manage­ment team to take Wine in Black to the next level.”

Chris­tian Fricke: “Wine in Black star­ted as a closed shop­ping club for premium wines. In the past two years, the model has under­gone major deve­lo­p­ment. Our custo­mers appre­ciate our cura­ted and ever-chan­ging assort­ment to find exci­ting wines and further expand their know­ledge of wine. As a plat­form, we want to become the first port of call for anyone who wants to disco­ver new, high-quality wines. Viva Group shares our vision for the further deve­lo­p­ment of Wine in Black and will support us as a stra­te­gic part­ner in the further expan­sion in our core markets and beyond with a very long-term perspec­tive. I am very happy
about the new oppor­tu­ni­ties that this strong part­ner will create for the entire team and our market partners.”

Consul­tant Wine in Black GmbH:Vogel Heerma Waitz
Olga Balan­dina-Luke advi­sed Berlin-based online wine retailer Wine in Black GmbH on its acqui­si­tion by Scandinavia’s largest wine importer Viva Group.

About Viva Group
Over the past 20 years, Viva Group (www.vivagroup.se) has become the largest importer of wine and spirits in Scan­di­na­via. Through its subsi­dia­ries Chris Wine & Spirits, Giertz Vinim­port, The Wine Team, Wine­mar­ket and Iconic Wines, the company has a market share of nearly 25% at Systembo­la­get, the Swedish retail mono­poly. Inter­na­tio­nally, Viva Group is present with subsi­dia­ries in Finland, Norway, China and the UK. The Viva Group is also alre­ady repre­sen­ted in Germany by its life­style-orien­ted online store Wine a Porter.

About Wine in Black
Wine in Black is a leading online store for premium wine with a constantly chan­ging assort­ment of 300 wines at an average bottle price of 15 euros. The company is active in Germany, France, the Nether­lands, Austria and Switz­er­land. Wine in Black was foun­ded in 2011 and funded by leading Euro­pean venture capi­tal inves­tors, inclu­ding Project A Ventures, Black River Ventures, e.ventures, Bright Capi­tal, Passion Capi­tal, btov, KFW, Keen Mind Ventures, and kaufDA / Bonial Inter­na­tio­nal Group foun­ders Chris­tian Gaiser and Tim Marbach. For more infor­ma­tion about Wine in Black, visit http://www.wine-in-black.de.

Munich — ARQIS advi­sed Seki­sui Plas­tics Europe GmbH, Munich, on the acqui­si­tion of a 75 percent stake in Proseat GmbH & Co KG, Mörfel­den-Wall­dorf, and seven other Proseat compa­nies from Recti­cel NV/SA, Belgium.

Proseat was foun­ded in 1999 as a joint venture between Recti­cel and its Cana­dian part­ner Wood­bridge Foam Corpo­ra­tion. The company supplies direct suppli­ers (Tier 1) and origi­nal equip­ment manu­fac­tu­r­ers (OEM) in the auto­mo­tive indus­try with molded seat cushions and head and armrests made of poly­ure­thane. The Proseat Group consists of eight compa­nies in six Euro­pean count­ries (Germany, France, Great Britain, Poland, Spain and the Czech Repu­blic). It occu­p­ies a leading posi­tion as Europe’s largest inde­pen­dent manu­fac­tu­rer of parts (seat uphols­tery mate­rial, trim parts such as head­rests and armrests, and foamed molded parts) for Euro­pean auto­mo­tive compa­nies. The auto­mo­tive indus­try is curr­ently under­go­ing signi­fi­cant change, charac­te­ri­zed by self-driving cars and elec­tric vehic­les. In auto­mo­tive parts, there is a growing need for mate­ri­als that help reduce envi­ron­men­tal impact, such as weight reduc­tion and ther­mal insulation.

ARQIS’ advi­sory services included assis­tance with legal due dili­gence in a total of seven juris­dic­tions, struc­tu­ring, and contract draf­ting and nego­tia­tion. ARQIS led an inter­na­tio­nal and multi­di­sci­pli­nary legal team consis­ting of Cuat­re­ca­sas (Spain), Dentons (Czech Repu­blic, Poland), Gide (France), Nauta­Du­tilh (Belgium) and RPC (UK), as well as Held Jagut­tis (Public Commer­cial Law/Regulatory) and RCAA (Anti­trust).

Advi­sors to Seki­sui Plas­tics: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (photo), Dr. Shigeo Yama­guchi (both lead); Eber­hard Hafer­malz, Dr. Meiko Dill­mann, Dr. Lars Laeger (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial; Munich), Dr. Mirjam Boche (W&I Insu­rance). Coun­sel: Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP & Commer­cial; Munich). Asso­cia­tes: Mauritz von Einem (Lead Asso­ciate; Corporate/M&A/Tax), Dr. Florian Kotman, Elisa­beth Falte­rer (Munich) (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Hendrik von Mellen­thin, Dr. Markus Schwip­per (Munich) (both Labor Law), Jenni­fer Danisch (Real Estate).

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 profes­sio­nals 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, intellec­tual property, liti­ga­tion as well as real estate law and tax law.

Frank­furt a. M. — Halder has sold its stake in the Wback Group (Bönen), the leading whole­sale bakery in Germany specia­li­zing in soft rolls, to the Texas-based whole­sale baker and food group C.H. Guen­ther & Son, LLC (San Antonio/Texas).

An esti­ma­ted two million people bite into a WBack soft roll every day — but hardly anyone knows the manu­fac­tu­rer. The company is one of those unknown indus­try giants that operate as a supplier in the back­ground. For exam­ple, WBack is not only the soft roll supplier for the fast food chain Burger King in Germany, but also supplies other system restau­rants and hot dog provi­ders with its burger buns.

Wback was foun­ded in 2003, and in 2013 Halder took over the majo­rity share­hol­ding from foun­der Peter Wendeln as part of a succes­sion solu­tion. The company produ­ces soft rolls in Bönen (North Rhine-West­pha­lia) and Leip­heim (Bava­ria) using state-of-the-art, highly auto­ma­ted equip­ment for renow­ned major custo­mers from the system cate­ring, food retail and food service sectors.

Through a strong expan­sion of produc­tion capa­city, invest­ments in pack­a­ging machi­nes and an inter­me­diate warehouse, Wback has reali­zed high growth with exis­ting and new custo­mers, and sales have doubled since Halder joined the company. With the acqui­si­tion of Wback, C.H. Guen­ther further expands its product range and opens up addi­tio­nal Euro­pean markets.

About Halder
Halder has been active as an equity inves­tor in Germany since 1991 and has provi­ded equity capi­tal for succes­sion and growth to 38 medium-sized compa­nies. Toge­ther with the exits at Klin­gel medi­cal metal, Aqua Vital, KEYMILE and BMB Manif­at­tura Borse, the sale of Wback is the fifth invest­ment sale from the port­fo­lio of the Halder Germany II fund in the past six months. Over­all, Halder has on average signi­fi­cantly more than doubled the value of the invest­ments when they were sold. With the exit at Wback, the return of capi­tal to Halder inves­tors has excee­ded the one billion euro mark.

Duderstadt/ Berlin — Matrazzo GmbH, based in Lower Saxony, Germany, has acqui­red muun, a Berlin-based startup specia­li­zing in custo­mizable mattres­ses that went bank­rupt in 2018. Luther provi­ded legal support for the transaction.

For mattress online retailer muun, it’s all over: last year, the startup foun­ded in 2014 had to file for insol­vency. Mattress manu­fac­tu­rer Matrazzo around CEO Sven Rudolf-Töpfer has now bought the startup with the help of a team from Luther Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft. In paral­lel, the tran­sac­tion specia­lists nego­tia­ted license agree­ments with the agen­cies respon­si­ble for muun’s corpo­rate design and product range.

The busi­ness opera­ti­ons of muun will conti­nue as an inde­pen­dent brand. Both the product port­fo­lio and the brand presence can thus conti­nue to exist.

Consul­tant Matrazzo: Luther
Corpo­rate / M&A: Dr. Phil­ipp Honisch (lead), Dr. Stefan Galla, Dr. Cédric Müller (all Essen), Denis Ullrich (Leip­zig); Luther, IT / IP: Sebas­tian Laou­to­u­mai, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Dorn­dorf (both Essen)

Hamburg — A team led by Hamburg-based part­ner Dr. Stefan Duhn­krack has advi­sed Jung­hein­rich AG on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in ISI Auto­ma­tion GmbH & Co KG. With its ISIPlus and ISIPro products for the auto­ma­tion of warehouse systems, ISI Auto­ma­tion now beco­mes part of the Jung­hein­rich Group, one of the world’s leading solu­tion provi­ders for intra­lo­gi­stics. This acqui­si­tion comple­ments Jungheinrich’s port­fo­lio in the important area of digi­tiz­ing logi­stics solutions.

ISI Auto­ma­tion GmbH & Co KG is a specia­list for control auto­ma­tion and IT systems. The inter­na­tio­nally active company has its head­quar­ters in Exter­tal and a branch office in Lemgo. The mana­ging direc­tors Frank Marek and Volker Sasse conti­nue to run the company.

Jung­hein­rich AG, Hamburg, is one of the world’s leading solu­tion provi­ders for intra­lo­gi­stics. Foun­ded in 1953, the Group’s port­fo­lio includes mate­rial hand­ling equip­ment, logi­stics systems and services. Jung­hein­rich is repre­sen­ted in 40 count­ries world­wide by its own direct sales compa­nies and in over 80 other count­ries by part­ner compa­nies. Around 18,000 employees work for the Group world­wide. The Jung­hein­rich share is listed on the SDAX.

Advi­sors to Jung­hein­rich AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Stefan Duhn­krack (Lead Part­ner, M&A), Hamburg.
Duhnkrack’s team regu­larly advi­ses Jung­hein­rich, most recently on the acqui­si­tion of the MIAS Group.

Inhouse: Attor­ney at Law Dr. Thor­dis Koeppel-Tamms

Paris/ Berlin — My Media Group, the market-leading inde­pen­dent consul­ting and media agency group from France, has acqui­red a 51 percent stake in Peak Ace AG. With more than 20 languages in-house, Peak Ace is Germany’s leading inde­pen­dent perfor­mance marke­ting agency.

The invest­ment in Peak Ace is a signi­fi­cant stra­te­gic step in My Media Group’s inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy. It enables the Group to imple­ment high-perfor­mance campaigns and stra­te­gies for its custo­mers on a global scale, thus opening up new markets and scaling inter­na­tio­nally. With its perfor­mance marke­ting exper­tise, Peak Ace comple­ments the group’s five compa­nies, each of which offers its own unique digi­tal marke­ting solutions:

My Media (direct response TV agency), Eggs (crea­tive agency), Search Fore­sight (SEO agency), GeoVista (local media agency), RoiK (direct response TV agency).

Bastian Grimm, CEO and Direc­tor Orga­nic Search at Peak Ace: “We are very exci­ted to now be a part of My Media Group, a team of extre­mely talen­ted entre­pre­neurs we hold in high regard, who have succee­ded in buil­ding an outstan­ding group of compa­nies. We all share a great passion for deli­ve­ring the best possi­ble results for our custo­mers — in line with our own guiding prin­ci­ple: Deli­ve­ring Perfor­mance! It’s great to have a part­ner with the same ambi­ti­ons who appre­cia­tes the value of a progres­sive culture like ours. We look forward to our future toge­ther and are commit­ted to taking Peak Ace to the next level through our partnership.”

Peak Ace AG, foun­ded in 2007, is an inter­na­tio­nally active perfor­mance marke­ting agency head­quar­te­red in Berlin. More than 110 employees from over 20 nati­ons realize campaigns on a native-spea­ker level. With its tech­no­logy-driven approach, Peak Ace AG offers flexi­ble, data-based solu­ti­ons for all rele­vant perfor­mance marke­ting chan­nels from a single source. In this way, the agency enables its clients to use marke­ting spend more effi­ci­ently to operate more profi­ta­bly overall.

Peak Ace’s core busi­ness is perfor­mance marke­ting, which includes paid adver­ti­sing (PPC), orga­nic search (SEO) and content marke­ting, as well as conver­sion rate opti­miza­tion and digi­tal analy­tics. Their inno­va­tive stra­te­gies and campaigns have been awarded the Euro­pean Search Award seve­ral times, inclu­ding for the best SEO campaign. In addi­tion, Peak Ace not only won the “Best Use of Data” cate­gory at the Drum Search Awards, but also recei­ved the pres­ti­gious, cross-cate­gory “Grand Prix” for its excep­tio­nal perfor­mance. Peak Ace’s custo­mers include inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned brands such as Airbnb, SEPHORA, TÜV Süd, Schü­ler­hilfe, the OTTO Group and A&O Hotels and Hostels.

About My Media Group
My Media Group is a media company respon­si­ble for more than 1 billion euros of media budget annu­ally for its more than 500 custo­mers. A leader in the deve­lo­p­ment of media stra­te­gies aimed directly at custo­mer acqui­si­tion, the company is prima­rily active in e‑commerce. It can boast a market share of more than 40% among pure play­ers and refe­ren­ces such as Triv­ago, Grou­pon, Just Eat or Vistaprint.

With 130 employees, My Media Group has succes­si­vely imple­men­ted seve­ral acqui­si­ti­ons, within which Media­top, Geo Vista, Libre et Change, Synodi­ance and Pygma­lion Media have been successfully inte­gra­ted. In just a few years, My Media Group has become a major refe­rence in its market. To acce­le­rate this deve­lo­p­ment in France and inter­na­tio­nally, it is rely­ing on a stra­tegy based on both orga­nic growth oppor­tu­ni­ties and an ambi­tious exter­nal growth strategy.

Munich, Hamburg — Equistone’s port­fo­lio company PIA (Perfor­mance Inter­ac­tive Alli­ance) is acqui­ring UDG United Digi­tal Group, a service provi­der specia­li­zing in digi­tal user expe­ri­ence (UX) and tech­no­logy. With this acqui­si­tion, PIA is conti­nuing its stra­tegy of brin­ging toge­ther market-leading compa­nies from the core areas of digi­tal marke­ting in their respec­tive sub-disci­pli­nes in order to offer inte­gra­ted custo­mer solu­ti­ons from a single source. The seller is EQT and the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close by the end of Febru­ary 2019. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. — The acqui­si­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. Equis­tone first inves­ted in PIA Group in 2014 and has since supported the manage­ment seve­ral times in the acqui­si­tion of further digi­tal agencies.

UDG was foun­ded in 2011 and has subse­quently deve­lo­ped into one of the leading digi­tal agen­cies in the field of user expe­ri­ence (UX), today combi­ning exper­tise in concept & design, digi­tal archi­tec­ture and imple­men­ta­tion of projects in this area. The company with a Annual sales of approx. EUR 40 million employs around 400 employees. Services range from stra­te­gic marke­ting consul­ting to digi­tal design and imple­men­ta­tion. UDG serves well-known custo­mers such as Porsche, Beiers­dorf, Volks­wa­gen, Stihl, KSB and Puma.

Chris­tian Tiede­mann, CEO of the PIA Group, explains: “With the acqui­si­tion of UDG, we can expand our range of exper­tise to include top-class specia­lists and our custo­mer base to include global blue-chip custo­mers. PIA and UDG essen­ti­ally origi­na­ted from the same idea in terms of content, but have posi­tio­ned them­sel­ves in the market with diffe­rent imple­men­ta­tion. We are very plea­sed to welcome our new colle­agues and now proudly present our clients with a service port­fo­lio that is decisi­vely streng­the­ned by top-class UX and excel­lent tech­no­logy know-how. By combi­ning stra­tegy, crea­ti­vity and tech­no­logy into Data Driven Marke­ting, we create the decisive added value for our customers.”

Dr. Marc Arens, Part­ner at Equis­tone, says: “UDG is an ideal addi­tion for PIA Group, as it adds an important service to the company’s range of services in the growing market for digi­tal user expe­ri­ence in Germany. This will also bene­fit PIA in future tenders from major clients, as the digi­tal company now offers all sub-disci­pli­nes for inno­va­tive and inte­gra­ted digi­tal custo­mer acqui­si­tion and reten­tion from a single source.”

The three long-time UDG mana­gers Markus Lucht, Mathias Rein­hardt and Ulrich Barthol­mös will conti­nue to jointly lead the opera­tio­nal busi­ness of UDG as Mana­ging Part­ners and report directly to PIA CEO Chris­tian Tiede­mann. Dr. Marc Arens and Lean­der Heyken are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone. The mid-market inves­tor was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by KPMG (Finan­cial & Tax), Renzen­brink & Part­ner (Legal M&A), Ashurst (Legal Finan­cing) and GCA Altium (Finan­cing).

About PIA Group
PIA Group is one of the leading digi­tal service provi­ders in Germany. The holding company was foun­ded in 2014 with the parti­ci­pa­tion of Equis­tone Part­ners Europe and unites ten successful compa­nies under one umbrella brand: Appico, blue­Sum­mit, DELASOCIAL, DYMATRIX, econda, Feed Dyna­mix, .muse49, Perfor­mance Media, SEVEN SQUARED and TAB.

PIA combi­nes stra­tegy, crea­ti­vity and tech­no­logy into Data Driven Marke­ting. As an enabler, PIA Group supports custo­mers with analy­ti­cal and tech­no­lo­gi­cal know-how from a single source in the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of their busi­ness models and contri­bu­tes to new busi­ness and custo­mer acqui­si­tion. PIA Group sustain­ably impro­ves the effi­ci­ency and effec­ti­ve­ness of all digi­tal sales and marke­ting acti­vi­ties of B2C and B2B custo­mers and opti­mi­zes custo­mer value and custo­mer relationships.

Head­quar­te­red in Hamburg and with offices in Berlin, Munich, Stutt­gart, Karls­ruhe, Frankfurt/Main, Düssel­dorf, Belgrade, Tel Aviv, Seoul, Delhi and San Fran­cisco, the compa­nies of the PIA Group with more than 750 experts serve renow­ned clients such as Alli­anz, BMW, Bosch, Deich­mann, Deut­sche Bahn, Deut­sche Bank, Luft­hansa, Metro, Media­Markt, Miele, Mobile.de, Otto, Spotify, Tchibo, Tele­kom, TUI and Unile­ver. www.pia.me

About UDG United Digi­tal Group
Born as a digi­tal agency from eleven leading specia­lists in 2011, UDG United Digi­tal Group has grown into a leading agency for topics rela­ted to digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion in a dyna­mic, custo­mer-centric and tech­noid market environment.

Our play­ing field is digi­tiza­tion. Our DNA is digi­tal. Our thin­king is driven by crea­ti­vity. With this holi­stic exper­tise and specia­liza­tion in the areas of Tech­no­logy Stra­tegy, IT Deve­lo­p­ment & Digi­tal Solu­ti­ons, User Expe­ri­ence, Campaigns, Content, Crea­tive & Design and Consul­ting, as well as in a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship Digi­tal Perfor­mance & Solu­ti­ons, we combine all important topics for our customers.

UDG United Digi­tal Group deve­lops a fully inte­gra­ted digi­tal custo­mer expe­ri­ence for inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons as well as for market-leading, medium-sized compa­nies. www.udg.de

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 invest­ments in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion at hard cap.

In connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of ICP Tran­sac­tion Solu­ti­ons GmbH by Operando Part­ners and other inves­tors, HF Private Debt Fonds, SCSp provi­ded debt finan­cing for the further expan­sion of the ICP Group. The finan­cing volume was not disclosed.

The ICP Group, with loca­ti­ons in Germany, the Nether­lands, Poland and the Czech Repu­blic, opera­tes as one of the leading distri­bu­tors and tech­ni­cal service provi­ders in the dyna­mic market of prepaid solu­ti­ons, which includes not only the clas­sic area of mobile prepaid cards. Rather, prepaid today opens the door for a variety of content provi­ders to distri­bute their products through offline sales chan­nels such as gas stati­ons, grocery stores, and other retail­ers. ICP aims to achieve further growth by broa­de­ning its product and custo­mer base.

HF Debt GmbH acts as exclu­sive advi­sor to the Luxem­bourg-based HF Private Debt fund, SCSp. The fund specia­li­zes in provi­ding private debt finan­cing for small and medium-sized compa­nies (EBITDA between EUR 2–10 million) and provi­des support in the case of growth finan­cing, succes­sion solu­ti­ons and buy-outs by private equity inves­tors. The geogra­phi­cal focus is on German, Western and Nort­hern Euro­pean compa­nies with a history of seve­ral years.

Advi­sors to HF Debt GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Thomas K. W. Schrell, LL.M. (Lead Part­ner, Banking & Finance), Frankfurt
Anja Harms (Banking & Finance), Frankfurt

Ober­bo­hin­gen — US auto­mo­tive supplier Borg­War­ner has signed an agree­ment to sell its ther­mo­stat busi­ness to Arling­ton Indus­tries Group Ltd, inclu­ding produc­tion faci­li­ties at its German site in Ober­boi­hin­gen and in Pira­ci­caba, Brazil. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first quar­ter of 2019, subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons. Henge­ler Muel­ler has regu­larly advi­sed Borg­War­ner for many years, inclu­ding in 2013/2014 on the acqui­si­tion of the exhaust gas recir­cu­la­tion busi­ness (Gustav Wahler GmbH & Co KG), which also included the ther­mo­stat business.

Henge­ler Muel­ler is advi­sing Borg­War­ner on the tran­sac­tion. The part­ners Dr. Frank Burmeis­ter, Dr. Joachim Rosen­gar­ten (both Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Alf-Henrik Bischke (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf) and Dr. Stefa­nie Beinert (Tax, Frank­furt), the Coun­sel Dr. Stephan Henn­rich (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Stef­fen C. Hörner (Tax), Dr. Susan Kempe-Müller (Intellec­tual Property/IT) (all Frank­furt) and asso­cia­tes Marika Öry, Arvid Morawe (both Corporate/M&A), Marius Marx (Tax) (all Frank­furt) and Chris­tian Dankerl (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf).

Paris, Munich, Frank­furt — Pernod Ricard invests in the Nige­rian e‑commerce plat­form Jumia. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the amount of the invest­ment. The Paris, Munich and Frank­furt offices of inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have advi­sed Pernod Ricard SA on a stra­te­gic invest­ment in Jumia, the leading online retail plat­form on the Afri­can continent.

Pernod Ricard, head­quar­te­red in Paris, is the world’s second largest spirits group with a presence in 13 Afri­can count­ries. The part­ner­ship will open up new online distri­bu­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties for Pernod Ricard in Africa. The invest­ment by Pernod Ricard will allow Jumia, in which Rocket Inter­net is also a share­hol­der, among others, to further expand its leading role in online retail in the region.

The Weil tran­sac­tion team consis­ted of Corpo­rate Part­ners Alex­andre Duguay (Paris, lead), Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger (Munich) and Tax Part­ners Edouard de Lamy (Paris) and Tobias Geer­ling (Munich) and was supported by Corpo­rate Asso­cia­tes Pierre-Alex­andre Kahn (Paris) and Dr. Michael Lamsa (Frank­furt) as well as Alex­andre Groult (Tax, Paris).

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

Eschborn/ Vienna - Gleiss Lutz advi­sed BAWAG Group on the conclu­sion of a binding agree­ment for the full acqui­si­tion of BFL Leasing GmbH from BFL Gesell­schaft des Büro­fach­han­dels mbH & Co KG. The majo­rity share­hol­der is VR-LEASING AG. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or the details of the contract.

BFL Leasing GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Esch­born near Frank­furt, Germany, is a specia­li­zed finan­cing provi­der offe­ring leasing services and products for tech­no­logy and equip­ment since 1973. The company comple­ments the BAWAG Group’s busi­ness model with its sales model and at the same time offers the oppor­tu­nity to grow in the leasing busi­ness in Germany.

BFL Leasing GmbH curr­ently employs around 75 people, and its total assets amoun­ted to around EUR 600 million at the end of 2017. For more than 40 years, BFL Leasing GmbH has been deve­lo­ping finan­cing solu­ti­ons for retail and system houses as well as manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Today, it has more than 140 part­ners and, with its sales part­ners and around 50,000 custo­mers, is one of the leading IT finan­cing specia­lists in Germany. As a subsi­diary of VR-LEASING Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft, BFL is part of the Genos­sen­schaft­li­che Finanz­Gruppe, the second largest banking group in Germany.

BAWAG Group AG is the listed holding company of BAWAG P.S.K., head­quar­te­red in Vienna, and its main banking subsi­dia­ries easy­bank and start:bausparkasse in Austria and Südwest­bank in Germany. With more than 2.5 million custo­mers, BAWAG P.S.K. is one of the largest banks in Austria and has a natio­nally reco­gni­zed brand. BAWAG Group repor­ted total assets of around EUR 46 billion at the end of 2017.

Advi­sor BAWAG: Gleiss Lutz 
Led by Dr. Jan Bals­sen (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A); Dr. Olaf Hohle­fel­der, Stepha­nie Daus­in­ger (both Corporate/M&A), Stef­fen Carl (Part­ner), Dr. Tobias Harzenet­ter (Coun­sel, both Corpo­rate, all Munich), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Coun­sel), Dr. Matthias Schilde, (both IP/IT, Berlin), Anselm Chris­ti­an­sen (Stutt­gart, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Stefan Mayer (Part­ner), Dr. Ocka Stumm (both Tax), Dr. Jens Günther (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Bögl­mül­ler (both Labor), Dr. Iris Bene­dikt-Bucken­leib (Coun­sel, Anti­trust, all Munich), Dr. Timo Bühler (Banking Regu­la­tory), Dr. Burk­hard Jäkel (Part­ner), Vanessa Bayliss (Coun­sel), Dr. Moha­med Assak­kali (all Finance/Leasing), Dr. Philip Naab (Coun­sel, Real Estate), Dr. Dirk
Scherp (Of Coun­sel), Marina Stoklasa (both Compli­ance & Inves­ti­ga­ti­ons, all Frank­furt), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Aylin Hoffs (both Düssel­dorf, Public Law), Simon Wegmann (Data Protec­tion Law, Berlin) Dr. Britta Kamp (Commer­cial Contracts, Stuttgart).

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed AVS Verkehrs­si­che­rung GmbH (“AVS”), a port­fo­lio company of Triton Fund IV, on the acqui­si­tion of Traf­fics A/S (“Traf­fics”), a Danish provi­der in the field of cons­truc­tion site and traf­fic safety based in Gads­trup (Denmark). The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Traf­fics A/S was estab­lished in 2006 and offers complete solu­ti­ons and services as well as all kinds of access­ories rela­ted to site and traf­fic safety. Custo­mers include road cons­truc­tion compa­nies as well as muni­ci­pa­li­ties and govern­ment cons­truc­tion projects in Denmark.

“We have a long-stan­ding and trus­ting busi­ness rela­ti­onship with Traf­fics. Toge­ther, AVS and Traf­fics can offer their custo­mers in the Danish market a compre­hen­sive product and service port­fo­lio that meets the highest stan­dards,” says Dirk Schö­nauer, Mana­ging Direc­tor of AVS.

AVS is a leading specia­list provi­der of traf­fic safety services in Germany, espe­ci­ally of major projects on fede­ral high­ways. The company is head­quar­te­red in Kürten, Germany, and has been a one-stop provi­der of complete services for traf­fic safety projects for more than 30 years. These range from initial plan­ning and obtai­ning permits to complete site cons­truc­tion and safety aspects. AVS has a nati­on­wide presence with 14 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Germany and employs appro­xi­m­ately 600 people.

This is the third trans­ca­tion that ARQIS has accom­pa­nied for AVS. In Octo­ber 2018, Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze’s team advi­sed AVS on the acqui­si­tion of Verkehrs­si­che­run­gen Plank GmbH, based in Rems­eck am Neckar, a provi­der in the field of cons­truc­tion site and traf­fic safety. In August 2018, ARQIS assis­ted AVS in the acqui­si­tion of KMK projects, a leading provi­der of road safety products as well as perma­nent road marking in Latvia.

Danish law was hand­led by Poul Schmith. Anders Kjær Dybdahl’s team had alre­ady assis­ted in the acqui­si­tion of a Danish company for another ARQIS client earlier in 2018.

Advi­sors AVS Verkehrs­si­che­rung GmbH: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze, Photo (Lead; Corporate/M&A); Asso­cia­tes: Caro­lin Schlüt­ter (M&A), Carina Engel­hard (Labor Law)

Danish law: Poul Schmith
Anders Kjær Dybdahl (lead), Thomas Bento-Nystad, Line Sten­strup de Heus Kronsbjerg (all Corporate/M&A)

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 profes­sio­nals 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, intellec­tual property, liti­ga­tion as well as real estate law and tax law.

Frank­furt a. M. — German fintech company Vaamo Finanz AG, an online asset mana­ger based in Frank­furt, has joined forces with British compe­ti­tor Money­farm to form a close coope­ra­tion. In this context, Money­farm has acqui­red all shares in vaamo. Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Taylor Wessing, led by Frank­furt-based part­ner Dr. Lars-Gerrit Lüßmann, provi­ded legal advice to vaamo on the transaction.

vaamo and Money­farm want to build a pan-Euro­pean offe­ring in the field of digi­tal asset manage­ment toge­ther. Toge­ther, vaamo and Money­farm are active in three markets and can bundle market know­ledge and expe­ri­ence through the acqui­si­tion. Dr. Thomas Bloch (photo r.) and Dr. Oliver Vins (photo l.), foun­ders of vaamo, join the board of Moneyfarm.

vaamo is a digi­tal asset mana­ger with the goal of provi­ding custo­mers with simple, trans­pa­rent and cost-effec­tive access to the capi­tal market and the vision of making private asset invest­ment better and easier. The asset mana­ger offers a wide range of products to assist custo­mers with wealth manage­ment issues — in parti­cu­lar through the sale of insu­rance and capi­tal market products. vaamo has been on the market since 2014 and was the first inde­pen­dent online asset mana­ger in Germany at the time. vaamo has been advi­sed by Taylor Wessing in its finan­cing rounds since its inception.

Legal advi­sors vaamo: Taylor Wessing
Dr. Lars-Gerrit Lüßmann, Michael Sinhart (both lead), Li Alena Oppen­auer (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Dr. Bert Kimpel (Tax, Düsseldorf)

About Taylor Wessing
Taylor Wessing is the corpo­rate name of a number of law firms that provide advice and services to clients world­wide, as well as other enti­ties affi­lia­ted with them. Each law firm is a sepa­rate and inde­pen­dent legal company or part­ner­ship and at the same time a member of the Taylor Wessing Asso­cia­tion or affi­lia­ted with such a member. With more than 1,100 lawy­ers in 32 offices* in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, as well as two repre­sen­ta­tive offices in the US, we provide market-leading inte­gra­ted legal advice to our clients from the world’s most dyna­mic and forward-looking industries.

Wolfsburg/ Stutt­gart — VW acqui­res 49 percent of German digi­tal specia­list Dico­nium. The Volks­wa­gen Group acqui­res a 49 percent stake in the German digi­tal specia­list dico­nium. With this invest­ment, the Volks­wa­gen Group secu­res further know-how and streng­thens its digi­tal busi­ness capa­bi­li­ties. Toge­ther, the two compa­nies will further deve­lop busi­ness models and Volkswagen’s range of digi­tal value-added services. dico­nium will thus become an important tech­no­logy part­ner for buil­ding new digi­tal services that will run in the Volks­wa­gen Auto­mo­tive Cloud. The comple­tion of the acqui­si­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

Accor­ding to VW, the aim is to be able to quickly offer car buyers digi­tal services such as wire­less updates or auto­ma­tic payment in fully networked vehic­les in the future. Toge­ther, the compa­nies also want to launch a sales plat­form through which VW custo­mers can buy and manage services and func­tions for connec­ted cars online. To do this, VW needs the exper­tise of its new part­ner, said Chris­toph Hartung, head of mobi­lity services at the Volks­wa­gen brand. — Dico­nium employs around 800 people in Germany, Portu­gal, the USA and India.

VW allo­ca­tes 44 billion euros for digitization
Among other things, VW is aiming to offer so-called over-the-air updates (wire­less updates via a radio inter­face) with the market launch of the elec­tric ID model family from 2020. A plan­ned elec­tro­nic sales plat­form is compa­ra­ble to a shop­ping mall with various stores.

Wall­dorf — Wall­dorf-based soft­ware giant SAP plans to acquire all outstan­ding shares of Qual­t­rics for eight billion U.S. dollars in cash. The boards of SAP and Qual­t­rics have appro­ved the tran­sac­tion. Qual­t­rics’ share­hol­ders have also alre­ady appro­ved the acquisition.

To cover the purchase price and acqui­si­tion-rela­ted costs, SAP says it has secu­red finan­cing of seven billion euros. The syndi­ca­ted loan is being arran­ged by US bank J.P. Morgan, with legal advice from Henge­ler Muel­ler.

Good­win Proc­ter, Jones Day and Allen & Overy as well as Henge­ler are provi­ding legal advice on the billion-dollar deal.

Accor­ding to a report in the Handels­blatt, it is the largest acqui­si­tion SAP has made to date. The price SAP is offe­ring exceeds 20 times Qual­t­rics’ reve­nue. Jones Day and Allen & Overy advi­sed the company on the tran­sac­tion; Allen & Overy was respon­si­ble for finan­cing issues.

Qual­t­rics specia­li­zes in expe­ri­ence manage­ment soft­ware; the company coll­ects, mana­ges and analy­zes data that enables compa­nies to measure, for exam­ple, custo­mer and employee satis­fac­tion. The company was advi­sed on the acqui­si­tion by a U.S. team from the Good­win law firm. Prior to the announce­ment of the acqui­si­tion by SAP, Qual­t­rics was sche­du­led to complete an initial public offe­ring of its common stock shortly. Good­win also advi­sed the company on this.

The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the first half of 2019.

Munich, London, Paris — Euro­pean buy & build acti­vity in the first half of 2018 fell by 12% compared to the same period last year. The reason for this is presu­ma­bly concerns about the impen­ding Brexit, which are dampe­ning the other­wise buoyant mood on the markets in the UK and Ireland. This is shown by the current Euro­pean Buy & Build Moni­tor of the private equity firm Silver­fleet Capi­tal.

The Buy & Build Moni­tor measu­res global add-on acti­vity by Euro­pean-based and private equity-finan­ced compa­nies; for the first half of 2018, it preli­mi­na­rily iden­ti­fies 287 acqui­si­ti­ons compared to 327 in the same period last year. The total value of deals fell from €5.8 billion in the first half of 2017 to €4.65 billion in the first half of 2018.

In the first half of 2018, only eight acqui­si­ti­ons with a tran­sac­tion value of more than £60 million or €70 million were disc­lo­sed. The number thus fell signi­fi­cantly compared with the same period last year, when 21 acqui­si­ti­ons were published. — The largest purchase of the half was the acqui­si­tion of the conve­ni­ence stores of The Kroger Co. EG Group, backed by TDR Capi­tal, acqui­red them for $2.15 billion.

Geogra­phic trends
There were sharp decli­nes in the UK, Ireland and Scan­di­na­via: The number of deals in the UK and Ireland fell from 67 in the first half of 2017 to 50; this deve­lo­p­ment is presu­ma­bly due to the impen­ding Brexit, which is discou­ra­ging British compa­nies from making acqui­si­ti­ons in their own coun­try. The number of acqui­si­ti­ons made by non-UK compa­nies in the King­dom remained constant.

In Scan­di­na­via, only 41 acqui­si­ti­ons were comple­ted in the first half of 2018, compared to 74 comple­ted in the prior-year period. Sweden proved to be parti­cu­larly active with 26 acqui­si­ti­ons. Howe­ver, this was offset by low acti­vity in Denmark and Norway, which repor­ted only eight acqui­si­ti­ons in total. In Norway, this is proba­bly due to low M&A acti­vity in offshore oil and gas production.

The largest increase in Buy & Build was achie­ved in the DACH region. With 38 acqui­si­ti­ons in the first half of 2018, the number increased by 31% compared to 29 acqui­si­ti­ons in the same period last year. Thus, acti­vity conti­nues to reco­ver and reached the highest level compared to previous years.

France, the Bene­lux count­ries and Italy saw their perfor­mance dete­rio­rate, in line with the trend of gene­rally weaker acti­vity in the first half of 2018. Data for Spain & Portu­gal, Central & Eastern Europe, and Southe­as­tern Europe were in line with those for the first half of 2017.

Non-Euro­pean add-on acti­vity accoun­ted for 12% of total add-on volume, a simi­lar ratio to previous years. Howe­ver, there was a nota­ble decrease in the number of acqui­si­ti­ons in North America compared to previous years. Data for other regi­ons are consis­tent with last year’s data.

There was an add-on in Silver­fleet Capital’s port­fo­lio in the first half of 2018: micro­G­LEIT, a niche supplier of lubri­cants based in Germany, was acqui­red by a majo­rity stake from Silver­fleet Capital’s port­fo­lio company Conven­tya, a French specia­list in specialty chemi­cals for surface finis­hing. This tran­sac­tion marks Coventya’s third acqui­si­tion since Silver­fleet joined the company in May 2016.

“After peaking last year, buy-&-build acti­vity was signi­fi­cantly subdued in the first half of this year, despite contin­ued favorable econo­mic condi­ti­ons,” said Neil MacDou­gall, mana­ging part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal. “We believe that poli­tics is at least partly the reason for this trend. In the U.K. and Ireland, the sharp decline in natio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons can be explai­ned as a precau­tio­nary measure in the wake of the impen­ding Brexit. The decline in buy-&-build acti­vity by Euro­pean compa­nies in North America may be due to the intro­duc­tion of export tariffs. Equally, howe­ver, it could be that U.S.-based buyers are more deter­mi­ned than Europeans.”

You can access the complete report 
here
.

(1) Metho­do­logy
The infor­ma­tion used in the Silver­fleet Buy & Build Moni­tor is prepared by Merger­mar­ket. They exclu­si­vely include follow-on acqui­si­ti­ons of compa­nies where more than 30% of the equity is held by a private equity fund and where the plat­form company is based in Europe.

The value of the acqui­si­ti­ons must exceed €5 million or the target company must have sales of at least €10 million to be included in the ranking. One chall­enge here is always that data from the most recent quar­ter is often not complete. Smal­ler acqui­si­ti­ons in parti­cu­lar are not yet fully covered, and details may only become known after our analy­sis has been comple­ted. We ther­e­fore add a pro forma premium of 14% to the figu­res for the first half of 2018 in order to make trend state­ments. Our analy­sis for the second half of 2017 indi­ca­tes that this is in line with the adjus­t­ment that would have been requi­red to accu­ra­tely esti­mate add-on acti­vity in the first half of the year.

Apply­ing the metho­do­logy descri­bed above, we have applied a pro forma mark-up of 35 tran­sac­tions to the figu­res for the first half of 2018. Howe­ver, it is hardly possi­ble to draw detailed conclu­si­ons such as regio­nal break­downs from the pro forma figu­res. Ther­e­fore, we deci­ded against it.

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years and curr­ently mana­ges around €1.2 billion with its 29-strong invest­ment team in Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a British manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a British provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, a British opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses; 7days, a West­pha­lian supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth through its “buy to build” invest­ment stra­tegy. As part of this stra­tegy, Silver­fleet is acce­le­ra­ting the growth of its subsi­dia­ries by inves­t­ing in new products, produc­tion capa­city and employees, instal­ling successful retail formats or making follow-up acqui­si­ti­ons. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods. Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the UK and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (1).

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has a solid invest­ment track record. Most recently, Silver­fleet sold Ipes, a leading provi­der of outsour­cing services to Euro­pean private equity firms (invest­ment multi­ple 3.8x); CCC, one of the leading BPO services provi­ders in Europe, and Cimbria, a Danish manu­fac­tu­rer of agri­cul­tu­ral equip­ment (2); Kalle, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of arti­fi­cial sausage skins (invest­ment multi­ple 3.5x); OFFICE, a British shoe retailer (invest­ment multi­ple 3.4x); and Aesica, a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal CDMO company (invest­ment multi­ple 3.3x).

London/ Frankfurt/ Munich — Stifel Nico­laus Europe Limi­ted is acqui­ring Main­First Bank AG, an inde­pen­dent Euro­pean invest­ment bank, as well as Main­First Schweiz AG and Main­First Secu­ri­ties US Inc. Gleiss Lutz provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Stifel Europe in connec­tion with the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first quar­ter of 2019, subject to regu­la­tory approvals.

Stifel Europe is a subsi­diary of New York Stock Exch­ange-listed Stifel Finan­cial Corp, a finan­cial services holding company head­quar­te­red in St. Louis, Missouri, which opera­tes its
Conducts banking, secu­ri­ties and finan­cial services opera­ti­ons through seve­ral wholly owned subsi­dia­ries. The Euro­pean subsi­diary Stifel Europe, based in London, provi­des capi­tal struc­ture advice prima­rily to mid-market clients and also advi­ses on issues such as corpo­rate broking, equity capi­tal markets, debt capi­tal markets and mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons. Stifel streng­thens its posi­tion in Europe with the tran­sac­tion, espe­ci­ally since Main­First has a full German banking license, which provi­des unrest­ric­ted access to the Euro­pean market even after the “Brexit”
guaranteed.

Main­First is an inde­pen­dent Euro­pean finan­cial services provi­der with offices in Frank­furt, London, Luxem­bourg, Milan, Munich, New York, Paris and Zurich and specia­li­zes in equity brokerage, equity capi­tal markets and asset manage­ment. Custo­mer base are insti­tu­ti­ons and compa­nies in key Euro­pean markets.

Gleiss Lutz hand­led the tran­sac­tion toge­ther with teams from the English law firm Macfar­la­nes, the Swiss law firm Bär & Karrer, the French law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel and the Italian law firm
Chio­menti accompanied.

The follo­wing Gleiss Lutz team provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Stifel on German law:
Dr. Jan Bals­sen, Photo (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner), Dr. Olaf Hohle­fel­der (both Corporate/M&A, Munich), Dr. Stefan Mayer (Part­ner), Dr. Ocka Stumm, (both Tax), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian von Rom (Part­ner), Dr. Timo Bühler, Eva Legler (all Banking Regu­la­tory), Dr. Stephan Aubel (Part­ner, Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets), Jan-Rasmus Roßkamp (Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets), Dr. Walter Andert (Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets, all Frank­furt), Dr. Thomas Winzer (Part­ner), Henrike Korthoff, Lea Kuhr (all Labor Law), Dr. Eva Reudel­hu­ber (Part­ner), Anasta­sia Dress­ler (both Finance,), Dr. Dirk Scherp (Of Coun­sel, Corporate/ Compli­ance), Marina Stoklasa (Corporate/Compliance, all Frank­furt), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Coun­sel), Dr. Hannah Bug (both IP/IT), Dr. Chris­tian Hammann (Coun­sel), Simon Wegmann (both Data Protec­tion Law,
all Berlin), Dr. Phil­ipp Naab (Coun­sel), Oksana Weber-Kim (both Real Estate, Frank­furt), Dr. Marc Ruttl­off (Coun­sel, Stutt­gart), Dr. André Lippert (Berlin, both Public Law).

Hano­ver — Conti­nen­tal AG (Conti­nen­tal) has acqui­red Kath­rein Auto­mo­tive GmbH (Kath­rein Auto­mo­tive), a leading specia­list and manu­fac­tu­rer of auto­mo­tive anten­nas. The acqui­si­tion also includes the entire work­force of just over 1,000 employees and the eight sites world­wide. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to the appr­oval of the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is sche­du­led for the first quar­ter of 2019. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Conti­nen­tal on this transaction.

Kath­rein Auto­mo­tive is a subsi­diary of Kath­rein SE with head­quar­ters in Rosen­heim. The company employs over 1,000 people at a total of eight sites in Brazil, China, Germany, Mexico, Portu­gal and the USA.

Conti­nen­tal is a listed German tech­no­logy company head­quar­te­red in Hano­ver. The company employs appro­xi­m­ately 244,000 people at over 400 loca­ti­ons in 61 count­ries. After many years of successful coope­ra­tion, Conti­nen­tal is now taking over Kath­rein Auto­mo­tive GmbH in order to deve­lop its own solu­ti­ons for intel­li­gent mobi­lity in the future. Powerful and intel­li­gent anten­nas are the key tech­no­logy for holi­stic vehicle networking.

“Powerful and intel­li­gent anten­nas are the key tech­no­logy for holi­stic vehicle networ­king,” says Helmut Matschi, member of Continental’s Execu­tive Board and head of the Inte­rior divi­sion. Conti­nen­tal sees above-average market growth in the area of vehicle anten­nas. There, the supplier refers to an esti­mate by analysts Radi­ant Insights, accor­ding to which the market is expec­ted to grow by an average of 6.5 percent annu­ally until 2022.

Advi­sors to Cona­ti­nen­tal AG: Shear­man & Sterling
The Shear­man & Ster­ling team was under Lead by part­ner Dr. Thomas König (Frankfurt‑M&A) included part­ners Dr. Esther Jansen (Frank­furt-Finance) and Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger (Frank­fur­t/­Mu­nich-Restruc­tu­ring), coun­sel Dr. Anders Kraft (Frank­furt-Tax) and Dr. Mathias Stöcker (Frank­furt-Anti­trust) as well as asso­cia­tes Dr. Aliresa Fatemi, Dr. Phil­ipp Jaspers, Evelin Moini, Denise Tayler (all Frankfurt‑M&A), Marion von Grön­heim (Frank­furt-Finance) and Dr. Astrid Ruppelt (Frank­furt-Tax). The inter­na­tio­nal team included asso­cia­tes Phoebe Yin (Beijing M&A), Omer K. Hashmi (New York M&A), Benja­min Peter­sen (Menlo Park Intellec­tual Property Tran­sac­tions) and Davide Cavazz­ana (Rome M&A).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

China / Kahl/ Main — Gleiss Lutz advi­sed Triumph Science&Technology Group Co, Ltd (“Triumph”), an indi­rect subsi­diary of the People’s Repu­blic of China, on the acqui­si­tion of a 13 percent stake in the publicly listed Singu­lus Tech­no­lo­gies Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft (“Singu­lus”) from the previous majo­rity shareholder.

Singu­lus, which is listed on the Regu­la­ted Market (Prime Stan­dard) of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange and head­quar­te­red in Kahl am Main, Germany, is the parent company of the Singu­lus Group, which manu­fac­tures machi­nery and equip­ment for produc­tion proces­ses in the fields of coating tech­no­logy, surface tech­no­logy and wet chemis­try world­wide for
deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and distri­bu­tes diffe­rent end-use appli­ca­ti­ons. These machi­nes are used in various indus­tries, such as the solar, semi­con­duc­tor or consu­mer goods industries,
medi­cal tech­no­logy and for the produc­tion of opti­cal discs. The Singu­lus Group curr­ently employs around 320 people.

Triumph, one hundred percent of whose shares are directly held by the Chinese state-owned corpo­ra­tion CNBM (China Natio­nal Buil­ding Mate­ri­als), is the parent company of the Triumph group of compa­nies, which is active in many areas of engi­nee­ring, gene­ral contrac­ting as well as project manage­ment with regard to the buil­ding mate­ri­als indus­try, espe­ci­ally with regard to steel-glass technology,
“Cement Engi­nee­ring”, and “New Energy Engi­nee­ring” is active. As part of its “new energy engi­nee­ring” acti­vi­ties, Triumph promo­tes energy-saving houses and is active in the solar indus­try. In this area, Triumph prima­rily deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes buil­ding-inte­gra­ted solar cells and other solar cells and modu­les, and offers support for the instal­la­tion of solar parks and power plants.

Advi­sor Triumph Science&Technology Group: Gleiss Lutz 
The Gleiss Lutz team , led by Dr. Chris­tian Cascante, photo (Stutt­gart, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), consis­ted of the follo­wing lawyers:
Dr. Jochen Tyrolt (Part­ner), Sava Kasa­liy­ski, Simon Dewes (all Stutt­gart), Dr. Daniel Heck (Hamburg), Florian Schorn (Munich, all Corporate/M&A), Jan-Rasmus Roßkamp (Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt), Dr. Iris Bene­dikt-Bucken­leib (Coun­sel) and Tobias Klemm (both Munich, Antitrust).

The clea­ning service Book a Tiger is getting smal­ler and smal­ler, while its compe­ti­tor Helpling is getting bigger and bigger: Helpling is taking over the Swiss offshoot of its compe­ti­tor. After the sale, Book a Tiger only opera­tes in Germany and focu­ses on B2B.

Tame­dia and Helpling launch the “Helpling market­place” in Switz­er­land — as a joint venture with a joint share in the plat­form of 50 percent each. Helpling is taking over the Swiss busi­ness of Book A Tiger, which is now only active in Germany. Helpling provi­des insu­red clea­ners who can be selec­ted and also rated via app or website. Clients and clea­ners commu­ni­cate via Helpling, and payment is also made via the platform.

Online clea­ning portals like Rocket Internet’s Helpling, Book a Tiger or Clean Agents aggres­si­vely rolled up the market a few years ago, rely­ing on broad adver­ti­sing campaigns and outdo­ing each other with discount prices. As sensi­ble as the online place­ment of clea­ning staff once seemed — the corre­spon­ding start-ups had a hard time, strugg­ling with accu­sa­ti­ons such as star­va­tion wages and quality problems. Conso­li­da­ti­ons set in. The U.S. role model Home­joy alre­ady went bank­rupt in 2015. Book A Tiger was one of the worst off. — Book A Tiger once offe­red “private resi­den­tial clea­ning and custo­mi­zed clea­ning services for busi­ness clients by profes­sio­nal clea­ners.” The company recently announ­ced plans to scale back its consu­mer business.

Helpling, foun­ded in 2014, most recently opera­ted in Austra­lia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Nether­lands, Singa­pore, and the United Arab Emira­tes (UAE). The young company has alre­ady been profi­ta­ble in most markets. Germany, with a very strong focus on Berlin, conti­nues to be the most important market for the company, which was foun­ded by Bene­dikt Franke and Philip Huff­mann. Accor­din­gly, co-foun­der Franke still sees “a great deal of growth poten­tial” for his clea­ning services in this coun­try as well.

Berlin, Dublin, New York (ots) — Smart­frog, one of Europe’s leading IoT compa­nies, acqui­res a control­ling stake in US IoT pioneer Canary and invests US $25 million in the company’ s growth toge­ther with Canary’s exis­ting key inves­tors. Charles Fränkl, CEO of Smart­frog, will hence­forth lead both companies.

Combi­ning Canary’s and Smartfrog’s busi­nesses will allow both compa­nies’ resour­ces, teams, their market exper­tise and comple­men­tary distri­bu­tion chan­nels to be lever­a­ged and bene­fit from syner­gies to conti­nue to grow the busi­ness toge­ther in both the U.S. and Europe.

Smartfrog’s and Canary’s products, tech­no­lo­gies, markets, busi­ness models and distri­bu­tion chan­nels comple­ment each other seam­lessly. While Smart­frog has so far successfully focu­sed on the Euro­pean market, Canary has been able to posi­tion itself as one of the market leaders in the USA. Smart­frog pursues a pure SaaS busi­ness model, offe­ring soft­ware as a service inclu­ding. hard­ware as a subscrip­tion and gene­ra­tes over 90% of its sales directly in its own online store, irre­spec­tive of statio­nary (retail) and online trade (etail). Canary, on the other hand, offers its products prima­rily at retail and is available in more than 10,000 retail stores in the U.S. and Europe. Around half of the custo­mers then purchase a paid subscrip­tion that provi­des access to addi­tio­nal func­tions and services such as cloud storage. Both compa­nies main­tain sales coope­ra­ti­ons with inter­na­tio­nal part­ners. Smart­frog coope­ra­tes with energy suppli­ers such as e.on in Germany, First Utility in the UK and Maxenergy in Austria. Canary estab­lished part­ner­ships with insu­r­ers in the U.S., inclu­ding State Farm, Liberty Mutual and Alls­tate. The products and tech­no­lo­gies of both compa­nies, such as the solu­ti­ons offe­red, the IoT plat­form, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and machine lear­ning are also complementary.

Simi­lar to Smart­frog in Europe, Canary succee­ded in buil­ding a leading market posi­tion and one of the stron­gest SaaS busi­ness models with stable growth in recur­ring reve­nues, espe­ci­ally in the US. “By bund­ling our poten­tial, the Group is even better posi­tio­ned in the highly compe­ti­tive IoT market and equip­ped for further inter­na­tio­nal growth,” says Charles Fränkl. “The joint invest­ment by leading U.S. inves­tors and Smart­frog is a further vali­da­tion of our vision and busi­ness model — also in Sili­con Valley,” Fränkl added.

The market for smart home IoT has reached a turning point with around 16 percent market pene­tra­tion in Germany and 7.5 percent world­wide, and thus conti­nues to offer great growth poten­tial. Through the further deve­lo­p­ment and sensi­ble use of new tech­no­lo­gies such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and machine lear­ning, as well as by offe­ring easy-to-use products at low prices, a clear added value can be gene­ra­ted for users and thus smart home IoT can be deve­lo­ped into a mass market.

Mann­heim — The Trump­ler Group, based in Worms, Germany, has signed an acqui­si­tion agree­ment with Langro-Chemie Theo Lang GmbH in Stutt­gart. The globally present specia­list for leather chemi­cals plans to fully acquire the acti­vi­ties of Langro-Chemie as well as all employees as of Janu­ary 1, 2019. Toge­ther with Langro-Chemie, the Trump­ler Group will further expand its product range and presence in the global leather proces­sing market, while the Langro-Chemie brand will be continued.

Thus, two family-owned compa­nies rich in tradi­tion are joining forces: In June 2018, Trump­ler cele­bra­ted its 150th anni­ver­sary, while Langro-Chemie, for its part, has more than 85 years of expe­ri­ence in leather finis­hing. Trump­ler is a global supplier of chemi­cal products for the leather and paper indus­try with subsi­dia­ries in Spain, China, Italy, France, Brazil and Mexico. The Group offers the leather market an exten­sive range of tree house products, fatli­qu­ors and dyes, as well as auxi­lia­ries and dyes for paper.

Toge­ther with Langro-Chemie, which also has an inter­na­tio­nal presence, the Trump­ler Group gene­ra­tes sales of around 120 million euros and employs around 380 people.

Hein Vugs and Joachim Müller-Damerau, Mana­ging Direc­tors of Trump­ler, comment on the deve­lo­p­ment into a system provi­der: “This merger is a unique oppor­tu­nity for us to streng­then our posi­tion in finis­hing and to conti­nue to offer our custo­mers high-quality tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons for this in the future.”

An IMAP team led by Peter A. Koch (Part­ner), Chris­toph Gluschke (Direc­tor) and Phil­ipp Noack (Asso­ciate) advi­sed the Trump­ler Group on this acquisition.

About IMAP
Foun­ded in 1973, IMAP is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and largest Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons orga­niza­ti­ons in the world with offices in 35 count­ries. More than 450 M&A advi­sors in inter­na­tio­nal sector teams specia­lize in corpo­rate sales, cross-border acqui­si­ti­ons and stra­te­gic finan­cing issues. Its clients are prima­rily family-owned compa­nies from the midmar­ket, but also include large natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons as well as finan­cial inves­tors, family offices and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. World­wide, IMAP accom­pa­nies about 200 tran­sac­tions per year with a total volume of more than USD 10 billion.

Frank­furt am Main — Allen & Overy LLP advi­sed Summit Part­ners on the successful IPO of West­wing Group AG on the regu­la­ted market (Prime Stan­dard) of the Frank­furt Stock Exchange.

Due to strong inves­tor demand during the offe­ring period, West­wing had acce­le­ra­ted the IPO time­line and brought forward the first trading day to Octo­ber 9, 2018. Under the offer, 5.06 million new shares were issued, inclu­ding 660,000 shares to cover over-allot­ments. The issue price was set at 26 euros per share. The gross issue proceeds of around 132 million euros are to be used prima­rily for invest­ments in further growth.

West­wing is the leading brand and plat­form in home & living eCom­merce in Europe and gene­ra­ted sales of 220 million euros in 2017. The company was foun­ded in 2011, has its head­quar­ters in Munich and is active in eleven Euro­pean countries.

The Allen & Overy team included the Part­ner Domi­nik Stüh­ler (Photo, Corporate/Private Equity, Munich; Lead), Dr. Alex­an­der Behrens, Dr. Knut Sauer and Marc O. Plepe­lits, Of Coun­sel Frank Herring (all Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt), Coun­sel Dr. Kai Terstiege, Senior Asso­cia­tes Tobias Hoppe (both Corporate/Private Equity, Munich) and Lenn­art Dahmen (Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt) and Asso­ciate Elisa­beth Pich­ler (Corporate/Private Equity, Munich).

Stutt­gart — Pump manu­fac­tu­rer Uraca GmbH & Co KG has acqui­red Dyna­jet GmbH of Nürtin­gen. With the acqui­si­tion of Dyna­jet, Uraca stra­te­gi­cally expands its current product and service port­fo­lio. Dyna­jet will remain as an inde­pen­dent brand after the acquisition.

Dyna­jet GmbH deve­lops profes­sio­nal high-pres­sure water clea­ners and access­ories for use in indus­tries such as cons­truc­tion, reno­va­tion, muni­ci­pa­li­ties, clea­ning service provi­ders, shipy­ards, and agri­cul­ture and forestry. The high-pres­sure water clea­ners have a power range from 150 to 3000 bar. The company was foun­ded in 2001 and has its head­quar­ters in Nürtin­gen near Stuttgart.

Uraca GmbH & Co KG was foun­ded in Bad Urach in 1893. Around 330 employees work for the long-estab­lished indus­trial company. Uraca pumps are used mainly in chemi­cal or petro­che­mi­cal indus­tries and in heavy indus­try. Uraca’s turno­ver is around 70 million euros.

Advi­sors to Uraca GmbH & Co. KG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Stuttgart
Corne­lia Schwiz­ler (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Stuttgart
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg

Frank­furt — The plant engi­nee­ring company Exyte, which emer­ged from the Stutt­gart-based M+W Group, is concre­tiz­ing its plans for an IPO. Led by former Linde CEO Wolf­gang Büchele, the clean­room specia­list is targe­ting an issue volume of around €1 billion, prima­rily for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, accor­ding to finan­cial circles. A stock market value of 3 billion euros is conside­red realistic.

Exyte, with 4,800 employees and expec­ted sales of more than 3.5 billion euros, aims to expand and grow its posi­tion as the world leader in chip fab cons­truc­tion. Howe­ver, the IPO proceeds will not go to Exyte, but exclu­si­vely to the owner Georg Stumpf (photo ). The Austrian billionaire had joined the M+W Group in 2009 and will conti­nue to hold a majo­rity stake in Exyte after the IPO.

The IPO is expec­ted to be accom­pa­nied by Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and the Swiss UBS. The two invest­ment banks will be supported by Commerz­bank and the French Crédit Agri­cole.

About Exyte
Exyte deve­lops equip­ment for high-tech facto­ries and the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try and had sales of 2.4 billion euros in the last fiscal year. Adjus­ted earnings before inte­rest and taxes were 108 million euros.