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News-Kategorie: Private Equity

Mutares acquires three German Exteriors plants from Magna

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — Auto­mo­tive supplier Magna has signed an agree­ment with listed invest­ment company Muta­res SE & Co. KGaA (Muta­res) to sell three German Exte­ri­ors plants. The acqui­si­tion compri­ses Magna’s three sites in Oberts­hau­sen, Sulz­bach and Idar-Ober­stein as well as the two satel­lite sites in Neckar­sulm and Klein-Krot­zen­burg with a total of 1,700 employees and sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 360 million.

The plants produce plas­tic compon­ents such as bumper and exte­rior trim, radia­tor gril­les and other trim compon­ents for leading OEMs in the premium segment and gene­rate sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 360 million. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the third quar­ter of 2021. The business’s main custo­mers include well-known German auto­ma­kers. The three plants have exten­sive design know-how and tech­ni­cally mature in-house deve­lo­p­ment capabilities.

Advi­sor Magna: Henge­ler Mueller

The part­ners Dr. Daniel Wiegand (Munich), Dr. Peter Weyland (Frank­furt) (both lead, M&A), Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Prof. Dr. Dirk Uwer (Public Commer­cial Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Johan­nes Tieves (Finan­cing, Frank­furt) and Dr. Matthias Schei­fele (Tax, Munich), the Coun­sel Patrick Wilke­ning (Intellec­tual Property/IT) and Dr. Moritz Rade­ma­cher (Public Commer­cial Law) (both Düssel­dorf) and the Asso­cia­tes Dr. Achim Speng­ler, Dr. Florian Dendl, Dr. David Negen­born (all Munich), Dr. Nicho­las Kubesch (Frank­furt) (all M&A), Dr. Cars­ten Bormann (Düssel­dorf), Simone Terbrack (Berlin) (both Public Commer­cial Law), Dr. Sarah Milde (Anti­trust), Dr. Daniel Engel (Dispute Reso­lu­tion) (both Munich), Dr. Henning Hilke (Finan­cing), Dr. Sebas­tian Hein­richs (Tax) and Dr. Andreas Kaletsch (Labor Law) (all Frankfurt).

Simon white

McDermott advises Paragon portfolio company APONTIS PHARMA AG on IPO

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery, as tran­sac­tion coun­sel, advi­ses the issuer APONTIS PHARMA AG, its main share­hol­der, the invest­ment company Para­gon Part­ners, as well as the joint book­run­ners Hauck & Aufhäu­ser and M.M.Warburg on the IPO at the Frank­furt Stock Exchange.

The place­ment price for the IPO was set at 19.00 euros per share. The place­ment volume totals 101 million euros. A total of 5,290,000 shares were placed with inves­tors as part of the IPO, which also included a U.S. tran­che in accordance with Rule 144A of the U.S. Secu­ri­ties Act. The place­ment includes 2,000,000 new shares from a cash capi­tal increase as well as 1,600,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with a base deal, 1,000,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with a top-up option and 690,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with an over-allot­ment option from the holdings of the main share­hol­der Para­gon Part­ners. The first day of trading on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange is sche­du­led for May 11, 2021. The exis­ting share­hol­ders Para­gon Part­ners and the manage­ment of APONTIS PHARMA will remain share­hol­ders in the company after the place­ment with a stake of 31% and 7%, respectively.

APONTIS PHARMA AG is a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal company for single pills in the German market. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the issu­ance of the new shares prima­rily for selec­ted invest­ments in the deve­lo­p­ment of new single pills, acce­le­ra­ting the deve­lo­p­ment and licen­sing of the exis­ting near-term product pipe­line, and expan­ding marke­ting and sales acti­vi­ties to capture addi­tio­nal market share and product acquisitions.

McDer­mott provi­ded compre­hen­sive capi­tal markets legal advice to all parties invol­ved. The McDer­mott team was also respon­si­ble for the corpo­rate struc­tu­ring in the run-up to the IPO.

Advi­sors APONTIS, Para­gon Part­ners and banks Hauck & Aufhäu­ser and M.M.Warburg:
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frank­furt a.M./Düsseldorf
Capi­tal Markets/IPO Work­stream: Simon Weiß (Project Coor­di­na­tion; Capi­tal Markets), Joseph W. Marx (US Capi­tal Markets; joint lead), Gregory M. Weig­and (Miami), Edwin C. Lauren­son (Coun­sel, San Fran­cisco; both US Law), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Munich), Dr. Monika Rich­ter (both Coun­sel, both Life Scien­ces); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Isabelle Suzanne Müller, Chris­toph Schä­fer, Ardalan Zargari (Staff Attor­ney); Corpo­rate Work­stream: Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach (Lead), Dr. Thomas Gennert (both Corpo­rate, both Düssel­dorf); Asso­ciate: Tom Schäfer

Raue advises owner of event agency insglück on change of ownership

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Berlin — RSBG SE, a subsi­diary of the RAG Foun­da­tion, has taken over the PR and event agency insglück. Raue advi­sed share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor Detlef Wint­zen on the sale of his shares in insglück Gesell­schaft für Marken­in­sze­nie­rung mbH to RSBG SE.

insglück is one of the leading PR and event agen­cies with offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. Since 2001, insglück has stood for targe­ted, excep­tio­nal concep­tion and crea­tion as well as profes­sio­nal imple­men­ta­tion of measu­res in live and corpo­rate commu­ni­ca­ti­ons. In the course of the new part­ner­ship, the agency will expand its crea­tive and digi­tal exper­tise even more, push inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and actively deve­lop new busi­ness areas. insglück conti­nues to be mana­ged by Detlef Wint­zen (CEO), Chris­tian Poswa (COO), Chris­toph Kirst (CCO) and Frede­rik Nimmes­gern (Direc­tor Concept & Strategy).

RSBG SE is an invest­ment company of the RAG Foun­da­tion based in Essen. Foun­ded in 2014, the company sees itself as a long-term part­ner to medium-sized compa­nies and uses a buy-and-build stra­tegy to invest in successful SMEs.

Consul­tant Detlef Wint­zen: Raue, Berlin
Dr. Jörg Jaecks (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A)

About Raue

Raue is an inter­na­tio­nally active law firm based in Berlin. She provi­des compre­hen­sive advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public enti­ties on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and conten­tious dispu­tes. www.raue.com

Viessmann acquires stake in Australian Value Added Engineering Group

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Esch­born — Rödl & Part­ner has advi­sed the Viess­mann Group on the acqui­si­tion of 34.3% of the shares in Value Added Engi­nee­ring Group (VAE), an Austra­lian design, instal­la­tion and service company for heating, venti­la­tion and air condi­tio­ning. The new part­ner­ship enables Viess­mann to enter the growth market of Austra­l­asia. VAE, mean­while, can rely on an inter­na­tio­nal, stra­te­gic part­ner that has exten­sive exper­tise and inno­va­tive strength in the field of heating, venti­la­tion and air-condi­tio­ning tech­no­logy. In 2020, the family-owned company employed 12,300 people and gene­ra­ted group sales of 2.8 billion euros.

In the context of the share acqui­si­tion, the Viess­mann Group was advi­sed by Rödl & Part­ner on all econo­mic issues.

About Viess­mann

The Viess­mann Group is one of the world’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of heating, indus­trial and cooling systems. In 2020, the family-owned company, foun­ded in 1917, employed 12,300 people and gene­ra­ted group sales of 2.8 billion euros. About VAE Value Added Engi­nee­ring Group was estab­lished in 1997 and today is one of Australia’s most advan­ced buil­ding services inte­gra­tors. The priva­tely owned company specia­li­zes in complete solu­ti­ons for large projects such as airports, univer­si­ties and hospi­tals. In the past decade of busi­ness, VAE has increased its reve­nue from one million Austra­lian dollars to a projec­ted $150 million (just under 100 million euros) in 2021. The company curr­ently employs 330 people.

Advi­sor Viess­mann Group: Rödl & Partner
Jochen Reis, Part­ner (Head of Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services), Esch­born, Over­all Project Manage­ment — Finan­cial Inga Heßdör­fer, Senior Asso­ciate (Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services), Esch­born — Finan­cial Alex­an­der Wübbels, Asso­ciate, (Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services), Esch­born — Financial

About Rödl & Partner
Rödl & Part­ner — The agile caret­a­ker for medium-sized global market leaders As lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, busi­ness and IT consul­tants and audi­tors, we are repre­sen­ted at 109 of our own loca­ti­ons in 49 count­ries. Our clients trust our 5,120 colle­agues world­wide. www.roedl.de

DBAG portfolio company Sero acquires Semecs

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt am Main — Sero GmbH (Sero), a company in the port­fo­lio of DBAG Fund VII, acqui­res Solid Semecs B.V. Like Sero, the Dutch company is a deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring service provi­der for EMS (Elec­tro­nic Manu­fac­tu­ring Services, complete contract manu­fac­tu­ring of elec­tro­nic assem­blies, devices and systems) and opera­tes on the market as Semecs. DBAG Fund VII will invest around 16 million euros in the purchase, of which 3.6 million euros will be inves­ted by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG).

The aim of the tran­sac­tion, which was agreed at the end of last week, is to broa­den the custo­mer base, open up new custo­mer sectors and expand produc­tion capa­ci­ties with a site in Eastern Europe. The seller is the Dutch company Rade­ma­ker Beheer B.V. The family behind the company is prima­rily invol­ved in machi­nery for large bake­ries; Semec’s acti­vi­ties are accor­din­gly outside its core busi­ness. The purchase is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties; the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by mid-year.

DBAG Fund VII, which was advi­sed by DBAG, had inves­ted in Sero in Novem­ber 2018 as part of a manage­ment buyout. DBAG had co-inves­ted around eleven million euros along­side the fund. It holds 21 percent of the shares in Sero. The current tran­sac­tion is the seven­te­enth corpo­rate acqui­si­tion struc­tu­red by a company from the DBAG port­fo­lio within the past twelve months. The objec­tive is predo­mi­nantly to acce­le­rate the perfor­mance of the respec­tive port­fo­lio compa­nies, for exam­ple by broa­de­ning the product range and regio­nal coverage or by conso­li­da­ting the market.

Semecs (www.semecs.com) assem­bles prin­ted circuit boards for a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons and also specia­li­zes in common assem­bly, cali­bra­tion and test­ing services. The company, head­quar­te­red in Uden, Nether­lands, employs 480 people, 450 of whom work at the produc­tion site in Vráble, Slova­kia, which was built in 2012. For the current year, the company expects sales of around 72 million euros.

The elec­tro­nic compon­ents produ­ced by Semecs in predo­mi­nantly small quan­ti­ties are used, for exam­ple, to control air-condi­tio­ning systems or the motors of e‑bikes, are found in elec­tro­nic elec­tri­city meters and mobile insu­lin pumps, and are instal­led in the LED light­ing or engine control systems of cars. Around 70 percent of sales are gene­ra­ted with indus­trial custo­mers; the remai­ning share is accoun­ted for by appli­ca­ti­ons in medi­cal tech­no­logy and products for the auto­mo­tive industry.

is where Semecs differs from Sero: Sero is an estab­lished produc­tion part­ner to the auto­mo­tive supply indus­try and gene­ra­tes around 85 percent of its sales there. With a high degree of auto­ma­tion, the company specia­li­zes in high-volume orders. Semecs, on the other hand, deals with orders above medium quan­ti­ties and a higher propor­tion of manual acti­vi­ties. Both compa­nies will bene­fit equally from the combi­na­tion of manu­fac­tu­ring opera­ti­ons invol­ving the Slova­kian site, ther­eby achie­ving a higher degree of flexi­bi­lity for diffe­rent order sizes and better posi­tio­ning in the acqui­si­tion of new busi­ness. The acqui­si­tion of Semecs thus broa­dens Sero’s custo­mer base and market access for the company, which employs around 220 people in Rohr­bach, Rhineland-Palatinate.

The newly formed group opera­tes in an attrac­tive market: for the core segments of indus­try, medi­cine and auto­mo­tive, growth rates above the alre­ady attrac­tive growth of the EMS market as a whole are expec­ted in the coming years.

“The compe­ten­cies of the two compa­nies comple­ment each other perfectly,” said Jannick Hune­cke, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board on the occa­sion of the tran­sac­tion. He added: “Toge­ther they can better serve the attrac­tive market and opti­mally combine their capa­bi­li­ties in produc­tion, so that with the company acqui­si­tion we are streng­thening and acce­le­ra­ting the further deve­lo­p­ment of our origi­nal investment.”

Sero CEO Dr. Bernd Welzel high­ligh­ted the stra­te­gic importance of the tran­sac­tion for Sero: “The company crea­ted from the two EMS specia­lists ensu­res a strong and compe­ti­tive presence in Europe with a broad range of manu­fac­tu­ring service offe­rings across diffe­rent market segments — this opens up a variety of oppor­tu­ni­ties for us and under­lines our expan­sion policy.” Semecs Mana­ging Direc­tor Jan-Fred­rik Kalee added, “We bring a well-trai­ned team to an attrac­tive loca­tion with a reco­gni­zed good quality assu­rance process and look forward to working with them.”

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

HANNOVER Finanz and ARCUS Capital acquire majority stake in Löwenstark Group

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Hanover/ Munich — Toge­ther with ARCUS Capi­tal from Munich, the HANNOVER Finanz Group acqui­res a majo­rity stake in the Löwen­stark Group. Toge­ther, the inves­tors will hold more than 75 percent of the shares in the leading online marke­ting service provi­der from Braun­schweig. In the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with company foun­der Marian Wurm — who remains signi­fi­cantly invol­ved — and the manage­ment team around Löwen­stark CEO Hart­mut Deiwick, growth is to be further expan­ded and long-term succes­sion plan­ning is to be arran­ged. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

“Invest­ments in compa­nies with a focus on digi­tiza­tion are now a signi­fi­cant part of our port­fo­lio. With Löwen­stark, we have been able to convince another online company to join us. We see a lot of poten­tial in the Braun­schweig-based agency group, which is one of the leading online marke­ting service provi­ders in the D‑A-CH region. The part­ner­ship with ARCUS, an invest­ment company with expe­ri­ence in the online indus­try, is also an asset for our network,” says the HANNOVER Finanz Board Spokes­man Goetz HertzEi­chen­rode (photo) on the now comple­ted invest­ment in the Löwen­stark Group.

With invest­ments in a wide variety of soft­ware, e‑commerce or digi­tiza­tion specia­lists, such as Corpo­rate Plan­ning AG, Media Concept GmbH or the Marken­film agency, equity part­ner HANNOVER Finanz has a wealth of expe­ri­ence in the marke­ting and digi­tal indus­tries. “Löwen­stark offers its custo­mers a truly holi­stic approach to consul­ting and solu­ti­ons that is unpar­al­le­led, espe­ci­ally in the SME segment. In addi­tion, we see strong growth poten­tial due to posi­tive market drivers and highly auto­ma­ted busi­ness proces­ses. We look forward to working with HANNOVER Finanz and the manage­ment to support the company on its successful course in the coming years and to set the course for further growth,” says Stefan Eishold, CEO of ARCUS, about the invest­ment in the Löwen­stark Group.

Marian Wurm, foun­der of Löwen­stark: “In ARCUS and HANNOVER Finanz, we have found the right part­ners for Löwenstark’s stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment. With their exten­sive indus­try and manage­ment expe­ri­ence and nume­rous cont­acts in the German SME sector, they will actively support us in our next growth steps.”

Advi­sor to the deal team of HANNOVER Finanz:

Ebner Stolz GmbH & Co. KG (Finan­cial and Tax Due Diligence)
ecce­le­rate GmbH (Commer­cial Due Diligence)
KPMG Law Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH (Legal Due Diligence)
Gütt Olk Feld­haus Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB (finan­cing).

Advi­sor Löwen­stark Digi­tal GmbH: Norton Rose Fulbright

Lead Part­ner Dr. Phil­ipp Grzimek (M&A/Private Equity, Part­ner, Munich).
He was supported by part­ners Tino Duttiné (tax law), Dr. Chris­toph Ritzer (data protec­tion law and IT law) and Dr. Andrea Spel­ler­berg (banking law). Coun­sel Clau­dia Poslu­schny (employ­ment law) and Oliver Paasch (banking law), Senior Asso­cia­tes Jan-Peter Heise (M&A) and Julia Gallin­ger (tax law) as well as Asso­ciate Olivia Reinke (employ­ment law) were also involved.

MONTIS Corpo­rate Finance acted as M&A advi­sor to Löwenstark.

About Löwen­stark
www.loewenstark.com With over 5,000 custo­mer projects for 19 years, Löwen­stark Digi­tal Group GmbH is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and successful digi­tal service provi­ders for online marke­ting in the DACH region. More than 150 employees are active at ten loca­ti­ons in all disci­pli­nes of online marke­ting for natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers along the maxim “thorough analy­sis, consis­tent opti­miza­tion and sustainable success”. The focus is on holi­stic solu­ti­ons in the areas of perfor­mance marke­ting (search engine opti­miza­tion, search engine marke­ting, market­place marke­ting), brand marke­ting (repu­ta­tion manage­ment, social media, affi­liate and e‑mail marke­ting), and web deve­lo­p­ment (CMS, store systems and usabi­lity opti­miza­tion). The custo­mer base includes more than 500 natio­nal and international

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 4,000 lawy­ers in over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal companies.

We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice in all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal, regu­la­tory, compli­ance and gover­nance matters. This enables us to provide our clients with prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face.

The Swiss asso­cia­tion Norton Rose Fulbright helps to coor­di­nate the acti­vi­ties of Norton Rose Fulbright members, but does not provide legal advice to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in more than 50 cities world­wide, inclu­ding London, Hous­ton, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney and Johan­nes­burg. For more infor­ma­tion, visit nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices.

Marco Brockhaus

Exit: Brockhaus Private Equity sells AUVESY Group to Hg Capital

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt a. M./ POELLATH advi­sed Brock­haus Private Equity, the AUVESY manage­ment team and other share­hol­ders on the sale of their stake in the AUVESY Group, a tech­no­lo­gi­cal global market leader for data manage­ment systems, to Hg Capi­tal. The exis­ting AUVESY manage­ment team will conti­nue to hold a stake in the company, while the former majo­rity owner Brock­haus Private Equity will exit completely.

Foun­ded in 2007 and based in Landau in der Pfalz, AUVESY GmbH is a leading global provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for version control and change manage­ment in auto­ma­ted indus­trial envi­ron­ments. The soft­ware enables auto­ma­ted produc­tion faci­li­ties and other intel­li­gent machi­nes, as well as their machine data and infor­ma­tion, to be auto­ma­ti­cally backed up and centrally mana­ged. The company employs around 90 people and mana­ges over 5 million indus­trial “Inter­net-of-Things” devices in 45 countries.

POELLATH alre­ady advi­sed Brock­haus Private Equity on the acqui­si­tion of AUVESY in 2017 from the then foun­ders and now also accom­pa­nied the sale to Hg Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still pending.

Advi­sor Brock­haus Private Equity: POELLATH with the follo­wing cross-loca­tion team:
Tobias Jäger (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig, LL.M. (Ford­ham) (Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Dr. Jens Linde (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Finan­cing, Frankfurt)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Andrea Strei­fen­e­der (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Matthias Meier (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Johanna Scherk (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, Munich)

Matthias Henning, Finexx

Finexx takes over Volpini packaging and increases fund volume

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Stutt­gart — The invest­ment company Finexx has acqui­red 100 percent of the shares in Volpini Verpa­ckun­gen GmbH Austria as part of a succes­sion plan. Volpini is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer in Central Europe of Pack­a­ging cups and films. The exis­ting manage­ment will conti­nue to support the company in all opera­tio­nal matters to ensure a seam­less tran­si­tion of manage­ment. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the tran­sac­tion. The new invest­ment, which stra­te­gi­cally fits perfectly into Finexx’s invest­ment stra­tegy, takes into account an increase of Finexx Fund II to the total volume of 30 million euros. The high-growth mid-market inves­tor from Stutt­gart now mana­ges a total of around EUR 65 million.

Volpini Verpa­ckun­gen GmbH Austria, based in Spit­tal an der Drau, Austria, was origi­nally foun­ded in 1811. Since 1970, the tradi­tio­nal company with its current work­force of around 60 employees has specia­li­zed in the produc­tion of plas­tic pack­a­ging, in parti­cu­lar sustainable pack­a­ging cups (yogurt pots) and ther­mo­forming sheets. In the field of Desto cups, which are conside­red to be parti­cu­larly sustainable, Volpini plays a leading role in the Central Euro­pean market. The company has modern produc­tion faci­li­ties that are opti­mally adapted to the requi­re­ments of medium-sized and large custo­mers in the food indus­try. Most recently, Volpini gene­ra­ted annual sales of around 13 million euros.

With the acqui­si­tion of Volpini, Finexx further expands its presence and exper­tise in the food indus­try. With the orga­nic food inno­va­tor BIOVEGAN and BioneXX Holding with the brands GSE, Fitne and Feel­good Shop, the port­fo­lio of the indus­try specia­list alre­ady includes two market-leading plat­forms in the field of orga­nic baking and cooking ingre­di­ents as well as food supple­ments and heal­ing products.

“The food indus­try is in a state of flux. Not only is the market for health-conscious nutri­tion growing rapidly, but compa­nies and inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in the field of sustainable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons are also booming. Volpini is alre­ady excel­lently posi­tio­ned in this area. In addi­tion, we see both orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth poten­tial at Volpini. With its market-leading posi­tion, the company is ther­e­fore the opti­mal stra­te­gic addi­tion to our indus­try-orien­ted port­fo­lio,” says Finexx CEO Matthias Heining.

Accom­pany­ing the tran­sac­tion, Finexx Fund II, which was closed at the end of last year, was increased from 20 to now 30 million euros. The Baden-Würt­tem­berg-based invest­ment company, which specia­li­zes in growth invest­ments and succes­sion plan­ning, now mana­ges a total of around 65 million euros. Finexx’s cross-sector invest­ment stra­tegy focu­ses on small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs) with sales of 10 million euros or more.

“Our invest­ment philo­so­phy is to support medium-sized compa­nies with indus­try exper­tise, capi­tal and an exten­sive network in their growth or in chal­len­ging succes­sion situa­tions as part­ners. In our self-image as an insti­tu­tio­nal family share­hol­der, we wanted to conti­nue this proven stra­tegy with our second fund from the outset. The increase of our Finexx Fund II by around ten million euros shows that we are on the right track with our entre­pre­neu­rial convic­tion,” says Dr. Markus Seiler, CEO of Finexx.

In addi­tion to Volpini, BIOVEGAN and BioneXX Holding in the pack­a­ging and food indus­try, Finexx has a stake in Sicko, a medium-sized specia­list in indus­trial auto­ma­tion in wood processing.

About Finexx
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is an invest­ment company foun­ded in 2013 that specia­li­zes in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies. Typi­cal fields of acti­vity are growth, invest­ment and acqui­si­tion finan­cing as well as the support of chan­ges in the share­hol­der struc­ture and succes­sion planning.

Finexx invests long-term funds from insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds, among others, in compa­nies from the German-spea­king region, predo­mi­nantly within the frame­work of majo­rity share­hol­dings. These have sales of EUR 10 million or more, a quali­fied manage­ment team, and can demons­trate sustainable earnings power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model.

The team has many years of indus­trial and manage­ment expe­ri­ence as well as profound know-how in the invest­ment sector — both are brought to bear for the successful further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies and in the asso­cia­ted change proces­ses. Finexx supports manage­ment by provi­ding active commer­cial and tech­ni­cal advice without inter­fe­ring with day-to-day opera­ti­ons, as well as a cross-indus­try network. www.finexx.de

Dental splint from PlusDental

PlusDental: further financing round of 35 million euros

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Berlin — Plus­Den­tal has raised EUR 35 million in another finan­cing round. Jebsen Capi­tal and BioNTech SE led the finan­cing round. PING AN, HV Capi­tal, Lake­star, Kreos Capi­tal, Cadence Growth Capi­tal and World­Cup star Mario Götze also parti­ci­pa­ted. Plus­Den­tal Dr. was advi­sed by the Berlin law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz.

Just under a year ago, the Berlin-based health startup raised 32 million euros in a Series C round. At the time, Hong Kong-based insu­rance group Ping An made a new entry through its Global Voya­ger Fund.

PlusDental’s mission is to provide all pati­ents with access to high-quality, inno­va­tive denti­stry. As a pioneer in digi­ta­liza­tion, Plus­Den­tal has mana­ged to become a leading Euro­pean digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for dentists. Plus­Den­tal is led by indus­trial engi­neer and expe­ri­en­ced mana­ger Eva-Maria Meij­nen, former McKin­sey consul­tant Dr. Peter Baum­gart and well-known entre­pre­neur and angel inves­tor Lukas Brosseder.

Plus­Den­tal is now one of the top four medtech start­ups in Germany in which the most has been inves­ted. The fresh capi­tal will be used to acce­le­rate growth in Europe and China.

Consul­tant Plus­Den­tal: Vogel Heerma Waitz
Dr. Clemens Waitz (Part­ner) and Lorenz Frey

 

 

Gimv invests in the Homecare Apraxon Group

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Hofbieber/Munich (DE), Antwerp (BE) — Gimv invests in the Apra­xon Group, a leading home­care company focu­sed on wound care in Germany. The tran­sac­tion, which has alre­ady been comple­ted, is part of a joint growth plan with the company’s foun­der and CEO, Oliver Pokrze­win­ski, who will conti­nue to be a key share­hol­der in the company.

Apra­xon, (Hofbie­ber (DE) — apraxon.com), offers high-quality wound care for (mainly elderly) people with chro­nic wounds in the home­care sector. Typi­cal wound indi­ca­ti­ons are decu­bi­tus, diabe­tic foot or ulcus cruris. In this context, the company acts as a link between pati­ents, doctors, nursing service/home and the health insu­rance companies.

Due to its high degree of specia­liza­tion, Apra­xon provi­des a conti­nuously high quality of medi­cal care and is able to tailor the treat­ment process to the indi­vi­dual needs of each pati­ent. In a market with steadily rising pati­ent numbers, driven prima­rily by demo­gra­phic change, specia­li­zed medi­cal care is beco­ming incre­asingly important. The services are reim­bur­sed by health insu­rance compa­nies, for which Apra­xon has been a relia­ble part­ner for many years.

“I am convin­ced that Gimv is the right part­ner to realize the company’s growth ambi­ti­ons and expand Apraxon’s presence in Germany,” said Oliver Pokrze­win­ski, Mana­ging Direc­tor and CEO of Apraxon.

“Thanks to Apraxon’s clear commit­ment to quality, the above-average quali­fi­ca­tion of their nursing staff and their highly digi­ta­li­zed and scalable proces­ses, we are convin­ced that Apra­xon is the right plat­form to build a true market leader in German wound care. We are very much looking forward to support­ing Mr. Pokrze­win­ski and the entire Apra­xon team in imple­men­ting their ambi­tious growth plans,” says Phil­ipp v. Hammer­stein, Part­ner at Gimv in the Health & Care team in Munich.

The new invest­ment is alre­ady Gimv’s fifth acqui­si­tion in the German-spea­king health­care market within the last four years. Gimv curr­ently holds a total of 23 invest­ments in compa­nies in the health­care and life scien­ces sector. With this acqui­si­tion, Gimv once again under­lines its posi­tion as one of the most active Euro­pean inves­tors in the health­care indus­try and its ambi­tion to posi­tively contri­bute to the United Nati­ons goals; in this case “Health and Well­be­ing”. The Gimv port­fo­lio also includes seve­ral hospi­tal and prac­tice groups as well as medi­cal tech­no­logy and biotech companies.

ABOUT GIMV
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity. The company is listed on Euron­ext Brussels, curr­ently mana­ges around EUR 2.0 billion and curr­ently invests in 55 port­fo­lio compa­nies, which toge­ther gene­rate reve­nues of more than EUR 2.5 billion and employ 14,000 people. Gimv’s aspi­ra­tion to make a posi­tive value contri­bu­tion to society is reflec­ted, among other things, in the recently successfully laun­ched Sustainable Bond.

Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them sustain­ably on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the four invest­ment plat­forms Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities is mana­ged by a dedi­ca­ted and compe­tent team, each based in Gimv’s home markets — Bene­lux, France and DACH — and supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts.

main-capital-acquires-foconis

Deloitte Legal advises Main Capital on acquisition of majority stake in FOCONIS

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Düssel­dorf — A Deloitte Legal team led by Felix Fell­ei­sen (Part­ner) and Max Lüer­ßen (Coun­sel; both Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf) advi­sed the stra­te­gic soft­ware inves­tor Main Capi­tal on its invest­ment in the finan­cial services soft­ware provi­der FOCONIS.

FOCONIS is a leading provi­der of data quality, control and compli­ance soft­ware that supports finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons — prima­rily in German-spea­king count­ries — in their inter­nal report­ing and in meeting regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. The company’s more than 600 custo­mers include private banks and asso­cia­ti­ons, as well as savings banks and coope­ra­tive banks.

Main Capi­tal will support FOCONIS and the manage­ment team to further streng­then the exis­ting market posi­tion and conti­nue the strong growth trajec­tory by expan­ding into adja­cent custo­mer segments with high regu­la­tory and data quality requi­re­ments. In addi­tion to orga­nic growth initia­ti­ves, selec­tive acqui­si­ti­ons also repre­sent an important pillar of growth.

About FOCONIS

FOCONIS is a leading provi­der of data quality, control and compli­ance soft­ware for banks, desi­gned to help finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons with inter­nal report­ing and regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. The solu­tion is focu­sed on finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons in German-spea­king count­ries and is curr­ently used by over 600 custo­mers in the finan­cial services indus­try. The company’s main product, FOCONIS-ZAK®, conso­li­da­tes data from various sources, in parti­cu­lar public stock exch­ange data, data from banking asso­cia­ti­ons, data available directly from the custo­mer or other (un)structured data . The system then analy­zes and controls the proces­sed data by apply­ing an exten­sive set of rules. If conspi­cuous busi­ness tran­sac­tions are iden­ti­fied, FOCONIS-ZAK® initia­tes the reso­lu­tion of compli­ance issues accor­ding to a firmly defi­ned process inclu­ding escala­tion paths. The checked and correc­ted data is then auto­ma­ti­cally updated in the customer’s respec­tive core banking system. The company was foun­ded in 2000 and curr­ently employs 80 people.

About Main Capital

Main Capi­tal is a stra­te­gic soft­ware inves­tor with an exclu­sive focus on the soft­ware sector in the Bene­lux, DACH region and Scan­di­na­via. Within this sector, Main Capi­tal is the most specia­li­zed entity for manage­ment buyouts and growth capi­tal for stra­te­gic late-stage acqui­si­ti­ons. Main Capi­tal mana­ges invest­ments worth appro­xi­m­ately €1 billion in estab­lished and growing soft­ware compa­nies in the Nether­lands, the DACH region and Scan­di­na­via. An expe­ri­en­ced team of specia­lists mana­ges these private equity funds from offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf and Stockholm.

Felix Fell­ei­sen and Max Lüer­ßen have been advi­sing Main Capi­tal since the begin­ning of its expan­sion into Germany and have alre­ady assis­ted the stra­te­gic soft­ware inves­tor in a number of plat­form and add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. Deals advi­sed by Deloitte Legal’s M&A lawy­ers include acqui­si­ti­ons of stakes in fast-growing German soft­ware and SaaS compa­nies such as b+m Infor­ma­tik (finan­cial services), arte­gic (marke­ting auto­ma­tion), JobRou­ter (process auto­ma­tion), Clever­soft (GRC for finan­cial services), HYPE Inno­va­tion (inno­va­tion management/collaboration), GBTEC (process automation/workflow management/ GRC), Onven­tis (procu­re­ment & Invoice Manage­ment) and HLP Infor­ma­tion Manage­ment (Idea and Inno­va­tion Manage­ment Software).

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal: Deloitte Legal
Max Lüer­ßen (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Lead), Felix Fell­ei­sen (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf Co-Lead); Frauke Heudt­lass (Part­ner, Labor Law, Düssel­dorf); Dr. Fleur Johanna Prop, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Alex­an­der Roehl, LL.M. (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf); Leonie Onkel­bach (Asso­ciate, Labor Law, Düsseldorf .

Consul­tant FOCONIS: POELLATH
Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Munich, Lead), Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax, Munich), Andrea Strei­fen­e­der, (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich).


About Deloitte

Deloitte provi­des audi­ting, risk advi­sory, tax advi­sory, finan­cial advi­sory and consul­ting services to compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons from all sectors of the economy; Legal advice is provi­ded in Germany by Deloitte Legal. With a global network of member compa­nies in more than 150 count­ries, Deloitte combi­nes excel­lence with world-class perfor­mance and helps clients solve their complex busi­ness chal­lenges. Making an impact that matters – for around 312,000 Deloitte employees, this is a common mission state­ment and indi­vi­dual ambi­tion at the same time.

Leupold packaging

Waterland: Packaging manufacturer Leupold merges with Strobel

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Hamburg / Schwa­bach / Roth — Pack­a­ging mate­ri­als and folding carton manu­fac­tu­rer Leupold is ente­ring its first part­ner­ship under the aegis of private equity firm Water­land Private Equity, which acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Leupold in August 2020. In the future, Stro­bel AG, a manu­fac­tu­rer of folding cartons and card­board pack­a­ging with a special focus on sustaina­bi­lity, will comple­ment the product range of the pack­a­ging manu­fac­tu­rer. With Waterland’s support, the two compa­nies will increase their custo­mer segments and geogra­phic reach, and mutually leverage and further expand product inno­va­tions. The current Stro­bel owners, Fried­rich and Monika Bech­told, will remain on board as part of a tran­si­tion phase.

Stro­bel, based in Roth, was foun­ded in 1894. Over the years, the long-estab­lished company has deve­lo­ped into a specia­li­zed supplier of carton­board pack­a­ging and rela­ted services for the consu­mer and food indus­tries. Stro­bel AG’s product range, which can be indi­vi­du­ally adapted to speci­fic custo­mer requi­re­ments, extends from folding boxes to displays. Stro­bel also offers its custo­mers a range of services in areas such as pack­a­ging and logistics.

Stro­bel places a special focus on sustaina­bi­lity and climate neutra­lity in deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion: Stro­bel has alre­ady been certi­fied and awarded seve­ral times for its achie­ve­ments in this area, for exam­ple with first place in the Energy Turn­around Award of the city of Roth and the German Pack­a­ging Award 2020. Stro­bel was also the first Bava­rian pack­a­ging company to become comple­tely climate-neutral. The company’s custo­mers include renow­ned manu­fac­tu­r­ers of bran­ded goods in the sports, fitness and well­ness, food and pet food, and toy sectors.

Foun­ded in Schwa­bach in 1910, Joh. Leupold GmbH & Co. KG is one of the leading German suppli­ers of indi­vi­dual pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons made of card­board and focu­ses on the design and manu­fac­ture of folding cartons, blis­ter cards, blanks, corru­ga­ted pack­a­ging, displays and erec­ting boxes. The company is one of the largest medium-sized folding carton manu­fac­tu­r­ers and produ­ces around 1.5 million pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons daily for brand manu­fac­tu­r­ers in Germany, Europe and the USA.

“With Leupold and Water­land, we have found the ideal part­ners for our further deve­lo­p­ment. As part of a larger group, there are new oppor­tu­ni­ties for us to expand our produc­tion capa­bi­li­ties, enter new markets and further deve­lop our busi­ness model. We are looking forward to the coope­ra­tion,” says Fried­rich Bech­told, CEO of Stro­bel AG.

“The part­ner­ship with Stro­bel is a natu­ral next step on our contin­ued growth path, which we have now been able to realize with the support of Water­land,” says Michael Fuchs, one of Leupold’s mana­ging direc­tors. “Not only thanks to the geogra­phi­cal proxi­mity — Strobel’s head­quar­ters in Roth is only ten kilo­me­ters away from Leupold — this coope­ra­tion offers nume­rous poten­ti­als to bundle and further deve­lop our resour­ces and exper­tise in the areas of deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and sales,” adds Thomas Göll­ner, also Mana­ging Direc­tor of Leupold.

“Leupold alre­ady has a strong posi­tio­ning in the Euro­pean carton­board pack­a­ging market, which we intend to expand into market leader­ship in the areas of quality, inno­va­tion, sustaina­bi­lity and service. A buy & build stra­tegy, which we have now laun­ched with the acqui­si­tion of Stro­bel, is an essen­tial part of our growth stra­tegy. In parti­cu­lar, the high focus on sustaina­bi­lity and climate neutra­lity convin­ced us of Stro­bel as a very good fit,” says Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner of Waterland.

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, over eight billion euros in equity funds are under management.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The firm ranks fifth globally in the 2020 HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings and eighth among global private equity firms in the 2020 Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report. In addi­tion, Real Deals awarded Water­land the title of “Pan-Euro­pean House of the Year 2020” at the PE Awards.

MBP Offer

MPB secures £50m from Vitruvian and Acton

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

London/ Brigh­ton — MPB, the world’s largest resel­ler of photo and video kit, has raised £49.8 million in its latest funding round, led by Vitru­vian Part­ners with parti­ci­pa­tion from current inves­tor Acton Capi­tal, joining exis­ting inves­tors Mobeus Equity Part­ners, Berin­gea and FJ Labs.

Foun­ded in Brigh­ton in 2011, MPB is a stand­out driver of the crea­tor economy groun­ded in a busi­ness model of circu­la­rity that deli­vers both econo­mic and envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity. Recir­cu­la­ting 300,000 items of kit globally each year, MPB has trans­for­med access to photo and video kit by offe­ring a tech­no­logy-based, custo­mer-centric service that remo­ves the risk and uncer­tainty atta­ched to using many of its competitors.

Matt Barker, Foun­der and CEO, MPB said: “This funding round is a major mile­stone for MPB culmi­na­ting a decade of strong perfor­mance and a vision to make great kit acces­si­ble and affordable.

With the back­ing of Vitru­vian Part­ners and those reinves­t­ing in our busi­ness we can acce­le­rate our US and Euro­pean growth stra­tegy at scale, profi­ta­bly. Photo­gra­phy and video­gra­phy are intrin­sic to socie­ties and cultures all over the world, and at MPB we have crea­ted a circu­lar model that offers ever­yone the chance to be visual storytel­lers and content crea­tors in a way that’s good for the planet.”

The used kit market is in a period of signi­fi­cant expan­sion as more consu­mers purchase sustain­ably in the circu­lar economy. With estab­lished loca­ti­ons in the UK, US and Germany, MPB is well-posi­tio­ned to take advan­tage of this growing trend. The new wave of funding will allow the company to focus on new product deve­lo­p­ments and tech­no­logy that broa­den the ways in which people can access kit, and bols­ter exis­ting opera­ti­ons to bring more kit to more people.

Tom Studd, Part­ner at Vitru­vian Part­nersthe inde­pen­dent growth-focu­sed private equity firm, said: “MPB has deve­lo­ped a unique tech-enab­led plat­form to meet a market need, trans­forming access to photo­gra­phy kit to become a global leader in its field, whilst buil­ding a product that genui­nely has a posi­tive impact on the world. Matt and the team have achie­ved strong and profi­ta­ble growth through recent laun­ches in the US and Germany, and we’re deligh­ted to part­ner with them for the next step of the jour­ney. Vitru­vian looks to back excep­tio­nal teams with unique products in large markets, and we believe Matt and the team fit those crite­ria perfectly.”

Vitru­vian Part­ners, which has previously inves­ted in successful circu­lar compa­nies inclu­ding Vesti­aire Coll­ec­tive as well as house­hold names Carwow, Just Eat, Farfetch, Skyscan­ner and Trust­pi­lot, beco­mes MPB’s largest share­hol­der and is supported in this round by exis­ting inves­tor, Acton Capi­tal. Mobeus Equity Part­ners, which first inves­ted in MPB during its Series A funding and remains MPB’s second largest insti­tu­tio­nal share­hol­der, has parti­ally exited. Berin­gea and FJ Labs remain involved.

Sebas­tian Wossagk, Mana­ging Part­ner at Acton Capi­talsaid: “It’s always a privi­lege to watch compa­nies like MPB grow and excel in their field. Matt and his team have alre­ady taken the first steps into inter­na­tio­na­li­sa­tion by opening loca­ti­ons in Brook­lyn and Berlin, and we’re exci­ted to support them as they pursue further expan­sion in both the US and Europe.”

Arma Part­ners has acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor to MPB on the £50m invest­ment led by Vitru­vian Part­ners, with parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tor Acton Capital.

About Arma Partners
Arma Part­ners provi­des inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance advice to compa­nies and inves­tors active in the global Digi­tal Economy. We act as trus­ted advi­sors to Digi­tal Economy leaders throug­hout their entire corpo­rate life­cy­cle, from raising private capi­tal for fast-growing disrup­t­ers and foun­der-led busi­nesses to orchest­ra­ting complex cross-border M&A deals for private equity inves­tors and global large-cap public compa­nies. Foun­ded in 2003, Arma today employs a large dedi­ca­ted advi­sory team with unpar­al­le­led domain exper­tise and an envia­ble track record in each of the diverse sub-segments that toge­ther comprise the ever-expan­ding global Digi­tal Economy.

Florian Schick

ACTICO shareholders sell to Bregal Unternehmerkapital

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — In March 2021, funds advi­sed by Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (BU) were able to conclude agree­ments to acquire a majo­rity stake in ACTICO, a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of soft­ware for intel­li­gent process auto­ma­tion and digi­tal decis­ion-making. ACTICO’s manage­ment and share­hol­ders will retain a signi­fi­cant equity stake in the company. McDer­mott Will & Emery provi­ded legal advice to the share­hol­ders of ACTICO on the sale to Bregal Unternehmerkapital.

ACTICO is a leading RegTech soft­ware provi­der offe­ring intel­li­gent decis­ion auto­ma­tion, espe­ci­ally for the banking and finan­cial services indus­try. The company sells its solu­ti­ons to custo­mers in over 25 count­ries world­wide. ACTICO was crea­ted in 2015 through a carve-out from the Bosch Group and today employs around 140 people at its head­quar­ters in Immenstaad on Lake Cons­tance and other bran­ches in the USA and Singapore.

The soft­ware plat­form is used in parti­cu­lar in the areas of risk manage­ment, regu­la­tory and compli­ance, fraud protec­tion, custo­mer loyalty and process opti­miza­tion. In parti­cu­lar, ACTICO excels in proces­sing large amounts of data and in deve­lo­ping relia­ble, robust and easily scalable applications.

Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal invests in medium-sized compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and Nort­hern Italy. The focus is on market leaders and “hidden cham­pi­ons” with strong manage­ment teams and growth potential.

Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal GmbH was foun­ded in 2015 by Florian Schick and Jan-Daniel Neumann. The funds they advise support entre­pre­neurs family busi­nesses. The focus is on majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments and growth finan­cing, prima­rily in medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and nort­hern Italy — the “Mittel­stand”. These invest­ments are inde­pen­dent of deve­lo­p­ments on the finan­cial markets. With pati­ent capi­tal, entre­pre­neu­rial exper­tise and part­ner­ship-based dialo­gue, BU aims to focus on growing its invest­ments and helping them create sustainable value. Parti­cu­larly important are finan­cial stabi­lity, a high degree of flexi­bi­lity, short decis­ion-making paths and a high degree of entre­pre­neu­rial free­dom for the companies.

Consul­tant Share­hol­der of ACTICO
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich: Dr. Cars­ten Böhm (Lead, Corpo­rate), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax, Frank­furt), Nina Siewert (Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Sandra Urban-Crell (Labor, Düssel­dorf), Stef­fen Woitz (IP), Dr. Germar Enders (Coun­sel; Corpo­rate); Asso­cia­tes: Frank Weiß, Bene­dikt Gloß­ner (both Corporate)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,200 attor­neys, we are repre­sen­ted in 21 loca­ti­ons world­wide: Atlanta, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt a. M., Hous­ton, Colo­gne, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Sili­con Valley, Washing­ton, D.C. and Wilm­ing­ton. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. www.mwe.com

Waterland acquires software development provider GOD

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich / Braun­schweig — Toge­ther with Water­land Private Equity, the soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment provi­der GOD (Gesell­schaft für Orga­ni­sa­tion und Daten­ver­ar­bei­tung mbH) plans to acce­le­rate its growth. The company from Lower Saxony is one of the leading provi­ders of custo­mi­zed enter­prise IT and soft­ware solu­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally for compa­nies with complex supply chains and produc­tion proces­ses. The port­fo­lio of services for custo­mers is to be expan­ded through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons as part of a buy & build stra­tegy. The share­hol­ders Igor Krahne, Ralf Holland and Dr. Thomas Wolen­ski remain signi­fi­cantly invol­ved as manage­ment team and lead the company opera­tio­nally. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

GOD has been deve­lo­ping and opera­ting custo­mi­zed enter­prise IT and soft­ware solu­ti­ons since 1985. The service provi­der, which is head­quar­te­red in Braun­schweig and has offices in Hamburg, Ingol­stadt, Wolfs­burg and Wroclaw (Poland), specia­li­zes in compa­nies with complex IT projects. The more than 400 employees of GOD support large enter­pri­ses as well as medium-sized compa­nies from requi­re­ments to archi­tec­ture to project manage­ment in the deve­lo­p­ment and opera­tion of indi­vi­dual soft­ware. The offe­ring also includes modern cloud and edge compu­ting services, as well as SAP consulting.

GOD will conti­nue to support sophisti­ca­ted compa­nies in digi­tiza­tion through indi­vi­dua­li­zed deve­lo­p­ment and expand its modern product port­fo­lio. In addi­tion, new markets are to be opened up geogra­phi­cally through further loca­ti­ons. The IT and soft­ware market conti­nues to be a rapidly growing market in the wake of digi­tiza­tion: The digi­tal asso­cia­tion Bitkom fore­casts an increase in sales to 174.4 billion euros in 2021 for Germany alone. This is expec­ted to create around 20,000 new jobs.

Igor Krahne, mana­ging part­ner of GOD, says: “The IT and soft­ware sector is constantly reinven­ting itself, which requi­res a broad product range on the one hand, but also a high degree of specia­liza­tion on the other. Waterland’s expe­ri­ence in the tech sector has convin­ced us that we have the right part­ner on board: This will secure our claim to lead the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion toge­ther with our customers.”

Dr. Gregor Hengst, Prin­ci­pal at Water­land, adds: “We are impres­sed how GOD’s team is growing sustain­ably in the area of complex soft­ware solu­ti­ons. The company is bene­fiting from demand trends through digi­ta­liza­tion, Agile deve­lo­p­ment and IoT deve­lo­p­ments, as well as in cloud compu­ting. We look forward to further acce­le­ra­ting growth through acqui­si­ti­ons as well.”

Water­land has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the digi­ta­liza­tion, IT and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors: the Water­land port­fo­lio in these areas includes Serrala (finan­cial auto­ma­tion and payment soft­ware), Skay­link (mana­ged cloud services), Enreach (unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), netgo group (IT services) and netrics (enter­prise IT).

Water­land Advisor:
Boston Consul­ting Group (Commer­cial)
Henge­ler Muel­ler (Legal)
Ernst & Young (Finan­cial)
GCA Altium (Debt) advised.

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, over eight billion euros in equity funds are under management.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The firm ranks fifth globally in the 2020 HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings and eighth among global private equity firms in the 2020 Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report. In addi­tion, Real Deals awarded Water­land the title of “Pan-Euro­pean House of the Year 2020” at the PE Awards.

Dirk Wittneben

Deli Home continues international growth with ARDIAN

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt am Main/Gorinchem, The Nether­lands — Ardian, a leading global inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm, has ente­red into an agree­ment to acquire Deli Home with the aim of support­ing the company’s inter­na­tio­nal growth plans. Deli Home is a Dutch manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of wood-based, custom and high quality home impro­ve­ment products such as doors, cabi­nets and floors. The products are sold through DIY stores, buil­ders’ merchants and online suppli­ers. The tran­sac­tion is the first invest­ment of the Ardian expan­sion team in the Nether­lands. Toge­ther with Ardian, Deli Home’s manage­ment plans to further imple­ment its growth stra­tegy and deve­lop Deli Home into a pan-Euro­pean player.

Deli Home, whose roots go back to 1869, is head­quar­te­red in Gorin­chem, the Nether­lands. With sales of more than 340 million euros and 1,250 employees, the company has estab­lished itself as the market leader in the Bene­lux region. In recent years, the manage­ment team, led by Victor Aquina (CEO) and Jan-Willem Smits (CFO), has deve­lo­ped the company from a pure distri­bu­tor into a manu­fac­tu­rer of custo­mi­zed, wood-based DIY products with an inte­gra­ted digi­tal confi­gu­ra­tion plat­form, a broad logi­stics network and merchan­dise group manage­ment solu­ti­ons. Through this approach, Deli Home crea­tes great value for its customers.

Victor Aquina, CEO of Deli Home, said: “We have a clearly defi­ned growth stra­tegy that has two pillars: Conti­nuing to convince custo­mers of our digi­tal solu­ti­ons for custo­mi­zed home impro­ve­ment products, as well as expan­ding our offe­ring across Europe. Two of our future core markets are France and Germany, so Ardian, with its strong Euro­pean presence and network, is the ideal part­ner for us. The Ardian team convin­ced us with its profound under­stan­ding of the market and will actively support us with its exper­tise. We look forward to unleas­hing the company’s full poten­tial through this partnership.”

Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Head of Ardian Expan­sion Germany, added: “Deli Home has a strong and expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team that has crea­ted a growth plat­form with a convin­cing M&A stra­tegy, for exam­ple through the acqui­si­ti­ons of Numdata and Weekamp Deuren. We see great poten­tial for growth through further acqui­si­ti­ons and the expan­sion of our range outside the Bene­lux region. We look forward to working with the manage­ment team and support­ing the company on its growth path.”

The parties to the tran­sac­tion were:

Ardian: Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Florian Haas, Nico­las Münzer, Janine Paustian

Legal Corpo­rate / Finance: Fresh­fields (Harald Spruit, Mandeep Lotay)

Finan­cial: Deloitte (Egon Sach­sal­ber, Tanya Fehr)

Tax / Struc­tu­ring: EY (Anne Mieke Holland)

Commer­cial / Opera­tio­nal: Roland Berger (Sameer Mehta, Swit­bert Miczka)

Tech / Digi­tal: WDP (Chris­toph Nichau, Johan­nes Dier­kes, Simon Ludwigs)

ESG: PwC (Emilie Bobin)

Envi­ron­men­tal: ERM (Werner Schulte)

M&A: ABN AMRO (Eric Altmann, Tammo Gunst)

Debt Advi­sory: Deloitte (Thomas Schouten)


ABOUT ARDIAN

Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging over US$110 billion in assets for its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its investors.

With the objec­tive of achie­ving posi­tive results for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties promote indi­vi­du­als, compa­nies and econo­mies world­wide. Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy is aligned with the three guiding prin­ci­ples of excel­lence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

The company has a global network of more than 700 employees and 15 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its more than 1,000 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate.

JP Pfander new partner of Proventis Partners in Zurich

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Zurich — Proven­tis Part­ners, one of the largest inde­pen­dent M&A advi­sory firms in the DACH region, under­pins its successful growth course with another key person­nel appoint­ment: Dr. Jan-Phil­ipp (JP) Pfander beco­mes a new part­ner in the Zurich office and will drive the stra­te­gic expan­sion of the tran­sac­tion busi­ness as well as the advi­sory services in the chemi­cal sector toge­ther with Dr. Uwe Nickel.

Prior to joining Proven­tis Part­ners, Jan-Phil­ipp Pfander was Mana­ging Direc­tor at Moelis & Company. He headed EMEA Chemi­cals and Mate­ri­als there. Until 2015, he was Mana­ging Direc­tor at J.P.Morgan and respon­si­ble for EMEA Chemi­cals. From 2001 to early 2007, he was head of the Euro­pean Chemi­cals sector at Lehman Brot­hers. Jan-Phil­ipp Pfander began his career at McKin­sey & Company.

In a career span­ning more than 30 years, Jan-Phil­ipp Pfander has advi­sed on a wide range of global and regio­nal M&A and capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions in chemi­cals and rela­ted sectors for stra­te­gists and finan­cial inves­tors. Among others, Jan-Phil­ipp Pfander has advi­sed Evonik, Symrise, Nouryon, Lonza, Marquardt & Bahls, Syngenta, Brenn­tag, ADNOC, Altana and Lanxess in the past.

At Proven­tis Part­ners, Jan-Phil­ipp Pfander will consis­t­ently expand the range of services for clients in the chemi­cal indus­try toge­ther with Uwe Nickel. He will contri­bute his many years of expe­ri­ence in M&A and corpo­rate finance as well as his proven exper­tise in the chemi­cal indus­try to the support of M&A proces­ses. He stands for the hands-on approach coupled with a long expe­ri­ence in invest­ment banking and stra­te­gic consulting.

“We are very appre­cia­tive to have such an expe­ri­en­ced chemi­cal expert as Jan-Phil­ipp Pfander join Proven­tis Part­ners as an M&A and indus­try specia­list. Jan-Phil­ipp brings to us a deep under­stan­ding of the needs of compa­nies in almost all sectors of the chemi­cal indus­try and knows how to trans­late the chal­lenges of these indus­tries into oppor­tu­ni­ties for our clients. His expe­ri­ence in invest­ment banking, his deal track record and last but not least his large network perfectly comple­ment Proven­tis’ exper­tise in the global chemi­cal indus­try. Thus, we gene­rate a unique selling propo­si­tion in the chemi­cal M&A advi­sory segment”, explai­ned Uwe Nickel, Mana­ging Part­ner of Proven­tis Part­ners Zurich.

“I am plea­sed to join Proven­tis Part­ners to further deve­lop the chemis­try exper­tise toge­ther with Uwe Nickel and the exis­ting team. We are buil­ding on an excel­lent repu­ta­tion of the company as a respon­si­ble, stra­te­gic part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies.” “Deli­ve­ring solu­tion-orien­ted, inno­va­tive and inde­pen­dent M&A and corpo­rate finance advice to stra­te­gists and finan­cial inves­tors — regio­nally active and globally connec­ted, is the goal,” says Jan-Phil­ipp Pfander. “The new role combi­nes my many years of expe­ri­ence in inter­na­tio­nal M&A and corpo­rate finance advi­sory with Proven­tis Part­ners’ exis­ting expe­ri­ence in mana­ging chemi­cal compa­nies, thus comple­men­ting each other ideally.”

“I expect a sustained increase in tran­sac­tion volu­mes in the sector over the next few years, due to the shift in supply chains, and the chan­ges in demand for chemi­cals and mate­ri­als that will accom­pany the “Green Revo­lu­tion”. My goal with Proven­tis Part­ners is to provide the ideal consul­ting services for our clients in this chal­len­ging environment.”

In the chemi­cal sector, Proven­tis Part­ners alre­ady has a long track record and is an active member of the global Merger Alli­ance. Thanks to Jan-Phil­ipp Pfander’s contri­bu­tion, Proven­tis Part­ners will conti­nue to expand the chemi­cal sector inter­na­tio­nally as a focus sector since 2020.

About Dr. Jan-Phil­ipp (JP) Pfander

Born in Frank­furt, he star­ted his career at McKin­sey & Company in Hamburg. After 10 years of top manage­ment consul­ting to chemi­cal and indus­trial compa­nies on stra­tegy, port­fo­lio manage­ment, M&A and perfor­mance opti­miza­tion, he joined Lehman Brot­her in London in 2001 in the M&A team and became Head of Chemi­cals Sector for Europe. At the begin­ning of 2007, he joined J.P.Morgan as Sector Head EMEA Chemi­cals. In mid-2015, Jan-Phil­ipp Pfander became Part­ner and Mana­ging Direc­tor at Moelis & Company with respon­si­bi­lity for Chemi­cals and Mate­ri­als in the EMEA region.

Dr. Jan-Phil­ipp (JP) Pfander studied micro­bio­logy at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich and holds a PhD in busi­ness admi­nis­tra­tion from the Univer­sity of Oldenburg.

About Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A advi­sory firm whose clients include a majo­rity of mid-sized family busi­nesses, corpo­rate subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With more than 30 M&A advi­sors, Proven­tis Part­ners is one of the largest inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancies in the German-spea­king region and looks back on 20 years of M&A expe­ri­ence and more than 300 comple­ted tran­sac­tions. The M&A advi­sors with offices in Zurich, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich are active in the sectors Indus­tri­als & Chemi­cals, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT, Health­care and Energy & Sustaina­bi­lity. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — enables Proven­tis Part­ners to assist clients in 30 count­ries in key markets world­wide. Mergers Alli­ance members, with over 200 M&A profes­sio­nals, provide Proven­tis Part­ners, and thus its clients, with unique access to local markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa. www.proventis.com

DBAG acquires majority stake in R+S Group AG

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) invests in R+S Group AG (R+S), a provi­der of tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment. DBAG acqui­res the shares of the previous majo­rity share­hol­der, conzima Cons­truc­tion GmbH, invests 15 million euros and enters into a long-term invest­ment. Haspa Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft für den Mittel­stand mbH, which has alre­ady been a share­hol­der of R+S since 2010, will conti­nue to hold an inte­rest as a mino­rity share­hol­der. The Board of Manage­ment of R+S will also acquire shares. The tran­sac­tion is subject to a finan­cing contin­gency and regu­la­tory appr­oval; closing is expec­ted in April.

Expan­ded offe­ring through long-term investments

DBAG has expan­ded its offe­ring to mid-market compa­nies to include equity invest­ments that it can hold in the port­fo­lio for longer than the matu­rity limits of conven­tio­nal private equity funds allow. DBAG ther­e­fore does not enter into such invest­ments as a co-inves­tor along­side the DBAG funds it initia­tes, but finan­ces them exclu­si­vely with funds from its own balance sheet. In this context, DBAG supports fast-growing compa­nies as a mino­rity share­hol­der and acqui­res majo­rity stakes in compa­nies with opera­tio­nal chal­lenges. In both cases, sustainable corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment requi­res a longer holding period than in the buyout busi­ness. A first long-term parti­ci­pa­tion was agreed in Septem­ber 2020:
Haus­held AG deve­lops intel­li­gent meter solu­ti­ons for elec­tri­city networks — DBAG has since accom­pa­nied the company’s growth as a mino­rity shareholder.

R+S Group AG: Three inde­pen­dent busi­ness units

R+S is one of the leading compa­nies in tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment. R+S imple­ments, controls and main­ta­ins projects for muni­ci­pa­li­ties, health care, indus­try and ship­buil­ding in parti­cu­lar. R+S is a full-service provi­der; its range of services includes elec­tri­cal system cons­truc­tion, energy and control tech­no­logy, and heating/air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy. Among the better-known current projects are the cons­truc­tion of the new Termi­nal 3 at Frank­furt Airport and an exten­sion for Frank­furt Univer­sity Hospi­tal. Tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment accounts for just over 50 percent of sales. The company’s offe­ring is supple­men­ted by two orga­niza­tio­nally inde­pen­dent busi­ness units — person­nel services and a high-perfor­mance elec­tri­cal trade. In 2020, R+S gene­ra­ted around 360 million euros in sales. The company employs 3,000 people at 30 loca­ti­ons in Germany, inclu­ding around 500 at its head­quar­ters in Fulda (Hesse).

In recent years, R+S had grown mainly through corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons. Howe­ver, plan­ned syner­gies could not be achie­ved because the inte­gra­tion of the acqui­red compa­nies was not driven forward quickly enough. This had a nega­tive impact on earnings, as did a number of major projects that were not suffi­ci­ently profi­ta­ble. In addi­tion, promi­sing new cons­truc­tion projects were post­po­ned due to the pande­mic — this has affec­ted current capa­city utiliza­tion. R+S has an attrac­tive custo­mer base and a high order back­log. The market envi­ron­ment is good: The trend towards so-called smart buil­dings and energy-effi­ci­ent buil­dings ensu­res contin­ued growth and expands the market espe­ci­ally for elec­tri­cal buil­ding equip­ment, which R+S mainly offers. The reor­ga­niza­tion of the company, which is alre­ady well advan­ced, is to be comple­ted in the coming years to enable further profi­ta­ble sales growth. Corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons should then also contri­bute to this again. DBAG streng­thens the equity and thus acce­le­ra­tes the successful reor­ga­niza­tion of the company.

“We are inves­t­ing in a company in the core indus­trial services sector and with an attrac­tive market posi­tion that has crea­ted good condi­ti­ons for successful further deve­lo­p­ment over the past two years,” said Jannick Hune­cke, photo, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board on the occa­sion of the signing of the contract on Friday. “DBAG has been very successful in inves­t­ing in compa­nies with simi­lar busi­ness models in the past and will use its expe­ri­ence to further advance R+S as a long-term partner.”

Ralph Burk­hardt, Chair­man of the Board of Manage­ment of R+S Group AG, empha­si­zes not only the finan­cial contri­bu­tion but above all the substan­tive contri­bu­tion of DBAG: “With our new share­hol­ders, we are well posi­tio­ned to expand our range of services to include further trades and to turn more stron­gly to custo­mers in parti­cu­larly promi­sing industries.”

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to 2.5 billion euros.

General Atlantic leads €122 million round at Staffbase

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Chemnitz/Munich/New York — Staff­base, a leading provi­der of digi­tal solu­ti­ons for inter­nal corpo­rate commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, and Gene­ral Atlan­tic, a leading global growth inves­tor, have agreed on a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship: Gene­ral Atlan­tic is leading a €122 million ($145 million) finan­cing round for the Chem­nitz, Germany-based start-up to help it grow inter­na­tio­nally and further expand its global leader­ship posi­tion. Of the exis­ting inves­tors, Insights Part­ners and e.ventures are parti­ci­pa­ting in the finan­cing round; KIZOO and Capna­mic Ventures remain inves­ted. As part of the part­ner­ship, Achim Berg (photo), Opera­ting Part­ner at Gene­ral Atlan­tic and Presi­dent of the digi­tal asso­cia­tion BITKOM, will join Staffbase’s Advi­sory Board.

Foun­ded in 2014 in Chem­nitz, Germany, Staff­base has become a fast-growing and award-winning provi­der of employee apps, inter­nal email news­let­ter tools, and modern intra­nets to improve employee commu­ni­ca­ti­ons. The products are used in over 1,000 orga­niza­ti­ons by a total of more than 8 million people and regu­larly win awards. Custo­mers include Adidas, Audi, BHP, Deut­sche Post DHL, Grou­pon, Hita­chi, Ikea, Johns Hopkins Univer­sity, McKes­son, Paula­ner, Suncor, Viess­mann and Volvo.

The Staff­base plat­form enables compa­nies to commu­ni­cate with all their employees in a timely and effec­tive manner: from the crea­tion of messa­ges in the corpo­rate design to the fast and relia­ble publi­ca­tion of messa­ges and the measu­re­ment of the impact of commu­ni­ca­tion measu­res. Staffbase’s solu­ti­ons enable more effec­tive onboar­ding, higher enga­ge­ment and grea­ter employee iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with their employer. More and more compa­nies see inter­nal commu­ni­ca­tion as an essen­tial stra­te­gic task that can be used to guide and involve employees in the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. In parti­cu­lar, the Covid 19 pande­mic and the asso­cia­ted proli­fe­ra­tion of a hybrid work envi­ron­ment has once again high­ligh­ted the importance of targe­ted and agile inter­nal communications.

Dr. Martin Böhrin­ger, co-foun­der and CEO of Staff­base: “Our vision is to bring all employees of a company toge­ther through strong inter­nal commu­ni­ca­tion and a common mission. To achieve this, we support execu­ti­ves and commu­ni­ca­tion profes­sio­nals in large compa­nies with the leading digi­tal plat­form for successful employee commu­ni­ca­tion, which we conti­nue to expand at high speed. The part­ner­ship with Gene­ral Atlan­tic will help us further realize this goal, not least in North America. But also crucial for us is the strong local team in Germany, which will support us with its expertise.”

Dr. Chris­tian Figge, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Gene­ral Atlan­tic: “Staff­base is a global pioneer in the field of soft­ware speci­fi­cally desi­gned for inter­nal commu­ni­ca­ti­ons. We have been follo­wing this exci­ting company for some time and are now looking forward to support­ing the foun­ding and manage­ment team in expan­ding their global market leader­ship. Staff­base is an excel­lent exam­ple of how broad the base of inno­va­tive compa­nies with global ambi­tion now is in Germany.”

Staff­base has 450 employees in eleven loca­ti­ons, with head­quar­ters in Chem­nitz and offices in London, New York, Vancou­ver, Amster­dam and Berlin. In early March, the company merged with Bananatag, the leading Cana­dian provi­der of inter­nal corpo­rate commu­ni­ca­ti­ons. The combi­ned company is one of the world’s largest, highest reve­nue and fastest growing provi­ders of advan­ced inter­nal commu­ni­ca­ti­ons soft­ware. The merger added a native solu­tion for email commu­ni­ca­tion to the estab­lished employee app and intra­net plat­form, as well as deeper inte­gra­ti­ons with Slack and Micro­soft 365 colla­bo­ra­tion tools, inclu­ding Micro­soft Teams and SharePoint.

Staff­base

Staff­base is one of the world’s leading and fastest growing provi­ders of employee apps and modern intra­nets to improve employee commu­ni­ca­tion in large and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies. The mobile version allows employ­ers to secu­rely reach their employees where­ver they are — in the office, at home, on the factory floor, or on the road. The plat­form gives the work­force better access to corpo­rate infor­ma­tion and digi­tal work­place tools. With head­quar­ters in Chem­nitz and offices in New York, Amster­dam, London, Vancou­ver, Kelowna, Munich, Leip­zig, Berlin, Dres­den and Colo­gne, Staff­base enables inter­nal commu­ni­ca­tion that reaches all employees. Staff­base has more than 1000 custo­mers world­wide — inclu­ding DHL, T‑Systems, Viess­mann, Adidas, Paula­ner, MAN Truck & Bus SE and Audi. For more infor­ma­tion, visit staffbase.com.

Gene­ral Atlantic

Gene­ral Atlan­tic is a leading inter­na­tio­nal growth capi­tal inves­tor that provi­des capi­tal and stra­te­gic support to compa­nies with high growth poten­tial. Foun­ded in 1980, the company combi­nes a colla­bo­ra­tive global approach, indus­try-speci­fic exper­tise, a long-term invest­ment hori­zon and a deep under­stan­ding of growth drivers with outstan­ding manage­ment teams to create excep­tio­nal busi­ness models world­wide. Gene­ral Atlantic’s team includes more than 175 invest­ment profes­sio­nals in New York, Amster­dam, Beijing, Green­wich, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Shang­hai and Singa­pore. www.generalatlantic.com

Joachim Braun, Silverfleet Capital

Silverfleet acquires ec4u and BULPROS

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt a. Main — ec4u and BULPROS join forces under the majo­rity parti­ci­pa­tion of Silver­fleet Capi­tal to offer their custo­mers a new gene­ra­tion of digi­tal cloud expe­ri­ence services. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Silver­fleet Capi­tal on the finan­cing provi­ded by Ares for the acqui­si­tion of ec4u and BULPROS.

ec4u and BULPROS join forces to offer their custo­mers a new gene­ra­tion of digi­tal cloud expe­ri­ence services. The joint plat­form will employ around 1,400 people at 25 sites in a total of eleven countries.

ec4u, head­quar­te­red in Karls­ruhe, and BULPROS, head­quar­te­red in Sofia, Bulga­ria, have alre­ady been working toge­ther as part­ners in the field of digi­tal cloud solu­ti­ons since 2018. The foun­ders and exis­ting manage­ment teams of both compa­nies will remain on board as share­hol­ders and will conti­nue to manage the merged company. The merger is subject to the custo­mary regu­la­tory approval.

ec4u was foun­ded in 2000 and specia­li­zes in the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of busi­ness-criti­cal proces­ses in the areas of marke­ting, sales, service and e‑commerce across the entire custo­mer life­cy­cle. The company offers its custo­mers consul­ting services, tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion, and ongo­ing deve­lo­p­ment and opera­tion of CRM systems. ec4u has successfully comple­ted a total of more than 800 trans­for­ma­tion projects, prima­rily in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company employs more than 400 experts at seve­ral Euro­pean locations.

BULPROS, foun­ded in 2010, is a provi­der of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion services. This includes digi­tal solu­ti­ons imple­men­ta­tion, cyber­se­cu­rity, cloud migra­tion and mana­ged services, and tech­no­logy services. BULPROS opera­tes world­wide and employs more than 1,000 people at 20 loca­ti­ons in Europe and North America. The company has been named as one of the fastest growing tech­no­logy compa­nies by leading indus­try analysts — inclu­ding Deloitte’s Tech­no­logy Fast 50 in CE report and the Finan­cial Times 100 Europe.

In addi­tion to their highly compe­ti­tive service port­fo­lios and the high level of exper­tise of their employees, the two compa­nies also have strong rela­ti­onships with stra­te­gic tech­no­logy part­ners such as Sales­force, Micro­soft, SAP, Oracle, IBM, Cisco and Snowflake.

The invest­ment in ec4u and BULPROS builds on Silver­fleet Capital’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence with compa­nies in the tech­no­logy sector: Tech­no­lo­gi­cal change is a key macro trend under­pin­ning Silver­fleet Capital’s invest­ment approach. The private equity firm’s recent invest­ments include Trust­Quay, a provi­der of trust, corpo­rate and fund admi­nis­tra­tion services, and Coll­ec­tia, a credit manage­ment services plat­form. Previous successful invest­ments in this area include Phase One, Ipes and TMF.

“ec4u and BULPROS are leaders in the market for cloud-based, digi­tal solu­ti­ons for enter­pri­ses. This is a market that is very attrac­tive and offers high growth poten­tial. We are plea­sed to be able to support them in the future to fully exploit this poten­tial,” comm­ents Dr. Chris­tian Süss, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal.

“Both ec4u and BULPROS have strong stra­te­gic part­ner­ships with the leading play­ers in the digi­tal plat­form space. We will support both compa­nies in explo­ring further coope­ra­tion and expan­sion oppor­tu­ni­ties,” adds Joachim Braun (photo), Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal.

At Silver­fleet, Dr. Chris­tian Süss, Joachim Braun, Benja­min Hubner and Jenni­fer Regehr were respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The invest­ment company was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Latham & Watkins (Corpo­rate & Tax Legal), Shear­man & Ster­ling (Finance Legal), Nauta­Du­tilh (Legal), PwC (Finan­cial), wdp (IT), Grant Thorn­ton (Tax), Kambou­rov (Legal), Noerr (Legal), Schön­herr (Legal), Bär & Karrer (Legal), Kear­ney (Commer­cial) and MD Advi­sors (Debt Advi­sory). Funding was provi­ded by Ares.

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent pan-Euro­pean private equity firm that invests in middle-market compa­nies and is a long-stan­ding client of Shear­man & Sterling.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team led by part­ner Winfried M. Carli included asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu and Daniel Wagner (all Munich-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 25 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling has offices in Frank­furt and Munich. 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.

Consortium around EMERAM and Gimv supports learning platform sofatutor

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, one of the leading private equity firms for medium-sized compa­nies in the German-spea­king region, is leading an inves­tor consor­tium, inclu­ding the private equity firm Gimv, to take the digi­tal company sofa­tu­tor into its next growth phase. This replaces the previous shareholders.

sofa­tu­tor is the most compre­hen­sive digi­tal educa­tion plat­form for students in the German-spea­king world for grades 1 to 12 (K‑12). Number of users increased to more than one million students in 2020, the year of success. Further digi­tal lear­ning offe­rings and inte­gra­tion into school opera­ti­ons repre­sent a key growth lever. sofa­tu­tor plans to close the gap in online lear­ning and improve access to first-class educa­tion with further inno­va­tive offe­rings. In this way, the strong growth of recent years is to be continued.

Foun­ded in 2008, the company curr­ently has more than one million users. In addi­tion, sofa­tu­tor is now used by around 25 percent of all teachers throug­hout Germany, as well as in the German states of Saxony and Bremen. sofa­tu­tor thus sees itself as the most compre­hen­sive provi­der of digi­tal lear­ning assis­tance in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land, a market with a total of more than eleven million students.

The product and service port­fo­lio of sofa­tu­tor includes a wide range of more than 11,000 videos as well as exer­ci­ses and work­s­heets for 14 diffe­rent school subjects. Students can flexi­bly access mate­ri­als and have a real-time chat on home­work with quali­fied teachers through sofatutor’s web-based plat­form or app.

Dr. Chris­tian Näther, Foun­ding Part­ner of EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, says: “Good educa­tion is a signi­fi­cant factor for a country’s society. That is why we want to support sofa­tu­tor in conti­nuously expan­ding its lear­ning offe­ring. Alre­ady, sofa­tu­tor is expe­ri­en­cing high demand for its digi­tal lear­ning offe­rings, which has been further streng­the­ned by home­schoo­ling and COVID-19. We would like to conti­nue this success story.” Matthias Ober­meyr, Part­ner at EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, adds: “Thanks to its compre­hen­sive digi­tal offe­rings, inno­va­tive strength and good value for money, sofa­tu­tor alre­ady has a strong market posi­tion. An expan­sion of this digi­tal product offe­ring as well as the further deve­lo­p­ment of digi­tal lear­ning models also offers signi­fi­cant growth potential.”

Stephan Bayer, CEO of sofa­tu­tor and foun­der of the company, explains: “With more than one million users and the large network of teachers who inte­grate sofatutor’s digi­tal lear­ning content into their lessons, sofa­tu­tor has long been the leading provi­der of digi­tal lear­ning services. With the new inves­tor consor­tium, we now have another strong inves­tor group at our side that will very compe­tently accom­pany and support the company in the next growth phase. Inno­va­tive digi­tal lear­ning offe­rings will conti­nue to form our DNA in the future. We want to support schools, teachers and students not only in the after­noons, but also provide digi­tal lear­ning content in the mornings when schools are in session.”

Dr. Sven Oleow­nik, Part­ner and Head of Germany at the Euro­pean invest­ment company Gimv, which specia­li­zes in growth companies.With its invest­ment in sofa­tu­tor, Gimv rein­forces its ambi­tion to invest in future-orien­ted compa­nies along the funda­men­tal consu­mer trends of digi­ta­liza­tion, sustaina­bi­lity and conve­ni­ence. Toge­ther with EMERAM, Gimv supports an excel­lently mana­ged company whose digi­tal offe­ring perfectly addres­ses the United Nati­ons goals of high-quality educa­tion and digi­tal inno­va­tion. Koen Bouck­aert, Mana­ging Part­ner and Head Consu­mer at Gimv, added: “We are ther­e­fore parti­cu­larly plea­sed to allo­cate part of our recently laun­ched Sustainable Bond to sofatutor’s growth story and thus make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the company’s development.”

Advi­sor to the inves­tor consor­tium around EMERAM and Gimv:
IEG Invest­ment Banking Group (M&A), GLNS and McDer­mott (Legal), PwC (Finan­cial, Tax and Commer­cial) and Xperify (Tech/Marketing) advised.

The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding appr­oval by the compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties. Further finan­cial details will not be disclosed.

Andi Klein

Second Triton Smaller Mid-Cap Fund II closes at Euro 815m.

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Luxem­bourg — The second Triton Mittel­stands­fonds (“TSM II”) has successfully closed at €815 million due to strong inves­tor demand, signi­fi­cantly excee­ding the target of €600 million. The fund is the second invest­ment vehicle advi­sed by Triton to focus on invest­ments in low market capi­ta­liza­tion compa­nies. It follows the first Triton Mittel­stands­fonds (“TSM I”), which closed in 2017 with a volume of €448 million.

All fund­rai­sing was done virtually and recei­ved exten­sive pled­ges from exis­ting and new insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors from around the world.

Peder Prahl, Direc­tor of the Gene­ral Part­ner for the Triton Funds, said, “I would like to thank all of our exis­ting and new inves­tors for their support and trust. With TSM II, we will conti­nue to invest in smal­ler and mid-sized compa­nies and in the same sectors and regi­ons as the larger company-focu­sed fund Triton V. Our goal is to create better compa­nies and help them reach their full potential.

TSM II will typi­cally acquire a majo­rity stake in compa­nies that require an equity invest­ment of between €40 million and €100 million. The fund will build on the TSM I invest­ment stra­tegy and invest in compa­nies that are leaders in their niche but are not yet reali­zing their full poten­tial. Triton will work with manage­ment to create value through further profes­sio­na­liza­tion, expan­sion and digi­tiza­tion of the businesses.

Andi Klein (photo) , Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of TSM, added: “Triton has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence with invest­ments in small and medium-sized compa­nies. We help manage­ment teams realize the full poten­tial of their busi­nesses by future-proofing the stra­te­gic, opera­tio­nal or finan­cial course and lever­aging the broad Triton plat­form, inclu­ding access to an exten­sive network of indus­try and opera­tio­nal experts. A key focus of TSM is to acce­le­rate growth and scale through digi­tiza­tion, buy-and-build and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, where our know-how, indus­try exper­tise and inter­na­tio­nal network can create signi­fi­cant value.”

The TSM team consists of 18 invest­ment advi­sory profes­sio­nals focu­sed on sourcing, evalua­ting and deve­lo­ping compa­nies in the Triton region, prima­rily in the German-spea­king and Nordic count­ries and the Bene­lux countries.

About Triton

Since its foun­ding in 1997, Triton has laun­ched ten funds and focu­sed on compa­nies in the indus­trial, services, consu­mer goods and health­care sectors.

The Triton funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Europe and support their posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. Triton’s goal is to successfully deve­lop its port­fo­lio compa­nies in the long term by working toge­ther as partners.

Triton and its manage­ment strive to gene­rate posi­tive change and growth through the sustainable impro­ve­ment of opera­tio­nal proces­ses and struc­tures. At present, Triton’s port­fo­lio includes 47 compa­nies with total sales of around EUR 18.4 billion and around 101,400 employees . www.triton-partners.de

 

Goodwin advises JMI Equity on strategic growth investment in Canto

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt a.M. — Good­win has advi­sed JMI Equity on a stra­te­gic growth invest­ment in Canto, a leading provi­der of digi­tal asset manage­ment software.

Foun­ded in Berlin in 1990, Canto, which now has offices in San Fran­cisco and Frank­furt, will use the addi­tio­nal funds to expand its sales teams, opti­mize product deve­lo­p­ment and drive growth in its target markets.

JMI Equity is a growth equity firm focu­sed on inves­t­ing in leading soft­ware compa­nies. Since its foun­ding in 1992, JMI Equity has inves­ted in more than 155 compa­nies, successfully comple­ted more than 105 exits and raised more than $6 billion in commit­ted capital.

Good­win advi­sed JMI Equity with a team of lawy­ers in the U.S. and Frank­furt led by private equity part­ners Joshua Klatz­kin (Washing­ton, DC), Amy Keller (San Fran­cisco) and Gregor Klenk (Frank­furt).

Advi­sors JMI Equity: Good­win Frank­furt a.M./Washington
Joshua Klatz­kin (Washing­ton, DC), Amy Keller (San Fran­cisco), Gregor Klenk (Frank­furt; all Lead, all Private Equity); Heiko Penn­dorf (Tax), Felix Krue­ger (Coun­sel, Tax; both Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Joana Pamu­kova, Chris­tina Papa­di­mi­triou, Caro­lin Kefer­stein, Stefan Rieg­ger (Trai­nee; all Private Equity, Frank­furt) and other Good­win lawy­ers from the Boston, New York, San Fran­cisco, Santa Monica, Sili­con Valley and Washing­ton, DC offices.

Exit: PARAGON sells NovumIP to Questel

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich — Para­gon sells Novu­mIP to Ques­tel. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Para­gon is inves­t­ing in the Ques­tel Group in addi­tion to its exis­ting share­hol­ders. The acqui­si­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance and appr­oval by Bafin.

Novu­mIP was crea­ted by the merger of PAVIS and Nova­graaf in 2019. The aim of this was to offer the two compa­nies’ custo­mers an even broa­der range of IP consul­ting, manage­ment and tech­no­logy-based services and to become the central point of cont­act for all IP-rela­ted inqui­ries, along the entire value chain.

Ques­tel is a leading global IP solu­ti­ons provi­der with an end-to-end inte­gra­ted plat­form of soft­ware and tech­no­logy-based services that address the needs of corpo­ra­ti­ons and law firms throug­hout the IP lifecycle.

“After the combi­na­tion of PAVIS and Nova­graaf to form Novu­mIP, the merger with Ques­tel is the next step on the way to beco­ming the leading global provi­der of end-to-end IP solu­ti­ons,” elabo­ra­tes Dr. Krischan von Moel­ler, Mana­ging Part­ner at Para­gon, adding, “We would like to thank Rein­hard Ottway (Execu­tive Board Member, Novum IP), Lutgarde Liezen­berg (CEO, Nova­graaf) and Thomas Gruber (CEO, PAVIS), their manage­ment team and all employees for their contri­bu­tion and extra­or­di­nary commit­ment over the past years.” Max Moser von Fils­eck, Prin­ci­pal at Para­gon, adds “Toge­ther we have achie­ved great succes­ses in the past years, which serve as a basis for conti­nuing and further acce­le­ra­ting the strong growth momen­tum, which toge­ther with Ques­tel will gain even more momentum. ”

Para­gon and Novu­mIP were supported in the tran­sac­tion by Alva­rez & Marsal (Finan­cial), Baker McKen­zie (Law), KPMG (Tax) and Roth­schild (M&A).

About Nova­graaf
For more than 130 years, Nova­graaf has been helping well-known brands and inno­va­tive compa­nies around the world build their compe­ti­tive advan­tage. As one of the leading IP consul­tancies in Europe, Nova­graaf specia­li­zes in the protec­tion and global manage­ment of IP rights, inclu­ding trade­marks, patents, designs, domain names and copy­rights. Nova­graaf is head­quar­te­red in the Nether­lands and has 18 offices world­wide. In 2020, Nova­graaf acqui­red Thom­sen Tram­pe­dach — a firm that excels at provi­ding clients with tail­o­red legal exper­tise, effi­ci­ency-enhan­cing admi­nis­tra­tive services and proac­tive commer­cial insights. www.novagraaf.com.

About PAVIS
PAVIS is a leading global provi­der of IP manage­ment services. For more than 40 years, PAVIS has been a valuable part­ner for law firms and corpo­rate IP depart­ments with large IP port­fo­lios. Inno­va­tive tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons, relia­ble proces­ses and a high level of auto­ma­tion have made PAVIS one of the most effi­ci­ent and relia­ble IP manage­ment service provi­ders. PAVIS has a focus on patent and trade­mark rene­wals. The subsi­diary PAVIS Payments is offi­ci­ally licen­sed as a regu­la­ted payment service provi­der under the Payment Services Super­vi­sion Act (Zahlungs­diens­te­auf­sichts­ge­setz — ZAG) and is thus able to provide all services in compli­ance with the legal requi­re­ments. www.pavis.com.

About Ques­tel
Questel’s mission is to faci­li­tate the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tion in an effi­ci­ent, safe and sustainable manner. Ques­tel is a provi­der of compre­hen­sive end-to-end intellec­tual property solu­ti­ons. The company offers a compre­hen­sive soft­ware suite for sear­ching, analy­zing and mana­ging inven­ti­ons and IP assets. Ques­tel also provi­des services along the entire IP life­cy­cle, inclu­ding prior art sear­ches, patent draf­ting, inter­na­tio­nal filings, trans­la­ti­ons and rene­wals. These solu­ti­ons, combi­ned with Questel’s IP cost manage­ment plat­form, provide their clients with an average savings of 30–60% over the entire patent prose­cu­tion budget. www.questel.com.

Advi­sor to Ques­tel, IK Invest­ment Part­ners, Eura­zeo and Raise Inves­tis­se­ment: Will­kie Farr & Gallagher
The multi­di­sci­pli­nary Will­kie team from two offices was coor­di­na­ted by Paris-based part­ner Eduardo Fernan­dez (Corpo­rate) and led in Frank­furt by part­ner Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Corpo­rate).

About Para­gon
Para­gon is an owner-mana­ged invest­ment company and has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries since its foun­da­tion in 2004. Para­gon works closely with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to ensure sustainable growth and improve opera­tio­nal proces­ses. The invest­ment port­fo­lio covers various indus­tries and curr­ently compri­ses 14 compa­nies. Para­gon is based in Munich and curr­ently mana­ges €1.2 billion in equity. More infor­ma­tion can be found at www.paragon.de.

Legal advi­sor PARAGON PARTNERS: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Corporate/M&A:
Dr. Ingo Strauss (Part­ner), Dr. Heiko Gotsche (Part­ner, both Düsseldorf)
Other lawy­ers involved:
Corporate/M&A: Manuel Metz­ner (Coun­sel, Frank­furt), Juan Garcia Jacob­sen (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Lena von Richt­ho­fen (Senior Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Jana Upschulte (Senior Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Richard Stefan­ink (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Celina Zaim (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Denise Tayler (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
IT: Dr. Holger Lutz (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Simone Rieken (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Public Law: Anahita Thoms (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Alex­an­der Ehrle (Asso­ciate, Berlin)
Anti­trust: Dr. Nico­las Kredel (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Florian Kotman (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Jonas Brueck­ner (Coun­sel, Berlin)
Labor Law: Dr. Chris­tian Reichel (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Sebas­tian F. Pfrang (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Real Estate: Dr. Daniel Bork (Senior Asso­ciate, Düsseldorf)
Tax: Chris­toph Becker (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Ariane Schaaf (Coun­sel, Frankfurt)
IP: Nadine Neumeier (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Banking & Finance: Phil­ipp Thimm (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Commer­cial: Joachim Fröh­lich (Coun­sel, Munich)

Other Baker McKen­zie offices: Attor­neys from Baker McKen­zie offices in Belgium, Nether­lands, UK, France, Switzerland.

PEARL Infrastructure invests in Wismar biomass cogeneration plant

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Wismar — Herbert Smith Freeh­ills has advi­sed PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal as majo­rity share­hol­der on an invest­ment toge­ther with Wismar Pellets to finance the plan­ned biomass coge­nera­tion plant in Wismar. For PEARL, the tran­sac­tions mark its entry into the German biomass market. PEARL comple­ted the final closing in March 2020 with a total volume of 280 million euros (invest­ment capa­city approx. 1.2 billion euros).

The biomass coge­nera­tion plant, jointly deve­lo­ped by Green Invest­ment Group (GIG) and Wismar Pellets, will gene­rate up to 18 MWe of elec­tri­city and 27 MWth of heat, supp­ly­ing local manu­fac­tu­rer Wismar Pellets and sawmill ILIM Nordic Timber. The plant is expec­ted to be opera­tio­nal in Q4 2022.

PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal is a private equity invest­ment fund focu­sed on the energy and green tran­si­tion in Europe. PEARL comple­ted the final closing in March 2020 with a total volume of 280 million euros (invest­ment capa­city of appro­xi­m­ately 1.2 billion euros); invest­ments will be made in Euro­pean rene­wa­ble energy gene­ra­tion faci­li­ties such as biomass coge­nera­tion plants, waste recy­cling and water cycle management.

Advi­sor PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal: Herbert Smith Freehills
Silke Gold­berg (Corporate/Energy, London), Dr. Marius Boewe (Energy Law, Düssel­dorf; both Lead), Dr. Chris­toph Nawroth, Dr. Sebas­tian Schü­rer (Coun­sel; both Corporate/M&A, both Düssel­dorf), Kai Liebrich (Finance), Thomas Kess­ler (Real Estate), Dr. Stef­fen C. Hörner (Tax; all Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Anne Ecken­roth (Foreign Lawyer), Kris­tin Kattwin­kel (both Energy Law, both Düssel­dorf), Dr. Julius Brandt (Consul­tant, Frank­furt), Stefa­nie Strahl (both Corpo­rate; Düssel­dorf), Dr. Hannes Jacobi, Dr. Galina Matjusch­kin (both Finance, both Frank­furt), Gelena Minkov, Yvonne Spatz, Chris­tina Friess, Ja Yeon Youm (Profes­sio­nal Support Lawyer; all Real Estate), Tatiana Guens­ter (Tax; all Frank­furt), Martin Bitt­ner, Sam Cund­all, Jannis Bille, Ania Sharp, Julia Osten­dorf (Trai­nee Soli­ci­tor), Tara Theiss (Para­le­gal; all Corporate/Energy), Elinor Richard­son (Dispu­tes; all London)

Equistone acquires kitchen and sanitary fittings Franke Water Systems

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Zurich — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are acqui­ring the Franke Water Systems divi­sion, a divi­sion of the Franke Group and a leading Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of kitchen and sani­tary faucets for the resi­den­tial, public and commer­cial sectors. Thors­ten Klap­p­roth, form­erly CEO of Hans­g­rohe SE and WMF AG, is invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion as co-inves­tor. The seller of the Franke Water Systems Divi­sion, which consists of the two busi­ness units KWC Group (“KWC”) and WS Commer­cial Group (“WSC”), is Franke Holding AG (“Franke Group”). The exis­ting manage­ment team will conti­nue to drive the company’s growth stra­tegy in the future. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion authorities.

Franke Water Systems is a divi­sion of the Franke Group, foun­ded in 1911 in Rorschach, Switz­er­land, a leading global supplier of solu­ti­ons and equip­ment for dome­stic kitchens, private bath­rooms, semi-public/­pu­blic wash­rooms, profes­sio­nal system cate­ring and coffee prepa­ra­tion. Franke Water Systems was estab­lished as an inde­pen­dent divi­sion of the Franke Group and consists of the two busi­ness units KWC and WSC. Franke Water Systems has produc­tion sites and compe­tence centers in Europe, the United Arab Emira­tes and Asia. In 2020, the company recor­ded sales of more than 192 million Swiss francs with around 900 employees.

KWC is the Swiss market leader for resi­den­tial sani­tary, resi­den­tial kitchen and commer­cial kitchen fittings, head­quar­te­red in Unter­kulm. The tradi­tio­nal company offers its custo­mers solu­ti­ons from the medium to the luxury price segment. Thanks in parti­cu­lar to the high-quality mate­ri­als and work­man­ship of its products, as well as the inno­va­tive design and a promise of quality “Made in Switz­er­land”, the company enjoys great popu­la­rity among instal­lers and architects.

WSC offers its custo­mers high-quality stain­less steel fittings and compon­ents for the commer­cial and (semi-)public sani­tary sector. WSC products are used in wash­rooms of public faci­li­ties such as office and admi­nis­tra­tion buil­dings, sports stadi­ums as well as hotels and hospi­tals, among others. WSC has inter­na­tio­nal loca­ti­ons and is distin­gu­is­hed, among other things, by its compre­hen­sive and high-quality product port­fo­lio as well as its high level of service competence.

Equis­tone supports the carve-out of Franke Water Systems from the Franke Group. Toge­ther with Thors­ten Klap­p­roth, form­erly CEO of Hans­g­rohe SE and WMF AG, and the exis­ting manage­ment team, Equis­tone will drive the expan­sion of the inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness as well as the orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth of Franke Water Systems — buil­ding on the solid busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment in recent years. A parti­cu­lar focus will be on further deve­lo­ping the inno­va­tive product range and expan­ding the company’s strong brand positioning.

“We are deligh­ted about the inves­tors’ confi­dence in the manage­ment team. Toge­ther with Equis­tone, we want to conti­nue to offer our custo­mers high-quality solu­ti­ons for kitchens and sani­tary faci­li­ties and successfully deve­lop Franke Water Systems,” says Patrick Trutt­mann, CFO of Franke Water Systems.

“Franke Water Systems has excel­lent people on its team and enjoys an excel­lent market posi­tion in key Euro­pean markets, as well as great poten­tial for further profi­ta­ble growth,” says Thors­ten Klapproth.

“The Euro­pean market for kitchen and sani­tary products has been deve­lo­ping very satis­fac­to­rily for years. Franke Water Systems is ideally posi­tio­ned to play an important role in this market envi­ron­ment. With Thors­ten Klap­p­roth, we were able to gain a proven indus­try expert with many years of expe­ri­ence, who has repea­tedly proven that it is possi­ble to successfully deve­lop strong brands with enthu­si­a­stic employees and inno­va­tive products — both orga­ni­cally and inor­ga­ni­cally,” says Stefan Maser, Part­ner at Equis­tone Part­ners Europe.

Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Roman Emanuel Hegglin are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equistone.

Advi­sor Equistone:
Munich Stra­tegy (Commer­cial), tkhd (Commer­cial), KPMG (Finan­cial), Bär & Karrer (Legal, Tax), ERM (Envi­ron­ment), Marsh/Kessler (Insu­rance), GCA Altium (Debt Advi­sory) and Enqcor (M&A Advisory).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, 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 foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 160 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion.

US midcap investor Rubicon Technology acquires majority stake in BrandMaker

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Munich/ Karlsruhe/ Boulder — Brand­Ma­ker, foun­ded in 2008 and head­quar­te­red in Karls­ruhe, is a manu­fac­tu­rer of soft­ware in the areas of marke­ting opera­ti­ons and marke­ting resource manage­ment and has deve­lo­ped a SaaS plat­form that enables large orga­niza­ti­ons in parti­cu­lar to control, opti­mize and auto­mate the entire marke­ting value chain. The plat­form redu­ces the comple­xity of marke­ting by enab­ling smooth coor­di­na­tion of marke­ting processes.

US finan­cial inves­tor Rubicon Tech­no­logy Part­ners was foun­ded in 2012 as a mid-cap private equity firm focu­sed on part­ne­ring with foun­ders and manage­ment teams of enter­prise soft­ware companies.

Foun­ded in 2008, Karls­ruhe-based Brand­Ma­ker has deve­lo­ped a SaaS plat­form that enables large orga­niza­ti­ons in parti­cu­lar to manage, opti­mize and auto­mate the entire marke­ting value chain. The plat­form redu­ces marke­ting comple­xity by elimi­na­ting silos and enab­ling smooth coor­di­na­tion of marke­ting processes.

Advi­sors to Rubicon Tech­no­logy Part­ners: P+P Pöllath + Partners

Otto Haber­stock, M.C.J. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A, Private Equity)
Gerald Herr­mann (Part­ner, Tax Law)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust, Regulatory)
Dr. Laura Grei­mel (Coun­sel, M&A, Private Equity)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, IP/IT)
Benja­min Aldeg­ar­mann, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity)
Marina Hennings (Asso­ciate, Real Estate Law)
Dr. Moritz Klein (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity)

Advi­sor to share­hol­ders of Brand­Ma­ker GmbH: King & Wood Mallesons

Dr. Michael Roos, Markus Herz, Lorenz Liebsch, Simon Brandt (PSL) (all Corporate/M&A)
Markus Hill, Rüdi­ger Knopf, Vikto­ria Rosbach (all tax)

MBI: SMP advises Rhein Invest on acquisition of Spiegel Institute

Posted on by Tatjana Anderer

Berlin, March 5, 2021 — SMP advi­sed a fund mana­ged by Dutch Rhein Manage­ment B.V. (Rhein Invest) on the acqui­si­tion of Spie­gel Insti­tut Holding GmbH & Co KG, Spie­gel Insti­tut Mann­heim GmbH & Co KG, Spie­gel Insti­tut Ingol­stadt GmbH and Spie­gel Insti­tut Shang­hai Co Ltd (toge­ther Spie­gel Insti­tut) in the course of a manage­ment buy-in. The previous owners of Spie­gel Insti­tut will retain a stake in the company and will conti­nue to support the manage­ment in an advi­sory capacity.

Rhein Invest was accom­pa­nied by a team led by Jörn Wöbke and Moritz Diek­gräf. SMP’s scope of advice in this tran­sac­tion included corpo­rate and tax advice on the acqui­si­tion as well as on the future group struc­ture and the corpo­rate and tax struc­tu­ring with regard to the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion as well as the return parti­ci­pa­tion of the sellers. The parties agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction.

About Rhein Invest
Rhein Invest is a Dutch invest­ment company focu­sed on majo­rity invest­ments in profi­ta­ble, small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs) in the indus­trial, busi­ness services, soft­ware, agri­cul­tu­ral tech­no­logy and leisure sectors in the Nether­lands and Germany. Parti­cu­lar empha­sis is placed on a strong DNA, expan­da­ble market posi­tion and prono­un­ced inno­va­tive strength of the investments.

The Mirror Institute
The Spie­gel Insti­tute is an inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting rese­arch and consul­ting insti­tute for consu­mer rese­arch and user expe­ri­ence consul­ting. Foun­ded as early as 1950 by Prof. Dr. Bernt Spie­gel as the first market psycho­logy insti­tute in Germany, it now has loca­ti­ons in Mann­heim, Ingol­stadt, Stutt­gart, Hamburg, Munich and Shang­hai. From there, the Spie­gel Insti­tute is active world­wide for its renow­ned custo­mers. By inclu­ding the user and consu­mer perspec­tive in the deve­lo­p­ment process of products and services, the Spie­gel Insti­tute thus actively contri­bu­tes to the success of its custo­mers, which prima­rily include global players.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP’s attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs more than 60 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors and tax specia­lists in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Consul­tant Rhein Invest: SMP
Dr. Jörn Wöbke, Photo (Lead/M&A/Corporate Law), Partner
Dr. Moritz Diek­gräf (Co-Lead/M&A/Corporate Law), Associate
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Taxes), Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Taxes), Senior Associate
Moritz von Saß (M&A/Corporate Law), Rese­arch Associate

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