News-Kategorie: Private Equity

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) intends to conti­nue growing: The net asset value of private equity invest­ments is expec­ted to increase by an average of between 14 percent and 19 percent in the current and the two follo­wing finan­cial years, while earnings from fund advi­sory services are expec­ted to reach a double-digit million euro amount in each case. This is accor­ding to the listed private equity company’s medium-term plan­ning published today with the Group’s 2019/2020 annual finan­cial report.

The basis for this growth is signi­fi­cantly higher invest­ments by DBAG along­side the funds it advi­ses, as well as invest­ments finan­ced exclu­si­vely from DBAG’s balance sheet: While an average of around 72 million euros has flowed into invest­ments in mid-market compa­nies over the past five years, around 120 million euros are plan­ned annu­ally until 2023. “If nothing else, the Covid 19 pande­mic is opening up invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties that we intend to target,” said DBAG CEO Tors­ten Grede, adding, “We have expan­ded our plat­form for equity solu­ti­ons in the midmar­ket and inves­ted in our invest­ment team.”

Net asset value of private equity invest­ments impac­ted by pande­mic in 2019/2020
Accor­ding to the plan­ning, DBAG’s growth will acce­le­rate: Between 2014 and 2019, the net asset value of private equity invest­ments had increased by around 13 percent annu­ally. It is expec­ted to grow by up to 19 percent per year until 2023. The growth would also more than offset the setback expe­ri­en­ced in net asset value due to the impact of the pande­mic on port­fo­lio compa­nies in fiscal year 2019/2020 (Oct. 1‑Sept. 30). At 422.0 million euros, adjus­ted for the effect of the distri­bu­tion to share­hol­ders, it fell 5.8 percent short of the previous year’s figure, but reached the upper end of the fore­cast revi­sed after the Corona shock in the spring. In parti­cu­lar, share­hol­dings with a strong link to indus­try suffe­red in some cases heavy losses in reve­nues and earnings and did not achieve their origi­nal budgets; this resul­ted in corre­spon­ding impairm­ents of these share­hol­dings. Once again, invest­ments in broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons or soft­ware compa­nies, which are bene­fiting from the acce­le­ra­ted digi­tiza­tion in many areas of life and busi­ness models, deve­lo­ped encouragingly.

Due to the special nature of its private equity busi­ness, DBAG does not manage its busi­ness using tradi­tio­nal annual perfor­mance indi­ca­tors such as EBIT or return on sales. Instead, the key perfor­mance indi­ca­tors are the varia­bles that DBAG can influence and that deter­mine the value of the two busi­ness areas of private equity invest­ments and fund advi­sory services — the net asset value of private equity invest­ments and the result of fund advi­sory services. Accor­din­gly, conso­li­da­ted net profit is not a key perfor­mance indi­ca­tor; it amounts to ‑16.8 million euros, driven by the
Perfor­mance of private equity invest­ments. This segment closed 2019/2020 with earnings before taxes of ‑25.2 million euros, down 67.3 million euros on the previous fiscal year.

Key figu­res (IFRS) 2019/2020 2018/2019
Segment result Private Equity Invest­ments -€25.2 million €42.1 million
Segment result Fund Consul­ting €9.5 million €3.0 million
Net asset value € 422.0 million € 472.1 million
Net result -€16.8 million €45.9 million
Divi­dend (2019/2020: propo­sed) €0.80 €1.50

Fund consul­tancy bene­fits from the launch of the new DBAG fund
Earnings in the second segment, fund advi­sory services, excee­ded expec­ta­ti­ons: at 9.5 million euros, they reached their highest level since the intro­duc­tion of segment report­ing in 2013/2014. The basis for the signi­fi­cant increase compared with the previous year (€3.0 million) is higher income from the fund busi­ness and lower provi­si­ons for varia­ble compen­sa­tion — this prima­rily reflects the perfor­mance of the port­fo­lio. Income was signi­fi­cantly higher (€30.6 million after €28.2 million) because DBAG has also been recei­ving income for advi­sing DBAG Fund VIII since its launch in August 2020.

The fund had been closed in May with a volume of 1.109 billion euros. As a result, the assets advi­sed and mana­ged by DBAG, which form the basis for measu­ring income from the fund busi­ness, rose to around €2.6 billion (Septem­ber 30, 2019: €1.7 billion).

Divi­dend propo­sal: 0.80 euros per share
The divi­dend propo­sal for the past finan­cial year — 0.80 euros per share — does not imply any change in DBAG’s divi­dend policy. “It prima­rily takes into account the expec­ted later returns from the port­fo­lio as a result of longer holding peri­ods for our indus­trial holdings,” said CFO Susanne Zeid­ler, explai­ning the propo­sal. He added: “We expect that as the econo­mic envi­ron­ment norma­li­zes after the pande­mic subs­i­des, we will be able to return to our policy of stable and, when­ever possi­ble, rising divi­dends next year with a divi­dend of between 1.00 and 1.20 euros per share.” The divi­dend propo­sal corre­sponds to a yield of 2.4 percent based on the average price of DBAG shares for the year.

Invest­ment decis­i­ons trig­ge­red for 314 million euros
DBAG’s invest­ment team has trig­ge­red invest­ment decis­i­ons of 314 million euros in 2019/2020. Three of these invol­ved manage­ment buyouts (MBOs) struc­tu­red for the new fund within the first two months of its invest­ment period. In addi­tion, there was another MBO with DBAG Fund VII and a first long-term invest­ment — a mino­rity stake in a fast-growing company, finan­ced exclu­si­vely from DBAG funds. Six port­fo­lio compa­nies grew stron­gly through a total of 14 corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons; these acqui­si­ti­ons, mainly finan­ced by the port­fo­lio compa­nies them­sel­ves, serve to acce­le­rate the imple­men­ta­tion of the stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio companies.

96.8 million of the invest­ment decis­i­ons were finan­ced by DBAG from its own balance sheet. This included €5.2 million for seven port­fo­lio compa­nies that were hit harder than average by the Corona pande­mic; the addi­tio­nal equity was used to support debt finan­cing solu­ti­ons to improve the finan­cial resour­ces of these companies.

Equity ratio remains very high at 89 percent
DBAG has a solid balance sheet with an equity ratio of around 89 percent. Cash and cash equi­va­lents decreased shar­ply compared with the previous year as a result of the high level of capi­tal expen­dit­ure. Once again, these signi­fi­cantly exceed the reco­veries from the port­fo­lio. With the conclu­sion of a further credit line, DBAG increased its finan­cial room for maneu­ver by 40 million euros. In 2019/2020, DBAG was able to add six invest­ments to its port­fo­lio, inclu­ding the MBOs of Carton­plast and the DING Group, which had alre­ady been agreed in 2018/2019. One company left the port­fo­lio; this dispo­sal had also been agreed in the previous year. The two (partial) dispo­sals agreed in 2019/2020 will not take effect until the new fiscal year. As of Septem­ber 30, the port­fo­lio consis­ted of 32 invest­ments in compa­nies of the (predo­mi­nantly) German Mittelstand.

“Stra­te­gic inte­rest in mature holdings”
The DBAG Manage­ment Board is confi­dent for the new, current 2019/2020 finan­cial year and beyond. “Our posi­tion in the market is good, we can have about one billion of capi­tal ready to invest and invest in new invest­ments,” the report conti­nues. In view of the ongo­ing pande­mic, DBAG intends to place parti­cu­larly high demands on the quality of the busi­ness model, its stra­te­gic importance and the growth of the respec­tive market when asses­sing invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. “Invest­ments from the IT services and soft­ware and broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors are the main candi­da­tes for this, but also Indus­try­Tech compa­nies,” says board spokes­man Grede, “for exam­ple, manu­fac­tu­r­ers of such indus­trial compon­ents whose products make auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion possi­ble in the first place.” In addi­tion, DBAG intends to address invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in compa­nies in special situa­tions, i.e. those with perfor­mance-rela­ted equity requirements.

Due to the econo­mic weak­ness that has persis­ted in parts of the indus­try for some time, dispo­sals have recently been delayed. The DBAG port­fo­lio conta­ins a number of compa­nies that have been supported for a longer period of time; change proces­ses that were initia­ted at the start of the invest­ment are well advan­ced. “We are expe­ri­en­cing inte­rest from stra­te­gic inves­tors in such invest­ments,” CFO Zeid­ler said today. And further: “Howe­ver, should dispo­sals and corre­spon­ding returns be further delayed, the addi­tio­nal credit line gives us flexi­bi­lity to take advan­tage of attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties at any time — in addi­tion, we are exami­ning other finan­cing opti­ons, for exam­ple on the equity side.”

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. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in new growth sectors such as 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. Capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to 2.6 billion euros

Munich/ Tilburg — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are selling their majo­rity stake in Group of Butchers, a leading specialty meat produ­cer head­quar­te­red in Tilburg, the Nether­lands. The buyer is the Dutch invest­ment company Parcom Private Equity. Equis­tone had acqui­red Group of Butchers in early 2017 and has since supported the company’s growth stra­tegy through a series of stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, among others. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the tran­sac­tion. The sale is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Group of Butchers was foun­ded in Tilburg in 1997 and has become the market leader in the Nether­lands for high-quality, artis­a­nal butchery products with a focus on sausage and minced meat special­ties. Group of Butchers excels in high quality stan­dards, smart product marke­ting, conti­nuous inno­va­tion in purcha­sing and produc­tion, and in iden­ti­fy­ing new trends such as Ameri­can BBQ, gour­met burger restau­rants and street food. The wide range of high-quality meat and sausage products is sold prima­rily by leading retail chains in the Nether­lands, Belgium and Germany.

Equis­tone took a majo­rity stake in Group of Butchers in early 2017 and has since supported the specialty meat producer’s orga­nic and stra­te­gic growth through seve­ral targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and market expan­si­ons. In 2018, Group of Butchers acqui­red Dutch smoked and dry sausage produ­cers Koet­sier Vlees­wa­ren and Keulen Vlees­wa­ren, as well as Gebroe­ders Snij­ders Vlees­wa­ren­fa­b­riek and VLL Vers Logis­tiek Limburg.

This acqui­si­tion also enab­led Group of Butchers to expand its service offe­ring in the area of slicing and pack­a­ging of meat products. It also ente­red the German market at the end of 2018 with the acqui­si­tion of Hart­mann GmbH, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of minced meat products based in Waren­dorf in North Rhine-West­pha­lia, and the Gmyrek Group, a tradi­tio­nal meat and sausage manu­fac­tu­rer based in Gifhorn in Lower Saxony. July 2019 also saw the addi­tion of Schou­ten Vlees­wa­ren, a BBQ and grill­ware specia­list for the Dutch market. Today, Group of Butchers employs a total of 900 people at 12 produc­tion sites and two distri­bu­tion centers and expects sales of about 280 million euros in 2020.

“By part­ne­ring with Equis­tone, we have once again been able to signi­fi­cantly streng­then our posi­tion as one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers and suppli­ers of high-quality butchery products in the Nether­lands and incre­asingly also in Germany and Belgium, and expand our geogra­phi­cal reach. We look forward to working with Parcom for the next steps in our growth,” says Remko Rosman, CEO of Group of Butchers.

“Group of Butchers’ excel­lent market posi­tio­ning is prima­rily due to high quality stan­dards and exten­sive exper­tise in iden­ti­fy­ing trends in the premium meat products segment. Toge­ther with the excel­lent manage­ment team, we have imple­men­ted a successful buy & build stra­tegy over the past years and ideally posi­tio­ned the company for further growth. We are plea­sed that Group of Butchers has found an opti­mal new part­ner for the next steps,” says Dr. Marc Arens, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Part­ner at Equistone.

“Group of Butchers conti­nues to offer great growth poten­tial, both orga­ni­cally and as we further inte­grate recent acqui­si­ti­ons and build new product and custo­mer segments through buy-&-build efforts. We look forward to support­ing the company in this endea­vor going forward,” said Maurits Werk­ho­ven, Part­ner at Parcom.

Dr. Marc Arens and Maxi­mi­lian Göppert are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone. Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Roth­schild & Co (M&A), EY Parthe­non (CDD), EY Finan­cial (FDD), EY Tax (TDD) and A&O (Legal).

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 150 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 40 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. www.equistonepe.de

About Group of Butchers
Group of Butchers, head­quar­te­red in Tilburg, the Nether­lands, was foun­ded in 1997 as Dutch Grill Special­ties and is now a leading manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of high-quality butchery products. The company combi­nes the capa­ci­ties of seve­ral regio­nal butcher stores, each of which produ­ces its own meat products. This results in a diverse product port­fo­lio, from smoked meats and sausa­ges to filet améri­cain and roast and gril­led meat special­ties. In 2020, Group of Butchers employs 900 people and expects sales of about 280 million euros.

Aachen/Kempen — The S‑UBG Group from Aachen acqui­res mino­rity shares in Ther­mo­glas Nieder­rhein GmbH and Glas Trie­nes GmbH & Co KG with its Mittel­stands­fonds. In this way, S‑UBG enables the succes­sion of the company by the exter­nal mana­ger Mathias Schlatt, who acqui­res the remai­ning shares. Schlatt takes over the manage­ment of both compa­nies from Knut-Ulrich Rött­ger, who acqui­red the compa­nies in 1999 and has been mana­ging part­ner ever since.

The now 45-year-old mana­ger star­ted his career in his parents’ company Schlatt Glas­han­dels­ge­sell­schaft mbH in Bocholt: “Mathias Schlatt has been working in the glass indus­try for over 20 years and brings with him expe­ri­ence, good cont­acts and exten­sive exper­tise,” says Bern­hard Kugel, CEO of the S‑UBG Group. Knut-Ulrich Rött­ger is also plea­sed to be able to hand over his life’s work into good hands with the support of S‑UBG: “The fair nego­tia­ti­ons and the profes­sio­nal advice have thus ulti­m­ately led to two estab­lished compa­nies being retai­ned in Kempen and jobs being secured.”

Estab­lished full-range supplier
The compa­nies Ther­mo­glas and Trie­nes were foun­ded in Kempen on the Lower Rhine in 1976 and 1954 respec­tively. Today, with just under 100 employees, both operate on the market as full-range suppli­ers in the produc­tion and proces­sing or finis­hing of glass. Special exper­tise exists in the produc­tion of insu­la­ting glass, for exam­ple as sound insu­la­tion, solar control or safety glass. In addi­tion, Trie­nes produ­ces and sells high-quality glass products with special proper­ties for indus­try and buil­ding cons­truc­tion. The main product is toug­he­ned safety glass (ESG), which is prepared on the company’s own machi­nes and then tempe­red in the ESG furnace. This gives the glass its safety-rele­vant proper­ties and stabi­lity. For exam­ple, the ESG product SECURIT® has four to five times the breakage resis­tance of conven­tio­nal glass.

“Whether it’s coated glass, self-clea­ning glass or safety glass, glass is now a high-tech mate­rial and the demands on produ­cers are conti­nu­ally incre­asing,” explains Schlatt. “Energy-effi­ci­ent cons­truc­tion or safety stan­dards in the cons­truc­tion sector are just a few drivers. Here in the Lower Rhine region, invest­ments have always been made so that we can meet custo­mer needs and legal stan­dards at all times.”

Well posi­tio­ned in the growing market
“We are inves­t­ing in two solid compa­nies with long-term stable earnings,” Kugel said. “The law incre­asingly prescri­bes the use of safety glass, and the ongo­ing cons­truc­tion boom and demand in future indus­tries have also brought glass produ­cers constant deve­lo­p­ment for years.” The new owners also see pros­pects in inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. Schlatt: “There is still a lot of poten­tial in expan­ding our natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal sales networks. And there is alre­ady an expan­sion area at our Kempen site for addi­tio­nal produc­tion capacity.”

About the S‑UBG Group
The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in the provi­sion of equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for over 30 years. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; a high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a decisive invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. 2020, Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I für die Region Aachen, Krefeld & Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG was laun­ched toge­ther with NRW.BANK, the savings banks of Aachen, Krefeld and Düren, Kreis­spar­kasse Heins­berg, Stadt­spar­kasse Mönchen­glad­bach, Noma­in­vest, DSA Invest GmbH, inves­tors from the Dr. Babor Group and other private inves­tors. It provi­des around 40 million euros in seed capi­tal for the start-up scene in the region. Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I emer­ged from Seed Fonds III for the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach region. As an exten­sion of Seed Fund III, Tech­Vi­sion Fund I now seeks to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds (Series A/B) of exis­ting port­fo­lio compa­nies in addi­tion to seed invest­ments. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe. www.s‑ubg.de; https://techvision-fonds.de/

Hano­ver — NORD Holding has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG. The tran­sac­tion was carried out with the parti­ci­pa­tion of WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sach­sen. The Födisch family and the foun­der and CEO Dr. Holger Födisch will also remain share­hol­ders in the company. Toge­ther with NORD Holding and WMS, the market posi­tion is to be expan­ded and the successful growth course of recent years is to be contin­ued on a sustainable basis.

Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of emis­sion tech­no­logy for moni­to­ring envi­ron­men­tally harmful gases, dust and volume flows. Areas of appli­ca­tion are emis­sion moni­to­ring (CEMS: Conti­nuous Emis­sion Moni­to­ring Systems), process and envi­ron­men­tal measu­re­ment tech­no­logy and recur­ring tests of statio­nary measu­ring equip­ment. The product range extends from mobile and statio­nary measu­ring devices to complete systems. The medium-sized company opera­tes in a market envi­ron­ment that has been growing steadily for years, driven by global mega­trends and stric­ter envi­ron­men­tal regu­la­ti­ons, and supports its more than 600 custo­mers inter­na­tio­nally in acting sustain­ably and with an eye to the future. Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG curr­ently has over 180 employees.

“Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG is a typi­cal exam­ple of a true hidden cham­pion, charac­te­ri­zed by a culture of inno­va­tion and engi­nee­ring exper­tise. From the very begin­ning, we were very impres­sed by the company’s team spirit and tech­no­logy focus as well as the entre­pre­neu­rial vision of Dr. Holger Födisch. With the part­ner­ship that has now been estab­lished, we would like to accom­pany this outstan­ding company, with our possi­bi­li­ties, into the next growth phase — we are looking forward to the joint future,” says Andreas Bösen­berg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of NORD Holding.

Dr. Holger Födisch, foun­der and board member: “After 29 years of successful and dyna­mic deve­lo­p­ment of the company and the Födisch Group, we have actively pursued the realignment of the shareholder/participation struc­ture. This will enable us to meet the chal­lenges of future growth and create the basis for a further consis­tent orien­ta­tion of the Group towards the envi­ron­men­tal and auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy sectors. With NORD Holding, we have now found the right part­ner for the imple­men­ta­tion of our stra­te­gies, goals and visi­ons. We look forward to the joint chal­lenges and cooperation.”

For NORD Holding, the invest­ment in Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG marks the third invest­ment in the green and clean­tech sector. This under­pins the invest­ment stra­tegy of focu­sing on sustaina­bi­lity tech­no­lo­gies and bene­fiting from long-term mega­trends such as the need to increase resource and energy produc­ti­vity and reduce pollution.

On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tion was imple­men­ted by Andreas Bösen­berg (photo), Martin Scheff­ler and Marcel Rosengarten.

The WMS alre­ady held a stake in Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG with its prede­ces­sor fund. Harald Rehberg (Mana­ging Direc­tor WMS) on the tran­sac­tion: “We are plea­sed to now conti­nue to accom­pany the Födisch Group in part­ner­ship with our third-gene­ra­tion WMS. The company has deve­lo­ped magni­fi­cently in recent years — also thanks to its successful inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. We also see high momen­tum in the future, not least through further acqui­si­ti­ons in suita­ble segments.”

Harald Rehberg and Andreas Müller were respon­si­ble for the project at WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sachsen.

About Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG
Foun­ded in 1991, Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG is a leading and inde­pen­dent group of compa­nies for appli­ca­ti­ons in the field of envi­ron­men­tal, process and analy­sis tech­no­logy. With its head­quar­ters in Markran­städt near Leip­zig as well as service and sales compa­nies in Germany and a subsi­diary in China, the company employs over 180 people. In addi­tion to envi­ron­men­tal, service and main­ten­ance services, the product port­fo­lio includes fine dust sensors, filter moni­tors, dust measu­re­ment concen­tra­tion devices, gas analy­zers and volu­metric flow meters. Custo­mers are Euro­pean and non-Euro­pean compa­nies, among others from the energy, chemi­cal, cons­truc­tion, and waste and dispo­sal indus­tries, which are supported world­wide in comply­ing with emis­sion limits and in moni­to­ring various processes.

In 2018, EP Ehrler Prüf­tech­nik Engi­nee­ring GmbH (Nieder­stet­ten) was successfully inte­gra­ted as a wholly owned subsi­diary. EP Ehrler is a specia­list in the field of flow measu­re­ment tech­no­logy for air, gases and liquids and deve­lops its own custo­mi­zed and at the same time tech­no­logy-orien­ted complete solu­ti­ons. www.foedisch.de

About WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sachsen
The WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sach­sen is an initia­tive of the Free State of Saxony and regio­nal credit insti­tu­ti­ons and has supported more than 30 Saxon compa­nies in imple­men­ting their growth stra­te­gies since 2005. Since the begin­ning of this year, the WMS has been ente­ring its third gene­ra­tion of funds. In addi­tion to the savings banks, the inves­tors now also include the Säch­si­sche Aufbau­bank, the Bürg­schafts­bank Sach­sen and the Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft. The fund will invest a further 85 million euros in Saxony’s SME sector in the coming years. www.wachstumsfonds-sachsen.de

About NORD Holding
With its 50-year history and assets under manage­ment of € 2.5 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund of funds investments.

The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king countries.

Copen­ha­gen — Nordic Capi­tal raises €6.1bn remo­tely for its largest fund. The vehicle, the firm’s largest capi­tal pool to date, has consider­a­bly surpas­sed its initial €5bn target within just six months. Laun­ched in April this year, the fund was enti­rely raised remo­tely amid the pande­mic, without any face-to-face meetings, the firm said.

The successful fund­rai­sing comes at a time when fund closings have slowed down due to the pande­mic travel rest­ric­tions and the econo­mic down­turn. Globally, 552 private equity funds reached their final close in the first half of the year, 31% fewer than in the same period last year, accor­ding to data provi­der Preqin.

“We laun­ched this fund in the middle of a global pande­mic, which requi­red inves­tors to comple­tely alter their invest­ment proces­ses to enable remote dili­gence. The success of the fund­raise despite these chal­lenges reflects the inves­tors’ considera­ble confi­dence in Nordic Capital’s stra­tegy and team,” Pär Norberg (print), head of inves­tor rela­ti­ons of Nordic Capi­tal, said.

Most of Nordic Capi­tal Fund X inves­tors are from North America, follo­wed by Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The firm’s exis­ting port­fo­lio perfor­mance since the Covid-19 pande­mic star­ted was one of the reasons for the strong appeal, the firm noted in a statement.

The fund, which sealed its first deal earlier this month, with the acqui­si­tion of Danish soft­ware busi­ness Siteim­prove for €500m, focu­ses on mid-market compa­nies prima­rily based in Europe. Its main targe­ted sectors are health­care, tech­no­logy and payments, finan­cial services, indus­trial and busi­ness services.

Apart from the Euro­pean focus, the stra­tegy has a mandate for global invest­ment in health­care as in the previous fund and an emer­ging smal­ler global mandate also for tech­no­logy and payments businesses.

“The econo­mic impact of the Covid-19 pande­mic will conti­nue to be felt for some time and the most successful fund mana­gers will be those who respond well to emer­ging trends and market dyna­mics to leverage new oppor­tu­ni­ties,” Kris­toffer Melin­der, the firm’s mana­ging part­ner, added.

Since its incep­tion in 1989, Nordic Capi­tal has inves­ted more than €15bn in more than 110 invest­ments, accor­ding to a statement.

Source: Private Equity News

Munich/ Pfäf­fi­kon (Switz­er­land) — Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by Afinum Manage­ment GmbH, acqui­res a stake in Threema GmbH. Toge­ther with the foun­ders Martin Blat­ter, Manuel Kasper and Silvan Enge­ler, who will remain signi­fi­cantly invol­ved after the tran­sac­tion, Afinum will support the growth course of the past years. Toge­ther with Afinum, the company intends to further expand its own market posi­tion as the leading Euro­pean secure messen­ger for private and corpo­rate customers.

Threema (www.threema.ch), based in Pfäf­fi­kon, Switz­er­land, is a leading Euro­pean secure messa­ging provi­der for private users, public insti­tu­ti­ons as well as compa­nies. With Threema’s soft­ware solu­ti­ons, neither meta­data nor chat content is stored, which is a strong diffe­ren­tia­tor from other commer­cial messen­gers. This reflects the primary goal of ensu­ring custo­mer data secu­rity and privacy. Threema’s app for private users is used by custo­mers in over 90 count­ries. The corpo­rate custo­mer solu­tion Threema Work has become the market leader in the DACH region in recent years and is used by a large number of DAX 30 compa­nies, govern­ment agen­cies, NGOs and educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons. — Threema is to become open source.

Threema was foun­ded in 2014 by the three soft­ware deve­lo­pers Martin Blat­ter, Manuel Kasper and Silvan Enge­ler, who will conti­nue to lead the company. By ente­ring into this part­ner­ship, Threema lays the foun­da­tion for conti­nuity and gains resour­ces to grow beyond German-spea­king Europe. Threema will conti­nue to improve its own soft­ware and deve­lop addi­tio­nal features to conti­nue provi­ding custo­mers with the most secure secure messen­ger. Thanks to the inno­va­tive cross-plat­form multi-device solu­tion, Threema will also be usable on multi­ple devices in paral­lel in the future, without leaving perso­nal data on a server. In addi­tion, Threema will fully disc­lose the source code of Threema apps in the coming months to allow anyone to check the secu­rity and func­tion­a­lity of Threema itself and verify that the published source code matches the instal­led app.

The invest­ment in Threema is the ninth plat­form tran­sac­tion of Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co. KG.

About AFINUM
AFINUM Manage­ment GmbH is an inde­pen­dent manage­ment-owned invest­ment company with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe.