News-Kategorie: Private Equity

Antwerp (BE) / Marseille (FR) — In a Series B finan­cing round tota­ling $53 million, Gimv has increased its stake in ImCheck Thera­peu­tics, an emer­ging provi­der of onco­logy and auto­im­mune therapy solu­ti­ons based in France. The round is led by Pfizer Ventures (NYSE: PFE) and Bpifrance and will be joined by new inves­tors. In addi­tion to Gimv, exis­ting inves­tors Life Scien­ces Part­ners (LSP), Idin­vest Part­ners, Kurma Part­ners and Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund also parti­ci­pa­ted to a signi­fi­cant extent in the increase.

The Series B round funds will be used to finance initial clini­cal trials of ImCheck Thera­peu­tics’ first-in-class mono­clonal anti­body ICT01. For exam­ple, the broad pipe­line of immu­no­mo­du­la­tors for the so-called buty­ro­phi­lin super­fa­mily will be further expan­ded and new anti­body thera­pies in the field of immuno-onco­logy will be made available to clinics.

Bram Vanpa­rys, Part­ner at Gimv and respon­si­ble for the invest­ment on the Health & Care plat­form, says: “ImCheck has made signi­fi­cant progress since our invest­ment in the Series A round. As a result, we are plea­sed to have attrac­ted a number of new nota­ble inves­tors from the U.S. and Europe for the Series B round. Gimv’s signi­fi­cant invest­ment in this finan­cing round demons­tra­tes the poten­tial in ImCheck’s pipe­line of solu­ti­ons for the onco­logy and auto­im­mune therapy space.”

About GIMV
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with almost 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity. The company is listed on Euron­ext Brussels, curr­ently mana­ges around EUR 1.2 billion and curr­ently invests in 50 port­fo­lio compa­nies, which toge­ther realize a turno­ver of more than EUR 2.5 billion and employ 14,000 people.

Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the four invest­ment plat­forms Connec­ted 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. www.gimv.com

Munich/Stockholm — AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN DE000A0JK2A8) (“AURELIUS”) has successfully comple­ted the sale of its subsi­diary Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics Group to Accent Equity 2017, a Scan­di­na­vian invest­ment fund.

Successful carve-out and trans­for­ma­tion into leading Nordic brand manage­ment company
Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics serves brand owners such as Coty, Clar­ins and Sensai as an exclu­sive value add distri­bu­tor for cosme­tic products in the Nordics. AURELIUS had acqui­red the busi­ness from Swiss Valora Group in Janu­ary 2016. The acqui­si­tion of the former Valora Trade Divi­sion consis­ted of FMCG acti­vi­ties (today port­fo­lio company Cona­xess Trade) and cosme­tics acti­vi­ties (today Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics Group), both mana­ged out of Switz­er­land at acqui­si­tion. After sepa­ra­ting both busi­nesses, estab­li­shing a stand-alone finan­cing struc­ture and imple­men­ting an inde­pen­dent manage­ment, an exten­sive trans­for­ma­tion program was imple­men­ted inclu­ding invest­ments in new warehouse manage­ment systems, the intro­duc­tion of a new KPI report­ing, a revi­sion of the exis­ting product range and cate­gory expan­sion. Major effi­ci­ency impro­ve­ment and busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment projects such as the deve­lo­p­ment of a new e‑commerce and online stra­tegy further drove the company’s growth. Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics Group’s stra­tegy towards one Nordic group drove an ambi­tious regio­nal expan­sion into the Danish and Finnish markets.

Acce­le­ra­ted growth through active M&A consolidation
In addi­tion to opera­tio­nal chan­ges, two stra­te­gic add-on acqui­si­ti­ons substan­ti­ally impro­ved the company’s presence as the largest manu­fac­tu­rer-inde­pen­dent luxury and consu­mer brand manage­ment company in the Nordics, leading to a 25 percent reve­nue increase. “Scan­di­na­vian cosme­tics has under­gone an exten­sive trans­for­ma­tion program,” said Florian Muth, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Aure­lius. “With the support of AURELIUS, the company has deve­lo­ped into a strong and leading market player. The tran­sac­tion clearly illus­tra­tes that our intense opera­tio­nal focus combi­ned with a dedi­ca­ted growth stra­tegy pays off.”

The buyer, Accent Equity, will support Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics in its next growth phase.

On this tran­sac­tion, AURELIUS was advi­sed by ABG Sundal Collier (M&A), PwC (Tran­sac­tion Services and Tax) and Vinge (Legal).

Berlin — Since its acqui­si­tion by capi­ton IV Fonds in 2013, KD Pharma has grown from a small company with single-digit reve­nues to one of the largest play­ers in the indus­try. KD Pharma Group is a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of highly concen­tra­ted omega‑3 fatty acids used as an ingre­di­ent in phar­maceu­ti­cals and dietary supple­ments. — capi­ton initia­ted a GP-led single-asset secon­dary tran­sac­tion to secure a longer holding period and further growth capi­tal for its port­fo­lio company KD Pharma to finance the expec­ted signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial. The tran­sac­tion was heavily over­sub­scri­bed and capi­ton successfully comple­ted the fund­rai­sing for its new single-asset fund.

In the context of a compe­ti­tive bidding process, the tran­sac­tion gives the exis­ting inves­tors of the capi­ton IV fund the oppor­tu­nity to either sell their exis­ting stake in KD Pharma Group (in whole or in part) or to conti­nue it via a newly estab­lished conti­nua­tion fund and to parti­ci­pate in the high expec­ted value enhance­ment poten­tial. The tran­sac­tion also offers new inves­tors the oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in a very attrac­tive, fast-growing port­fo­lio company. Pantheon and Aber­deen Stan­dard Invest­ments join other renow­ned insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors as new prin­ci­pal investors.

capi­ton will conti­nue to manage KD Pharma as Gene­ral Part­ner under the new fund struc­ture after closing of the tran­sac­tion. capi­ton plans to expand its busi­ness both orga­ni­cally, through further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and expan­sion of the product port­fo­lio on the basis of its current market leader­ship, and through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. To this end, new debt finan­cing was secu­red in paral­lel with the se- condary transaction.

Advi­sors to capi­ton: PJT Park Hill (secon­dary advice), CMS Hasche Sigle, P+P Pöllath + Part­ners, Stephen­son Harwood (legal), EY (finance, tax, struc­ture), Roland Berger (commer­cial) and Duff & Phelps (fair­ness opinion).

The new inves­tors were advi­sed by Debe­voise & Plimp­ton, Hogan Lovells (legal) and Euclid Tran­sac­tional (S&I). The tran­sac­tion was nota­ri­zed at BMH Bräu­ti­gam.

Hamburg/Borken/Karlsruhe — Only two weeks after the announce­ment of the take­over of the IT company ComNet, the next step follows at netgo. The Group acqui­res 100 percent of the shares in Mehr­werk AG, head­quar­te­red in Karls­ruhe. MEHRWERK specia­li­zes in opti­mi­zing busi­ness proces­ses with the help of agile enter­prise soft­ware. The foun­ders Ralf Feul­ner, Claus Litz and Clemens Schmidt will conti­nue to manage MEHRWERK as mana­ging direc­tors and will in future hold a stake in the netgo Group via the manage­ment invest­ment company. Second add-on for netgo Group since Water­land Private Equity joined the company.

Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Water­landcomm­ents on the second addi­tion within a short time: “For netgo, this tran­sac­tion is the second company in a very short time after our entry as a growth inves­tor. This shows: The buy-and-build stra­tegy with compa­nies whose service port­fo­lio comple­ments netgo’s is working. We will conti­nue to grow with netgo.”

MEHRWERK was foun­ded in 2008 as a vendor-inde­pen­dent IT service provi­der for agile and user-friendly add-on solu­ti­ons for SAP users. Today, the fast-growing company with around 30 employees serves around 250 custo­mers of all sizes from the indus­trial, retail and service sectors. As an IT gene­ral contrac­tor, MEHRWERK advi­ses on the basis of proven, user-friendly soft­ware in the opti­miza­tion of busi­ness proces­ses, for exam­ple in IT-supported supply chain manage­ment as well as on SAP Cloud and busi­ness analy­tics solu­ti­ons (busi­ness intel­li­gence and process mining based on the Qlik plat­form). This focus is paying off: The Karls­ruhe-based company is an SAP Cloud Gold Part­ner and the leading solu­tion provi­der in the DACH region for the Qlik data analy­sis plat­form. In addi­tion to products from well-known manu­fac­tu­r­ers, MEHRWERK also offers solu­ti­ons deve­lo­ped in-house: The MPM Process­Mi­ning soft­ware, which is used by medium-sized compa­nies as well as DAX corpo­ra­ti­ons, enables the analy­sis of busi­ness processes.

The inte­gra­tion of MEHRWERK streng­thens the netgo Group’s product and service port­fo­lio. “We are very plea­sed to add MEHRWERK, a leading specia­list for soft­ware-based busi­ness process opti­miza­tion, to our group. In addi­tion to solu­ti­ons and products from well-known manu­fac­tu­r­ers, the process mining solu­tion deve­lo­ped in-house in parti­cu­lar enjoys an excel­lent repu­ta­tion and offers high added value. For us and our custo­mers, MEHRWERK’s products are an ideal addi­tion to our service port­fo­lio. At the same time, MEHRWERK is able to further acce­le­rate its own growth by bund­ling resour­ces and lever­aging netgo’s exper­tise,” explains netgo Mana­ging Direc­tor Bene­dikt Kisner.

netgo was foun­ded in 2007 by Bene­dikt Kisner and Patrick Kruse as an IT system house in Borken (North Rhine-West­pha­lia) and has grown at an above-average rate in recent years, both orga­ni­cally and through the successful acqui­si­tion of other IT houses. Just a few days ago, netgo announ­ced that it had acqui­red the IT system house ComNet from Würse­len (North Rhine-Westphalia).

The netgo group of compa­nies, with around 370 employees at 18 loca­ti­ons, offers a broad range of consul­ting, products and services in the busi­ness areas of Hosting & Storage, IT Infra­struc­ture, IT Secu­rity, Commu­ni­ca­tion & Messa­ging, IoT & Analy­tics paired with custo­mi­zed custo­mer solu­ti­ons. Toge­ther with its custo­mers, netgo deve­lops indi­vi­dual IT stra­te­gies and can draw on many years of expe­ri­ence in all forms of IT opera­tion — on-premise, private cloud and public cloud. Due to this broad range of services, netgo acts as a so-called one-stop store for its more than 3,000 custo­mers throug­hout Germany. The port­fo­lio of services is to be further expan­ded through targe­ted acquisitions.

Ralf Feul­ner, foun­der and CEO of MEHRWERK, summa­ri­zes the advan­ta­ges for his company: “With the support of the netgo Group, we will in future be able to posi­tion oursel­ves even better in terms of content, orga­niza­tion and sales as part of our corpo­rate stra­tegy, and to serve our custo­mers holi­sti­cally, for exam­ple as part of mana­ged services.”

 

Hamburg / Hünfeld — IK Invest­ment Part­ners (“IK”) announ­ced today that the IK VIII Fund has signed an agree­ment to acquire Ondal Holding GmbH (“Ondal” or “the Company”) from funds advi­sed by Capvis. Ondal is a leading ODM (“Origi­nal Design Manu­fac­tu­rer”) manu­fac­tu­rer of stret­cher systems for the medi­cal equip­ment sector, mainly used in opera­ting rooms and inten­sive care units.

Ondal was foun­ded in 1945 and has since become the world’s leading supplier of stret­cher systems for medi­cal use. With its inno­va­tive and diver­si­fied product port­fo­lio used in opera­ting rooms, inten­sive care units, and diagno­stic and imaging faci­li­ties, Ondal sets the global quality stan­dard for relia­bi­lity, func­tion­a­lity, and hand­ling. Products manu­fac­tu­red by Ondal are inter­na­tio­nally certi­fied and appro­ved for use in a variety of regu­la­ted markets. The company, which is head­quar­te­red in Hünfeld and has more than 500 employees, opera­tes three produc­tion faci­li­ties in Germany, the USA and China.

Bernd Fabian, CEO of Ondal, said: “With our high-quality systems, we ensure the mobi­lity and avai­la­bi­lity of medi­cal equip­ment, crea­ting opti­mal working condi­ti­ons. On this basis, we have built up long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with inter­na­tio­nally active blue chip compa­nies. The team at IK is the ideal part­ner for the next phase of our deve­lo­p­ment due to their exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the medi­cal tech­no­logy market, and shares our posi­tive assess­ment of our company’s growth pros­pects. We would like to take this oppor­tu­nity to thank Capvis for its support over the past years.”

Anders Peters­son, Part­ner at IK Invest­ment Part­ners, added: “Ondal is the world’s leading plat­form for medi­cal weara­ble systems with an excel­lent repu­ta­tion as a relia­ble and stra­te­gic part­ner to medi­cal tech­no­logy compa­nies. We look forward to working with manage­ment to further deve­lop the company’s strong market posi­tion as a tech­no­logy leader in its product segment.”

With Ondal, the mid-cap fund IK VIII acqui­res its fourth invest­ment in the current year. Over­all, this is the fifte­enth acqui­si­tion announ­ced since the fund’s incep­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the transaction.

Parties and advi­sors invol­ved in the transaction:

IK Invest­ment Part­ners: Anders Peters­son, Adrian Tanski, Daniel-Vito Günther
Finan­cial Advi­sor Buyer: Quar­ton (Konstan­tin Schön­born, Rolf Holtmann)
Stra­te­gic Due Dili­gence Buyer: Alva­rez & Marsal (Georg Hochleitner)
Finan­cial Due Dili­gence Buyer: Eight Advi­sory (Michael Wahl)
Legal Advi­sor Buyer: Renzen­brink & Part­ner (Ulf Renzenbrink)
Capvis: Eric Trüeb, Leif-Niklas Fanter
Finan­cial Advi­sor Seller: William Blair (Phil­ipp Mohr, Eike Dickmann)
Legal Advi­sor Seller: Henge­ler Müller (Daniel Wiegand)

About Ondal Medi­cal Systems
Ondal is one of the world’s leading desi­gners and manu­fac­tu­r­ers of medi­cal weara­ble systems that support move­ment, carry loads and provide light, gas or data to medi­cal equip­ment. www.ondal.de

About IK Invest­ment Partners
IK Invest­ment Part­ners is a Euro­pean private equity firm with an invest­ment focus on the Nordic count­ries, the DACH region and France/Benelux. Since 1989, IK has laun­ched funds with a cumu­la­tive equity volume of more than 10 billion euros and inves­ted in more than 130 Euro­pean compa­nies. The IK Funds support compa­nies with signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial and their manage­ment teams in deve­lo­ping busi­ness models for the future, streng­thening the compa­nies’ market posi­tion and thus crea­ting outstan­ding long-term deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. www.ikinvest.com

Dassow, Neumüns­ter, Seebach/ Nagold — The GPE Group with loca­ti­ons in Dassow, Neumüns­ter and Seebach, a specia­list for systems and compon­ents with a focus on medi­cal tech­no­logy, has acqui­red the NICOLAY Group of compa­nies based in Nagold. The total group gene­ra­tes sales of appro­xi­m­ately € 85 million. — The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The seller and buyer have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The tran­sac­tion will be finan­ced from the capi­ton V fund.

NICOLAY’s core compe­tence is the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of products in the field of non-inva­sive pati­ent moni­to­ring. The product range extends from exis­ting in-house deve­lo­p­ments that can be indi­vi­du­ally adapted to tailor-made solu­ti­ons accor­ding to custo­mer-speci­fic requi­re­ments. “The compa­nies NICOLAY and GPE comple­ment each other excel­lently in their diffe­rent compe­ten­cies. With this acqui­si­tion, we can better meet the incre­asing demand in the market for complex parts and compon­ents from a single source,” says CEO of GPE Group Steven Anderson.

“With GPE, we have gained a stra­te­gic part­ner who shares with us the same values of quality and custo­mer orien­ta­tion” adds Dr. Chris­tof Muz, Mana­ging Direc­tor of NICOLAY. In addi­tion to mana­ging the NICOLAY sites, Dr. Muz will also assume over­all respon­si­bi­lity for the tech­ni­cal area of all sites as Chief Tech­ni­cal Offi­cer (CTO) in the GPE.

Advi­sors capi­ton and GPE: Roland Berger (Commer­cial), KPMG (Finan­cial), EY (Tax), CMS (Legal), AvS (Manage­ment Audit) and Tauw (ESG) advised.

About Capi­ton AG
capi­ton AG capi­ton is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged private equity company mana­ging a total fund volume of over € 1.0 billion. Curr­ently, 11 medium-sized compa­nies are in capi­ton AG’s invest­ment port­fo­lio. capi­ton accom­pa­nies manage­ment buy-outs and growth finan­cing for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies as an equity partner.

Frank­furt a.M. - McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed nyxmo LAB GmbH on the sale of its stake in flux.connect GmbH. The acqui­rer is Bene­fi­cio Invest GmbH.

flux.connect GmbH has deve­lo­ped the server or cloud-based plat­form “flux.connect”. This enables commu­ni­ca­tion between connec­ted devices such as POS systems, booking plat­forms or POS payment termi­nals and provi­ders of addi­tio­nal services. This means, for exam­ple, that POS payment tran­sac­tion termi­nals can also be control­led by a cash regis­ter system (termi­nal cash regis­ter inte­gra­tion) or booking system.

nyxmo LAB, based in Munich, Germany, deve­lops soft­ware for point-of-sale solu­ti­ons such as card and online payment, loyalty and digi­tal cash code systems.

The team led by part­ner Dr. Michael Cziesla has recently advi­sed on a number of tech tran­sac­tions, most recently Invest­corp on the acqui­si­tion of a stake in Content­serv Group.

Advi­sors to nyxmo LAB: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frank­furt a.M.
Dr. Michael Cziesla, Photo (lead), Norman Wasse, LL.M. (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Heiko Kermer (Coun­sel, Tax Law), Marion von Grön­heim (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,100 lawy­ers, we are repre­sen­ted in 20 loca­ti­ons world­wide: 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. There is a stra­te­gic alli­ance with MWE China Law Offices in Shang­hai. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP www.mwe.com

Hamburg — Proven­tis Part­ners has supported the owner of Europe’s largest online retailer for golf equip­ment Golf Versand Hanno­ver GmbH (“all4golf”) as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor in its succes­sion plan­ning. The owner of Golf Versand Hanno­ver GmbH has sold the company to Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by Munich-based Afinum Manage­ment GmbH. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Afinum is acqui­ring a stake in Europe’s largest online retailer of golf equip­ment, which opera­tes under the brand name “all4golf” in e‑commerce as well as with a branch in its main and logi­stics center in Hanover.

Stefan Kirste, owner of all4golf, will conti­nue to lead the company as mana­ging direc­tor after the tran­sac­tion and, toge­ther with Afinum, drive the company’s further expan­sion. Proven­tis Part­ners’ role Proven­tis Part­ners acted as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor to Mr. Kirste in the prepa­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the tran­sac­tion. In addi­tion to the complete docu­men­ta­tion, Proven­tis iden­ti­fied a selec­tion of estab­lished inves­tors as part­ners for all4golf and guided them through a struc­tu­red dive­st­ment process, coor­di­na­ted the due dili­gence and accom­pa­nied the contract nego­tia­ti­ons up to the closing of the transaction.

Legal advice from: KSB INTAX, led by Fried­rich Graf zu Ortenburg.

“With Proven­tis Part­ners, I had an advi­sor at my side who supported me in the best possi­ble way during the imple­men­ta­tion of my company succes­sion,” notes Stefan Kirste. “Ulrich Schnei­der and his team plan­ned the project in detail and imple­men­ted it strin­gently, while at the same time demons­t­ra­ting a great deal of tact in deal­ing with my orga­niza­tion. With Afinum, we were thus able to find a part­ner who shares my vision for all4golf and with whom I can now tackle the next phase of the company’s deve­lo­p­ment, a task I am very much looking forward to!”

About all4golf
all4golf (www.all4golf.de) is Europe’s largest e‑commerce company for golfing supplies. This leading market posi­tion is reflec­ted in the exten­sive range of more than 20,000 items, which covers the entire range of golf equip­ment, clot­hing and access­ories. In addi­tion to the online store, the store in the main and logi­stics center in Hano­ver offers one of the largest ranges of golf products in Germany on an area of over 500 square meters, in addi­tion to a fitting center. Since the acqui­si­tion of “Stephan Moll Golf Versand” in 1997, Mr. Kirste has grown the busi­ness from a clas­sic mail order company to a leading e‑commerce provi­der and the clear market leader in the golf segment, with a strong posi­tion across all cate­go­ries and an estab­lished private label. The far-sigh­ted­ness of this stra­te­gic decis­ion, taken at the begin­ning of the 2000s, is reflec­ted in parti­cu­lar in the growth achie­ved in every single finan­cial year since the beginning.

About Afinum
Afinum is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company that invests in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Afinum curr­ently mana­ges funds with a volume of around EUR 1 billion in equity. Afinum has been an active inves­tor in medium-sized compa­nies for 19 years and has carried out over 70 tran­sac­tions during this time, the vast majo­rity of which (>90%) in connec­tion with family businesses/out of start-up situa­tions, whether with further parti­ci­pa­tion and active manage­ment of the foun­ders or a complete sale as part of a company succes­sion. Afinum’s invest­ment profes­sio­nals have a total of more than 200 years of private equity tran­sac­tion expe­ri­ence and have successfully accom­pa­nied nume­rous compa­nies on their growth path during this time.

About Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A consul­tancy whose clients include a majo­rity of medium-sized family busi­nesses, group subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With 30 M&A consul­tants, Proven­tis Part­ners is active in the sectors Indus­tri­als, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT, Health­care and Energy and covers the German-spea­king region with offices in Hamburg, Colo­gne, Munich and Zurich. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — the inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — allows Proven­tis Part­ners market coverage in 30 of the world’s leading count­ries. The 20 members of the Mergers Alli­ance, with over 200 M&A profes­sio­nals, provide Proven­tis Part­ners, and ther­e­fore its clients, with unique access to local markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Frank­furt a. Main — A Gleiss Lutz team advi­sed Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft AG (DBAG) on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Carton­plast Group (Carton­plast). In a lever­a­ged buyout, DBAG Fund VII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, has acqui­red the majo­rity of shares in Carton­plast from the London-based finan­cial inves­tor Stir­ling Square Capi­tal Part­ners.

Finan­cing was provi­ded through a so-called first out/last out unitran­che, supple­men­ted by a super senior opera­ting line of credit. With a total volume of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 200,000,000, the finan­cing repres­ents one of the largest unitran­che finan­cings in the German market.

DBAG Fund VII has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies, prima­rily in German-spea­king count­ries, since Decem­ber 2016. Carton­plast is DBAG Fund VII’s eighth invest­ment in total and the third for which its top-up fund is also used.

Carton­plast was foun­ded in 1985. The company prima­rily rents reusable and recy­clable plas­tic liners for trans­port­ing glass bott­les, cans and other glass or PET contai­ners for food to the manu­fac­tu­r­ers of these contai­ners. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Diet­zen­bach, Carton­plast has 16 other loca­ti­ons — abroad, espe­ci­ally in Western and Central Europe, Turkey,
Russia, Brazil and South Africa. In 2018, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around 80 million euros; around three quar­ters of this was attri­bu­ta­ble to the plas­tic layer pad rental business.

Advi­sor DBAG: Gleiss Lutz
Frank Schlo­b­ach (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner), Patrick Reuter, Dr. Jan-Alex­an­der Lange, Teresa
Bald­win (all Finance, Frankfurt).

Munich — Global private equity firm Open­Gate Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in soft­ware company Core­Me­dia AG. The sellers were Deut­sche Tele­kom Capi­tal Part­ners and a consor­tium of private inves­tors. P+P advi­sed the manage­ment of Core­Me­dia AG on the transaction.

Core­Me­dia AG is a plat­form for content manage­ment and an expert in digi­tal marke­ting. The Hamburg-based company provi­des real-time product infor­ma­tion with multi­me­dia marke­ting content as well as perso­na­li­zed product messa­ges. Digi­tal marke­ting solu­ti­ons enable users to improve their digi­tal presence and opti­mize e‑commerce plat­forms. Its global custo­mers include compa­nies in the luxury goods, retail, media, indus­trial manu­fac­tu­ring, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and public sectors, as well as other global e‑commerce companies.

Core­Me­dia AG is the sixth invest­ment of Open­Ga­tes’ recently closed second insti­tu­tio­nal fund, whose assets amount to appro­xi­m­ately USD 585 million. The Los Ange­les-based invest­ment company has a focus on the mid-market segment in North America and Europe.

Advi­sors Core Media AG: P+P Pöllath + Partners
The two Munich part­ners Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte, Foto (M&A/Private Equity, Tax Law, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons) and Dr. Nico Fischer (Tax Law) provi­ded legal and tax advice to the manage­ment of Core­Me­dia AG in connec­tion with the sale.

Frank­furt am Main — Halder has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Anker Kassen­sys­teme GmbH in Biele­feld as part of a manage­ment buy-out. The manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tes in the tran­sac­tion and beco­mes a co-part­ner. The long-estab­lished company was foun­ded in 1876 and since then has been a provi­der of hard­ware and solu­ti­ons for the point of sale, distin­gu­is­hed by quality, secu­rity, flexi­bi­lity and inno­va­tive strength.

The company’s product port­fo­lio includes cash boxes in parti­cu­lar, but also cash drawers and poles. With over 600,000 cash casset­tes instal­led, Anker is the market leader for cash casset­tes in the DACH region. The company supports custo­mers from the retail, drugs­tore, food service, bakery, service station and health­care indus­tries with both stan­dard and custo­mi­zed solutions.

The company, which is rich in tradi­tion, most recently achie­ved annual sales of 13 million euros and employs 70 people. Growth poten­tial arises from the contin­ued increase in demand for POS products such as cash casset­tes, cash drawers and poles, parti­cu­larly in the retail sector. In order to bene­fit from chan­ging requi­re­ments and trends in the check­out area, Anker is expan­ding its product range and deve­lo­ping into a full-service provi­der for the point-of-sale. In addi­tion, the market presence in Europe is to be expan­ded, parti­cu­larly in Poland, France, Italy, Spain and the Nordics.

“With Halder we have a very expe­ri­en­ced and entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner at our side who will successfully accom­pany the further deve­lo­p­ment and sustainable growth of Anker. We would like to thank the Anker team for their extra­or­di­nary perfor­mance over the past years, which contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to the successful tran­sac­tion, and look forward to the further deve­lo­p­ment of Anker toge­ther with Halder and our team,” said Dr. Fabian Schühle, Mana­ging Direc­tor Anker Kassen­sys­teme GmbH. Mathias Fackel­meyer (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Halder: “The deve­lo­p­ment of the last years and espe­ci­ally the successful busi­ness model toge­ther with the very commit­ted and moti­va­ted manage­ment have tipped the scales in favor of our commit­ment. Halder is plea­sed to be able to conti­nue the growth course it has embarked on in the future through our contri­bu­tion.” The acqui­si­tion of Anker is the fourth invest­ment made by the Halder team in 2019.

Advi­sors Halder: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich
Dr. Tobias Kopp­mann, Dr. Cars­ten Böhm (both Private Equity), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt (Corpo­rate Finance, Frank­furt), Nina Siewert (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Stef­fen Woitz (Intellec­tual Property), Dr. Thomas Gennert (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Nadine Hartung (Coun­sel, Private Equity), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax Law, Frank­furt), Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel, Corpo­rate Finance, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Bene­dikt Gloß­ner, Frank Weiß (both Corpo­rate Law), Daniel Reich, Dr. Richard Gräbe­ner (both Intellec­tual Property Law), Colin Winter­berg (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Heiner Feld­haus (Real Estate Law, Düsseldorf).

About Halder
Halder invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies: compa­nies with a turno­ver of up to € 400 million and a posi­tive earnings situa­tion. Halder usually takes over the majo­rity of the capi­tal, usually as part of a manage­ment buy-out. You can be successful in many indus­tries — the decisive factor is a strong compe­ti­tive posi­tion. Expe­ri­ence shows that market leaders and domi­nant niche play­ers have compe­tent manage­ment, sustainable advan­ta­ges over the compe­ti­tion, and their key figu­res for past years demons­trate posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. Obser­ving these crite­ria is the best prere­qui­site for MBO mana­gers and Halder to achieve their common goal: a long-term increase in the value of the company.

Munich — Munich-based FinTech company IDnow (www.idnow.io) closes a new finan­cing round of USD 40 million. The new capi­tal comes from the Ameri­can private equity inves­tor Corsair Capi­tal. IDnow was again advi­sed by P+P Pöllath + Partners.

IDnow provi­des an Iden­tity Veri­fi­ca­tion-as-a-Service plat­form to verify the iden­tity of billi­ons of people world­wide easily, quickly and secu­rely. This enables compa­nies to handle custo­mer inter­ac­tions online with a high stan­dard of secu­rity. Its more than 250 custo­mers include compa­nies such as BNP Pari­bas, sola­ris­Bank and N26. The company was foun­ded in 2014 by Dennis von Feren­czy, Sebas­tian Bärhold, Armin Bauer and Felix Haas (from right, photo: IDnow).

Corsair Capi­tal is one of the leading inves­tors in the finan­cial and busi­ness services sector with a focus on the tech­no­logy and finan­cial services sectors.

P+P Part­ner Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin) provi­ded legal advice to the foun­ders of IDnow in the context of the new finan­cing round. P+P had alre­ady advi­sed IDnow in May 2018 as part of the last finan­cing round and has been support­ing the foun­ders for many years.

Frank­furt a. Main — Fina­tem acqui­res Food & Service Group, seller is private equity firm Stead­fast Capi­tal. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed NATIONAL-BANK AG on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Food & Service Group by Fina­tem. The current manage­ment team will remain with the company and toge­ther with Fina­tem intends to successfully conti­nue the buy and build stra­tegy. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

The Food & Service Group is a leading food deli­very whole­sa­ler for bulk consu­mers and whole­sa­lers and was foun­ded in 1960 as a family busi­ness. As an assort­ment deli­very whole­sa­ler head­quar­te­red in Mülheim an der Ruhr, the company specia­li­zes in just-in-time deli­veries to fast food and cate­ring busi­nesses with a focus on North Rhine-West­pha­lia. In addi­tion to the company’s own award-winning meat and sausage products, the product port­fo­lio is supple­men­ted by the purchase of comple­men­tary products from the snack and cate­ring sector and curr­ently compri­ses around 4,000 items.

NATIONAL-BANK AG is one of the leading inde­pen­dent regio­nal banks in Germany for discer­ning private and corpo­rate custo­mers and medium-sized insti­tu­tio­nal investors.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team, led by part­ner Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger (Germany-Finance), included asso­ciate Sven Opper­mann (Germany-Finance/M&A) and tran­sac­tion specia­list Deniz Alkanli (Germany-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 23 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

Frank­furt am Main / Hoch­stadt — The foun­ders of the Upper Fran­co­nian bedroom furni­ture specia­list Signet Wohn­mö­bel have handed over the majo­rity of their shares to indus­try expert and future CEO Thomas Schlos­ser as part of a succes­sion plan. A mino­rity share­hol­ding is acqui­red in equal parts by the invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner and a fund mana­ged by it. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close by Janu­ary 2020.

Signet, based in Hoch­stadt am Main, has been deve­lo­ping and produ­cing indi­vi­dual func­tional furni­ture for almost 30 years. From the very begin­ning, the two foun­ders, Carola and Gerald Klimke, have focu­sed on time­l­ess design, high func­tion­a­lity and sustaina­bi­lity: The trade­mark is the so-called “moving forms”, raw mate­ri­als from regio­nal, control­led stocks are used and the pollutant-free proces­sing takes place exclu­si­vely in Germany — accor­ding to the strict quality guide­lines of the German Furni­ture Quality Asso­cia­tion (awarded with the quality mark “Golden M”). From a two-man opera­tion, a medium-sized family busi­ness with about 70 employees and a product range around the topics of sitting, lying, slee­ping, living and object has deve­lo­ped. Signet is one of Germany’s leading suppli­ers of high-quality sofa beds in particular.

Foun­der Gerald Klimke explains the reasons for choo­sing the succes­sor constel­la­tion: “A sense of respon­si­bi­lity has always been a central corpo­rate value for my wife and me. When we now pass on our life’s work after 30 years, we ther­e­fore want above all to do justice to our employees, custo­mers and suppli­ers. We are very plea­sed to have found part­ners with whom we have the good feeling that the company will be contin­ued in our spirit.” His succes­sor, Thomas Schlos­ser, has alre­ady held nume­rous manage­ment posi­ti­ons at various furni­ture manu­fac­tu­r­ers and is conside­red a specia­list for high-quality furni­ture. He says, “Signet is a special company and it is with great plea­sure that I succeed Mr. and Mrs. Klimke.”

“Since its foun­ding, Signet has consis­t­ently gone its own way and focu­sed on produc­tion in Germany and distri­bu­tion through local retail­ers — this is the core of Signet’s success and the basis for the good posi­tio­ning of the desi­gner furni­ture manu­fac­tu­rer,” summa­ri­zes Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner. His company specia­li­zes in equity finan­cing and further deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized companies.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is making the invest­ment toge­ther with its subsi­diary VR Equity Gesell­schaft für regio­nale Entwick­lung in Bayern mbH, which was provi­ded with funding from the Euro­pean Union for the promo­tion of inno­va­tive compa­nies in Bava­ria (ERDF funds) as part of a part­ner­ship with the Free State of Bava­ria. Direc­tor Daniel Schmidt outlines the future stra­tegy for Signet: “We want to conti­nue the successful path of Signet toge­ther with Thomas Schlos­ser and at the same time push growth with specia­list dealers, in the contract sector and with addi­tio­nal part­ners.” Selec­tive geogra­phi­cal expan­sion into neigh­bor­ing foreign markets is also envisaged.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH 
VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.vrep.de.

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:
Legal & Tax: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte, Düssel­dorf, with Dr. Lars Laeger, Chris­tian Wege­ner and Thomas Chwalek

Finan­cial & Commer­cial: First Park Advi­sory, Munich, with Michael Hinter­hol­zer and Stefan Schmidt

Frankfurt/Stockholm/Boston — Alan­tra, a global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment, has advi­sed US-based family-owned Rite-Hite, on the sale of Caljan, a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy for e‑commerce appli­ca­ti­ons, to private equity firm Invest­ment AB Latour (“Latour”). As part of the tran­sac­tion, Alan­tra had the exclu­sive M&A advi­sory mandate and conduc­ted a compe­ti­tive inter­na­tio­nal auction process. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to EU merger control approval.

Caljan is the market leader in auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy for parcel hand­ling in the logi­stics and e‑commerce sectors. The product range includes teles­co­pic convey­ors, auto­ma­ted docu­ment hand­ling and labe­l­ing solu­ti­ons, and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for parcel deli­very bases. Foun­ded in 1963, the company is head­quar­te­red in Denmark and has subsi­dia­ries in Germany, France, the UK, Latvia and the USA. Net sales are around 100 million euros, with an opera­ting margin of over 15% and strong growth. The company employs 450 people.

“We are very plea­sed with the outcome of this tran­sac­tion and are convin­ced that Latour is the right part­ner for Caljan and all of its employees. Alantra‘s sector know­ledge, exper­tise in the Scan­di­na­vian markets, and close and through support from expe­ri­en­ced staff were criti­cal to the success of this tran­sac­tion,” said Paul Maly, CEO of Rite-Hite.

Henrik Olesen, CEO of Caljan, added: “We have worked inten­si­vely with Alantra’s experts for much of 2019. Their deep sector know­ledge, under­stan­ding of our busi­ness, and commit­ment have been a great help throug­hout the sales process. In parti­cu­lar, we were impres­sed with how Alantra’s global sector experts worked as an inte­gra­ted team with Alantra’s Scan­di­na­vian and US offices.”

Frank Merkel, Mana­ging Part­ner at Alan­tra, said, “We are proud to have been selec­ted as advi­sors to Rite-Hite in the sale of Caljan. Follo­wing the sale of Trans­norm last year, this tran­sac­tion repres­ents another mile­stone for our Indus­trial Auto­ma­tion & Machi­nery Prac­tice and high­lights our deep sector exper­tise. We wish Caljan well on its jour­ney as part of Latour.”

The sales process was led by the Indus­trial Auto­ma­tion & Machi­nery team in Frank­furt toge­ther with Alantra’s office in Stock­holm. The team was supported by inter­na­tio­nal Alan­tra offices in approa­ching local buyers.

About Alan­tra
Alan­tra is a global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment with offices in Europe, the US, Asia and Latin America. With over 330 experts, the Invest­ment Banking unit provi­des inde­pen­dent advice on M&A, corpo­rate finance, loan port­fo­lios and capi­tal market tran­sac­tions. The Asset Manage­ment unit mana­ges assets of around 4.5 billion euros in the asset clas­ses private equity, active funds, private debt, real estate and wealth manage­ment. www.alantra.com.

Munich / Schaan — Liberta Part­ners (“Liberta”) acqui­res a majo­rity stake in FMA Mecha­tro­nic Solu­ti­ons AG (“FMA”), a medium-sized manu­fac­tu­ring service provi­der for mecha­tro­nic assem­blies, based in Schaan, Liech­ten­stein, as part of a succes­sion part­ner­ship. The previous main share­hol­der, Stefan Dürr, will remain active in the company as mana­ging part­ner. FMA was acqui­red through Liberta-initia­ted Liberta Part­ners Fund II, which was laun­ched in April 2019. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

FMA deve­lops and manu­fac­tures highly complex mecha­tro­nic assem­blies and system compon­ents and supplies custo­mers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, water manage­ment, medi­cal tech­no­logy and the alumi­num indus­try, among others. FMA’s unique selling points include, in parti­cu­lar, its many years of exper­tise in mecha­tro­nic manu­fac­tu­ring and its outstan­ding effi­ci­ency, precis­ion and deli­very relia­bi­lity from batch size 1.

Stefan Dürr, mana­ging part­ner of FMA, said: “With Liberta, we have an opera­tio­nal part­ner at our side who acts with long-term and fore­sight. With our custo­mi­zed product solu­ti­ons, we plan to expand our custo­mer base in Germany and neigh­bor­ing count­ries. Liberta will actively support us in our further development.”

Dr. Peter Franke and Florian Korp, Part­ners at Liberta, add: “We are very plea­sed that Stefan Dürr has chosen Liberta to manage his succes­sion and successfully align the company for the future. FMA will bene­fit from our broad indus­try network as well as our M&A exper­tise for suita­ble add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. In the coming years, we will provide FMA with entre­pre­neu­rial support in imple­men­ting the jointly defi­ned growth targets. In doing so, our top prio­rity is to conti­nue to meet the high inno­va­tion demands of our customers.”

About FMA Mecha­tro­nic Solu­ti­ons AG
Foun­ded in 1955 and head­quar­te­red in Schaan, Liech­ten­stein, the company star­ted with the produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of simple mecha­ni­cal parts. Since the take­over by Mr. Stefan Dürr in the 1990s, FMA has deve­lo­ped into a renow­ned mecha­tro­nics service provi­der. As such, FMA supplies custo­mers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, water manage­ment, medi­cal tech­no­logy and the alumi­num indus­try, among others. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: https://www.fma.li/

About Liberta Partners
Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with a clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in corpo­rate spin-offs and succes­sion situa­tions. These are actively deve­lo­ped as part of the long-term “100% Core& Care” concept and bene­fit from Liberta Part­ners’ inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial under­stan­ding. The Liberta Part­ners team consists of profes­sio­nals from M&A, Opera­ti­ons and Legal. www.liberta-partners.com

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery has provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to funds advi­sed by EMH Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in AVANTGARDE Gesell­schaft für Kommu­ni­ka­tion (AVANTGARDE). The sellers of the shares are the growth inves­tor AFINUM and the AVANTGARDE manage­ment team, which will conti­nue to hold a signi­fi­cant stake in the company.

AVANTGARDE is Germany’s leading service provi­der in the field of brand expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Munich, the Group is repre­sen­ted at five other loca­ti­ons in Germany as well as in Austria, Switz­er­land, Great Britain, Dubai, China and Brazil. Its custo­mers are prima­rily inter­na­tio­nal blue-chip compa­nies. In fiscal year 2018, AVANTGARDE gene­ra­ted fee reve­nue of more than 80 million euros.

EMH Part­ners is a Euro­pean invest­ment company by entre­pre­neurs for entre­pre­neurs, foun­ded by brot­hers Sebas­tian and Maxi­mi­lian Kuss (photo left). The next-gene­ra­tion private equity firm bridges the gap between venture capi­tal and buyout funds by support­ing the growth of medium-sized compa­nies with capi­tal and digi­tiza­tion exper­tise. With its seventh invest­ment in total, EMH is ente­ring the brand expe­ri­ence market segment. Previous invest­ments advi­sed by EMH include Brain­lab, a global leader in soft­ware-enab­led medi­cal tech­no­logy; Occhio, a leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality light­ing; and Design Offices, the German indus­try leader in corpo­rate coworking.

Advi­sors to EMH Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery
Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs (Lead Part­ner)Dr. Tobias Kopp­mann (both Private Equity, Munich), Dr. Germar Enders, Dr. Nadine Hartung (both Coun­sel, both Private Equity, Munich), Stef­fen Woitz (IP Liti­ga­tion, Munich), Nina Siewert (Tax, Frank­furt), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Thomas Gennert, Dr. Sandra Urban-Crell (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt (Finance, Frank­furt), Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel, Finance, Düssel­dorf). Oliver Hahn­elt (Finance, Frank­furt), Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel, Finance, Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Matthias Wein­gut, Robert Feind, Frank Weiss (all Private Equity, Munich), Colin Winter­berg, Jose­pha Hettich (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Richard Gräbe­ner, Dr. Philip Uecker (both IP Liti­ga­tion, Munich and Düsseldorf)

Inhouse: Dirk Kramer (Gene­ral Counsel)

Norderstedt/ Munich/Frankfurt am Main — The private equity company River­side Europe Part­ners LLC (River­side) has acqui­red a stake in TOOLPORT GmbH. River­side was advi­sed by Allen & Overy LLP on the finan­cing of the transaction.

The finan­cing included a unitran­che and super senior term loan finan­cing provi­ded by funds advi­sed by Apera Asset Manage­ment and by Joh. Beren­berg, Goss­ler & Co. KG was provided.

TOOLPORT, based in Norder­stedt, Germany, is the leading online supplier of profes­sio­nal tents and rela­ted access­ories and spare parts in Europe, offe­ring its products through seven coun­try-speci­fic online stores. The part­ner­ship with River­side gives the company the oppor­tu­nity to imple­ment its ambi­tious inter­na­tio­nal growth strategy.

About River­side
River­side is a global private equity firm focu­sed on inves­t­ing in growing compa­nies with enter­prise values of up to $400 million. Since its foun­ding in 1988, River­side has been invol­ved in more than 600 tran­sac­tions. The company’s inter­na­tio­nal port­fo­lio includes more than 100 investments.

Advi­sor River­side: Allen & Overy
Part­ner Dr. Astrid Krüger and Asso­ciate Tobias Hugo (both Lead, Corporate/M&A and Private Equity, Munich), Part­ner Thomas Neubaum and Coun­sel Dr. Mark Hallett (both Lead Finan­cing, Banking and Finance, Frank­furt), Part­ners Dr. Börries Ahrens (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Dr. Michael Ehret and Dr. Heike Weber (both Tax, Frank­furt), Senior Asso­cia­tes Heiner Meck­len­burg (Anti­trust, Hamburg) and Dr. Sebas­tian Schulz (employ­ment law, Frank­furt), asso­cia­tes Melissa Baude­wig (IP, Düssel­dorf), Sven Bisch­off (tax law, Frank­furt), Louisa Drew­niok (banking and finance law, Frank­furt), Catha­rina Glugla (data protec­tion, Düssel­dorf), Jonas Hamm (corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Simon König (real estate law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Lisa Müller (employ­ment law, Frankfurt).

Frank­furt - Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed STG Brauns­berg Group (STG) on its sale of shares to DBAG Expan­sion Capi­tal Fund (DBAG ECF).
The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

STG is a service provi­der in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons indus­try. The range of acti­vi­ties includes fiber optic cons­truc­tion, opera­tion, upgrading and subse­quent main­ten­ance of fiber optic networks. Custo­mers include muni­ci­pal utili­ties, local autho­ri­ties and network opera­tors. In addi­tion, STG main­ta­ins the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons network infra­struc­tures within the buil­dings for real estate compa­nies, on which its own as well as Inter­net and tele­vi­sion products are also offe­red by third parties.

As part of a manage­ment buyout, DBAG ECF will acquire the majo­rity of shares in STG from the previous owners Günter and Hermann Brauns­berg. They will conti­nue to hold a stake in the company and be part of the manage­ment of the STG Group. DBAG will support the STG Group in reali­zing its growth poten­tial by provi­ding the neces­sary capi­tal and its many years of expe­ri­ence in the expan­sion of fiber optic networks.

Advi­sors to STG Brauns­berg Group: Bird & Bird
Part­ner Dr. Hans Peter Leube, LL.M. and asso­cia­tes Michael Maier (both Frank­furt) and Laura Müller (Düssel­dorf), all Corpo­rate / M&A.

Back­ground
Dr. Hans Peter Leube has been and conti­nues to be on the side of funds advi­sed or mana­ged by DBAG in seve­ral tran­sac­tions and refi­nan­cings (most recently in the acqui­si­tion of shares in the soft­ware company FLS GmbH or most recently in the closing of the invest­ment in inexio, a provi­der of fiber-optic-based high-speed Inter­net connec­tions). The fact that he once again nego­tia­ted on the seller side (most recently for the BTV Group) is due in parti­cu­lar to his proven exper­tise in the fiber optics sector, not least through his opera­tio­nal in-house time at Tele­Co­lum­bus and Prima­Com, and shows that our corporate/M&A prac­tice with its know-how is extre­mely well accepted by sellers as well as private equity inves­tors in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sector (broad­band infrastructures).

Frank­furt a. Main - Bridge­point acqui­res a stake in Vermaat Groep B.V., the Dutch market leader for high-quality cate­ring and hospi­ta­lity services. Bridge­point is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in the company from Swiss-listed finan­cial inves­tor Part­ners Group, which will remain a mino­rity inves­tor in the company.

Vermaat was foun­ded in 1978 as a deli­ca­tes­sen and is a specia­list in custo­mi­zed gastro­nomy. The company provi­des premium outsour­ced cate­ring services to a variety of markets inclu­ding corpo­ra­ti­ons, muse­ums, hospi­tals and travel centers. Today, Vermaat opera­tes more than 350 food and beverage stores in the Nether­lands, inclu­ding restau­rants, cafés and canteens, and also has an incre­asing presence in Germany. The company serves a number of high-profile custo­mers and employs over 4000 people. Sales of €300 million are expec­ted for 2019. Part­ners Group acqui­red Vermaat Groep B.V. from the foun­ding family in 2015.

Olivier van Riet Paap, Head of Bridgepoint’s invest­ment acti­vi­ties in Bene­luxsaid: “Vermaat is a clear Euro­pean leader thanks to its repu­ta­tion for crea­ti­vity in formats, quality and food inno­va­tion. In a frag­men­ted Euro­pean market which is under­ser­ved by larger groups, the Vermaat plat­form, working with Bridge­point, will have the resour­ces and inter­na­tio­nal reach to further deve­lop its German presence and to enter new markets across Europe.” The premium outsour­ced cate­ring segment is the fastest growing segment in the larger cate­ring market and is curr­ently valued at over €2 billion within the combi­ned Dutch and German cate­ring markets valued at €13 billion.

Advi­sors Bridge­point: Roth­schild (Corpo­rate Finance), EY (Finan­cial and Commer­cial), White­Space Part­ners (Commer­cial), Fresh­fields (Legal), ERM (ESG).

Paris - Ardian, one of the world’s leading invest­ment houses, acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Staci, a leading Euro­pean specialty logi­stics company from Copeba. The manage­ment team led by Thomas Mortier parti­ci­pa­tes along­side Ardian as well as Société Générale’s invest­ment teams.

Foun­ded in 1989, Staci is a Euro­pean market-leading inde­pen­dent provi­der of inno­va­tive B2B and B2B2C logi­stics solu­ti­ons for busi­nesses. Staci has unique exper­tise in mana­ging complex and scalable logi­stics opera­ti­ons, such as deal­ing with a variety of suppli­ers and deli­very points, small quan­ti­ties, special formats, and products with and without barcodes. In parti­cu­lar, the company has deve­lo­ped strong exper­tise in the logi­stics of adver­ti­sing and promo­tio­nal media.

Staci employs around 1,900 people and gene­ra­ted sales of more than 250 million euros in 2018. The company opera­tes 25 warehou­ses in Bene­lux, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

Staci has a leading posi­tion in its market niche, based on a model of pooling its warehou­ses and resour­ces and its port­fo­lio of services, which are all built around a proprie­tary IT system. Staci is present throug­hout Europe with a wide spec­trum of clients ranging from multi­na­tio­nal groups to local compa­nies across seve­ral sectors, inclu­ding food, health and cosme­tics, tele­coms and finan­cial services. Staci has about 1,900 employees and gene­ra­ted more than 250 million euros in turno­ver in 2018.

Thomas Mortier, CEO of Staci, said: “Staci employees are deligh­ted to open this new page in the company’s history with Ardian. The manage­ment team has reinves­ted very signi­fi­cantly in the busi­ness and we share the same values and vision with the Ardian team with regards to Staci’s deve­lo­p­ment stra­tegy in France and abroad. I would like to thank our employees, part­ners and share­hol­ders for their commit­ment, support and profes­sio­na­lism, which every day contri­bute to the quality of the services we provide to our customers.”

Lise Faucon­nier, Mana­ging Direc­tor, and Alex­andre Vannelle, Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout, said: “We are proud to invest in Staci to acce­le­rate the next phase of its deve­lo­p­ment and to support Thomas Mortier and his team. The high quality of the rela­ti­onships estab­lished, and their strong growth reflect the company’s excel­lence. Along­side the manage­ment team, we will conti­nue to deve­lop Staci and conso­li­date its presence in key geogra­phi­cal areas through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, in a market that is still very fragmented.”

Jean-Marie Laurent Josi, CEO, and Charles-Henri Chaliac, Member of the Execu­tive Commit­tee of Cobepa, said: “We are deligh­ted to have been able to support Thomas Mortier and his team in the execu­tion of a truly trans­for­ma­tive stra­te­gic plan for the Staci Group, which has been able to both streng­then its posi­tion in its local market, while fulfil­ling its inter­na­tio­nal ambi­ti­ons and simul­ta­neously streng­thening links with its main custo­mers. The Group’s unique know-how, coupled with its strong poten­tial for orga­nic and acqui­si­tive growth, enables it to move smoothly into its new deve­lo­p­ment phase with the support of Ardian.”

Staci is the fifth invest­ment of Ardian’s buyout team in 2019. With 49 employees in Paris, Frank­furt, Milan and London, the team invests in high-quality mid- and large-cap compa­nies across Western Europe, apply­ing trans­for­ma­tion stra­te­gies that enable them to become world leaders in their niche markets.

Munich, London, Paris, Tilburg, Chateau-Thierry — Silver­fleet Capi­tal, a pan-Euro­pean private equity firm, has acqui­red majo­rity stakes in BOA Puri­fied Solu­ti­ons and BOA Flexi­ble Solu­ti­ons. The seller of the shares is the German BOA Group. The two comple­men­tary busi­ness units with loca­ti­ons in Tilburg, the Nether­lands, and Chateau-Thierry, France, now operate under the umbrella of “BOA Core­Dux” and are leaders in the produc­tion of custo­mi­zed high-purity metal hoses for criti­cal indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

BOA Flexi­ble Solu­ti­ons deve­lops and manu­fac­tures flexi­ble metal hoses used prima­rily for trans­port­ing liquids and gases in envi­ron­ments with high tempe­ra­ture and vibra­tion loads, such as gas turbi­nes, avia­tion and other indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. BOA Puri­fied Solu­ti­ons produ­ces high purity tubing and systems for use in the High Tech and Health Tech indus­tries. BOA Core­Dux covers the entire value chain and often deve­lops products toge­ther with key customers.

The majo­rity invest­ment in BOA Core­Dux is part of Silver­fleet Capital’s stra­tegy to invest in markets with strong growth momen­tum — at BOA Core­Dux this is driven by tech­no­lo­gi­cal advance­ments driven by higher demands in purity control as well as precis­ion engi­nee­ring and precis­ion manu­fac­tu­ring in indus­tries such as semi­con­duc­tor, aero­space and life science.

Silver­fleet Capital’s invest­ment will enable BOA Core­Dux to conti­nue its solid growth trajec­tory. The product port­fo­lio and the current market presence are to be expan­ded and new markets opened up; in addi­tion, the focus is on impro­ving opera­tio­nal proces­ses and buil­ding an inter­na­tio­nal plat­form through targe­ted add-on acquisitions.

BOA Core­Dux marks Silver­fleet Capital’s tenth invest­ment from its current mid-market fund and second in the Nether­lands this year. BOA Core­Dux thus comple­ments a broad port­fo­lio that alre­ady includes compa­nies from the UK, France, Scan­di­na­via, the Bene­lux count­ries and Germany.

“BOA Core­Dux is a clear leader in a promi­sing indus­try with strong, tech­no­logy-driven growth and has mana­ged to build long-stan­ding and stable inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer rela­ti­onships. In the future, we want to further deve­lop the product port­fo­lio and open up new markets. To achieve this, we will work closely with the new Chair­man Simon Bambach, the manage­ment team and the employees,” says Jean Châtil­lon, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal in Paris.

Jan Hennip­man, CEO at BOA Core­Dux adds: “I am deligh­ted that we have attrac­ted Silver­fleet Capi­tal as an inves­tor. Silver­fleet Capi­tal has alre­ady supported nume­rous Euro­pean compa­nies in their deve­lo­p­ment and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and is an ideal part­ner for our upco­ming growth phase. Both their many years of expe­ri­ence with compa­nies in the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try and their inter­na­tio­nal network repre­sent an inva­luable advan­tage for achie­ving our growth targets.”

At Silver­fleet Capi­tal, Jean Châtil­lon and Vincent Clément from the Paris office and Erik Fuchs from the Amster­dam office were respon­si­ble for the current transaction.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal was advi­sed by Advancy (Commer­cial), De Brauw Blackstone West­br­oek, Ropes & Gray (both Legal), PwC (Finan­cial & Carve-Out, Tax & Debt Advi­sory) Intui­tus (IT), ERM (Envi­ron­ment) and Aon (Insu­rance). Debt finan­cing was provi­ded by Muzi­nich & Co and Rabo­bank.

About BOA CoreDux
BOA Core­Dux is part of the BOA Group, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of compon­ents for the auto­mo­tive indus­try and other indus­trial sectors. With appro­xi­m­ately 210 employees in Tilburg, the Nether­lands, and Chateau-Thierry, France, BOA Core­Dux is one of the leading produ­cers of custo­mi­zed, high-purity metal hoses for criti­cal indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. BOA Core­Dux consists of two comple­men­tary busi­ness units: BOA Flexi­ble Solu­ti­ons deve­lops and manu­fac­tures flexi­ble metal hoses used prima­rily for trans­port­ing liquids and gases in envi­ron­ments with high tempe­ra­ture and vibra­tion loads, such as in gas turbi­nes, avia­tion or other indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. BOA Puri­fied Solu­ti­ons produ­ces high purity tubing and systems for use in the high tech­no­logy and health­care indus­tries. www.coredux.com

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years. The 30-strong invest­ment team works from Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

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

Silver­fleet Capi­tal also main­ta­ins an invest­ment team focu­sed on smal­ler middle-market compa­nies, which has alre­ady made two successful invest­ments: STAXS Conta­mi­na­tion Control Experts, a leading supplier of clean­room supplies in the Bene­lux (closed in Janu­ary 2019), and Micro­gen Finan­cial Systems, a leading provi­der of trust and fund admi­nis­tra­tion soft­ware to the trust and corpo­rate services indus­try (pending share­hol­der appr­oval of seller Apti­tude Soft­ware Group plc).

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth by inves­t­ing in compa­nies in its core sectors that bene­fit from speci­fic, long-term trends. Silver­fleet supports these compa­nies in their future growth stra­te­gies. As part of these stra­te­gies, invest­ments are made in orga­nic growth drivers, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons or opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ment proces­ses. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €2 billion in 31 compa­nies. Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods.

Munich-Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners acqui­res GfS — Gesell­schaft für Sicher­heits­tech­nik mbH. The law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed the Munich-based invest­ment company Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of GfS — Gesell­schaft für Sicher­heits­tech­nik mbH.

GfS — Gesell­schaft für Sicher­heits­tech­nik mbH is one of the leading Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­r­ers of escape route safety systems. The owner-mana­ged family busi­ness from Hamburg has been deve­lo­ping, manu­fac­tu­ring and selling these for over 40 years. Custo­mers include retail stores, hospi­tals, nursing homes, airports and muse­ums. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or the amount of financing.

Gütt Olk Feld­haus is support­ing both the nego­tia­ti­ons of the share purchase agree­ment and the finan­cing on the part of Maxburg through UniCre­dit Bank AG as sole bookrunner.

Legal advi­sors Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners: Gütt Olk Feldhaus
Munich: Dr. Heiner Feld­haus (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Corporate), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Lead, Banking/Finance), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion and Commer­cial), Matthias Uelner, Isabelle Vran­cken (both M&A/Corporate), Chris­to­pher Ghabel (Banking/Finance).
Alten­burg Fach­an­wälte für Arbeits­recht, Munich (labor law): Andreas Ege, Dr. Char­lotte Beck

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus 
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading commer­cial law firm based in Munich. The firm’s prac­tice areas are corpo­rate law, M&A, finance and liti­ga­tion with a focus on tran­sac­tions and inter­na­tio­nal aspects.

Frank­furt am Main/Munich — Allen & Overy advi­sed the British private equity firm Bridge­point Europe IV Fund (Bridge­point) and the manage­ment on the sale of Bike24 GmbH (Bike24) to a subsi­diary of The River­side Company (River­side). The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Bike24, based in Dres­den, is one of the leading German online retail­ers for cycling, running, swim­ming, triath­lon, fitness, outdoor and rela­ted products.

Bridge­point is a leading inter­na­tio­nal private equity firm focu­sed on invest­ments in market-leading compa­nies. The company had acqui­red Bike24 at the end of 2017 as part of a trade sale from River­side, which had first joined the Saxon-based online retailer in 2015.

Advi­sor Bridgpoint: The team of Allen & Overy
Dr. Astrid Krüger, Part­ner (Munich), Dr. Roman Kasten, Coun­sel (Frank­furt, both Corporate/M&A and Private Equity)

It also compri­sed the part­ners Dr. Alex­an­der Veith (Corporate/M&A and Private Equity, Munich), Dr. Heike Weber (Tax, Frank­furt), Peter Banks (Corpo­rate, London), Dr. Walter Uebel­hoer (Banking and Finance, Munich), Dr. Jens Matthes (IP/IT, Düssel­dorf) and Charles Yorke (Tax, London), Coun­sel Dr. Udo H. Olgem­öl­ler (Public Law, Frank­furt), the senior asso­cia­tes Heiner Meck­len­burg (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Dr. Jörg Weber (Banking and Finance, Munich) and Dr. Sebas­tian Schulz (Labor Law, Frank­furt), asso­cia­tes Robert Jochim, Bastian Schmack (both Frank­furt), Michael Haase, Elisa­beth Pich­ler, Johan­nes Graßl (all Corporate/M&A and Private Equity), Dr. Rauni Aham­mer (Banking and Finance, all Munich), Sven Bisch­off, Tobias Eggert (both Tax, Frank­furt), Catha­rina Glugla (Data Protec­tion, Düssel­dorf) and Caro­line Craw­ford (Corpo­rate, London).

 

Frank­furt a. Main — Halder has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Drumag Fluid­tech­nik in Bad Säckin­gen and EPH Elek­tro­nik in Besig­heim-Ottmars­heim as part of a succes­sion plan. In addi­tion to the two German sites, the group of compa­nies has acti­vi­ties in Switz­er­land and Lithua­nia. In 2018, the total of 145 employees gene­ra­ted sales of 22 million euros.

Drumag has over 100 years of expe­ri­ence in pneu­ma­tics, hydro­pneu­ma­tics, hydrau­lics and propor­tio­nal tech­no­logy. The company deve­lops, produ­ces and opti­mi­zes, in parti­cu­lar, appli­ca­tion-speci­fic systems in the areas of driving, control­ling and moving. EPH’s range of services includes, among other things, power and control elec­tro­nics in various designs through to rotary drive units inclu­ding motors and geared motors. The strength of the two compa­nies is the deve­lo­p­ment of complex solu­ti­ons for custo­mer-speci­fic appli­ca­ti­ons that require the highest precis­ion, relia­bi­lity and func­tion­a­lity in a confi­ned space.

The Group has exten­sive deve­lo­p­ment, design, labo­ra­tory and manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties. This starts with hard­ware and soft­ware engi­nee­ring and extends to assem­bly and system produc­tion. The custo­mer indus­tries include mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, avia­tion, and the pack­a­ging, auto­ma­tion, and medi­cal tech­no­logy indus­tries. The Group supplies around 2,000 custo­mers, ranging from major inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons to medium-sized busi­nesses. For many custo­mers, the compa­nies have been stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment part­ners for decades.

Growth poten­tial arises from the incre­asing demand for custo­mi­zed elec­tro-mecha­ni­cal solu­ti­ons in drive tech­no­logy. The group of compa­nies is bene­fiting from the incre­asing auto­ma­tion of indus­trial produc­tion as part of the Indus­try 4.0 trend. In this way, the Group is to conti­nue its growth path with exis­ting and new custo­mers. Ulrich Zieg­ler, selling share­hol­der, said: “Halder has made it possi­ble for me to succeed as a share­hol­der. I am convin­ced that with Halder the group has the right part­ner to conti­nue the success story.” Phil­ipp Scheier (photo), Part­ner at Halder, added: “We were impres­sed by the tech­no­lo­gi­cal compe­ten­cies of the compa­nies. Halder will support the group’s further deve­lo­p­ment with full force.”

“We are deligh­ted to have Halder as an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner who will nurture our highly moti­va­ted team and support us in our growth for the bene­fit of our custo­mers,” added Frank Kuttler, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Drumag. Stefan Schell­mann Mana­ging Direc­tor of EPH explai­ned: “With Halder as a strong finan­cial part­ner, we are expan­ding our possi­bi­li­ties. The aim is to be able to offer our custo­mers an even wider range of system solutions.”

Advi­sors to HALDER: CMS Hasche Sigle (Law: Dr. Oliver Wolfgramm)
Luther (Law/Finance: Chris­toph Schauenburg)
Deloitte (finance, tax, struc­tu­ring: Chris­tof Dreib­holz, Clemens Peter­sen), Estin (market due dili­gence: Marco Maeder, Philip Geiser)
Anthe­sis (Envi­ron­ment: Frank Schmidt)
Euro Tran­sac­tion Solu­ti­ons(Insu­rance: Jürgen Rein­schmidt) advised.

LGT Private Debt (deal team: Jona­than Smith, Felix Fink­ler) provi­ded the acqui­si­tion financing.

About HALDER
Halder has been active as an invest­ment company in the German-spea­king region since 1991 and during this time has provi­ded equity capi­tal to 40 medium-sized compa­nies for succes­sion and growth. Halder supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, in the further deve­lo­p­ment of their stra­tegy and busi­ness model, and in invest­ments to expand capa­city and finance acqui­si­ti­ons. The invest­ment in the group is the second invest­ment of the Halder VI fund. Halder (deal team: Phil­ipp Scheier, Jatin­der Pal Singh)

Munich, London, Paris, Tilburg, Chateau-Thierry — Silver­fleet Capi­tal, a pan-Euro­pean private equity firm, has acqui­red majo­rity stakes in BOA Puri­fied Solu­ti­ons and BOA Flexi­ble Solu­ti­ons. The seller of the shares is the German BOA Group. The two comple­men­tary busi­ness units with loca­ti­ons in Tilburg, the Nether­lands, and Chateau-Thierry, France, now operate under the umbrella of “BOA Core­Dux” and are leaders in the produc­tion of custo­mi­zed high-purity metal hoses for criti­cal indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

BOA Flexi­ble Solu­ti­ons deve­lops and manu­fac­tures flexi­ble metal hoses used prima­rily for trans­port­ing liquids and gases in envi­ron­ments with high tempe­ra­ture and vibra­tion loads, such as gas turbi­nes, avia­tion and other indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. BOA Puri­fied Solu­ti­ons produ­ces high purity tubing and systems for use in the High Tech and Health Tech indus­tries. BOA Core­Dux covers the entire value chain and often deve­lops products toge­ther with key customers.

The majo­rity invest­ment in BOA Core­Dux is part of Silver­fleet Capital’s stra­tegy to invest in markets with strong growth momen­tum — at BOA Core­Dux this is driven by tech­no­lo­gi­cal advance­ments driven by higher demands in purity control as well as precis­ion engi­nee­ring and precis­ion manu­fac­tu­ring in indus­tries such as semi­con­duc­tor, aero­space and life science.

Silver­fleet Capital’s invest­ment will enable BOA Core­Dux to conti­nue its solid growth trajec­tory. The product port­fo­lio and the current market presence are to be expan­ded and new markets opened up; in addi­tion, the focus is on impro­ving opera­tio­nal proces­ses and buil­ding an inter­na­tio­nal plat­form through targe­ted add-on acquisitions.

BOA Core­Dux marks Silver­fleet Capital’s tenth invest­ment from its current mid-market fund and second in the Nether­lands this year. BOA Core­Dux thus comple­ments a broad port­fo­lio that alre­ady includes compa­nies from the UK, France, Scan­di­na­via, the Bene­lux count­ries and Germany.

“BOA Core­Dux is a clear leader in a promi­sing indus­try with strong, tech­no­logy-driven growth and has mana­ged to build long-stan­ding and stable inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer rela­ti­onships. In the future, we want to further deve­lop the product port­fo­lio and open up new markets. To achieve this, we will work closely with the new Chair­man Simon Bambach, the manage­ment team and the employees,” says Jean Châtil­lon, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal in Paris.

Jan Hennip­man, CEO at BOA Core­Dux adds: “I am deligh­ted that we have attrac­ted Silver­fleet Capi­tal as an inves­tor. Silver­fleet Capi­tal has alre­ady supported nume­rous Euro­pean compa­nies in their deve­lo­p­ment and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and is an ideal part­ner for our upco­ming growth phase. Both their many years of expe­ri­ence with compa­nies in the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try and their inter­na­tio­nal network repre­sent an inva­luable advan­tage for achie­ving our growth targets.”

At Silver­fleet Capi­tal, Jean Châtil­lon and Vincent Clément from the Paris office and Erik Fuchs from the Amster­dam office were respon­si­ble for the current transaction.

Advi­sor Silver­fleet Capital:
Advancy (Commer­cial), De Brauw Blackstone West­br­oek, Ropes & Gray (both Legal), PwC (Finan­cial & Carve-Out, Tax & Debt Advi­sory) Intui­tus (IT), ERM (Envi­ron­ment) and Aon (Insu­rance). Debt finan­cing was provi­ded by Muzi­nich & Co and Rabo­bank.

About BOA CoreDux
BOA Core­Dux is part of the BOA Group, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of compon­ents for the auto­mo­tive indus­try and other indus­trial sectors. With appro­xi­m­ately 210 employees in Tilburg, the Nether­lands, and Chateau-Thierry, France, BOA Core­Dux is one of the leading produ­cers of custo­mi­zed, high-purity metal hoses for criti­cal indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. BOA Core­Dux consists of two comple­men­tary busi­ness units: BOA Flexi­ble Solu­ti­ons deve­lops and manu­fac­tures flexi­ble metal hoses used prima­rily for trans­port­ing liquids and gases in envi­ron­ments with high tempe­ra­ture and vibra­tion loads, such as in gas turbi­nes, avia­tion or other indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. BOA Puri­fied Solu­ti­ons produ­ces high purity tubing and systems for use in the high tech­no­logy and health­care indus­tries. www.coredux.com

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years. The 30-strong invest­ment team works from Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

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

Silver­fleet Capi­tal also main­ta­ins an invest­ment team focu­sed on smal­ler middle-market compa­nies, which has alre­ady made two successful invest­ments: STAXS Conta­mi­na­tion Control Experts, a leading supplier of clean­room supplies in the Bene­lux (closed in Janu­ary 2019), and Micro­gen Finan­cial Systems, a leading provi­der of trust and fund admi­nis­tra­tion soft­ware to the trust and corpo­rate services indus­try (pending share­hol­der appr­oval of seller Apti­tude Soft­ware Group plc).

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth by inves­t­ing in compa­nies in its core sectors that bene­fit from speci­fic, long-term trends. Silver­fleet supports these compa­nies in their future growth stra­te­gies. As part of these stra­te­gies, invest­ments are made in orga­nic growth drivers, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons or opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ment proces­ses. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €2 billion in 31 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods. Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 31% of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 34% in the UK and Ireland, 18% in Scan­di­na­via, and 17% in France and Bene­lux (includes a U.S.-headquartered invest­ment sourced in Belgium).

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has a solid invest­ment track record. Most recently, Silver­fleet sold Phase One, a leading tech­no­logy company in the field of high-end digi­tal camera systems and for image proces­sing soft­ware (invest­ment multi­ple 4.6x); Ipes, a leading provi­der of outsour­cing services for Euro­pean private equity compa­nies (invest­ment multi­ple 3.7x); CCC, one of the leading BPO services provi­ders in Europe; and Cimbria, a Danish manu­fac­tu­rer of agri­cul­tu­ral equip­ment (invest­ment multi­ple cannot be disc­lo­sed for legal reasons); Kalle, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of arti­fi­cial sausage sticks (invest­ment multi­ple 3.5x); OFFICE, a UK-based foot­wear retailer (invest­ment multi­ple 3.4x); and Aesica, a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal CDMO company (invest­ment multi­ple 3.3x).

Vancouver/Dublin/Munich — Clio, the world’s leading provi­der of a cloud-based SaaS plat­form for lawy­ers and law firms, has closed one of the largest funding rounds in the Legal­Tech sector and in Cana­dian history. The tech­no­logy and soft­ware inves­tors JMI Equity and TCV (inclu­ding Airbnb, Expe­dia, Face­book, Flix­Bus, Spotify) from Cali­for­nia, USA inves­ted US$ 250 million in a Series D round for further growth. Acton Capi­tal has been a key supporter of Clio since 2012 and has now sold its stake as part of the transaction.

As an inte­gra­ted, cloud-based SaaS plat­form, Clio hand­les the essen­tial admi­nis­tra­tive tasks for lawy­ers and law firms. As a digi­tiza­tion driver in the indus­try, Clio offers an alter­na­tive to expen­sive, outda­ted and time-consum­ing client-server solu­ti­ons for now more than 150,000 lawy­ers world­wide. This allows users to focus enti­rely on serving their clients, ther­eby incre­asing attor­ney produc­ti­vity and impro­ving access to legal advice.

Clio was foun­ded in 2008 by Jack Newton and Rian Gauvreau in Vancou­ver, BC, and has been backed to date by venture capi­tal inves­tors inclu­ding Acton Capi­tal and Besse­mer Venture Part­ners with funding tota­ling US$26 million. Clio now employs more than 400 people at loca­ti­ons in Vancou­ver, Calgary, Toronto, Los Ange­les and Dublin. Clio will invest the new capi­tal in the global expan­sion of its plat­form and thus in the imple­men­ta­tion of the foun­ders’ vision of reali­zing custo­mer orien­ta­tion in legal advice as well.

Chris­toph Braun, Mana­ging Part­ner at Acton Capi­tal: “Since our first invest­ment in 2012, Clio’s success has always been based on the clear long-term vision of its foun­ders and a client-centric product stra­tegy. Today, Clio is the leading inter­na­tio­nal Legal­Tech company in the world, enab­ling its custo­mers to spend more time on behalf of their clients. We are proud to have been able to support Clio on its way to beco­ming the market leader.”

About Clio
Clio provi­des a cloud-based soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) plat­form for lawy­ers and law firms world­wide. Clio hand­les key admi­nis­tra­tive and manage­ment tasks, such as client intake, CRM, billing, time track­ing and docu­men­ta­tion, to allow its now 150,000+ clients more time to serve their clients. With initia­ti­ves such as the Legal Trends Report or the Clio Cloud Confe­rence in San Diego, the company is one of the digi­tiza­tion drivers in the indus­try. Clio employs over 400 people at loca­ti­ons in Canada, the U.S. and Europe and has recei­ved nume­rous awards as an inno­va­tion leader and employer (e.g. Canada’s Best Mana­ged Compa­nies, Deloitte Fast 50 and Fast 500 company, Company of the Year, Anchor Success by the British Colum­bia Tech Asso­cia­tion). Details at clio.com.

About Acton Capital
Acton Capi­tal Part­ners is an inter­na­tio­nal growth inves­tor based in Munich. Since 1999, the team has successfully inves­ted in digi­tal pioneers in Europe and North America. The invest­ment focus is on scalable busi­ness models from the areas of Future of Work, digi­tal market­places and plat­forms, ecom­merce, FinTech and soft­ware-as-a-service. Some of the best known invest­ments include Alando, Home­Togo, Etsy, iwoca and Alpha­Sights, details on actoncapital.com.

Frank­furt a. Main — Shear­man & Ster­ling has advi­sed DBAG Fund VII, advi­sed by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), on the acqui­si­tion of Carton­plast Group GmbH (Carton­plast), a leading Euro­pean opera­tor of a pool system for reusable plas­tic layer pads. In a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), DBAG Fund VII will acquire the majo­rity of shares in Carton­plast from finan­cial inves­tor Stir­ling Square Capi­tal Part­ners. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to the appr­oval of the anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is not expec­ted before Octo­ber 2019.

Carton­plast is the eighth invest­ment of DBAG Fund VII. The company, head­quar­te­red in Diet­zen­bach, Germany, was foun­ded in 1985. It prima­rily rents reusable and recy­clable plas­tic liners for trans­port­ing glass bott­les, cans and other glass or PET food contai­ners to the manu­fac­tu­r­ers of these containers.

Shear­man & Ster­ling regu­larly advi­ses Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG on tran­sac­tions, most recently in Octo­ber 2018 on the acqui­si­tion of SERO Schrö­der GmbH.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team included Dr. Thomas König and Asso­ciate Dr. Aliresa Fatemi (both Lead, Frank­furt M&A), Part­ner Dr. Esther Jansen (Frank­furt Finance) and Asso­cia­tes Denise Tayler, Evelin Moini, Sven Opper­mann (all Frank­furt M&A), Martina Buller (Frank­furt Finance) and Dr. Astrid Ruppelt (Frank­furt Tax) as well as Tran­sac­tion Specia­list Deniz Alkanli (Frank­furt Finance).

Inhouse DBAG: Florian Döring

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 23 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.