News-Kategorie: Private Equity

Munich, London, Paris — Silver­fleet Capi­tal, a pan-Euro­pean private equity firm, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in CARE Ferti­lity Holdings Limi­ted (“CARE”). Head­quar­te­red in Notting­ham, England, the company is a leading opera­tor of ferti­lity clinics in the United King­dom. CARE’s above-average success rates are based on a strong scien­ti­fic and clini­cal approach. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Foun­ded in 1997, the company opera­tes nine clinics and 13 offices in the United King­dom and Ireland. Since its incep­tion, CARE has helped launch the birth of more than 30,000 babies. The company’s success rate across all key metrics is among the highest in the UK. With exten­sive rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties, CARE is an inno­va­tion driver in the indus­try. The company lever­a­ges data and clini­cal exper­tise to pioneer cutting-edge treat­ments and proce­du­res to market.

The invest­ment in CARE is based on Silverfleet’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in health­care and its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in high-growth markets — in this case, ferti­lity services — and helping compa­nies expand dome­sti­cally and inter­na­tio­nally. With the help of Silver­fleet, CARE will conti­nue its strong, diver­si­fied growth trajec­tory. This includes expan­ding the clinic network in the UK, deve­lo­ping new products and services to improve pati­ent success rates, and making further acqui­si­ti­ons to conso­li­date the highly frag­men­ted market in order to build an inter­na­tio­nal plat­form in the ferti­lity clinic sector.

The invest­ment in CARE is Silverfleet’s ninth over­all from the current fund and comple­ments a port­fo­lio that includes compa­nies in the UK, France, Scan­di­na­via and Germany.

Alfa Chan (photo), Part­ner at Silver­fleet and respon­si­ble for health­care invest­ments, says: “CARE is the clear market leader in a sector that shows high growth poten­tial as the demand for ferti­lity services conti­nues to increase. The CARE brand has a strong repu­ta­tion and treat­ment outco­mes are leading the market. We look forward to working closely with the manage­ment team and employees to further deve­lop the business.”

David Burford, CEO of CARE, adds, “Silver­fleet is the ideal part­ner to take our company to the next level of its growth. Silverfleet’s impres­sive track record of helping compa­nies execute their growth plans, as well as their exten­sive invest­ment expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector, will be very valuable. I’ve known the Silver­fleet team for a long time and look forward to imple­men­ting our plans together.”

The Silver­fleet team for this tran­sac­tion includes Alfa Chan, Sumit Dheir, Peter Kise­nyi and Domi­nic Mitchell, based in Silver­fleet Capital’s London office.

Consul­tant Silverfleet:
Lincoln (M&A), PwC (Finan­cial, Commer­cial & Tax), Ropes & Gray (Legal, Corpo­rate), Deloitte (Debt Advi­sory), WA Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons (Poli­ti­cal), Intui­tus (IT) and AJ Gallag­her (Insu­rance).
Apollo provi­ded the debt capi­tal.

About CARE Fertility
Foun­ded in 1997, CARE Ferti­lity is the leading ferti­lity service provi­der in the United King­dom, having successfully laun­ched the birth of more than 30,0000 babies since its incep­tion. CARE is an inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed brand and is synony­mous with inno­va­tion with leading ferti­lity success rates driven by clini­cal excel­lence and conti­nuous improvement.

Today, CARE Ferti­lity opera­tes nine CARE clinics and 13 offices, provi­ding compre­hen­sive coverage in the United King­dom and Ireland.

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.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a 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; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

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 €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four indus­try focus areas:
Busi­ness and finan­cial services, health­care, manu­fac­tu­ring, and retail and consu­mer goods. Its exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector is based on seve­ral successful previous invest­ments — inclu­ding Aesica (phar­maceu­ti­cal contract deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring) and Steri­ge­nics (contract steri­liza­tion services), which gene­ra­ted returns of 3.3x and 3.6x, respectively.

Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the U.K. and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (includes an invest­ment head­quar­te­red in the U.S. and sourcing in Belgium).

Hamburg/ Oberhausen/ Munich — BDO Legal advi­sed DMB Deut­sche Motor­sport Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft on the sale of NetRange MMH GmbH, the leading provi­der of cloud-based info­tain­ment solu­ti­ons for smart TVs and connec­ted cars. The acqui­rer is ACCESS Europe GmbH, a provi­der of connec­ted enter­tain­ment and also a German subsi­diary of the listed Japa­nese company ACCESS CO., LTD.

Hamburg-based NetRange MMH GmbH was foun­ded in 2009 by Jan Wendt and quickly became a pioneer in smart TV solu­ti­ons. With an inter­na­tio­nal network of curr­ently over 4,000 part­ners in more than 100 count­ries, the company has become the leading content provi­der and serves major custo­mers such as Grun­dig, Loewe and Voda­fone. Mean­while, NetRange has also expan­ded its offe­ring to include info­tain­ment for cars. DMB is an invest­ment holding of Jan Wendt.

Ober­hau­sen-based ACCESS Europe GmbH, which reports to Tokyo-based ACCESS CO. LTD., has been a provi­der of forward-looking IT solu­ti­ons around mobile commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and network soft­ware tech­no­lo­gies for a wide range of play­ers around the world since the 1980s. Mean­while, its soft­ware solu­ti­ons have been instal­led on more than 1.5 billion devices world­wide — inclu­ding cars, TVs, smart­phones, tablets, game conso­les and more. With this acqui­si­tion, ACCESS Europe GmbH aims to become the market leader in the field of soft­ware-based info­tain­ment solutions.

Jan Wendt on the tran­sac­tion: “I am deligh­ted to have found a buyer that is an excel­lent stra­te­gic fit for NetRange. The acqui­si­tion has set a mile­stone for the connec­ted car indus­try. At the same time, it is a strong response to the growing colla­bo­ra­tion between the auto­mo­tive and enter­tain­ment indus­tries. ACCESS will successfully deve­lop NetRange’s busi­ness as a global, publicly traded company. In the dive­st­ment process, the fast and profes­sio­nal advice provi­ded by BDO Legal contri­bu­ted to the success of this very ambi­tious tran­sac­tion in terms of time.”

Advi­sor DMB Deut­sche Motor­sport Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH:
Legal Advi­sory: BDO Legal Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH
The advi­sory services of BDO Legal Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH compri­sed the entire legal advice to DMB: Dr. Daniel Wied (lead, M&A/Munich), Dr. Konstan­tin Michel­sen (M&A/Hamburg), Peter Klumpp (Tax/Hamburg), Hans-Gerd Hunfeld (Tax/Hamburg), Peter Bellen­dorf (M&A/Hamburg), Yana Krause (M&A/Hamburg), Luisa Reimitz (M&A/Hamburg)

M&A Advi­sory: Clip­per­ton

Advi­sor ACCESS CO, LTD: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

Berlin - Moon­fare has closed an over­sub­scri­bed Series A finan­cing round. In total they raised €25m of capi­tal to date with it’s team of 23 people, a board of direc­tors of 4 and 34 inves­tors. Accor­ding to the foun­der Alex­an­der Argy­ros’ (photo)philo­so­phy, the capi­tal will be dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding upon Moonfare’s world-class invest­ment plat­form that enables private indi­vi­du­als to invest into top-tier private equity funds.

Moonfare’s share­hol­der base is now compri­sed of more than 100 private equity insi­ders, C‑level execu­ti­ves and entre­pre­neurs from across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. This is one of the largest Series A rounds ever done in Europe by indi­vi­dual inves­tors. We thank our share­hol­ders and Moon­fare inves­tors for their conti­nuous trust and support.

To date, Moon­fare has brought six top-tier private equity funds to market inclu­ding offe­rings from EQT, the Carlyle Group and Warburg Pincus. In 2019 alone, we expect to bring an addi­tio­nal 8–10 funds on the plat­form. www.moonfare.com .

Frank­furt am Main/ Oslo — The Norwe­gian Infront ASA has acqui­red the German vwd Group GmbH inclu­ding its Euro­pean subsi­dia­ries to create the leading Euro­pean provi­der of finan­cial market solu­ti­ons. The current majo­rity owner, private equity giant The Carlyle Group, had acqui­red its shares in 2012. Bird & Bird LLP advi­sed Infront ASA on this transaction

The Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity (BaFin) must now decide on the execu­tion of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion with a purchase price of EUR 130 million is plan­ned for the second quar­ter of 2019.

With the forth­co­ming take­over, Infront will acquire not only vwd Group GmbH but also all nine Euro­pean subsi­dia­ries, inclu­ding vwd Verei­nigte Wirt­schafts­dienste GmbH, as well as other compa­nies in Germany, the Nether­lands, Belgium, Luxem­bourg, Italy and Switz­er­land. Head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main, vwd offers fintech and regtech products and services for the invest­ment indus­try. The acqui­si­tion extends Infront’s reach to conti­nen­tal Europe through its Nordic home markets and opera­ti­ons in the UK, France and South Africa, crea­ting Europe’s leading finan­cial market solu­ti­ons provi­der. (stock market advertisement)

Infront is a global Norwe­gian finan­cial analy­sis provi­der and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exch­ange. The company relies on highly inno­va­tive tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons in the form of Soft­ware as a Service (Saas) and cloud-based appli­ca­ti­ons. Infront ASA provi­des its clients with market data, trading solu­ti­ons and up-to-date news for profes­sio­nal and private inves­tors in the Nordic count­ries and inter­na­tio­nally. With the so-called Infront Profes­sio­nal Termi­nal, users can access market data, company news, and analy­ses in real time, as well as trade elec­tro­ni­cally on the finan­cial market. The company was foun­ded in Oslo in 1998.

Bird & Bird and its inter­na­tio­nal team led by part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (Corporate/M&A) advi­sed the German, Dutch and Belgian markets. In addi­tion to corpo­rate law, the focus was on regu­la­tory issues rela­ting to the finan­cial services indus­try. The inter­na­tio­nal lead for the tran­sac­tion was provi­ded by the Norwe­gian law firm Selmer.

Advi­sor Infront ASA: Bird & Bird (Germany, The Hague and Brussels)
Part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (Lead Part­ner ) and Asso­ciate Dr. Ann-Kris­tin Asmuß, LL.M. (Corporate/M&A) as well as Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann (Lead Part­ner Regu­la­tion) and Asso­ciate Johan­nes Wirtz, LL.M. (Banking & Finance/Regulation) formed the core team. Also invol­ved were asso­cia­tes Inga Kerner, Chyn­gyz Timur, LL.M. and Michael Maier (Corporate/M&A) as well as Julia Fröh­der (Banking & Finance/Regulation), Part­ner Dr. Barbara Geck and Asso­ciate Florian Kesse­nich (Labor Law), Part­ner Jörg-Alex­an­der Paul and Asso­ciate Holger Nieden­führ (Commercial/IT) and Senior Coun­sel Mascha Grund­mann (Intellec­tual Property); Part­ner Pauline Vos and Asso­ciate Marinke Moeli­ker, (Corporate/M&A), Anne­ma­rieke van Vlodrop (Labor Law) and Coun­sel Karen Berg (Commer­cial), all Nether­lands; Part­ner Paul Hermant and Asso­cia­tes Cedric Berck­mans, (Corporate/M&A), Anton Aerts (Labor Law), all Belgium.

Selmer AS (Norway): Thomas G. Miche­let, Remi Dramstad and Jon Fred­rik Johan­sen (joint lead)Schellenberg Witt­mer (Switz­er­land): Pascal Hubli and Karin Mülchi
Gattai Minoli Agos­ti­nelli Part­ners (Italy): Nicola Marte­gani and Gerardo Gabrielli

Frank­furt a. M. — A fund advi­sed by Palla­dio Part­ners (“Palla­dio”) has acqui­red 25% of the Rail­pool Group from Oakt­ree Capi­tal Manage­ment. The funds advi­sed by Palla­dio now hold a total of 50% in Rail­pool. The other 50% is held by GIC (Singa­pore Sove­reign Wealth Fund).

Rail­pool was foun­ded in Munich in 2008 and is now one of the leading rail vehicle rental compa­nies. With over 400 loco­mo­ti­ves, Rail­pool is one of the largest suppli­ers in Europe. The company is active in 14 Euro­pean countries.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed Palla­dio with the follo­wing team:
— Uwe Bärenz, Georg Grei­temann, Jens Stein­mül­ler (Part­ners, Private Equity, Berlin/Frankfurt)
— Daniel Wied­mann (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
— Tobias Lochen (Coun­sel, Private Equity, Berlin)
— Chris­tine Funk, Sebas­tian Garn­carz (Senior Asso­cia­tes, Private Equity, Berlin/Frankfurt)
— Xin Zhang (Asso­ciate, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)

Aachen/Mönchengladbach — S‑UBG Aachen invests from its SME fund S‑UBG AG in the manu­fac­tu­rer of cutting systems SATO GmbH from Mönchen­glad­bach. The holding company of the regio­nal savings banks thus holds one third of the shares in SATO GmbH, while the remai­ning shares are held equally by Mana­ging Direc­tor Holger Kerkow and Frank Heesen. Both had taken over the group of compa­nies after the depar­ture of the company’s foun­der Anton Hubert in May 2017.

The two succes­sors have expan­ded the work­force again to around 50 employees and have alre­ady imple­men­ted various product inno­va­tions. “With the growth capi­tal from S‑UBG, we would like to acce­le­rate the further growth of SATO GmbH,” says Kerkow. “Through the succes­sors in manage­ment and the expan­sion that has taken place so far, SATO is solidly posi­tio­ned. Our two co-part­ners bring the neces­sary exper­tise to further drive the posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment of the company,” says Harald Heide­mann, CEO of the S‑UBG Group.

Indi­vi­dual system solu­ti­ons for special machine construction
SATO GmbH deve­lops and manu­fac­tures system solu­ti­ons for flame and water­jet cutting systems, espe­ci­ally with plasma, oxyfuel as well as laser cutting tech­no­logy. Depen­ding on the mate­rial and the customer’s appli­ca­tion, SATO designs the system indi­vi­du­ally and is thus in the field of special machine cons­truc­tion. The modu­lar design and a solid stock of requi­red compon­ents nevert­hel­ess enable fast deli­very times. Custo­mers include inter­na­tio­nal mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring groups.

Mann­heim — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is acqui­ring a mino­rity stake in Votro­nic Elec­tro­nic-Systeme GmbH & Co KG in Lauter­bach as part of a succes­sion plan. Homburg & Part­ner conduc­ted the commer­cial due dili­gence in the course of the transaction.

Votro­nic deve­lops and produ­ces elec­tro­nic compon­ents for motor­ho­mes, rescue, emer­gency and special vehic­les as well as boats. The product port­fo­lio includes on-board elec­tro­nic devices that signi­fi­cantly improve the usabi­lity and comfort of vehic­les. The company has firmly estab­lished itself in its niche segment, is now one of the market leaders there and has grown stron­gly in recent years.

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.

Homburg & Part­ner (H&P) is a specia­li­zed manage­ment consul­tancy with a focus on market stra­tegy, sales and pricing. The Private Equity Compe­tence Center combi­nes metho­do­lo­gi­cal and indus­try exper­tise to support compa­nies along the entire invest­ment process. In doing so, H&P focu­ses on the follo­wing seven indus­tries in parti­cu­lar with commer­cial due dili­gence and value enhance­ment projects:
(1) Auto­mo­tive (espe­ci­ally Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers)
(2) Buil­ding and cons­truc­tion mate­ri­als (ever­y­thing to do with buildings)
(3) Chemis­try (espe­ci­ally specialty chemistry)
(4) Health­care (in parti­cu­lar medi­cal tech­no­logy, phar­maceu­ti­cals and OTC)
(5) Indus­trial Goods and Engi­nee­ring (espe­ci­ally compo­nent suppli­ers and service providers)
(6) Consu­mer Invest­ment Goods
(7) Infor­ma­tion & Commu­ni­ca­tion Tech­no­logy (espe­ci­ally software)

Karls­ruhe — The tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners invests in the LANDWEHR Group through its LEA Mittel­stands­part­ner Fund toge­ther with the long-stan­ding manage­ment team. The foun­ding family conti­nues to hold a stake in the company.

LANDWEHR has been deve­lo­ping and selling highly specia­li­zed HCM soft­ware products, espe­ci­ally for person­nel and buil­ding services compa­nies, since 1994 and is conside­red the market leader in the German market with more than 2,000 custo­mers. LANDWEHR also offers an indus­try solu­tion for event service provi­ders with inten­sive staff deploy­ment. In addi­tion, LANDWEHR’s port­fo­lio is roun­ded off by soft­ware offe­rings for payroll accoun­ting and finan­cial accoun­ting. Another LANDWEHR divi­sion is services, trai­ning and server hosting.

As part of the tran­sac­tion, the manage­ment team of Marc Linkert, Hubert Ober­meyer and Thors­ten Temme will take over the manage­ment of the company from the Land­wehr family and acquire a stake in the company them­sel­ves. Marc Linkert, Mana­ging Direc­tor Sales, explains: “Streng­the­ned by the exper­tise and resour­ces of LEA Part­ners, we can decisi­vely drive our company forward in an important phase of deve­lo­p­ment: not only by expan­ding our exis­ting product and service offe­ring, but also in parti­cu­lar by inves­t­ing in further indus­try solu­ti­ons and in our sales and tech­no­logy organization.”

“We have selec­ted our new majo­rity share­hol­der very carefully. LEA Part­ners has an excel­lent repu­ta­tion as a part­ner of high-growth tech­no­logy compa­nies,” says Oliver Land­wehr. “We are proud that we have been able to successfully imple­ment a succes­sion plan that streng­thens LANDWEHR in the long term and fits the company’s culture.”

“The Land­wehr family, manage­ment team and employees of LANDWEHR have done an impres­sive job of buil­ding the company over the past few years and deve­lo­ping it into a fast-growing market leader,” said Sebas­tian Müller of LEA Part­ners. “Based on the high custo­mer value gene­ra­ted by LANDWEHR’s fully inte­gra­ted soft­ware products in the partly highly regu­la­ted markets, we see substan­tial further growth poten­tial. In addi­tion, there are a variety of inor­ga­nic growth oppor­tu­ni­ties, which we want to examine in the course of a selec­tive buy & build stra­tegy and realize toge­ther with the manage­ment team.” www.leapartners.de

Munich/ Grün­wald — Hübner Schlös­ser & Cie (HSCie) exclu­si­vely advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Schahl­LED Light­ing GmbH on the sale of a majo­rity stake to the private equity fund Active Capi­tal Company (ACC). The mana­ging part­ners remain mino­rity share­hol­ders and, toge­ther with the new inves­tor, will conti­nue to actively promote the growth stra­tegy of Schahl­LED in the future. One of the goals set is now to bring the bene­fits of leading smart LED solu­ti­ons to a broa­der Euro­pean indus­trial custo­mer base.

“Envi­ron­men­tally friendly green tech­no­lo­gies and smart solu­ti­ons are play­ing an incre­asingly important role in today’s economy. With its range of intel­li­gent func­tional LED solu­ti­ons, Schahl­LED effi­ci­ently combi­nes both areas and has also opti­mally posi­tio­ned itself to bene­fit from the emer­ging trend towards an indus­trial Inter­net of Things. In Active Capi­tal Company, Schahl­LED has found the ideal part­ner to take the company to the next level and imple­ment their successful busi­ness model across Europe,” explains Sabine Moel­ler (photo), part­ner at HSCie and project mana­ger for this transaction.

HSCie advi­sed the sellers in all steps of the sales process. The two mana­ging part­ners comment, “We are plea­sed to have selec­ted HSCie as our advi­sor. With HSCie, we had a highly profes­sio­nal and compe­tent part­ner at our side in this crucial phase. In addi­tion to crucial inves­tor access and excel­lent process manage­ment and nego­tia­tion skills, HSCie also stands out for its huma­nity and unwa­ve­ring commitment.”

About Schahl­LED Lighting
Schahl­LED is a leading full-service provi­der of intel­li­gent LED light­ing solu­ti­ons with a focus on indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. The company’s prede­ces­sor was formed in 1999, while the company was estab­lished through a spin-off in 2006 and acqui­red by manage­ment in a manage­ment buy-in in 2012. Schahl­LED has its head­quar­ters in Munich and is active in the entire DACH region as well as in Poland. The company is a full-service provi­der from project design, manu­fac­tu­ring and deli­very of intel­li­gent LED light­ing systems, to instal­la­tion, soft­ware inte­gra­tion and data analy­sis. The company hand­les over a hundred major projects a year with a network of sales and service part­ners in nort­hern Germany, central Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and Poland. www.schahlled.de.

About Active Capi­tal Company
Active Capi­tal Company is an inde­pen­dent private equity fund focu­sed on small and medium-sized compa­nies in the Nether­lands and Germany. ACC invests in compa­nies in the indus­trial, whole­sale and service sectors with sales of between EUR 10 and 100 million. Through an entre­pre­neu­rial and proac­tive approach, ACC maxi­mi­zes the long-term value of its invest­ments by assis­ting manage­ment in execu­ting value-added projects and provi­ding access to its exten­sive part­ner network. www.activecapitalcompany.com.

About HSCie
Hübner Schlös­ser & Cie, is an inter­na­tio­nally active, inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firm based in Munich. In recent years, HSCie has comple­ted more than 150 tran­sac­tions in various indus­tries with a total volume of more than € 17 billion. HSCie is one of the leading consul­ting firms in Germany in the segment of medium-sized transactions.

Frank­furt a. M. — Funds advi­sed by KKR have announ­ced the purchase of i&u TV. i&u is a German tele­vi­sion produc­tion company foun­ded by Günther Jauch for both infor­ma­tion and enter­tain­ment formats. The company produ­ces TV shows such as “stern TV,” “Klein gegen Groß,” “Die Ulti­ma­tive Chart­show” and “Menschen, Bilder, Emotio­nen” for Germany’s highest-reach TV stati­ons. In addi­tion to Günther Jauch (photo), i&u works with show hosts such as Barbara Schö­ne­ber­ger, Thomas Gott­schalk, Kai Pflaume, Jörg Pilawa and Oliver Pocher.

i&u is to comple­ment the inde­pen­dent group of compa­nies for film and TV content that KKR is buil­ding around Tele München Gruppe and Univer­sum Film, which it alre­ady bought in Febru­ary 2019.

“After almost 20 years of successful work at i&u, my thanks go to all employees. Andreas Zaik will conti­nue to provide conti­nuity as Mana­ging Direc­tor and Editor-in-Chief. I, too, will be available to the company for seve­ral more years, both in front of and behind the camera. I am deligh­ted that i&u will now be part of a large media network. I have known and appre­cia­ted Fred Kogel for almost 40 years. With him at the helm of a powerful plat­form and the strong share­hol­der KKR, new oppor­tu­ni­ties will open up for i&u in the TV market and beyond,” said Günther Jauch.

Advi­sor KKR: Henge­ler Mueller
Active part­ners are Dr. Sebas­tian Schnei­der (M&A/Corporate Law, Berlin), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schiessl (M&A, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Stefan Rich­ter (M&A/Corporate Law), Dr. Albrecht Conrad (M&A/TMT) (both Berlin), Dr. Chris­tian Schwandt­ner (M&A/Corporate), Dr. Carl-Phil­ipp Eber­lein (Capi­tal Markets) (both Düssel­dorf), Dr. Jan D. Bonhage (Public Commer­cial Law, Berlin), Dr. Thors­ten Mäger (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Martin Klein (Tax) and Hendrik Bocken­hei­mer (Labor Law) (both Frank­furt), Coun­sel Fabian Seip (TMT, Berlin) and Eckbert Müller (Labor Law, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Alex­an­der Bekier, Dr. Hermann Dahlitz, Jonas Brost, Marvin Vesper-Gräske, Dr. Tobias Bege­mann (all M&A, Berlin), Marius Marx, Maxi­mi­lian Reischl (both Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Anja Balitzki (Anti­trust), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (both Düssel­dorf) and Dr. Char­lotte Riemann (Berlin) (both Public Commer­cial Law).

Zug (Switz­er­land) — The funds Ufenau VI German Asset Light (incl. co-invest­ment funds) advi­sed by Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners with a volume of EUR 560 million have been successfully closed. Like their prede­ces­sors, the funds were heavily oversubscribed.

In addi­tion to more than 50 well-known entre­pre­neu­rial perso­na­li­ties who belong to the network of Ufenau Indus­trie Part­ner, the circle of inves­tors could again be supple­men­ted by further insti­tu­tio­nal “blue chip” inves­tors from the USA, Europe (inclu­ding England) and Asia.

Ufenau VI follows the iden­ti­cal invest­ment stra­tegy as its successful prede­ces­sor funds. The focus is again on majo­rity invest­ments in “asset light” service compa­nies in Germany, Switz­er­land and Austria with reve­nues of 15 — 150 million euros and profi­ta­ble busi­ness models, active in the 5 sectors: Busi­ness Services, Educa­tion & Life­style, Healt­care, IT and Finan­cial Services. A syste­ma­tic buy & build stra­tegy supports the orga­nic growth of the companies.

In total, the new fund is aiming for a further 10 — 12 invest­ments in the D/A/CH region over the next few years. In paral­lel with the expan­sion of the busi­ness acti­vity, the team has been greatly enlar­ged and now compri­ses five part­ners and a total of over 20 invest­ment professionals.

Ralf Flore (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner: “We are very plea­sed that due to the plea­sing deve­lo­p­ments of our port­fo­lio compa­nies, the deve­lo­p­ment of our team and sustain­ably successful invest­ment stra­tegy, exis­ting and also renow­ned new inves­tors have placed their trust in us. On this basis, we will remain the prefer­red part­ner for, among other things, succes­sion situa­tions in German-spea­king count­ries in the future.”

AXON Part­ners, based in Zug and London, again acted as exclu­sive place­ment agent for the fundraising.

Zaisenhausen/ Stutt­gart — Finexx Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Sicko GmbH & Co KG as part of a long-term succes­sion plan. The company, based in Zaisen­hau­sen, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, deve­lops and sells solu­ti­ons for the digi­tiza­tion and auto­ma­tion of proces­ses in the wood­wor­king indus­try. The brot­hers Carl and Jochen Sicko are the sellers of the shares. They will conti­nue to be mana­ging direc­tors and also share­hol­ders via a reverse share­hol­ding. The aim of the part­ner­ship is to conti­nue to bene­fit from the incre­asing demand for auto­ma­tion in the market and, above all, to herald new growth steps at Sicko through addi­tio­nal profes­sio­na­liza­tion. The tran­sac­tion, the details of which have been agreed not to be disc­lo­sed, has alre­ady been completed.

Sicko’s focus is on deve­lo­ping solu­ti­ons that help increase produc­tion effi­ci­ency by inter­lin­king machi­nes. Since its foun­da­tion in 1975 by Karl Sicko, the father of today’s mana­ging direc­tors, the company, which now has 40 employees, has grown steadily and serves nume­rous well-known custo­mers in the DACH region and world­wide, inclu­ding wood proces­sing compa­nies such as sawmills and planing mills, wood-based panel and furni­ture manu­fac­tu­r­ers, as well as wood machi­nery manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Annual sales exceed seven million euros; in view of well-filled order books, signi­fi­cant double-digit sales growth is expec­ted for the current year.

For Finexx, the tran­sac­tion marks the second invest­ment from its fund with a volume of 35 million euros, which was only closed at the end of 2018 — last Novem­ber, the specia­list for the further deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized compa­nies acqui­red a majo­rity stake in GSE Vertrieb Biolo­gi­sche Nahrungs­er­gän­zung & Heil­mit­tel GmbH from Saar­brü­cken. At Sicko, the second invest­ment from the first Finexx fund, new invest­ments and addi­tio­nal know-how are now to be used to reach new levels of development.

“Sicko is a hidden cham­pion of the German SME sector and has an excel­lent repu­ta­tion in the indus­try. On this basis, we want to use new impe­tus to help drive forward the profes­sio­na­liza­tion of proces­ses and struc­tures as well as the expan­sion of capa­ci­ties, work­force and part­ner­ships. The deve­lo­p­ment of new busi­ness areas and markets as well as an expan­sion of the port­fo­lio are also on the list,” explains Matthias Heining (photo), who runs Finexx toge­ther with Dr. Markus Seilerand can draw on a combi­ned 30 years of opera­tio­nal and commer­cial exper­tise in the indus­trial and tech­no­logy sectors as well as in family-owned compa­nies. The market envi­ron­ment offers excel­lent pros­pects: In Germany, as the global market and tech­no­logy leader for wood­wor­king machi­nery, the importance of wood as a buil­ding mate­rial is incre­asing stron­gly again; many new appli­ca­ti­ons for the raw mate­rial are also emer­ging, inclu­ding in the wood-based mate­ri­als indus­try, pack­a­ging manu­fac­tu­r­ers, prefa­bri­ca­ted cons­truc­tion, energy gene­ra­tion, and window and front door cons­truc­tion. Dr. Seiler: “This increa­ses the need in produc­tion faci­li­ties for effec­tive, relia­ble machi­nes and systems that help drive intel­li­gent auto­ma­tion. Sicko has a key role to play in this.”

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

Finexx invests long-term funds (equity capi­tal of between 5 and 50 million euros), mainly in the form of majo­rity share­hol­dings, in compa­nies from the German-spea­king region, inclu­ding insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds. These have sales of EUR 10 million or more, a quali­fied manage­ment team, and can demons­trate sustainable earnings power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model.

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

Munich — Water­land Private Equity acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Reha­con GmbH, one of the leading compa­nies for physio­the­rapy services in Germany. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Deut­sche Apothe­ker- und Ärzte­bank eG (apoBank) and Skan­di­na­viska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB) on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Reha­con Group.

Reha­con, based in Gelsen­kir­chen, opera­tes more than 100 therapy centers throug­hout Germany, making it one of the largest provi­ders on the market in Europe. With more than 600 employees, the vast majo­rity of whom work on-site with pati­ents in the therapy centers, the Group gene­ra­tes annual sales of around 36 million euros. The seller of the shares is Mr. Michael Reeder, the foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of the group, who is taking a signi­fi­cant stake in Reha­con through Reeder Invest GmbH.

The foun­der of the company will also conti­nue to manage it. The tran­sac­tion, which is expec­ted to be comple­ted by March 2019, is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. Details of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed.

Advi­sor Water­land: Shear­man & Sterling
The Shear­man & Ster­ling team included part­ner Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger and legal assistant Constanze Herrle (both Germany-Finance).

About Water­land Private Equity
Water­land Private Equity has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care market. The current port­fo­lio of compa­nies includes MEDIAN, the leading private provi­der in Germany with more than 120 reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics, the ATOS group of clinics specia­li­zing in ortho­pe­dics, the care service provi­der Schö­nes Leben, and two medi­cal prac­tice chains. Water­land is also invol­ved in Hanse­fit, a leading sports network for corpo­rate custo­mers with more than 1,400 affi­lia­ted fitness studios.

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps entre­pre­neurs achieve their growth objec­ti­ves. Water­land has offices in Belgium (Antwerp), the Nether­lands (Bussum), the UK (Manches­ter), Germany (Munich and Hamburg), Switz­er­land (Zurich), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Poland (Warsaw) and curr­ently mana­ges over €6 billion of inves­tor commitments.

Antwerp — Gimv acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Cool­world Rentals. The fast-growing company from the Nether­lands is active in the field of full-service rental of cooling and heating equip­ment to B2B custo­mers. The foun­ding Buij­zen family, foun­der Jack Buijns­ters and the manage­ment remain invol­ved. Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, Ruud van Mierlo, curr­ently Direc­tor Sales and Marke­ting, will be appoin­ted CEO. The current acting CEO Jack Buijns­ters moves to the advi­sory board and will conti­nue to play an active role in busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to enable Cool­world Rentals to execute its ambi­tious growth plans. Gimv is thus expan­ding its Sustainable Cities plat­form, which mana­ges compa­nies that bene­fit from the need for sustainable products.

Cool­world Rentals, based in Waal­wijk, the Nether­lands (www.coolworld-rentals.com), is an inter­na­tio­nal specia­list in full-service rental of cooling and heating equip­ment. Since its foun­da­tion in 1993, the company has deve­lo­ped into a specia­li­zed supplier that rents out cold storage and free­zing cells as well as indus­trial solu­ti­ons for process cooling, air condi­tio­ning and heating. With a wide range of products and services, Cool­world can respond flexi­bly to its custo­mers’ ever-chan­ging needs for cooling and heating solu­ti­ons. Examp­les include capa­city bott­len­ecks, rebuilds, test arran­ge­ments, seaso­nal peaks or opera­tio­nal disrup­ti­ons. An inter­na­tio­nal network of own bran­ches, logi­stics depots and service points in the Nether­lands, Belgium, Germany, France, Austria and Switz­er­land guaran­tees a year-round service around the clock.

Cool­world opera­tes in many market segments and counts compa­nies from the food, retail, phar­maceu­ti­cal, chemi­cal, logi­stics and data center sectors among its custo­mers. In these custo­mers’ proces­ses, modern air condi­tio­ning tech­no­lo­gies are play­ing an incre­asingly important role due to the need for fres­her food, stric­ter requi­re­ments or envi­ron­men­tal legis­la­tion. Also, peak times often have to be absor­bed with tempo­rary solu­ti­ons. Cool­world can guaran­tee the neces­sary flexi­bi­lity, quality and service for this. In addi­tion, the company offers its custo­mers appro­priate services such as tech­ni­cal design, trans­port, main­ten­ance and repair, and remote moni­to­ring as part of an all-round support service, so that they can concen­trate on their core busi­ness. The combi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal exper­tise, full-service concept, a broad custo­mer port­fo­lio and high custo­mer loyalty are the basis for Coolworld’s success.

With the invest­ment from Gimv, Cool­world aims to achieve its growth targets. This includes expan­ding acti­vi­ties in the home markets, broa­de­ning the port­fo­lio of energy-effi­ci­ent and sustainable products, and incre­asing opera­ting effi­ci­ency. A buy-and-build stra­tegy is also plan­ned for both exis­ting and new markets.

Rombout Poos and Roland Veld­hui­j­zen Van Zanten of the Gimv deal team: “Cool­world is a unique company in an attrac­tive segment that bene­fits from important trends that are in line with the stra­tegy of our Sustainable Cities invest­ment plat­form. We look forward to working with Ruud van Mierlo and his team to help shape Coolworld’s contin­ued expan­sion and signi­fi­cant growth. We share the view that sustainable leasing solu­ti­ons are beco­ming incre­asingly important, have a simi­lar geogra­phic foot­print and are looking to grow inter­na­tio­nally. We will bring our exper­tise in air condi­tio­ning and leasing to support the group’s growth.”

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

About Gimv
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with almost 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity. The company is listed on Euron­ext Brussels and curr­ently mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately €1.6 billion in around 50 port­fo­lio compa­nies, which toge­ther gene­rate sales of €2.5 billion with over 14,000 employees.

As a reco­gni­zed leader for selec­ted invest­ment plat­forms, Gimv iden­ti­fies entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them in their trans­for­ma­tion into market leaders. Gimv’s four invest­ment plat­forms are: Connec­ted Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities. Each of these plat­forms works with a compe­tent and dedi­ca­ted team in Gimv’s home markets (Bene­lux, France and Germany) and can count on an exten­ded inter­na­tio­nal network of experts.

Müns­ter — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed US finan­cial inves­tor Tiger Global Manage­ment LLC on a multi-million venture capi­tal finan­cing for German start-up Flaschen­post, in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of a mino­rity stake in Flaschen­post. The Müns­ter-based company is recei­ving an invest­ment of €50 million from Tiger Global, which will be used in the first step for natio­nal growth and in the next for inter­na­tio­nal growth.

Bottle Post was foun­ded in 2016: via the company’s website, custo­mers can have drinks deli­vered within two hours. Flaschen­post opera­tes in eight German regi­ons and says it deli­vers up to 50,000 orders a week. Curr­ently, around 1,700 drivers, warehouse staff and office employees work for the company. In addi­tion to Tiger Global , other well-known venture capi­tal funds have inves­ted in Flaschen­post, inclu­ding Cherry Ventures and Vorwerk Ventures.

Tiger Global was foun­ded in New York City in 2001. The venture capi­tal and private equity inves­tor has one of its invest­ment focu­ses in the area of e‑commerce. Gleiss Lutz has regu­larly advi­sed Tiger Global on invest­ments in Germany for many years, such as Hitmeis­ter or Fein­tech­nik Eisfeld (Harry’s).

Advi­sor Tiger Global: Gleiss Lutz
Lead part­ners Dr. Jan Bals­sen (Part­ner, Private Equity) and Dr. Ralf Mors­häu­ser (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, both Munich)
Dr. Olaf Hohle­fel­der (Munich), Dr. Hilmar Hütten (Düssel­dorf), Florian Schorn, Stepha­nie Daus­in­ger (both Munich, all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Iris Bene­dikt-Bucken­leib (Coun­sel, Anti­trust, Munich), Dr. Timo Bühler (Finan­cing Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Stef­fen Krie­ger (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Eva Heup (Munich), Jose­fine Chakrab­arti (Berlin, all Labor Law), Dr. Chris­tian Hamann (Part­ner, Berlin, Data Protec­tion), Dr. Phil­ipp Naab (Coun­sel, Frank­furt, Real Estate), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner, Berlin), Dr. Manuel Klar (Munich), Dr. Matthias Schilde (Berlin, all IP/IT), Dr. Britta Kamp (Stutt­gart, Litigation).

Munich — Only a few months after the take­over by the Munich-based indus­trial holding ADCURAM, the MEA Group has reali­zed an important acqui­si­tion: With Adolf Schrei­ber GmbH (ASM) from Münsin­gen, a tradi­tion-rich specia­list supplier beco­mes part of the inter­na­tio­nal cons­truc­tion supplier head­quar­te­red in Aich­ach. The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been comple­ted; the parties have agreed not to disc­lose details.

ASM, the former Adolf Schrei­ber Metall­wa­ren­fa­brik, was foun­ded in 1872 and focu­sed on the produc­tion of high-quality gratings made of steel and stain­less steel more than 50 years ago. Nume­rous natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers from indus­try, plant engi­nee­ring and cons­truc­tion rely on the company’s expe­ri­ence and high quality stan­dards. ASM produ­ces gratings for them indi­vi­du­ally in diffe­rent sizes, mate­rial thic­k­nes­ses and mesh widths on modern equipment.

As a future part of the Metal Appli­ca­ti­ons busi­ness area, ASM comple­ments MEA’s port­fo­lio with further high-quality stain­less steel gratings and contri­bu­tes important auto­ma­ted manu­fac­tu­ring capa­ci­ties for MEA’s steadily growing order volume.

“With the acqui­si­tion, MEA can further tigh­ten stra­te­gic levers in terms of busi­ness expan­sion with exis­ting custo­mers, deve­lo­p­ment of addi­tio­nal market segments, streng­thening of the distri­bu­tion network as well as further tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment,” says Dr. Phil­ipp Gusinde (photo), CEO of ADCURAM Group AG and member of the advi­sory board at MEA. Tors­ten Wende, Mana­ging Direc­tor of MEA Metal Appli­ca­ti­ons adds: “We plan to expand ASM’s company site in Münsin­gen, Swabia, into a compe­tence center for all of MEA’s high-quality stain­less steel produc­tion. We are very plea­sed to welcome ASM to the MEA Group.” ADCURAM had acqui­red the family-owned company, foun­ded in 1886, in the summer of 2018 and has since been imple­men­ting an ambi­tious stra­tegy for further growth and expan­sion. MEA employs around 700 people and, as one of the leading suppli­ers to the cons­truc­tion indus­try, manu­fac­tures not only special gratings but also, among other things, light wells, windows and drai­nage systems.

About ADCURAM
ADCURAM is a priva­tely owned indus­trial group. ADCURAM acqui­res compa­nies with poten­tial and deve­lops them actively and sustain­ably. For the future growth of the Group, the capi­tal-strong indus­trial holding company has a total of 300 million euros available for acqui­si­ti­ons. With the help of its own 40-strong team of experts, the indus­trial holding company conti­nues to deve­lop the port­fo­lio compa­nies stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally. Toge­ther, the group gene­ra­tes nearly 500 million euros in sales world­wide (2017) with six holdings and over 2,500 employees.

ADCURAM sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial inves­tor and invests in succes­sion plans and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.adcuram.com

About MEA
The MEA Group is an inter­na­tio­nal group of compa­nies with over 130 years of expe­ri­ence in the market, world­wide acti­vi­ties and produc­tion sites in France, the Czech Repu­blic, Roma­nia and China. Inno­va­tive products and solu­ti­ons make the MEA Group one of the leading suppli­ers to the cons­truc­tion indus­try. MEA offers its custo­mers a wide range of products for base­ment cons­truc­tion and drai­nage appli­ca­ti­ons as well as a compre­hen­sive range of gratings. The motto: “BUILDING SUCCESS”. MEA solu­ti­ons make cons­truc­tion profes­sio­nals’ jobs easier, faster and safer, helping them achieve real produc­ti­vity gains.
www.mea-group.com

Berlin | Munich | Paris | Tokyo — ubitri­city Gesell­schaft für verteilte Ener­gie­sys­teme mbH recei­ves €20 million in a new finan­cing round that will enable the company to acce­le­rate growth and further deve­lop its mobile meter­ing tech­no­logy. The invest­ment was made by exis­ting share­hol­ders EDF and Next47 (Siemens’ venture capi­tal subsi­diary) and by Honda Motor Company as a new partner.

ubitri­city has deve­lo­ped a unique smart char­ging and billing solu­tion for smart AC char­ging of elec­tric vehic­les in public and private spaces. With mobile meter­ing tech­no­logy, muni­ci­pa­li­ties, property owners, fleet and fuel card opera­tors, and end users can bene­fit from signi­fi­cantly lower char­ging infra­struc­ture costs as well as free choice of energy provi­der and kilo­watt-hour accu­rate billing.

The new funding is inten­ded to acce­le­rate the expan­sion of char­ging infra­struc­ture, parti­cu­larly lantern char­ging points and char­ging points in real estate deve­lo­p­ments in the UK, Germany, France and the US. In paral­lel, the tech­no­logy will be further deve­lo­ped for the mass market expec­ted from 2020 and the condi­ti­ons for services across the entire spec­trum of V1G and V2G will be created.

“With Honda Motors, we have another strong part­ner on board who shares our vision of a smart elec­tric vehicle that brings the neces­sary tech­no­logy for char­ging and char­ging clean elec­tri­city and for smart char­ging services,” says Dr. Frank Pawlit­schek, CEO and Co-Foun­der of ubitri­city.

The company has made signi­fi­cant progress in deve­lo­ping its mobile meter­ing tech­no­logy, market presence and market access, e.g. in London. In addi­tion, ubitri­city is driving forward the instal­la­tion of char­ging stati­ons in cities as part of the German “Imme­diate Clean Air Program”, with more than 3,000 char­ging points to be instal­led in Berlin, Hamburg and Dort­mund. Success in the highly compe­ti­tive NYCx Climate Action Chall­enge, which is expec­ted to lead to a pilot project in New York, has further confirmed the global inte­rest in the company’s products and tech­no­lo­gies. “We are now putting char­ging points right at people’s door­s­teps — where milli­ons of Euro­peans park their vehic­les today, and at a time when more and more elec­tric vehic­les are being sold,” says Knut Hecht­fi­scher, co-foun­der of ubitricity.

The new capi­tal and the share increase by EDF and Siemens again empha­size the importance of ubitri­city as a key pillar in the elec­tro­mo­bi­lity stra­te­gies of both companies.

Last Octo­ber, the EDF Group unvei­led its elec­tric mobi­lity plan to become the leading energy company in its four largest Euro­pean markets: France, the UK, Italy and Belgium.

In addi­tion, Citelum (100% subsi­diary of the EDF Group) and ubitri­city are working toge­ther to inte­grate ubitricity’s inno­va­tive solu­tion into Citelum’s “Smart City” product line.

About ubitri­city — Gesell­schaft für verteilte Ener­gie­sys­teme mbH
Afforda­ble smart char­ging infra­struc­ture for elec­tric cars where­ver they are parked for longer peri­ods of time was the goal of Knut Hecht­fi­scher and Dr. Frank Pawlit­schek when they foun­ded ubitri­city in 2008. Today, the company is one of the leading provi­ders of intel­li­gent solu­ti­ons for char­ging and billing elec­tric cars. ubitri­city combi­nes tech­ni­cal know-how, such as the deve­lo­p­ment of the mobile elec­tri­city meter, with the possi­bi­li­ties of digi­ta­liza­tion. The result is tech­ni­cally simpli­fied and thus less expen­sive char­ging points that enable the nati­on­wide expan­sion of the char­ging infra­struc­ture. This approach solves the chall­enge of vehicle-speci­fic billing. In the future, the mobile elec­tri­city meter will also enable the grid inte­gra­tion of e‑vehicles as addressa­ble mobile storage devices. Elec­tric cars become mana­geable as part of a distri­bu­ted and mobile storage network and can thus make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the energy tran­si­tion. www.ubitricity.com

Munich — With retroac­tive effect from Decem­ber 31, 2018, Munich-based invest­ment company ASC Invest­ment Sarl (“ASC”) is acqui­ring Canon Germany’s prin­ting services busi­ness with over 300 employees. In the course of concen­t­ra­ting on its core busi­ness (sales of prin­ting systems and solu­ti­ons), Canon Germany had commis­sio­ned Bryan Garnier ’s German team to find a buyer with expe­ri­ence in the indus­try who would syste­ma­ti­cally deve­lop the prin­ting services and value-added services busi­ness. ASC Invest­ment Sarl was advi­sed by Reed Smith.

Canon Deutsch­land Busi­ness Services GmbH (CBS) is a prin­ting and docu­ment manage­ment service provi­der with 45 loca­ti­ons across Germany, whose custo­mers include well-known finan­cial service provi­ders, univer­si­ties and the German govern­ment. Canon acqui­red this busi­ness unit as part of the take­over of Dutch compe­ti­tor Océ in 2010. CBS has tradi­tio­nally focu­sed on provi­ding on-premise and tran­sac­tional prin­ting services, but is incre­asingly moving into the docu­ment outsour­cing space by selling value-added services such as scan­ning and digi­tiza­tion, docu­ment manage­ment and archi­ving, and design services. Last but not least, this area is to be further expan­ded with the support of the new owner.

About ASC
ASC is an invest­ment company with offices in Luxem­bourg and Munich and a focus on carve-out tran­sac­tions (corpo­rate spin-offs) in Europe. ASC Invest­ment is backed by fami­lies and entre­pre­neurs and specia­li­zes in putting non-core divi­si­ons of inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons on their own feet. The focus is always on deve­lo­ping a long-term stra­tegy for the future. ASC makes use of an exten­sive network of entre­pre­neurs, mana­gers and specia­lists from the rele­vant indus­tries for busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment. In recent years, ASC has successfully comple­ted four simi­lar tran­sac­tions and will provide CBS with a strong team of experts with indus­try experience.

Advi­sor ASC: Reed Smith
The Reed Smith team was led by Global Corpo­rate Group Florian Hirsch­mann, photo (Part­ner), Silvio McMi­ken, Tobias Schulz (all M&A/Corporate) and Thomas Gierath (Tax/ Partner).

Advi­sors to Canon:Bryan, Garnier & Co 
Bryan, Garnier & Co acted as Canon’s exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor, setting up a bidding process that included both private equity and stra­te­gic pros­pec­tive buyers. Bryan Garnier has advi­sed on nume­rous tran­sac­tions in the busi­ness services sector, inclu­ding, for exam­ple, the sale of Xerox Rese­arch Center Europe to Naver, the sale of Conduent’s parking services busi­ness to Andera Part­ners and the acqui­si­tion of Danish Woon­z­org­net by care services provi­der Orpea.

Munich — GS Star Hotels, a port­fo­lio company of private equity inves­tor Auctus ( photo: foun­ding part­ner Ingo Krocke) acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Rilano Holding GmbH. With this tran­sac­tion, GS Star Group is consis­t­ently imple­men­ting its growth concept and expan­ding its range of hotels in Germany and Austria. With the acqui­si­tion, GS Star Group grows to a plan­ned sales volume for 2019 of more than 100 million euros.

The Rilano Group opera­tes hotels throug­hout Germany and Austria under the brands The Rilano Hotel, Rilano 24|7 and Rilano Resorts. In total, the Rilano Group’s current hotel port­fo­lio includes eight hotels alre­ady in opera­tion and one under cons­truc­tion. In addi­tion, further hotels are being planned.

The port­fo­lio of the GS Star Group, which also includes Gorge­ous Smiling GmbH, curr­ently compri­ses 79 hotels in Germany, Austria and the Nether­lands. On the one hand, it acts as a fran­chise part­ner for global play­ers such as Inter­con­ti­nen­tal, Hilton or Wynd­ham, and on the other hand, it also opera­tes hotels under its own brand Artho­tel Ana.

By 2020, GS Star Group plans to operate around 100 hotels under manage­ment, making it the fastest growing German hotel group. There are curr­ently also expan­sion plans for other Euro­pean count­ries such as Switz­er­land and the United Kingdom.

Boris Dürr’s team regu­larly advi­ses Auctus on tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding its first entry into the hotel indus­try through the acqui­si­tion of GS Star Group in 2018.

Advi­sor to Auctus: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Boris Dürr, Dr. Oliver Trep­tow (both M&A/Corporate, both lead)
Dr. Arnold Büsse­ma­ker (Finan­cing)
Stef­fen Wilberg (Real Estate)
Peter M. Schäff­ler (Taxes)
Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (Corpo­rate /M&A), all Munich
Dr. Holger Lüders (Labor Law), Düsseldorf

Frank­furt — Advent Inter­na­tio­nal (“Advent”), one of the world’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced private equity firms, has announ­ced that it has signed a binding agree­ment to acquire the methacry­la­tes busi­ness of Evonik Indus­tries AG (“Evonik”) for €3 billion.

The tran­sac­tion compri­ses Evonik’s Methacry­la­tes, Acrylic Products, CyPlus and Methacry­late Resins Busi­ness Lines. The Group’s products include strong brands such as PLEXIGLAS® and are used in diverse end markets, inclu­ding the paints and coatings indus­try, cons­truc­tion, the auto­mo­tive indus­try and health­care. With around 3,900 employees at a total of 18 sites in Germany, North America and Asia, the Verbund gene­ra­ted sales of around 2 billion euros in 2018.

“Evonik’s methacry­la­tes busi­ness is an impres­sive tech­no­logy plat­form with an estab­lished market posi­tion and very attrac­tive growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. We look forward to working with the skil­led employees and manage­ment to estab­lish the Verbund as an inde­pen­dent global market leader in the future,” said Ronald Ayles (photo), mana­ging part­ner and head of the global chemi­cal indus­try prac­tice at Advent International.

With more than 30 successfully execu­ted tran­sac­tions in over three deca­des, Advent is one of the world’s most expe­ri­en­ced private equity inves­tors in the chemi­cal indus­try. Advent invests in well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with high opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic poten­tial. Toge­ther with the manage­ment teams of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and a strong global network of sector teams, exter­nal indus­try experts and opera­tio­nal part­ners, Advent crea­tes sustainable value through reve­nue and earnings growth. Advent also has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the spin-off of complex busi­ness units of large indus­trial companies.

With this exper­tise, Advent will work in part­ner­ship with manage­ment to help estab­lish the methacry­la­tes busi­ness as a strong stand-alone company. As with all its invest­ments, Advent is pursuing a long-term growth approach. Advent’s stra­tegy is to invest heavily in people, tech­no­logy and sites to deve­lop the divi­sion into a global market leader in methacry­la­tes. Advent sees addi­tio­nal poten­tial to further improve its alre­ady estab­lished market posi­ti­ons through invest­ment and expansion.

Advent has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in working with employee-owned German indus­trial compa­nies and atta­ches great importance to close coope­ra­tion with employee repre­sen­ta­ti­ves. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the third quar­ter of 2019, subject to custo­mary tran­sac­tion condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory approvals.

About Advent International
Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion (“Advent”) was foun­ded in 1984 and is one of the world’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment compa­nies. The company has comple­ted over 340 tran­sac­tions in 41 count­ries and mana­ges assets of appro­xi­m­ately €34 billion (as of Septem­ber 30, 2018).

Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH was foun­ded in Germany in 1991 and advi­ses Advent with its Frank­furt-based team of consul­tants. Advent is also one of the leading private equity compa­nies in Germany and has been inves­t­ing in Euro­pean compa­nies since 1990. Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH has advi­sed on invest­ments in 30 compa­nies to date. Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH’s consul­ting focus is on the follo­wing core sectors: chemi­cals and indus­try, finan­cial services and busi­ness services, health­care, retail, consu­mer goods and leisure indus­try, and media and telecommunications.

Advent has successfully inves­ted in the chemi­cal indus­try in recent years. In Germany, examp­les include allnex, a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of synthe­tic resins for the paint and coatings indus­try, and Oxea, a leading supplier of oxo alco­hols and oxo deri­va­ti­ves. In Latin America, Advent also holds stakes in VIAKEM, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of fine chemi­cals, and GTM, a trans­na­tio­nal distri­bu­tor of chemi­cal raw materials.

Frank­furt a. M. — Luxem­bourg-based Lavorel Medi­care S.A. has sold its holding company Lavorel Medi­care Deutsch­land GmbH, owner of the Herford-based Boni­tas Group, to a company of Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion. A team from Luther Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal support for the transaction.

The Boni­tas Group is one of the largest private nursing services in Germany. The 2018 market leader specia­li­zes in the field of criti­cal care and home respi­ra­tion. The company employs almost 4,500 people and, in addi­tion to provi­ding outpa­ti­ent care, opera­tes assis­ted living commu­ni­ties for seni­ors. Boni­tas Holding now opera­tes 50 nursing services, 44 resi­den­tial groups, 6 assis­ted living faci­li­ties, 2 day care faci­li­ties and 1 nursing home.

The Boni­tas Group with its more than thirty subsi­dia­ries belon­ged to the Luxem­bourg-based Lavorel Group. The latter entrus­ted the Luther team led by part­ner Dr. Oliver Kairies with the mandate, which, toge­ther with Luther’s Luxem­bourg office, provi­ded legal advice to the seller during the pre-struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion, the imple­men­ta­tion of the struc­tu­red bidding process, the purchase agree­ment nego­tia­ti­ons and the subse­quent anti­trust proceedings.

Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion with its port­fo­lio company Deut­sche Fach­pflege-Gruppe finally prevai­led as the bidder.

For Lavorel Medi­care S.A.: Luther
Corpo­rate / M&A: Dr. Oliver Kairies (lead), Dr. Thomas Halber­kamp, Dr. Thomas Kuhnle, Jens Röhr­bein, Dr. Sebas­tian Rabe, Dr. Daniel Schub­mann, Dr. Karina Wojto­wicz, Stefan Tolksdorf
Luther, Medi­cal Law / Regu­la­tory: Dr. Hendrik Sehy, Fran­ces Wolf
Luther, Real Estate: Achim Meier, Katha­rina von Hermanni, Irene Nezer-Kasch, Chris­tiane Struppek
Luther, Commer­cial: Jens-Uwe Heuer-James, Dr. Kuuya Chibanguza
Luther, IP / IT: Dr. Kay Oelschlä­gel, Dr. Chris­tian Rabe
Luther, Labor Law: Prof. Dr. Robert von Steinau-Stein­rück, Dr. Hilmar Rölz
Luther, Anti­trust Law: Dr. Helmut Jans­sen, LL.M.
Luther Luxem­bourg: Eric Sublon, Marie Sinni­ger, Michaela Ludowicy

Frank­furt a. M. / Munich — The US private equity inves­tor KKR is taking over Tele München Gruppe (TMG). Accor­din­gly, the US finan­cial inves­tor is buying TMG from the well-known media entre­pre­neur Herbert Kloi­ber, who owned the company for 42 years. Follo­wing appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties, the deal is expec­ted to be comple­ted in April. TMG was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Wirsing Hass Zoller (Legal), and Klee­berg & Part­ner (Tax).

KKR made the invest­ment from Euro­pean Fund IV. A KKR spokes­man did not want to comment on the purchase price or other tran­sac­tion details in response to a FINANCE inquiry. Accor­ding to the company’s own figu­res, TMG most recently gene­ra­ted total opera­ting perfor­mance of 520 million euros with around 1,800 employees. Foun­ded in 1977, the Group produ­ces films, trades in broad­cas­ting licen­ses and holds stakes in TV stati­ons RTL II and Tele 5, among others.

There will be chan­ges in the manage­ment of TMG as a result of the take­over by KKR. Thus, the new owner makes the former CEO of Constan­tin Medien, Fred Kogel, the new Mana­ging Direc­tor. Accor­ding to a press release from TMG, howe­ver, Kloi­ber junior will also remain the mana­ging direc­tor of the “core compa­nies”. Herbert G. Kloi­ber is to serve as a member of an advi­sory board, and will also remain a member of the Super­vi­sory Board of Odeon Film AG until the upco­ming Annual Gene­ral Meeting. As always with such deals, the sale still has to be appro­ved by the autho­ri­ties. The two parties did not provide any infor­ma­tion on the purchase price.

He headed Tele München Gruppe for 42 years, and now Herbert G. Kloi­ber is selling the group to finan­cial inves­tor KKR. This move also has impli­ca­ti­ons for some German broad­cas­ters and produc­tion compa­nies. For exam­ple, TMG holds 31.5 percent of RTL II toge­ther with Disney, while Tele 5 is wholly owned by the Group. TMG also holds a majo­rity stake in Odeon Film AG, while other subsi­dia­ries such as Concorde Film­ver­leih GmbH, Concorde Home Enter­tain­ment GmbH, Clas­art Film- und Fern­seh­pro­duk­ti­ons GmbH and Tele München Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH now also have a new owner.

KKR now wants to make Tele München Gruppe the leading inde­pen­dent plat­form for audio­vi­sual content in Germany and a central point of cont­act for crea­tive talent. The German market offers an “attrac­tive envi­ron­ment to further deve­lop TMG as an inde­pen­dent, market-leading plat­form and to repo­si­tion it in times of digi­tal disrup­tion,” the private equity firm says. As consu­mer demand for high-quality, local but also inter­na­tio­nal content grows, so does the need for “a large inde­pen­dent German content platform.”

“TMG is an attrac­tive middle-market asset and defi­ni­tely fits KKR’s middle-market stra­tegy,” the spokesper­son said. About a year ago, KKR also opened an office in Germany with Chris­tian Ollig (photo) as head. The deal was execu­ted jointly from the London and Frank­furt offices, accor­ding to the spokesper­son. Phil­ipp Freise was respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The long-time KKR mana­ger specia­li­zes in invest­ments in the media sector.

Advi­sors TMG: Wirsing Hass Zoller (Legal), and Klee­berg & Part­ner (Tax)

Munich/Gütenbach — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) acquire a majo­rity stake in RENA Group. The company, head­quar­te­red in Güten­bach in the Black Forest, builds tech­no­lo­gi­cally advan­ced equip­ment for wet-chemi­cal surface treat­ment and employs around 800 people world­wide. The sellers are funds advi­sed by Capvis AG. The manage­ment team around RENA CEO Peter Schnei­de­wind is also taking a stake in the company as part of the change of owner­ship, ther­eby commit­ting itself to RENA for the long term. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The sale is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

RENA was foun­ded in 1993 and is the leading global equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer in the field of wet-chemi­cal surface treat­ment. The globally active high-tech company addres­ses custo­mers from the semi­con­duc­tor sector, medi­cal tech­no­logy as well as the rene­wa­ble energy indus­try and glass proces­sing. With three produc­tion and R&D sites in Germany and Wikroty, Poland, and sales and service loca­ti­ons in Asia, for exam­ple in China and Singa­pore, as well as in North America, the company has a strong inter­na­tio­nal presence. RENA recently achie­ved an annual produc­tion output of over 120 million euros.

Toge­ther with Equis­tone, RENA aims to conti­nue to grow in exis­ting segments and expand its tech­no­lo­gi­cal market leader­ship. The company’s prono­un­ced strength in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment will conti­nue to be a key buil­ding block for this in the future. In addi­tion, part­ner­ships with exis­ting custo­mers are to be inten­si­fied and new custo­mer groups are to be deve­lo­ped for RENA’s inno­va­tive, high-quality machi­nes and systems.

“We are impres­sed by RENA’s market posi­tion, which is based prima­rily on inno­va­tive tech­no­logy, high quality, long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships as well as its strong manage­ment team,” said Stefan Maser (photo), part­ner at Equis­tone. David Zahnd, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Equis­tone, added: “Toge­ther with RENA’s manage­ment team and employees, we intend to consis­t­ently conti­nue the company’s growth trajec­tory, promote rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment and expand into new markets and regions.”

Peter Schnei­de­wind, CEO of RENA, comm­ents: “We are very plea­sed to have Equis­tone as a relia­ble and finan­ci­ally strong new part­ner that will support our further growth. For us, this is a clear sign to secure and expand our sites. Toge­ther with our custo­mers, we will deve­lop addi­tio­nal indi­vi­dual appli­ca­ti­ons and launch new intel­li­gent solu­ti­ons for wet-chemi­cal surface treat­ment — worldwide.”

On the Equis­tone side, Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Tanja Berg are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The mid-market inves­tor was advi­sed by goetz­part­ners (Commer­cial), KPMG (Finan­cial & Tax), Latham & Watkins (Legal), ERM (Envi­ron­men­tal), Sher­man & Ster­ling (Legal Finan­cing) and GCA Altium (Finan­cing).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of Europe’s leading equity inves­tors with a team of more than 35 invest­ment specia­lists in six offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­ding, equity has been inves­ted in more than 140 tran­sac­tions, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 40 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion at the hard cap. www.equistonepe.de

Morbach/ Frank­furt a. M. — Halder has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Conen Group, Morbach, through a manage­ment buy-out. The invest­ment is a succes­sion solu­tion for the owner family, which had foun­ded the company in 1965. Conen specia­li­zes in equip­ping educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons such as schools, kinder­gar­tens and nurse­ries in Western Europe, the Middle East and the USA.

One focus of the busi­ness is tech­ni­cal products for inter­ac­tive lear­ning, e.g. elec­tri­cally adjus­ta­ble mounts for elec­tro­nic displays, which are incre­asingly being used inter­na­tio­nally as lear­ning tools. In addi­tion, there is a wide range of furni­ture for schools and preschools in the core market of Germany and neigh­bor­ing count­ries, with which Conen serves over 1,000 long-stan­ding custo­mers. Through in-house product deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring, Conen reali­zes high verti­cal inte­gra­tion, avai­la­bi­lity and flexi­bi­lity in the imple­men­ta­tion of custo­mer requi­re­ments. Deli­very and instal­la­tion with our own logi­stics in Germany and neigh­bor­ing count­ries ensu­res short deli­very times and high final quality. In 2018, the company employed 225 people and gene­ra­ted sales of €37 million.

Growth poten­tial arises from the incre­asing digi­tiza­tion of educa­tion systems, which has trig­ge­red double-digit growth rates for inter­ac­tive displays inter­na­tio­nally. Conen ther­e­fore plans to expand its coope­ra­tion with moni­tor manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the USA and the Middle East. Germany also has a favorable envi­ron­ment, with high levels of addi­tio­nal govern­ment spen­ding plan­ned for preschool and school in the medium term.

About Halder
Halder has been active as an equity inves­tor in Germany since 1991 and has provi­ded equity capi­tal for succes­sion and growth to 39 medium-sized compa­nies. Halder supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in expan­ding inter­na­tio­nally, focu­sing their stra­tegy and busi­ness model, and inves­t­ing to expand capa­city and finance stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. The invest­ment in Conen is the first invest­ment of the Halder VI fund, which comple­ted its capi­tal raising in Janu­ary 2019.

Frank­furt a. M. — Noval­pina Capi­tal has finan­ced the foun­ders Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie and the manage­ment of NSO Group in their buy-out and advi­sed them on the acqui­si­tion of NSO Group from Fran­cisco Part­ners and other share­hol­ders. — NSO Group is a leading global cyber secu­rity company head­quar­te­red in Luxem­bourg with addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons world­wide (inclu­ding Israel, Cyprus and Bulgaria).

Noval­pina Capi­tal Capi­tal was advi­sed by the Frank­furt, Munich, London and Boston offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in the buyout led by the manage­ment of NSO Group and the acqui­si­tion of NSO Group from Fran­cisco Part­ners and other shareholders.

The manage­ment team and foun­ders of NSO Group today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of the company from global private equity firm Fran­cisco Part­ners. NSO Group deve­lops tech­no­logy that helps govern­ment intel­li­gence and law enforce­ment agen­cies prevent and inves­ti­gate terro­rism and crime to save lives. Estab­lished from the combi­na­tion of Israeli and Euro­pean cyber tech­no­logy compa­nies, NSO Group has since become a global leader in provi­ding cyber intel­li­gence and analy­tics solu­ti­ons to govern­ments. The company has grown rapidly and finis­hed 2018 with reve­nues of $250 million, and dozens of licen­sed customers.

Advi­sors to Noval­pina Capi­tal: Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Weil tran­sac­tion team is led by part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and supported by part­ners Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Ludger Kempf (Tax, Frank­furt), as well as Coun­sel Dr. Heiner Drüke (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer, Madleen Düdder, Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler, Daniel Zhu, Andreas Fogel (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Julia Hübner, Alisa Preis­sler, Kai Yan (all Tax Frank­furt) as well as Boston part­ner Matthew Goul­ding and asso­ciate Michael Messina (both Corporate).
The Weil team invol­ved in the acqui­si­tion finan­cing is led by Frank­furt Finance Part­ner Dr. Wolf­ram Distler and London Finance Part­ner Tom Richards and was supported by Asso­cia­tes Thomas Zimmer­mann (Munich) and Julia Tschi­ckardt (Frank­furt) as well as Alis­tair McVeigh and Conor Camp­bell (both London).
Fran­cisco Part­ners was assis­ted in the tran­sac­tion by Paul Hastings (part­ners Mike J. Kennedy and Jeffrey C. Wolff, San Fran­cisco office).
The foun­ders of NSO Group relied on part­ners Roy Caner and Viva Gayer of EBN & Co. in Tel Aviv.

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

Munich, Germany — EMERAM’s port­fo­lio company frost­krone Tief­kühl­kost GmbH (frost­krone) Rite Stuff Foods, Inc. (Rite Stuff Foods), a U.S. potato snack company. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed frost­krone Frozen Foods on the finan­cing of the add-on acqui­si­tion of Rite Stuff Foods, Inc. advise

EMERAM is an inde­pen­dent Munich-based invest­ment company for German-spea­king medium-sized compa­nies. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide capi­tal for the further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies with a fund volume of EUR 350 million. EMERAM sees itself as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for compa­nies in the five sectors of consu­mer goods, retail, indus­trial goods, services and healthcare.

Rite Stuff Foods was foun­ded in 1989 by Thomas J. Madden and is now one of the most important U.S. manu­fac­tu­r­ers of specialty pota­toes, employ­ing more than 230 people. Rite Stuff Foods is head­quar­te­red in Jerome, Idaho, and serves the grocery, food service and various restau­rant markets.

Advi­sor frost­krone Frozen Food: Shear­man & Sterling
The Shear­man & Ster­ling team, led by part­ner Winfried M. Carli, included Of Coun­sel Steven Sher­man, asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu and Magnus Wies­lan­der, and Legal Assistant Constanze Herrle.
Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed EMERAM, among others, on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of frost­krone Group and on the finan­cing of frostkrone’s add-on acqui­si­tion of French snack and finger food manu­fac­tu­rer Piz’wich.

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

The opera­tor of Germany’s largest apart­ment and house portal ImmobilienScout24 is about to be taken over by finan­cial inves­tors. Blackstoneand Hell­man & Fried­man are offe­ring Scout24 owners 46 euros per share, the finan­cial inves­tors announ­ced. Scout24’s manage­ment welco­med the offer, which is around 24.4 percent above the average price of the past three months. As a result, the company could be off the market again after a fairly short history on the stock exch­ange. The purchase price, inclu­ding debt, is expec­ted to be around 5.7 billion euros.

The two finan­cial inves­tors Hell­man & Fried­man and Blackstone compa­nies are now offe­ring 46 euros per Scout24 share in cash, as the MDax-listed company announ­ced in Munich. On the Trade­gate trading plat­form, the shares shot up by almost eleven percent to 46 euros in the morning compared with the Xetra close.

“We believe that this repres­ents an attrac­tive offer with a substan­tial premium, high tran­sac­tion secu­rity and stra­te­gic added value for the company,” said Hans-Holger Albrecht, Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of Scout24.
The purchase price is ther­e­fore around 5.7 billion euros.

The purchase price, inclu­ding debt, amounts to around 5.7 billion euros, the state­ment added. The mini­mum accep­tance thres­hold for the offer is 50 percent plus one share. In addi­tion, the finan­cial inves­tors are hedging against a possi­ble market slump. If the Dax falls too shar­ply — by more than 27.5 percent — the offer will lapse.
Hell­man & Fried­man itself had floa­ted the company on the stock market only three years ago for 30 euros per share. In the mean­time, the shares are almost comple­tely in free float. In July, they had reached their record high of 48.62 euros, but had then fallen back.