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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 25 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling has offices in Frank­furt and Munich. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.