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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Water­land

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

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