Year: 2018

Munich-Bird & Bird LLP advi­sed the share­hol­ders of BBS Auto­ma­tion GmbH, one of the leading provi­ders of high-quality auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for complex assem­bly and test­ing proces­ses with loca­ti­ons in Germany, USA, Malay­sia and China, on the invest­ment through and joint venture with EQT Mid Market Europe.

The growth of BBS is to be supported both orga­ni­cally and by further acqui­si­ti­ons in new appli­ca­tion areas, in parti­cu­lar to drive the further deve­lo­p­ment of Indus­trie 4.0 produc­tion systems. In addi­tion, the expan­sion of inter­na­tio­nal acti­vi­ties — parti­cu­larly in Asia and America — will be an important aspect of future cooperation.

The foun­ders of BBS Auto­ma­tion GmbH, Josef Wild­gru­ber and Uwe Behr, will conti­nue the manage­ment and like­wise all current share­hol­ders will remain inves­ted in BBS Auto­ma­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the volume of the deal.

BBS Auto­ma­tion GmbH and its share­hol­ders were advi­sed by the follo­wing Bird & Bird lawy­ers: Part­ner Stefan Münch, Coun­sel Stephan Kübler (both lead) and Asso­cia­tes Michael Gaßner and Bene­dikt Weiß (all Corporate/M&A, Munich) as well as Senior Coun­sel Dr. Martin Jäger (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf).

About Bird & Bird
Bird & Bird is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm that supports compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons that are trans­for­med by tech­no­logy or the digi­tal world. We combine world-class legal exper­tise with deep indus­try know­ledge and a refres­hin­gly crea­tive mind­set to help clients achieve their busi­ness goals. We have over 1,200 lawy­ers in 28 offices in Europe, the Middle East and Asia Paci­fic and main­tain close rela­ti­onships with law firms in other parts of the world.

Munich/ Naald­wijk — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) have acqui­red a majo­rity stake in BOAL Group. The Dutch company deve­lops and produ­ces high-quality alumi­num roof and side wall systems for glass and foil green­hou­ses. The sellers are the mana­ging direc­tor Ronald Boers and the foun­der Mari­nus Boers, both of whom will conti­nue to hold mino­rity shares. BOAL’s manage­ment team will also parti­ci­pate in the company. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The acqui­si­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

BOAL Group, head­quar­te­red in Naald­wijk, the Nether­lands, has 48 years of expe­ri­ence in the design and manu­fac­ture of alumi­num roof and side­wall systems for green­hou­ses. This makes the Group one of the leading suppli­ers in the market. In addi­tion, BOAL supplies the cons­truc­tion, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and trans­port indus­tries with extru­ded alumi­num profiles. The manu­fac­ture of the high-quality products is based on many years of expe­ri­ence, tech­ni­cal exper­tise and inno­va­tive strength. Produc­tion takes place at the company’s three Dutch sites ‘s‑Gravenzande, Maas­dijk and De Lier, as well as in Shep­s­hed in the UK. BOAL curr­ently employs appro­xi­m­ately 370 people and gene­ra­ted sales of around 155 million euros in 2017.

Toge­ther with Equis­tone, BOAL aims to further streng­then its market-leading posi­tion in the green­house indus­try. The focus is on conti­nuous product inno­va­tion, geogra­phic growth and expan­ding the posi­tion in the market for roof systems for film green­hou­ses. Proven part­ner­ships with exis­ting custo­mers for green­house systems as well as alumi­num profiles remain unaf­fec­ted and are to be continued.

“BOAL Group’s impres­sive posi­tion in the market is a prime start­ing point for the next phase of growth,” said Dr. Marc Arens, Part­ner at Equis­tone. “Toge­ther with the outstan­ding manage­ment team, Equis­tone will build on BOAL’s strengths and consis­t­ently pursue its growth stra­tegy. In doing so, we are focu­sing on geogra­phic expan­sion, inno­va­tion and enhan­cing the Group’s exis­ting product portfolio.”

Ronald Boers, Mana­ging Direc­tor of BOAL Group, comm­ents: “The green­house indus­try is growing rapidly and BOAL Group will bene­fit enorm­ously from this deve­lo­p­ment. Equis­tone is the ideal part­ner for our ambi­ti­ons — toge­ther we will conti­nue to drive our growth plans. In doing so, we build on long-term stra­te­gic part­ner­ships with our custo­mers as well as many years of expe­ri­ence and exper­tise in the extru­sion of high-quality alumi­num profiles for the green­house indus­try and other markets.”

On the part of Equis­tone, Dr. Marc Arens, Roman Emanuel Hegglin and Moritz Treude are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The mid-market inves­tor was advi­sed by h&z (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Finan­cial), Allen & Overy (Legal), PwC (Tax), ERM (Envi­ron­men­tal), GCA Altium (Dept Advi­sory), Shear­man & Ster­ling and Stek Advo­ca­ten (Finan­cing, Legal). BOAL Group was advi­sed by William Blair (M&A), Roland Berger (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Financial/ Tax), Hout­hoff (Legal), Tauw (Envi­ron­men­tal), Oaklins (Finan­cial), Van Doorne (Legal) and Yeald (Manage­ment). The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in April 2018.

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.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.equistonepe.de

Frank­furt, Munich, London — Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed the finan­cial inves­tor Noval­pina Capi­tal in connec­tion with a public take­over offer for Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group AS, listed on the Tallinn Stock Exch­ange. The tran­sac­tion is the largest of its kind so far in the Baltic States.

The public tender offer is being made by Odys­sey Europe AS, a company owned by funds mana­ged by Noval­pina Capi­tal, for all shares in Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group for a price of EUR 1.90 per share. Accor­ding to this, the delis­ting of the Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group from the Tallinn Stock Exch­ange and the merger of Odys­sey Europe AS with the Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group are being sought.

Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group is a leading opera­tor of casi­nos and provi­der of sports betting in six markets in the Euro­zone (Esto­nia, Latvia, Lithua­nia, Italy, Slova­kia and Malta).

Advi­sors to Noval­pina Capi­tal: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Weil tran­sac­tion team is led by part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and is supported by the part­ners Stephan Grauke (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger (Corpo­rate, Munich) as well as Coun­sel Dr. Heiner Drüke (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and the asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer (Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Ansgar Wimber (Corpo­rate, Munich), Benja­min Rapp (Tax, Munich), Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler (Corpo­rate, Munich), Daniel Zhu (Corpo­rate, Munich) and Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) as well as para­le­gals Madleen Düdder, Patrik Marten and Sonja Popp (all Munich).
The Weil team working on the acqui­si­tion finan­cing is led by Frank­furt Finance Part­ner Dr. Wolf­ram Distler and London Finance Part­ner Patrick Bright and was supported by asso­cia­tes Dr. Dorian Legel and Julia Schum (both Frank­furt) as well as Nick Kren­del and Antony Serban (both London).

About Noval­pina Capital
Noval­pina Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent Euro­pean private equity firm that focu­ses on making control equity invest­ments in middle market compa­nies throug­hout the conti­nent. Noval­pina has a solu­tion-orien­ted, entre­pre­neu­rial approach to inves­t­ing and crea­ting value in its port­fo­lio compa­nies. Noval­pina Capi­tal was estab­lished by Stephen Peel, Stefan Kowski and Bastian Lueken in 2017. The Foun­ding Part­ners bring combi­ned expe­ri­ence of 48 years in private equity inves­t­ing, inclu­ding senior posi­ti­ons in the Euro­pean opera­ti­ons of leading global private equity invest­ment firms, and have a shared history of working toge­ther for nearly a decade.

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, Prague, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley, Warsaw and Washing­ton, D.C.

Frank­furt am Main / Munich — Allen & Overy LLP has advi­sed private equity inves­tor Bencis Capi­tal Part­ners (“Bencis”) on the acqui­si­tion of HALEX Holding GmbH (“Halex”) from H2 Equity Part­ners.

Halex, based in Alden­ho­ven, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, is one of Euro­pe’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of extru­sion dies and service provi­ders for heat treat­ment with its two busi­ness units Halex Extru­sion Dies and Härtha Hardening Indus­tries. The company opera­tes twelve sites in Germany, Italy, the Nether­lands and Roma­nia and employs around 460 people.

Bencis is a private equity firm that invests in successful mid-sized compa­nies prima­rily in the Bene­lux and Germany.

The Allen & Overy team advi­sed on all M&A legal issues in this tran­sac­tion as well as on the complex finan­cing struc­ture of the tran­sac­tion, consis­ting of a unitran­che finan­cing in the form of notes provi­ded by Muzi­nich & Co., Idin­vest Part­ners and CVC Credit Part­ners and a revol­ving credit faci­lity gran­ted by ABN AMRO.

The team was led by Munich part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Veith with support from senior asso­ciate Dr. Daniel Epe and asso­ciate Tobias Hugo (all Corporate/M&A, Munich).

The finan­cing of the tran­sac­tion was advi­sed by Part­ner Thomas Neubaum (Banking and Finance), Part­ner Dr. Stefan Henkel­mann (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets), Coun­sel Jens Noll­mann (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets) and Bianca Engel­mann, Senior Asso­cia­tes Elke Funken-Hötzel and David Schmidt, Asso­ciate Louisa Drew­niok and Tran­sac­tion Support Lawyer Anasta­siya-Evan­ge­lina Gordienko (all Banking and Finance, Frankfurt).

Further­more, the part­ners Dr. Asmus Mihm (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Börries Ahrens (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg), Coun­sel Dr. Chris­tian Hilmes (Real Estate, Hamburg), the Senior Asso­cia­tes Peter Seidel and Dr. Domi­nic Paschke (both Tax Law, Frank­furt) as well as the Asso­cia­tes Heiner Meck­len­burg (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg) and Dr. Wolf­gang Wittek (Labor Law, Hamburg) provi­ded advice.

Notes to the Editor:
www.allenovery.de

Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,400 employees, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 550 part­ners, in 44 offices worldwide.

Allen & Overy is repre­sen­ted in Germany at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg and Munich with appro­xi­m­ately 220 lawy­ers, inclu­ding 50 part­ners. The lawy­ers advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies prima­rily in the areas of banking, finance and capi­tal markets law, corpo­rate law and M&A, tax law as well as other areas of busi­ness law.

This press release is issued by Allen & Overy LLP. In this press release, “Allen & Overy” refers to “Allen & Overy LLP or its affi­lia­tes.” The named part­ners are either share­hol­ders, advi­sors or employees of Allen & Overy LLP and/or its affiliates.

Gladenbach/ Munich — The Munich-based family-owned Sera­fin Group of Compa­nies (“Sera­fin”) acqui­res Weso-Aurorahütte GmbH (“WESO”), a subsi­diary of the Viess­mann Group (“Viess­mann”), one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers of heating, indus­trial and cooling systems. Viess­mann Group was advi­sed by DC Advi­sory.

With more than 400 employees and sales of around EUR 64 million, WESO belongs to the to the major German found­ries. The company from Gladen­bach in Hesse specia­li­zes in the manu­fac­ture of high-quality gray cast iron products that are used inter­na­tio­nally in various indus­tries. Last year, the company cele­bra­ted its 130th anniversary.

WESO had been part of the Viess­mann Group for seve­ral deca­des, supp­ly­ing it with castings for its heating tech­no­logy divi­sion. Viess­mann will remain an important custo­mer of WESO in the future. In addi­tion, the foundry serves well-known indus­trial custo­mers from various sectors with a focus on agri­cul­tu­ral and rail­road tech­no­logy. This busi­ness has been conti­nuously expan­ded over the past two deca­des and is to be pushed even further in the future.

Prof. Dr. Martin Viess­mann, Presi­dent of the Execu­tive Board of the Viess­mann Group, states: “With their exem­plary commit­ment, the employees in Gladen­bach have contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to the successful deve­lo­p­ment of WESO over the many years. I would like to express my sincere thanks for this. At the same time, I am plea­sed that with the hando­ver to Sera­fin, WESO conti­nues to be in good, family-run hands. We are firmly convin­ced that WESO is thus also very well posi­tio­ned for the future.”

Phil­ipp Haindl (photo), one of the foun­ders of the Sera­fin group of compa­nies and repre­sen­ta­tive of the share­hol­der family, empha­si­zed that nothing would change for the more than 400 employees of the Gladen­bach foundry. WESO’s previous stra­tegy as a custo­mer foundry will be further deve­lo­ped. “We invest in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies that have a func­tio­ning busi­ness model and can be further deve­lo­ped through the use of opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic measures.”

The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

Advi­sors to sola­ris­Bank AG: P+P Pöllath und Partner
Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, M&A, Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Eva Nase (Part­ner, Stock Corpo­ra­tion Law, Munich)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Venture Capi­tal, Berlin/Munich)
Dr. Sebas­tian Käpplin­ger (Coun­sel, Regu­la­tory Law, Frankfurt)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Coun­sel, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Phil­ipp Opitz (Senior Asso­ciate, Stock Corpo­ra­tion Law, Munich)
Tim Jung­in­ger (Senior Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets, Munich)
Dr. Georg Seitz (Asso­ciate, M&A, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Chris­toph-Alex­an­der May (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets Law, Munich)

Munich — Munich-based private equity firm Para­gon Part­ners has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in UNICEPTA. Pesca Private Equity initia­ted the exit through the previous group of share­hol­ders around the Ippen media group, former Bertels­mann execu­tive Hart­mut Ostrow­ski and other inves­tors in an inter­na­tio­nal bidding process. The manage­ment team remains invol­ved in the company.

UNICEPTA is one of the leading Euro­pean service compa­nies for stra­te­gic media moni­to­ring, media response analy­sis and intel­li­gent issue manage­ment concepts. UNICEPTA has achie­ved an average annual increase in sales of around 18 percent over the last ten years. In the 2016/2017 finan­cial year, sales amoun­ted to €31.5 million. The company works for around 300 custo­mers, inclu­ding two-thirds of the DAX compa­nies and nume­rous other multi­na­tio­nals. UNICEPTA is also the leading provi­der in Germany for so-called news­room solu­ti­ons in corpo­rate communications.

Advi­sors to Pesca Private Equity: P+P Pöllath + Partners
P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the sellers around Pesca Private Equity on the sale of their shares.

Tobias Jäger (Coun­sel, Lead, M&A/PE, Munich), Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax, Munich), Dr. Jens Linde (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Finan­cing, Frank­furt), Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Coun­sel, Anti­trust Law, Frank­furt), Andrea Strei­fen­e­der (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich), Dr. Sebas­tian Rosen­tritt (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich), Chris­toph Beigel (Asso­ciate, Tax Law Munich)

Stuttgart/ Düssel­dorf — BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft has acqui­red a mino­rity stake in Crui­se­Vi­sion GmbH. Foun­ded in 2009 by Chris­tian Paulick and Mirko Berloge, the company is one of the tech­no­lo­gi­cal leaders in photo and video products on ocean cruise ships. It curr­ently employs 14 perma­nent staff at its site in Sche­ne­feld near Hamburg and around 95 freelancers.

Crui­se­Vi­sion offers custo­mi­zed photo and film solu­ti­ons for up to 25,000 passen­gers daily on cruise ships opera­ting world­wide. Further­more, Crui­se­Vi­sion offers guided bicy­cle tours for cruise passen­gers and plans to expand the successful concept to new market segments. “Crui­se­Vi­si­on’s indus­try-expe­ri­en­ced and inno­va­tive manage­ment as well as its profi­ta­ble and scalable busi­ness model have convin­ced us. We will cons­truc­tively support the company in the imple­men­ta­tion of its growth stra­tegy,” explains BWK Mana­ging Direc­tor Bernd Bergschneider.

BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, based in Stutt­gart, is one of the oldest German private equity compa­nies and pursues a long-term invest­ment approach. ARQIS first acted for the company through a cont­act of part­ner Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schneider.

Advi­sors to BWK GmbH: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial; Munich); Coun­sel: Saskia Kirsch­baum (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Carina Engel­hard (Labor Law), Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP & Commer­cial; Munich), Scha­bana Alam Yar (Legal Support Specialist)

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 at its current offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 45 lawy­ers advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on the core issues of German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. The focus is on M&A, corpo­rate law, private equity, venture capi­tal, employ­ment law, private clients as well as intellec­tual property and liti­ga­tion. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

Munich/Graz — Funds advi­sed by DPE Deut­sche Private Equity Manage­ment III GmbH (DPE) acquire a majo­rity stake in VTU Engi­nee­ring (“VTU” or the “Company”). The foun­ding team remains signi­fi­cantly invol­ved in the company.

VTU is a leading engi­nee­ring service provi­der for the plan­ning and opti­miza­tion of process plants up to the gene­ral plan­ning of major invest­ments in the phar­maceu­ti­cal, biotech­no­logy, chemi­cal, metall­ur­gi­cal, and oil and gas indus­tries. The company has 20 loca­ti­ons in Austria, Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy and Roma­nia and employs over 400 highly quali­fied employees.

“Since its foun­da­tion in 1990, VTU Engi­nee­ring has stood for the highest level of compe­tence, quality and relia­bi­lity in plant design. Our growth path so far proves that we have deve­lo­ped from an Austrian specia­list to a leading plant desi­gner and project mana­ger in the entire German-spea­king region and beyond through tech­ni­cal know-how and a constant expan­sion of core compe­ten­cies,” comm­ents foun­der Dr. Michael Koncar, who will support the company in the future as a member of the advi­sory board.

Since 2010, VTU has more than tripled its sales and more than doubled its work­force. Major projects with phar­maceu­ti­cal custo­mers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land are the main growth drivers. DPE Mana­ging Direc­tor Guido Prehn empha­si­zes: “We have been follo­wing VTU’s deve­lo­p­ment for more than two years. We are impres­sed by how the company has estab­lished long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with the big names in the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try. We see signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial for VTU and will stron­gly support the manage­ment team as it conti­nues on its course.” VTU intends to leverage its strong market posi­tion and repu­ta­tion as a phar­maceu­ti­cal specia­list to drive growth with new custo­mers. “We are looking forward to tack­ling VTU’s next growth initia­ti­ves with an expe­ri­en­ced, entre­pre­neu­rial and strong part­ner behind us,” under­lines VTU CEO Dr. Fried­rich Fröschl.

About DPE Deut­sche Private Equity
DPE Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”), foun­ded by Volker Hichert (photo ) and Marc Thiery, is an inde­pen­dent German private equity firm and one of the largest growth capi­tal provi­ders in Germany. It focu­ses on medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries that operate in sectors with posi­tive long-term deve­lo­p­ment pros­pects. DPE was foun­ded in 2007 and has since inves­ted in 21 compa­nies, making 48 follow-on invest­ments and employ­ing more than 7,300 people today. DPE mana­ges total assets of around € 1.2 billion.

Advi­sor DPE: P+P Pöllath + Partners
P+P advi­sed DPE on German tax aspects of the acqui­si­tion with the follo­wing team:
— Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
— Gerald Herr­mann (Coun­sel, Tax Law Munich)

Frank­furt am Main / Hamburg — Allen & Overy LLP is advi­sing US finan­cial inves­tor Cerbe­rus Capi­tal Manage­ment on the acqui­si­tion of HSH Nord­bank by inde­pen­dent inves­tors. The agree­ment provi­des for a purchase price of around one billion euros for 94.9 percent of the shares held in HSH Nord­bank. The other buyers include finan­cial inves­tors J.C. Flowers, Golden­Tree Asset Manage­ment and Centau­rus Capi­tal, as well as Austria’s BAWAG P.S.K. Bank für Arbeit und Wirt­schaft and Öster­rei­chi­sche Post­spar­kasse.

In connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion, problem loans with a nomi­nal value of seve­ral billion euros will be sold from the bank. This will enable HSH Nord­bank to compete without state aid in the future. The acqui­si­tion of HSH Nord­bank by inde­pen­dent inves­tors marks the first time that a German Landes­bank has been successfully privatized.

The tran­sac­tion will be comple­ted once the neces­sary regu­la­tory appr­ovals have been obtai­ned. These include appr­oval by the Euro­pean Commis­sion, the Euro­pean Central Bank, the parlia­ments of the states of Hamburg and Schles­wig-Holstein, and the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Allen & Overy is advi­sing Cerbe­rus on, among other things, the purchase agree­ment, the offloa­ding of the problem loans, on all regu­la­tory aspects (inclu­ding banking super­vi­sion law and anti­trust law) and on labor and tax issues.

The Allen & Overy team was led by part­ners Dr. Hart­mut Krause (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Dr. Nico­laus Ascher­feld (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg — both lead) and included the follo­wing addi­tio­nal team members:

Coun­sel Max Lands­hut (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Dr. Andre P.H. Wandt (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Senior Asso­ciate Alex­an­der Wüpper (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Gregor Petric, Tatiana Marzoli, Frede­ric Wünsche (all Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Moritz Meis­ter and Dr. Stefan Witte (both Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Fabian Schulze and Kai Schadtle (both Banking Regu­la­tory, Frankfurt).

Further­more, the team consis­ted of the part­ners Dr. Jan Schrö­der (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Jürgen Schind­ler (Anti­trust, Brussels), Dr. Heike Weber (Tax, Frank­furt), John Coburn, Dr. Franz Bern­hard Herding, Wolf­gang Melzer, Dr. Norbert Wieder­holt (all Banking and Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Walter Uebel­hoer (Banking, Munich), Dr. Stefan Henkel­mann (Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt), Dr. Jens Matthes (IP/IT, Düssel­dorf), Markulf Behrendt (Labor Law, Hamburg), Dr. Hans-Peter Löw (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Tobias Neufeld (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), the Coun­sel Dr. Udo Herbert Olgem­öl­ler (Public Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Ilja Baudisch (Banking and Finance Law, Munich), the Of Coun­sel Frank Herring (Banking Super­vi­sory Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Oliver Wald­burg (Banking and Finance Law, Frank­furt), Senior Asso­cia­tes Fatih Coskun, Chris­to­pher Jahnke, Lorenz Riehl (all Banking and Finance Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Chris­toph Börskens, Dr. Riccardo Mari­nello (both Real Estate, Frank­furt), Dr. Andreas Zieg­ler (Public Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Sebas­tian Schulz (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Karen Zöttl (Banking and Finance Law, Frank­furt), Daniela Schmitt (Inter­na­tio­nal Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Dr. Rauni Aham­mer (Banking and Finance, Munich), Louisa Drew­niok, Dr. Anna Serwotka, Dr. Jörg Weber, Anto­nia Wolf (all Banking and Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Anna Opel (Public Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Lisa Müller, Anja Glück (both Labor Law, Frank­furt), Catha­rina Glugla (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf) and Dr. Wolf­gang H. Wittek (Labor Law, Hamburg) as well as Tran­sac­tion Support Lawyer Ange­lika Pikulska (Corpo­rate, Munich).

Munich — A team led by M&A part­ner Boris Dürr has advi­sed the private equity funds advi­sed by AUCTUS Capi­tal Part­ners AG on the acqui­si­tion of GS Star Group. In the course of the tran­sac­tion, the two previous mana­ging direc­tors of GS Star GmbH, Andreas Erben and Heiko Grote, also acqui­red a stake in the newly estab­lished Gorge­ous Smiling Hotels Holding GmbH by way of a reverse share­hol­ding and will conti­nue to manage the group’s business.

The GS Star Group opera­tes hotels throug­hout Germany as well as in Austria and the Nether­lands under the Hamp­ton by Hilton, Holi­day Inn, Holi­day Inn Express and Super 8 brands and under its own ANA Art Hotels brand. In addi­tion, Gorge­ous Smiling GmbH, a subsi­diary of GS Star GmbH, acts as a service provi­der in the areas of marke­ting, yield manage­ment and purcha­sing services for third-party hotels not owned by the GS Star Group. Here, solu­ti­ons are offe­red for the opera­tion of hotels as well as for hotel real estate. In total, the current hotel port­fo­lio of the GS Star Group compri­ses over 50 hotels.

AUCTUS is one of the leading private equity inves­tors in the German-spea­king region. One focus of AUCTUS is the imple­men­ta­tion of indus­try concepts in conso­li­da­tion markets by means of a buy & build stra­tegy. Such a concept also under­lies AUCTUS’ invest­ment in the GS Star Group. For the future, GS Star Group toge­ther with AUCTUS plans to conso­li­date the opera­tor market of hotels. To this end, further hotels and hotel opera­ting compa­nies are to be acqui­red and the company’s own hotel real estate divi­sion expan­ded. Expan­sion into Italy and Spain is also planned.

The finan­cing, on which Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek also advi­sed, was provi­ded in the form of a unitran­che by IDIn­vest Partners.

On the part of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, the tran­sac­tion was lead-mana­ged by Munich part­ner Boris Dürr. Boris Dürr’s team regu­larly advi­ses funds advi­sed by AUCTUS on transactions.

Advi­sors to AUCTUS (tran­sac­tion and finan­cing): Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Boris Dürr (Lead, M&A), Daniela Szczesny (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Arnold Büsse­ma­ker (Finan­cing), Chris­tian Schild, LL.M., (Corporate/M&A), Ricarda Marschall, LL.M. (Corporate/M&A), Stef­fen Wilberg (Real Estate), Dr. Philip Wennin­ger (Labor Law), all Munich, Astrid Lued­tke (Trade­mark), Düsseldorf