Year: 2019

Frank­furt am Main/Amelinghausen — The fund German Equity Part­ners V (“GEP V” or the “Fund”), mana­ged by the inde­pen­dent German invest­ment company ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”), has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy service provi­der SIS GmbH (“SIS”). SIS specia­li­zes in ther­mal off-gas clea­ning and degas­sing and is an inter­na­tio­nal leader in redu­cing emis­si­ons from vola­tile hydro­car­bons in the oil and gas indus­try through the use of mobile combus­tors. The company’s foun­der Guido Soyk will conti­nue to hold a signi­fi­cant stake in SIS and will lead the company into the next phase of its deve­lo­p­ment as mana­ging part­ner. As part of the tran­sac­tion, sales mana­ger Martin van der Veen will be appoin­ted as second mana­ging direc­tor. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the transaction.

Toge­ther with ECM, the company intends to invest in its further deve­lo­p­ment as well as the targe­ted expan­sion of its manage­ment and sales struc­tures in order to realize the full poten­tial of the solu­ti­ons offe­red by SIS in the exis­ting core market of the oil and gas indus­try and to deve­lop new oppor­tu­ni­ties in further inter­na­tio­nal markets as well as in the chemi­cal indus­try and shipping.

Envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy at the inter­face of occu­pa­tio­nal safety and climate protec­tion SIS was foun­ded in 2008, based in Ameling­hau­sen, with the aim of impro­ving occu­pa­tio­nal safety in the clea­ning of process plants and tanks. For this purpose, as well as for tempo­rary repla­ce­ment when requi­red by custo­mers, the company uses mobile and flexi­ble combus­tion cham­bers deve­lo­ped in-house, which help to avoid the emis­sion of vola­tile hydro­car­bons that are harmful to the envi­ron­ment and to health, as well as being highly flamma­ble. The mobile combus­tors are provi­ded in shifts with appro­priate skil­led person­nel and on-site service as well as comple­men­tary equip­ment as part of a fully inte­gra­ted and compre­hen­sive service and solu­tion offering.

Over the past five years, incre­asingly strin­gent emis­si­ons regu­la­tion as a result of the further deve­lo­p­ment of envi­ron­men­tal and climate policy has become a key driver of demons­tra­ted busi­ness growth. SIS custo­mers include leading global compa­nies in the oil, gas and chemi­cal indus­tries such as BASF, BP, Exxon Mobil, DowChe­mi­cal, Sabic, Shell and Total. Reali­zing growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the core market and opening up the chemi­cal indus­try and ship­ping for SIS solu­ti­ons with ECM as an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner In Germany and the Nether­lands, SIS has a market-leading posi­tion in its previous core indus­try — the Euro­pean refi­nery indus­try. The company still sees considera­ble growth poten­tial here. In addi­tion, there are still great oppor­tu­ni­ties for the use of the solu­ti­ons offe­red by SIS, espe­ci­ally in France and Spain as well as other count­ries in Western Europe.

Another poten­ti­ally large target market is the Euro­pean chemi­cal indus­try, where SIS alre­ady has excel­lent refe­rence custo­mers in BASF and Dow Chemi­cal. In addi­tion, demand for SIS solu­ti­ons is also incre­asing in the ship­ping indus­try. The 15 largest seaports in Europe, as well as nume­rous inland ports, trans­port products that emit vola­tile hydro­car­bons on a large scale. With refe­rence projects in the ports of Rotter­dam, Wilhelms­ha­ven and Bilbao, SIS is excel­lently posi­tio­ned for further growth in this segment. ECM has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in support­ing growth and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­te­gies in medium-sized compa­nies, which has been proven with nume­rous invest­ments in a wide range of industries.

In part­ner­ship with ECM, SIS intends to expand its exis­ting manage­ment and sales struc­tures and make the tran­si­tion from an owner-mana­ged to a manage­ment-mana­ged company. The common goal is to syste­ma­ti­cally seize the growth oppor­tu­ni­ties that present them­sel­ves through a broa­der market approach in the future and targe­ted expan­sion into previously untap­ped sectors and count­ries. In addi­tion to stra­te­gic know-how, ECM also brings a long-stan­ding indus­try network to this part­ner­ship. Guido Soyk, foun­der and CEO of SIS, stated: “We are proud to have been able to deve­lop SIS into the leading company in an extre­mely inte­res­t­ing and incre­asingly rele­vant niche for the reduc­tion of emis­si­ons from fugi­tive hydro­car­bons. In order to fully realize the further growth poten­tial for our solu­ti­ons, we have been looking for a part­ner that fits our mid-sized iden­tity, but at the same time has proven that it can successfully accom­pany ‘hidden cham­pi­ons’ such as SIS on their way to the next stage of deve­lo­p­ment. We look forward to opening a new chap­ter in the history of SIS toge­ther with ECM.”

Alex­an­der Schön­born, Invest­ment Direc­tor at ECM, added: “SIS not only has an impres­sive product and service offe­ring, but also an outstan­ding market posi­tion. It is clear that demand for SIS solu­ti­ons will conti­nue to grow in the face of climate change and incre­asingly strin­gent regu­la­tion of hazar­dous emis­si­ons. Howe­ver, growing beyond a certain size and core market is often a chall­enge for foun­ders. As a growth part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies, we have alre­ady successfully accom­pa­nied this process many times and are plea­sed to support SIS on this path with our expe­ri­ence as well as our indus­try network.”

Advi­sors to ECM Equity: GEP V was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Milbank (legal and struc­tu­ring), Andro­schin & Part­ner (market due dili­gence), Ebner Stolz (finance & tax) and Willis (insu­rance).

Alex­an­der Schön­born, Florian Kähler and Chris­toph Demers are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion at ECM. SIS was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by CFC Corpo­rate Finance Contor and Dr. Thomas Bister (M&A and Legal).

About ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”)
ECM is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company based in Frank­furt am Main. ECM acted or acts as mana­ger respec­tively advi­sor of the equity funds German Equity Part­ners I‑V with an aggre­ga­ted equity of more than EUR 1 billion. The funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished, medium-sized compa­nies in the context of growth invest­ments and succes­sion arran­ge­ments as well as corpo­rate spin-offs. www.ecm.pe.de

About SIS GmbH (“SIS”)
SIS, head­quar­te­red in Ameling­hau­sen, Germany, is the inter­na­tio­nal market leader in the opera­tion of mobile ther­mal exhaust gas clea­ning systems and comple­men­tary equip­ment. The services and tech­no­lo­gies offe­red by SIS play a key role for custo­mers in redu­cing emis­si­ons (espe­ci­ally vola­tile hydro­car­bons). SIS helps them comply with even the stric­test envi­ron­men­tal regu­la­ti­ons. The port­fo­lio of mobile emis­sion control equip­ment is unique on the market in terms of size, quality and safety standards.

Munich — The law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed ARCUS Capi­tal AG on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake toge­ther with BE Betei­li­gun­gen Fonds in Lässig GmbH. The former sole share­hol­ders retain an inte­rest in Lässig GmbH. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Lässig GmbH, based in Baben­hau­sen near Aschaf­fen­burg (southern Hesse), is one of the market-leading suppli­ers of sustainable baby and children’s products. The company focu­ses parti­cu­larly on sustainable mate­ri­als and produc­tion proces­ses. The coll­ec­tions for parents, babies and child­ren are distri­bu­ted in over 50 countries.

ARCUS Capi­tal AG is a Munich-based inde­pen­dent invest­ment company focu­sing on majo­rity invest­ments in medium-sized family-owned compa­nies in the DACH region. The Lässig Manage­ment Team, consis­ting of the two foun­ders, Stefan Lässig and Clau­dia Lässig, as well as Karin Hein­rich, will syste­ma­ti­cally deve­lop Lässig GmbH toge­ther with ARCUS Capi­tal AG.

Legal advi­sors to ARCUS Capi­tal AG: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead M&A), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Banking/Finance, Lead Banking/Finance), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT), Matthias Uelner (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Domi­nik Forst­ner (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Chris­to­pher Ghabel (Senior Asso­ciate, Banking/Finance)
Alten­burg specia­list attor­neys for labor law, Munich: Andreas Ege (Labor Law)
Blom­stein, Berlin: Dr. Max Klasse (anti­trust law)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these specia­list areas we also take on the liti­ga­tion management

Munich — The indus­trial holding company ADCURAM Group AG has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the STEINEL Group, an inter­na­tio­nal supplier of sensors, sensor lights, hot-air devices and indus­trial compon­ents based in Herze­b­rock-Clar­holz, West­pha­lia. The seller is the family entre­pre­neur Ingo Stei­nel, who will conti­nue to be asso­cia­ted with the group through a signi­fi­cant share­hol­ding and as mana­ging direc­tor. The common goal is to inten­sify imple­men­ta­tion of the growth stra­tegy: further expan­sion of the trend area of buil­ding intel­li­gence and even grea­ter inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. The tran­sac­tion, the details of which have been agreed not to be disc­lo­sed, was comple­ted at the end of Novem­ber 2019.

STEINEL, foun­ded in 1959 by Hein­rich Stei­nel, has evol­ved over the years from an origi­nal produ­cer of heating elements in elec­tri­cal appli­ances to one of the leading suppli­ers of presence, motion and multi-sensors, sensor lights as well as hot air and hot glue guns. The Group has been expe­ri­en­cing parti­cu­lar growth in recent years as a result of the incre­asing auto­ma­tion of buil­dings. Sensors from STEINEL are world leaders in intel­li­gent light­ing control and make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to redu­cing energy consump­tion. The latest systems in the field of “buil­ding intel­li­gence” are intel­li­gent solu­ti­ons for the effi­ci­ent use of office space, hotel rooms and also for support in care. Areas that the new part­ner ADCURAM also wants to focus on:

“Not only the deve­lo­p­ment of the motion detec­tor and the world’s first Sensor­Light are impres­sive mile­sto­nes for STEINEL. As a tech­no­logy and inno­va­tion leader, the company is excel­lently posi­tio­ned and has the best prere­qui­si­tes for further growth, espe­ci­ally in the field of Buil­ding Intel­li­gence. We are very much looking forward to a long-term colla­bo­ra­tion in a highly attrac­tive market,” explains ADCURAM Board Member Dr. Phil­ipp Gusinde. Ingo Stei­nel adds: “The conti­nua­tion of STEINEL’s success is very close to my heart. I am very happy to have found a part­ner in ADCURAM who thinks both entre­pre­neu­ri­ally and inno­va­tively and has a lot of expe­ri­ence in support­ing medium-sized compa­nies in the buil­ding-rela­ted segment. Toge­ther we will initiate the next growth steps.”

Over the course of Steinel’s corpo­rate history, more than 300 patents and designs have been regis­tered, resul­ting in more than 2,500 products for private and profes­sio­nal users as well as for indus­try and OEM manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Nume­rous appli­ca­ti­ons and solu­ti­ons were pionee­ring in their respec­tive indus­tries. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters, STEINEL’s 1,500 employees work at five other sites in Leip­zig, Einsie­deln (Switz­er­land), the Czech Repu­blic, Roma­nia and the Repu­blic of Moldova. Sales in Europe and the USA are made through whole­sa­lers and retail­ers as well as to plan­ners, archi­tects and installers.

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 more than 400 million euros in sales with six holdings and over 2,500 employees worldwide.

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

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

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

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

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

Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the four invest­ment plat­forms Connec­ted Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities is mana­ged by a dedi­ca­ted and compe­tent team, each based in Gimv’s home markets — Bene­lux, France and DACH — and supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts. www.gimv.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parties and advi­sors invol­ved in the transaction:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,100 lawy­ers, we are repre­sen­ted in 20 loca­ti­ons world­wide: Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt a. M., Hous­ton, Colo­gne, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Sili­con Valley, Washing­ton, D.C. and Wilm­ing­ton. There is a stra­te­gic alli­ance with MWE China Law Offices in Shang­hai. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP www.mwe.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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