ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Year: 2020

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte has advi­sed BMG on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the inde­pen­dent German promo­ter Under­co­ver GmbH. The two compa­nies will work toge­ther in the future as part of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship. Under­co­ver foun­der and CEO Michael Schacke and the 30-strong team will remain with the company.

The tran­sac­tion marks BMG’s first entry into the live music busi­ness in the company’s history. Under the umbrella of the Bertels­mann Content Alli­ance, the new divi­sion will also work with Bertelsmann’s other content busi­nesses in Germany, such as Medi­en­gruppe RTL Deutsch­land, RTL Radio, UFA, the Penguin Random House publi­shing group and Gruner + Jahr.

Under­co­ver GmbH was foun­ded in Braun­schweig in 1991 and orga­ni­zes over 200 concerts and shows a year in nort­hern Germany alone. In addi­tion, Under­co­ver deve­lops and produ­ces its own formats and has been booking tours and festi­vals of natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal artists in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land for 15 years.

Consul­tant BMG:
SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte, Munich: Dr. Matthias Nord­mann (Corporate/M&A, Lead), Eva Bona­cker (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Martin Land­auer (Labor Law), Stefan C. Schi­cker, LL.M. (IP); Asso­ciate: David Leon Solberg (Corporate/M&A)

News

Frank­furt a. M. — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN CAPITAL”) on its invest­ment in Forto GmbH. The $50 million funding round led by INVEN CAPITAL also included parti­ci­pa­tion from Iris Capi­tal and exis­ting inves­tors such as Maersk, North­zone, Cherry Ventures, H14 and Rider Global.

Forto GmbH (form­erly Freight­Hub), based in Berlin, is a digi­tal logi­stics service provi­der that enables its custo­mers to digi­tally manage global supply chains from the manu­fac­tu­rer to the end custo­mer. The company now has more than 2,000 custo­mers, inclu­ding compa­nies such as Home24, Miele and Viess­mann. Foun­ded in 2016, the company is growing rapidly and curr­ently employs around 300 people.

INVEN CAPITAL is the venture capi­tal arm of the ČEZ Group, whose invest­ment focus is on invest­ments in clean-tech and new-energy companies.

Weil’s Frank­furt office regu­larly advi­ses INVEN on its invest­ments, inclu­ding the recent finan­cing round at Zolar GmbH, the sale of its stake in home battery storage provi­der sonnen to Shell Over­seas Invest­ment B.V., the invest­ment in start-up Cloud&Heat Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH and the recent finan­cing round at Sunfire GmbH.

The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Chris­tian Tapp­ei­ner. He was supported by Coun­sel Konrad v. Buch­waldt and Asso­cia­tes Julian Schwa­ne­beck, Stef­fen Giolda, Sara Afschar-Hamdi, Simon Stei­ner, Mario Kuhn (all Corpo­rate), Mareike Pfeif­fer, Lili­anna Ranody (both Labor Law), Markus Cejka (Finance), Alisa Preiß­ler, Dr. Chris­tian Widera (both Tax) as well as Para­le­gals Nata­scha Späth and Kris­tina Thiel.

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

News

Berlin — Soft­ware company Jobpal has sold all its shares in the company to US-based HR tech provi­der SmartRe­crui­ters. SmartRe­crui­ters is tapping into the robot-driven recruit­ment process auto­ma­tion (RPA) market through the acqui­si­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. An SMP team led by part­ner Malte Berg­mann, photo, advi­sed on the exit toge­ther with UK law firm Withers.

Jobpal
Foun­ded in 2016 as a startup by a German team, Jobpal is a soft­ware company deve­lo­ping on AI-powered chat­bots that auto­mate commu­ni­ca­tion between employ­ers and appli­cants. Jobpal curr­ently employs around 25 people.

SmartRe­crui­ters
SmartRe­crui­ters is a recrui­ting soft­ware provi­der head­quar­te­red in San Fran­cisco with addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons in Poland, Germany, UK and France. The company was foun­ded in 2010 by Jerome Ternynck.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Consul­tant Jobpal: SMP
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Lead Part­ner, Taxes), Partner
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Corpo­rate, M&A), Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Taxes), Senior Associate

News

Finland — IQM Quan­tum Compu­ters, the Euro­pean leader in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of super­con­duc­ting quan­tum compu­ters, secu­res EUR 39 million in a new round of finan­cing. This brings the total amount raised to date to EUR 71 million — one of the highest amounts raised by a Euro­pean deep tech start-up in a single year.

Lead inves­tor MIG led the round of exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding Tesi, Open­O­cean, Maki.vc, Vito Ventures and Matadero QED, as well as new inves­tors inclu­ding Vsquared, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capi­tal and Tencent.

Head­quar­te­red in Helsinki with a second office in Munich, the deep-tech company supplies commer­ci­ally available quan­tum compu­ters for rese­arch labo­ra­to­ries and super­com­pu­ting centers. The high-perfor­mance compu­ters are expec­ted to solve extre­mely complex compu­ta­tio­nal tasks within hours — a task that previously took seve­ral years. Through a unique co-design approach, IQM provi­des quan­tum bene­fits to indus­trial custo­mers through appli­ca­tion-speci­fic proces­sors. The company thus supplies the complete hard­ware stack for a quan­tum compu­ter, which inte­gra­tes various tech­no­lo­gies and enables coope­ra­tion with quan­tum soft­ware companies.

Quan­tum compu­ting is still in a rela­tively early stage of deve­lo­p­ment, but experts say it will gain elemen­tal importance in the coming decade, making major breakth­roughs in health­care, logi­stics, finance, chemis­try and other fields.

IQM is one of the fastest growing compa­nies in the quan­tum compu­ting sector and alre­ady has one of the world’s largest quan­tum engi­nee­ring teams. Funding from the current round will be used to acce­le­rate hard­ware deve­lo­p­ment and produce appli­ca­tion-speci­fic quan­tum compu­ters. In addi­tion, a large portion of the funding will go toward retai­ning and retai­ning the best talent in quan­tum compu­ting, as well as the sales and busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment teams.

Advi­sor to MIG Fund: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
MIG Fonds is a long-term client of LUTZ | ABEL. In the current finan­cing round, the advi­sory team consis­ted of Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch, LL.M. (lead) and Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (both VC / M&A, Munich) together.

News

Munich — Bearing­Point sells its inde­pen­dent Regu­la­tory Tech­no­logy (RegTech) divi­sion to leading private equity inves­tor Nordic Capi­tal in a share deal. The closing of the tran­sac­tion with Nordic Capi­tal is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. DLA Piper advi­sed Bearing­Point on this transaction.

The tran­sac­tion is the result of a stra­te­gic process to acce­le­rate the growth of the RegTech divi­sion as a soft­ware company provi­ding specia­li­zed, profes­sio­nal and mana­ged services along the regu­la­tory value chain. Bearing­Point will conti­nue to act as a stra­te­gic consul­ting part­ner and retain a mino­rity stake in RegTech.

RegTech is a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in the areas of regu­la­tory and risk tech­no­logy, tax tech­no­logy and report­ing services along the regu­la­tory value chain. Through close cont­act with regu­la­tors and as a member of key stan­dards commit­tees, RegTech is actively invol­ved in the draf­ting and deve­lo­p­ment of regu­la­tory stan­dards. With more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence in the indus­try, RegTech is firmly estab­lished as a market leader in Europe.

Bearing­Point is a leading global inde­pen­dent manage­ment and tech­no­logy consul­ting firm with a network of consul­tants that includes more than 10,000 employees and supports clients in over 70 count­ries. The company opera­tes in three busi­ness areas: The first covers the consul­ting busi­ness and focu­ses on five key areas to drive growth in all regi­ons. The second unit provi­des IP-driven mana­ged services beyond SaaS, offe­ring its custo­mers mission-criti­cal services that support busi­ness success. The third unit provi­des soft­ware solu­ti­ons for successful digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. It is also focu­sed on explo­ring inno­va­tive busi­ness models with custo­mers and part­ners by funding and deve­lo­ping start-ups.

Advi­sor Bearing­Point: DLA Piper
Lead Part­ner Dr. Thomas Schmuck, Senior Asso­ciate Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin. The other team members were part­ners Andreas Füch­sel (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Marie-Theres Rämer (Tax, all Frank­furt), Jan Pohle (IPT), Prof. Dr. Ludger Gies­berts (Lit&Reg, both Colo­gne) and Semin O, coun­sel Sergej Bräuer (both Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Dr. Thilo Streit (Lit&Reg) and Dr. Thors­ten Ammann (IPT, both Colo­gne), senior asso­cia­tes Niklas Mangels, Phil­ipp Groll (both Corporate/M&A), Miray Kavruk (all Frank­furt) and France Vehar (Colo­gne, both IPT), and asso­cia­tes Phil­ipp Meyer (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Andreas Rüdi­ger (IPT, Colo­gne). DLA Piper teams from the UK, Ireland, the Nether­lands, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Roma­nia were invol­ved in the consultancy.

The project was mana­ged in-house at Bearing­Point by Dr. Andreas Schöp­perle, Foto (Group Gene­ral Coun­sel) and Rainer Schö­ner (Senior Coun­sel). The tran­sac­tion was mana­ged at Bearing­Point by the M&A unit within Bearing­Point Capi­tal, led by Patrick Palm­gren toge­ther with Andreas Flach (Bearing­Point Chief Finan­cial Officer).

About DLA Piper
DLA Piper is one of the world’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 240 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich.

News

Munich, Germany — Cata­lYm, an inno­va­tive biotech company deve­lo­ping novel immu­no­the­rapy approa­ches against cancer, has successfully closed its €50 million Series B finan­cing. The finan­cing consor­tium, led by lead inves­tor Vesa­lius Bioca­pi­tal III, also includes Novar­tis Venture Fund (NVF), Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern, copa­rion and foun­ding inves­tors Forbion and BioGe­nera­tion Ventures. Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from Vesa­lius, NVF and Bayern Kapi­tal will join the advi­sory board as new members.

The funding combi­ned with the strong commit­ment of exis­ting and new venture capi­tal inves­tors enables the all-important further deve­lo­p­ment of anti­bo­dies in the field of immuno-onco­logy. — Baker McKen­zie ’s Life Scien­ces team, led by Julia Braun, advi­sed Cata­lYm on all legal aspects of the Series B financing.

“The times of COVID-19 in parti­cu­lar are an exci­ting period for our client and the indus­try as a whole. Toge­ther with our client and our team of specia­li­zed biotech­no­logy and life scien­ces lawy­ers, we successfully secu­red funds for further rese­arch in the health­care sector with this tran­sac­tion,” commen­ted Coun­sel Julia Braun.

Cata­lYm is a biophar­maceu­ti­cal company deve­lo­ping novel cancer immu­no­the­ra­pies targe­ting growth and diffe­ren­tia­tion factor 15 (GDF-15). The company was estab­lished with start-up funding from Forbion and BGV in 2016 as a spin-off of the Univer­sity Women’s Hospi­tal Würz­burg and based on the work of Prof. Dr. Jörg Wisch­husen. Cata­lYm is led by an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team with exten­sive exper­tise in immuno-onco­logy drug deve­lo­p­ment and deal expe­ri­ence, and supported by inter­na­tio­nal venture capitalists.

Baker McKenzie’s Corporate/M&A and Life Scien­ces team regu­larly advi­ses large phar­maceu­ti­cal, finan­cial inves­tor and early stage biotech­no­logy compa­nies on dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal health­care tran­sac­tions. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed, among others, Casdin Capi­tal as lead inves­tor in DNA Script’s USD 50 million exten­ded Series‑B finan­cing round, Chr. Hansen Holding on its acqui­si­tion of Jenne­wein, Cure­Vac on its stra­te­gic mRNA tech­no­logy colla­bo­ra­tion with GSK, LSP Life Science Part­ners on a USD 38.5 million Series‑B finan­cing in DNA Script, Gala­pa­gos on a 10-year global rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment colla­bo­ra­tion with Gilead, Hita­chi Chemi­cal Company, Tokyo, in the acqui­si­tion of German apceth Biopharma, Forbion as lead inves­tor in a EUR 17 million Series‑C equity finan­cing of Omei­cos Thera­peu­tics and in a USD 54 million Series‑A finan­cing of Gotham Thera­peu­tics Corpo­ra­tion, Mundi­pharma in the sale of its Limburg manu­fac­tu­ring facility.

Legal advi­sor Cata­lYm: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Corporate/M&A: Julia Braun (Coun­sel, Munich)
Corporate/M&A: Bert­hold Hummel (Part­ner, Munich), Michelle Karrer, Dr. Julia Rossié (both Asso­ciate, Munich)
Public Law: Anahita Thoms (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Alex­an­der Ehrle (Asso­ciate, Berlin)
Anti­trust & Trade: Dr. Jonas Brueck­ner (Coun­sel, Berlin)
Pharma: Dr. Chris­tian Burholt (Part­ner, Berlin)

About Baker McKenzie
Baker McKen­zie advi­ses clients to successfully deal with the chal­lenges of globa­liza­tion. We solve complex legal problems across natio­nal borders and legal fields. Our unique culture — grown over 70 years — enables our 13,000 employees to under­stand local markets while opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. We use the trus­ting and friendly coope­ra­tion in our inter­na­tio­nal network for the bene­fit of our clients.

In Germany, around 200 lawy­ers with proven profes­sio­nal exper­tise and inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence repre­sent the inte­rests of their clients at the offices in Berlin, Düssel­dorf, Frankfurt/Main and Munich. As one of the leading German law firms, Baker McKen­zie advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons in all areas of commer­cial law.

News

Karls­ruhe, Germany — Tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners (“LEA”) is selling IDL, a leading provi­der of finan­cial perfor­mance manage­ment soft­ware (FPM), to insightsoft­ware, a global leader in finan­cial report­ing and enter­prise perfor­mance manage­ment solu­ti­ons. Behind insightsoft­ware are the two private equity inves­tors TA Asso­cia­tes and Genstar Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the key points of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance and is expec­ted in the course of this year. This is the second exit for LEA from the €200m B2B tech fund focu­sed on soft­ware compa­nies from the DACH region.

IDL has specia­li­zed in the deve­lo­p­ment of FPM soft­ware solu­ti­ons for conso­li­da­tion, plan­ning, analy­sis and report­ing since 1990. Clas­si­fied by the analyst firm BARC as a market leader with a top posi­tion in the area of “Port­fo­lio Capa­bi­li­ties”, IDL serves corpo­rate groups and inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting medium-sized compa­nies in a wide range of industries.

LEA’s invest­ment was made in early 2019 based on its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in leading soft­ware compa­nies with high shares of recur­ring reve­nue and substan­tial growth poten­tial. LEA was convin­ced by IDL’s unique market posi­tion of provi­ding mission-criti­cal soft­ware to a broad and loyal custo­mer base. LEA supported IDL in its trans­for­ma­tion from a foun­der-led company to a leading FPM provi­der in the German-spea­king region. Key initia­ti­ves here were the expan­sion of the manage­ment team, the estab­lish­ment of an indi­rect part­ner sales chan­nel, and the imple­men­ta­tion of a compre­hen­sive M&A stra­tegy. IDL was able to signi­fi­cantly expand its custo­mer base during this period and signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate growth in reve­nues and EBITDA.

Bern­ward Egenolf, foun­der of IDL, said, “Our decis­ion to select LEA as a part­ner for IDL’s next stage of deve­lo­p­ment has proven abso­lut­ely correct. We were able to launch decisive stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves and complete our product port­fo­lio through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. The expe­ri­ence LEA has brought to the table has been instru­men­tal in acce­le­ra­ting our growth. We are now looking forward to bene­fiting from insightsoftware’s global network as we conti­nue to internationalize.”

Sebas­tian Müller, foun­der of LEA, added: “We were able to inten­si­vely support IDL in a variety of stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves in the areas of tech­no­logy, sales, marke­ting and M&A, thus contri­bu­ting to a signi­fi­cant acce­le­ra­tion of growth. We have enjoyed our part­ner­ship with IDL and wish the entire team much success with their new part­ner insightsoftware.”

Follo­wing BELLIN’s exit to Coupa Soft­ware in June 2020, the tran­sac­tion repres­ents the second exit from the €200 million LEA Mittel­stands­part­ner fund. LEA was advi­sed by GCA Altium and Milbank in the transaction.

About LEA Partners
LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. Based in Karls­ruhe, one of the largest tech­no­logy clus­ters in Europe, LEA Part­ners has mana­ged invest­ments in nume­rous tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. With two invest­ment vehic­les for all company phases and a strong network of opera­tio­nal sector experts as well as stra­te­gic part­ners, LEA Part­ners can contri­bute substan­tial added value to the deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy companies.

News

Stuttgart/ Schwä­bisch Gmünd — Menold Bezler advi­sed BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, based in Stutt­gart, on the acqui­si­tion of a mino­rity stake of 40% in QLOCKTWO Group, based in Schwä­bisch Gmünd.

At QLOCKTWO, word clocks have been turned into design objects in an artis­a­nal produc­tion process since 2009. The time is displayed typo­gra­phi­cally with lumi­nous dots, and the language of the clock is varia­ble. The design has won over 30 inter­na­tio­nal awards, inclu­ding the Red Dot Design Award. World­wide sales are hand­led by a network of around 1,000 specia­list retail part­ners, the company’s own flag­ship stores and the online store.

BWK is one of the largest German capi­tal invest­ment compa­nies. With a long-term invest­ment approach, BWK supports medium-sized compa­nies from a broad range of indus­tries with equity capital.

Menold Bezler advi­sed BWK on its entry as a mino­rity share­hol­der in all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion. BWK regu­larly trusts the law firm when acqui­ring majo­rity or mino­rity stakes, most recently, for exam­ple, in the mino­rity stake in the manu­fac­tu­rer of auto­ma­ted measu­ring and test­ing tech­no­logy Xactools GmbH.

Advi­sors to BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Thomas Futte­rer, Kers­tin Lauber, Dr. Andreas Mayr, Nicole Brandt (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Jochen Bern­hard (Part­ner), Eliana Koch-Heint­ze­ler (both Anti­trust), Dr. Cars­ten Ulbricht (Part­ner), Carlo Kunz (both IT Law), Dr. Julia Schnei­der (Part­ner), Markus Kleinn (both Intellec­tual Property), Marc Ehrmann, LL.M. (Real Estate Law), Stef­fen Foll­ner (Banking Law & Finan­cing), Kath­rin Seiz (Labor Law)

About Menold Bezler
Menold Bezler is a part­ner­ship-struc­tu­red commer­cial law firm based in Stutt­gart. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed the foun­ders of 089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH, Georg Anger­meier and Gunter Maisch, on the sale of all their shares in the company to GMGT Acqui­si­tion GmbH, a company of the Köberl Group, in which the invest­ment company Gimv holds a stake. 089 Immo­bi­len­ma­nage­ment GmbH is a provi­der of faci­lity services with loca­ti­ons in Munich and Augsburg.

Listed on the Brussels Euron­ext stock exch­ange, Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with a mana­ged port­fo­lio of more than 50 invest­ments. The compa­nies gene­rate combi­ned sales of over 2.5 billion euros and employ around 14,000 people.

Advi­sors to Gunter Maisch and Georg Anger­meier: McDer­mott Will & Emery
Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Phil­ipp Schäuble (Labor Law), Nina Siewert, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law; both Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Robert Feind (Corporate/M&A), Fran­ziska Leub­ner (Labor Law)

About 089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH
089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH is one of the leading faci­lity manage­ment compa­nies with a focus on jani­to­rial services in the Munich metro­po­li­tan region. In total, the company looks after around 28,000 resi­den­tial units in the areas of winter services, clea­ning, gardening and buil­ding services. www.089immobilienmanagement.de.

About the Köberl Group
The group of compa­nies is one of the leading full-service provi­ders of buil­ding tech­no­logy and faci­lity manage­ment services in the southern German market. The group of compa­nies, which employs a total of around 500 people and achie­ves a total output of over 75 million euros, includes Fink Gebäu­de­tech­nik GmbH & Co KG, GEMA Gebäu­de­ma­nage­ment GmbH and 089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH. www.firmengruppe-koeberl.de.

About GIMV
For 40 years, Gimv has been iden­ti­fy­ing entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and support­ing them as a Euro­pean invest­ment company on their way to market leader­ship. Listed on Euron­ext Brussels, Gimv curr­ently has a port­fo­lio of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 1.1 billion in invest­ments in over 50 holdings, which toge­ther realize reve­nues of more than EUR 2.75 billion and employ 14,000 people.

News

Munich — Myra Secu­rity recei­ves another round of finan­cing from Round2 Capi­tal. The cyber secu­rity company is focu­sing on expan­sion in times of growing digi­ta­liza­tion. LUTZ | ABEL advi­ses Round2 Capi­tal on invest­ment in Myra Secu­rity. Round2 Capi­tal is a Vienna-based inves­tor, with a focus on scale-ups.

The Munich-based cyber secu­rity company offers its custo­mers a Secu­rity-as-a-Service cloud plat­form to protect their own data traf­fic as well as networks from poten­tial cyber attacks. The cyber secu­rity provi­der counts custo­mers such as the German govern­ment, various minis­tries, the Euro­pean Central Bank, various finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and global e‑commerce play­ers among its custo­mers. Against the back­drop of growing digi­tiza­tion, demand is incre­asing for solu­ti­ons to protect these often highly sensi­tive data volu­mes from attack.

As a German provi­der, Myra Secu­rity is alre­ady well posi­tio­ned in the German and Euro­pean markets. Through the invest­ment, the company aims to further expand, deve­lop its service and increase its brand awareness.

Advi­sor Round2 Capi­tal GmbH: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
The consul­ting team around Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (Lead, VC / M&A, Munich) consis­ted of Dr. Corne­lius Renner (IT Law and Data Protec­tion, Berlin), Ute Schenn (Corpo­rate Law, Stutt­gart) and Caro­lin Lang, LL.M. (VC / M&A, Munich) together.

Advi­sor Myra Secu­rity GmbH: Baker Tilly (Daniel Laws)

News

Munich — ARQIS has supported the Munich-based multi-family holding Liberta Part­ners in the acqui­si­tion of Kienzle Auto­mo­tive GmbH. The tran­sac­tion was carried out through Liberta Part­ners Fund II as part of a succes­sor part­ner­ship. Closing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to take place in early November.

Kienzle is the leading German provi­der of sales and rela­ted services for networked devices and systems in the auto­mo­tive after­mar­ket sector. In the area of data manage­ment and fleet tele­ma­tics, Kienzle works with estab­lished soft­ware deve­lo­pers to create custo­mer-speci­fic evalua­tions and readout opti­ons. The medium-sized company is based in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

“The name Kienzle has stood for relia­bi­lity in the trans­por­ta­tion indus­try for more than 70 years,” says Nils von Wietz­low, part­ner at Liberta and respon­si­ble for succes­sion solu­ti­ons. “We want to conti­nue to be a relia­ble part­ner in the vehicle tech­no­logy sector and consis­t­ently expand the tele­ma­tics sector by streng­thening the distri­bu­tion system.” Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in succes­sion situa­tions and corpo­rate spin-offs.

ARQIS has acted for Liberta Part­ners for the second time. For exam­ple, Dr. Mauritz von Einem’s team advi­sed on the acqui­si­tion of the Liech­ten­stein-based mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring company FMA Mecha­tro­nik Solu­ti­ons and the take­over of the tour opera­tor Ameropa, a former subsi­diary of Deut­sche Bahn AG.

Advi­sor Liberta Part­ners: ARQIS Attor­neys at Law
Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Lead; Corporate/M&A/Taxes), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP/Commercial; both Munich), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law), Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate; all Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur (Corporate/M&A), Tanja Kurt­zer (Labor Law), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (IP/Commercial; all Munich), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Labor Law), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate; both Düsseldorf)
Niit­väli (Frank­furt): Evelyn Niit­väli (Anti­trust)

About ARQIS
ARQIS Attor­neys at Law is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. www.arqis.com.

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance has advi­sed venture capi­tal inves­tor TVM Capi­tal Life Science on the signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed closing of its TVM Life Science Inno­va­tion II fund. At $478 million, the fund repres­ents the company’s largest fund to date.

TVM, a leading life science venture capi­tal firm in North America and Europe, provi­des venture capi­tal to inter­na­tio­nal biophar­maceu­ti­cal, medi­cal device and diagno­stic compa­nies in North America and Europe. The Company invests in compa­nies that offer a visi­ble and attrac­tive exit stra­tegy from the outset, with the aim of maxi­mi­zing returns and gene­ra­ting signi­fi­cant liqui­dity for inves­tors at an early stage.

With support from top-tier dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors, inclu­ding Eli Lilly, other stra­te­gic inves­tors, pension funds, endow­ments, funds of funds, asset mana­gers and leading U.S. banks, as well as family offices from North and South America, Europe and South Korea, TVM closed its fund at a total of $478 million.

TVM was foun­ded in 1983 and is inter­na­tio­nally posi­tio­ned with offices in Luxem­bourg and Canada as well as consul­ting offices in Germany and other locations.

Advi­sor TVM: Clif­ford Chance
The inter­na­tio­nal Clif­ford Chance team for TVM was led by part­ner Sonya Pauls (Corporate/Private Equity, Munich).

About Clif­ford Chance
Clif­ford Chance, one of the world’s leading law firms, is present for its clients with around 3,400 legal advi­sors in all major busi­ness centers around the world.
In Germany, Clif­ford Chance is repre­sen­ted by around 300 lawy­ers, audi­tors, tax advi­sors and soli­ci­tors in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

News

Munich/ Krif­tel — Para­gon Part­ners acqui­res Casto­lin Eutec­tic, a leading global provi­der of wear protec­tion and repair solu­ti­ons for indus­trial equip­ment, from Messer Group. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Para­gon Part­ners on the refi­nan­cing for the acqui­si­tion of Casto­lin Eutectic.

Casto­lin Eutec­tic, based in Krif­tel, Germany, offers the full range of consu­ma­bles, equip­ment and services in welding, brazing and coating tech­no­lo­gies. With six plants world­wide, Casto­lin Eutec­tic manu­fac­tures products that are used in main­ten­ance and repair work by its own service team and by more than 40,000 custo­mers in over 50 indus­tries, inclu­ding engi­nee­ring & tooling, oil & gas, steel, mining, cement, glass, power gene­ra­tion and agri­cul­ture. The more than 1,600 employees gene­rate annual sales of €300 million. With more than 100 years of expe­ri­ence in the main­ten­ance and repair busi­ness, the Casto­lin Eutec­tic brand is known for outstan­ding tech­ni­cal exper­tise and quality.

PARAGON PARTNERS, foun­ded in 2004, is a leading private equity firm in Europe with more than EUR 1.2 billion in equity under manage­ment. PARAGON PARTNERS works with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and market leader­ship. PARAGON PARTNERS unlocks new value in funda­men­tally attrac­tive busi­nesses and has the ability to address comple­xity on both the tran­sac­tional and opera­tio­nal sides, repo­si­tio­ning busi­nesses through custo­mi­zed value crea­tion programs. The company is based in Munich, Germany.

Advi­sors to para­gon Part­ners: Shear­man & Sterling
Lead: Part­ner Winfried M. Carli, Part­ner Michael J. Stein­berg (New York Finance) and Part­ner Pierre-Nico­las Ferrand (Paris Finance), Of Coun­sel Danforth Newcomb (New York Compli­ance) and Asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu, Marius Garnatz and Martina Buller (all Germany Finance) as well as Akofa Tsiagbe, Omer K. Hashmi, Jordan Franks (all New York Finance) and Yaelle Cohen (Paris Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 24 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.

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed the Austrian Onesty Group GmbH in connec­tion with the sale of shares in the Liech­ten­stein life insurer Pris­ma­Life AG to Barme­nia Versi­che­rungs­gruppe. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory approvals.

Barme­nia coope­ra­tes with Pris­ma­Life and acqui­res 25.1 percent of the shares in Pris­ma­Life. The company is to be deve­lo­ped into a compe­tence center for inter­na­tio­nal offe­rings of unit-linked life insurance.

Pris­ma­Life AG is one of Liechtenstein’s leading life insu­rance compa­nies and is head­quar­te­red in Ruggell. The company mana­ges custo­mer funds of around 1.3 billion euros.

The Onesty Group is an inde­pen­dent bancassu­rance company based in Austria.

Advi­sor Onesty Group GmbH: SKW Schwarz Rechtsanwälte
Dr. Stephan Morsch (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Angela Poschen­rie­der (Corporate/M&A)

News

Stutt­gart — Menold Bezler advi­sed the share­hol­ders of the smart home provi­der homee GmbH on the sale of one third of their shares to Novaco Invest GmbH. The remai­ning shares are still held by Code­ate­lier GmbH from Stutt­gart and the Austrian energy service provi­der Ener­gie Stei­er­mark AG.

The Berlin-based start-up homee offers a modu­lar smart home solu­tion that combi­nes diffe­rent wire­less stan­dards from diffe­rent manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Users can expand the appli­ca­tion as desi­red via add-on modu­les in cube form and control the devices remo­tely via an app.

Novaco Invest is a subsi­diary of the Markt­hei­den­feld sun protec­tion supplier Warema Renk­hoff SE. Warema and homee alre­ady worked toge­ther on the deve­lo­p­ment of the Warema WMS cube and the parti­ci­pa­tion is inten­ded to further streng­then this coope­ra­tion. Warema contri­bu­tes exper­tise in the areas of indoor climate, sunlight manage­ment and elec­tro­nic compon­ents in particular.

A Menold Bezler team advi­sed the share­hol­ders of homee GmbH on all tran­sac­tion-rela­ted legal issues.

Advi­sors Code­ate­lier GmbH and Ener­gie Stei­er­mark AG: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Jens Schmelt (lead part­ner), Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (both corpo­rate law/M&A)

Advi­sor Novaco Invest GmbH: Esche
Dr. Stephan Bauer, Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Hamburg
Lara Bos, Asso­ciate, Corporate
Hendrik Grei­nert, Asso­ciate, Corporate
Greta Groffy, Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law

About Menold Bezler
Menold Bezler is a part­ner­ship-struc­tu­red commer­cial law firm based in Stutt­gart. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, public compa­nies and non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Berlin — In addi­tion to its exis­ting inves­tor Flash Ventures, ever­stox has gained two further renow­ned backers for the expan­sion of its digi­tal logi­stics plat­form. The fresh capi­tal comes from Global Foun­ders Capi­tal (GFC) and Capna­mic Ventures. The company says it plans to use the successfully comple­ted growth finan­cing to further grow its team, deve­lop its tech plat­form and expand its network of inde­pen­dent warehouse logi­stics provi­ders. SMP advi­sed Munich-based tech startup ever­stox on its growth financing.

“The global logi­stics market is beco­ming incre­asingly complex and often inef­fi­ci­ent as a result. With its self-deve­lo­ped cloud tech­no­logy, inclu­ding the asso­cia­ted smart features, ever­stox is setting a new stan­dard for future-proof and sustainable logi­stics. We are very plea­sed to have been able to accom­pany ever­stox as advi­sors during the entry of further inves­tors,” says Frede­rik Gärtner.

About ever­stox
The successful Munich-based start-up ever­stox is the deve­lo­per and opera­tor of the tech­no­logy plat­form of the same name, which offers scalable and data-driven warehouse logi­stics and fulfill­ment for e‑commerce, B2B and retail through a network of Euro­pean logi­stics service provi­ders. The company is succes­si­vely buil­ding the first tech­no­logy-driven and inde­pen­dent network of renow­ned warehouse logi­stics and fulfill­ment part­ners, enab­ling trans­pa­rent, effi­ci­ent and ecolo­gi­cally valuable logi­stics solu­ti­ons across Europe. With everstox’s team of experts, retail­ers bene­fit from opti­mi­zed proces­ses, in-depth market know­ledge and stra­te­gic consul­ting. For dealers, this means a clear compe­ti­tive advan­tage in sales. The company is mana­ged by its three foun­ders Boris Bösch, Felix Haber­land and Johan­nes Tress. For more infor­ma­tion about ever­stox and the Logi­stics-as-a-Service solu­tion, visit www.everstox.com.

About Capna­mic Ventures
Capna­mic Ventures, based in Colo­gne and Berlin, is one of Europe’s leading early-stage venture capi­tal inves­tors. The VC’s invest­ment focus is on tech­no­logy start­ups with B2B busi­ness models in German-spea­king count­ries. In addi­tion, Capna­mic invests with inter­na­tio­nal co-inves­tors. All port­fo­lio compa­nies are supported by Capnamic’s global indus­try and expert network and the team’s exten­sive exper­tise. The Capna­mic team consists of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment profes­sio­nals who can look back on more than 80 invest­ments, nume­rous trade sales and IPOs as well as their own entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence. They work side by side with the port­fo­lio compa­nies to lay the foun­da­tion for their strong market posi­tion and lasting success. Capna­mic is led by Jörg Binnen­brü­cker, Olaf Jacobi and Chris­tian Siegele as Mana­ging Part­ners. www.capnamic.com

About Global Foun­ders Capital
Entre­pre­neurs create incre­di­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties — we are their biggest support­ers because we have built and support multi-billion dollar tech­no­logy compa­nies at all stages of growth. Over the past two deca­des, we have made over 500 invest­ments world­wide. Face­book, Linke­dIn, Slack, Event­brite, Canva, Away Travel, HomeA­way, Zalando, Revo­lut, Funding Circle, Lazada, Trave­loka, Triv­ago, Jumia, HelloFresh and Deli­very Hero are some of our port­fo­lio compa­nies. Global Foun­ders Capi­tal invests around the world. www.globalfounderscapital.com

About Flash Ventures
Flash Ventures is a pre-seed fund in Berlin and London that provi­des initial funding to young compa­nies to help them realize their growth ambi­ti­ons. The port­fo­lio includes invest­ments in Germany, Spain, Austra­lia, Singa­pore and Indo­ne­sia. For more infor­ma­tion about Flash Ventures, visit www.fl4sh.vc.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Consul­tant ever­stox: SMP
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Corpo­rate), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Corpo­rate), Partner
Pia Meven (Corpo­rate), Associate

News

Stutt­gart — As part of a succes­sion plan, Finexx Holding took over BIOVEGAN GmbH, an orga­nic food produ­cer from the very begin­ning based in Bone­feld, Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate. The parties agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion. Rödl & Part­ner compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the invest­ment company Finexx on the acqui­si­tion of BIOVEGAN GmbH.

Throug­hout the tran­sac­tion, Finexx was supported by a specia­li­zed, inter­di­sci­pli­nary tran­sac­tion team from Rödl & Part­ner as advi­sors on finan­cial and tax tran­sac­tion issues. Project manage­ment in the area of tax due dili­gence was the respon­si­bi­lity of part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Kutsch, who also provi­ded tax advice during the contract nego­tia­ti­ons and advi­sed on finan­cing and tran­sac­tion struc­tu­ring, and part­ner Chris­toph Hinz, who was respon­si­ble for the finan­cial area. Asso­ciate Part­ner Matthias Zahn was respon­si­ble for the finan­cial due dili­gence and Asso­ciate Part­ner Chris­toph Hirt for the finan­cial modeling.

BIOVEGAN is a leading supplier of orga­nic, vegan and gluten-free baking and cooking ingre­di­ents in German-spea­king count­ries, specia­li­zing in deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and distri­bu­tion. With the acqui­si­tion of the company, Finexx, as a specia­list in the field of Health & Bio, comple­ments its exis­ting stake in BioneXX Holding with the brands Feel­good Shop, GSE Vertrieb, natu­rity and FITNE and stra­te­gi­cally expands its exper­tise in Europe.

About FINEXX Holding Company
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is an invest­ment 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.

Advi­sor Finexx-Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft: Rödl & Partner
Dr. Alex­an­der Kutsch, Part­ner (Corpo­rate / M&A), Stutt­gart, Over­all Project Manage­ment — Finan­cial & TaxChris­toph Hinz, Part­ner (Tran­sac­tion Services), Stutt­gart — Financial
Chris­toph Hirt, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tran­sac­tion Services), Stutt­gart — Financial
Matthias Zahn, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tran­sac­tion Services), Munich — Financial
Julia Bader, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tax Law), Stutt­gart — Tax

News

Nurem­berg — The owners of the Hans Müller Group of Compa­nies have sold the majo­rity of their shares in Hans Müller HMP Medi­zin­tech­nik GmbH and Hans Müller Medi­zi­ni­sche + Tech­ni­sche Gase GmbH to Messer Group. The tran­sac­tion took place within the frame­work of a bidding process. The closing of the acqui­si­tion is still subject to anti­trust clearance.

The previous owner Hans Müller was compre­hen­si­vely legally advi­sed in the course of the company sale by a specia­li­zed inter­di­sci­pli­nary team of Rödl & Part­ner Germany led by part­ner Michael Wiehl. The main focus of the advice was on the imple­men­ta­tion of a complex M&A process in the context of a bidding procedure.

Hans Müller sees great advan­ta­ges for both sides in the tran­sac­tion: “With this merger, we have been able to set the stra­te­gic course for a successful future. I am convin­ced that Messer is the ideal part­ner for the contin­ued exis­tence and further deve­lo­p­ment of Hans Müller Medi­zin­tech­nik, parti­cu­larly because of its charac­ter as a family-run company.” The Hans Müller Group employs around 165 people and will conti­nue to operate as part of Messer Medi­cal Home Care Holding GmbH under its own name and the leader­ship of Mana­ging Direc­tor Hans Müller.

With this merger of two family-owned compa­nies, Messer is expan­ding its home care busi­ness and now also serves the German market. “Hans Müller’s acti­vi­ties comple­ment our busi­ness through their regio­nal arran­ge­ment,” explai­ned Adolf Walth, Execu­tive Vice Presi­dent Sales & Marke­ting Europe of Messer Group GmbH. Messer previously had home care acti­vi­ties in Austria, Belgium, France, Slova­kia, Hungary and Roma­nia. “It is important to us to conti­nue the pati­ent-orien­ted entre­pre­neu­rial approach of Hans Müller Medi­zin­tech­nik,” added Nik De Corte, CEO of Messer Medi­cal Home Care Holding GmbH.

About Hans Müller HMP Medi­cal Technology
The group of compa­nies foun­ded in 2007 includes Hans Müller HMP Medi­zin­tech­nik GmbH, Hans Müller Medi­zi­ni­sche + Tech­ni­sche Gase GmbH and Hans Müller Medi­zin­tech­ni­sche Inno­va­tio­nen GmbH. The Group opera­tes at seven loca­ti­ons: Munich, Nurem­berg, Fürth, Nabburg, Eggen­fel­den, Reut­lin­gen and Kaisers­lau­tern. The port­fo­lio includes respi­ra­tory and oxygen equip­ment, inha­la­tion and suction equip­ment, as well as therapy and diagno­stic equip­ment for medi­cal moni­to­ring of sleep apnea pati­ents and prema­ture and newborn infants.

About Messer Group
Messer Group GmbH is the world’s largest family-run specia­list for indus­trial, medi­cal and specialty gases. In the Home Care segment, Messer Medizintechnik’s range includes medi­cal products and medi­cal oxygen. Its clientele includes physi­ci­ans in private prac­tice, hospi­tals, labo­ra­to­ries, nursing homes and homes for the elderly, as well as end users.

Advi­sor Hans Müller Medi­zin­tech­nik: Rödl & Part­ner Germany
Michael Wiehl, Part­ner (Corpo­rate / M&A), Nurem­berg, Lead — M&A, Legal, Dr. Alex­an­dra Gier­ing, Part­ner (Corpo­rate / M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal, Jens Linhardt, Senior Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate / M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal, Mahmood Kawany, Senior Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate / M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal, Johan­nes Gruber, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Real Estate), Nurem­berg — Legal, Annette Jakob, Senior Asso­ciate (Real Estate), Nurem­berg — Legal, Michael Beder, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Anti­trust), Munich — Legal, Dr. Michael Braun, Part­ner (Labor Law), Hof — Legal, Dr. Mela­nie Köst­ler, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tax Law), Nurem­berg — Tax

Mr. Ralph Münch, part­ner of the tax consul­ting firm Münch & Münch (Neumarkt in der Ober­pfalz), was the lead tax advi­sor for the transaction.

News

Munich/ Tilburg — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are selling their majo­rity stake in Group of Butchers, a leading specialty meat produ­cer head­quar­te­red in Tilburg, the Nether­lands. The buyer is the Dutch invest­ment company Parcom Private Equity. Equis­tone had acqui­red Group of Butchers in early 2017 and has since supported the company’s growth stra­tegy through a series of stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, among others. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the tran­sac­tion. The sale is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Group of Butchers was foun­ded in Tilburg in 1997 and has become the market leader in the Nether­lands for high-quality, artis­a­nal butchery products with a focus on sausage and minced meat special­ties. Group of Butchers excels in high quality stan­dards, smart product marke­ting, conti­nuous inno­va­tion in purcha­sing and produc­tion, and in iden­ti­fy­ing new trends such as Ameri­can BBQ, gour­met burger restau­rants and street food. The wide range of high-quality meat and sausage products is sold prima­rily by leading retail chains in the Nether­lands, Belgium and Germany.

Equis­tone took a majo­rity stake in Group of Butchers in early 2017 and has since supported the specialty meat producer’s orga­nic and stra­te­gic growth through seve­ral targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and market expan­si­ons. In 2018, Group of Butchers acqui­red Dutch smoked and dry sausage produ­cers Koet­sier Vlees­wa­ren and Keulen Vlees­wa­ren, as well as Gebroe­ders Snij­ders Vlees­wa­ren­fa­b­riek and VLL Vers Logis­tiek Limburg.

This acqui­si­tion also enab­led Group of Butchers to expand its service offe­ring in the area of slicing and pack­a­ging of meat products. It also ente­red the German market at the end of 2018 with the acqui­si­tion of Hart­mann GmbH, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of minced meat products based in Waren­dorf in North Rhine-West­pha­lia, and the Gmyrek Group, a tradi­tio­nal meat and sausage manu­fac­tu­rer based in Gifhorn in Lower Saxony. July 2019 also saw the addi­tion of Schou­ten Vlees­wa­ren, a BBQ and grill­ware specia­list for the Dutch market. Today, Group of Butchers employs a total of 900 people at 12 produc­tion sites and two distri­bu­tion centers and expects sales of about 280 million euros in 2020.

“By part­ne­ring with Equis­tone, we have once again been able to signi­fi­cantly streng­then our posi­tion as one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers and suppli­ers of high-quality butchery products in the Nether­lands and incre­asingly also in Germany and Belgium, and expand our geogra­phi­cal reach. We look forward to working with Parcom for the next steps in our growth,” says Remko Rosman, CEO of Group of Butchers.

“Group of Butchers’ excel­lent market posi­tio­ning is prima­rily due to high quality stan­dards and exten­sive exper­tise in iden­ti­fy­ing trends in the premium meat products segment. Toge­ther with the excel­lent manage­ment team, we have imple­men­ted a successful buy & build stra­tegy over the past years and ideally posi­tio­ned the company for further growth. We are plea­sed that Group of Butchers has found an opti­mal new part­ner for the next steps,” says Dr. Marc Arens, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Part­ner at Equistone.

“Group of Butchers conti­nues to offer great growth poten­tial, both orga­ni­cally and as we further inte­grate recent acqui­si­ti­ons and build new product and custo­mer segments through buy-&-build efforts. We look forward to support­ing the company in this endea­vor going forward,” said Maurits Werk­ho­ven, Part­ner at Parcom.

Dr. Marc Arens and Maxi­mi­lian Göppert are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone. Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Roth­schild & Co (M&A), EY Parthe­non (CDD), EY Finan­cial (FDD), EY Tax (TDD) and A&O (Legal).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, 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 foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 150 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, 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. www.equistonepe.de

About Group of Butchers
Group of Butchers, head­quar­te­red in Tilburg, the Nether­lands, was foun­ded in 1997 as Dutch Grill Special­ties and is now a leading manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of high-quality butchery products. The company combi­nes the capa­ci­ties of seve­ral regio­nal butcher stores, each of which produ­ces its own meat products. This results in a diverse product port­fo­lio, from smoked meats and sausa­ges to filet améri­cain and roast and gril­led meat special­ties. In 2020, Group of Butchers employs 900 people and expects sales of about 280 million euros.

News

Oakley Capi­tal (“Oakley”) announ­ced today that Oakley has ente­red into an agree­ment to acquire Wind­Star Medi­cal GmbH (“Wind­Star Medi­cal”) from ProSiebenSat.1 majo­rity-owned NuCom Group.

Wind­Star Medi­cal is the leading German consu­mer health­care company for over-the-coun­ter (OTC) health­care products. The plat­form expects sales of more than 120 million euros from the deve­lo­p­ment and distri­bu­tion of bran­ded and private-label products in the current year. It has an exten­sive history of success in deve­lo­ping and estab­li­shing premium formu­la­ti­ons and brands.

In this context, Wind­Star Medical’s Consu­mer Brands divi­sion offers a wide range of high-growth premium bran­ded products in Germany, inclu­ding SOS (wound care/disinfectants), Zirku­lin (treat­ment of gastro­in­testi­nal complaints), Green­doc (mental well-being) and EyeMe­dica (eye health). Wind­Star also produ­ces private-label products for leading German drugs­to­res and super­mar­kets, while deve­lo­ping inter­na­tio­nal distri­bu­tion through exis­ting and new partners.

Wind­Star Medi­cal is bene­fiting from the long-term struc­tu­ral growth of the German consu­mer health market. This growth is being driven in parti­cu­lar by demo­gra­phic trends, such as the aging popu­la­tion, a shift in consu­mer demand due to increased aware­ness regar­ding physi­cal and mental well-being, and a willing­ness among the popu­la­tion to prevent dise­ase. As part of its invest­ment, Oakley will help the company’s manage­ment team conti­nue its growth trajec­tory, realize product inno­va­tion, incre­asingly digi­tize the busi­ness and iden­tify attrac­tive acqui­si­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties that can acce­le­rate the company’s growth.

The invest­ment in Wind­Star Medi­cal conti­nues Oakley’s track record of inves­t­ing in leading B2C plat­forms in the DACH region. Invest­ments alre­ady made include Veri­vox, Parship Elite and most recently Wish­card Tech­no­lo­gies and 7NXT / Gymondo. With its asset-light busi­ness model, indus­try-leading opera­tio­nal capa­bi­li­ties and attrac­tive growth pros­pects, the company now acqui­red fits the ideal tran­sac­tion profile for Oakley.

Peter Dubens (pictu­red), Mana­ging Part­ner at Oakley Capi­tal, said:

“Wind­Star Medi­cal is a unique plat­form for OTC health­care products with a very attrac­tive market posi­tion, whose deve­lo­p­ment and manage­ment team Oakley has closely follo­wed over the past years. We look forward to working with the team and will use our exten­sive expe­ri­ence in digi­ta­liza­tion, go-to-market as well as M&A to help Wind­Star further acce­le­rate its growth trajec­tory both dome­sti­cally and internationally.”

About Oakley Capital
Oakley Capi­tal is a private equity firm with more than €3 billion in assets under manage­ment focu­sed on Western Europe. Oakley invests in middle-market compa­nies across the region in three core sectors — consu­mer, educa­tion and technology.

Oakley’s entre­pre­neu­rial mind­set and deep indus­try know­ledge allows him to iden­tify speci­fic invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and gene­rate supe­rior returns. The Oakley team works closely with a unique network of entre­pre­neurs and successful manage­ment teams to access primary proprie­tary invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and gain valuable insights into the busi­ness models in which it invests. The ability to over­come comple­xity and a flexi­ble approach to value crea­tion enable Oakley to help its port­fo­lio compa­nies achieve sustainable growth.

About Wind­Star Medical
Wind­Star Medi­cal Group deve­lops compa­nies in the exten­ded health­care market. The Group’s busi­ness units are accom­pa­nied on their deve­lo­p­ment path and in their inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. Wind­Star Medical’s mission is to quickly and consis­t­ently build market leaders who can assert them­sel­ves as inde­pen­dent compa­nies in their markets. The company head­quar­ters are loca­ted in Wehr­heim in the Taunus region. Let’s improve quality of life! — This is the driving force and moti­va­tion of the more than 120 employees of the group of compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.windstar-medical.com. About the busi­ness units of the Wind­Star Medi­cal Group: Districon GmbH — Global Power Brands made for you! www.districon.eu, Dr. Kleine Pharma GmbH — Part­ne­ring Services — from the idea to the point of sale! www.kleine-pharma.com.

News

Frank­furt a. M. / Schruns — SALTO Systems has acqui­red the GANTNER Elec­tro­nic Group, a pioneer in the field of cont­act­less elec­tro­nic access manage­ment and time recor­ding systems, from the invest­ment company Ardian. Gant­ner doubles sales and beco­mes tech­no­logy leader during Ardian’s invest­ment since 2016.

The Spanish company SALTO Systems is a world leader in the design and manu­fac­ture of advan­ced elec­tro­nic access control solu­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally in secu­rity-criti­cal areas. SALTO has deli­vered more than 5 million access points world­wide, which are used by about 40 million people every day. Clients include univer­si­ties, leading hospi­ta­lity groups, clinics and compa­nies in the health­care, commer­cial, workspace, retail and resi­den­tial sectors.

The GANTNER Group, head­quar­te­red in Schruns, Austria, is active in almost 70 count­ries and curr­ently employs over 500 people world­wide. In addi­tion to the core markets of Austria and Germany, the Group is repre­sen­ted by subsi­dia­ries in the UK, Belgium, the Nether­lands, Dubai, the USA, India and Australia.

GANTNER offers iden­ti­fi­ca­tion solu­ti­ons based on RFID and NFC tech­no­logy for use in fitness clubs, water parks and spas, theme parks, univer­si­ties and libra­ries, as well as commer­cial proper­ties and public buil­dings. GANTNER systems create a cont­act­less envi­ron­ment: admis­si­ons, lockers and point-of-sale offe­rings can all be effi­ci­ently opera­ted with a single NFC creden­tial in the form of a cont­act­less card, wrist­band or key fob.

A new member of the GANTNER Group since June 2020 is conti­data Daten­sys­teme, a market leader and visio­nary in the DACH region for cashl­ess proprie­tary payment systems for canteens. conti­data is head­quar­te­red in Dort­mund and has further offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Hano­ver, Colo­gne, Frank­furt, Stutt­gart and Munich.

The GANTNER product port­fo­lio enri­ches and diver­si­fies SALTO’s offe­ring and will enhance the end-user expe­ri­ence. With a combi­ned work­force of 1,200 employees in 40 count­ries, total sales of €260 million and the capa­city to provide more than one million access points per year, the new, streng­the­ned SALTO Group conti­nues to build on its posi­tion as the global leader in elec­tro­nic access control.

Dirk Witt­ne­ben (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian and respon­si­ble for the invest­ments of the expan­sion team in the DACH region, added: “We are proud to have been able to support Gant­ner in its inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, important stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and the deve­lo­p­ment of new indus­tries and custo­mers. It has enab­led the company to expand its offe­rings and broa­den its geogra­phic coverage.”

SALTO is finan­cing the tran­sac­tion through a combi­na­tion of a EUR 125 million capi­tal increase, bank finan­cing and cash.

A team led by Düssel­dorf-based Heuking Corporate/M&A Part­ner Dr. Martin Imhof advi­sed SALTO Systems under the lead manage­ment of Austrian law firm Wolf Theiss and Spanish law firm Garri­gues and supported the German part of the tran­sac­tion. In parti­cu­lar, Heuking conduc­ted legal due dili­gence inves­ti­ga­ti­ons of the German GANTNER compa­nies and advi­sed on company acqui­si­tion issues as well as finan­cing and data protec­tion issues.

Advi­sor SALTO Systems (Germany): Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Martin Imhof (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A),
Sebas­tian Poll­meier (Legal Due Dili­gence, M&A),
Chris­toph Hexel (Labor Law),
Dr. Guido Hoff­mann, LL.M. (Finance),
Dr. Chris­tian Appel­baum (Finance),
Michael Kuska, LL.M., LL.M. (IT, Data Protec­tion Law),
Astrid Lued­tke (IP),
Chris­toph Nöhles, LL.M. (Tenancy Law),
Fabian Schmitz (Tenancy Law), all Düsseldorf
Birgit Schreier (Commer­cial Law, Hamburg)
Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law, Munich)

Wolf Theiss (Austria):
Hart­wig Kien­ast (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A)

Garri­gues (Spain):
Carla Fran­goni (Lead Part­ner Private Equity/Corporate Law)

About Gant­ner
Foun­ded in 1982 in Schruns, Austria, the company is conside­red a pioneer in cont­act­less elec­tro­nic access control and time and atten­dance in its core segments. Gant­ner offers RFID and NFC tech­no­logy-based solu­ti­ons for fitness clubs, pools and spas, amuse­ment parks, cultu­ral insti­tu­ti­ons, univer­si­ties and libra­ries, as well as commer­cial and public buil­dings. These include access systems, elec­tro­nic locker locking systems, cashl­ess payment, cash regis­ter and accoun­ting systems, time recor­ding solu­ti­ons for staff, and ticke­ting and manage­ment soft­ware for leisure facilities.

Gant­ner opera­tes in around 70 count­ries and has subsi­dia­ries in Germany, Belgium, Holland, Great Britain, Dubai, India, Austra­lia and the USA. The company employs around 450 people world­wide. The mana­ging direc­tor since 2003 is Elmar Hart­mann. www.gantner.com

About Ardian
Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging over US$100 billion in assets for its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its investors.

With the objec­tive of achie­ving posi­tive results for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties promote indi­vi­du­als, compa­nies and econo­mies world­wide. Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy is aligned with the three guiding prin­ci­ples of excel­lence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

The company has a global network of more than 700 employees and 15 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its more than 1,000 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate. www.ardian.com

News

Frank­furt — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­ses Joh. Beren­berg, Goss­ler & Co. KG (Beren­berg) as Sole Global Coor­di­na­tor and Sole Book­run­ner on the sale of shares in Derm­a­ph­arm Holding SE by Themis Betei­li­gungs-Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft. The tran­sac­tion volume amounts to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 250 million.

Derm­a­ph­arm is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of off-patent bran­ded phar­maceu­ti­cals for selec­ted markets in Germany.

The McDer­mott team led by part­ners Simon Weiß and Joseph W. Marx regu­larly advi­ses Beren­berg on capi­tal market tran­sac­tions, most recently on the capi­tal increase of CORESTATE Capi­tal Holding S.A. and the capi­tal measure of CompuGroup Medi­cal SE & Co. KGaA.

Advi­sor Beren­berg: McDer­mott Will & Emery (Frank­furt)
Simon Weiß (Capi­tal Markets) and Joseph W. Marx (US Capi­tal Markets, both Lead), Andrea Adele Stock­horst (Finan­cial Regu­la­tory); Asso­ciate: Isabelle Müller (Corpo­rate)

Inhouse Beren­berg: Dr. Martin Knie­hase (Head of Invest­ment Banking Legal Conti­nen­tal Europe, Direc­tor) and Vanessa Harms, LL.M. (Asso­ciate Direc­tor, Invest­ment Banking Legal)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery Attor­neys Tax LLP is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,200 attor­neys, we are repre­sen­ted in 20 loca­ti­ons world­wide: Atlanta, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt a.M., Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Sili­con Valley, Washing­ton, D.C. and Wilm­ing­ton. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. www.mwe.com

News

Aachen/Kempen — The S‑UBG Group from Aachen acqui­res mino­rity shares in Ther­mo­glas Nieder­rhein GmbH and Glas Trie­nes GmbH & Co KG with its Mittel­stands­fonds. In this way, S‑UBG enables the succes­sion of the company by the exter­nal mana­ger Mathias Schlatt, who acqui­res the remai­ning shares. Schlatt takes over the manage­ment of both compa­nies from Knut-Ulrich Rött­ger, who acqui­red the compa­nies in 1999 and has been mana­ging part­ner ever since.

The now 45-year-old mana­ger star­ted his career in his parents’ company Schlatt Glas­han­dels­ge­sell­schaft mbH in Bocholt: “Mathias Schlatt has been working in the glass indus­try for over 20 years and brings with him expe­ri­ence, good cont­acts and exten­sive exper­tise,” says Bern­hard Kugel, CEO of the S‑UBG Group. Knut-Ulrich Rött­ger is also plea­sed to be able to hand over his life’s work into good hands with the support of S‑UBG: “The fair nego­tia­ti­ons and the profes­sio­nal advice have thus ulti­m­ately led to two estab­lished compa­nies being retai­ned in Kempen and jobs being secured.”

Estab­lished full-range supplier
The compa­nies Ther­mo­glas and Trie­nes were foun­ded in Kempen on the Lower Rhine in 1976 and 1954 respec­tively. Today, with just under 100 employees, both operate on the market as full-range suppli­ers in the produc­tion and proces­sing or finis­hing of glass. Special exper­tise exists in the produc­tion of insu­la­ting glass, for exam­ple as sound insu­la­tion, solar control or safety glass. In addi­tion, Trie­nes produ­ces and sells high-quality glass products with special proper­ties for indus­try and buil­ding cons­truc­tion. The main product is toug­he­ned safety glass (ESG), which is prepared on the company’s own machi­nes and then tempe­red in the ESG furnace. This gives the glass its safety-rele­vant proper­ties and stabi­lity. For exam­ple, the ESG product SECURIT® has four to five times the breakage resis­tance of conven­tio­nal glass.

“Whether it’s coated glass, self-clea­ning glass or safety glass, glass is now a high-tech mate­rial and the demands on produ­cers are conti­nu­ally incre­asing,” explains Schlatt. “Energy-effi­ci­ent cons­truc­tion or safety stan­dards in the cons­truc­tion sector are just a few drivers. Here in the Lower Rhine region, invest­ments have always been made so that we can meet custo­mer needs and legal stan­dards at all times.”

Well posi­tio­ned in the growing market
“We are inves­t­ing in two solid compa­nies with long-term stable earnings,” Kugel said. “The law incre­asingly prescri­bes the use of safety glass, and the ongo­ing cons­truc­tion boom and demand in future indus­tries have also brought glass produ­cers constant deve­lo­p­ment for years.” The new owners also see pros­pects in inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. Schlatt: “There is still a lot of poten­tial in expan­ding our natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal sales networks. And there is alre­ady an expan­sion area at our Kempen site for addi­tio­nal produc­tion capacity.”

About the S‑UBG Group
The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in the provi­sion of equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for over 30 years. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; a high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a decisive invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. 2020, Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I für die Region Aachen, Krefeld & Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG was laun­ched toge­ther with NRW.BANK, the savings banks of Aachen, Krefeld and Düren, Kreis­spar­kasse Heins­berg, Stadt­spar­kasse Mönchen­glad­bach, Noma­in­vest, DSA Invest GmbH, inves­tors from the Dr. Babor Group and other private inves­tors. It provi­des around 40 million euros in seed capi­tal for the start-up scene in the region. Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I emer­ged from Seed Fonds III for the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach region. As an exten­sion of Seed Fund III, Tech­Vi­sion Fund I now seeks to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds (Series A/B) of exis­ting port­fo­lio compa­nies in addi­tion to seed invest­ments. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe. www.s‑ubg.de; https://techvision-fonds.de/

News

Berlin — In selling its 49% stake in Like­Meat to The Live­kindly Company, Inc. (“LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive”), SMP advi­sed the foun­der and former CEO of Like­Meat, Timo Recker, as well as Recker Holding GmbH. As a result of the tran­sac­tion, LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive became the sole share­hol­der of Like­Meat, having alre­ady acqui­red the remai­ning 51% stake in the renow­ned food company from heristo AG earlier this year. Further details of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed.

SMP also assis­ted Timo Recker in his invest­ment in the inter­na­tio­nally active plant-based food company as part of the $200 million “Foun­ders’ Funding Round.” As a member of the “Foun­ders’ Board” of LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive, he actively supports the global food company with his exten­sive indus­try expertise.

Timo Recker will now apply his exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence to the Asian market. As co-foun­der and CEO of Next Gen Foods, he plans to deve­lop high-quality plant-based foods that address the hete­ro­gen­eity of the Asian food market. The company is curr­ently prepa­ring a Series A finan­cing round for 2021.

“The sale of Like­Meat was one of the largest exit tran­sac­tions in the “plant-based-food” segment in recent years and thus forward-looking for an entire indus­try” says SMP part­ner Martin Scha­per. “We are plea­sed to have mana­ged this complex cross-border tran­sac­tion and are watching the plant-based food market with great inte­rest” he added.

Like­Meat
Like­Meat GmbH was foun­ded in 2013 by Timo Recker and is still conside­red a pioneer in the produc­tion of plant-based foods. Like­Meat has its admi­nis­tra­tive head­quar­ters in Düssel­dorf and two produc­tion faci­li­ties in Oss, the Nether­lands. As of March 2020, Like­Meat is part of The Live­kindly Company, Inc. and is headed by the mana­ging direc­tor Tal Nadari. The company employs 120 people and sells its products mainly in food retail. Today, Like­Meat products are available in Germany, the United King­dom, Scan­di­na­via and the Netherlands.

The Live­kindly Company, Inc.
The Live­kindly Company, Inc. (“LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive”) combi­nes estab­lished brands and startup brands, inclu­ding The Fry’s Family Food Co, Oumph! and Like­Meat GmbH. It also includes LIVEKINDLY Media, the leading publisher of plant-based topics. LIVEKINDLY Collective’s mission is to trans­form the global food system and is curr­ently the only company in the plant-based food space to map the entire value chain. LIVEKINDLY Coll­ec­tive has built stra­te­gic part­ner­ships with seed growers, produ­cers and distri­bu­tors and inves­ted in infra­struc­ture to trans­form tradi­tio­nal meat production.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per, Photo (Lead/Corporate), Partner
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Taxes), Partner
Dr. Martyna Sabat (Corpo­rate), Associate
Dr. Ansgar Frank (Corpo­rate), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Corpo­rate Liti­ga­tion), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Pia Meven (Corpo­rate), Associate
During his time at SMP, Dr. Peter Möll­mann was also instru­men­tal in advi­sing on the sale of LikeMeat.

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: Dr. Koops & Partner
Dr. Chris­tian Ruhe, Chris­toph Gerhards

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte
Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath, Matthias Struck

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: Buhler Duggal & Henry (New York)
Dr. Raoul Duggal, Carl T. Berry

Advi­sors Timo Recker / Recker Holding GmbH: Luther (Singa­pore)
Birgitta von Dresky, Nina Rompis

News

Jersey/ London — Triton Debt Oppor­tu­ni­ties II (“TDO II” or “the Fund”) has successfully comple­ted its fund­rai­sing with commit­ments of €744 million, signi­fi­cantly surpas­sing its target size of €550 million. TDO II recei­ved strong support from exis­ting inves­tors and has secu­red considera­ble commit­ments from a range of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors from around the world, in parti­cu­lar from Euro­pean and US pension funds. In addi­tion, Triton has also raised a Sepa­ra­tely Mana­ged Account which will serve as an over­flow account for the Fund.

TDO II opera­tes an all-weather approach to inves­t­ing, using its unique sourcing network to find attrac­tive invest­ments at healthy prices. The Fund was ther­e­fore well posi­tio­ned to deploy capi­tal throug­hout 2020, during which time there has been signi­fi­cant price dislo­ca­tion, and it is now 40% invested.

TDO II conti­nues to see a strong pipe­line of acti­vity and anti­ci­pa­tes considera­ble oppor­tu­nity to invest further during the market’s reco­very phase. TDO II will conti­nue to invest in the same sectors and geogra­phies as Triton’s private equity funds, focu­sing on the indus­tri­als, busi­ness services, consu­mer and health sectors, across the Nordics, DACH and Benelux.

The Fund invests in non-control posi­ti­ons across the capi­tal struc­ture in mid-market compa­nies, with its average invest­ment size typi­cally between €10–40 million. The TDO funds bene­fit from a unique advan­tage through their access to the wider Triton network, enab­ling them to tap into signi­fi­cant resour­ces and know­ledge, specia­list sector insight, and support from the firm’s invest­ment advi­sory network, opera­ting part­ners, senior indus­try experts and banking relationships.

Amyn Pesnani, Head of TDO, said: “We are extre­mely plea­sed to have been supported by a range of new and exis­ting inves­tors and we would like to extend our thanks for their commit­ment to TDO II. Our flexi­ble invest­ment approach, support from the wider Triton plat­form and stra­tegy of iden­ti­fy­ing underva­lued busi­nesses has allo­wed us to alre­ady put capi­tal to work this year, making the most of the current market condi­ti­ons, and we conti­nue to see a healthy pipe­line of exci­ting oppor­tu­ni­ties ahead.”

About Triton
Since its estab­lish­ment in 1997, Triton has spon­so­red ten funds, focu­sing on busi­nesses in the indus­trial, busi­ness services, consu­mer and health sectors. The Triton funds invest in and support the posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized busi­nesses head­quar­te­red in Europe. Triton seeks to contri­bute to the buil­ding of better busi­nesses for the longer term. Triton and its execu­ti­ves wish to be agents of posi­tive change towards sustainable opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ments and growth. The 44 compa­nies curr­ently in Triton’s port­fo­lio have combi­ned sales of around €18 billion and around 99,300 employees.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Schwab­mün­chen — The invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner acqui­res a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in DITTRICH + CO (“DICO”) in order to sustain­ably support the growth course of the Bava­rian specia­list for plas­tic injec­tion molding. The two mana­ging part­ners will remain invol­ved in the course of the tran­sac­tion and expand the opera­tio­nal manage­ment of the company to include the previous tech­ni­cal sales mana­ger Manfred März, who will also acquire shares. This also prepa­res the succes­sion at DICO in perspec­tive. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close by the end of Octo­ber 2020.

DITTRICH + Co GmbH & Co KG, based in Schwab­mün­chen near Augs­burg, is a family-run specia­list supplier of tooling and injec­tion molded parts with just under 100 employees, and is one of Europe’s leading compa­nies in its core areas. The company was foun­ded in 1958 by Rudolf Dittrich and Peter Muschak, has been in the hands of the second gene­ra­tion, Armin Dittrich and Andreas Muschak, since 1995 and has been growing steadily for years. DICO’s service port­fo­lio covers the entire value chain of manu­fac­tu­ring tech­ni­cally sophisti­ca­ted products: Plas­tic injec­tion molding (ther­mo­pla­s­tics and also modern compo­si­tes), design, tool­ma­king, series produc­tion, finis­hing and assem­bly. The clear focus on sustaina­bi­lity, quality, diver­si­fi­ca­tion and custo­mer bene­fits of products and services means that DICO is often inte­gra­ted into custo­mers’ proces­ses at an early stage.

Toge­ther with VR Equi­typ­art­ner, the successful growth of recent years is now to be contin­ued — both orga­ni­cally and through possi­ble company acqui­si­ti­ons. The market envi­ron­ment for injec­tion molding tech­no­logy and mold­ma­king is proving to be highly frag­men­ted. DICO sees its exper­tise and exter­nal growth poten­tial here, parti­cu­larly in the area of complex parts produ­ced in small and medium-sized series. In addi­tion to the well-known exis­ting custo­mers from the furni­ture indus­try, consu­mer elec­tro­nics, pack­a­ging indus­try, auto­mo­tive & trans­port, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and medi­cine, further new custo­mers in selec­tive indus­tries are to be added. At the same time, the company’s own manu­fac­tu­ring exper­tise and capa­city are being syste­ma­ti­cally expanded.

“In VR Equi­typ­art­ner, we have found a part­ner for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company who also brings a great deal of expe­ri­ence in succes­sion plan­ning and who shares our entre­pre­neu­rial philo­so­phy,” say Armin Dittrich and Andreas Muschak. Future co-mana­ging direc­tor Manfred März adds, “Our know-how regar­ding complex shapes and special mate­ri­als is vast. We look forward to working with VR Equi­typ­art­ner, who will now help us to further scale this unique knowledge.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, explains: “With DICO, we are ente­ring into an invest­ment in an excel­lently posi­tio­ned company whose order situa­tion is bril­li­ant and which has much further poten­tial in view of a steadily growing market. The company is not only a successful specia­list manu­fac­tu­rer of sophisti­ca­ted products, but also an excel­lent under­stan­ding of its custo­mers. A high recy­cling ratio and level of auto­ma­tion comple­ment these first-class future prospects.”

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is making the invest­ment toge­ther with its subsi­diary VR Equity Gesell­schaft für regio­nale Entwick­lung in Bayern mbH, which was provi­ded with funding from the Euro­pean Union for the promo­tion of inno­va­tive compa­nies in Bava­ria (ERDF funds) as part of a part­ner­ship with the Free State of Bavaria.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH at a glance:
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. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million.

Advi­sor VR Equitypartner:

Commer­cial: Blue­mont Consul­ting GmbH, Munich, with Markus Frän­kel, Sebas­tian Rütt­gers, and Bene­dict Sevov

Finan­cial: TAP Dr. Schlum­ber­ger Krämer Pothorn & Part­ner mbB Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft, Munich, with Andreas Krämer, Stef­fen Bannen­berg and Andreas Seidemann

Legal & Tax: McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP, Frank­furt, with Dr. Michael Cziesla, Dr. Heiko Kermer, Norman Wasse, Marcus Fischer, Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Isabelle Müller

Consul­tant of DITTRICH + CO:

Kloep­fel Corpo­rate Finance GmbH, Munich, with Dr. Heiko Frank and Niko­lai Üstündağ

PKF WULF ENGELHARDT KG Steu­er­be­ra­tungs­ge­sell­schaft, Augs­burg, with Chris­toph Kalm­bach and Monika Gigler

Gütt Olk Feld­haus Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB, Munich, with Dr. Sebas­tian Olk, Adrian von Prit­t­witz and Gaffron, Domi­nik Forst­ner and Ricarda Theis

News

Aachen — S‑UBG AG has sold its shares in Vier­sen-based WS Quack & Fischer GmbH to the company’s family share­hol­ders. This marks the end of an 18-year invest­ment part­ner­ship that began in 2002 with S‑UBG’s invest­ment in the pack­a­ging company. With the addi­tio­nal equity, WS Quack + Fischer has reali­zed growth plans and arran­ged for succes­sion by the next family generations.

S‑UBG as a long-term part­ner for growth financing
WS Quack + Fischer was formed in 2001 from the merger of WS Verpa­ckungs GmbH and Quack & Fischer GmbH, which was in need of restruc­tu­ring. Follo­wing the restruc­tu­ring of the merged company, the Aachen-based finan­cial inves­tor, toge­ther with the co-share­hol­ders, took over the shares of depar­ting share­hol­ders. Since then, the pack­a­ging mate­ri­als produ­cer has contin­ued to deve­lop and was able to achieve sales of 30 million euros in 2019 with 110 employees. “We conti­nue to see good pros­pects for WS Quack + Fischer,” says Bern­hard Kugel (photo), CEO of the S‑UBG Group. “Thanks to early succes­sion plan­ning and steady growth, the company is ideally posi­tio­ned for the future.”

Succes­sion ensu­red for the long term
The two family share­hol­der trunks Eicker and Schmitz, toge­ther with their succes­sors, have posi­tio­ned them­sel­ves with long-term profes­sio­nal and entre­pre­neu­rial perspec­ti­ves and have been able to signi­fi­cantly increase sales and earnings in recent years. In parti­cu­lar, Mana­ging Direc­tor Thomas Eicker has alre­ady proven his worth as succes­sor to foun­ding part­ner Heinz Eicker. The succes­sion of the Schmitz family tribe is also secu­red for the long term. “Trust and trans­pa­rency have always been the foun­da­ti­ons of our coope­ra­tion with S‑UBG,” says Mana­ging Direc­tor Thomas Eicker.

About the S‑UBG Group
The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in the provi­sion of equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for over 30 years. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. 2020, Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I für die Region Aachen, Krefeld & Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG was laun­ched toge­ther with NRW.BANK, the savings banks of Aachen, Krefeld and Düren, Kreis­spar­kasse Heins­berg, Stadt­spar­kasse Mönchen­glad­bach, Noma­in­vest, DSA Invest GmbH, inves­tors from the Dr. Babor Group and other private inves­tors. It provi­des around 40 million euros in seed capi­tal for the start-up scene in the region. Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I emer­ged from Seed Fonds III for the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach region. As an exten­sion of Seed Fund III, Tech­Vi­sion Fund I now seeks to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds (Series A/B) of exis­ting port­fo­lio compa­nies in addi­tion to seed invest­ments. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe. www.s‑ubg.de

News

Hano­ver — NORD Holding has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG. The tran­sac­tion was carried out with the parti­ci­pa­tion of WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sach­sen. The Födisch family and the foun­der and CEO Dr. Holger Födisch will also remain share­hol­ders in the company. Toge­ther with NORD Holding and WMS, the market posi­tion is to be expan­ded and the successful growth course of recent years is to be contin­ued on a sustainable basis.

Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of emis­sion tech­no­logy for moni­to­ring envi­ron­men­tally harmful gases, dust and volume flows. Areas of appli­ca­tion are emis­sion moni­to­ring (CEMS: Conti­nuous Emis­sion Moni­to­ring Systems), process and envi­ron­men­tal measu­re­ment tech­no­logy and recur­ring tests of statio­nary measu­ring equip­ment. The product range extends from mobile and statio­nary measu­ring devices to complete systems. The medium-sized company opera­tes in a market envi­ron­ment that has been growing steadily for years, driven by global mega­trends and stric­ter envi­ron­men­tal regu­la­ti­ons, and supports its more than 600 custo­mers inter­na­tio­nally in acting sustain­ably and with an eye to the future. Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG curr­ently has over 180 employees.

“Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG is a typi­cal exam­ple of a true hidden cham­pion, charac­te­ri­zed by a culture of inno­va­tion and engi­nee­ring exper­tise. From the very begin­ning, we were very impres­sed by the company’s team spirit and tech­no­logy focus as well as the entre­pre­neu­rial vision of Dr. Holger Födisch. With the part­ner­ship that has now been estab­lished, we would like to accom­pany this outstan­ding company, with our possi­bi­li­ties, into the next growth phase — we are looking forward to the joint future,” says Andreas Bösen­berg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of NORD Holding.

Dr. Holger Födisch, foun­der and board member: “After 29 years of successful and dyna­mic deve­lo­p­ment of the company and the Födisch Group, we have actively pursued the realignment of the shareholder/participation struc­ture. This will enable us to meet the chal­lenges of future growth and create the basis for a further consis­tent orien­ta­tion of the Group towards the envi­ron­men­tal and auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy sectors. With NORD Holding, we have now found the right part­ner for the imple­men­ta­tion of our stra­te­gies, goals and visi­ons. We look forward to the joint chal­lenges and cooperation.”

For NORD Holding, the invest­ment in Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG marks the third invest­ment in the green and clean­tech sector. This under­pins the invest­ment stra­tegy of focu­sing on sustaina­bi­lity tech­no­lo­gies and bene­fiting from long-term mega­trends such as the need to increase resource and energy produc­ti­vity and reduce pollution.

On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tion was imple­men­ted by Andreas Bösen­berg (photo), Martin Scheff­ler and Marcel Rosengarten.

The WMS alre­ady held a stake in Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG with its prede­ces­sor fund. Harald Rehberg (Mana­ging Direc­tor WMS) on the tran­sac­tion: “We are plea­sed to now conti­nue to accom­pany the Födisch Group in part­ner­ship with our third-gene­ra­tion WMS. The company has deve­lo­ped magni­fi­cently in recent years — also thanks to its successful inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. We also see high momen­tum in the future, not least through further acqui­si­ti­ons in suita­ble segments.”

Harald Rehberg and Andreas Müller were respon­si­ble for the project at WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sachsen.

About Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG
Foun­ded in 1991, Dr. Födisch Umwelt­mess­tech­nik AG is a leading and inde­pen­dent group of compa­nies for appli­ca­ti­ons in the field of envi­ron­men­tal, process and analy­sis tech­no­logy. With its head­quar­ters in Markran­städt near Leip­zig as well as service and sales compa­nies in Germany and a subsi­diary in China, the company employs over 180 people. In addi­tion to envi­ron­men­tal, service and main­ten­ance services, the product port­fo­lio includes fine dust sensors, filter moni­tors, dust measu­re­ment concen­tra­tion devices, gas analy­zers and volu­metric flow meters. Custo­mers are Euro­pean and non-Euro­pean compa­nies, among others from the energy, chemi­cal, cons­truc­tion, and waste and dispo­sal indus­tries, which are supported world­wide in comply­ing with emis­sion limits and in moni­to­ring various processes.

In 2018, EP Ehrler Prüf­tech­nik Engi­nee­ring GmbH (Nieder­stet­ten) was successfully inte­gra­ted as a wholly owned subsi­diary. EP Ehrler is a specia­list in the field of flow measu­re­ment tech­no­logy for air, gases and liquids and deve­lops its own custo­mi­zed and at the same time tech­no­logy-orien­ted complete solu­ti­ons. www.foedisch.de

About WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sachsen
The WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sach­sen is an initia­tive of the Free State of Saxony and regio­nal credit insti­tu­ti­ons and has supported more than 30 Saxon compa­nies in imple­men­ting their growth stra­te­gies since 2005. Since the begin­ning of this year, the WMS has been ente­ring its third gene­ra­tion of funds. In addi­tion to the savings banks, the inves­tors now also include the Säch­si­sche Aufbau­bank, the Bürg­schafts­bank Sach­sen and the Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft. The fund will invest a further 85 million euros in Saxony’s SME sector in the coming years. www.wachstumsfonds-sachsen.de

About NORD Holding
With its 50-year history and assets under manage­ment of € 2.5 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund of funds investments.

The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king countries.

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