Willkie advises on the IPO of Gabler Group

09Frankfurt a. M. — Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP has advised
, the selling share­hol­der and the banking syndi­cate as tran­sac­tion coun­sel on the IPO of Gabler Group AG (the “Company”) with an issue volume of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 132.8 million (assum­ing full exer­cise of the green­shoe option).

Gabler Group AG, based in Lübeck, Germany, was foun­ded in 1962 and is an estab­lished deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer of mission-criti­­cal under­wa­ter tech­no­lo­gies, gene­ra­ting the majo­rity of its reve­nues from defense and defense-rela­­ted solu­ti­ons. The banking syndi­cate consis­ted of Cantor as Sole Global Coor­di­na­tor and Joint Book­run­ner and Bank­haus Metz­ler as addi­tio­nal Joint Bookrunner. 

The IPO of Gabler Group AG is the first by a German company this year. It takes place against the back­drop of the invest­ment surge in the Euro­pean defense sector and under­lines the increased inves­tor inte­rest in compa­nies with defense-rela­­ted busi­ness models. 

The offer compri­sed new shares from a cash capi­tal increase as well as exis­ting shares from the holdings of the Possehl Group, an estab­lished private equity inves­tor and indus­trial group based in Lübeck, which will remain the majo­rity share­hol­der of the company after the IPO. The company’s shares will be included for trading in the Scale segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exchange. 

Will­kie acted as tran­sac­tion coun­sel in the tran­sac­tion and advi­sed the company, the selling share­hol­der Possehl Group and the bank consor­tium compre­hen­si­vely on all capi­tal market and corpo­rate law issues.

The core team was led by part­ners Simon Weiß and Joseph Marx and included asso­cia­tes Martin E. Kalb­henn and Niklas Keller (all Capi­tal Markets; Frank­furt). Part­ner Jacob Ahme (Corpo­rate; Hamburg) led the corpo­rate work­stream and was supported by asso­ciate Dr. Patrick Kemper (Corpo­rate; Frank­furt). In addi­tion, the tran­sac­tion was advi­sed by part­ners Anne Kleff­mann (Employ­ment; Munich); Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax; Frank­furt), Dr. David Jansen (Regu­la­tory; Frank­furt), Benja­min Nixon (Capi­tal Markets; New York), Jenni­fer Carlson (Capi­tal Markets; Chicago), coun­sel Martin Waskow­ski (Employ­ment; Frank­furt), Wolf­gang Münchow (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Cathe­rine A. Harring­ton (Tax; New York), Richard F. Jack­son (Asset Manage­ment; Washing­ton) as well as asso­cia­tes Sascha Wink­ler (Employ­ment; Frank­furt), Marcel Seemaier (Tax; Frank­furt), Dr. Laurin Havlik (Global Trade; Munich), Bene­dikt Schwarz (Finance; Frank­furt), Joshua Baskin (Tax; New York), Shay Moyal (Tax; New York) and Jakob Edson (Asset Manage­ment; Washing­ton). —www.willkie.com