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

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

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

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

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

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