Author: Tatjana Anderer

Berlin — YPOG has advi­sed Verdane toge­ther with PWWL and GNP on an invest­ment in ETERNO. ETERNO is a Berlin-based health­tech company that has deve­lo­ped an AI-native opera­ting system for outpa­ti­ent care. 

ETERNO offers ETERNO Cloud, a fully inte­gra­ted, cloud-based opera­ting system for physi­ci­ans and thera­pists that auto­ma­tes admi­nis­tra­tive proces­ses from pati­ent admis­sion and clini­cal docu­men­ta­tion to billing and analy­tics. By inte­gra­ting arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, the plat­form enables health­care provi­ders to signi­fi­cantly reduce admi­nis­tra­tive workloads and improve pati­ent care. More than 2,000 doctors in Germany alre­ady use ETERNO Cloud in their day-to-day practice. 

With the part­ner­ship, ETERNO aims to scale its plat­form, expand its tech­no­lo­gi­cal leader­ship, acce­le­rate commer­cial roll­out and pursue selec­tive stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. The company employs over 150 people and addres­ses one of the most frag­men­ted and least digi­ti­zed markets in Europe. In Germany, more than 170,000 outpa­ti­ent doctors are still working with outda­ted legacy systems, while around 2 million doctors are active in outpa­ti­ent care across Europe. 

Verdane is a specia­list growth buyout inves­tor support­ing tech­no­logy-based and sustainable compa­nies that contri­bute to the digi­ta­liza­tion and decar­bo­niza­tion of the Euro­pean economy. Verda­ne’s funds have raised over EUR 10 billion in capi­tal and made more than 200 invest­ments in high-growth compa­nies since 2003. 

YPOG
Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Jörg Schr­ade (Tax), Part­ner, Munich
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Part­ner, Berlin
Pia Meven (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Ciro D’Ame­lio (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Anna Eick­meier (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Matthias Treude (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Konstan­tina Natha­nail (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin

PWWL
Eckbert Müller, Partner
Teresa Gabele, Associate
Lisa Want­zen, Mana­ging Associate

GNP
Till Sebas­tian Wipper­fürth, Partner
Richard Schulz, Attor­ney at Law

About us
YPOG stands for You + Part­ners of Game­ch­an­gers and forward-looking tax and legal advice. The firm advi­ses compa­nies focu­sed on future tech­no­lo­gies with the aim of using change as an oppor­tu­nity and jointly crea­ting opti­mal solu­ti­ons. The YPOG team offers compre­hen­sive exper­tise in the areas of Funds, Tax, Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate, Banking, Regu­la­tory + Finance, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion, Liti­ga­tion as well as Corpo­rate Crime + Compli­ance + Inves­ti­ga­ti­ons. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses in Germany for venture capi­tal, private equity, fund struc­tu­ring and appli­ca­ti­ons of distri­bu­ted ledger tech­no­logy (DLT) in finan­cial services. The firm and its part­ners are regu­larly reco­gni­zed by renow­ned publi­ca­ti­ons such as JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Cham­bers and Part­ners, Leaders League and Legal 500. YPOG employs more than 180 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors and tax specia­lists as well as a notary in its offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne, Munich, Cambridge and London. 

Further infor­ma­tion: www.ypog.law and www.linkedin.com/company/ypog

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Schulte has advi­sed clever­soft group, a port­fo­lio company of Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners (LLCP), on the acqui­si­tion of the Austrian B2B FinTech FAIT Inter­net Soft­ware GmbH. With the acqui­si­tion, clever­soft comple­ments its exis­ting port­fo­lio with flexi­ble front-end tech­no­lo­gies and addi­tio­nal services for inte­gra­ted end-to-end work­flows in digi­tal finan­cial advi­sory, port­fo­lio manage­ment and asset management. 

The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted later in the year.

Clever­soft, head­quar­te­red in Munich and with offices in Frank­furt, Luxem­bourg, Amster­dam, The Hague, Malta, Sofia, Seville, Istan­bul, Dubai and Kuwait, provi­des more than 1,200 finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons world­wide with auto­ma­ted solu­ti­ons for opti­mi­zing busi­ness-rele­vant compli­ance processes.

FAIT (Finan­cial Analy­sis and Invest­ment Tech­no­logy) is an Austrian FinTech company that deve­lops soft­ware solu­ti­ons for digi­tal invest­ment advice and asset manage­ment. The company offers banks, FinTechs and insu­rance compa­nies soft­ware products, APIs and consul­ting services in the field of digi­tal invest­ment advice. 

Advi­sor Clever­soft: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Munich

Holger H. Ebers­ber­ger, LL.M. (Photo © McDer­mott), Dr. Thomas Diek­mann (both lead), Dr. Manuel Weiß (Coun­sel; all Private Equity), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax); Asso­ciate: Julia Külzer (Private Equity).

About McDer­mott Will & Schulte

McDer­mott Will & Schulte is a leading inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firm with more than 1,700 lawy­ers in over 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. In Germany, the firm has offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Colo­gne and Munich. Our teams cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial law with their exper­tise. The German prac­tice is led by McDer­mott Will & Schulte Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. You can find more infor­ma­tion at: www.mwe.com/de/

Frank­furt a. M. — As part of the successful Series A finan­cing round of Focu­sed Energy, RWE has expan­ded its exis­ting invest­ment in the Darm­stadt-based laser fusion company since Octo­ber 2025 and inves­ted a further 60 million euros.
Nuclear fusion is deve­lo­ping rapidly world­wide and Germany is gaining signi­fi­cant weight in the
global fusion market. Well-known inves­tors from Europe, the USA, Asia and the Gulf region parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round along­side RWE and the German Fede­ral Agency for Leap Inno­va­tions. This is clear evidence that German start-ups are percei­ved by foreign inves­tors as promi­sing drivers of tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tion in fusion, parti­cu­larly Focu­sed Energy in the field of laser fusion. 

Germany has an outstan­ding ecosys­tem of excel­lent rese­arch and start-ups,
support­ing indus­trial compa­nies and exis­ting loca­ti­ons that can be used
. It also has an effi­ci­ent supply chain. These are excellent
prere­qui­si­tes for exploi­ting the decisive
speed advan­tage in the global compe­ti­tion for fusion energy. Germany ther­e­fore has the best chan­ces of main­tai­ning and further expan­ding its leading role in nuclear fusion in global competition. 

Toge­ther with the state of Hesse and other part­ners, Focu­sed Energy is parti­ci­pa­ting in the current fede­ral govern­ment tender for a laser fusion hub in
this context. The
site in Biblis can play a key role in the further deve­lo­p­ment of
fusion tech­no­logy in Germany as a central laser fusion campus — where busi­ness, rese­arch and
inno­va­tion are brought together. 

Dr. Markus Kreb­ber, CEO RWE AGThanks to its excel­lent rese­arch land­scape and inno­va­tive start-ups such as Focu­sed Energy — one of the leading compa­nies in the field of laser fusion — Germany is well posi­tio­ned to play a leading role in nuclear fusion globally. We are ther­e­fore prepared to further expand our invest­ment in Focu­sed Energy. It is an important signal that the fede­ral and state govern­ments are working toge­ther to drive forward deve­lo­p­ment in order to realize a commer­cial fusion reac­tor in Germany. RWE expressly supports this goal: with our dismant­ling sites, our exis­ting nuclear infra­struc­ture and our many years of exper­tise in licen­sing law, we are crea­ting the ideal condi­ti­ons to secure time and cost advan­ta­ges for Germany in inter­na­tio­nal competition.”

Focu­sed Energy is a leader in laser-based fusion tech­no­logy, is invol­ved in inter­na­tio­nal rese­arch projects and aims to deve­lop high-energy lasers for poten­tial use in laser fusion power plants. As part of its invest­ment, RWE will grant Focu­sed Energy access to its Biblis site to build a pilot plant for laser-based fusion technology. 

Advi­sor RWE: Kirk­land & Ellis, Frankfurt

Dr. Tobias Larisch (photo © Kirk­land), Fried­rich von der Heydt-von Kalck­reuth (both lead, both Private Equity/M&A), Asso­cia­tes: Henrik Kilian, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Beil­ner, Mirjam Meyer, Michael Döpp­ner (all Private Equity/M&A)

About Kirk­land

With more than 4,000 lawy­ers in 23 cities in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms for high-cali­ber legal services. The German team specia­li­zes in private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and capi­tal markets, finan­cing and tax. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit kirkland.com.

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in the TNL Group (TNL), a leading specia­list for envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning and permit­ting consul­ting in the field of energy and trans­por­ta­tion infra­struc­ture. DBAG ECF IV, a fund advi­sed by DBAG, will acquire a majo­rity stake in TNL as part of a manage­ment buy-out. The tran­sac­tion was initia­ted bila­te­rally through DBAG’s network and once again under­lines the quality and resi­li­ence of its access to attrac­tive mid-market tran­sac­tions. TNL foun­der and co-mana­ging direc­tor Frank Berns­hau­sen and other members of the manage­ment team will re-invest a signi­fi­cant amount. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

TNL sets the course for the expan­sion of the energy tran­si­tion and trans­port infrastructure
TNL is a specia­list provi­der of envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning, appr­oval consul­ting and cons­truc­tion services for complex infra­struc­ture projects. Foun­ded in 1994 by Frank Berns­hau­sen, the company star­ted out as a consul­tancy firm and today supports chal­len­ging cons­truc­tion projects such as wind and solar parks, high-voltage and extra-high-voltage power lines and trans­port infra­struc­ture projects. 

TNL supports its clients along the entire project chain: from the preli­mi­nary ecolo­gi­cal study to the offi­cial appr­oval process and subse­quent cons­truc­tion super­vi­sion and implementation.

TNL also has special exper­tise in projects with complex ecolo­gi­cal issues, is charac­te­ri­zed in parti­cu­lar by the deve­lo­p­ment of prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons and is estab­lished as a service provi­der for deman­ding large-scale projects with the four German trans­mis­sion system opera­tors TenneT, Amprion, 50Hertz and TransnetBW.

The group of compa­nies employs around 250 people at four loca­ti­ons. In 2025, they gene­ra­ted a total opera­ting perfor­mance of around 30 million euros. 

Market charac­te­ri­zed by struc­tu­ral growth

The invest­ment follows DBAG’s stra­tegy of making targe­ted invest­ments in compa­nies that operate in struc­tu­rally attrac­tive markets. The expan­sion of trans­port infra­struc­ture, the energy tran­si­tion and the expan­sion of the German trans­mis­sion grids as part of the Network Deve­lo­p­ment Plan (NDP) are driving a sustained high demand for quali­fied envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning services. This dyna­mic is also reflec­ted in TNL’s deve­lo­p­ment: the company’s core market has grown at an annua­li­zed double-digit percen­tage rate since 2020. 

This posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment is also supported by long-term frame­work agree­ments. The attrac­tive company profile is roun­ded off by impres­sive refe­ren­ces in system-rele­vant projects for the energy tran­si­tion such as Sued­Link, Sued­Ost­Link and Rhein-Main-Link. 

Tom Alzin, CEO of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, says: “TNL is a true hidden cham­pion in a non-cycli­cal growth market. The company provi­des indis­pensable plan­ning services for projects that are essen­tial for the success of the energy tran­si­tion.” He adds: “Frank Berns­hau­sen and his team have built up a unique market posi­tion over 30 years, which is based on a strong foun­da­tion of exper­tise, project compe­tence, trust in autho­ri­ties and custo­mers. We want to consis­t­ently deve­lop this strong foun­da­tion toge­ther with the management.” 

Conti­nuity through long-term growth strategy

Since its foun­da­tion in 1994, TNL has deve­lo­ped from a regio­nal consul­tancy firm into one of the leading provi­ders of envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning services for natio­nal energy and trans­por­ta­tion infrastructure.

With DBAG ECF IV as the new majo­rity share­hol­der, this growth course is to be consis­t­ently contin­ued. This includes the imple­men­ta­tion of an advi­sory board that will support the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company. In addi­tion, the market presence in distri­bu­tion network opera­tors, rail infra­struc­ture and in the areas of land resto­ra­tion, climate adapt­a­tion, climate protec­tion and water manage­ment is to be syste­ma­ti­cally expan­ded. TNL is also exami­ning company acquisitions. 

“We have deve­lo­ped the stra­tegy for the next growth phase toge­ther with Frank Berns­hau­sen and his team and have been on an equal footing from the outset. Our goal is clear: TNL should grow orga­ni­cally and through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons, thus further diver­si­fy­ing its custo­mer and exper­tise base and consis­t­ently deli­ve­ring the quality for which the company is known among its custo­mers. To this end, we are making targe­ted invest­ments in IT, proces­ses and employee deve­lo­p­ment,” says Chris­toph Groß­e­käm­per, Mana­ging Direc­tor, Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG.

Frank Berns­hau­sen, foun­der and co-mana­ging direc­tor of the TNL Group, explains: “I foun­ded TNL as an envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning office and am proud of what we have achie­ved toge­ther, such as our invol­vement in some of Germany’s most important infra­struc­ture projects.” He conti­nues: “It was always clear to me that if I was looking for a succes­sion part­ner, I needed someone who unders­tood the busi­ness and who cared about the people in the company. I have found both in DBAG. We now have the oppor­tu­nity to tackle the next phase of growth with a stron­ger orga­niza­tion, new markets and the back­ing of an expe­ri­en­ced partner.” 

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), which has been listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of the most renow­ned private equity compa­nies in Germany. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The sector focus is on produ­cers of indus­trial goods, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­ta­liza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the busi­ness services, IT services, soft­ware, health­care, envi­ron­ment, energy and infra­struc­ture sectors. DBAG has also been active in Italy since 2020 and has had its own office in Milan since 2021. The assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to around 2.7 billion euros. ELF Capi­tal comple­ments DBAG’s range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs with private debt capi­tal. — www.dbag.de

Munich/ Bad Vilbel — The NOBIX Group, a mana­ged service provi­der with a focus on medium-sized compa­nies, is acqui­ring black­point GmbH from Bad Vilbel, an estab­lished provi­der of cloud, mana­ged and custo­mer expe­ri­ence solu­ti­ons. With this acqui­si­tion, the Group is expan­ding its port­fo­lio to include exper­tise in the areas of CRM, CX plat­forms, core busi­ness appli­ca­ti­ons and cloud-based infra­struc­ture and secu­rity services. This is alre­ady the third acqui­si­tion of the NOBIX Group in the current year after netmin compu­ter GmbH from Freu­den­stadt and Alba­kom GmbH from Rostock. — The NOBIX Group is supported by Liberta Part­ners, a Munich-based invest­ment company that acqui­res and deve­lops medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region. 

black­point: From inter­net service provi­der to digi­tiza­tion partner

Foun­ded in 1997, black­point GmbH has evol­ved over the past three deca­des from a tradi­tio­nal Inter­net service provi­der to a broad-based digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner. With around 30 employees, the company supports custo­mers of all sectors and sizes — from local medi­cal prac­ti­ces to inter­na­tio­nal corporations. 

The port­fo­lio of black­point GmbH includes cloud and hosting services, infra­struc­ture-as-a-service, secu­rity and backup solu­ti­ons, VoIP and tele­phony services as well as web and store deve­lo­p­ment. In addi­tion, the company has exten­sive exper­tise in custo­mer expe­ri­ence and CRM plat­forms inclu­ding ERP inte­gra­tion, analy­sis and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons as well as AI-supported appli­ca­ti­ons. Inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer projects with roll­outs in various count­ries under­line the company’s tech­ni­cal expertise. 

Nume­rous exis­ting custo­mers have been rely­ing on black­poin­t’s services for deca­des. Even after the acqui­si­tion, the name will remain the same; exis­ting cont­acts and struc­tures will not change for custo­mers and part­ners. At the same time, they will bene­fit from the expan­ded service port­fo­lio and addi­tio­nal resour­ces within the NOBIX Group. 

Proven manage­ment struc­ture remains in place

Even after the acqui­si­tion, the long-stan­ding manage­ment perso­na­li­ties of black­point GmbH will remain on board. Mario Di Rienzo, who will conti­nue to lead the company as Mana­ging Direc­tor, will be respon­si­ble in parti­cu­lar for stra­te­gic and commer­cial deve­lo­p­ment. Dirk Esten­feld will incre­asingly focus on the tech­ni­cal, opera­tio­nal and product-rela­ted further deve­lo­p­ment of services. Both will also contri­bute their many years of expe­ri­ence and exper­tise within the NOBIX Group. 

The acqui­si­tion is part of the NOBIX Group’s ongo­ing deve­lo­p­ment towards a more inte­gra­ted corpo­rate struc­ture. Andreas Török, CEO of the NOBIX Group, empha­si­zes the signi­fi­cance for the group: “black­point expands our port­fo­lio with a rare combi­na­tion of infra­struc­ture, appli­ca­tion and CX exper­tise. The depth in the area of custo­mer expe­ri­ence and core busi­ness appli­ca­ti­ons in parti­cu­lar crea­tes new oppor­tu­ni­ties for our group to supple­ment and further deve­lop exis­ting services. At the same time, black­point streng­thens our posi­tion in the midmar­ket and in the fast-growing as-a-service market.” 

“With black­point, we are not only gaining addi­tio­nal exper­tise, but above all a company with a high level of opera­tio­nal matu­rity and estab­lished custo­mer rela­ti­onships,” explains Domi­nik Welz, CFO of the NOBIX Group. “We are deligh­ted to welcome black­point to the NOBIX Group and look forward to shaping our future path together.” 

Liberta Part­ners also sees the tran­sac­tion as an important step in the stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the NOBIX Group. Nils von Wietz­low, Part­ner at Liberta Part­ners (photo © Liberta), explains: “With the acqui­si­tion of black­point, the NOBIX Group is consis­t­ently conti­nuing on its growth path. black­point is an excel­lent addi­tion to the Group, both tech­no­lo­gi­cally and cultu­rally, and streng­thens its posi­tion as a powerful digi­tiza­tion part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies. We look forward to support­ing the NOBIX Group toge­ther with the manage­ment team in the next phase of development.”

Julius Wölfer, Corpo­rate Deve­lo­p­ment Mana­ger at Liberta Part­ners, adds: “black­point brings in-depth exper­tise in key future fields such as custo­mer expe­ri­ence, cloud infra­struc­ture and mana­ged services. These capa­bi­li­ties fit perfectly with the stra­te­gic direc­tion of the NOBIX Group and open up addi­tio­nal oppor­tu­ni­ties for inte­gra­ted custo­mer solu­ti­ons. The tran­sac­tion also under­lines the attrac­ti­ve­ness of the NOBIX Group as a plat­form for successful entre­pre­neurs and specia­li­zed IT service providers.”

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners is an invest­ment company based in Munich that acqui­res and deve­lops medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region. The focus is on succes­sion situa­tions and corpo­rate spin-offs. With a clear buy-and-build approach and its own corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment team, Liberta Part­ners supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in sustainable and successful corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment. — www.liberta-partners.com

About NOBIX Group

The NOBIX Group is a nati­on­wide mana­ged service provi­der with a focus on mana­ged services for infra­struc­ture, cloud, secu­rity and core busi­ness appli­ca­ti­ons. The Group employs around 300 people at 12 loca­ti­ons in Germany. — www.nobix-group.de

About black­point

As an alli­ance and chan­nel part­ner, black­point GmbH specia­li­zes in consul­ting, imple­men­ta­tion and inte­gra­tion of the Infor Custo­mer Expe­ri­ence Suite (CX). It has many years of expe­ri­ence with the product Infor CRM (form­erly Sales­lo­gix), Infor CPQ and eCom­merce solu­ti­ons such as Shop­ware or Infor Rhythm. Black­point offers profes­sio­nal consul­ting and imple­men­ta­tion services for the deve­lo­p­ment of web appli­ca­ti­ons. The team consists of expe­ri­en­ced deve­lo­pers who take care of all aspects of web appli­ca­ti­ons and offer indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons that are precis­ely tail­o­red to the various requi­re­ments. — www.blackpoint.de

Munich/Mainz — Funds advi­sed by Deut­sche Private Equity (DPE) have signed an agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in the NTA Group from Adiuva Capi­tal. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the manage­ment will acquire a stake in the NTA Group. Comple­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the acquisition. 

The NTA Group, based in Mainz, is a provi­der of inte­gra­ted secu­rity, commu­ni­ca­tion and IT infra­struc­ture solutions.

The company plans, imple­ments and opera­tes solu­ti­ons that protect buil­dings, people, assets, commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels and opera­tio­nal proces­ses against signi­fi­cant physi­cal and digi­tal secu­rity risks. The range of services includes fire and intru­sion detec­tion tech­no­logy, video surveil­lance, access control, alarm and emer­gency manage­ment, commu­ni­ca­tion solu­ti­ons as well as IT and network infra­struc­ture. Its custo­mers include medium-sized compa­nies of various kinds, in parti­cu­lar health­care provi­ders, public autho­ri­ties and opera­tors of criti­cal infra­struc­ture. With around 360 employees at nine loca­ti­ons in Germany and Luxem­bourg, the Group gene­ra­tes sales of more than EUR 60 million. 

For DPE, NTA is an attrac­tive plat­form in a market in which secu­rity, avai­la­bi­lity and commu­ni­ca­tion capa­bi­lity are of great importance to compa­nies and public insti­tu­ti­ons. The Group has broad tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise, long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships, regio­nal proxi­mity and a high propor­tion of recur­ring revenues. 

Toge­ther with the manage­ment, DPE intends to support the further deve­lo­p­ment of the group as a stra­te­gic part­ner. The focus will be on orga­nic growth, the expan­sion of service, main­ten­ance and mana­ged services offe­rings, the expan­sion of the service port­fo­lio and the conti­nua­tion of the buy-and-build stra­tegy. NTA is to further expand its market posi­tion in DACH and also examine growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in selec­ted Euro­pean markets in the future. 

As part of the next deve­lo­p­ment phase, Benja­min Lieber, previously respon­si­ble for Stra­te­gic Busi­ness Deve­lo­p­ment and M&A, will assume the role of Spokes­man of the Group’s Manage­ment Board. Tors­ten Marx, co-foun­der of the NTA Group and Mana­ging Direc­tor of NTA System­haus, will step down from his opera­tio­nal role and support the further stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the Group as Chair­man of the Advi­sory Board.

Benja­min Lieber, future CEO of the NTA Group, says: “NTA stands for a high level of tech­ni­cal exper­tise, strong regio­nal units and a prono­un­ced under­stan­ding of service. Our custo­mers rely on systems that have to func­tion in criti­cal situa­tions. We take this respon­si­bi­lity very seriously. With DPE, we have gained a stra­te­gic part­ner who under­stands our ambi­ti­ons and will support us in deve­lo­ping the group further in a targe­ted manner toge­ther with our employees and manage­ment teams.”

Tors­ten Marx, foun­der of the NTA Group: “In recent years, NTA has grown from a regio­nally strong system house to a much broa­der-based group of compa­nies. The service port­fo­lio has been expan­ded, central group func­tions have been estab­lished and important stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons have been made with HSS, MTG and MR Compact. In our view, DPE is the right choice to support NTA’s next phase of growth.”

Andreas W. Schmid, Part­ner at DPE, empha­si­zes: “NTA is a powerful plat­form in a market with intact long-term growth drivers. The company combi­nes secu­rity, commu­ni­ca­tion and IT infra­struc­ture in an inte­gra­ted offe­ring and has estab­lished custo­mer rela­ti­onships in deman­ding fields of appli­ca­tion. We were parti­cu­larly impres­sed by the quality of the manage­ment team, the strong service orien­ta­tion and the proven ability to combine orga­nic growth with targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. We look forward to accom­pany­ing NTA as a stra­te­gic part­ner in the next deve­lo­p­ment phase.”

The debt finan­cing for the tran­sac­tion is being provi­ded by Adams Street Partners.

Consul­tant DPE:

Deloitte (Finan­cial), CA Stra­tegy (Commer­cial), PwC (Tax & Struc­ture), Dechert (Legal) and MCF (Debt).

About the NTA Group

The NTA Group, head­quar­te­red in Mainz, is a provi­der of inte­gra­ted secu­rity, commu­ni­ca­tion and IT infra­struc­ture solu­ti­ons. The Group combi­nes tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise with regio­nal proxi­mity and a high level of service orien­ta­tion. NTA plans, imple­ments and opera­tes solu­ti­ons in the areas of fire and intru­sion detec­tion tech­no­logy, video surveil­lance, access control, alarm and emer­gency manage­ment, commu­ni­ca­tion and colla­bo­ra­tion solu­ti­ons, cloud services as well as IT and network infra­struc­ture. The group of compa­nies serves custo­mers from deman­ding indus­tries and fields of appli­ca­tion, inclu­ding health­care, public insti­tu­ti­ons, criti­cal infra­struc­tures, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and medium-sized companies. 

About Deut­sche Private Equity

Deut­sche Private Equity (DPE) has been a growth part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies in the German-spea­king region (DACH) since 2007. DPE supports port­fo­lio compa­nies with capi­tal, exper­tise and respect for entre­pre­neu­rial action to realize their full future poten­tial. The invest­ment focus is on five core sectors: Busi­ness Services, Energy & Envi­ron­ment, Health­care, Indus­trial Tech­no­logy and Soft­ware & IT Services. DPE curr­ently mana­ges assets of around three billion euros.

Antwerp — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) and Ferranti, a renow­ned provi­der of mission-criti­cal soft­ware for the utili­ties indus­try head­quar­te­red in Belgium, announce that Main has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Ferranti. This marks the begin­ning of a new phase of growth for Ferranti, with a focus on contin­ued product inno­va­tion, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. The exis­ting manage­ment team will conti­nue to lead Ferranti, with Tom Van Haute assum­ing the role of CEO. 

Ferranti, head­quar­te­red in Antwerp, Belgium, is an estab­lished inter­na­tio­nal soft­ware provi­der for utili­ties. With a team of around 285 profes­sio­nals, Ferranti deve­lops soft­ware that supports well-known energy suppli­ers, distri­bu­tion network opera­tors, water suppli­ers and inte­gra­ted utili­ties in hand­ling central meter-to-cash and distri­bu­tion network opera­tor (DGO) proces­ses in the elec­tri­city, gas, heat and water sectors. The company serves a broad custo­mer base in more than 12 count­ries and has a strong presence in Belgium, the Nether­lands and the UK, as well as a growing presence in Europe and Asia Pacific. 

The utility soft­ware market is supported by attrac­tive long-term trends, inclu­ding the incre­asing comple­xity of regu­la­tory frame­works, the intro­duc­tion of smart meters and the growth of decen­tra­li­zed energy sources. These deve­lo­p­ments are driving demand for modern, inte­gra­ted plat­forms to manage incre­asingly complex ecosys­tems and workflows.
Ferranti is well posi­tio­ned to capi­ta­lize on these trends thanks to its cloud-based MECOMS 365 plat­form and deca­des of enter­prise-wide indus­try exper­tise. MECOMS 365 is based on Micro­soft Dyna­mics 365 and plays a central role in the day-to-day busi­ness of utility compa­nies. The plat­form inte­gra­tes core modu­les such as custo­mer infor­ma­tion systems (CIS), custo­mer service and reten­tion, market commu­ni­ca­tion and coor­di­na­tion, meter data manage­ment (MDM), pricing, quoting and billing in a single environment. 

Main and Ferranti are jointly pursuing the goal of further streng­thening Ferran­ti’s posi­tion as a relia­ble soft­ware provi­der for the utili­ties indus­try. In the next phase of growth, the focus will be on further enhan­cing the MECOMS 365 offe­ring, acce­le­ra­ting inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and targe­ting stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand the product range and market presence. 

Sjoerd Aarts, Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of Bene­lux at Main, said: “Ferranti has built an impres­sive posi­tion as a provi­der of mission-criti­cal soft­ware for the utili­ties sector, a market charac­te­ri­zed by attrac­tive, struc­tu­ral long-term trends. By combi­ning in-depth exper­tise with its scalable MECOMS 365 plat­form, the company has built strong, long-term custo­mer rela­ti­onships in various markets.”

Tom Van Haute, CEO desi­gnate of Ferranti, added: “We are deligh­ted to welcome Main as our new majo­rity share­hol­der. Over the years, we have had the privi­lege of beco­ming a trus­ted part­ner for utili­ties opera­ting in incre­asingly complex and regu­la­ted markets. With Main’s soft­ware exper­tise and inter­na­tio­nal network, we are well posi­tio­ned to advance our product road­map, deepen support for our custo­mers and expand internationally.”

Ernst Nijkerk, outgo­ing CEO and repre­sen­ta­tive of the Nijkerk owner family, added: “It was very important for us to find the right part­ner to support Ferranti in its next phase of growth.”
The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to the neces­sary regu­la­tory approvals.

About Ferranti

Home

Ferranti was foun­ded in 1976 and is head­quar­te­red in Antwerp, Belgium. The company is a provi­der of busi­ness-criti­cal soft­ware for the utili­ties sector. Through its cloud-based plat­form MECOMS 365, built on Micro­soft Dyna­mics 365, Ferranti supports a broad base of utility custo­mers in more than 12 count­ries in the manage­ment of central meter-to-cash and distri­bu­tion network opera­tor (DGO) proces­ses in the elec­tri­city, gas, heat and water sectors. 

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds in the Bene­lux, DACH, Nordics, France and North America, with appro­xi­m­ately EUR 7.0 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams of its port­fo­lio compa­nies as a stra­te­gic part­ner to drive profi­ta­ble growth and build leading soft­ware groups. Main employs around 95 people in offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp, Paris and a branch office in Boston. Main’s active port­fo­lio includes more than 55 soft­ware compa­nies with a total of over 15,000 employees. Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main supports students with scho­lar­ships for study programs in IT and compu­ter science at tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties and colleges.
— www.main.nl

Frank­furt a. M. — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner is acqui­ring a mino­rity stake in 1AVista Reisen GmbH (“1AVista”), a Colo­gne-based tour opera­tor focu­sing on all-inclu­sive river crui­ses, as part of a succes­sion plan. With this invest­ment, VREP is support­ing the company’s next stage of deve­lo­p­ment. Toge­ther, 1AVista and VREP plan to conti­nue their growth course in the coming years by further expan­ding the fleet. 

The current mana­ging direc­tors and share­hol­ders Hagen Mesters and Sascha Gülden­meis­ter of 1AVista Reisen GmbH are taking a signi­fi­cant stake in the company. At the same time, Raphael Dombrow­ski, Mana­ging Direc­tor, and Manuel Klou­bert, autho­ri­zed signa­tory, will also acquire shares in 1AVista as part of the tran­sac­tion. Hubert Schulte-Schmel­ter, who foun­ded the Colo­gne-based tour opera­tor with a focus on river crui­ses in 2007, is trans­fer­ring his shares in the company to the new owners. 

1AVista, one of the leading tour opera­tors for river crui­ses on the Rhine and Danube, estab­lished an all-inclu­sive concept with full board and drinks on board at an early stage, as well as an addi­tio­nal Germany-wide door-to-door pick-up service. 1AVista is growing conti­nuously and curr­ently gene­ra­tes sales of more than EUR 50 million. Today, 1AVista offers a program of over 100 river crui­ses as well as selec­ted round trips in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries, Egypt, Morocco and Turkey. The tour opera­tor employs around 30 people. The 1AVista fleet curr­ently consists of eight full char­ter ships with a total of around 1,000 beds. In 2027, the Vista­Ba­ro­ness, a 110-metre-long river ship, will join the fleet; in addi­tion, the new MS Vista­Queen (135 meters), another ship for more than 190 guests, which is curr­ently being built in the Nether­lands and will then be deployed on the Danube, will be added in 2028. 

Toge­ther with its share­hol­ders, VR Equi­typ­art­ner aims to conti­nue its successful growth stra­tegy. This prima­rily includes the expan­sion of the fleet with new river cruise ships equip­ped with the latest envi­ron­men­tally friendly tech­no­logy and a high level of comfort for guests. In addi­tion, further growth is to be driven forward through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and their struc­tu­red integration. 

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner, says: “1AVista has an attrac­tive, clearly posi­tio­ned product offe­ring in a sustainable growth market. We were parti­cu­larly impres­sed by the manage­men­t’s many years of opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence and the resi­li­ent part­ner­ships with ship­ping compa­nies. On this basis, we want to support the company toge­ther with the manage­ment in imple­men­ting its growth stra­tegy, further expan­ding its market posi­tion and tapping into addi­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in the tourism sector.”

Hagen Mesters, share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor of 1AVista Reisen, empha­si­zes: “With VR Equi­typ­art­ner, we have gained a long-term orien­ted part­ner who will actively accom­pany us on our further growth path. Above all, VREP has expe­ri­ence in the further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies and a strong network. The part­ner­ship and cons­truc­tive nature of the coope­ra­tion has alre­ady become appa­rent during the invest­ment process. We look forward to tack­ling the next deve­lo­p­ment steps toge­ther and further expan­ding our offering.”

The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VREP:

Finan­cial:
RSM Ebner Stolz (Matthias Kran­kow­sky, Henrik Merz, Felix Roth, Louis Perrino, Xiaohe Zhang)

Commer­cial:
Dr. Fried & Part­ner (Dr. Markus Heller, Fran­ziska Mosen­heuer, Anne Kaffka)

Legal:
ARQIS (Dr. Lars Laeger, Benja­min Bandur)

Tax:
ARQIS (Jens Knipping)

Anti­trust law:
LUPP + Part­ner (Tilman Siebert)

About VREP

Whether mezza­nine or direct invest­ment, succes­sion or growth plan — we support you with our tailor-made finan­cing solu­ti­ons. —-www.vrep.de

Siegen — The Siegen-based deep-tech company eleQ­tron has raised 57 million euros in its Series A finan­cing round, which was led by Schwarz Digits. Other inves­tors include the EIC Fund of the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil, exis­ting inves­tor Early­bird as well as Ankaa Ventures, Preci­tec, NRW.BANK and IFB Inno­va­ti­ons­star­ter GmbH. — 8P advi­sed eleQ­tron compre­hen­si­vely on the finan­cial and tax aspects of this transaction. 

eleQ­tron was foun­ded in 2020 as a spin-off from the Univer­sity of Siegen. This finan­cing round clearly posi­ti­ons the company as one of the most ambi­tious Euro­pean provi­ders in the field of quan­tum compu­ting in inter­na­tio­nal compe­ti­tion. They deve­lop scalable quan­tum proces­sors based on ion trap tech­no­logy. A tech­no­lo­gi­cal breakth­rough is the company’s proprie­tary MAGIC tech­no­logy (Magne­tic Gradi­ent Indu­ced Coupling): It replaces complex laser systems with precise high-frequency control (micro­wa­ves), enab­ling the cons­truc­tion of more stable and indus­tri­ally scalable systems. eleQ­tron alre­ady has an order back­log of more than 50 million euros and coope­ra­tes with leading rese­arch centers such as the Jülich Rese­arch Center and DLR. 

The fresh capi­tal will be used to build scalable produc­tion capa­ci­ties, expand cloud-based access to quan­tum systems and further deve­lop the hard­ware plat­form. The aim of eleQ­tron is to tran­si­tion from a rese­arch-driven tech­no­logy to an indus­tri­ally usable infra­struc­ture to solve complex problems in various sectors. 

8P supported the process with a multi­di­sci­pli­nary team and advi­sed Eleq­tron on both the finan­cial and tax aspects of the capi­tal round. www.8P.de

Advi­sor eleQ­tron: 8P

Finan­cial and tax team: Part­ner Matthias Künzel, photo (WP/StB), Part­ner Gunnar Stef­fens (StB), Matthias Pläs­ken (StB) and Julia Hübner (RA/StB). — www.8P.de

About 8P Part­ner­schaft mbB

8P Part­ner­schaft mbB, a multi­di­sci­pli­nary law firm for owner-mana­ged SMEs in the areas of tax consul­ting, audi­ting and legal advice with head­quar­ters in Siegen, has been part of the BDO Deutsch­land Alli­ance since 2019.

BDO is the fifth largest audi­ting firm in Germany and world­wide; the only one with German-Euro­pean roots — and it is still owner-mana­ged. As part of an alli­ance model, BDO offers selec­ted medium-sized law firms profes­sio­nal coope­ra­tion that opens up access to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal resour­ces and experts, while at the same time guaran­te­e­ing the full legal and entre­pre­neu­rial inde­pen­dence of the regio­nal law firm.

Aachen — The regio­nal invest­ment company S‑UBG AG from Aachen, toge­ther with ACT Holding (Advan­ced Clean Tech­no­lo­gies), has acqui­red 100 percent of the shares in Albrecht-Auto­ma­tik GmbH from Pulheim as part of a manage­ment buy-in (MBI). The mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring company specia­li­zes in the manu­fac­ture of quick-closing valves and compact systems for deman­ding indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. “With this invest­ment, we are acqui­ring a stake in an inno­va­tive company with great future pros­pects driven by the energy tran­si­tion,” explains Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, CEO of S‑UBG AG. 

“We not only actively shape the succes­sion process, but also contri­bute to the value-orien­ted further deve­lo­p­ment of the medium-sized company for the next gene­ra­tion.” — Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, CEO of S‑UBG AG.

Dr. Hans-Chris­tian Früh and Chris­tian Mertens, both mana­ging direc­tors at ACT Holding, are taking over from the previous mana­ging part­ner Marion Koch, who has successfully mana­ged her family busi­ness in the second gene­ra­tion for over 20 years. With the sale of the company, Koch is arran­ging the succes­sion at share­hol­der and manage­ment level and ensu­ring conti­nuity and jobs at her company. 

The new mana­ging direc­tors have many years of expe­ri­ence in manage­ment posi­ti­ons at various corpo­ra­ti­ons and medium-sized compa­nies and plan to work with S‑UBG to streng­then the sales orga­niza­tion, expand the custo­mer base globally and opti­mize exis­ting proces­ses. “We see an excel­lent tech­no­lo­gi­cal basis for the sustainable deve­lo­p­ment of the company,” says Mertens. “We were parti­cu­larly impres­sed by the combi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal exper­tise, a high level of custo­miza­tion compe­tence, compre­hen­sive certi­fi­ca­ti­ons and future-proof technologies.” 

How Albrecht-Auto­ma­tik is helping to shape the energy transition

Albrecht-Auto­ma­tik deve­lops quick-closing safety valves, control valves and custo­mi­zed special valves for deman­ding and safety-criti­cal indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. It supplies these to medium-sized plant manu­fac­tu­r­ers and major indus­trial custo­mers world­wide, parti­cu­larly in the energy, chemi­cal, process and ship­buil­ding industries. 

A key unique selling point is the company’s many years of expe­ri­ence in the hydro­gen segment, in which it has been active since 1995. “Hydro­gen and power-to‑X appli­ca­ti­ons are beco­ming massi­vely more important,” empha­si­zes Dr. Früh. “With its in-depth exper­tise in the areas of hydro­gen, ammo­nia and metha­nol, Albrecht-Auto­ma­tik stands out from the compe­ti­tion and has the poten­tial to support the struc­tu­ral change towards green energies.” 

Posi­tive market fore­casts provide tailwind

The market condi­ti­ons for indus­trial valves and valve tech­no­logy are promi­sing: analysts from Grand View Rese­arch fore­cast that the global market for control valves will almost double from USD 6.6 billion (2023) to over USD 12 billion by 20301 . The main drivers are the moder­niza­tion of indus­trial plants — inclu­ding power plants, chemi­cals and water/water treat­ment — and the trend towards digi­tal diagnostics. 

Schlei­cher: “The further deve­lo­p­ment of Albrecht-Auto­ma­tik is in the hands of expe­ri­en­ced stra­te­gists who toge­ther bring over 30 years of manage­ment exper­tise and will lead the company into a new phase of growth.”

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) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for almost 40 years.
S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; a high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. It deve­lops invest­ment models for medium-sized compa­nies, both in open and silent part­ner­ship form, has many years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment of expan­sion finan­cing models, share­hol­der chan­ges and succes­sion plan­ning (MBO/MBI) and only enters into mino­rity share­hol­dings. 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.

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Schulte has advi­sed Olden­bur­gi­sche Landes­bank Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft (OLB) as sole lead arran­ger on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of the Blasius Schus­ter Group by AUCTUS Capi­tal Part­ners. As part of this plat­form invest­ment, AUCTUS and Blasius Schus­ter are foun­ding the Urban Mining Group, a nati­on­wide plat­form for recy­cled buil­ding mate­ri­als, and are thus driving the further deve­lo­p­ment of the group. 

The Blasius Schus­ter Group is an inte­gra­ted service provi­der in the field of urban mining, specia­li­zing in the dispo­sal and recy­cling of mine­ral raw materials.

AUCTUS is a leading invest­ment company for Euro­pean SMEs and a market leader in the imple­men­ta­tion of buy-and-build stra­te­gies in the DACH region.

OLB is a univer­sal bank with 80 bran­ches nati­on­wide and around 1,700 employees. Under the OLB and Bank­haus Neelmeyer brands, OLB serves nearly one million customers. 

McDer­mott Will & Schulte has alre­ady advi­sed OLB on seve­ral finan­cing transactions.

Advi­sor to Olden­bur­gi­sche Landes­bank AG: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Munich

Ludwig Zesch (Finance, lead), Dr. Thomas Diek­mann, photo © MWS (Private Equity), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Meyer (Coun­sel, Tax Law, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Tim Becker, Alina Diet­rich (both Finance)

Stuttgart/Kippenheim — The Stutt­gart-based invest­ment company Süd Betei­li­gun­gen GmbH (SüdBG) has signed a purchase agree­ment for the sale of its shares in Janoschka AG (Janoschka), Kippen­heim. The shares of the foun­ding family Janoschka will also change hands. Blue Cap AG, based in Munich, will become the new owner of the inter­na­tio­nally well-posi­tio­ned Janoschka Group. The part­ners have agreed not to disc­lose the details. 

Foun­ded in 1976 by Manfred Janoschka, Janoschka is now conside­red the market leader in the inter­na­tio­nal prepress indus­try. SüdBG joined the company in 2017 as part of a capi­tal increase to finance the inter­na­tio­nal growth of the Janoschka Group and a simul­ta­neous manage­ment buy-out and, toge­ther with the foun­ding family and the Super­vi­sory Board, supported the manage­ment in imple­men­ting the targeted
growth stra­tegy. This included auto­ma­ting produc­tion and incre­asing the level of digi­ta­liza­tion in the value chain. In addi­tion, the inter­na­tio­nal produc­tion sites in Asia — parti­cu­larly in Malay­sia, Viet­nam and the Phil­ip­pi­nes — as well as in Turkey, Poland and Mexico, were expan­ded in order to offer custo­mers world­wide compre­hen­sive tech­ni­cal exper­tise and inno­va­tions, solu­ti­ons and services for gravure and flexo­gra­phic prin­ting. During the part­ner­ship with SüdBG, Janoschka has expan­ded and exten­ded its service port­fo­lio. Janoschka now employs around 1,500 people and has a turno­ver of over 90 million euros. 

Süd Betei­li­gun­gen GmbH (SüdBG) is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Baden-Würt­tem­berg (LBBW) and has been support­ing medium-sized compa­nies for more than 50 years with custo­mi­zed equity and equity-rela­ted solu­ti­ons in the context of succes­sion plan­ning, growth finan­cing and share­hol­der chan­ges. As one of the leading invest­ment compa­nies in the German-spea­king region and a long-term inves­tor, SüdBG has supported more than 70 compa­nies with around 600 million euros and a broad network in sustainable corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment over the past 10 years.
— www.suedbg.de

SüdBG deal team:
Gunter Max, Felix Rieder, Stefan Hennig, Phil­ipp Nitzschke, Sebas­tian Köhnlein

Advi­sor SüdBG:

M&A: IMAP M&A Consul­tants AG (Henning Graw, Chris­toph Gluschke, Phil­ipp Crocoll, Alex­an­der Köhler, Levin Kieselhorst)

Legal: Orrick, Herring­ton & Sutcliffe LLP (Dr. Chris­toph Bren­ner, Stefan Riedl, Maria Teodorescu)

GÖRG has compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed Ningbo Lawrence Auto­mo­tive Inte­ri­ors Co., Ltd. on the sale of the mino­rity share­hol­ding in HELBAKO GmbH held by its subsi­diary NBHX Auto­mo­tive System GmbH. The buyer of the shares is WITTE Auto­mo­tive GmbH in Velbert.

Ningbo Lawrence Auto­mo­tive Inte­ri­ors Co., Ltd. is a China-based company that specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of inte­rior compon­ents for the auto­mo­tive indus­try. Among other things, the auto­mo­tive supplier produ­ces trim elements, func­tional compon­ents and surface solu­ti­ons for various vehicle segments. Ningbo Lawrence Auto­mo­tive Inte­ri­ors Co., Ltd. is a subsi­diary of the NBHX Group.

The medium-sized auto­mo­tive supplier HELBAKO, based in Heili­gen­haus (North Rhine-West­pha­lia), deve­lops and produ­ces elec­tro­nic assem­blies for control­ling nume­rous car compon­ents. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Germany, the company has another site in Romania. 

With a team led by part­ner Florian Wolff, GÖRG advi­sed Ningbo Lawrence Auto­mo­tive Inte­ri­ors Co., Ltd. on all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion, inclu­ding the struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion, the draf­ting and nego­tia­tion of the tran­sac­tion docu­ments and the imple­men­ta­tion of the sales process.

With its China Desk, GÖRG has many years of expe­ri­ence in advi­sing on invest­ments and cross-border tran­sac­tions invol­ving China. A team of German-Chinese lawy­ers with inter­cul­tu­ral exper­tise regu­larly advi­ses Chinese and Euro­pean compa­nies on invest­ments and legal issues in Germany/Europe as well as in and from China and East Asia. 

Advi­sors Ningbo Lawrence Auto­mo­tive Inte­ri­ors Co., Ltd. and NBHX Auto­mo­tive System GmbH : GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB

Florian Wolff, photo © GOERG (Lead, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Dr. Chris­tian Bürger (Part­ner, FDI/Merger Control, Cologne)
Dr. Jia Ding, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Phil­ipp Sche­rer (Senior Asso­ciate, Liti­ga­tion and Arbi­tra­tion, Hamburg)
Leonie Hofmann (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)

Frank­furt a. M., Ilsho­fen — GÖRG has advi­sed the share­hol­ders of BTE Biege­tech­nik Engi­nee­ring GmbH, based in Ilsho­fen, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, on the sale of the company to SANHA GmbH & Co. KG from Essen, one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of piping systems, and on the sale of the company’s real estate.

Foun­ded in 2001, BTE Biege­tech­nik Engi­nee­ring GmbH (BTE), like SANHA GmbH & Co. KG (SANHA), is a family busi­ness with strong local roots. As a highly specia­li­zed manu­fac­tu­rer, BTE has been produ­cing for many years for deman­ding custo­mers from indus­try, inclu­ding medi­cal tech­no­logy, venti­la­tion tech­no­logy, agri­cul­ture and the commer­cial vehicle sector. The company has modern produc­tion faci­li­ties for a wide range of tube bending and forming products and curr­ently employs around 125 people. The profi­ta­ble company’s turno­ver amoun­ted to around EUR 21 million in the 2025 finan­cial year. 

With this acqui­si­tion, SANHA is syste­ma­ti­cally expan­ding its indus­trial exper­tise in the field of mecha­ni­cal tube proces­sing. BTE’s exper­tise opti­mally comple­ments the Group’s exis­ting tech­no­logy port­fo­lio and enables even stron­ger verti­cal inte­gra­tion — from deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion to series supply to OEM customers. 

The SANHA Group sees the inte­gra­tion of BTE as an important step towards streng­thening its posi­tion as a relia­ble deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for OEM custo­mers, parti­cu­larly in fields of appli­ca­tion in which precis­ion-manu­fac­tu­red tube compon­ents play a central role.

Under the leader­ship of part­ner Dr. Markus Söhn­chen, GÖRG provi­ded legal advice to the share­hol­ders throug­hout the entire process.

Advi­sor to share­hol­der BTE Biege­tech­nik Engi­nee­ring GmbH: GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB

Dr. Markus Söhn­chen, Foto© Goerg (Lead, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Dr. Gerhard Gündel (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Dr. Phil­ipp Naab (Part­ner, Real Estate Law, Frank­furt am Main)
Timo Jans (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Kris­tina Riedel (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)

About GÖRG

GÖRG is one of the leading inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firms in Germany.
With over 370 profes­sio­nals in the fields of legal advice, tax advice and audi­ting at our five offices in Berlin, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich, we advise well-known dome­stic and foreign compa­nies, medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as finan­cial inves­tors and listed groups from all sectors of the economy and the public sector. — www.goerg.de

Stutt­gart — Inves­tor 3TS Capi­tal Part­ners has inves­ted in the Berlin-based start-up RR Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH (Patro­nus). The finan­cing round led by 3TS Capi­tal compri­ses 11 million euros. HEUKIN­G’s advi­sory services included legal due dili­gence and the nego­tia­tion of all contracts, in parti­cu­lar the invest­ment and share­hol­der agreement. 

3TS Capi­tal Part­ners is a specia­list tech­no­logy growth finance firm inves­t­ing across Europe in sectors such as tech­no­logy, media and tech­no­logy-enab­led services. With over €450 million raised from inves­tors such as EIF, Tesi, Cisco, EBRD and Erste, 3TS combi­nes a strong finan­cial base, stra­te­gic support and exten­sive networks in Europe and the US. The invest­ment in Patro­nus is made through TCEE Fund IV — www.3tscapital.com

Patro­nus was foun­ded in Berlin in 2020. The company offers a safety and assis­tance solu­tion for senior citi­zens, consis­ting of a mobile emer­gency call smart­watch and a family app. With 25,000 active custo­mers and over half a million emer­gency calls answe­red, Patro­nus is now the digi­tal market leader in the mobile emer­gency call segment in Germany. 

Advi­sors to 3TS Capi­tal: HEUKING
Bene­dikt Raisch, Dr. Alex­an­der Schott, both lead, Dr. Emanuel Teich­mann (all Corporate/M&A), all Stutt­gart; Shimon Merkel, LL.M. (Tel Aviv Univer­sity), (Corporate/M&A), Berlin, Dr. Stefa­nie Grei­fen­e­der, Sarah Aschen­bren­ner, Miriam Stein­hart, LL.M. (The Univer­sity of Edin­burgh), (all Health Care & Life Scien­ces), all Munich; Antje Münch, LL.M. (IP), Stutt­gart, Dr. Philip Kemper­mann, LL.M., Georg Thomas, LL.M. (Univer­sity of Glas­gow), Julian Rosen­feld (all IT/Data Protec­tion), all Düssel­dorf; Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola, Laura Solty­siak (both Employ­ment Law), both Cologne

www.heuking.de

Rottweil/ Niedern­hall — Würth Elek­tro­nik ICS GmbH & Co. KG is acqui­ring 100% of the shares in the MRS Group, Rott­weil (Baden-Würt­tem­berg). A team led by Hamburg-based HEUKING part­ner Dr. Peter Chris­tian Schmidt provi­ded legal and tax advice to the share­hol­ders of MRS during the contract negotiations. 

The subsi­diary of MRS Holding GmbH, MRS Elec­tro­nic GmbH & Co KG, based in Rott­weil (Baden-Würt­tem­berg), has been deve­lo­ping and produ­cing intel­li­gent control elec­tro­nics and custo­mer-speci­fic hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the vehicle indus­try for over 25 years. The product port­fo­lio includes compact control units, gate­ways, relays and HMI systems for commer­cial vehic­les, cons­truc­tion and agri­cul­tu­ral machi­nery and special vehic­les. The company employs around 250 people and has inter­na­tio­nal loca­ti­ons in Croa­tia, Poland, Turkey and the USA in addi­tion to its headquarters. 

Würth Elek­tro­nik ICS GmbH & Co. KG, based in Niedern­hall, is a system provi­der for elec­tro­me­cha­ni­cal and elec­tro­nic solu­ti­ons in the areas of signal and power distri­bu­tion, func­tion control as well as display and opera­ting solu­ti­ons. The company is one of the leading suppli­ers in Europe, parti­cu­larly in the field of power distri­bu­tion for mobile machi­nery and commer­cial vehic­les. Würth Elek­tro­nik ICS is part of the family-run Würth Group. 

Advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of MRS Elec­tro­nic GmbH & Co KG: HEUKING

Dr. Peter Chris­tian Schmidt Photo © Heuking (lead / corpo­rate law / M&A), Dr. Kai Bandilla (distri­bu­tion law), Dr. Henrik Lay (tax law), Dr. Stefan Brett­hauer (anti­trust law), all Hamburg; Anna Rich­ter, LL.M. (corpo­rate law / M&A), Colo­gne; Phil­ipp Roman Schrö­ler (IP, media & tech­no­logy), Düssel­dorf; Jan Mensching, LL.M. (Notting­ham Trent Univer­sity), (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), Jia-Xi Liu (Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust Law), both Hamburg; Ramona Bauer-Schöll­kopf, LL.M. (Queen Mary Univer­sity of London), (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), Stutt­gart; Jonas Türkis, LL.M. (Univer­sity of Cape Town), (Employ­ment Law), Oliver Kamme­rer (Tax Law), both Hamburg. 

www.heuking.de

Munich — The Finnish eleva­tor manu­fac­tu­rer Kone is taking over its German compe­ti­tor TK Eleva­tor. The finan­cial inves­tors Advent and Cinven are recei­ving five billion euros in cash and Kone shares worth 15.2 billion euros for the company. The tran­sac­tion implies an enter­prise value of 29.4 billion euros inclu­ding debt. This makes the tran­sac­tion the largest majo­rity spon­sor-led private equity tran­sac­tion in Europe to date. 

The combi­ned company would gene­rate annual sales of around EUR 20.5 billion, of which around 65% would come from service and moder­niza­tion, achieve an adjus­ted EBIT of more than EUR 2.7 billion (exclu­ding syner­gies) and have a main­ten­ance port­fo­lio of around 3.2 million units.

Kirk­land & Ellis has advi­sed Advent and Cinven on the comple­tion of an agree­ment to combine TK Eleva­tor (“TKE”) and KONE in a tran­sac­tion invol­ving cash and KONE shares as consideration.

TKE is a global leader in the field of verti­cal trans­por­ta­tion and urban mobi­lity. The company has around 50,000 employees and over 1,000 loca­ti­ons world­wide. TKE became inde­pen­dent after the spin-off from Thys­sen­krupp AG in 2020. KONE is a global leader in the eleva­tor and escala­tor indus­try with more than 60,000 employees in around 70 count­ries. KONE’s Class B shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd. in Finland. 

Advi­sors to Advent and Cinven: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Prof. Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker (photo © Kirk­land), Dr. Philip Goj (both lead, both Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Michael Ehret (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marcus Comman­deur, Dr. Fried­rich Focke, Fabian Water­höl­ter, Lisa Müller, Dr. Sabrina Seitz, Chiara Schmid (all Private Equity/M&A), Emma­nuel Götz (Tax)
Kirk­land & Ellis, London:
Adrian Maguire, Dan Clarke (both Private Equity/M&A), Antoine Lebi­en­venu (Capi­tal Markets), Chris­to­pher Shield, Thomas Raftery (both Debt Finance), Mavnick Nerwal, Sivanti Deva­ku­mar (both Tax), André Duminy (Tech­no­logy & IP Tran­sac­tions); Asso­cia­tes: Charles Hébert, Bene­dict Wilson, Saniya Sidhu, Albert Planella i Obach (all Private Equity/M&A), Aram Vale­syan, Aman Nath, Zoe O’Log­bon (all Debt Finance), Ellen Ronayne (Tax), Asmita Singhvi (Tech­no­logy & IP Transactions)

About Kirk­land

With more than 4,000 lawy­ers in 23 cities in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms for high-cali­ber legal services. The German team specia­li­zes in private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and capi­tal markets, finan­cing and tax. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit kirkland.com.

Düssel­dorf — For the first time, NRW.BANK is inves­t­ing speci­fi­cally in South West­pha­lia toge­ther with Early­bird from Berlin and seve­ral family offices. At the current closing of the Early­bird VIII early-stage fund, EUR 15 million was mobi­li­zed for start-ups from the region. The aim is to streng­then the regi­on’s inno­va­tive power and competitiveness. 

“Inno­va­tions with which we shape the future are crea­ted all over the coun­try — even away from the major metro­po­li­tan areas. That’s why we support start-ups in all regi­ons of our state and thus actively drive change and progress,” says Johanna Anto­nie Tjaden-Schulte, Member of the Mana­ging Board of NRW.BANK (Photo: NRW Bank). “The fact that we are inves­t­ing in South West­pha­lia toge­ther with Early­bird and important family offices is a strong signal for the inno­va­tive strength and attrac­ti­ve­ness of South West­pha­lia as a loca­tion and for North Rhine-West­pha­lia as a whole.” 

First regio­nal closing in the Early­bird VIII fund

In addi­tion to the five million euros from NRW.BANK, private inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted in the current closing. These include, for exam­ple, the family offices of large family busi­nesses such as Viega and Krom­ba­cher. A total of EUR 15 million is thus available to turn young and promi­sing busi­ness ideas from South West­pha­lia, parti­cu­larly in areas such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, robo­tics, new mate­ri­als, indus­trial digi­ta­liza­tion and sustainable tech­no­lo­gies, into viable compa­nies. This also streng­thens the inno­va­tive power and econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment of the region as a whole. 

For Early­bird, one of the most renow­ned early-stage finan­ciers in Germany, the current closing is the first targe­ted commit­ment in a region of North Rhine-West­pha­lia. The fund’s manage­ment had speci­fi­cally recrui­ted NRW.BANK as a part­ner in order to streng­then the commit­ment with addi­tio­nal exper­tise and expe­ri­ence for the start-up scene in NRW and South West­pha­lia. The part­ner­ship between Early­bird and NRW.BANK had alre­ady proven its worth in two previous funds. The Early­bird VIII fund has a total volume of EUR 360 million, which flows into start-ups throug­hout Europe. In South West­pha­lia, the Early­bird Inno­Ven­tures team pools capi­tal and know-how from the regio­nal economy to promote and finance tech­no­logy-driven start-ups from the region. 

About NRW.BANK — Deve­lo­p­ment Bank for North Rhine-Westphalia

NRW.BANK is the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­pha­lia. In close part­ner­ship with its owner, the state of North Rhine-West­pha­lia, it helps to streng­then SMEs and start-ups, create afforda­ble housing and improve public infra­struc­ture. NRW.BANK offers people, compa­nies and muni­ci­pa­li­ties in NRW tailor-made finan­cing and advi­sory services. It works with finan­cing part­ners, in parti­cu­lar all banks and savings banks, on a non-compe­ti­tive basis. In order to streng­then the trans­for­ma­tion proces­ses, it provi­des targe­ted promo­tio­nal impe­tus — towards a sustainable, climate-neutral and digi­tal NRW.

Munich — The Munich-based Tech­Bio company mbio­mics has successfully expan­ded its Series A finan­cing round to a total of 30 million euros. The company intends to use the capi­tal to drive forward the clini­cal deve­lo­p­ment of its lead candi­date and further expand its scalable plat­form for micro­biome-based thera­pies. Inves­tors include the exis­ting inves­tors MIG Fonds and Bayern Kapital. 

mbio­mics GmbH from Munich/Neuried has comple­ted the third closing of its Series A finan­cing round of 12 million euros, raising a total of 30 million euros.

The company plans to use the addi­tio­nal funds to further expand its precli­ni­cal data packa­ges in prepa­ra­tion for an IND submis­sion and to acce­le­rate GMP deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion. The focus will be on prepa­ring the clini­cal trial of the lead candi­date MBX-116, which is to be used as a co-therapy with immune check­point inhi­bi­tors in advan­ced mela­n­oma. The start of a phase 1b trial is plan­ned for 2027. 

mbio­mics deve­lops so-called Live Biothe­ra­peu­tic Products (LBPs) — oral thera­peu­tics based on live bacte­rial strains. The aim is to harness the func­tional and meta­bo­lic poten­tial of the gut micro­biome in a stan­dar­di­zed, phar­maceu­ti­cal format. While fecal micro­biota trans­plants have alre­ady shown the effi­cacy of micro­biome-based approa­ches, they are conside­red diffi­cult to scale up. This is where mbio­mics comes in with a proprie­tary tech­no­logy plat­form that enables the design, analy­sis and produc­tion of complex micro­bial consortia. 

The plat­form combi­nes AI- and machine lear­ning-based methods with proprie­tary analy­sis tech­no­lo­gies and scalable co-culti­va­tion and scree­ning approa­ches. In this way, the company aims to advance the deve­lo­p­ment of defi­ned micro­bial commu­ni­ties and use them speci­fi­cally for thera­peu­tic applications. 

“While the clini­cal poten­tial of the gut micro­biome is well unders­tood, the deve­lo­p­ment of micro­biome-based thera­peu­tics into scalable products has been a signi­fi­cant tech­ni­cal chall­enge. At mbio­mics, we are solving this problem by buil­ding a complete tech­no­logy stack for the design, analy­sis, scree­ning and manu­fac­tu­ring of complex micro­bial consor­tia. Our focus is now on brin­ging our lead candi­date MBX-116 into clini­cal trials,” says Dr. Johan­nes B. Wöhr­stein, CEO and Co-Foun­der of mbio­mics.

In addi­tion to onco­logy, mbio­mics is working on a broa­der pipe­line of micro­biome-based thera­peu­tics. The aim is to address other indi­ca­ti­ons in which the gut micro­biome plays a central role, inclu­ding auto­im­mune and neuro­de­ge­nera­tive diseases.

Berlin — YPOG provi­ded legal advice to Stutt­gart-based startup Seract on its Series B finan­cing round. The round has a total volume of USD 110 million and was led by Head­line. Other new inves­tors include Bull­hound Capi­tal, Daphni and Felix Capi­tal. Exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding Crean­dum, Point Nine and Air Street Capi­tal, parti­ci­pa­ted again. 

Sere­act was foun­ded by Dr. Ralf Gulde and Marc Tuscher in Stutt­gart and deve­lops AI models for robots that are used in the physi­cal world. The company does not build its own hard­ware, but supplies Cortex, an AI model that runs on a wide variety of robot plat­forms, whether one-armed, two-armed, huma­noid or statio­nary. The current Cortex 2 gene­ra­tion enables robots not only to react, but also to anti­ci­pate situa­tions and update them in real time. Sere­act is one of the worl­d’s most widely used provi­ders of AI picking robots, with over 200 systems in use in Europe and more than one billion produc­tion picks comple­ted. Its custo­mers include BMW, Daim­ler Truck, DHL, Merce­des-Benz, PepsiCo and Austrian Post. 

The fresh capi­tal will be used to scale Cortex 2 and enter the US market. Sere­act plans to open its first US office in Boston and build up a local sales, appli­ca­tion and engi­nee­ring team. The next stra­te­gic thrust is the area of cont­act-based work, such as the precise assem­bly of compon­ents or the inser­tion of sensi­tive compon­ents without dama­ging them. 

Sere­act had alre­ady closed a Series A round led by Crean­dum in Janu­ary 2025, on which YPOG also advised.

Consul­tant Sere­act: YPOG

Dr. Benja­min Ullrich/ Photo © Ypog (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Part­ner, Berlin
Jörg Schr­ade (Tax), Part­ner, Munich
Anna Eick­meier (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Emma Peters (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Silke Ricken (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Char­lotte Petrasch (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Elmar Traut­mann (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

www.ypog.com

The ICF’s Sustainable Inves­tor Summit (SIS) is the leading confe­rence series on sustaina­bi­lity and trans­for­ma­tion finance as well as impact inves­t­ing for insti­tu­tio­nal and semi-profes­sio­nal inves­tors in the entire DACH region. With over 230 spea­k­ers and 360+ orga­niza­ti­ons, concrete solu­ti­ons for sustainable trans­for­ma­tion will be discus­sed. Geopo­li­ti­cal and regu­la­tory chal­lenges require insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to rethink their approach. 

The confe­rence takes place in three loca­ti­ons and covers topics such as tran­si­tion finance, private markets, regu­la­tory alpha and natu­ral capital.

The SIS supports the criti­cal role of inves­tors and asset mana­gers in promo­ting the tran­si­tion to a more sustainable economy. SIS brings toge­ther a broad range of stake­hol­ders — inclu­ding insti­tu­tio­nal and semi-profes­sio­nal inves­tors, asset mana­gers, corpo­ra­tes, policy makers, acade­mics, regu­la­tors, NGOs, banks, deve­lo­p­ment finance insti­tu­ti­ons and indus­try experts — to share insights and foster collaboration. 

The ICF Insti­tu­tio­nal Capi­tal Forum orga­ni­zes events for insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. ICF confe­ren­ces, summits and round­ta­bles are held regu­larly, both as part of client events and as stand-alone events. 

Hans-Peter Dohr is the foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of ICA Insti­tu­tio­nal Capi­tal Asso­cia­tes GmbH. Mario Weiss is Mana­ging Direc­tor at ICF Insti­tu­tio­nal Capi­tal Forum, c/o ICA Insti­tu­tio­nal Capi­tal Asso­cia­tes GmbH (Photo: ICF).

Frank­furt a. M. — Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners Fund III, advi­sed by Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH (“BCP”), has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Munich-based SPCR Media GmbH (“SC Media House”) via its port­fo­lio company ECD Inter­na­tio­nal Holding GmbH (“ECD”). Signing and closing took place in April 2026. 

The influen­cer marke­ting agency SC Media House was foun­ded in 2018 by Oliver Huber and specia­li­zes in the concep­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of crea­tive and data-based campaigns for brands in order to achieve successful posi­tio­ning, target group-speci­fic reach and measura­ble results. With a broad network of content crea­tors, the agency combi­nes stra­te­gic consul­ting with authen­tic social media commu­ni­ca­tion and perfor­mance analysis. 

“Our goal is to connect talents, brands and compa­nies and help them tell unfor­gettable stories, create impres­sive events and share excep­tio­nal content. Toge­ther with our part­ners, we want to expand our service port­fo­lio in a targe­ted manner, tap into inter­na­tio­nal poten­tial and utilize and further deve­lop syner­gies with ECD Inter­na­tio­nal, one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal premium agen­cies for expe­ri­en­tial marke­ting,” says Oliver Huber, foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of SC Media House.

With regard to the stra­te­gic importance of the part­ner­ship, Jörn Pfoten­hauer and Alex­an­der Oster­wald, foun­ders and Mana­ging Direc­tors of ECD Inter­na­tio­nal, explain: “With SC Media House, we are gaining a strong part­ner for the targe­ted expan­sion of our digi­tal marke­ting exper­tise in Germany. We were parti­cu­larly impres­sed by the struc­ture and posi­tio­ning of the company deve­lo­ped by Oliver Huber, which has crea­ted a strong foun­da­tion for sustainable growth in recent years. We see many syner­gies between our busi­ness areas and custo­mers, which we will conti­nue to deve­lop toge­ther. By pooling our respec­tive strengths, we are crea­ting the basis for expan­ding our offe­ring in a future-orien­ted manner and streng­thening our market posi­tion in the long term.” 

Chris­toph D. Kauter, foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners, adds: “The influen­cer marke­ting sector in Germany is expe­ri­en­cing conti­nuous growth with a simul­ta­neous sharp increase in the use of social media, which is at an all-time high. With its broad network of micro-influen­cers and content crea­tors posi­tio­ned across Germany, SC Media House stands out as an attrac­tive stra­te­gic addi­tion to the ECD Group’s buy-and-build strategy.”

About SC Media House

SC Media House is an influen­cer marke­ting agency based in Munich. It deve­lops crea­tive, data-based campaigns and works with an inter­na­tio­nal network of content crea­tors to gene­rate targe­ted reach and measura­ble results for brands. — https://www.sc-mediahouse.com

About ECD Inter­na­tio­nal Holding

ECD Inter­na­tio­nal is a multi­di­sci­pli­nary and inter­na­tio­nally active full-service agency in the premium and luxury segment and offers first-class services such as brand manage­ment, live marke­ting, commu­ni­ca­tion, crea­tive work, custo­mer & guest rela­ti­ons and travel manage­ment for a deman­ding target group. — https://ecd-international.com/de

About Beyond Capi­tal Partners

Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners is an invest­ment company that acqui­res majo­rity stakes in profi­ta­ble medium-sized compa­nies from the DACH region with a focus on the asset-light sectors of services, IT, soft­ware, health­care, life­style and enter­tain­ment via the funds it advi­ses. This tran­sac­tion bene­fits from the support of the Euro­pean Union under the InvestEU fund. — https://beyondcapital-partners.com

HEUKING provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to the seller in struc­tu­ring and imple­men­ting the tran­sac­tion, inclu­ding the bidding process. The HEUKING team advi­sed SPCR Invest GmbH and the foun­der Oliver Huber during the entire sales process, inclu­ding the contract nego­tia­ti­ons as well as the signing and closing. 

Advi­sor SPCR Invest GmbH: HEUKING

Ulrich Weide­mann (lead), (M&A / Private Equity), Frankfurt,
Dr. Patrick Müller, LL.M. (Univer­sity of the West of England, Bris­tol), (lead), Laura Jochem, LL.M. (Univer­sity of East Anglia, Norwich), (all Private Equity / Venture Capi­tal), both Düsseldorf,
Moni­que Sandidge (Employ­ment Law), Klaus Weinand-Härer (Private Equity / Venture Capi­tal) Frankfurt;
Julian Rosen­feld (IP, Media & Tech­no­logy), Tors­ten Groß, LL.M. (Univer­sity of West­mins­ter), (Employ­ment Law), both Düsseldorf.

Helsinki (Finland) — Saxdor Yachts (foun­ded in 2019), a refe­rence brand in the entry-level small yacht segment, has been acqui­red by Malibu Boats, Inc (MBI). Foun­ded in 1982 in Loudon, Tennes­see, the Ameri­can manu­fac­tu­rer specia­li­zes in the design, produc­tion and marke­ting of small “fun-orien­ted” motor­boats (fishing boats, center conso­les, wake­board boats). Follo­wing the take­over worth around 150 million euros (175 million US dollars), Saxdor will operate as a subsi­diary of MBI, but will retain its brand iden­tity and full opera­tio­nal autonomy. 

Saxdor, which has recor­ded annual sales growth of 65% in recent years, rising from 109 million euros in 2024 to 180 million euros in 2025, has become one of the fastest growing boat manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the world. The fleet includes ten models from 20 to 46 feet and the company employs almost 1,000 people. 

The Finnish shipy­ard will now have access to signi­fi­cant resour­ces, a well-estab­lished infra­struc­ture and a shared vision of inno­va­tion — all key elements to support its inter­na­tio­nal growth. Saxdor will conti­nue to operate as an inde­pen­dent global brand with its own manage­ment team and foun­der Sakari Mattila in the role of Chief Desi­gner to ensure conti­nuity of crea­tive vision and product strategy. 

MBI has an annual turno­ver of more than 800 million dollars, employs over 2,000 people in eight produc­tion faci­li­ties and sells more than 5,000 boats every year. In this segment, this tran­sac­tion repres­ents a signi­fi­cant acqui­si­tion that promi­ses to open up new commer­cial and tech­no­lo­gi­cal oppor­tu­ni­ties in the small boat segment. 

By joining the Malibu Group, Saxdor aims to streng­then its inter­na­tio­nal presence and expand into the most dyna­mic markets, with a focus on North America. The leisure boating segment, which is expec­ted to grow at a CAGR of 15% accor­ding to SSI data (2023–2025), offers fertile ground for Saxdor’s expan­sion, also thanks to its adven­ture yachts and its ability to attract a young clientele year­ning for new expe­ri­en­ces at sea. 

Mali­bu’s port­fo­lio, which is known for boats for water sports, luxury runa­bouts and deep-sea fishing and alre­ady includes the Malibu, Axis, Cobalt, Pursuit, Cobia, Path­fin­der, Maverick and Hewes brands, is now further enri­ched by the Finnish shipy­ar­d’s inno­va­tive and effi­ci­ent production.

M&A Advi­sor Saxdor: Clairfield

About Clair­field

Clair­field Inter­na­tio­nal provi­des family-owned busi­nesses, multi­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and finan­cial inves­tors with high-quality advice on mergers, acqui­si­ti­ons and dives­ti­tures in the mid-market, as well as other corpo­rate finance services, parti­cu­larly in cross-border tran­sac­tions. The success of the Clair­field part­ner­ship is defi­ned by the success of our clients. We are reco­gni­zed by top rankings in the market. 

We use expe­ri­en­ced senior consul­tants for every assign­ment. Our clients receive expert advice, guidance and insight along­side effi­ci­ent process manage­ment. We achieve outstan­ding results based on each client’s prio­ri­ties, our corpo­rate values and sustainable success. — www.clairfield.com

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) has acqui­red a mino­rity stake in Bug Bounty Switz­er­land AG (BBS). The invest­ment is part of a long-term parti­ci­pa­tion and is made exclu­si­vely with funds from DBAG’s balance sheet. BBS, based in Lucerne, is the Swiss pioneer for ethi­cal hack­ing, intel­li­gent secu­rity test­ing and the service-as-soft­ware model. DBAG, toge­ther with lead inves­tor Diret­tis­sima Growth Part­ners, is inves­t­ing as part of a capi­tal increase, which will be used exclu­si­vely for the further growth of the company. Diret­tis­sima is a Euro­pean growth equity inves­tor based in Zurich and Munich with opera­tio­nal scale-up expe­ri­ence in the B2B tech­no­logy sector. 

With the Cyber Resi­li­ence Shield secu­rity plat­form, BBS enables its custo­mers to carry out conti­nuous, scalable secu­rity assess­ments of their entire expo­sed attack surface without inter­nal specia­lists or frag­men­ted indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons. Human+Machine: Bug Bounty Switz­er­land combi­nes 16,000 experts with AI tech­no­logy to provide orga­niza­ti­ons and compa­nies with a strong phalanx against poten­tial cyber­se­cu­rity risks. 

Stra­te­gic invest­ment in a fast-growing cyber­se­cu­rity provider

With its invest­ment in BBS, DBAG is expan­ding its port­fo­lio to include a profi­ta­ble, highly scalable provi­der in the struc­tu­rally growing cyber­se­cu­rity market. The company was foun­ded in 2020 by Sandro Nafzger, Florian Badert­scher and Lukas Hepp­ler in Lucerne and was built up enti­rely on its own without exter­nal finan­cing. BBS has successfully made the tran­si­tion from a project-based service model to the Cyber Resi­li­ence Shield subscrip­tion plat­form with a high propor­tion of recur­ring reve­nue. BBS now has around 52 custo­mers, inclu­ding the fede­ral govern­men­t’s Natio­nal Cyber Secu­rity Center (NCSC) and leading compa­nies in the finan­cial services, defense and criti­cal infra­struc­ture sectors. The foun­ding team conti­nues to hold the majo­rity of shares and plays a key role in shaping the stra­te­gic direction. 

Invest­ments from balance sheet funds enable long-term partnerships

DBAG’s long-term invest­ment stra­tegy focu­ses on mino­rity share­hol­dings for which funds are used exclu­si­vely from the company’s own balance sheet. This enables a holding period that extends beyond the usual term of a private equity fund invest­ment and offers grea­ter flexi­bi­lity in the stra­te­gic orien­ta­tion and growth support of the port­fo­lio compa­nies. To date, DBAG has inves­ted in six other compa­nies as part of this invest­ment stra­tegy, one of which has alre­ady been sold in full and another partially. 

Intel­li­gent secu­rity tests for the AI era

BBS addres­ses one of the most pres­sing struc­tu­ral chal­lenges of digi­ta­liza­tion: with the incre­asing use of AI, attack surfaces, attack speed and attack comple­xity are incre­asing simul­ta­neously. BBS meets this deve­lo­p­ment with a proprie­tary service-as-soft­ware approach that consis­t­ently combi­nes human and machine intel­li­gence: The plat­form orchestra­tes over 16,000 vetted ethi­cal hackers and AI agents in a closed loop that conti­nuously models, tests and evalua­tes each custo­mer’s attack surface. This provi­des compa­nies with long-term active protec­tion. The decisive compe­ti­tive advan­tage lies in the orchestra­tion level, the regu­la­tory work­flows and the accu­mu­la­ted insti­tu­tio­nal test­ing know­ledge. Combi­ned, this is a stra­te­gic advan­tage that is struc­tu­rally diffi­cult to repli­cate. In addi­tion, Bug Bounty Switz­er­land not only offers test­ing proce­du­res, but above all trans­pa­rency. Findings are conti­nuously trans­la­ted into the respec­tive corpo­rate context and the corre­spon­ding risk assess­ments. This means that all rele­vant demand groups remain capa­ble of acting. 

Tom Alzin, CEO, Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, says: “BBS is addres­sing a market that is getting bigger, not smal­ler, thanks to AI. The company controls precis­ely the part of the value chain that no auto­ma­tion has been able to replace so far: the orchestra­tion of the entire secu­rity test­ing program, embedded in the speci­fic context of each custo­mer. The fact that BBS has built up this model comple­tely and profi­ta­bly on its own is a strong quality feature. We see this as a long-term part­ner­ship with considera­ble poten­tial for added value.” 

“BBS combi­nes three things that rarely come toge­ther: a diffe­ren­tia­ted product built on years of proprie­tary know-how and data, profi­ta­ble opera­ti­ons from the start without exter­nal funding, and a market where conti­nuous cyber­se­cu­rity test­ing of best prac­tice is beco­ming the stan­dard. The team has earned the privi­lege of rede­fi­ning and leading this cate­gory,” says Phil­ipp Bolli­ger, Part­ner at Diret­tis­sima Growth Partners. 

Growth poten­tial in a struc­tu­rally growing market

The global market for cyber­se­cu­rity test­ing is growing at an annual rate of 25% (USD 14.7 billion in 2024 to an expec­ted USD 43.9 billion in 2029). This is driven by incre­asing regu­la­tion, parti­cu­larly in the finan­cial services, defense and criti­cal infra­struc­ture sectors, as well as the expan­sion of attack surfaces due to AI and the struc­tu­ral shift from selec­tive to conti­nuous secu­rity solu­ti­ons. Accor­ding to a recent market study by Houli­han Lokey, 91% of the compa­nies surveyed plan to increase their spen­ding on cyber secu­rity in 2026. Cyber­se­cu­rity is conside­red to be one of the areas that will bene­fit struc­tu­rally from AI deve­lo­p­ment instead of being disrupted. 

“While AI is funda­men­tally rede­fi­ning cyber secu­rity, orga­niza­ti­ons need protec­tion that is conti­nuous, intel­li­gent and easy to use. That’s exactly what we’re alre­ady deli­ve­ring to some of Euro­pe’s most secu­rity-conscious orga­niza­ti­ons — and now we’re brin­ging it to market globally. With the support of Diret­tis­sima and DBAG, we are making intel­li­gent secu­rity test­ing the new stan­dard,” says Sandro Nafzger, CEO & Co-Foun­der of Bug Bounty Switz­er­land AG.

Inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and scaling as the next growth phase

Toge­ther with the manage­ment and lead inves­tor Diret­tis­sima Growth Part­ners, DBAG plans to profes­sio­na­lize the orga­niza­tion, acce­le­rate growth in Switz­er­land and deve­lop inter­na­tio­nal markets. In parti­cu­lar, DBAG will contri­bute its access to the German-spea­king and Italian regi­ons and its exper­tise in scaling high-growth companies.

Korea/Stuttgart — Gleiss Lutz is advi­sing Hanwha Aero­space (“Hanwha”), a global leader in the defense and aero­space indus­try head­quar­te­red in South Korea, on its entry into the German defense market.

The core company of the Hanwha Group, one of South Kore­a’s largest indus­trial conglo­me­ra­tes and a Fortune 500 company, is plan­ning substan­tial invest­ments in Germany by estab­li­shing produc­tion faci­li­ties and part­ner­ships with the German secu­rity and defense indus­try and regio­nal suppli­ers. — The port­fo­lio includes artil­lery systems, armored vehic­les, precis­ion-guided muni­ti­ons, aircraft engi­nes and satel­lite and space technologies. 

With the estab­lish­ment of its German subsi­diary, Hanwha Defence Deutsch­land (HDD), Hanwha has reached a key mile­stone in its entry into the German market. This is part of a broa­der growth stra­tegy to posi­tion Germany as a Euro­pean hub for NATO-rela­ted defense acti­vi­ties and to streng­then the capa­bi­li­ties of the Bundes­wehr and its Euro­pean allies. 

Advi­sor Hanwha Aero­space: GLEISS LUTZ 

Dr. Anselm Chris­ti­an­sen, photo © Gleiss Lutz (part­ner, corporate/M&A, lead) and Dr. Chris­toph Goller (defense secu­rity, both Stuttgart);
Dr. Michael Burian (part­ner, Frank­furt), Jose­fine Wiegand, Sonja Hilgert (both Berlin) and Sumiko Sato (all corporate/M&A, Munich), Dr. Marc Ruttl­off (part­ner), Dr. Frie­de­rike Niemann, Simon Kaifel (all Public Law), Prof. Dr. Eric Wagner (Part­ner), Dr. Simon Wagner (Coun­sel, both Commer­cial, all Stutt­gart), Dr. Rut Stein­hau­ser (Part­ner), Dr. Sophie Bahr, Leon Werlitz (Employ­ment Law), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner, all Berlin), Chris­tian Eulen­pesch (Coun­sel, Stuttgart,
both IP/Tech). — www.gleisslutz.com

Kitz­bü­hel (Austria) — Funds advi­sed by EMERAM have inves­ted in the tech­no­logy company Solar Mana­ger AG (“Solar Mana­ger”). Foun­ded in 2018 in Muri, Switz­er­land, the company deve­lops a Home Energy Manage­ment System (HEMS) that holi­sti­cally controls and opti­mi­zes energy flows in house­holds — from photo­vol­taics and storage to heat pumps and e‑mobility. The tran­sac­tion under­lines EMER­AM’s stra­tegy of part­ne­ring with high-growth tech­no­logy compa­nies in the fields of energy tran­si­tion, digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and health & wellbeing. 

Solar Mana­ger has successfully estab­lished itself on the market with a scalable B2B2C sales model. The company works closely with whole­sa­lers and their instal­la­tion part­ners, offers white label solu­ti­ons for large instal­la­tion compa­nies, muni­ci­pal utili­ties and energy service provi­ders and is expan­ding OEM part­ner­ships with manu­fac­tu­r­ers of battery storage systems and heat pumps in order to inte­grate the soft­ware directly into hard­ware solu­ti­ons. Driven by advan­cing elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, the expan­sion of rene­wa­ble ener­gies and the incre­asing demand for energy effi­ci­ency and grid flexi­bi­lity, Solar Mana­ger has expe­ri­en­ced above-average growth in recent years. With the foun­ding of the German subsi­diary three years ago, the company took the next step and is now one of the leading play­ers in Switz­er­land and Germany. 

“Solar Mana­ger is alre­ady helping more than 50,000 house­holds to manage their energy intel­li­gently and maxi­mize self-consump­tion from rene­wa­ble sources,” says Andreas Kuhn, Mana­ging Direc­tor and co-foun­der of Solar Mana­ger along­side Corinne Kuhn and Hans Fischer. “With EMERAM, we have gained an expe­ri­en­ced growth part­ner who will support us with stra­te­gic exper­tise and a strong network in the energy sector. Toge­ther, we want to further expand our market posi­tion and actively shape the energy tran­si­tion. Our goal is to become the leading holi­stic energy manage­ment solu­tion in Europe and to play a decisive role in shaping future topics such as bidi­rec­tional char­ging and the seam­less inte­gra­tion of a wide variety of produ­cers and consu­mers into the energy system.” 

Matthias Ober­meyr, Part­ner at EMERAM, adds: “The market for intel­li­gent home energy manage­ment systems is in a strong growth phase. More and more property owners want to network their photo­vol­taic systems, battery storage systems and elec­tric vehic­les and actively parti­ci­pate in the energy market. The Solar Mana­ger team has quickly built up a tech­no­lo­gi­cally leading company with a convin­cing busi­ness model and estab­lished itself as a tech­no­logy leader. As a busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner, we want to further deve­lop the recur­ring soft­ware busi­ness, drive expan­sion in Germany and jointly deve­lop other Euro­pean markets. We are convin­ced that toge­ther we can deve­lop Solar Mana­ger into a Euro­pean champion.”

Advi­sors:
As part of the tran­sac­tion, EMERAM was advi­sed by Strategy& (commer­cial due dili­gence), Base Camp (ESG & tech­ni­cal due dili­gence), Radial (finan­cial due dili­gence) and Schel­len­berg Witt­mer (legal & tax).

The seller side was supported by Wenger Vieli (Legal & Tax).

About EMERAM — www.emeram.com

EMERAM is one of the leading invest­ment mana­gers for medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide more than 700 million euros in capi­tal for the deve­lo­p­ment of growing compa­nies. The port­fo­lio includes tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies in the areas of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, energy tran­si­tion and health & wellbeing.
EMERAM acts as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner and promo­tes the sustainable growth — both orga­ni­cally and through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons — of its port­fo­lio compa­nies. EMERAM also consis­t­ently focu­ses on the imple­men­ta­tion of holi­stic ESG concepts. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses nine plat­form invest­ments with a total of more than 3,000 employees. The compa­nies conti­nuously achieve double-digit orga­nic sales growth. More than 30 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons have also acce­le­ra­ted growth and enab­led inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

About Solar Mana­ger AG — www.solarmanager.ch

Solar Mana­ger is a leading and fast-growing provi­der of a home energy manage­ment system (HEMS) that helps homeow­ners to intel­li­gently control and opti­mize their energy consump­tion. To this end, local energy gene­ra­tion from photo­vol­taic systems is intel­li­gently networked toge­ther with elec­tri­city storage systems, heat pumps and char­ging stati­ons and other energy consu­mers as well as dyna­mic energy market prices. This signi­fi­cantly increa­ses the profi­ta­bi­lity of custo­mer systems and saves energy costs. The manu­fac­tu­rer-inde­pen­dent plat­form is compa­ti­ble with over 700 third-party devices — inclu­ding inver­ters, battery storage systems, heat pumps and elec­tric vehicle char­ging stati­ons The company offers specia­list trade busi­nesses and energy service provi­ders a manu­fac­tu­rer-inde­pen­dent system to supple­ment their exis­ting busi­ness or estab­lish a new one. The aim is to grow throug­hout Europe and further expand its posi­tion as a leading manu­fac­tu­rer-inde­pen­dent energy manage­ment system provider.

Munich/ Frank­furt a. M. — Bridge­point, one of the worl­d’s leading growth inves­tors in the mid-market, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in iC Consult, the worl­d’s largest vendor-inde­pen­dent provi­der of iden­tity secu­rity services, head­quar­te­red in Munich. As part of this tran­sac­tion, Bridge­point is ente­ring into a part­ner­ship with the foun­der and CEO of iC Consult, Jürgen Bier­mann, and the manage­ment of iC Consult. Bier­mann and the manage­ment team will retain a stake in the company, while Carlyle will sell its entire holding.

The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding the neces­sary regu­la­tory appr­ovals, and is expec­ted to take place in the third quar­ter of 2026. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction. 

Foun­ded in 1997, iC Consult has grown to become the worl­d’s largest inde­pen­dent iden­tity secu­rity specia­list with more than 850 employees world­wide in North America, Europe and Asia. The company offers a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of consul­ting, imple­men­ta­tion, inte­gra­tion and mana­ged services to help orga­niza­ti­ons secure access to criti­cal IT systems and data. As a core compo­nent of modern cyber secu­rity archi­tec­tures, IAM ensu­res that the right users and systems have access to the right resour­ces at the right time. 

iC Consult supports major custo­mers from various indus­tries world­wide, inclu­ding finan­cial services, the auto­mo­tive and manu­fac­tu­ring indus­tries and the public sector. The services are firmly ancho­red in the custo­mers’ IT envi­ron­ments and form the basis for long-term custo­mer relationships. 

In recent years, the company has recor­ded strong growth — its Euro­pean busi­ness grew by around 20 percent annu­ally between 2020 and 2025. The company has also expan­ded its presence in the USA during this period. iC Consult opera­tes in a large and fast-growing market: The market for IAM services in Europe is esti­ma­ted at around €2.5 billion with expec­ted double-digit growth rates, driven by incre­asing cyber thre­ats, regu­la­tory requi­re­ments and the rapid proli­fe­ra­tion of digi­tal iden­ti­ties, inclu­ding those rela­ted to agen­tic AI. 

In part­ner­ship with Bridge­point and under the leader­ship of Jürgen Bier­mann, iC Consult will focus on driving its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, streng­thening its mana­ged services offe­ring and further inves­t­ing in AI-enab­led capa­bi­li­ties. In addi­tion, the company will moder­nize and further deve­lop its service port­fo­lio, conti­nue to grow through selec­tive acqui­si­ti­ons and build a scalable global IAM platform. 

Bridge­point has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in tech­no­logy and cyber secu­rity services and has assis­ted a number of specia­li­zed compa­nies, inclu­ding Infi­ni­gate, a value-added distri­bu­tor specia­li­zing in cyber secu­rity, and DataEx­pert, a specia­list in digi­tal foren­sics and cyber secu­rity services, and also has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in scaling inter­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy and services companies.

Jürgen Bier­mann, foun­der and CEO of iC Consult, said: “Today marks the begin­ning of an exci­ting new chap­ter for iC Consult. As an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner, Bridge­point brings capi­tal, deep indus­try exper­tise and a strong track record in scaling busi­nesses inter­na­tio­nally. We share a clear goal of further streng­thening our posi­tion as the worl­d’s leading inde­pen­dent iden­tity secu­rity specia­list, expan­ding our global presence and trans­forming iC Consult into a truly AI-native company. Toge­ther, we will make targe­ted invest­ments in our people, our skills and our plat­form to deli­ver sustainable value to our clients — espe­ci­ally at a time when the rapid, AI-driven growth of digi­tal iden­ti­ties makes iden­tity secu­rity more important than ever.”

Chris­to­pher Brack­mann, Part­ner at Bridge­point and respon­si­ble for invest­ments in the DACH region, added: “iC Consult is an outstan­ding company in a struc­tu­rally attrac­tive and dyna­mi­cally growing market. Its leading posi­tion in the field of iden­tity secu­rity and its strong roots in Germany make the company an ideal part­ner for Bridge­point. We look forward to shaping the next phase of growth toge­ther with Jürgen and his team and to consis­t­ently driving forward the further expan­sion of a leading plat­form for iden­tity security.”

Maciej Chrys­tow­ski, Direc­tor in Bridge­poin­t’s tech­no­logy team, added: “iC Consult is charac­te­ri­zed in parti­cu­lar by its outstan­ding tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise in a highly complex and busi­ness-criti­cal area of cyber secu­rity. With the growth acce­le­ra­ted by AI and the incre­asing comple­xity of digi­tal iden­ti­ties, iden­tity secu­rity is beco­ming even more important. We see considera­ble poten­tial to moder­nize and further deve­lop the plat­form in a targe­ted manner — inclu­ding by expan­ding capa­bi­li­ties for secu­ring agent-based AI. At the same time, we want to streng­then the mana­ged services offe­ring and selec­tively use M&A opti­ons to further streng­then the company’s inter­na­tio­nal presence.”

Consul­tant Bridgepoint:
Canac­cord Genuity and Piper Sand­ler (finance), Kirk­land & Ellis (legal), Altman Solon (commer­cial), EY Parthe­non (finance, tax, IT & cyber and ESG) and Marsh (insu­rance due diligence).

Consul­tant iC Consult and Carlyle:
Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (Finance), Latham & Watkins (Legal), McKin­sey & Company (Commer­cial) and PwC (Finance).

Consul­tant IC Consult: Poellath

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE, Munich)
Silke Simmer (Coun­sel, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE, Munich)
Ida Süß (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE, Munich)
www.pplaw.com

About Bridge­point

Bridge­point is one of the worl­d’s leading mid-market inves­tors specia­li­zing in private equity, infra­struc­ture, credit, secon­da­ries and private wealth. With over USD 98 billion in assets under manage­ment and a strong local presence in Europe, North America and Asia, Bridge­point combi­nes global reach with local market know­ledge and sector exper­tise to consis­t­ently deli­ver strong returns across cycles. 

About iC Consult

iC Consult is the worl­d’s largest inde­pen­dent provi­der of iden­tity secu­rity services. With over 850 experts and a global presence in North America, Europe and Asia — inclu­ding near­sho­ring and offs­ho­ring capa­bi­li­ties — we help the worl­d’s biggest brands protect and manage their digi­tal identities. 

We deli­ver custo­mi­zed iden­tity solu­ti­ons at the highest level — through in-depth exper­tise, conti­nuous inno­va­tion and state-of-the-art tech­no­lo­gies. As a trus­ted part­ner of over 30 leading iden­tity and cyber secu­rity vendors — and reco­gni­zed by leading analysts — we offer vendor-inde­pen­dent support to solve any iden­tity chall­enge. — Our end-to-end port­fo­lio includes all profes­sio­nal and mana­ged iden­tity secu­rity services: consul­ting, archi­tec­ture, imple­men­ta­tion, inte­gra­tion, support and opera­ti­ons. We help orga­niza­ti­ons drive key initia­ti­ves such as Zero Trust, Iden­tity Threat Detec­tion & Response and AI Secu­rity — inclu­ding the manage­ment and protec­tion of agen­tic AI envi­ron­ments and the use of GenAI to moder­nize their iden­tity infrastructure.

Lauterhofen/Nuremberg — Concen­tro Manage­ment AG has successfully advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Hein Verpa­ckun­gen GmbH on the sale of their company as M&A advi­sor. The buyer is Anta­lis S.A., a leading Euro­pean whole­sa­ler for paper, pack­a­ging and visual commu­ni­ca­tion solu­ti­ons. With the acqui­si­tion, Anta­lis S.A. is streng­thening its posi­tion in the fast-growing corru­ga­ted pack­a­ging segment and in the area of point-of-sale solu­ti­ons and is further expan­ding its value crea­tion in Europe. 

Since 2020, Anta­lis S.A. has been part of the Japa­nese Koku­sai Pulp & Paper Group, one of the worl­d’s leading paper and pack­a­ging groups. The stra­te­gic owner­ship struc­ture enables Anta­lis S.A. to have a very long-term invest­ment hori­zon, realize opera­tio­nal syner­gies across conti­nents and syste­ma­ti­cally expand its Euro­pean busi­ness — a decisive factor for the acqui­si­tion of Hein Verpackungen. 

Hein Verpa­ckun­gen GmbH, based in Lauter­ho­fen, is an estab­lished manu­fac­tu­rer of pack­a­ging and display solu­ti­ons. Foun­ded in 1928, the company is an estab­lished medium-sized company in the Nurem­berg metro­po­li­tan region. Its custo­mers include well-known compa­nies from the retail, elec­tro­nics and auto­mo­tive sectors. 

Concen­tro supported the sellers in the M&A process, from the prepa­ra­tion and struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion to the acqui­si­tion of pros­pec­tive buyers and the successful closing with Anta­lis. “We are deligh­ted that we were able to support the share­hol­ders of Hein Verpa­ckun­gen with their company succes­sion. In Anta­lis, we have found a capa­ble part­ner who will ensure the stra­te­gic further deve­lo­p­ment of the company,” says Michael Raab, foun­der and respon­si­ble part­ner at Concen­tro. “We are parti­cu­larly plea­sed that we were able to realize a tailor-made solu­tion for the Hein family of entre­pre­neurs with an inter­na­tio­nally posi­tio­ned group of compa­nies,” adds project mana­ger Barbara Hamela. 

The tran­sac­tion under­lines the ongo­ing trend towards verti­cal inte­gra­tion in the Euro­pean pack­a­ging market, parti­cu­larly in the area of sustainable and custo­mi­zed pack­a­ging solutions.

Consul­tant Hein Verpa­ckun­gen GmbH: Project team Concen­tro Manage­ment AG

— Michael Rabb | Mana­ging Partner
— Emanuel Häuser | Senior Consultant
— Johan­nes Eisen­beiß | Senior Consultant

About Concen­tro Manage­ment AG

Concen­tro Manage­ment AG is a medium-sized consul­ting company specia­li­zing in trans­pa­rency (corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment), tran­sac­tions (corpo­rate finance/M&A consul­ting) and turn­arounds. With over 45 employees at four loca­ti­ons in Germany, Concen­tro works in an imple­men­ta­tion and success-orien­ted manner. The aim is to gene­rate added value for the custo­mer through an indi­vi­dual consul­ting service. — www.concentro.de