ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Cologne/ London — Central­Nic Group plc (AIM: CNIC), the global inter­net plat­form company (selling online presence and marke­ting services) has inves­ted in VGL Verlags­ge­sell­schaft mbH, Berlin, Germany, valuing the company at an enter­prise value of €60 million. — Deloitte or Deloitte Legal advi­sed Central­Nic on tax, finan­cial valua­tion, inclu­ding data analy­tics-based SEA/SEO analy­sis, and all legal matters inclu­ding contract negotiation.

Central­Nic is a London-based, AIM-quoted company that drives the growth of the global digi­tal economy by deve­lo­ping and mana­ging soft­ware plat­forms that enable busi­nesses world­wide to purchase domain name subscrip­ti­ons for websites and email, mone­tize websites and acquire custo­mers online. The Company opera­tes globally and gene­ra­tes reve­nue from the world­wide sale of Inter­net domain names and other services on an annual subscrip­tion basis.

VGL is known to the gene­ral public under the URL “Vergleich.org” and its various special websites and sees itself as a service for the consu­mer to make purcha­sing decis­i­ons easier. In doing so, the plat­form relies on various test sources to be able to make the best possi­ble over­all recom­men­da­tion and display corre­spon­ding offers to custo­mers, e.g. on Amazon.

Advi­sors Central­Nic Group plc: Deloitte 
Deloitte Legal: Dr. Mathias Reif, Photo (Lead Legal), Boris Kröpsky, Chris­tian Hanne­mann (all Corporate/M&A, Colo­gne), Dr. Chris­tine von Hauch (Commer­cial, Colo­gne), Gerrit Neuhaus (Labor Law, Colo­gne), Adrian Merk­lin­ger (IP, Munich)
Deloitte Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH: Dr. Marcus Roth (Lead Tax, Munich), Thomas Funk (Tax, Munich), Dr. Marcus Nibler (Lead Tran­sac­tion Services, Munich), James Murphy, Mona Stap­per­fenne (all Tran­sac­tion Services, Munich), Kris­tina Ganzen (M&A Analy­tics, Frankfurt).

About Deloitte
Deloitte provi­des indus­try-leading audit and assu­rance, tax, consul­ting, finan­cial advi­sory and risk advi­sory services to nearly 90% of Fortune Global 500® compa­nies and thou­sands of private compa­nies. Legal services in Germany are provi­ded by Deloitte Legal. Our people deli­ver measura­ble, long-term results that help build public confi­dence in the capi­tal markets, help our custo­mers trans­form and grow, and lead the way to a stron­ger economy, a fairer society, and a sustainable world. Deloitte builds on more than 175 years of history and opera­tes in more than 150 count­ries. Learn more about how Deloit­te’s more than 345,000 employees live the mission state­ment “making an impact that matters” every day. www.deloitte.com/de.

News

Munich — Offi­cium GmbH, a port­fo­lio company of the invest­ment company EMERAM, conti­nues its growth course and has successfully imple­men­ted the acqui­si­tion of Delta‑t Mess­dienst & Consul­ting GmbH & Co. KG in Rudol­stadt, Thurin­gia. Offi­cium is one of Germany’s leading inde­pen­dent meter­ing and energy service provi­ders for the meter­ing and billing of water and heat for the housing indus­try. As the umbrella company for seve­ral regio­nal compa­nies, Offi­cium is pursuing a conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy and acqui­red a total of four suppli­ers in 2021, mostly as part of a succes­sion plan. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

With the now comple­ted acqui­si­tion of Delta‑t Mess­dienst & Consul­ting GmbH & Co. KG, Offi­cium is expan­ding into Thurin­gia. The members of the exis­ting manage­ment will accom­pany the further deve­lo­p­ment. To date, Offi­cium is mainly repre­sen­ted in Berlin, Bran­den­burg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, Meck­len­burg-Western Pome­ra­nia, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Bava­ria (Lower Franconia).

Markus Gyss­ler (photo), Part­ner at EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, comm­ents: “Within a short period of time, Offi­cium has estab­lished itself as a leading inde­pen­dent provi­der in the meter­ing services market. At the same time, Offi­cium is conside­red an attrac­tive plat­form for entre­pre­neurs inte­res­ted in a succes­sion solu­tion for their company. As a busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner, EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners supports this conso­li­da­tion course.”

Stephan Kier­meyer, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Offi­cium GmbH, explains: “Our buy-and-build stra­tegy is paying off. With the seventh acqui­si­tion, we are once again streng­thening our market posi­tion and will also be present in Thurin­gia in the future. We conti­nue to see considera­ble growth poten­tial in the market for meter­ing and energy services — through addi­tio­nal digi­tal offe­rings and further acquisitions.”

Jürgen Walter, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Delta‑t Mess­dienst & Consul­ting GmbH & Co. KG, adds: “Our custo­mers and employees will bene­fit consider­a­bly from Offi­ci­um’s compre­hen­sive know-how and aware­ness of regio­nal offe­rings, as well as the contin­ued proxi­mity they are accus­to­med to. We are ther­e­fore plea­sed that we can conti­nue our busi­ness with the strong plat­form of Officium.”

Offi­cium was advi­sed by Noerr (Legal) and Alva­rez & Marsal (Finan­cial).

About Offi­cium
Offi­cium GmbH is one of the leading inde­pen­dent meter­ing and energy service provi­ders for consump­tion-based meter­ing and billing of water and heat for the housing indus­try. The company was estab­lished as a plat­form invest­ment of funds advi­sed by EMERAM in 2020. As an umbrella company, Offi­cium mana­ges the compa­nies Tenié und Gores GmbH, Systeme & Service Abrech­nungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, Delta‑t Mess­dienst Fischer und Nagel GmbH, Exakta Wärme- und Wasser­zäh­ler Service GmbH as well as Wärme-Mess-Service GmbH and Delta‑t Mess­dienst & Consul­ting GmbH & Co. KG. Offi­cium is mainly present in Berlin, Bran­den­burg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-West­pha­lia (for exam­ple, Düssel­dorf and Duis­burg), Meck­len­burg-Western Pome­ra­nia, Saxony-Anhalt (Dessau-Roßlau), Saxony (Dres­den and Chem­nitz), Thurin­gia and Bava­ria (Lower Fran­co­nia). Custo­mers are prima­rily small and medium-sized property manage­ment compa­nies and private landlords.

About EMERAM Capi­tal Partners 
EMERAM is one of the leading invest­ment mana­gers for medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide more than 500 million euros of capi­tal for the deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies from the Technology/Software, Value-added Services and New Consu­mer Stap­les sectors. EMERAM acts as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for its compa­nies and promo­tes the sustainable growth (orga­nic and inor­ga­nic) of the port­fo­lio compa­nies. In addi­tion, the focus is on the imple­men­ta­tion of holi­stic ESG concepts. www.emeram.com

The port­fo­lio curr­ently consists of six plat­form invest­ments with a cumu­la­tive work­force of more than 2,500. The compa­nies conti­nuously achieve double-digit orga­nic sales growth. In addi­tion, a total of 28 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons to date have acce­le­ra­ted growth and enab­led inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in eperi, a leading provi­der of cyber­se­cu­rity soft­ware for cloud appli­ca­ti­ons. The sellers of the secu­rity specia­list from Pfung­stadt, Hesse, are the venture capi­tal compa­nies Evolu­tion Equity Part­ners and btov. Elmar Eperiesi-Beck, foun­der and CEO of eperi, will conti­nue to lead the company as Mana­ging Direc­tor and will retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company.

The further scaling and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the company as well as a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy are to be the focus of the new part­ner­ship. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Based in the Rhine-Main area, Eperi GmbH is a leading provi­der of Data Secu­rity and Compli­ace as well as Cyber­se­cu­rity solu­ti­ons. The Eperi Gate­way enables custo­mers to use cloud appli­ca­ti­ons such as MS 365 or Sales­force in a secure and legally compli­ant manner (with e.g. the DSGVO or Schrems II) without any func­tional rest­ric­tions. Eperi’s solu­ti­ons can be easily instal­led in on-premise, hybrid and multi-cloud envi­ron­ments. Eperi GmbH places a special focus on data encryp­tion for cloud appli­ca­ti­ons for its inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers, which include large compa­nies from the finan­cial, health­care and indus­trial sectors.

“For us, the acqui­si­tion of eperi marks another important mile­stone in the addi­tion of high-growth and future-orien­ted IT compa­nies to our tradi­tio­nal port­fo­lio. eperi has deve­lo­ped into a leading inter­na­tio­nal company with an outstan­ding custo­mer and part­ner network in only a very short time — not least due to its foun­der’s many years of expe­ri­ence in cloud secu­rity,” explains Dr. Marc Arens (photo), Senior Part­ner and Coun­try Head DACH/NL at Equis­tone.

Bird & Bird advi­sed Equis­tone in coope­ra­tion with P+P Pöllath + Part­ners on the legal due dili­gence and the nego­tia­tion of the tran­sac­tion docu­men­ta­tion. Bird & Bird’s focus was on the complex IT and IP-rela­ted aspects due to its leading exper­tise in these areas, as well as the FDI assess­ment for the fund’s long-term stra­tegy in the context of the acqui­si­tion and FDI clearance by the German Minis­try of Economics.

Equis­tone Part­ners was advi­sed by the follo­wing Bird & Bird attor­neys: Lead Part­ner Dr. Hans Peter Leube, LL.M. and Asso­ciate Michael Maier (both Corporate/Private Equity, Frank­furt); Part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg and Asso­ciate Gökhan Kosak (both IT/Data Protec­tion, Munich); Part­ners Dr. Stephan Wald­heim and Tamy Tietze (both Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf) Part­ner Dr. Chris­toph Maier­hö­fer (IP, Munich); Part­ner Dr. Catha­rina Klumpp, LL.M. and Asso­ciate Julia Neuper (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf); and Part­ner Guido Bormann and Asso­ciate Johan­nes Wolte­ring (both Public Commer­cial Law and Regu­la­tion, Düsseldorf).

Dr. Marc Arens, Sebas­tian Wint­gens and Chris­toph Wüste­meyer arerespon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone. Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by BCG (Commer­cial), Code & Co. (Tech­no­logy), Bird & Bird (IP & Regu­la­tion), PWC (Finan­cial & Tax), and Pöllath (Legal & Contrac­tual Documentation).

News

Hano­ver — FINVIA is expan­ding its busi­ness capa­ci­ties and further deve­lo­ping digi­ta­liza­tion in wealth manage­ment and family office. 20 m capi­tal measure from HANNOVER Finanz, private inves­tors and employees Invest­ment will be used to further expand the custo­mer offe­ring and acce­le­rate growth.

The basis of FINVIA’s Multi Family Office services is the digi­tal FINVIA plat­form. In order to streng­then the growth trend and further expand the tech­no­logy plat­form, FINVIA is now being supported by equity part­ner HANNOVER Finanz and other renow­ned investors.

The entry of the profes­sio­nal inves­tors is inten­ded to drive the company’s growth trend to date and the further expan­sion of the digi­tal plat­form. FINVIA has deve­lo­ped its tech­no­logy plat­form for a future-orien­ted wealth manage­ment and family office in-house with more than 20 deve­lo­pers, UX specia­lists and other experts. All aspects of the service, from stra­te­gic asset allo­ca­tion and all rele­vant invest­ment clas­ses to control­ling and report­ing, are perso­nally supported by expe­ri­en­ced family offi­cers who also provide digi­tal support.

The long-term hori­zon of HANNOVER Finan­z’s invest­ments was also a key factor in the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship. In addi­tion to the capi­tal measure, HANNOVER Finanz also supports FINVIA with opera­tio­nal exper­tise as well as a broad network and strong roots in the SME sector in the DACH region. HANNOVER Finanz is backed by a number of renow­ned inves­tors with a deep under­stan­ding of the finan­cial indus­try. FINVIA employees and other Family & Friends inves­tors also parti­ci­pate in the capi­tal measure of more than 20 million euros.

“We look back on a very successful time since our foun­da­tion in 2020. We set out with no less a goal than to revo­lu­tio­nize the family office segment, and I am proud to say that we have achie­ved this mile­stone. The demand for our services is remar­kable, so now is the right time to set the course for progres­sive growth,” said Tors­ten Murke (photo), CEO at FINVIA. “In HANNOVER Finanz, we have the perfect part­ner to provide us with expert support during this important growth phase. FINVIA thus crea­tes all the condi­ti­ons for further scaling and profi­ta­ble growth.”

Goetz Hertz-Eichen­rode, CEO of HANNOVER Finanz: “FINVIA’s success impres­ses us: within less than two years, FINVIA alre­ady mana­ges more than €3.5 billion on the digi­tal plat­form — and the trend is still rising shar­ply. With an eye on future growth, a focus on digi­tiza­tion, a clear unique selling propo­si­tion and a highly expe­ri­en­ced foun­ding team, FINVIA matches HANNOVER Finan­z’s invest­ment focus.”

About FINVIA
FINVIA is a multi family office based in Frank­furt am Main. The company combi­nes excel­lent advice and proven family office services with the possi­bi­li­ties of digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies to make modern wealth orchestra­tion at family office level acces­si­ble to a much broa­der target group. At the same time, FINVIA takes a holi­stic approach that addres­ses all of its clients’ concerns about their assets — giving them access to all asset clas­ses, inclu­ding alter­na­tive assets. FINVIA was foun­ded in 2020 by Tors­ten Murke (CEO), Rein­hard Panse (CIO), Hanna Cimen (COO), Chris­tian Neuhaus (CCO), Marc Sonn­leit­ner (CLO) and Valen­tin Bohlän­der (CPO). The 70-strong company mana­ges assets worth EUR 3.5 billion (as of Janu­ary 2022). www.finvia.fo

The deal team was advi­sed by
Brös­kamp Consul­ting for Commer­cial Due Dili­gence (Dr. Udo Brös­kamp, Dr. Thors­ten Dylla);

Ebner Stolz for finan­cial and tax due dili­gence (Dr. Chris­toph Eppin­ger, Nadine Kißner, Alex­an­der Euch­ner, Tobias Schupp);

YPOG for Legal Due Dili­gence (Dr. Benja­min Ulrich, Emma Peters).

FINVIA was legally advi­sed by Momen­tum Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter.

About the HANNOVER Finanz Group
Foun­ded in 1979, HANNOVER Finanz has more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence as an equity part­ner for SMEs. The private equity house with head­quar­ters in Hano­ver and an office in Vienna is one of the first venture capi­ta­lists for the DACH region in Germany and is an owner-mana­ged invest­ment company in its second gene­ra­tion. Well-known compa­nies such as Fiel­mann, Ross­mann and AIXTRON have reali­zed their growth with equity capi­tal from HANNOVER Finanz and taken advan­tage of its entre­pre­neu­rial support. Since its foun­ding, the equity part­ner for SMEs has comple­ted over 250 projects and inves­ted over two billion euros. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties are mainly growth finan­cing and succes­sion plan­ning for solid medium-sized compa­nies with annual sales of 20 million euros or more. In addi­tion to majo­rity share­hol­dings, the HANNOVER Finanz Group is one of the few invest­ment compa­nies in Germany to acquire mino­rity inte­rests. The port­fo­lio curr­ently includes around 40 compa­nies. www.hannoverfinanz.de

News

Müns­ter, March 29, 2022 — Pixel Photo­nics, a spin-off from the Depart­ment of Physics at WWU Müns­ter foun­ded in 2020, has recei­ved €1.45 million in a seed finan­cing round from High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), the French VC fund Quan­to­na­tion, which specia­li­zes in quan­tum tech­no­logy, and Dr. Hendrik Sabert, a proven expert in the photo­nics industry.

Pixel Photo­nics deve­lops highly scalable single photon detec­tors with inte­gra­ted photo­nics, enab­ling scaling of solu­ti­ons in quan­tum compu­ting, QKD and imaging, among others. The under­ly­ing wave­guide-inte­gra­ted SNSPD approach can be used for photo­nic quan­tum compu­ting, quan­tum key distri­bu­tion, micro­scopy, or other sens­ing appli­ca­ti­ons that require highly effec­tive detec­tion of light down to the single photon level. During the start-up phase Pixel Photo­nics was supported by the REACH EUREGIO Start-up Center in Müns­ter as well as EXIST.

Quan­to­na­tion and HTGF co-led the seed funding round with serial foun­der, former venture capi­tal mana­ger and photo­nics indus­try expert Dr. Hendrik Sabert. With this funding, Pixel Photo­nics will further expand its inter­na­tio­nal team in Germany, expand its premi­ses at the Center for Nano­tech­no­logy (CeNTech) in Müns­ter, and acce­le­rate the commer­cia­liza­tion of its products. Pixel Photo­nics bene­fits from the excel­lent inter­na­tio­nal network within Quan­to­na­ti­on’s quan­tum tech­no­logy commu­nity as well as from HTGF’s large indus­trial tech­no­logy portfolio.

“Pixel Photo­nics’ unique tech­no­lo­gi­cal approach to single photon detec­tion combi­nes scala­bi­lity with high detec­tion effi­ci­ency at very high speed. This enables new appli­ca­ti­ons as well as scaling up the number of photons used in quan­tum compu­ting or data rates in quan­tum cryp­to­gra­phy without incre­asing tech­ni­cal comple­xity. The team of physi­cists and entre­pre­neurs that emer­ged from Prof. Pernice’s and Prof. Schu­ck’s groups convin­ced us with their vision and exper­tise,” said Chris­to­phe Jurc­zak, part­ner at Quantonation.

In addi­tion to this important inves­tor funding, Pixel Photo­nics and the Depart­ment of Physics at West­fä­li­sche Wilhelms-Univer­si­tät (WWU) Müns­ter have been awarded €2.6 million in rese­arch funding from the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Educa­tion and Rese­arch (BMBF) to use quan­tum physics to improve data secu­rity. The aim of the so-called QSAMIS project, which is funded under the BMBF program “Enab­ling Start-up — Start-ups in Quan­tum Tech­no­lo­gies and Photo­nics”, is to deve­lop the first giga­bit QKD (Quan­tum Key Distri­bu­tion) system with a signi­fi­cantly increased trans­mis­sion rate to enable quan­tum-safe commu­ni­ca­tion for broad­band networks.

The idea came from Prof. Wolf­ram Pernice and Prof. Cars­ten Schuck
The idea for Pixel Photo­nics’ detec­tor design origi­na­ted years ago from the rese­arch of Prof. Wolf­ram Pernice and Prof. Cars­ten Schuck. Scien­tists repea­tedly expres­sed the need for single photon detec­tors with nume­rous chan­nels in combi­na­tion with addi­tio­nal func­tion­a­li­ties from inte­gra­ted optics at confe­ren­ces. This demand led to the first sale and deli­very of a four-chan­nel detec­tor for rese­arch purpo­ses earlier this year, and it is plan­ned to offer detec­tor systems with 32 or more chan­nels in the near future.

About Pixel Photonics
Pixel Photo­nics was foun­ded in 2020 as a spin-off from the rese­arch groups of Prof. Wolf­ram Pernice and Prof. Cars­ten Schuck at WWU Müns­ter by Nico­lai Walter, Dr. Wladick Hart­mann, Fabian Beutel, Martin Wolff and Chris­toph Seiden­stü­cker with the goal of commer­cia­li­zing highly scalable single photon detec­tors based on the wave­guide inte­gra­ted SNSPD approach. Appli­ca­ti­ons for Pixel Photo­nics’ tech­no­logy range from opti­cal quan­tum compu­ting, quan­tum key distri­bu­tion (QKD), micro­scopy to metro­logy and sens­ing. The company consists of an inter­na­tio­nal team with 8 full-time employees and has recei­ved EXIST funding, venture capi­tal funding from Quan­to­na­tion and HTGF, and rese­arch funding from the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Educa­tion and Rese­arch (BMBF).

About Quan­to­na­tion
Quan­to­na­tion is the first venture capi­tal fund to specia­lize in quan­tum tech­no­lo­gies and inno­va­tive physics. Areas such as mate­ri­als design, high-perfor­mance compu­ting, cyber­se­cu­rity, and ultra-precise detec­tion are now driven by inno­va­tions based on these breakth­rough tech­no­lo­gies. Quan­to­na­tion aims to support their tran­si­tion to marke­ta­ble products for indus­try. Quan­to­na­tion is head­quar­te­red in Paris, France, and invests worldwide.

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About REACH
The North Rhine-West­pha­lian Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs, Inno­va­tion, Digi­ta­liza­tion and Energy has been funding the estab­lish­ment and work of a start-up center under the auspi­ces of the EMU with a total of around 20 million euros since 2019. This resul­ted in the REACH EUREGIO Start-up Center with the parti­ci­pa­tion of the coope­ra­tion part­ners Müns­ter Univer­sity of Applied Scien­ces, Digi­tal Hub müns­ter­LAND and the Univer­sity of Twente. The Start-up Center provi­des the infra­struc­ture and resour­ces neces­sary to help those inte­res­ted in start­ing a busi­ness in higher educa­tion estab­lish their start-ups. As a univer­sity start-up center, REACH is commit­ted to the trans­fer of scien­ti­fic know­ledge into start-up practice.
Learn more: https://www.reach-euregio.de

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 650 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €4 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,800 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 150 companies.

 

News

Frank­furt a.M. — Main Capi­tal Part­ners acqui­res Audimex AG through Main Port­fo­lio company Blika Solu­ti­ons AB. The sellers are Audimex foun­ders and board members, Stefan Berch­told and Markus Höver­mann; both remain on the manage­ment team and retain a partial stake via Blika.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners had acqui­red the Swedish soft­ware deve­lo­per Blika in Octo­ber 2021 and is now reali­zing its first add-on acqui­si­tion with the take­over of Audimex. The goal is to build an inter­na­tio­nal soft­ware group specia­li­zing in solu­ti­ons for gover­nance, risk and compli­ance (GRC) processes.

Audimex AG has been deve­lo­ping and distri­bu­ting soft­ware solu­ti­ons for inter­nal audi­ting and compli­ance since 1999. Blika Solu­ti­ons AB offers a modu­lar SaaS system that helps multi­na­tio­nal compa­nies comply with complex tax, legal and trans­fer pricing regulations.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in Bene­lux, DACH and Scan­di­na­via with over €2.2 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has inves­ted in more than 120 soft­ware compa­nies to date.

The McDer­mott team, led by Norman Wasse and Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger, regu­larly advi­ses Main Capi­tal Part­ners on M&A tran­sac­tions and financings.

Advi­sing Main Capi­tal Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Norman Wasse, LL.M., Photo (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Lisa Schick­ling (both Asso­cia­tes, Corporate/M&A), Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger, Markus Hunken­schrö­der (Asso­ciate; both Finan­cing, both Düssel­dorf), Dr. Johan­nes Honzen, Hannah Henseling (Asso­ciate; both Real Estate), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski, Dr. Thomas Gennert (both Düssel­dorf), Fran­ziska Leub­ner (Munich), Lukas Deutz­mann (Cologne/Düsseldorf; both Asso­cia­tes; all Labor Law), Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law), Dr. Chris­tian L. Masch, Isabella Kätzl­meier (Asso­ciate; both IT/IP, Munich), Dr. Lukas Wasylow-Neuhaus (Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Chris­tine Corkran Kret­kow­ski (Corporate/M&A, Washing­ton, DC).

Advo­kat­fir­man Vinge KB, Stock­holm: Jonas Johans­son, Per Kling, Egil Svens­son (Swedish law)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with over 1,200 lawy­ers in 22 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. We part­ner with leaders around the world to advance missi­ons, break barriers, and shape markets — regard­less of prac­tice or indus­try boun­da­ries. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. https://www.mwe.com/de/

News

Munich — The foun­der of the former profi.com AG busi­ness solu­ti­ons (“Profi­com”), Heiko Worm, sold his shares to the owner-mana­ged invest­ment company EOS Part­ners GmbH (“EOS”) in March 2022. With the change of owner­ship, “profi.com AG busi­ness solu­ti­ons” beco­mes “profi­com GmbH”. Mario Schulze, the current member of the Execu­tive Board, will conti­nue to manage profi­com GmbH’s opera­ti­ons as Mana­ging Director.

In the future, all of this will take place under the umbrella of IT Solu­ti­ons Holding, which curr­ently includes profi­com GmbH as well as mod IT Services GmbH. The latter was also sold to EOS in May 2021. POELLATH provi­ded legal advice to EOS in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the estab­lish­ment of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion model.

Foun­ded in 2000 and based in Dres­den, profi­com GmbH is a specia­li­zed IT service provi­der for IT auto­ma­tion, cloud & DevSe­cOps. The company’s custo­mer base includes well-known DAX compa­nies, successful medium-sized enter­pri­ses and inno­va­tive start-ups. Profi­com employs around 80 people at its sites in Dres­den and Munich.

EOS Part­ners GmbH is a long-term orien­ted invest­ment company focu­sing on medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region that have unique selling propo­si­ti­ons, sustainable custo­mer rela­ti­onships and high growth poten­tial. EOS supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in streng­thening their product and service port­fo­lios, which is often linked to further invest­ments such as bolt-on acqui­si­ti­ons. The company’s current equity under manage­ment amounts to around 200 million euros.

POELLATH provi­ded legal advice to EOS in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the estab­lish­ment of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion model with the follo­wing Munich team:

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus, Photo (Part­ner, Manage­ment Participation/ Private Equity)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation/ Private Equity)

About EOS Capital

EOS Capi­tal Part­ners is an owner-mana­ged invest­ment company focu­sing on medium-sized compa­nies in the D/A/CH region. — We part­ner with healthy compa­nies that have real USPs and sustainable custo­mer rela­ti­onships. We like situa­tions where we can help strong teams acce­le­rate growth and streng­then the busi­ness model, for exam­ple. We believe every good company can become even better. We provide flexi­ble capi­tal, sector and opera­tio­nal exper­tise and a rele­vant network. www.eoscp.com

 

News

London/ Frank­furt — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed M‑League Pte Ltd (“Mobile Premier League or MPL”) on the acqui­si­tion of Berlin-based Game­Du­ell GmbH (“Game­Du­ell”) inclu­ding its inter­na­tio­nal subsidiaries.

Mobile Premier League is one of the worl­d’s largest mobile eSports and skill gaming plat­forms with more than 70 games in its app for iOS and Android. Foun­ded by Sai Srini­vas (pictu­red right) and Shubh Malho­tra (pictu­red left) in 2018, MPL has grown in a short time with over 90 million users in India, Indo­ne­sia and the US.

Game­Du­ell is one of the most estab­lished gaming studios in Europe and has been successfully active in the online world for over ten years with more than 70 multi­player titles. The studio deve­lops multi­player games for the inter­na­tio­nal market and uses inno­va­tive open-source tech­no­lo­gies to create rich gaming expe­ri­en­ces across plat­forms, iOS, Android, Face­book and its own websites. MPL’s expan­sion into Europe unders­cores the company’s stra­tegy to be present in key global markets.
Simon Fiel­der, Lead Part­ner, commen­ted, “We are deligh­ted to have advi­sed MPL on such a signi­fi­cant acqui­si­tion for the gaming sector. Mobi­li­zing an inter­na­tio­nal team to tackle complex, cross-border issues has demons­tra­ted our excel­lent global network and Bird & Bird’s one-firm culture.”

Advi­sor MPL: Bird & Bird

Part­ner Simon Fiel­der (Corpo­rate, London), Part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger and Senior Asso­ciate Johanna Schind­ler (both Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) all lead, Legal Direc­tor Simon Gough (Tax, London), Asso­ciate Tamara Böhmert (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Niels Lutz­höft, LL.M. Asso­cia­tes Dr. Chris­toph Hendel, Simon Hembt and Victo­ria Dehnert (all Commercial/Regulation, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Barbara Geck and Asso­cia­tes Fran­ziska Fied­ler and Carina Seum (all Labor Law, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann, Coun­sel Johan­nes Wirtz, LL.M and Asso­cia­tes Julia Fröh­der and Timo Förs­ter (all Finance & Finan­cial Regu­la­tion, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Stephan Wald­heim and Asso­ciate Tamy Tietze (both Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Mascha Grund­mann and Asso­cia­tes Julia Präger and Manuela Muelot (all IP/Trademark, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Chris­to­pher Maier­hö­fer (Patent Law, Munich), Part­ner Jörg-Alex­an­der Paul and Asso­ciate Oliver Belitz (IT/DP, Frank­furt), Part­ner Stéphane Leri­che and Asso­ciate Pauline Pilain (Commer­cial, Paris), Part­ner Alex­andre Vuchot and Asso­ciate Morgane Basque (Commer­cial, Paris).

News

Hano­ver / Frank­furt a. M. — The invest­ment company NORD Holding is laun­ching a small cap fund with a target volume of appro­xi­m­ately € 125 million. This is accom­pa­nied by the opening of a new office in Frank­furt am Main with a small cap team that has been well estab­lished for many years. Equity invest­ments of up to € 25 million per invest­ment in medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region with an EBITDA of up to € 5 million (majo­rity invest­ments and selec­tive mino­ri­ties) are to be made.

NORD Holding, with its more than 50-year history and successful track record in the mid cap segment, is expan­ding its acti­vi­ties in the German-spea­king small cap sector. The new small cap vehicle will be provi­ded with € 50 million by NORD Holding so that the first invest­ments can be made imme­dia­tely. The target volume of the new small cap fund is € 125 million, which will be provi­ded by NORD Holdin­g’s exis­ting inves­tor network and new fund investors.

The stra­te­gic expan­sion of the NORD Holding acti­vi­ties is a conti­nua­tion of the successful growth course of the tradi­tio­nal company from Hano­ver. Most recently, NORD Holding was alre­ady one of the most active German medium-sized inves­tors in 2020 and 2021.

The value crea­tion approach for the stra­te­gic further deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and the focus on sectors and digi­tiza­tion will also be pursued by the small cap team in the future. Thus, the new port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the broad exper­tise of the entire NORD Holding organization.

For the new office in Frank­furt am Main a complete team around Jan Markus Drees could be won. In addi­tion to him, Maxi­mi­lian Fink­bei­ner, Johan­nes Fleck (photo) and Marga­rita Decker are also moving to NORD Holding. The team has a successful track record and many years of collaboration.

Andreas Bösen­berg (photo left), Mana­ging Direc­tor of NORD Holding, says: “Setting up a dedi­ca­ted small cap fund is the logi­cal deve­lo­p­ment of NORD Holdin­g’s successful growth course. We are plea­sed to welcome our new colleagues.”

About NORD Holding

With a history of more than 50 years and assets under manage­ment of € 2.5 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity and asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany (www.nordholding.de). The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund investments.

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

The Fund Invest­ments busi­ness unit targets the micro and small cap segment of mid-market-orien­ted private equity funds in Europe. The focus here is on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor investor.

News

Berlin — Raue has compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed German air cab company Volo­c­op­ter on a Series E finan­cing round worth €153 million. Volo­c­op­ter plans to use the new capi­tal to acce­le­rate certi­fi­ca­tion of the elec­tric passen­ger air cab and its launch in initial cities.

The first signing of the Series E finan­cing round was led by new South Korean inves­tor WP Invest­ment. In addi­tion, Honey­well also parti­ci­pa­ted for the first time. Many exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding Atlan­tia, Whysol and btov Part­ners, also re-inves­ted in this finan­cing round. Even before the latest round of finan­cing, the company had surpas­sed the magic unicorn mark for start­ups with a valua­tion of around EUR 1.5 billion.

Raue advi­sed Volo­c­op­ter, as in the previous finan­cing rounds, in a lead role and compre­hen­si­vely on the Series E finan­cing, in parti­cu­lar on the corpo­rate, avia­tion, foreign trade and regu­la­tory aspects of the project.

About Volo­c­op­ter

Volo­c­op­ter brings Urban Air Mobi­lity (UAM) to the worl­d’s mega­ci­ties and aims to improve the quality of life for people in cities with a whole new kind of mobi­lity. To this end, Volo­c­op­ter is working with part­ners to deve­lop a sustainable and scalable UAM ecosys­tem, inclu­ding infra­struc­ture and opera­ti­ons. Volo­c­op­ter’s family of air vehic­les offers passen­gers (Volo­City and Volo­Con­nect) and goods (Volo­Drone) fast, safe and emis­sion-free flights directly to their destination.

Advi­sor Volo­c­op­ter GmbH, Essen/Bruchsal: Raue, Berlin

Prof. Dr. Andreas Nelle (Part­ner, Lead, Corporate/M&A, PE/VC), Dr. Michael Gläs­ner (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, PE/VC), Fabian Massen­berg (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/ M&A, PE/VC), Dr. Michael Berg­mann (Part­ner, Foreign Trade Law, Anti­trust Law), Dr. Peter Roegele (Coun­sel, for Finan­cial Market Regu­la­tion / Invest­ment Law), Dr. Johan­nes Modest (Asso­ciate, Foreign Trade Law, Anti­trust Law).

About Raue

Raue is an inter­na­tio­nally active law firm based in Berlin. She provi­des compre­hen­sive advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public enti­ties on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and conten­tious dispu­tes. www.raue.com.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery has appoin­ted Belden Inc. on the complete acqui­si­tion of the NetMo­dule Group. As a result of the stra­te­gic merger, NetMo­dule will become part of Belden’s Indus­trial Network Solu­ti­ons (INS) busi­ness unit. Remo Viscardi, CEO of NetMo­dule AG, forms the new dual leader­ship toge­ther with Dr. Thomas Nies­sen, VP Busi­ness Deve­lo­p­ment INS.

Network infra­struc­ture provi­der Belden Inc. head­quar­te­red in St. Louis, USA, was foun­ded in 1902 and opera­tes manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

NetMo­dule AG, head­quar­te­red in Bern, is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of commu­ni­ca­tion products for M2M and IoT. Foun­ded in 1998, the company now has offices in Basel and Winter­thur and subsi­dia­ries in Frank­furt and Hong Kong.

Against the back­ground of its proven exper­tise in the tech sector, the McDer­mott team led by part­ner Norman Wasse had alre­ady advi­sed Belden on the acqui­si­tion of network secu­rity soft­ware provi­der macmon secure GmbH.

Advice to Belden Inc.: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt

Norman Wasse, LL.M. (Lead), Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Lisa Schick­ling (both Asso­cia­tes; all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Kian Tauser, Dr. Gero Burwitz (Munich), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel), Dr. Isabella Dennin­ger (Asso­ciate, Munich; all Tax), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Commercial/Regulatory, Munich), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt, LL.M., Dr. Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel), Markus Cejka, LL.M. (Asso­ciate; all Finance), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer, Tina Zeller, Elena Platte, LL.M. (both Asso­cia­tes; all Real Estate), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski, Lukas Deutz­mann (Asso­ciate; both Labor Law, both Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chris­tian L. Masch, Isabella Kätzl­meier (Asso­ciate; both IT/IP, both Munich), Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Thomas P. Conag­han, Chris­tine Corkran Kret­kow­ski (both Corporate/M&A, both Washing­ton, DC), Timo­thy S. Shuman (Tax, Washing­ton, DC)
Loyens & Loeff, Zurich: Andreas Hinsen (Corporate/M&A), Fabian Sutter (Tax), Gilles Pitschen (Corporate/M&A)

News

Hamburg / Borken / Waltrop — The netgo group (“netgo”), a fast-growing IT provi­der with bran­ches in many parts of Germany, is once again expan­ding its port­fo­lio of services: Follo­wing seve­ral acqui­si­ti­ons in the past two years, ckn Compu­ter GmbH & Co. KG (“ckn Compu­ter”) from Waltrop, a proven specia­list for the DATEV ecosys­tem as well as IT solu­ti­ons with a focus on tax consul­ting firms and audi­tors, is now joining the group. The sellers of the majo­rity shares are ckn foun­ders and share­hol­ders Oliver Günter and Stefan Koch-Niehus — both will remain on board as mana­ging directors.

ckn Compu­ter was foun­ded in 1988 and, toge­ther with its subsi­diary Diva­con, has sites in Düssel­dorf and Kassel in addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Waltrop. Through the conti­nuous deve­lo­p­ment of its service and sales network, ckn has estab­lished itself as a high-perfor­mance IT service provi­der, parti­cu­larly in the Rhine-Ruhr region and in central Germany. Thanks to its compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of services, the company is uniquely posi­tio­ned among its custo­mers, with a focus on tax consul­ting firms and audi­ting compa­nies. Its services include the setup and ongo­ing opera­tion of complex IT infra­struc­tures and local networks for server systems, clients, prin­ting and copy­ing systems. With the inno­va­tive cloud solu­tion “ckn PART­NERasp”, the most important compon­ents of IT can be outsour­ced to the protec­ted DATEV data center. The company, which is one of the largest and most important part­ners for DATEV and its clients thanks to its maxi­mum certi­fi­ca­tion as a “Solu­tion Part­ner”, curr­ently employs around 70 people.

Water­land Private Equity has held a majo­rity stake in netgo group, which was foun­ded in 2007, for more than two years. Since the part­ner­ship was laun­ched, netgo has been able to signi­fi­cantly expand its presence in the highly frag­men­ted German market for IT service provi­ders through a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy. With a total of eight acqui­si­ti­ons since Water­lan­d’s entry, netgo has both broa­dened its port­fo­lio of IT services for SMEs and gained new custo­mers and market share throug­hout Germany, and now reports group sales of over EUR 300 million.

With ckn, netgo is expan­ding its port­fo­lio to include solu­ti­ons that opti­mally meet the special requi­re­ments of tax consul­tancies, busi­ness law firms and their clients in parti­cu­lar. In addi­tion, the Group is comple­men­ting its range of services in the DATEV field, above all with the areas of DATEV payroll and docu­ment manage­ment as well as the appli­ca­tion service provi­der and hosting busi­ness in DATEV infra­struc­tures. As a result, the fast-growing group will operate in the future as one of the largest provi­ders of DATEV IT outsour­cing solu­ti­ons active throug­hout Germany.

“ckn Compu­ter is an important part of netgo’s stra­te­gic road­map towards a one-stop store for medium-sized custo­mers and, with its comple­men­tary loca­ti­ons in Waltrop and Kassel, once again streng­thens the group’s presence across Germany,” comm­ents Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner of Water­land, on the acquisition.

Dr. Oliver Mauss, CEO of netgo group, adds: “With ckn, we will be by far the largest provi­der of DATEV IT outsour­cing solu­ti­ons nati­on­wide and will be able to address the needs of tax consul­ting firms, audi­ting compa­nies and their clients even better with group-wide expertise.”

“For ckn, beco­ming part of a strong group like netgo means the contin­ued deve­lo­p­ment of our long-term, entre­pre­neu­rial success; custo­mers and part­ners will bene­fit from the streng­thening in service and offe­ring. We are very much looking forward to the coope­ra­tion,” says Stefan Koch-Niehus, mana­ging part­ner at ckn.

Water­land alre­ady has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the digi­ta­liza­tion, IT and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors: the Water­land port­fo­lio in these areas in the DACH region includes GOD (soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment), enreach (unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), Skay­link (cloud services) and Netrics (enter­prise IT).

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (London, Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen), Spain (Barce­lona) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, over nine billion euros in equity funds are under management.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The firm ranks fifth globally in the 2020 HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings and eighth among global private equity firms in the 2020 Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report.

News

Wetz­lar / Rüssels­heim / Bad Homburg — ELIQUO WATER GROUP GmbH, specia­list for muni­ci­pal water and waste­wa­ter tech­no­logy, takes over all shares of the Gesell­schaft für Elektro‑, Auto­ma­ti­sie­rungs- und Leit­tech­nik mbH (GEAL mbH) in the course of the perspec­tive age succes­sion. For GEAL, the tran­sac­tion process was exclu­si­vely mana­ged by the M&A consul­ting boutique Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor. The previous owners, Chris­tian Schön and Michael Wein­del, will initi­ally conti­nue to run the busi­ness to ensure an opti­mal transition.

The company GEAL specia­li­zes in the auto­ma­tion of water and waste­wa­ter faci­li­ties, as well as remote moni­to­ring and control of trans­por­ta­tion and infra­struc­ture networks. GEAL, head­quar­te­red in Rüssels­heim, Hesse, was foun­ded in 1996 by five former employees of the elec­tri­cal company AEG. In addi­tion to the plan­ning, deli­very, programming, assem­bly, instal­la­tion and commis­sio­ning of control and process control systems, the service scope also includes the coor­di­na­tion of suppli­ers and a 24/7 on-call service.

Mana­ging part­ners of GEAL are Chris­tian Schön and Michael Wein­del. Schön is the last of the five foun­ding part­ners, having alre­ady reti­red four of the five foun­ders. Wein­del has been streng­thening the company since 2001 and has been a member of the manage­ment team since 2006. In order to secure the succes­sion of the company, Schön and Wein­del sell the company to ELIQUO in a share deal. In the future, GEAL will comple­ment ELIQUO’s port­fo­lio. Estab­lished on the market as a group of compa­nies since 2014 and with many deca­des of expe­ri­ence, ELIQUO, as one of the largest German muni­ci­pal plant cons­truc­tors for water and waste­wa­ter tech­no­logy with its more than 500 employees, bund­les the Euro­pean acti­vi­ties of SKion Water GmbH in this field.

“The long-term perspec­tive of our employees and custo­mers was parti­cu­larly important to us,” says Chris­tian Schön, Mana­ging Direc­tor at GEAL. “Through a regu­la­ted tran­si­tion and the extre­mely good coope­ra­tion with ELIQUO in the tran­sac­tion process, we look forward to a future full of oppor­tu­ni­ties.” “With ELIQUO, we were able to find an ideal part­ner for the succes­sion at GEAL,” explains Sebas­tian Wissig, who, along with Phil­ipp Spel­kus, is the project mana­ger at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor. “The syner­gies of the two compa­nies and the level of part­ner­ship were alre­ady clear in the initial discus­sions — toge­ther they form a stable foun­da­tion for provi­ding opti­mum support to the custo­mers of both companies.”

Gauke Reit­sma, CEO of ELIQUO, explains: “Our auto­ma­tion team is perfectly comple­men­ted by GEAL. GEAL’s custo­mers, in turn, can now also bene­fit from our range of services in the field of mecha­ni­cal and elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring, e.g. control cabi­net cons­truc­tion. In addi­tion, digi­tal networ­king is beco­ming incre­asingly important for the infra­struc­ture of muni­ci­pal water and waste­wa­ter plants. GEAL’s in-depth exper­tise in the field of digi­ta­liza­tion enables us to expand this compe­tence in-house. This puts us in an even better posi­tion for the future. We are very plea­sed to welcome the GEAL team to the Group.”

About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor / sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor GmbH, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, is one of the leading M&A consul­ting firms in the German SME sector. The team of almost 30 experts accom­pa­nies medium-sized entre­pre­neurs exclu­si­vely through the entire sales process. “Our task is to safe­guard life’s work,” is how we see oursel­ves. In doing so, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, and which protects the iden­tity of their compa­nies to a special degree. Thanks to their excel­lent access to medium-sized compa­nies, Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance have also estab­lished them­sel­ves as a strong part­ner at the side of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal major compa­nies and inves­tors in acqui­si­ti­ons. — www.nachfolgekontor.de / www.sonntagcf.com

ELIQUO WATER GROUP
As a subsi­diary of SKion Water GmbH, ELIQUO bund­les all acti­vi­ties of muni­ci­pal water, waste­wa­ter and sludge treat­ment in Europe. With more than 500 employees and over 30 years of expe­ri­ence in the market, the company focu­ses on plant engi­nee­ring. ELIQUO’s products and services include ther­mal pres­sure hydro­ly­sis (THD), vacuum degas­sing of digested sludge, sludge drying, the 3. and 4th treat­ment stage, energy effi­ci­ency projects and nutri­ent reco­very solu­ti­ons. ELIQUO’s mission is to reduce the carbon foot­print of water­works and waste­wa­ter treat­ment plants and to sustain­ably protect our most precious resource: Water. — www.eliquowater.com

SKion Water
SKion Water GmbH is a tech­no­logy and solu­ti­ons provi­der foun­ded by entre­pre­neur Susanne Klat­ten, as well as a plant manu­fac­tu­rer in muni­ci­pal and indus­trial water and waste­wa­ter tech­no­logy. In addi­tion, SKion Water invests in inno­va­tive water tech­no­logy compa­nies, provi­ded that the respec­tive tech­no­logy fits into the port­fo­lio. In addi­tion to ELIQUO, Ovivo, Envi­ro­wa­ter Group, Paques, Ecopre­neur, ADASA, inCTRL and Matten are other opera­ting subsi­dia­ries of SKion Water. — www.skionwater.com

 

News

Munich — The listed Lindab Group, a leading venti­la­tion company in Europe is acqui­ring the German Felde­rer AG. A multi­di­sci­pli­nary team of Deloitte Legal advi­sed Felde­rer Holding GmbH and Klaus-Phil­ipp Felde­rer, CEO and owner of Felde­rer, on the sale of all shares in Felde­rer AG to Lindab Group. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close in the second quarter.

Felde­rer AG is one of the largest distri­bu­tors of venti­la­tion and air condi­tio­ning tech­no­logy in Germany. It was foun­ded in 1979 and is based in Feld­kir­chen near Munich. The company gene­ra­tes annual sales of around EUR 70 million and employs 160 people.

The listed Lindab Group, as a leading venti­la­tion company in Europe, deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets products and systems for a healthy indoor climate. The Lindab Group achie­ved sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 965 million in 2021 and is estab­lished in 20 count­ries with around 4,500 employees.

“Toge­ther with Lindab there are great deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for Felde­rer AG in the German market, which will bene­fit our custo­mers, our part­ners and our employees. We look forward to a dyna­mic coope­ra­tion with our strong and sustainable part­ner Lindab,” says Klaus-Phil­ipp Felderer.

Advi­sor Lindab Group: Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners advi­ses Lindab Group on its stra­te­gic expan­sion in the German market for venti­la­tion tech­no­logy. In this capa­city, Proven­tis Part­ners initia­ted and supported the tran­sac­tion as exclu­sive buyside M&A advi­sor. The Proven­tis Part­ners tran­sac­tion team: Ulrich Schnei­der (Part­ner, Hamburg) and Henrik Huchel (Analyst, Hamburg).

Advi­sor Felde­rer AG: Deloitte Legal

The Deloitte Legal team led by Eike Fietz (photo) consis­ted of Simon Maier (both Corpo- rate/M&A, Munich) and Dr. Marc Spiel­ber­ger (Labor Law, Munich). Dr. Michael Reich (Pinsent Masons) advi­sed Felde­rer from an anti­trust perspective.

The buyer was advi­sed by the law firms kallan (tran­sac­tion) and ROCAN (anti­trust).

News

Munich, March 3, 2022 — Silver­fleet Capi­tal has advi­sed its port­fo­lio company, Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen GmbH to Atlas Copco Group. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance and is expec­ted for the second quar­ter of 2022.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal is a pan-Euro­pean private equity firm specia­li­zing in buy-to-build stra­te­gies of mid-market compa­nies in the UK, France, Germany, Bene­lux and Scandinavia.

Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen (photo) deve­lops and sells indus­trial pumps for the biogas and waste­wa­ter sectors as well as the food, beverage and cosme­tics indus­tries. The company employs 265 people and has produc­tion faci­li­ties in Germany as well as a global sales and service network.

The Atlas Copco Group is a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of sustainable indus­trial produc­ti­vity solu­ti­ons, head­quar­te­red in Stock­holm with opera­ti­ons in more than 180 count­ries. In 2020, Atlas Copco achie­ved sales of 10 billion euros with around 40,000 employees.

Advi­sor Silver­fleet Capi­tal: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich

Dr. Tobias Kopp­mann (Lead), Thomas Sauer­milch (New York; both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Henrik Holz­ap­fel (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Richard Gräbe­ner (both IP Liti­ga­tion), Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Raymond Paretzky (Coun­sel, Trade, Agri­cul­ture & EU Regu­la­tory, Washing­ton, DC), Dr. Chris­tian Rolf (Labor, Frank­furt), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel), Nina Siewert (both Tax, both Frank­furt), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Regu­la­tory), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion). Deniz Tschamm­ler (Regu­la­tory), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion); Asso­cia­tes: Matthias Wein­gut, Benja­min Macie­jew­ski, Bene­dikt Gloß­ner, Dr. Fabian Appa­doo, Ana A. Koff, Nicole Yoon (both New York; all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Kiemle (IP Liti­ga­tion, Düssel­dorf), Max Kütt­ner (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Ilva Woeste (Labor Law)

News

Wetzlar/Jena/Ditzingen — The TRUMPF Group, one of the worl­d’s leading high-tech compa­nies for machine tools, lasers and elec­tro­nics for indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons, has acqui­red an 80 percent stake in Active Fiber Systems GmbH (AFS), a fiber laser specia­list based in Jena, Germany. AFS was advi­sed by sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, one of the leading M&A consul­tancies in the German SME sector. Fabian Schmidt and his team of experts for tran­sac­tions in the high-tech sector were respon­si­ble for the project.

AFS, based in Jena, Thurin­gia, deve­lops and manu­fac­tures ultras­hort pulse fiber laser systems, which are mainly used in science and rese­arch. The company, which today has 37 employees, was foun­ded in 2009 as a spin-off of the Fraun­ho­fer IOF Jena and the Insti­tute of Applied Physics at Fried­rich Schil­ler Univer­sity Jena. In addi­tion to basic rese­arch, appli­ca­ti­ons include the gene­ra­tion of extre­mely short-wave­length light with high cohe­rence, bio-medi­cal imaging, and mate­ri­als proces­sing. “AFS works very close to rese­arch and deve­lops laser systems at the highest level,” Schmidt said. “TRUMPF is the ideal buyer here, preser­ving AFS’ strengths in its excel­lent envi­ron­ment and jointly streng­thening its posi­ti­ons in scien­ti­fic, indus­trial and medi­cal lasers.”

Through the majo­rity share­hol­ding, TRUMPF will in the future prima­rily focus on crea­ting synergy effects in rese­arch as well as further deve­lo­ping its own ultras­hort pulse laser port­fo­lio. Over­all, the busi­ness is to be expan­ded in the growing segment for science and indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. Foun­ded in 1923 and based in Ditzin­gen, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, Germany, the TRUMPF Group is repre­sen­ted by more than 70 subsi­dia­ries in almost all Euro­pean count­ries, in North and South America, and in Asia, and is a leader in machine tools for flexi­ble sheet metal proces­sing and in indus­trial lasers. In 2020/21 the Group gene­ra­ted sales of 3.5 billion euros with around 14,800 employees.

About the Trumpf Group

Our task is to further deve­lop and digi­tally network produc­tion tech­no­logy, to make it even more econo­mical, precise and future-proof — that is . In doing so, we want to make produc­tion and its upstream and down­stream proces­ses more effi­ci­ent. We are buil­ding the indus­trial world of tomor­row. We are the market and tech­no­logy leader in machine tools and lasers for indus­trial manu­fac­tu­ring, and our inno­va­tions are effec­tive in almost every indus­try. Our soft­ware solu­ti­ons pave the way to the smart factory, and in indus­trial elec­tro­nics we enable high-tech proces­ses. (Sales Euro 3.5 billion in fiscal 2020/21.). www.trumpf.com

About sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, based in Wetz­lar, Hesse, is one of the leading M&A consul­tancies for German medium-sized compa­nies. The team of almost 30 experts accom­pa­nies medium-sized entre­pre­neurs exclu­si­vely through the entire sales process. “Our task is to safe­guard life’s work,” is how we see oursel­ves. In the process, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, with an anony­mi­zed bidding process that provi­des special protec­tion for the iden­tity of their compa­nies. At the begin­ning of 2021, succes­sion plan­ning was carried out in-house with a so-called manage­ment buy-out by team. The take­over by an eight-strong manage­ment team headed by mana­ging direc­tors Patrick Seip and Julian Will ensu­res that consul­ting services will conti­nue to be provi­ded at eye level in the future.

In the Refi­ni­tiv League Table 2021, sonn­tag corpo­rate finance ranks 11th and is thus once again one of the most active M&A consul­ting bouti­ques in the medium-sized segment. www.sonntagcf.com

News

Berlin — Recrui­ting startup Zenjob has raised a total volume of € 45 million in its latest finan­cing round. This was led by Aragon Global, foun­ded in 2001 by Ann Dias (pictu­red), with rene­wed parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tors inclu­ding Acton Capi­tal, Atlan­tic Labs, Forestay and AXA Venture Part­ners. — A YPOG team co-led by Benja­min Ullrich and Adrian Haase provi­ded compre­hen­sive consul­ting services to the Berlin-based startup Zenjob.

Zenjob is a digi­tal staf­fing company that matches workers with suita­ble part-time jobs across nume­rous indus­tries, inclu­ding e‑commerce, logi­stics, retail, and services. To date, the company has placed over one million jobs in Germany and the Netherlands.

The addi­tio­nal capi­tal will be used for the company’s Euro­pean expan­sion. To this end, Zenjob will launch in the UK later this year and invest in other Euro­pean markets. Zenjob will also expand its acti­vi­ties in Germany and the Nether­lands. In addi­tion, the tech­no­logy plat­form is being further deve­lo­ped to enable new data-driven
Enable auto­ma­tion capa­bi­li­ties for Zenjob’s rapidly growing custo­mer base. In addi­tion to the expan­sion of job cate­go­ries, the team will also be enlarged.

Consultant:inside Zenjob: YPOG

Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Dr. Adrian Haase (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Chris­tiane Schnitz­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Associate

About Zenjob

Zenjob is a digi­tal recruit­ment market­place that matches workers with tempo­rary part-time jobs. With the Zenjob app, talents find and book jobs on an hourly basis and can flexi­bly decide when, where and for whom they work. Each month, more than 40,000 workers are hired in indus­tries such as logi­stics, e‑commerce, retail and services. Zenjob was foun­ded in 2015 by Fritz Trott, Cihan Aksa­kal and Frede­rik Fahning in Berlin and curr­ently employs over 350 people.

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Corpo­rate, Funds, Liti­ga­tion, Tax, Tran­sac­tions, IP/IT, Notary Services, Banking + Finan­cial Services and FinTech + Block­chain. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 90 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Munich — BMH BRÄUTIGAM advi­sed early stage inves­tor UVC Part­ners on the €4.3 million finan­cing round of Munich-based e‑mobility startup Deep­drive. In addi­tion to UVC Part­ners, Bayern Kapi­tal with its Bava­rian Growth Fund and the expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels Jonas Rieke (COO Perso­nio) and Peter Mertens (former Chief Deve­lo­p­ment Offi­cer of Audi and Volvo) are also parti­ci­pa­ting in the round.

Deep­drive, foun­ded in 2021 by Stefan Ender and Felix Poern­ba­cher, is deve­lo­ping a gearless, elec­tric wheel hub drive whose compact, light­weight design allows the drive to be inte­gra­ted into the wheel. With this cost-effi­ci­ent, scalable and, above all, range- and torque-strong plug-and-play plat­form, Deep­drive aims to revo­lu­tio­nize the auto­mo­tive indus­try and give carma­kers new free­dom in struc­ture and design. The fresh capi­tal is to be inves­ted prima­rily in opti­mi­zing the tech­no­logy, expan­ding the team and serving the immensely high demand for proto­ty­pes in the market.

Andreas Unseld (photo), part­ner at UVC Part­ners: “With the Deep­Drive tech­no­logy, elec­tric mobi­lity can realize its full poten­tial and finally outper­form conven­tio­nal combus­tion vehicles.”

BMH BRÄUTIGAM regu­larly advi­ses on finan­cing rounds both on the part of inves­tors and on the part of the company. The cont­act to UVC Part­ners was estab­lished through the consul­ting of the Early­bird invest­ment in Aleph Alpha, in which UVC Part­ners also participated.

Consul­tant UVC: BMH BRÄUTIGAM
Dr. Alex­an­der Wulff, Maxi­mi­lian Frink (both Venture Capital)

About Deep­Drive
Deep­Drive is a Munich-based e‑mobility start-up that deve­lops inno­va­tive power­trains for elec­tric vehic­les. The power­trains are 20% more effi­ci­ent than current state of the art, can be produ­ced at low cost and allow the motor to be inte­gra­ted into the wheel thanks to their compact, light­weight design. This enables new vehicle archi­tec­tures that can solve the problems of exis­ting EV concepts through high cost savings, a signi­fi­cantly higher range and far better space effi­ci­ency. Deep­Drive was foun­ded in 2021 and curr­ently employs 8 people. www.deepdrive.tech

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a Munich- and Berlin-based early-stage venture capi­tal firm that invests in Euro­pean B2B start­ups in the areas of enter­prise soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies, and mobi­lity. The fund typi­cally invests between € 0.5m — 10m initi­ally and up to € 30m in total per company. Port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Euro­pe’s leading inno­va­tion, and busi­ness crea­tion center. With over 300 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM can draw from many years of expe­ri­ence in estab­li­shing young compa­nies. This coope­ra­tion enables UVC Part­ners to offer start­ups unique access to talent, indus­try custo­mers, and other finan­cial part­ners. www.uvcpartners.com

News

Munich / Pfung­stadt — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) acquire a majo­rity stake in eperi, a leading provi­der of cyber­se­cu­rity soft­ware for cloud appli­ca­ti­ons. The sellers of the secu­rity specia­list from Pfung­stadt, Hesse, are the venture capi­tal compa­nies Evolu­tion Equity Part­ners and btov. Elmar Eperiesi-Beck, foun­der and CEO of eperi, will conti­nue to lead the company as Mana­ging Direc­tor and will retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company. The further scaling and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the company as well as a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy are to be the focus of the new part­ner­ship. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Since its foun­da­tion in 2014, Eperi GmbH, head­quar­te­red in the Rhine-Main area, has become a leading provi­der of cyber­se­cu­rity solu­ti­ons for data protec­tion and secu­rity in on-premise, hybrid and multi-cloud envi­ron­ments. The company has many years of expe­ri­ence in the field of data encryp­tion for cloud appli­ca­ti­ons and an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base with a focus on (large) compa­nies from the finan­cial, health­care and indus­trial sectors. eperi’s solu­ti­ons allow custo­mers to use any type of IT infra­struc­ture and soft­ware appli­ca­ti­ons in a secure and compli­ant manner. With eperi, custo­mers can take full advan­tage of the cloud without worry­ing about data secu­rity, compli­ance and liability.

With the recently concluded part­ner­ship, the successful course of the data secu­rity specia­list is now to be further advan­ced: Toge­ther with the foun­der and CEO of eperi, Elmar Eperiesi-Beck, the focus will be on expan­ding part­ner manage­ment and the orga­niza­tion. With further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy, the company’s growth trajec­tory is to be taken to a new level.

“We were looking for a part­ner who not only brings capi­tal strength, but above all can support us on our future growth path through relia­bi­lity and many years of expe­ri­ence in the further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies. With Equis­tone we have found such a part­ner,” eperi foun­der and CEO Elmar Eperiesi-Beck comm­ents on the tran­sac­tion. “Espe­ci­ally when it comes to driving inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and imple­men­ting buy-&-build stra­te­gies, we rely on Equis­to­ne’s expe­ri­ence and support to acce­le­rate our company’s success trajec­tory once again together.”

“For us, the acqui­si­tion of eperi marks another important mile­stone in the addi­tion of high-growth and future-orien­ted IT compa­nies to our tradi­tio­nal port­fo­lio. eperi has deve­lo­ped into a leading inter­na­tio­nal company with an outstan­ding custo­mer and part­ner network in only a short period of time — not least due to its foun­der’s many years of expe­ri­ence in cloud secu­rity,” explains Dr. Marc Arens, Senior Part­ner and Coun­try Head DACH/NL at Equistone.

“Nume­rous inter­na­tio­nal patents illus­trate the inno­va­tive and modern approach behind eperi’s tech­no­lo­gies — this is exactly what we want to leverage to sustain­ably acce­le­rate growth toge­ther with the foun­der and manage­ment team. eperi stands for preven­ting third parties from acces­sing criti­cal data at any time while enab­ling the use and bene­fits of a scalable hybrid or multi-cloud infra­struc­ture as well as any type of soft­ware appli­ca­tion for all users,” commen­ted Sebas­tian Wint­gens, Direc­tor at Equis­tone Part­ners Europe.

“We are plea­sed to support eperi along its strong growth path and to work with the company’s manage­ment to estab­lish it as an inter­na­tio­nal cyber­se­cu­rity cham­pion,” added Chris­toph Wüste­meyer, Invest­ment Mana­ger at Equis­tone Part­ners Europe.

Dr. Marc Arens, Sebas­tian Wint­gens and Chris­toph Wüste­meyer are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equistone.
Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by BCG (Commer­cial), Code & Co. (Tech­no­logy), Bird & Bird (IP & Regu­la­tion), PWC (Finan­cial & Tax), and Pöllath (Legal & Contrac­tual Documentation).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 50 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 160 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. www.equistonepe.com

About Eperi Ltd.
Eperi GmbH, head­quar­te­red in the Rhine-Main area, is a leading provi­der of cyber­se­cu­rity solu­ti­ons for data protec­tion and secu­rity in on-premise, hybrid and multi-cloud envi­ron­ments. eperi’s inno­va­tive and easy-to-use solu­ti­ons allow its end users to use any type of IT infra­struc­ture and soft­ware appli­ca­ti­ons in a secure and compli­ant manner. The advan­ta­ges of the cloud can thus be opti­mally exploi­ted without having to worry about data secu­rity, compli­ance and liabi­lity. With seve­ral inter­na­tio­nal patents, eperi acts as a pioneer for inno­va­tive and relia­ble multi-cloud tech­no­logy and supports its custo­mers’ ESG efforts by protec­ting private data. The inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base of the cloud secu­rity specia­list includes in parti­cu­lar (large) compa­nies from the finan­cial, health­care and indus­trial sectors.

News

Paris/Frankfurt — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed French inves­tors Hy24 and Mirova on the acqui­si­tion of stakes in German Hy2gen AG, a pionee­ring green hydro­gen company. The record invest­ment of EUR 200 million is the largest private capi­tal increase in the green hydro­gen sector to date and is provi­ded by Hy24 and Mirova toge­ther with Caisse de dépôt et place­ment du Québec (CDPQ) and stra­te­gic inves­tor Tech­nip Energies.

Hy24, a joint venture between Ardian, a leading global private invest­ment firm, and FiveT Hydro­gen, an invest­ment mana­ger focu­sed exclu­si­vely on clean hydro­gen invest­ments, is the worl­d’s largest clean hydro­gen infra­struc­ture plat­form. Mirova is a subsi­diary of Nati­xis Invest­ment Mana­gers that focu­ses on sustainable investments.

Hy2gen AG, based in Wies­ba­den, Germany, deve­lops, finan­ces, builds and opera­tes plants world­wide for the produc­tion of green hydro­gen and hydro­gen-based e‑fuels. These products are used to create carbon-neutral and compe­ti­tive fuels and indus­trial solu­ti­ons. The capi­tal from this finan­cing round will be used to build faci­li­ties in seve­ral count­ries that produce green hydro­gen-based fuels, or “e‑fuels,” for marine, land trans­por­ta­tion, avia­tion and indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. In southern France, the company foun­ded by Cyril Dufau-Sansot has been opera­ting a produc­tion faci­lity for Sustainable Avia­tion Fuels (SAF, Hynovera project) since Octo­ber 2021. The fresh capi­tal is to be used to open up many more loca­ti­ons — for exam­ple in Canada and Norway.

Advi­sors Hy24 and Mirova: Bird & Bird
Part­ner Sibylle Weiler, Lead (Finance & Energy, Head of the inter­na­tio­nal Bird & Bird Hydro­gen Group and coun­sel in France and Germany), Coun­sel Olivier Fazio (Due Dili­gence and leading multi­ju­ris­dic­tional legal due dili­gence, to review projects in France, Germany, Norway and Canada), Part­ner Xavier Leroux (Corpo­rate), all Paris.
The German team consis­ted of the part­ners Dr. Hans Peter Leube, LL.M. (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Marc Seeger (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Matthias Lang (Energy) and Dr. Stephan Wald­heim (Anti­trust, all Düssel­dorf) as well as Coun­sel Dr. Chris­tina Lorenz (Corporate/M&A, Munich) and Asso­cia­tes Jan Medele, Felix Spind­ler (both Corporate/M&A), Anja Holter­mann (Energy) and Tamy Tietze (Anti­trust, all Düsseldorf).

Nomura Green­tech acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor to Hy2gen.
Société Géné­rale acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor to Hy24 and Mirova.
Legal advi­sors included Baker Tilly on behalf of Hy2gen, Bird & Bird on behalf of Hy24 and Mirova, Jones Day on behalf of CDPQ and Clif­ford Chance on behalf of Tech­nip Energies.

About Bird & Bird
Bird & Bird is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 lawy­ers in 30 offices in 21 count­ries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia Paci­fic and North America. In Germany, we are repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, Hamburg and Munich. We focus our consul­ting in parti­cu­lar on indus­trial sectors that are deve­lo­ping new tech­no­lo­gies and helping to shape digi­ta­liza­tion. www.twobirds.com.

News

Baar-Zug, Switz­er­land — Part­ners Group, a leading global mana­ger of private market assets, has recei­ved a total of USD 8.5 billion from its clients for its third direct infra­struc­ture program. The program is based on Part­ners Group’s third direct infra­struc­ture fund, which recei­ved $6.4 billion in new capi­tal commit­ments. In addi­tion, commit­ments of $2.1 billion were made from other private market programs and custo­mi­zed client solu­ti­ons that will invest in paral­lel with the program.

Juri Jenk­ner, Part­ner, Head Private Infra­struc­ture, says: “We are grateful for the contin­ued trust our clients have placed in our trans­for­ma­tive invest­ment stra­tegy. We believe our thema­tic invest­ment approach and plat­form expan­sion capa­bi­li­ties uniquely posi­tion us to build a port­fo­lio of next-gene­ra­tion infra­struc­ture projects for our clients.”

The comple­tion of the fund­rai­sing follows an intense period of invest­ment acti­vity for Part­ners Group. In 2021, a total of $5.4 billion was inves­ted in infra­struc­ture assets and compa­nies that reflect Part­ners Group’s thema­tic invest­ment philo­so­phy. These include: EOLO, Italy’s leading fixed wire­less broad­band access provi­der; GREN, one of the largest district heating plat­forms in the Baltic States; Unity Digi­tal, a wire­less tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons infra­struc­ture plat­form in the Phil­ip­pi­nes; Dimen­sion Rene­wa­ble Energy, a distri­bu­ted energy plat­form focu­sed on commu­nity solar and battery storage in the U.S.; Resi­li­ent, a distri­bu­ted water infra­struc­ture plat­form in the U.S. and Canada; and North Star, a Euro­pean opera­tor of specia­li­zed vessels for offshore wind maintenance.

The rema­in­der of the program will invest on behalf of inves­tors globally and will focus on infra­struc­ture in stra­te­gic thema­tic areas rela­ted to the over­ar­ching Giga themes of Digi­ta­liza­tion & Auto­ma­tion, New Living and Decar­bo­niza­tion & Sustaina­bi­lity. In doing so, Part­ners Group pursues a plat­form expan­sion stra­tegy that targets compa­nies or assets in infra­struc­ture sub-sectors that are show­ing above-average growth due to trans­for­ma­tive trends.

Part of the program is inves­ted in next-gene­ra­tion infra­struc­ture that contri­bu­tes to impro­ved sustaina­bi­lity and supports the UN Sustainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goals. Ther­e­fore, clean energy, water treat­ment and reuse, and data centers powered by rene­wa­ble energy are among Part­ners Group’s thema­tic focus areas. Once inves­ted, the ESG & Sustaina­bi­lity team works hand-in-hand with the invest­ment teams to deve­lop ESG-focu­sed value crea­tion initia­ti­ves for each invest­ment project.

Esther Peiner, Mana­ging Direc­tor, Private Infra­struc­ture Europe, comm­ents: “We strive to gene­rate sustainable returns for our inves­tors while crea­ting a posi­tive impact for our wider stake­hol­ders. Our approach consists of thema­tic invest­ments combi­ned with prac­ti­cal, plat­form-based value crea­tion stra­te­gies. They aim to deve­lop next-gene­ra­tion infra­struc­ture and gene­rate returns that are protec­ted from econo­mic insta­bi­lity. Given the uncer­tainty caused by the pande­mic and the infla­tion concerns that still exist, this approach is more rele­vant than ever.”

Inves­tors in Part­ners Group’s third direct infra­struc­ture program include both new and exis­ting clients, inclu­ding public and corpo­rate pension funds, sove­reign wealth funds, insu­rance compa­nies, endow­ment funds and foun­da­ti­ons. Appro­xi­m­ately one-third of the capi­tal commit­ments came from outside Part­ners Group’s Euro­pean home market, reflec­ting growing inves­tor demand for globally diver­si­fied and thema­ti­cally focu­sed infra­struc­ture port­fo­lios. Part­ners Group’s foun­ders, part­ners and other employees have also inves­ted signi­fi­cantly in the program.

Vitto­rio Laca­gnina, Mana­ging Direc­tor, Client Solu­ti­ons, concludes, “The successful comple­tion of the fund­rai­sing reflects the solid perfor­mance of our trans­for­ma­tive invest­ment stra­tegy and resi­li­ence of the port­fo­lio, which we have demons­tra­ted in the face of a protra­c­ted pande­mic and rising infla­tion. The program bene­fits from a sizable seed port­fo­lio charac­te­ri­zed by strong invest­ment acti­vity, poten­ti­ally miti­ga­ting the J‑curve. The program was laun­ched in a market envi­ron­ment where acce­le­ra­ting beha­vi­oral and struc­tu­ral chan­ges are crea­ting compel­ling oppor­tu­ni­ties for insti­tu­tio­nal investors.”

Part­ners Group’s previous flag­ship direct infra­struc­ture fund curr­ently has a net IRR of 15.5% and a net TVPI of 1.51x (fund closed in 2018; perfor­mance as of Septem­ber 30, 2021. Past perfor­mance is not indi­ca­tive of future results. There can be no assu­rance that simi­lar results will be achie­ved in the future. Values are for illus­tra­tive purpo­ses only).

News

Munich — REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance advi­sed the listed Danish H+H Group on the majo­rity take­over of DOMAPOR GmbH & Co KG — a manu­fac­tu­rer of aerated concrete and sand-lime bricks based in Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern — and the acqui­si­tion of the Fran­co­nian aerated concrete manu­fac­tu­rer Greisel.

H + H conti­nues its growth course in the aerated concrete and sand-lime brick sector. The acqui­si­ti­ons of Grei­sel and DOMAPOR repre­sent a further stra­te­gic mile­stone in the expan­sion of the Group’s German busi­ness and produc­tion capa­ci­ties. Grei­sel’s plant in Feucht­wan­gen provi­des H + H with an aerated concrete presence in Bava­ria for the first time. At the same time, DOMA­POR’s market posi­tion and coverage in nort­hern Germany will be further signi­fi­cantly strengthened.

H+H Inter­na­tio­nal A/S, based in Copen­ha­gen, is one of the leading produ­cers of wall-buil­ding mate­ri­als in Europe. The group of compa­nies opera­tes 29 plants in Germany, the United King­dom, Poland and Switz­er­land and achie­ved sales of over EUR 400 million in 2021.

REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance has compre­hen­si­vely supported the H+H Group as M&A advi­sor in the initia­tion, struc­tu­ring and nego­tia­tion of the two transactions.

About REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance

REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance specia­li­zes in advi­sing on the sale and acqui­si­tion of compa­nies (M&A), MBO/MBI and struc­tu­ring of finan­cing. As “M&A specia­list for medium-sized compa­nies” REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance offers perso­nal M&A consul­ting for owner-mana­ged and family-mana­ged compa­nies with a turno­ver between 10 million and 100 million EUR as well as for their share­hol­ders and inves­tors. Foun­der Kai Sessing­haus has 25 years of expe­ri­ence in this segment and is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced M&A advi­sors for medium-sized tran­sac­tions in Germany.

 

News

Hamburg — Liberty Fashion Holding GmbH is chan­ging its owner­ship struc­ture: inves­tor Peter Wolf — who previously alre­ady held a mino­rity stake — has taken over all shares in the women’s fashion chain from invest­ment company Arca­dia and CEO Peter Fried­rich. With the reor­ga­niza­tion, Liber­ty’s busi­ness model is to be consis­t­ently deve­lo­ped into a rele­vant omni-chan­nel player with the expan­sion of its online busi­ness but also of its bricks-and-mortar retail. The tran­sac­tion was finan­ced prima­rily with mezza­nine capi­tal from VR Equi­typ­art­ner, one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The role of Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners supported the inves­tor Peter Wolf in the initia­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the tran­sac­tion as M&A advi­sor. Proven­tis Part­ners prepared the busi­ness plan for Liberty Fashion, imple­men­ted the struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion with the finan­cing part­ners and accom­pa­nied the share­hol­der nego­tia­ti­ons until the successful conclu­sion of the contract.

About Liberty Fashion
Liberty has been opera­ting as a statio­nary textile retailer for women’s outer­wear from its head­quar­ters in Lübb­ecke, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, since 1976. With its products in the upper mid-price segment, the fashion chain store caters to the target group of women between 40 and 55 years of age, with a focus on casual fashion. With its more than 500 employees in around 114 company-owned stores and the online store (www.liberty-woman.com/), it curr­ently serves the German market exclu­si­vely. The stores are charac­te­ri­zed by easily acces­si­ble premium loca­ti­ons in pede­strian zones of medium-sized cities with a popu­la­tion of 40,000 or more. The product range is largely produ­ced in Europe, which gene­ra­tes flexi­ble and short lead times and has a posi­tive effect on supply capa­bi­lity — both in the long term and in the current tight supply situation.

Advi­sor to inves­tor Peter Wolf: Proven­tis Partners
Ulrich Schnei­der, photo (Part­ner, Hamburg) and Timo Stahl­buhk (Direc­tor, Hamburg).

About Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A advi­sory firm whose clients include a majo­rity of mid-sized family busi­nesses, corpo­rate subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With more than 30 M&A advi­sors, Proven­tis Part­ners is one of the largest inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancies in the German-spea­king region and looks back on 20 years of M&A expe­ri­ence and more than 300 comple­ted tran­sac­tions. The M&A consul­tants with offices in Düssel­dorf, Hamburg, Munich and Zurich are active in the sectors Indus­tri­als & Chemi­cals, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT, Health­care and Energy & Sustaina­bi­lity. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — enables Proven­tis Part­ners to assist clients in 30 count­ries in key markets world­wide. Mergers Alli­ance members, with over 200 M&A profes­sio­nals, provide Proven­tis Part­ners, and thus its clients, with unique access to local markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

News

Munich — With the support of the AUCTUS Group, which recently acqui­red a majo­rity stake in MAI Marke­ting Auto­ma­tion Intel­li­gence GmbH (“MAI Group”), MAI Group has estab­lished a new holding company consis­ting of seven exis­ting service compa­nies. POELLATH advi­ses digi­tal agen­cies on merger with MAI Group and sale of majo­rity stake to AUCTUS Capital.

The agen­cies crsd, Digi­tal­be­ra­tung, Hanse CRM, Kamano, Klaro Media, Leonex and media­worx have joined forces for this purpose. Toge­ther they form a group with 300 employees at six loca­ti­ons in Hamburg, Berlin, Colo­gne, Munich, Pader­born and Vienna. MAI Group’s services range from campaign stra­tegy and concep­tion to crea­tion and bran­ding, soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment and tech­no­logy imple­men­ta­tion. The agency group is headed by Oliver Czok and Klaus-Stephan Wendt, who foun­ded the adver­ti­sing agency deep­blue networks in Hamburg back in 2001 and later sold it to Scholz & Friends.

MAI Group, head­quar­te­red in Hamburg, Germany, is a leading holding company for modern digi­tal and data services in the German-spea­king region, brin­ging toge­ther the best digi­tal and data service provi­ders to help compa­nies opti­mize costs and increase reve­nue by acqui­ring new custo­mers and main­tai­ning opti­mal custo­mer loyalty.

AUCTUS Capi­tal Part­ners AG is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company foun­ded by entre­pre­neurs with a fund capi­tal of over EUR 800 million, which curr­ently mana­ges 47 plat­form invest­ments in various sectors of the economy.

POELLATH advi­sed theowners of the digi­tal agen­cies in connec­tion with the sale and a re-invest­ment as well as the merger into a holding company with the follo­wing team:

Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Berlin/Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Taxes, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Part­ner, Cartel, Frankfurt)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, M&A/VC, Berlin/Munich)
Markus Döll­ner, LL.M. (London) (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, IP/IT, Frankfurt)

Consul­tant AUCTUS Group: BUB MEMMINGER & PARTNER

Dr. Peter Memmin­ger, LL.M. (Miami) of fully advi­sed the AUCTUS Group with a team from various disci­pli­nes and lead struc­tu­red the transaction.

News

Munich — Norton Rose Fulbright has advi­sed mobi­lity budget startup MOBIKO GmbH on a finan­cing round by Swiss insu­rance group Baloise. Baloise invests a seven-figure sum in MOBIKO. In addi­tion to Baloise and the exis­ting inves­tors Audi Busi­ness Inno­va­tion GmbH and mantro GmbH, the startup Family Office based in Wein­gar­ten is also invol­ved in the finan­cing round.

The startup company MOBIKO (short for mobi­lity quota) offers employ­ers a monthly flexi­ble digi­tal mobi­lity budget for all employees. With this tool, each employee uses his or her budget indi­vi­du­ally and is rewarded for envi­ron­men­tally friendly mobi­lity beha­vior. MOBIKO was deve­lo­ped by Audi Busi­ness Inno­va­tion toge­ther with the Munich-based company mantro and spun off as an inde­pen­dent GmbH in 2018.

Audi Busi­ness Inno­va­tion GmbH (ABI) is a wholly owned subsi­diary of AUDI AG and focu­ses on the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of digi­tal concepts and products. ABI provi­des relia­ble IT plat­forms for AUDI AG and the Volks­wa­gen Group.

mantro GmbH, based in Munich, supports medium-sized compa­nies and corpo­ra­ti­ons in the deve­lo­p­ment of new digi­tal busi­ness models. With more than 16 years of expe­ri­ence and 28 foun­ded ventures, mantro has become a specia­list for digi­ta­liza­tion and company building.

The Startup Family Office builds up young compa­nies with venture capi­tal and active support from expe­ri­en­ced entre­pre­neurs from medium-sized busi­nesses in a targe­ted manner and supports foun­ders holi­sti­cally, effec­tively and sustain­ably in the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive solutions.

“The concept of MOBIKO convin­ced us, as it can change the mobi­lity of compa­nies and their employees in a sustainable way. With MOBI­KO’s mobi­lity budget, employ­ers can cover the indi­vi­dual needs of their employees and consider all mobi­lity solu­ti­ons. This maxi­mum flexi­bi­lity, combi­ned with incen­ti­ves, leads to signi­fi­cantly more envi­ron­men­tally friendly mobi­lity beha­vior,” says Patrick Wirth (photo), Head of Mobi­lity Unit at Baloise. The Swiss insu­rance group Baloise employs around 7,700 people and is among the top 5 Swiss insu­r­ers for private indi­vi­du­als and compa­nies. Baloise was foun­ded in 1863 and gene­ra­tes annual sales of appro­xi­m­ately CHF 9 billion. Core markets are Switz­er­land, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Advi­sors to MOBIKO GmbH: Norton Rose Fulbright
Lead Part­ner Sebas­tian Frech (Corpo­rate, M&A, Venture Capital);
Part­ner Dr. Tim Scha­per (Anti­trust), Asso­cia­tes Sebas­tian Eisen­hut (Corpo­rate, M&A, Venture Capi­tal), Mari­anne Milo­va­nov (Corpo­rate, M&A, Venture Capi­tal) and Rese­arch Asso­ciate Dennis Hoetzl.

Audi was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by the law firm GLNS in Munich.

Advi­sor Baloise: Law firm YPOG, Berlin

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 4,000 lawy­ers in over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal companies.

We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice in all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal, regu­la­tory, compli­ance and gover­nance matters. This enables us to provide our clients with prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face.

The Swiss asso­cia­tion Norton Rose Fulbright helps to coor­di­nate the acti­vi­ties of Norton Rose Fulbright members, but does not provide legal advice to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in more than 50 cities world­wide, inclu­ding London, Hous­ton, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney and Johan­nes­burg. www.nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices

News

Zurich — Syz Capi­tal, the private markets invest­ment boutique, today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in SK Pharma Logi­stics, a provi­der specia­li­zing in the storage, hand­ling, repack­a­ging and distri­bu­tion of phar­maceu­ti­cal products. With the support of the Syz family and in close part­ner­ship with Satur­nus Capi­tal, Syz Capi­tal aims to drive the growth of this strong market leader and acce­le­rate its expan­sion to ensure the company conti­nues to soar.

SK Pharma is a family-run company based in Biele­feld, Germany, provi­ding services to phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies in Europe and world­wide. The indus­try leader specia­li­zes in phar­maceu­ti­cal, medi­cal, cosme­tic and dietary products. The company’s offe­ring covers the entire logi­stics value chain and provi­des complete solu­ti­ons for customers.

With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28% over the last three years, the company can look back on remar­kable growth that exceeds that of the German health­care indus­try over the last ten years by a factor of seven. The company expects further growth as the regu­la­tory envi­ron­ment beco­mes more strin­gent and the indus­try as a whole is expec­ted to grow steadily over the next few years.

Marc Syz, Mana­ging Part­ner of Syz Capi­tal (photo), says: “We believe this is a unique oppor­tu­nity to help the family busi­ness expand its busi­ness and foot­print, both through orga­nic growth and acqui­si­ti­ons, and thus conso­li­date the rela­tively frag­men­ted sector serving inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers. With SK Pharma, we have indeed found another niche leader, a so-called “hidden cham­pion”, which offers a strong plat­form for future value creation.

The deal also illus­tra­tes the value crea­tion poten­tial for our clients’ port­fo­lios and how Syz Capi­tal is unlo­cking unique synergy oppor­tu­ni­ties in private equity and alter­na­tive investments.”

Syz Capi­tal is an invest­ment boutique specia­li­zing in private markets, offe­ring exclu­sive access to niche private equity and alter­na­tive investments.

Joscha Boehm, Mana­ging Part­ner of Satur­nus Capi­tal and Phil­ipp Schwei­zer, Part­ner at Satur­nus Capi­tal, who execu­ted this tran­sac­tion toge­ther with Syz Capi­tal, commen­ted, “We look forward to working closely with the foun­ders and the manage­ment team to further deve­lop SK Pharma in the coming years. We believe SK Pharma is extre­mely well posi­tio­ned as a well-mana­ged company to conti­nue to grow and gain market share.” Satur­nus Capi­tal is a private equity firm focu­sing on mid-market tran­sac­tions in the DACH region.

The acqui­si­tion repres­ents another important mile­stone for Syz Capi­tal in the family busi­ness sector. Both Satur­nus and Marc Syz will join SK Phar­ma’s board, which includes the Krone family and Phil­ippe Milliet, a former member of Gale­ni­ca’s execu­tive commit­tee and vete­ran indus­try veteran.

Stephan Krone, CEO of SK Pharma Logi­stics GmbH, added: “In our view, Syz Capi­tal and Satur­nus Capi­tal, with their exten­sive expe­ri­ence in inves­t­ing in family busi­nesses, are the ideal part­ners to guide SK Pharma through its next growth phase and beyond, crea­ting value for our custo­mers and part­ners. They have a clear growth stra­tegy for the future. The manage­ment team and myself are looking forward to the part­ner­ship and to buil­ding SK Pharma into a major Euro­pean player in the logi­stics sector for the phar­maceu­ti­cal industry.”

About the Syz Group

Syz Group is a family-owned Swiss finan­cial group that focu­ses on good long-term invest­ment perfor­mance, robust risk manage­ment and perso­na­li­zed custo­mer service. In a family of entre­pre­neurs that has been successful for centu­ries, the company was co-foun­ded in 1996 by Eric Syz, who now runs it with his two sons and a team of indus­try experts. Stable and secure — the Syz Group’s equity capi­ta­liza­tion is almost double the regu­la­tory requi­re­ment in Switzerland.

News

Stuttgart/ Munich — The inves­tor Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Theo­bald Soft­ware GmbH (“Theo­bald Soft­ware”). Foun­der and share­hol­der Patrick Theo­bald will with­draw from the manage­ment in the future, but will conti­nue to hold an inte­rest in the company. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close by the end of Febru­ary 2022. POELLATH advi­sed the manage­ment of Theo­bald Soft­ware in the context of the sale regar­ding the manage­ment participation.

Stutt­gart-based Theo­bald Soft­ware GmbH is a leading global provi­der of intel­li­gent inter­faces for the inte­gra­tion of SAP and non-SAP systems into Micro­soft envi­ron­ments and third-party systems for BI / Analy­tics as well as data­ba­ses, analy­tics plat­forms and cloud solu­ti­ons. From its five offices in Europe, the USA and Asia, the company serves over 3,500 custo­mers of all sizes and from all sectors, inclu­ding nume­rous medium-sized compa­nies and a large majo­rity of DAX-listed companies.

Bregal entre­pre­neu­rial capi­tal is part of a family busi­ness built over gene­ra­ti­ons. The invest­ment company focu­ses on compa­nies that have strong manage­ment teams and are conside­red market leaders or “hidden cham­pi­ons” in their respec­tive segments. Bregal and Theo­bald Soft­ware intend to jointly drive the company’s growth course succes­si­vely across addi­tio­nal target markets, inclu­ding through invest­ments in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, in order to further expand its tech­no­logy leader­ship in the area of SAP interfaces.

POELLATH advi­sed the manage­ment of Theo­bald Soft­ware GmbH in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion with the follo­wing Munich team:
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Manage­ment Participation/ Private Equity)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation/ Private Equity)

News

Frank­furt am Main/Berlin — German Equity Part­ners V (“GEP V” or the “Fund”), a fund mana­ged by the inde­pen­dent German private equity firm ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”), has inves­ted in the Berlin-based social media and influen­cer marke­ting specia­list Inter­mate Group, consis­ting of Inter­mate Media GmbH (“Inter­mate”) and TRUEMATES GmbH (“True­ma­tes”), through a part­ner­ship investment.

The fast-growing social media agency Inter­mate and the “social first” produc­tion company True­ma­tes specia­lize in the concep­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of social media and influen­cer campaigns on all social plat­forms as well as the produc­tion of the corre­spon­ding content. The Group is a leader in Germany, parti­cu­larly in campaigns and the deve­lo­p­ment of brand chan­nels for compa­nies on the fast-growing social media plat­form TikTok.

Toge­ther with ECM, the company foun­ders Ales­san­dro De Pasquale, Jörn Mecher, Philip Papen­dieck, Sonja Wolff and Phil­ipp Wolff want to conti­nue the success story of the Inter­mate Group and expand the enorm­ous poten­tial in the fast-growing area of social media and influen­cer marke­ting as well as in social commerce, which is expec­ted to grow about three times as fast as tradi­tio­nal online commerce by 2025. The foun­ders remain substan­ti­ally invol­ved and will conti­nue to lead and deve­lop the Inter­mate Group as mana­ging part­ners. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the transaction.

Philip Papen­dieck, co-foun­der, part­ner and CEO of Inter­mateIn order to posi­tion our clients and part­ners as the stron­gest play­ers in their indus­try in the social and influen­cer market, we will conti­nue to invest in our crea­tive and stra­te­gic infra­struc­ture, content studios, recrui­ting and social talent, as well as in our tech­no­logy. In addi­tion, we will expand our own formats Daily Pie and the VERTIES, also under the aspect of social commerce and meta­verse. With ECM, we have found a part­ner who, toge­ther with us, is rapidly expan­ding an agency model of the future, both tech­no­lo­gi­cally and crea­tively. The part­ner­ship now gives us the tail­wind to further main­tain and expand the market posi­tion we have built up within our seven years of existence.”

Florian Kähler, Part­ner and Mana­ging Direc­tor of ECM (photo), added: “The Inter­mate Group has an impres­sive market posi­tion in the rapidly growing market for social media marke­ting in Germany, for which we also see great poten­tial in the coming years. Buil­ding on Inter­ma­te’s proprie­tary tech­no­logy, we want to conti­nue the company’s success story toge­ther and expand into new markets and busi­ness areas. I look forward to part­ne­ring with Inter­mate Group’s ambi­tious and dyna­mic manage­ment team.”

Inter­mate connects successful brands with young generations
on social media platforms

Inter­mate was foun­ded in Berlin in 2015, initi­ally under the name Insta Media. In 2016, the company was rena­med Inter­mate. With a rapidly growing team, Inter­mate is one of the leading agen­cies for social media and influen­cer marke­ting in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company’s strong focus on crea­tors in parti­cu­lar has enab­led it to estab­lish an outstan­ding posi­tion in the social space. For influen­cer selec­tion, campaign plan­ning, and report­ing, Inter­mate uses a complex, proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gi­cal ecosys­tem. Using its unique tech­no­logy plat­form, Inter­mate has signi­fi­cantly acce­le­ra­ted its proces­ses and work­flows in these areas, achie­ving unique and effec­tive social media and influen­cer campaigns for clients.

In recent years, Inter­mate has imple­men­ted a number of successful campaigns for major clients and inter­na­tio­nal brand compa­nies from all indus­tries, inclu­ding Volks­wa­gen, Beiers­dorf and Deich­mann. The produc­tion of elabo­rate formats takes place in the company’s own studio in Berlin Char­lot­ten­burg with the spin-off produc­tion company True­ma­tes, which focu­ses prima­rily on verti­cal video content. In total, the Group curr­ently employs around 110 people in its two produc­tion studios in Berlin and its four office loca­ti­ons in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Vienna. The profi­ta­ble company has grown rapidly in recent years, doubling its work­force since 2018 and tripling its reve­nue. Inter­mate and True­ma­tes and its own formats Daily Pie and VERTIES now operate under the new name Inter­mate Group.

ECM brings entre­pre­neu­rial and stra­te­gic exper­tise, rele­vant network, and deep expe­ri­ence in imple­men­ting growth strategies

The invest­ment company ECM has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the imple­men­ta­tion of growth and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­te­gies, which it has alre­ady brought to bear in nume­rous part­ner­ship invest­ments. With ECM’s exper­tise, Inter­mate plans to conti­nue the pace of growth seen in recent years. The part­ners see great poten­tial in parti­cu­lar in the struc­tu­rally growing market for social commerce and in the busi­ness with influen­cer campaigns on the social media plat­form TikTok, which is gaining stron­gly in importance. In the German-spea­king markets, Inter­mate is one of the abso­lute specia­lists for social media and influen­cer marke­ting campaigns on the plat­form, which is parti­cu­larly popu­lar with youn­ger generations.

In the coming years, the Berlin-based company intends to build on its leading market posi­tion in this area toge­ther with ECM and also expand in other Euro­pean count­ries. Ambi­tious growth plans are also being pursued by Inter­mate, with ECM’s support, to expand other chan­nels such as the self-built and opera­ted plat­forms Daily Pie, the number one enter­tain­ment chan­nel on TikTok, and VERTIES, a content crea­tor award on TikTok presen­ted by the agency. Against this back­drop, the part­ners intend to adapt Inter­mate Group’s orga­niza­tio­nal struc­tures to its highly scaled busi­ness and streng­then opera­tio­nal excel­lence. Beyond orga­nic growth, Inter­mate Group plans to evaluate suita­ble add-on acqui­si­ti­ons with ECM’s support.

Great growth poten­tial in social commerce
and with influen­cer campaigns on TikTok.

The growth plans are supported by the expec­ted dyna­mic market growth in the coming years. Digi­tal consul­tancy OMMAX predicts that the German market for influen­cer marke­ting alone will grow from €1.1 billion in 2020 to €2.3 billion in 2024. On average, OMMAX expects the market to grow by around 20 percent annu­ally. The reason for the expec­ted leap in market growth is, in parti­cu­lar, incre­asing social media consump­tion. In 2021, about 90 percent of all smart­phone users were active on social media, each of whom had nearly nine social media accounts on average. The wide­spread use of social media makes it incre­asingly attrac­tive for compa­nies to promote their brands on the various plat­forms with the help of influen­cer campaigns. They enable them to reach youn­ger gene­ra­ti­ons Y and Z in particular.

GEP V was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Milbank (legal and struc­tu­ring), OMMAX (commer­cial), Ebner Stolz (finance & tax), Houli­han Lokey (debt advi­sory) and Willis Towers Watson (insu­rance). Florian Kähler, Tim Krume and Bene­dikt Müller are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion at ECM. Inter­mate was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (M&A) as well as Hyac­inth and GLNS (legal & struc­tu­ring), KPMG (finance) and the tax firm Brunow (tax).

About ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”)

ECM is a trus­ted part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies and entre­pre­neurs in German-spea­king Europe. Since 1995, ECM has laun­ched the GEP I‑V equity funds with a total volume of more than €1 billion and is curr­ently inves­t­ing from the fifth fund GEP V (€325 million). The funds invest prima­rily in leading medium-sized compa­nies with attrac­tive growth poten­tial in the course of succes­sion plan­ning, part­ner­ship invest­ments and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.ecm-pe.de

About Inter­mate Group (“Inter­mate” and “True­ma­tes”)

With over 110 employees and offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Vienna, the Inter­mate Group is one of the largest social agen­cies in DACH. With its own produc­tion company True­ma­tes, its own content studios, a holi­stic in-house deve­lo­ped influen­cer tech­no­logy and the influen­cer and social agency Inter­mate, the group has been able to estab­lish a leading posi­tion in the social market with its strong crea­tor-centric focus.

Through a close connec­tion directly to the plat­forms and by means of its own tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture, the Inter­mate Group offers the complete value chain on social media from a single source: influen­cer campaigns, crea­tor-centric social media manage­ment, content produc­tion and perfor­mance ads. Through its own inven­tory and formats, such as the TikTok show Daily Pie with nearly 1,000,000 follo­wers or the VERTIES, the “Oscars” of TikTok crea­tors, Inter­mate Group can demons­tra­bly bring first-hand social exper­tise to clients’ stra­te­gies and concepts. These now include compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons such as o2 Tele­fó­nica, Beiers­dorf, Volks­wa­gen, the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Health, ALDI Nord and HUAWEI. www.intermate-group.de

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