Author: Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt a. M. / London — The inter­na­tio­nal private equity firms Bain Capi­tal and Cinven have signed a binding agree­ment to sell a majo­rity stake in STADA Arznei­mit­tel AG (“STADA”) to CapVest Part­ners LLP (“CapVest”). Since the take­over by the two PE compa­nies, Stada has grown by nine percent annu­ally and now gene­ra­tes annual sales of more than four billion euros. — The gene­rics manu­fac­tu­rer was conside­red one of the hottest IPO candi­da­tes this year. 

Bain Capi­tal and Cinven acqui­red STADA in 2017 and subse­quently delis­ted the company from the stock exch­ange. Since then, they have supported the manage­ment team in trans­forming STADA from a tradi­tio­nal German gene­rics manu­fac­tu­rer into a leading, broad-based global health­care plat­form with a stra­te­gic focus on the three areas of consu­mer health­care, gene­rics and specialty phar­maceu­ti­cals. Under the owner­ship of Bain Capi­tal and Cinven, STADA has increased its sales to over EUR 4 billion, achie­ved an average annual growth rate of 9 percent and more than doubled its EBITDA (adjus­ted earnings before inte­rest, taxes, depre­cia­tion and amortization). 

Bain Capi­tal and Cinven have supported STADA in over 25 targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons to further expand its market presence in Europe and beyond. The most important acqui­si­ti­ons include the Nizoral brand from John­son & John­son, Walm­ark and port­fo­lios of various consu­mer health­care brands from Glax­oS­mit­h­Kline and Sanofi. Thanks to the invest­ments and exper­tise of both compa­nies, STADA is now one of the leading health­care and phar­maceu­ti­cal groups in Europe. 

CapVest as new part­ner with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in health­care invest­ments. With exten­sive indus­try know­ledge and a strong track record in health­care invest­ments, CapVest is the ideal part­ner to accom­pany STADA in its next phase of growth. CapVest also shares the prin­ci­ples that have shaped STADA’s
success to date: respon­si­ble owner­ship, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and long-term value creation. 

Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, Bain Capi­tal and Cinven intend to retain a mino­rity stake in STADA — a clear sign of their confi­dence in the company’s contin­ued growth poten­tial and the exper­tise of the manage­ment team.

Peter Gold­schmidt, CEO of STADA, said: “Bain Capi­tal and Cinven have been excel­lent part­ners on our jour­ney to become a global market leader in consu­mer health­care, gene­rics and specialty phar­maceu­ti­cals. Their support and confi­dence in our vision has enab­led us to acce­le­rate our growth, drive inno­va­tion and expand inter­na­tio­nally. We look forward to buil­ding on our leading posi­tion toge­ther with CapVest.”

Dr. Michael Siefke, Part­ner at Bain Capi­tal, said: “Since our invest­ment in 2017, we are proud to have accom­pa­nied STADA on its path to beco­ming a leading pharma plat­form in Europe. Toge­ther with Cinven and the outstan­ding manage­ment team, we were able to scale the consu­mer health­care busi­ness, streng­then the gene­rics busi­ness and expand the specialty phar­maceu­ti­cals segment. The successful exit demons­tra­tes the growth poten­tial of the company and the great commit­ment of its employees.”

Bruno Schick, Co-Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of DACH at Cinven, added: “STADA has deve­lo­ped extre­mely well in recent years. Toge­ther with Bain Capi­tal and the manage­ment team, we have supported STADA in shar­pe­ning its stra­te­gic focus, expan­ding its inter­na­tio­nal presence and inves­t­ing heavily in inno­va­tion, digi­ta­liza­tion and opera­tio­nal excellence
. The estab­lish­ment of an agile manage­ment team and modern gover­nance struc­tures was central to this. With the new owner­ship struc­ture and CapVest by our side, we look forward to conti­nuing STADA’s jour­ney as a mino­rity investor.” 

Jeffe­ries and Roth­schild & Co are support­ing the tran­sac­tion as M&A advi­sors. In addi­tion, Bain and Cinven were advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Morgan Stan­ley, JP Morgan, Gold­man Sachs and Deut­sche Bank in addi­tion to their role as global IPO coor­di­na­tors. Other advi­sors included Kirk­land & Ellis, EY, BCG and ERM. — Finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. The closing is subject to the 

About Cinven

Cinven is a leading inter­na­tio­nal private equity firm focu­sed on buil­ding world-class global busi­nesses. Cinven focu­ses on six sectors: Consu­mer, Busi­ness Services, Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Indus­tri­als and TMT (Tech­no­logy,
Media and Tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons). Cinven has offices in major centers such as London, Frank­furt, Paris, Milan, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, New York and Guern­sey. The firm takes a respon­si­ble approach to its port­fo­lio compa­nies, their employees, suppli­ers, local commu­ni­ties, the
envi­ron­ment and society as a whole. 

The manage­ment compa­nies of the Cinven Funds, Cinven Capi­tal Manage­ment (V) Gene­ral Part­ner Limi­ted, Cinven Capi­tal Manage­ment (VI) Gene­ral Part­ner Limi­ted, Cinven Capi­tal Manage­ment (VII) Gene­ral Part­ner Limi­ted and Cinven Capi­tal Manage­ment (SFF) Gene­ral Part­ner Limi­ted, are each licen­sed and regu­la­ted by the Guern­sey Financial
Services Commis­sion. Cinven Limi­ted, the advi­ser to the manage­ment compa­nies of the Cinven funds, is a regu­la­ted entity by the Finan­cial Conduct Autho­rity. In this press release, ‘Cinven’ means, indi­vi­du­ally or coll­ec­tively, as the context requi­res, Cinven Holdings Guern­sey Limi­ted, Cinven Part­ner­ship LLP and their respec­tive part­ners (as defi­ned in the Compa­nies Act 2006) and/or funds mana­ged or advi­sed by any of the foregoing.
http://www.cinven.com or 

About Bain Capital

Foun­ded in 1984, Bain Capi­tal is one of the worl­d’s leading private invest­ment firms. We are commit­ted to deli­ve­ring sustainable
results for our inves­tors, teams, compa­nies and the commu­ni­ties in which we operate. As a private part­ner­ship, we lead with convic­tion and a culture of colla­bo­ra­tion — advan­ta­ges that enable us to deve­lop inno­va­tive invest­ment approa­ches, capi­ta­lize on oppor­tu­ni­ties and deli­ver excep­tio­nal results. Our global plat­form invests in five core areas: Private Equity, Growth & Venture, Capi­tal Solu­ti­ons, Credit & Capi­tal Markets and Real Assets. We are repre­sen­ted in 24 loca­ti­ons on four conti­nents, employ more than 1,850 people and have assets under manage­ment of around USD 185 billion. — www.baincapital.com

About STADA Arznei­mit­tel AG

STADA Arznei­mit­tel AG is based in Bad Vilbel, Hesse. The company focu­ses on a three-pillar stra­tegy consis­ting of consu­mer health­care products, gene­rics and specialty phar­maceu­ti­cals. STADA Arznei­mit­tel AG sells its products in more than 120 count­ries world­wide. In finan­cial year 2024, STADA achieved
Group sales of €4,059 million and adjus­ted earnings before inte­rest, taxes, depre­cia­tion and amortization. 

Advi­sor CAPVEST: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP

The Will­kie team compri­sed part­ners David Arnold (Corporate/PE, London), Dr. Nils Röver (Corporate/PE, Munich/Hamburg), Andrew Gray (Corporate/PE, London, all three lead), Dr. Kamyar Abrar, Georg
Linde (both Corporate/PE, Frank­furt), Dr. Bettina Bokeloh, Dr. Patrick Meiisel (both Tax, Frank­furt), Matthias Schr­a­der (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt), Rita Mitchell (Liti­ga­tion, London), Rahul Saha (Anti­trust, London), Dr. Georg Weiden­bach (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Dr. Richard Roeder (Compli­ance, Munich), Anne Kleff­mann (Employ­ment, Munich), Coun­sel Jacob Ahme (Corporate/PE, Munich/Hamburg), Henning Aufderhaar
(real estate law), Harry Nett­lau (liti­ga­tion), Martin Waskow­ski (employ­ment law, all Frank­furt), Alaric Green (anti­trust law, London) as well as asso­cia­tes Nils Bock, Patrick Kemper, Melina Terwes­ten, Jonas Volk, Sophie Wollen­we­ber (all corporate/PE), Dr. Phil­ipp Stein­hau­sen (finance) Dr. Chris­tian Wert­h­mül­ler (real estate law), Sascha Wink­ler (employ­ment law, all Frank­furt), Fabiola Haas, Maxi­mi­lian Schatz, Micheal Wies­ner, Dr. Zeno Wirtz (all corporate/PE), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schlutz (compli­ance) and Laurin Havlik (anti­trust law, all Munich).

Advi­sor STADA: POELLATH advi­sed the manage­ment of STADA in connec­tion with the invest­ment by CapVest regar­ding the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion with the follo­wing Munich team:

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE)
Ida Süß, LL.M. (UCLA) (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE)

About Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP provi­des leading legal solu­ti­ons to complex, busi­ness-criti­cal issues that span markets and indus­tries. Our appro­xi­m­ately 1,300 lawy­ers in 16 offices world­wide provide inno­va­tive, prag­ma­tic and sophisti­ca­ted legal services in around 45 areas of law.
www.willkie.com

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in MAIT GmbH (MAIT). The company is a leading digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for SMEs. In a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), the DBAG-advi­sed private equity fund DBAG Fund VIII will acquire all shares in MAIT. The closing of the purchase agree­ment is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is sche­du­led for the fourth quar­ter. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. In the course of the MBO, the mana­ging direc­tors and other mana­gers will substan­ti­ally reinvest in MAIT.

From system house to holi­stic solu­tion provi­der for ERP, PLM and IT

MAIT’s history dates back to 1957. Origi­nally an office orga­niza­tion company, it initi­ally deve­lo­ped into a system house before beco­ming an end-to-end digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try with its head­quar­ters in Rott­weil. The company ranks 6th in the Lünen­donk list of the top 10 medium-sized IT consul­ting and soft­ware inte­gra­tion compa­nies and has more than 25 loca­ti­ons spread across Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and Bene­lux. From there, around 900 employees support around 7,000 custo­mers. Most of these are medium-sized manu­fac­tu­ring companies. 

MAIT’s inte­gra­ted solu­tion port­fo­lio — consis­ting of PLM-ERP soft­ware and IT services — forms a compre­hen­sive offe­ring along the entire value chain. This supports custo­mers on their long-term digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney. The aim is to create a “digi­tal home” for all product, produc­tion-rela­ted and commer­cial data. This crea­tes a digi­tal busi­ness frame­work that supports MAIT’s custo­mers in beco­ming sustainable, effi­ci­ent and trans­pa­rent “model-based” and data-driven compa­nies. PLM (Product Life­cy­cle Manage­ment) and ERP (Enter­prise Resource Plan­ning) solu­ti­ons are highly rele­vant for compa­nies in the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try. MAIT is one of the largest and longest-stan­ding stra­te­gic part­ners of leading global soft­ware compa­nies for their imple­men­ta­tion. In order to meet custo­mer-speci­fic requi­re­ments, MAIT supple­ments PLM and ERP systems with its own soft­ware modu­les. The company also offers cloud and mana­ged services. 

The high level of custo­mer satis­fac­tion is reflec­ted in the long-term nature of the busi­ness rela­ti­onships. More than 60% of all custo­mer rela­ti­onships have exis­ted for more than a decade. 

Jannick Hune­cke (© dbag), member of the Manage­ment Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, says: “With MAIT, we are support­ing a leading digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for indus­trial SMEs that fits seam­lessly into our port­fo­lio. More than 20 percent of this port­fo­lio now consists of compa­nies in the IT services and soft­ware sector. MAIT combi­nes in-depth, end-to-end process know-how with excel­lent tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise and has a strong base of recur­ring reve­nues. We will support MAIT’s manage­ment in shaping the next phase of growth.”

The tran­sac­tion unders­cores DBAG’s role as a pace­set­ter in the resur­gent German M&A market: after the invest­ment in FinMatch, MAIT is alre­ady the second invest­ment within a few weeks. “We are selec­tively seizing oppor­tu­ni­ties in an envi­ron­ment that is still charac­te­ri­zed by uncer­tainty. This dyna­mic demons­tra­tes our ability to iden­tify and deve­lop first-class growth compa­nies even in chal­len­ging phases,” conti­nues Jannick Hunecke. 

Market envi­ron­ment and strategy

Accor­ding to indus­try analy­ses, the market for PLM services will grow by nine to twelve percent annu­ally until 2030; pene­tra­tion in medium-sized mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring compa­nies is only around 50 percent. Driven by cost pres­sure, regu­la­tory requi­re­ments and shorter deve­lo­p­ment cycles, demand is rising conti­nuously. Thanks to long-stan­ding part­ner­ships with market-leading tech­no­logy part­ners and a proven buy-and-build stra­tegy — 24 successfully inte­gra­ted acqui­si­ti­ons to date — MAIT is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from this trend. 

Stefan Niehus­mann, CEO of MAIT, comm­ents on the tran­sac­tion: “With DBAG, we are gaining an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner who under­stands our busi­ness model and will support our growth in the long term. After 24 successfully inte­gra­ted acqui­si­ti­ons, DBAG’s exper­tise opens up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for us to roll out our plat­form inter­na­tio­nally and offer our custo­mers even more compre­hen­sive solutions.”

Toge­ther with MAIT, DBAG plans to struc­ture further add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. The aim is to use the frag­men­ta­tion of the market for further deve­lo­p­ment and to expand and further scale the inter­na­tio­nal business. 

About DBAG

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

Salzburg/ Düsseldorf/ Wipper­fürth — Dreyer Capi­tal has acqui­red BAFATEX Bellin­groth GmbH & Co KG. Just Finance acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor to Dreyer Capi­tal in this tran­sac­tion. BAFATEX Bellin­groth GmbH & Co KG was advi­sed by BELGRAVIA & CO on this transaction. 

Thanks to a struc­tu­red and closely coor­di­na­ted finan­cing process, the tran­sac­tion was imple­men­ted quickly and bindin­gly. The focus was on the conti­nua­tion and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of a specia­li­zed hidden cham­pion in the SME sector. The trus­ting coope­ra­tion between all parties and the clear stra­te­gic focus formed the basis for a successful tran­sac­tion process. 

BAFATEX Bellin­groth

BAFATEX Bellin­groth is an estab­lished supplier of tech­ni­cal nonwo­vens based in North Rhine-West­pha­lia. For over 60 years, the company has been deve­lo­ping and produ­cing high-quality scrims for appli­ca­ti­ons in the cons­truc­tion, textile and pack­a­ging indus­tries as well as in light­weight cons­truc­tion and the sports sector. The hando­ver to a new owner­ship struc­ture took place as part of a forward-looking succes­sion solu­tion. The exis­ting manage­ment will be gradu­ally supple­men­ted and inte­gra­ted into the future deve­lo­p­ment in the long term. 

Dreyer

Dreyer is an entre­pre­neu­rial family office based in Austria with many years of expe­ri­ence in inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region. The focus is on sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment and long-term part­ner­ships. The invest­ment in BAFATEX fits stra­te­gi­cally into the exis­ting port­fo­lio and is to be further expan­ded with an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team. The tran­sac­tion was hand­led by Dreyer Capi­tal GmbH under the leader­ship of Konstan­tin Dreyer. 

Konstan­tin Dreyer (photo © Dreyer), Mana­ging Part­ner of Dreyer Capi­tal, Salz­burg, on the coope­ra­tion with Just Finance:
“The acqui­si­tion of BAFATEX was a stra­te­gi­cally important step for us, in which relia­bi­lity, speed and struc­tu­ral thin­king were key. Our finan­cing consul­tant Markus Fong and Just Finance GmbH not only convin­ced us profes­sio­nally in terms of finan­cing, but also orga­ni­zed the entire finan­cing process with fore­sight and prag­ma­tism. Espe­ci­ally in the important sub-process of finan­cing, it is valuable for us as a family office to have a part­ner at our side who under­stands our entre­pre­neu­rial mind­set and reacts flexi­bly to complex requirements.”

Markus Fong, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Just Finance:
“The succes­sion solu­tion for BAFATEX impres­si­vely demons­tra­tes how the combi­na­tion of a successful hidden cham­pion in the SME sector and a highly profes­sio­nal family office can secure and deve­lop value in the long term.”

Advi­sor Dreyer Group: Just Finance — www.justfinance.de

Consul­tant BAFATEX Bellin­groth GmbH & Co KG: BELGRAVIA & CO. —www.belgravia-co.com

Munich — Global law firm Reed Smith is one of the main spon­sors of the inter­na­tio­nal confe­rence pema­com for private equity and M&A profes­sio­nals on Septem­ber 23, 2025 in Munich, one of the leading confe­ren­ces for cross-border mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons and private equity investments.

Since 2010, pema­com has been taking place annu­ally in paral­lel to the Okto­ber­fest in Munich with a growing number of visi­tors. What once began as a networ­king event in a small circle has deve­lo­ped over the years into a plat­form for inter­di­sci­pli­nary exch­ange on current deve­lo­p­ments in the markets, the economy and stra­te­gies for deal­ing with them. 

As this year’s keynote spea­ker, Prof. Dr. Herfried Münk­ler, one of Germany’s most influ­en­tial poli­ti­cal scien­tists, will give a lecture on the ques­tion “Make it great again — but how?” — how Europe can assert itself in the new geostra­te­gic world order.

“pema­com connects experts and direct market parti­ci­pants from leading German compa­nies, private equity funds, insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and consul­ting firms and offers a top-class plat­form for exch­ange and networ­king against the back­drop of the current chal­lenges for PE and M&A,” says Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs, Part­ner at Reed Smith in Munich and Co-Chair of pema­com (Photo© Reed Smith).

The focus of this year’s pema­com is on the econo­mic policy chal­lenges faced by inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting compa­nies in connec­tion with customs duties, import rest­ric­tions and invest­ment controls. This is accom­pa­nied by key issues rela­ting to digi­tal busi­ness models, future pros­pects for the health­care, biotech­no­logy and life scien­ces sectors as well as the ongo­ing deve­lo­p­ment of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and the resul­ting conse­quen­ces for the inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tion market. 

Niko­laus von Jacobs adds: “It will be exci­ting to see how trans­at­lan­tic trade rela­ti­ons deve­lop in the coming months and years. For many compa­nies, ente­ring into stra­te­gic part­ner­ships across conti­nents could be a solu­tion to gain access to inter­na­tio­nal markets.”

Infor­ma­tion on the pema­com event on 23.9.2025 at the Baye­ri­scher Hof in Munich and the current program can be found on the website www.pemacom.com

About Reed Smith

Reed Smith is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. The firm has been in exis­tence for more than 140 years and compri­ses >30 offices with 3,000 employees, inclu­ding 1,700 lawy­ers in Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia.
For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.reedsmith.com

Frank­furt a. M. — McDer­mott Will & Schulte has advi­sed the inter­na­tio­nal B2B data provi­der Cognism on the sale of Mainz-based NETSTAG GmbH to the French digi­tal marke­ting provi­der Posi­tive Group. The tran­sac­tion was comple­ted yester­day. Cognism, head­quar­te­red in London, is a leading sales intel­li­gence plat­form and provi­der of Euro­pean B2B data foun­ded in 2015. 

NETSTAG specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, marke­ting and distri­bu­tion of web appli­ca­ti­ons, mobile appli­ca­ti­ons and inter­net-based soft­ware solutions.

Advi­sor Cognism Limi­ted: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Frankfurt

Dr. Felix Ganzer, photo © MWE (Lead), Fatema Orjela (London; both Private Equity), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax), Dr. Chris­tian Dries­sen-Rolf (Employ­ment), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, IP, Munich); Asso­ciate: Dr. Chris­tian Lebrecht (Regu­la­tory)

About McDer­mott Will & Schulte

Leading orga­niza­ti­ons turn to our inter­na­tio­nal law firm, McDer­mott Will & Schulte, to better navi­gate legal chal­lenges, colla­bo­rate with leaders and achieve stron­ger results. Our more than 1,750 lawy­ers in over 20 offices world­wide rely on data-driven insights, close networ­king and unique indus­try expe­ri­ence to deli­ver on our promise: Always Better. In Germany, McDer­mott Will & Schulte Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP advi­ses you. — www.mwe.com/de

Colo­gne — GÖRG has compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed Enca­vis AG on the acqui­si­tion of a wind farm project in Sundern-Allen­dorf, Sauer­land. The tran­sac­tion for the wind farm, which is still under cons­truc­tion, compri­ses five Nordex N163 wind turbi­nes with a total capa­city of 34 MW. 

The seller, PNE AG, is buil­ding the wind farm and will hand over the turn­key project to Enca­vis. The wind farm, loca­ted around 50 kilo­me­ters from Dort­mund, is sche­du­led to go into opera­tion in the first half of 2026. With the expec­ted annual elec­tri­city produc­tion of 92 GWh, around 22,800 house­holds can be supplied with green energy. 

Enca­vis also relied on a GÖRG team led by Thoralf Herbold as well as Dr. Ruth Büchl-Winter and Dr. Ilka Mainz for this tran­sac­tion. The advice included the legal due dili­gence of the project as well as the draf­ting and nego­tia­tion of all project and acqui­si­tion agreements. 

GÖRG regu­larly advi­ses inves­tors, opera­tors and project deve­lo­pers on the acqui­si­tion, sale and realiza­tion of energy gene­ra­tion plants in the fields of wind, solar and storage technologies.

Enca­vis is one of the leading produ­cers of elec­tri­city from rene­wa­ble ener­gies in Europe. The company opera­tes a broadly diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of onshore wind parks, ground-moun­ted solar instal­la­ti­ons and battery storage systems in 13 Euro­pean count­ries — inclu­ding Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark and the Nether­lands. Enca­vis also offers insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in rene­wa­ble energy instal­la­ti­ons. With a total instal­led capa­city of over 3.8 giga­watts, Enca­vis makes a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to a sustainable energy supply and the achie­ve­ment of Euro­pean climate targets. 

Advi­sor Enca­vis AG: GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB
Thoralf Herbold, photo © Goerg (Lead, Part­ner, Energy Law, Cologne)
Dr. Ruth Büchl-Winter (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A, Cologne)
Dr. Ilka Mainz (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Energy Law, Cologne)
Niklas Fietz (Senior Asso­ciate, Public Commer­cial Law, Cologne)
Nele Motzek (Senior Asso­ciate, Finan­cing, Cologne)

About GÖRG

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

Nuremberg/ Frank­furt a. M. — Ardian, one of the worl­d’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, has arran­ged a unitran­che finan­cing for Carlyle Tech (Carlyle Europe Tech­no­logy Part­ners) to acquire Ingen­tis. The Nurem­berg-based company is a leading soft­ware provi­der that supports compa­nies in the visua­liza­tion, design, analy­sis and plan­ning of orga­niza­tio­nal and person­nel structures. 

Carlyle is acqui­ring the shares with equity from the CETP V fund from the previous inves­tor Maguar Capi­tal Part­ners, an invest­ment company that focu­ses on invest­ments in small and medium-sized B2B soft­ware compa­nies, prima­rily in the DACH region. In addi­tion, members of Ingen­tis’ exis­ting manage­ment team will also take a signi­fi­cant stake in the company as part of the transaction. 

Foun­ded in 1997, Ingen­tis is an inno­va­tive soft­ware provi­der serving around 2,000 compa­nies and hundreds of blue-chip clients world­wide, inclu­ding many Fortune 500 and DAX compa­nies. Ingen­tis’ soft­ware plat­form helps compa­nies visua­lize, analyze and opti­mize their orga­niza­tio­nal struc­tures and human resour­ces data to make more infor­med stra­te­gic decis­i­ons. The main product Org.Manager is compa­ti­ble with more than sixty HCM systems and is expe­ri­en­cing incre­asing demand worldwide. 

The finan­cing provi­ded by Ardian will enable future growth initia­ti­ves and targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and support Ingen­tis in its goal to become one of the worl­d’s leading plat­forms in the growing orga­niza­tio­nal design and analy­sis market.

The tran­sac­tion under­lines the proven colla­bo­ra­tion of Ardian’s Private Credit team with Carlyle Tech and their joint expe­ri­ence in deve­lo­ping successful soft­ware compa­nies such as SER, GBTEC and now Ingen­tis. Ardian also has a long-stan­ding presence and an expe­ri­en­ced team in the DACH region. 

“We are plea­sed about the rene­wed coope­ra­tion with the soft­ware specia­list Carlyle Tech. Ingen­tis offers an attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­nity in a fast-growing market and is charac­te­ri­zed by a very solid finan­cial base and an inno­va­tive and inter­na­tio­nally sought-after product port­fo­lio,” says Lukas Stepa­nek (photo © ardian), Head of Private Credit DACH & Mana­ging Direc­tor, ardian. 

About ARDIAN

Ardian is a leading global inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm. The company mana­ges or advi­ses assets worth around US$ 180 billion for more than 1,720 inves­tors world­wide. Thanks to its exten­sive exper­tise in private equity, real assets and credit, Ardian offers a wide range of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as custo­mi­zed invest­ment solu­ti­ons — tail­o­red to inves­tors’ needs: Ardian Custo­mi­zed Solu­ti­ons enables insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to access best-in-class mana­gers across all asset clas­ses through a custo­mi­zed port­fo­lio. Ardian Private Wealth Solu­ti­ons also offers a range of services speci­fi­cally geared to high net worth indi­vi­du­als. Ardian’s employees are also the company’s largest share­hol­der group. Ardian atta­ches great importance to their deve­lo­p­ment, as well as a culture of coope­ra­tion based on an active exch­ange of know­ledge and expe­ri­ence. The more than 1,050 employees at 19 office loca­ti­ons in Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East follow the prin­ci­ples of respon­si­ble invest­ment. Ardian’s mission is to make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society through its invest­ments and to create value that lasts. Ardian aims to deli­ver excel­lent returns in line with high ethi­cal stan­dards and social respon­si­bi­lity. At Ardian, ever­yone is dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding successful compa­nies for the long term. www.ardian.com

Düsseldorf/ Zurich (CH) / Berlin — YPOG advi­sed a consor­tium of inves­tors led by Kurma Part­ners on the EUR 21 million finan­cing round of the biotech company Evla­Bio. The finan­cing round was led by Kurma Part­ners, toge­ther with Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund, AdBio Part­ners, HTGF and NRW.BANK.

With the new funds, Evla­Bio will advance the deve­lo­p­ment of its lead candi­date — a novel mono­clonal anti­body targe­ting the FGF23/FGFR4 signal­ing cascade, a key driver of cardiac remo­de­ling in pati­ents with chro­nic kidney dise­ase (CKD). The therapy speci­fi­cally targets the treat­ment of left ventri­cu­lar hyper­tro­phy, a common and severe compli­ca­tion of CKD. 

Hadrien Bouchez (photo © Kurma), Part­ner at Kurma Part­ners: “The team’s precli­ni­cal data and scien­ti­fic foun­da­tion are impres­sive. Evla­Bio addres­ses a highly rele­vant medi­cal need that has not yet been adequa­tely addressed.” 

Evla­Bio is a life science company focu­sed on the deve­lo­p­ment of first-in-class thera­peu­tics for cardio­vas­cu­lar and cardio­re­nal dise­a­ses. The lead program addres­ses the FGFR4/FGF23 signal­ing cascade, which is a key driver of cardiac remo­de­ling in chro­nic kidney dise­ase. By deve­lo­ping novel mecha­nisms based on sound science, Evla­Bio aims to create new treat­ment para­digms for CKD pati­ents with high unmet medi­cal need. 

Our colle­agues at Walder Wyss supported the inves­tor consor­tium on Swiss legal and tax issues.

Advi­sor to the inves­tor consor­tium: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Jörg Schr­ade (Tax), Part­ner, Munich
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Part­ner, Hamburg
Ciro D’Ame­lio (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Boris Schin­zel (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Ninetta Klein­dienst (Tax), Asso­ciate, Munich

www.ypog.com

Munich — ARQIS has provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the newly foun­ded KOMI Group on the acqui­si­tion of the IT infra­struc­ture busi­ness spun off from Konica Minolta. The spin-off was part of a complex carve-out. In the course of this, the KOMI Group was repo­si­tio­ned as an inde­pen­dent IT service provi­der with a clear focus on medium-sized compa­nies. In future, Konica Minolta will focus on the remai­ning areas of profes­sio­nal prin­ting and digi­tal busi­ness models. 

The new provi­der, KOMI Group, offers mana­ged services, IT secu­rity solu­ti­ons, infra­struc­ture consul­ting and modern appli­ca­ti­ons for the digi­tal work­place for medium-sized compa­nies. KOMI is also taking over the exis­ting custo­mer and project struc­tures of Konica Minol­ta’s previous IT infra­struc­ture business. 

The Munich-based invest­ment company Liberta Part­ners supported the tran­sac­tion as an inves­tor and active spar­ring part­ner. As an entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment company, Liberta invests in medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial and aims to provide them with finan­cial support as well as struc­tu­ral and opera­tio­nal development. 

An ARQIS team led by part­ner Dr. Mauritz von Einem (photo © Arqis) and coun­sel Dennis Reisich provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to the KOMI Group, initia­ted by Liberta Part­ners, on the carve-out, take­over and restruc­tu­ring of the busi­ness. In addi­tion to corpo­rate law aspects, inclu­ding the crea­tion of a new corpo­rate struc­ture, ARQIS, led by Lisa-Marie Niklas, advi­sed on employ­ment law aspects of the carve-out. ARQIS has regu­larly advi­sed Liberta Part­ners on tran­sac­tions, successful plat­form invest­ments such as the current carve-out and fund struc­tu­ring for seve­ral years. 

Advi­sor KOMI Group/Liberta Part­ners: ARQIS (Munich)

Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Part­ner, Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Lisa-Marie Niklas (Part­ner, Co-Lead, HR Carve-Out, Düssel­dorf, HR Law), Dennis Reisich (Coun­sel, Co-Lead, Transactions/Tax), Part­ners: Johan­nes Landry (Düssel­dorf, Finan­cing), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Düssel­dorf, Real Estate), Tobias Neufeld (Düssel­dorf, Data Law), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), Coun­sel: Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Tim Brese­mann, Diana Pucho­wezki (both Düssel­dorf, Real Estate), Rolf Tichy (IP), Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Lina Alami, Luzia Schulze Froning (Düssel­dorf, both HR Law), Rebecca Gester (Commer­cial), Paulina Hütt­ner, Dr. Julia Wild­gans (both IP), Johanna Klin­gen (Düssel­dorf, Data Law), Giulia Kögel (Tran­sac­tions), Legal Specia­list: Konstan­ti­nos Strem­pas (Tran­sac­tions) .

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. Around 80 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German, Euro­pean and Japa­nese commer­cial law. With its focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR Law, Japan, Data Law, Risk and Regu­la­tory, the firm is geared towards provi­ding its clients with compre­hen­sive advice. The law firm was foun­ded in 2006 and has offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo as well as a talent hub in Berlin. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at http://www.arqis.com.

Hatten — DRS Invest­ment (DRS) has acqui­red a stake in the Austrian auction service provi­der AURENA. — HEUKING provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to DRS and its subsi­dia­ries, inclu­ding DRS KVG GmbH, on the struc­tu­ring, launch and closing of the special AIF Skywards GmbH & Co KG as well as on the acqui­si­tion of the majo­rity stake by the fund in AURENA. 

In addi­tion to the tran­sac­tion, HEUKING also advi­sed on the launch of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion program in AURENA. DRS Invest­ment is invol­ved in the fund as initiator. 

DRS Invest­ment SE is a German private invest­ment company with a focus on tech­no­logy-enab­led service compa­nies (“tech-enab­led services”). The invest­ment focus is on scalable service plat­forms that enable opera­tio­nal excel­lence and sustainable value crea­tion through the use of tech­no­logy. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, DRS has actively supported its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their long-term development. 

Since its foun­da­tion in 2012, AURENA has estab­lished itself as the market leader in Austria — an end-to-end digi­ta­li­zed auction process and its own high-perfor­mance auction plat­form make it possi­ble to auction large quan­ti­ties of goods in the shor­test possi­ble time. Over 12,700 auctions have been held to date. More than 180 employees are invol­ved in auction projects in Austria and neigh­bor­ing Euro­pean countries. 

The aim of the part­ner­ship is further geogra­phi­cal expan­sion, parti­cu­larly in Germany. Andreas Spie­gel, foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of DRS Invest­ment SE, explains: “With the acqui­si­tion of AURENA, we are gaining a tech­no­lo­gi­cally advan­ced auction service provi­der for our DRS port­fo­lio. Our aim is to estab­lish AURENA as the leading plat­form for asset liqui­da­tion throug­hout Europe.” 

HEUKING advi­sed DRS Invest­ment SE and DRS KVG GmbH under the lead manage­ment of Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel and Ulrich Weide­mann on the struc­tu­ring of the special AIF Skywards GmbH & Co. KG as well as on the acqui­si­tion of the majo­rity stake (and struc­tu­ring of the transaction).

In addi­tion to HEUKING, DRS Invest­ment SE was advi­sed by PWC (Stefa­nie Tiele­mann) and in Austria by Dorda Rechts­an­wälte GmbH (Chris­tian Ritschka). The sellers of AURENA were advi­sed by Brandl Talos (Roman Rericha) and Ego Humrich Wyen (Jan-Henning Wyen, Achim Spengler). 

Advi­sor DRS Invest­ment SE: HEUKING

Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel (lead), (invest­ment funds),
Ulrich Weide­mann (lead), (private equity / corpo­rate law),
Klaus Weinand-Härer (tax law / private equity),
Frank Holl­stein (corpo­rate law / M&A),
Thalia Roth (invest­ment funds), all Frankfurt

Munich — Penguin Random House Verlags­gruppe acqui­res Cross Cult Enter­tain­ment and expands its port­fo­lio to include comics, manga and manhwa. With the acqui­si­tion of Cross Cult Enter­tain­ment, Penguin Random House Verlags­gruppe is ente­ring the graphic lite­ra­ture segment. — Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed Penguin Random House Verlags­gruppe on the acqui­si­tion of the Cross Cult Enter­tain­ment group. 

The exis­ting manage­ment team of Cross Cult will remain on board and will conti­nue to run the busi­ness as usual. — The Penguin Random House publi­shing group is a leading German-language consu­mer publi­shing group with loca­ti­ons in Munich, Güters­loh, Berlin and Gerlin­gen and employs almost 1,000 people. 

Cross Cult was foun­ded in 2001 and today publishes mainly comics and manga for young people and adults under the imprints Cross Cult, Manga Cult, Manhwa Cult and CROCU.

The comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

GOF provi­ded legal advice to the Penguin Random House publi­shing group in all phases of the tran­sac­tion process.

Legal advi­sors Penguin Random House Publi­shing Group: Gütt Olk Feldhaus

Dr. Heiner Feld­haus (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Matthias Uelner (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Tobias Berg­meis­ter (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)

Kind & Drews, Düssel­dorf: Dr. Ernesto Drews (Part­ner, Tax Law)

Finken­hof, Frank­furt am Main: Dr. Lorenzo Matthaei, Karo­lina Astner (both part­ners), Maxi­mi­lian Stock­mann (all restruc­tu­ring law advice)

Blom­stein, Berlin: Dr. Max Klasse (part­ner), Dr. Julia Lotze (both merger control)

Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law, Munich: Ingo Sappa (Part­ner), Dr. Miriam Engler (Asso­ciate) (both Employ­ment Law)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus

Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these areas of exper­tise, Gütt Olk Feld­haus also provi­des liti­ga­tion services.

Hamburg — The Hansea­tic Broking Center Group (HBC), an owner-mana­ged plat­form for insu­rance brokers, welco­mes Bridge­point as a new share­hol­der. The globally active inves­tor with head­quar­ters in London is taking over the shares from Preser­va­tion Capi­tal Part­ners. The foun­ders and the manage­ment team will remain signi­fi­cantly inves­ted and will lead HBC into the next growth phase toge­ther with Bridgepoint. 

Since its foun­da­tion in 2022, HBC has estab­lished itself as one of the leading inde­pen­dent insu­rance broker groups in the German-spea­king region. The company serves over 40,000 custo­mers in a variety of diffe­rent insu­rance sectors, mana­ges a premium volume of more than 600 million euros and has quadru­pled its EBITDA since it was foun­ded — through orga­nic growth and targe­ted acquisitions. 

“Our vision was clear from the start: we want to create a plat­form that offers SMEs access to specia­li­zed, inde­pen­dent advice and modern digi­tal solu­ti­ons — close to the custo­mer, profes­sio­nally strong and entre­pre­neu­rial,” explains Gert Schloss­ma­cher, Execu­tive Chair­man and co-foun­der of HBC. “Bridge­point brings not only a deep under­stan­ding of our market, but also the opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence to realize our ambi­ti­ons at scale. Toge­ther we will acce­le­rate our growth stra­tegy and further deve­lop an attrac­tive ecosys­tem for custo­mers, part­ners and insu­r­ers. We thank PCP for buil­ding HBC toge­ther over the past three years” 

With the new part­ner­ship, HBC will conti­nue to drive forward the expan­sion of its MGA exper­tise, the digi­ta­liza­tion of its plat­form and its expan­sion in the DACH region. Recent acqui­si­ti­ons such as LTA (travel insu­rance), HYV Schoma­cker (yacht insu­rance) and Schin­ner (commer­cial property insu­rance) under­line HBC’s stra­te­gic ambi­tion to streng­then its posi­tion in line with the needs of its custo­mer groups. 

“We believe in the value of inde­pen­dent, specia­li­zed consul­ting — espe­ci­ally for medium-sized compa­nies that are often under­re­pre­sen­ted in the market,” says Hauke Martin­sen, CEO and co-foun­der of HBC. “With Bridge­point, we have a part­ner at our side who not only faci­li­ta­tes growth finan­ci­ally, but also supports it with stra­te­gic exper­tise. This bene­fits not only us — but above all our custo­mers and partners.” 

Cars­ten Kratz, Part­ner at Bridge­point and Head of DACH, is deligh­ted: “SMEs form the back­bone of the German economy — but are clearly under­ser­ved when it comes to custo­mi­zed insu­rance solu­ti­ons. HBC impres­ses with its entre­pre­neu­rial team, clear specia­liza­tion and impres­sive growth. We see enorm­ous poten­tial to support the company in further expan­ding its exper­tise, digi­ta­liza­tion and regio­nal expansion.”

Chris Brack­mann, Part­ner at Bridge­point, respon­si­ble for DACH invest­ments, adds: “HBC is an outstan­ding company in a struc­tu­rally attrac­tive market: foun­der-led, fast-growing and with a clear track record. The condi­ti­ons for buil­ding a true cham­pion in the DACH region could hardly be better. We look forward to working with Gert, Hauke, Sebas­tian, Johan­nes and the team to make this vision a reality.”

It was a plea­sure to accom­pany Gert and his team during the start-up phase of HBC. In just three years, they have succee­ded in estab­li­shing one of the most dyna­mic and fastest-growing plat­forms in the Euro­pean insu­rance distri­bu­tion market. Our goal from the outset was to support the team in buil­ding a first-class plat­form for insu­rance distri­bu­tion. We are proud of what we have achie­ved toge­ther and look forward to watching HBC’s contin­ued progress under Bridge­poin­t’s leader­ship,” said Jeroen Bischops and Armin Holei­sen of Preser­va­tion Capi­tal Partners.

The tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the third quar­ter of 2025.

About HBC

Hansea­tic Broking Center (HBC) is a dyna­mi­cally growing, owner-mana­ged plat­form for insu­rance brokers and under­wri­ting agents based in Hamburg. Crea­ted in 2022 through the merger of seve­ral estab­lished specia­list brokers, HBC now serves over 40,000 custo­mers in 15 insu­rance sectors and mana­ges a premium volume of more than 600 million euros. The group combi­nes regio­nal custo­mer proxi­mity and profes­sio­nal specia­liza­tion with scalable struc­tures and digi­tal solu­ti­ons — tail­o­red to the requi­re­ments of medium-sized companies. 

About Bridge­point

Bridge­point is one of the worl­d’s leading private asset inves­tors with a focus on high-growth mid-market compa­nies in the private equity, infra­struc­ture and private credit sectors. With over $75 billion in assets under manage­ment and a strong local presence in Europe, North America and Asia, Bridge­point combi­nes global invest­ment power with deep market know­ledge and indus­try exper­tise. — www.bridgepointgroup.com

About Preser­va­tion Capi­tal Partners

Preser­va­tion Capi­tal Part­ners (PCP) is a private equity firm specia­li­zing in the busi­ness and finan­cial services sector with a focus on growth invest­ments in Western Europe. Foun­ded in 2017, PCP invests in market-leading compa­nies and has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in insu­rance distri­bu­tion, inclu­ding invest­ments in BMS, BPL and Optio. — www.preservationcapitalpartners.com

Advi­sor Bridge­point: Kirk­land & Ellis, Frankfurt

Sebas­tian Pitz (lead), Dr. Tobias Larisch (both Private Equity/M&A), Tim Nobe­reit (Tax, Munich), Dr. Alex­an­der Längs­feld (Debt Finance, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Alex­an­der Herzog, Dr. Mattias Prange, Jenia Dimit­rova, Melissa Afraz, Fabian Water­höl­ter (all Private Equity/M&A; all three Munich)
Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Vanessa Xu, Alex­an­der Bond (both Debt Finance); Asso­ciate: Emma Shi (Debt Finance)

— www.kirkland.com

Frank­furt am Main — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner (“VREP”) has sold its signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in Zimmer & Hälbig Holding (“Zimmer & Hälbig”), a leading specia­list for refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy. The buyer of the shares is VINCI Ener­gies, part of VINCI, one of the worl­d’s leading groups for cons­truc­tion, cons­truc­tion-rela­ted services and concessions. 

Zimmer & Hälbig, based in Biele­feld, West­pha­lia, is one of Germany’s leading provi­ders in the plan­ning, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance of refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy and tech­ni­cal buil­ding services in non-resi­den­tial buil­dings. The company provi­des the tech­ni­cal know-how for project plan­ning (consul­ting, tech­no­logy selec­tion, cons­truc­tion plan­ning) and instal­la­tion of logi­sti­cally and tech­ni­cally sophisti­ca­ted refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion systems. The focus is on sustainable energy solu­ti­ons for complex buil­dings. Zimmer & Hälbig prima­rily serves fast-growing and non-cycli­cal indus­tries such as clean­rooms, data centers, health­care and the public sector and is charac­te­ri­zed by a decen­tra­li­zed struc­ture with seve­ral loca­ti­ons in Germany. 

VREP joined Zimmer & Hälbig, which now has over 320 employees, in 2022 as part of a manage­ment buy-out and supported the manage­ment in the consis­tent imple­men­ta­tion of the active orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth stra­tegy. This included the expan­sion to curr­ently seven loca­ti­ons and nine service centers, the expan­sion of the value chain through the estab­lish­ment of the new measu­re­ment and control tech­no­logy divi­sion and the acqui­si­tion of the service and main­ten­ance specia­list Airtech GmbH in Tutt­lin­gen in Octo­ber 2023. Zimmer & Hälbig will be inte­gra­ted into the VINCI Ener­gies Buil­ding Solu­ti­ons network with 150 busi­ness units in Germany, thus expan­ding the range of multi-tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons for buildings. 

“Zimmer & Hälbig has estab­lished itself as an extre­mely successful company thanks to its excel­lent market posi­tio­ning and the high quality of its manage­ment,” explains Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner. “The team’s strong entre­pre­neu­rial commit­ment, clear commer­cial focus and in-depth exper­tise have contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to this deve­lo­p­ment. We are convin­ced that Zimmer & Hälbig is well posi­tio­ned for the future and has found a good home and a strong part­ner for its future deve­lo­p­ment in VINCI Energies. ”

Achim Hense­ler, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Zimmer & Hälbig, adds: “VREP has been the right part­ner for us since 2022 to successfully imple­ment key growth steps — with stra­te­gic exper­tise, opera­tio­nal support and a clear focus on the essen­ti­als. The colla­bo­ra­tion has been charac­te­ri­zed by trust and profes­sio­na­lism right from the start. We would like to express our sincere thanks for this and are now looking forward to conti­nuing on our chosen course at VINCI Energies.”

The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the contract.

About VR Equitypartner

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equi­typ­art­ner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million.
Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.vrep.de.

The tran­sac­tion team at VR Equitypartner:

Michael Vogt (photo © Vrep), Alex­an­der Bernin­ger, Markus Huber, Jens Schöf­fel and Patrick Heinze

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VREP:

M&A: Cars­ten Burger, DC Advisory
Legal: Dr. Lars Laeger, ARQIS
Commer­cial: Matthias Müller, Deloitte
Finan­cial: Florian Teuner, Deloitte
Tax: Marcus Roth, Deloitte

Milan/London/Paris/Munich — Ambi­enta SGR S.p.A. (“Ambi­enta”), a leading Euro­pean invest­ment mana­ger pionee­ring sustainable envi­ron­men­tal invest­ments in private and public markets, announ­ces that its port­fo­lio company Offi­cine Macca­ferri S.p.A. (“Macca­ferri” or the “Group”), a leading global provi­der of envi­ron­men­tal engi­nee­ring solu­ti­ons, with a busi­ness presence in over 130 count­ries, has acqui­red CPT Group (“CPT”), an Italian company specia­li­zed in advan­ced mecha­ni­zed tunnell­ing tech­no­lo­gies and robo­tic prefa­bri­ca­tion systems for under­ground infrastructure.

CPT was foun­ded over 30 years ago and is based in Nova Mila­nese (Italy). The company supplies major cons­truc­tion compa­nies world­wide in the fields of tunnel cons­truc­tion and infra­struc­ture. Its product range includes robot-assis­ted prefa­bri­ca­tion systems (Robo­fac­tory), produc­ti­vity moni­to­ring soft­ware for tunnel boring machi­nes (TBM) and ecolo­gi­cally desi­gned spacers. As a pioneer in the appli­ca­tion of Indus­try 4.0 prin­ci­ples to the prefa­bri­ca­tion of tunnel boring machine (TBM) segments, CPT has helped to drive auto­ma­tion on under­ground cons­truc­tion sites. Its tech­no­lo­gies have alre­ady been successfully used by Macca­ferri for the instal­la­tion of its semi-auto­ma­tic steel ribs. CPT opera­tes in Europe, South East Asia and Austra­lia and is known for making the cons­truc­tion of tunnel linings in geolo­gi­cally complex envi­ron­ments more resource effi­ci­ent, safer and faster. 

With this acqui­si­tion, Offi­cine Macca­ferri will become one of the worl­d’s largest indus­trial compa­nies able to offer a fully inte­gra­ted plat­form for tunnel cons­truc­tion, inclu­ding both tradi­tio­nal systems (steel ribs, fibers, seals) and mecha­ni­cal solu­ti­ons (Robo­fac­tory, TBMs, digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies). The merged group will serve a growing addressa­ble market of EUR 1 billion and further conso­li­date Macca­fer­ri’s trans­for­ma­tion into a tech­no­logy leader in sustainable infrastructure. 

This tran­sac­tion is another mile­stone in Macca­fer­ri’s growth trajec­tory under Ambi­en­ta’s owner­ship. Since Ambi­en­ta’s entry at the begin­ning of 2024, the Group has pursued a targe­ted M&A stra­tegy while conti­nuing to grow orga­ni­cally and advan­cing its ESG commitment. 

The global tunnell­ing market is expe­ri­en­cing strong struc­tu­ral growth driven by incre­asing urba­niza­tion, climate-resi­li­ent infra­struc­ture invest­ments and the comple­xity of modern under­ground projects. Mecha­ni­zed tunnell­ing is beco­ming incre­asingly important due to its speed, safety and adap­ta­bi­lity to complex envi­ron­ments. At the same time, tradi­tio­nal excava­tion methods remain an important and widely used solu­tion in tunnel cons­truc­tion and remain an essen­tial part of Macca­fer­ri’s exper­tise and value propo­si­tion. In this context, the inte­gra­tion of CPT will allow Macca­ferri to expand its range of tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons to operate in high-growth regi­ons and meet the incre­asing demand of the global tunnel­ing market for dura­ble and envi­ron­men­tally friendly under­ground infrastructures. 

CPT’s tech­no­logy is directly aligned with Ambi­en­ta’s envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment (EIA). The Robo­fac­tory plat­form enables auto­ma­ted 24-hour produc­tion that signi­fi­cantly increa­ses produc­ti­vity while redu­cing envi­ron­men­tal impact — redu­cing the use of release oil by 25 percent and the number of concrete defects by 30 percent. These inno­va­tions contri­bute to safer cons­truc­tion sites, lower mate­rial consump­tion and better tracea­bi­lity of opera­ti­ons.

Andrea Ventu­rini, Private Equity Part­ner of Ambi­enta, said: “This acqui­si­tion demons­tra­tes Offi­cine Macca­fer­ri’s ambi­tion to become the global plat­form for tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons for climate change adapt­a­tion. With CPT, the Group streng­thens its ability to deve­lop new busi­nesses, inte­grate cutting-edge tech­no­lo­gies and act as a conso­li­da­tor in highly specia­li­zed indus­trial niches. This is a further step towards buil­ding a diver­si­fied and resi­li­ent leader in all key infra­struc­ture markets.”

Stefano Susani, CEO of Offi­cine Macca­ferri, added: “The inte­gra­tion of CPT provi­des us with a unique oppor­tu­nity to grow our tunnell­ing busi­ness into a global leader in mecha­ni­zed and tradi­tio­nal solu­ti­ons comple­men­ted by advan­ced indus­trial robo­tic auto­ma­tion. We see signi­fi­cant poten­tial to create long-term value by offe­ring major custo­mers world­wide an inte­gra­ted plat­form that supports the most complex and stra­te­gic under­ground infra­struc­ture projects through inno­va­tion, relia­bi­lity and sustainability.”

Klaus Pini, co-foun­der of CPT, said: “Joining Offi­cine Macca­ferri is a natu­ral evolu­tion for CPT. We share the same indus­trial values, the same long-term vision and the same commit­ment to tech­ni­cal excel­lence. This part­ner­ship will allow us to acce­le­rate the deve­lo­p­ment of our tech­no­lo­gies and provide even grea­ter added value to our custo­mers and the tunnel­ing indus­try worldwide.”

About Ambi­enta

Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean invest­ment mana­ger foun­ded in 2007 and a pioneer in sustainable invest­ments in private equity, public markets and private credit. With offices in Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges over €4 billion in assets and is supported by a growing global inves­tor base. The company invests in compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services contri­bute to impro­ving resource effi­ci­ency or redu­cing pollu­tion. Using a science-based approach, Ambi­enta iden­ti­fies pioneers in the real economy — compa­nies that gene­rate strong finan­cial returns while having a measura­ble posi­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact. 

As an indus­try pioneer, Ambi­enta was one of the first signa­to­ries to the United Nati­ons Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment (UN PRI) in 2012. In 2019, the company recei­ved certi­fi­ca­tion as a B Corpo­ra­tion — a seal of appr­oval for compa­nies that meet the highest stan­dards in terms of social and envi­ron­men­tal impact, trans­pa­rency and respon­si­bi­lity. In 2020, Ambi­enta joined the Insti­tu­tio­nal Inves­tors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), a leading Euro­pean initia­tive of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors for climate protec­tion. In 2023, Ambi­enta set another exam­ple and became one of the few asset mana­gers to become an indus­try role model by commit­ting to the Science Based Targets Initia­tive (SBTi), which defi­nes science-based climate targets for compa­nies. www.ambientasgr.com

Munich — The inde­pen­dent invest­ment company Egeria has acqui­red a stake in Junge Die Bäcke­rei, a leading provi­der of chain-based bakery and gastro­nomy concepts in nort­hern Germany. The Junge family will remain closely asso­cia­ted with the company as share­hol­ders and in an advi­sory capa­city. Toge­ther with Egeria, the company is pursuing the goal of further expan­ding its market posi­tion in exis­ting regi­ons and stra­te­gi­cally expan­ding into new markets. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial details. Comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to the usual offi­cial approvals.

The tradi­tio­nal company based in Lübeck was foun­ded by the Junge family in 1897 and today opera­tes 210 bran­ches and three produc­tion faci­li­ties in Lübeck, Rostock and Greifs­wald. Junge Die Bäcke­rei. stands for a high level of verti­cal inte­gra­tion, distinc­tive opera­tio­nal excel­lence and effi­ci­ency. With entre­pre­neu­rial vision and a unique, family-orien­ted corpo­rate culture, the company has deve­lo­ped into the leading provi­der of branch-based bakery and gastro­nomy concepts in nort­hern Germany. Junge Die Bäcke­rei. is parti­cu­larly well-known among its custo­mers for the high quality of its products, the variety of its range and the feel-good atmo­sphere and excel­lent service in its bran­ches. Today, the company employs over 5,000 people. 

EGERIA Group

Egeria, an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company specia­li­zing prima­rily in private equity, invests prima­rily in medium-sized compa­nies with an enter­prise value of up to EUR 500 million. Egeria’s private equity port­fo­lio compri­ses invest­ments in more than 20 compa­nies with around 14,000 employees and a total turno­ver of around EUR 2.5 billion. —https://egeriagroup.com

Advi­sor Egeria: POELLATH advi­sed Egeria on all legal and tax aspects of the acqui­si­tion with the follo­wing Munich team

Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Structure/Tax)
Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte (Part­ner, Manage­ment Participation)
Dr. Tobias Deschen­halm (Coun­sel, Structure/Tax)
Dr. Michael de Toma (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation)
Corne­lius L. Roth (Senior Asso­ciate, Structure/Tax)
Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Link (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation)

www.poellath.com

Munich — Certi­vity has raised 13.3 million euros in a Series A finan­cing round. The Munich-based RegTech company is deve­lo­ping the first struc­tu­red, AI-supported plat­form for mana­ging tech­ni­cal compli­ance. The round was led by Almaz Capi­tal and UVC Part­ners, with rene­wed parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tors Early­bird X, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and Plug and Play. The fresh capi­tal will be used to acce­le­rate the market launch stra­tegy, drive forward product deve­lo­p­ment and enable expan­sion into new sectors and inter­na­tio­nal markets.

Foun­ded in 2021 by Nico Waegerle, Bogdan Bereczki, Jörg Ulmer and Sami Vaara­ni­emi, Certi­vity addres­ses one of the most unde­re­sti­ma­ted but crucial problems in modern engi­nee­ring: regu­la­tory compli­ance. Engi­neers often spend 30 to 50 percent of their time working through frag­men­ted legal and regu­la­tory docu­ments to ensure that their products comply with appli­ca­ble regu­la­ti­ons and stan­dards. Errors in this process lead to product recalls, safety issues and billi­ons of dollars in fines. — Certi­vity will funda­men­tally change this. 

The company offers a struc­tu­red, AI-native SaaS plat­form that trans­forms complex regu­la­tory docu­ments into struc­tu­red, machine-reada­ble compli­ance infor­ma­tion. It auto­ma­tes the entire process — from reques­t­ing and conti­nuously updating regu­la­tory content to inte­gra­ting it into the process. Certi­vity enables compa­nies to deve­lop products faster while incre­asing secu­rity and compli­ance with all manda­tory regulations. 

“With this funding, we are scaling our plat­form to become the leading solu­tion in tech­ni­cal compli­ance — start­ing with the auto­mo­tive indus­try. Addi­tio­nally, we are scaling into other sectors such as rail, medi­cal devices, consu­mer goods, defense, aero­space and more,” says Nico Waegerle, CEO and co-foun­der of Certi­vity. “We are expan­ding our regu­la­tory coverage, impro­ving our AI and deepe­ning inte­gra­tion with common tools. This is how we trans­form compli­ance from a costly manda­tory requi­re­ment into a compe­ti­tive advan­tage for our customers.” 

“Certi­vity has funda­men­tally chan­ged our approach to regu­la­tory compli­ance. Our deve­lo­p­ment proces­ses are much more effi­ci­ent and we save a signi­fi­cant amount of manual effort,” says Nico­las Maurin, Mana­ger Regu­la­tion & Stan­dards at Aptiv.

How the plat­form works: trans­forming regu­la­tory comple­xity into struc­tu­red knowledge

Certi­vi­ty’s plat­form digi­ti­zes and struc­tures regu­la­tory content from over 50 juris­dic­tions using a proprie­tary digi­tiza­tion pipe­line and regu­la­tory know­ledge graph. This gives engi­nee­ring and compli­ance teams full tracea­bi­lity and real-time insight into regu­la­tory chan­ges. AI-based modu­les conso­li­date chan­ges to diffe­rent versi­ons of regu­la­ti­ons and clas­sify, extract and gene­rate tech­ni­cal requi­re­ments from unstruc­tu­red legal texts. 

Instead of mana­ging compli­ance in isola­ted docu­ments or Excel spreadsheets, teams can now orga­nize regu­la­tory requi­re­ments, inter­pre­ta­ti­ons, appr­ovals and legal refe­ren­ces in a struc­tu­red way in product-speci­fic compli­ance projects. Through deep inte­gra­tion with requi­re­ments manage­ment tools such as Jama, Pola­rion, DOORS and others, compli­ance infor­ma­tion flows seam­lessly into the deve­lo­p­ment process — crea­ting an inte­gra­ted, networked, audi­ta­ble and scalable process. 

Laying the foun­da­tion for compli­ance on an indus­trial scale

“Certi­vity is setting a new stan­dard for how compli­ance is inte­gra­ted into product deve­lo­p­ment,” says Amanda Birken­holz, Prin­ci­pal at UVC Part­ners. “They solve a huge and cumber­some problem for any orga­niza­tion with regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. Compli­ance chal­lenges are no longer the excep­tion — they are the rule. The ques­tion today is no longer: Which products are subject to regu­la­tory requi­re­ments? It is: Which are not?” 

About Certi­vity

Certi­vity is a RegTech company that trans­la­tes regu­la­tory comple­xity into clarity and speed. With the help of modern AI tech­no­logy and Large Language Models (LLMs), we trans­form globally appli­ca­ble regu­la­ti­ons into struc­tu­red, machine-reada­ble data. This crea­tes a new form of compli­ance intel­li­gence that enables digi­tal and end-to-end work processes. 

Our plat­form supports deve­lo­p­ment and compli­ance teams in under­stan­ding regu­la­tory requi­re­ments more quickly, imple­men­ting them effi­ci­ently and inte­gra­ting them seam­lessly into exis­ting deve­lo­p­ment proces­ses. This lowers costs, redu­ces risks, impro­ves colla­bo­ra­tion — and acce­le­ra­tes the market launch of new products. 

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a Munich and Berlin-based early-stage venture capi­tal firm that invests in Euro­pean B2B start­ups in the fields of enter­prise soft­ware, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, deep tech, climate tech and mobi­lity. With more than €600 million in assets under manage­ment, the fund typi­cally invests between €1 million and €10 million initi­ally and up to €30 million in total per company. UVC Part­ners’ invest­ments include Flix, Isar Aero­space, planqc, Proxima Fusion, Reverion, Tacto, TWAICE, Deep­Drive and STABL. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the team’s exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Euro­pe’s leading center for inno­va­tion and entre­pre­neur­ship, in parti­cu­lar to acce­le­rate market entry.

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS has provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the CURA Group on the sale of its two clinic loca­ti­ons in Bad Saul­gau, Baden-Würt­tem­berg. Follo­wing comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, the MEDIAN Group will take over the Klinik am schö­nen Moos and the Bad Saul­gau acute clinic from CURA, both of which specia­lize in psycho­so­ma­tic acute and reha­bi­li­ta­tion medi­cine. With around 150 employees, both hospi­tals treat around 2,200 pati­ents a year. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to merger control clearance by the German Fede­ral Cartel Office.

The CURA Group is a private provi­der of health­care services and has been opera­ting senior living and care faci­li­ties as well as reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics since 1995. The Group employs over 5,300 people at 46 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Germany. 

The MEDIAN Group is a leading Euro­pean provi­der of mental health, specia­li­zed care and reha­bi­li­ta­tion services. With over 31,000 employees in 410 faci­li­ties in Germany, the UK and Spain, MEDIAN cares for more than 309,000 pati­ents and resi­dents every year. 

An ARQIS team led by Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the CURA Group on the sale of the two faci­li­ties as part of a bidding process. Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard, Part­ner in the Real Estate depart­ment at ARQIS, advi­sed with a team on real estate law aspects of the tran­sac­tion. ARQIS once again provi­ded CURA with legal support. 

Advi­sor CURA Group: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Part­ner, Lead), Seve­rin Stef­fens, photo © Arqis (Mana­ging Asso­ciate, both Tran­sac­tions), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Part­ner, Real Estate), Part­ner: Thomas Chwa­lek (Tran­sac­tions), Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping, Dennis Reisich (Munich, both Tax), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (HR Law), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Laura Ally Rizzi, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Tran­sac­tions), Tim Brese­mann (Real Estate), Marina Bume­der (HR Law, Munich), Luise Schü­ling (Regu­la­tory), Rolf Tichy (IP), Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Bern­hard Gröhe (Regu­la­tory), Lia Papis­me­dova (Real Estate), Senior Legal Specia­list: Qing Xia

M&A advi­sor for CURA: WMCF 

www.wm-cf.com

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firm that opera­tes inter­na­tio­nally. Around 80 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German, Euro­pean and Japa­nese commer­cial law. With its focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR Law, Japan, Data Law, Risk and Regu­la­tory, the firm is geared towards provi­ding its clients with compre­hen­sive advice. The law firm was foun­ded in 2006 and has offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo as well as a talent hub in Berlin. — www.arqis.com

Berlin/London — Hypax, a Berlin and London-based private equity firm focu­sed on carve-outs and opera­tio­nal value crea­tion, has acqui­red 3A Compo­si­tes Mobi­lity AG (Switz­er­land) and 3A Compo­si­tes Mobi­lity SA (Poland) — which toge­ther operate under the name 3AC Mobi­lity — as part of a carve-out tran­sac­tion from Schwei­ter Tech­no­lo­gies AG (SWTQ:SWX). The finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. Schwei­ter Tech­no­lo­gies is a Tier 1 supplier of light­weight compon­ents for the rail, road and defense industries. 

3AC Mobi­lity is a leading Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer of high-perfor­mance compo­site compon­ents for the rail, road and defense indus­tries. The company opera­tes two inde­pen­dent manu­fac­tu­ring and deve­lo­p­ment sites in Alten­rhein, Switz­er­land, and Mielec, Poland. Toge­ther, they offer their custo­mers a unique one-stop store for modu­lar light­weight systems in 2D and 3D design, such as sand­wich floors, front modu­les, cock­pits, struc­tu­ral compon­ents and shelters. 

With a history of over 70 years in Swiss precis­ion manu­fac­tu­ring, 3AC Mobi­lity supplies well-known OEMs throug­hout Europe and has recently expan­ded successfully into high-growth defense appli­ca­ti­ons. The company has strong inno­va­tion and deve­lo­p­ment capa­bi­li­ties and a broadly diver­si­fied custo­mer base with long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with major rail and bus manufacturers. 

Phil­ipp Ster­kel, Mana­ging Part­ner at Hypax, comm­ents: “3AC Mobi­lity is exactly the kind of hidden cham­pion we are looking for: a company with proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies, a strong market posi­tion in a growing market and signi­fi­cant value crea­tion poten­tial. The mobi­lity and defense indus­tries are curr­ently under­go­ing funda­men­tal chan­ges — from the tran­si­tion to climate neutra­lity to increased geopo­li­ti­cal vola­ti­lity. 3AC Mobi­li­ty’s solu­ti­ons are directly aligned with these mega­trends and we see promi­sing oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand our market presence, product port­fo­lio and inter­na­tio­nal reach. As an inde­pen­dent company, 3AC Mobi­lity will bene­fit from our active support as we work toge­ther to acce­le­rate growth, drive opera­tio­nal excel­lence and further pene­trate the mobi­lity and defense markets. We are proud to welcome the team to the Hypax platform.” 

About 3A Compo­si­tes Mobility

3AC Mobi­lity is a leading supplier of light­weight compo­site compon­ents for the rail, road and defense indus­tries. With sites in Alten­rhein, Switz­er­land and Mielec, Poland, the company offers modu­lar compo­site systems such as sand­wich panels, front modu­les for trains, cock­pits and shel­ters. With over 300 employees, state-of-the-art produc­tion capa­ci­ties and long-stan­ding OEM rela­ti­onships, 3AC Mobi­lity is the prefer­red part­ner for high-quality light­weight solu­ti­ons in the mobi­lity sector. 

About Hypax

Hypax is a Berlin and London based invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in corpo­rate carve-outs and mid-market compa­nies where value can be enhan­ced through growth and opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ments. The funds mana­ged by Hypax have capi­tal commit­ments of €120 million. With a strong opera­tio­nal focus, Hypax supports compa­nies and their manage­ment teams through peri­ods of tran­si­tion and stra­te­gic trans­for­ma­tion. — www.hypax.com

Hano­ver — The fitness studio groups all inclu­sive Fitness and FIT STAR will be joining forces in future. The plan­ned merger of the two chains in fall 2025 — subject to anti­trust appr­oval — will create one of the largest fitness provi­ders in Germany and the largest in Bavaria. 

all inclu­sive fitness with a focus on expansion

With the acqui­si­tion, the NORD Holding subsi­diary all inclu­sive Fitness is expan­ding its network by 20 addi­tio­nal studios and incre­asing Group turno­ver by around EUR 40 million. The number of loca­ti­ons grows to 160, the member­ship base to around 610,000 and the number of employees to around 2,750. The declared goal of beco­ming the leading provi­der in the Premium Value segment in the medium term and opera­ting 250 clubs with over one million members nati­on­wide by 2028 is thus a decisive step closer.

“This merger is a mile­stone for our vision of provi­ding people at every stage of life with access to high-quality fitness while conti­nuing to grow as a company,” says Stephan Schulan, CEO of all inclu­sive Fitness. “We are not only expan­ding our network, but also crea­ting new trai­ning offers and inspi­ring commu­nity experiences.” 

Relia­bi­lity for members

For the appro­xi­m­ately 140,000 members of FIT STAR, ever­y­thing will remain the same for the time being: Prices, opening hours, teams, trai­ning offers and the Ladies Areas will remain unch­an­ged. At the same time, they will bene­fit from an expan­ded port­fo­lio in future — inclu­ding inno­va­tive formats such as Hyrox, func­tional trai­ning and commu­nity events. The inte­gra­tion of the FIT STAR brand is plan­ned by the second quar­ter of 2026. From then on, all studios will be mana­ged under the joint all inclu­sive Fitness brand. Until then, the exis­ting clubs will conti­nue to operate under the FIT STAR name. 

“It is important to us that our members can rely on conti­nuity — with a breath of fresh air in the offe­ring at the same time,” empha­si­zes Andreas Bauer, former Mana­ging Direc­tor and foun­der of FIT STAR. “We are actively support­ing the tran­si­tion and are deligh­ted that we will be opera­ting toge­ther under the umbrella of all inclu­sive Fitness in the future.” 

Maxi­mi­lian Frey, Moritz Stolp and Niklas Thoma accom­pa­nied the tran­sac­tion on behalf of NORD Holding.

About all inclu­sive Fitness
all inclu­sive Fitness is one of the leading provi­ders in the premium value segment in Germany. The group was formed in 2020 from the merger of Jumpers Fitness and all inclu­sive Fitness. In 2025, all studios were brought toge­ther under the unified all inclu­sive Fitness brand to create a strong market presence. With 160 studios and around 610,000 members, all inclu­sive Fitness is now prima­rily repre­sen­ted in southern and western Germany. More than 2,750 employees ensure that members not only bene­fit from state-of-the-art equip­ment at central loca­ti­ons, but also expe­ri­ence a fami­liar and plea­sant trai­ning atmo­sphere. — www.ai-fitness.de

About NORD Holding

With over 50 years of history and assets under manage­ment of € 4.0 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity and asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. 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 parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved in over 13 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king countries.

The Fund Invest­ments divi­sion targets the micro and small cap segment of SME-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. — www.nordholding.de

Frank­furt a. M. — Ank-Kaiser Sani­täts­haus GmbH (“Ank-Kaiser”) is conti­nuing its buy & build growth stra­tegy in Germany, estab­li­shing itself as one of the top 10 medi­cal supply retail groups in Germany. Sani­täts­haus Hage­nauer, with bran­ches in Plank­stadt and Schwet­zin­gen in Baden-Würt­tem­berg, is now streng­thening its presence in the Rhine-Neckar region and is opera­ting as a comple­men­tary branch of Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing. 

In Octo­ber 2024, a fund advi­sed by Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners acqui­red Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing GmbH (“M&R”) via its port­fo­lio company Ank-Kaiser. M&R is a leading regio­nal chain of medi­cal supply stores in Baden-Würt­tem­berg and Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate, offe­ring a full range of medi­cal, reha­bi­li­ta­tion, after­care and health­care products through its now eleven medi­cal supply stores. 

Simon W. Geib, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Ank-Kaiser Sani­täts­haus GmbH: “We warmly welcome Sani­täts­haus Hage­nauer to the Ank-Kaiser family. With its many years of expe­ri­ence, the local team offers a compre­hen­sive and inno­va­tive range of products and services rela­ting to health, care and mobi­lity in sport, work and ever­y­day life as well as state-of-the-art analy­sis and measu­re­ment tech­no­logy such as biome­cha­ni­cal analy­ses and foot pres­sure measu­re­ments. By combi­ning with M&R, we are adding indi­vi­dual large-scale ortho­pae­dics and reha­bi­li­ta­tion tech­no­logy to the port­fo­lio of the bran­ches in Plank­stadt and Schwetzingen.”

“With this acqui­si­tion, the Ank-Kaiser Group is conti­nuing its roll-up stra­tegy and further expan­ding its posi­tion as a top 10 medi­cal supply chain and nati­on­wide profes­sio­nal health­care part­ner with compre­hen­sive medi­cal care at 31 loca­ti­ons in Germany,” says Chris­toph D. Kauter, Mana­ging Part­ner and foun­der of Beyond Capi­tal Partners.

About Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing
Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing offers ortho­pae­dic, sports and reha­bi­li­ta­tion tech­no­logy products and services and is available to its custo­mers as a profes­sio­nal health­care part­ner at eleven loca­ti­ons in Baden-Würt­tem­berg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
https://mayer-rexing.de

About Ank-Kaiser Sanitätshaus
Ank-Kaiser Sani­täts­haus is the leading medi­cal supply group in Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate, focu­sing on medi­cal supply and reha­bi­li­ta­tion tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for its custo­mers. The Ank-Kaiser Group has expan­ded over the past deca­des and now has 31 loca­ti­ons in Germany, offe­ring compre­hen­sive medi­cal care as a full-range provider.
https://www.ank-sanitaetshaus.de

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

Hamburg — The X1F Group has acqui­red the accan­tec group as part of its growth stra­tegy. The accan­tec group has been opera­ting for over 20 years as a specia­li­zed consul­tancy and IT service provi­der for busi­ness intel­li­gence, data science and enter­prise soft­ware solu­ti­ons with a parti­cu­lar focus on SAP, Micro­soft, Jedox, SAS and IBM. 

Head­quar­te­red in Hamburg and with bran­ches in Frank­furt am Main, Colo­gne, Heidel­berg and Berlin, the accan­tec group employs over 70 BI experts who are active in deman­ding BI and data science projects. In addi­tion to archi­tec­ture design, advan­ced analy­tics and data warehousing, the range of services also includes the deve­lo­p­ment of cloud plat­forms on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure as well as compre­hen­sive mana­ged services — espe­ci­ally for custo­mers from regu­la­ted indus­tries such as banking, insu­rance, phar­maceu­ti­cals and healthcare. 

With this acqui­si­tion, X1F is expan­ding its service port­fo­lio in a stra­te­gi­cally rele­vant growth area.

The X1F Group unites specia­li­zed IT and consul­ting units under one roof to provide compa­nies with holi­stic support in their digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion — from stra­tegy to tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion, with a clear focus on quality, inno­va­tion and sustainability.

Advi­sor: As exclu­sive M&A advi­sor, Sanco­via initia­ted the tran­sac­tion and provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to the X1F Group throug­hout the entire process.

About SANCOVIA

We are an owner-mana­ged, exclu­sive and inde­pen­dent M&A mid-market consul­tancy with ten offices in Zurich, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Munich, Ravens­burg, Leip­zig, Madrid, Amster­dam, London and Warsaw. We have a unique hands-on part­ner approach, seeing oursel­ves as a part­ner to the entre­pre­neur and remai­ning at their side until the desi­red success has been achieved. 

We speak the language of entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors and provide the top quality services that you would other­wise only get from large consul­tancies and the Big 4 for our medium-sized clients throug­hout Europe. —www.sancovia.com

Munich — The biotech­no­logy start-up Evla­Bio GmbH, which deve­lops inno­va­tive thera­pies for the treat­ment of left ventri­cu­lar hyper­tro­phy in chro­nic kidney dise­ase, has raised € 21 million in its seed finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by the French VC firm Kurma Part­ners, with AdBio Part­ners (Paris, Barce­lona), Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund, NRW.Venture (NRW Bank) and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds as co-inves­tors. The finan­cing round is one of the largest of its kind in the DACH region in recent years. 

Evla­Bio aims to acce­le­rate the comple­tion of precli­ni­cal deve­lo­p­ment and the tran­si­tion to IND-enab­ling studies. — The start-up’s treat­ment approach origi­nally comes from Lead Disco­very Center GmbH (LDC), a company foun­ded in 2008 by the tech­no­logy trans­fer orga­niza­tion Max Planck Inno­va­tion, and was deve­lo­ped in colla­bo­ra­tion with KHAN Tech­no­logy Trans­fer Fund I GmbH & Co. KG (KHAN‑I).

Evla­Bio, with offices in Düssel­dorf and Zurich, is a life science start-up specia­li­zing in the deve­lo­p­ment of a first-in-class thera­peu­tic for the treat­ment of left ventri­cu­lar hyper­tro­phy in pati­ents with chro­nic kidney disease.

An ARQIS team led by part­ner Dr. Mauritz von Einem, who regu­larly advi­ses start-ups, provi­ded Evla­Bio AG with compre­hen­sive legal support during this finan­cing round. The mandate came about through a perso­nal cont­act with the foun­der of Evla­Bio. Adves­tra advi­sed on Swiss law with a team led by Dr. Alex­an­der von Jeinsen. 

Advi­sor Evla­Bio GmbH: ARQIS (Munich)

Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Part­ner, Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal, Lead), Johan­nes Landry (Tran­sac­tions, Düssel­dorf), Lisa-Marie Niklas (HR Law, Düssel­dorf), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), of Coun­sel: Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal), Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping (Düssel­dorf), Dennis Reisich (both Tax), Dr. Roua Schmitz (HR Law, Venture Capi­tal), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Hanna Caesar (HR Law, Düssel­dorf), Anselm Graf (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal, Rolf. Roua Schmitz (HR Law), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Hanna Caesar (HR Law, Düssel­dorf), Anselm Graf (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal), Rolf Tichy (IP), Asso­ciate: Giulia Kögel (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capital).

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firm that opera­tes inter­na­tio­nally. Around 80 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German, Euro­pean and Japa­nese commer­cial law. With its focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR Law, Japan, Data Law, Risk and Regu­la­tory, the firm is geared towards provi­ding its clients with compre­hen­sive advice. The law firm was foun­ded in 2006 and has offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo as well as a talent hub in Berlin. www.arqis.com.

Frank­furt a. Main — The leading medium-sized inter­na­tio­nal phar­maceu­ti­cal company Ethy­ph­arm S.A.S., Saint-Clou­d/France has signed a purchase agree­ment for the rights to the Euro­pean Arga­tro­ban busi­ness of Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Corpo­ra­tion, Osaka/Japan and other compa­nies of the Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Group. Arga­tro­ban mono­hy­drate is a selec­tive anti­throm­bin agent used in the treat­ment of hepa­rin-indu­ced throm­bo­cy­to­pe­nia type II (HIT type II). Due to the company struc­tures, the comple­xity of the rights to the product and the invol­vement of other opera­tio­nal inter­me­dia­ries for the manu­fac­ture of the Arga­tro­ban active ingre­di­ent, the tran­sac­tion was carried out by way of an asset deal. 

Ethy­ph­arm is a leading mid-sized inter­na­tio­nal phar­maceu­ti­cal company with strong Euro­pean roots that manu­fac­tures and supplies essen­tial medi­ci­nes with a focus on hospi­tal care, central nervous system (severe pain and addic­tion) and inter­nal medi­cine. The acqui­si­tion streng­thens Ethy­phar­m’s port­fo­lio of essen­tial medicines. 

In addi­tion to Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Corpo­ra­tion, the sellers were its subsi­dia­ries Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Europe Ltd, London/United King­dom and Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma GmbH, Düsseldorf.

Advi­sor Ethy­ph­arm: Schad­bach Rechtsanwälte

Kai Schad­bach, LL.M. (Photo © Schad­bach Rechts­an­wälte, lead), Konstan­tin Warno­wizki and Sören Brost (all M&A), Dr. Petra Weipert and Annette Kuhlen-Leis (both employ­ment law) and Dr. Marco Brand (commer­cial law).

About Schad­bach Attor­neys at Law

Schad­bach Rechts­an­wälte is a natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firm based in Frank­furt am Main. Our clients are predo­mi­nantly medium-sized compa­nies and inter­na­tio­nal groups of compa­nies who value our firm’s exper­tise in corpo­rate law as well as our contrac­tual and tran­sac­tional expe­ri­ence, e.g. in the M&A and private equity market. In addi­tion to corporate/M&A, other areas of advice include (inter­na­tio­nal) commer­cial law, direc­tors’ and offi­cers’ liabi­lity and proce­du­ral law. — www.schadbach.com

Aachen — Follo­wing a successful final closing, the Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) II now has a fund volume of more than € 50 million. TVF II is the fourth gene­ra­tion of venture capi­tal funds1 mana­ged by the TVF Manage­ment GmbH team. The fund invests in the most promi­sing tech start-ups in various verti­cals from the pre-seed and seed phase onwards. The focus is on teams from the Rhineland/NRW and Eure­gio Meuse-Rhine (Netherlands/Belgium) regions. 

Public and private inves­tors back high-growth tech start-ups

The TVF relies on a strong inves­tor ecosys­tem. In addi­tion to NRW.BANK, Spar­kasse Aachen and other regio­nal savings banks, this also includes nume­rous entre­pre­neu­rial private inves­tors from the fund’s network. — New inves­tors include Helaba (Landes­bank Hessen-Thürin­gen) and entre­pre­neurs such as Erich Borsch (Co-Foun­der Aixigo), Jürgen and Leo May (JM Holding), Alex­an­der Stoff­ers (next audit, Co-Foun­der Modell Aachen) as well as Dr. Reik Winkel and Dr. Chris­tian Augus­tin (foun­ders of indu­rad GmbH). 

Focus on early-stage companies

Since 2007, the expe­ri­en­ced TVF team has finan­ced and deve­lo­ped over 40 inno­va­tive start-ups in the fields of biotech, soft­ware, semi­con­duc­tors, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, deep tech, medtech and new mate­ri­als. Since the launch of TVF II in 2023, five start-ups have alre­ady been financed: 

membion GmbH: The company from Roet­gen (near Aachen) has deve­lo­ped an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy for waste­wa­ter treat­ment. This can save up to 75 percent instal­la­tion space and over 90 percent energy compared to the current stan­dard. In Decem­ber 2023, TVF II inves­ted five million euros toge­ther with the DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF).

Viva­lyx GmbH: Viva­lyx has crea­ted the liquid “Omni­sol” — a type of synthe­tic blood — to better preserve organs that are remo­ved for trans­plan­ta­tion. In combi­na­tion with its own “Flow­s­tore” trans­port system, it is possi­ble to trans­port organs over much longer distances and peri­ods of time without dama­ging them. In April 2024, TVF II inves­ted around EUR 7 million with co-inves­tors to tackle the appr­oval proces­ses in the USA (FDA) and Europe (CE).

Black Semi­con­duc­tor GmbH: The semi­con­duc­tor start-up from Aachen has deve­lo­ped an important tech­no­logy for connec­ting micro­chips based on graphene. This makes data trans­mis­sion more powerful and energy-effi­ci­ent, which is beco­ming incre­asingly important for data centers, espe­ci­ally in view of the growing compu­ting requi­re­ments of AI. Toge­ther with leading inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal funds and IPCEI funding from the state of North Rhine-West­pha­lia and the Fede­ral Repu­blic of Germany, the DeepT­ech company recei­ved around 250 million euros. 

IonKraft GmbH: A spin-off from the Insti­tute of Plas­tics Proces­sing (IKV) at RWTH Aachen Univer­sity, IonKraft has deve­lo­ped a coating process for plas­tic contai­ners that inhi­bits diffu­sion into, out of and through them, makes them resistant to chemi­cals and protects the contents. This elimi­na­tes the need for multi-layer solu­ti­ons, replaces PFAS-contai­ning layers and ensu­res recy­cla­bi­lity. To acce­le­rate the company’s growth, TVF II inves­ted EUR 3.5 million toge­ther with co-inves­tors in Novem­ber 2024. 

Plan­ted GmbH: Plan­ted offers a SaaS plat­form for CSRD report­ing and ESG moni­to­ring to support service compa­nies in achie­ving their sustaina­bi­lity goals. Custo­mers are also able to auto­ma­ti­cally offset their emis­si­ons through their own climate protec­tion projects (refo­re­sta­tion). In Decem­ber last year, TVF II and co-inves­tors inves­ted a total of EUR 3.8 million in the Colo­gne-based company. 

From foun­da­tion to startup to inde­pen­dent company

TVF focu­ses on the early finan­cing phases of start­ups and is often the first insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor. It sees itself as a go-to VC in the incre­asingly successful startup ecosys­tem in the Rhine­land and the border region in Belgium and the Nether­lands. The pool of inno­va­tions in this focus region is large: a start-up ecosys­tem has deve­lo­ped around inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons and univer­si­ties as well as with an estab­lished consul­ting and invest­ment network, which, with the NRW start-up capi­tal Aachen, is one of the leading ones in Germany. As a part­ner of the Gate­way Factory, which has just recei­ved milli­ons of euros in funding, the TVF is actively invol­ved in the further expan­sion and success of the Aachen-Düssel­dorf-Colo­gne start-up region. 

The fund will run until 2035. “We have the stay­ing power to support compa­nies until they are strong enough for inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, Mana­ging Part­ner of the Tech­Vi­sion Fund. “With our current resour­ces, we are excel­lently posi­tio­ned to enable further deep tech teams to become successful compa­nies. We are always at the side of the start-ups, not only as finan­ciers, but also as entre­pre­neu­rial spar­ring part­ners and strategists.” 

1 The prede­ces­sor funds were the Seed Fonds Aachen I + II and the still active Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I.

Marn­heim — The startup for breed-speci­fic dog food Hey Holy has closed a Series A finan­cing round of EUR 5.7 million. The round was led by VC Five Seasons Ventures, which specia­li­zes in Food­Tech. Exis­ting inves­tors Slingshot Ventures, Feast Ventures and a family office in the consu­mer segment also parti­ci­pa­ted, along with seve­ral busi­ness angels from the industry. 

Hey Holy intends to use the fresh capi­tal prima­rily to expand the team, extend the product range and expand the digi­tal brand presence. Hey Holy’s goal is to estab­lish breed-speci­fic nutri­tion as the new stan­dard in the pet market. 

Florian Kozok, Jules Michels and Marie Hille­brand from the law firm V14 advi­sed the startup for breed-speci­fic dog food Hey Holy on a Series A finan­cing round in the amount of EUR 5.7 million.

www.heyholy.com

Consul­tant: V14

Florian Kozok, Jules Michels, Marie Hillebrand

About V14

V14 is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media. — www.v14.de