ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Stutt­gart — FLEX Capi­tal acqui­res output manage­ment specia­list for OMS subsi­diary Form­ware with Heuking. A team led by Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein provi­ded legal advice to the private equity fund FLEX Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of the output manage­ment specia­list Raster­punkt (RP Output Manage­ment GmbH) for its OMS Group. With the tran­sac­tion, the Form­ware subsi­diary of the OMS Group is to further expand its OMS processes.

Raster­punkt has indus­try exper­tise in admi­nis­tra­tion, banking, insu­rance, utili­ties and retail and is an important link in the value chain between custo­mers and soft­ware part­ners for Form­ware and the OMS Group.

The two German medium-sized soft­ware pioneers Form­ware and NIC form the OMS group of compa­nies, which offers a fully compre­hen­sive and uncom­pli­ca­ted product for the auto­ma­ted crea­tion and digi­tal or postal dispatch of docu­ments. The two compa­nies enable custo­mers to merge the data of exten­sive recur­ring commu­ni­ca­tion proces­ses via various commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels and to gene­rate, send and archive invoices, contracts, orders, etc. in a fully auto­ma­ted digi­ta­li­zed manner and in an audit-proof manner.

Foun­ded in 1989 in Stutt­gart, Raster­punkt serves more than 100 custo­mers and offers compre­hen­sive exper­tise, flexi­bi­lity and profes­sio­nal solu­ti­ons in the area of consul­ting for output manage­ment and consul­ting services. Raster­punkt works with all major OMS soft­ware vendors and has exten­sive indus­try knowledge. 

FLEX Capi­tal is a next-gene­ra­tion private equity fund that invests in profi­ta­ble and growing compa­nies in the German Inter­net and soft­ware midmar­ket. FLEX Capi­tal is backed by six entre­pre­neurs Chris­toph Jost, Peter Walec­zek, Andreas Etten, Jan Becker, Felix Haas and Dr. Robert Wuttke, who have foun­ded nume­rous compa­nies them­sel­ves and made more than 140 tech invest­ments. Curr­ently, the FLEX port­fo­lio includes eleven port­fo­lio compa­nies across four platforms.

Advi­sor to FLEX Capi­tal: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Stuttgart
Dr. Emanuel Teich­mann (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Stuttgart
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg
Timo Daniel Trefzger (Labor Law), Hamburg

News

Stuttgart/ Reutin­gen — Menold Bezler advi­sed the Reut­lin­gen-based high-tech engi­nee­ring company Manz AG on a cash capi­tal increase without share­hol­ders’ subscrip­tion rights amoun­ting to appro­xi­m­ately 10% of the share capi­tal. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. (Photo: Daim­ler Truck)

The capi­tal increase through the issue of 774,408 new shares is rela­ted to a coope­ra­tion agree­ment on a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Daim­ler Truck AG in the field of elec­tro­mo­bi­lity. As a result of the invest­ment, Daim­ler Truck AG will become Manz AG’s new anchor share­hol­der. The proceeds of 30.6 million euros will be used to finance Manz AG’s further growth.

With curr­ently around 1,400 employees, the Manz Group deve­lops and builds produc­tion solu­ti­ons for various sectors and indus­tries in Germany, Slova­kia, Hungary, Italy, China and Taiwan. Manz AG was foun­ded in 1987 and has been listed on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (ISIN: DE000A0JQ5U3) since 2006. In fiscal 2021, the Group gene­ra­ted sales of around EUR 227 million.

Menold Bezler provi­ded legal advice on the capi­tal increase. The team led by Guido Quass has been working for Manz AG on corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law issues for many years.

Advi­sors to Manz AG: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Dr. Guido Quass (Part­ner), Dr. Björn Stau­din­ger (both Stock Corpo­ra­tion and Capi­tal Markets Law); Dr. Jochen Bern­hard (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law)

About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a part­ner­ship-struc­tu­red commer­cial law firm based in Stutt­gart. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Munich/ Röden­tal — Active Capi­tal Company (ACC) has acqui­red the shares in Werner Lieb GmbH & Co KG (LIEB). LIEB is a German mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring company and a specia­list in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons with a focus on the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. With this next plat­form invest­ment, ACC is expan­ding its port­fo­lio in Germany, bene­fiting from its imple­men­ta­tion-orien­ted invest­ment approach and many years of expe­ri­ence in mecha­ni­cal engineering.

Expan­sion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the offe­ring for the semi­con­duc­tor industry
Hart­wig Oster­meyer, Part­ner at ACC: “LIEB is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to grow with the incre­asing demand for chip produc­tion capa­city, espe­ci­ally in Europe. LIEB stands for more than 65 years of highest mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring compe­tence and quality stan­dards and has built an excel­lent repu­ta­tion and custo­mer base in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try over the last years.” ACC sees great poten­tial through further inno­va­tion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. “LIEB has an impres­sive deve­lo­p­ment pipe­line and we will invest in commer­cia­li­zing these solu­ti­ons to an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base.”
Secu­red company succes­sion of family-owned SMEs.

Stef­fen Lieb, Lieb’s previous co-part­ner, says: “We star­ted this process to secure succes­sion for our company and have found not only a trust­wor­thy new share­hol­der, but a true part­ner who will actively support LIEB in achie­ving its stra­te­gic goals.” His brot­her and previous co-part­ner Michael Lieb adds, “We are impres­sed by the tech­ni­cal exper­tise, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and proac­tive approach and are convin­ced that ACC is the right part­ner for our family legacy.”

About LIEB

LIEB, based in Röden­tal, Germany, was foun­ded in 1955 by Werner Lieb, the grand­fa­ther of the current mana­ging part­ners Stef­fen and Michael Lieb.… The core compe­tence lies in the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of specia­li­zed auto­ma­tion systems that increase the effi­ci­ency and quality of high-precis­ion produc­tion proces­ses. In recent years, the company has specia­li­zed in auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try; these machi­nes are now used by leading chip manu­fac­tu­r­ers world­wide. www.werner-lieb.de

About Active Capi­tal Company

ACC is an inde­pen­dent, execu­tion-orien­ted inves­tor focu­sed on SMEs in the Nether­lands and Germany. ACC invests in compa­nies in the fields of indus­try, technical
Whole­sale and busi­ness services with sales between €10 million and €100 million. Through an entre­pre­neu­rial and proac­tive approach, ACC sustain­ably maxi­mi­zes the value of its invest­ments. In this context, ACC supports the manage­ment in the imple­men­ta­tion of stra­te­gic projects and brings in its exten­sive part­ner network. ACC is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its fourth fund and began opera­ti­ons in Germany in 2019 with its invest­ment in Schahl­LED and successful trans­for­ma­tion. ACC has offices in Amster­dam and Munich. www.activecapitalcompany.com/de

Advi­sor ACC: ARQIS (Düsseldorf/Munich)

Mauritz von Einem (lead), Johan­nes Landry, Benja­min Bandur (all Private Equity), Jens Knip­ping, Jasmin Stucken­b­rock (both Tax), Marcus Noth­hel­fer, Nora Meyer-Strat­mann, Rolf Tichy (all IP/Commercial), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard, Fran­ziska Resch (both Real Estate), Tobias Neufeld, Daniel Schle­mann (both Data Privacy), Anja Mark­worth, Thi-Kieu-Chinh Nguyen, Julia Rege­nauer (all Labor/Pensions)

News

Bergamo/ Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) invests in MTW Holding SpA (“Metal­works”), a group of Italian manu­fac­tu­r­ers of metal and plas­tic access­ories for the luxury goods indus­try. Metal­works was foun­ded by Bravo Capi­tal Part­ners in 2016 and has evol­ved with a buy-and-build stra­tegy and a successful realignment of its busi­ness stra­tegy. In a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), DBAG Fund VIII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, will acquire a majo­rity stake in MTW Holding SpA. Luxem­part SA, a Luxem­bourg-listed company and inves­tor in Bravo Capi­tal, and the manage­ment team will parti­ci­pate as mino­rity share­hol­ders; the former owners and foun­ders of the company, who are curr­ently invol­ved in MTW Holding, will also become invol­ved again.

DBAG Fund VIII will invest up to 60 million euros, of which 13 million euros are attri­bu­ta­ble to DBAG. The fund will then hold around 62 percent of the shares in the holding company (DBAG: 14 percent). The closing of the purchase agree­ment is sche­du­led for the second quar­ter. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The current MBO is the seventh invest­ment of DBAG Fund VIII. The fund has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies since mid-2020. Last year, DBAG foun­ded the subsi­diary DBAG Italia and opened an office in Milan. Led by Giovanni Revoltella, four local members of the DBAG invest­ment team now work there. With PM Flex (2020) and Itelyum (2021), the DBAG port­fo­lio so far includes two invest­ments in Italian companies.

Under the umbrella of MTW Holding (www.mtwh.it/en, based in Castelli Cale­pio near Bergamo), three compa­nies operate that comple­ment each other in terms of product range and custo­mer rela­ti­ons: Metal­works, Mengoni & Nassini and FGF. The group designs and produ­ces high-quality fashion access­ories for luxury fashion brands. Typi­cal examp­les are belt buck­les, clasps or fittings for hand­bags, shoes and clot­hing, but also jewelry or emblems of the iconic brands, which are mainly repre­sen­ted globally. These products are made of metals such as brass, zamak, stain­less steel or plas­tic. Crucial to the company’s success is its ability to turn custo­mers’ design ideas into a finis­hed, high-quality product within a matter of days. Proxi­mity to high-end Italian and French fashion brands, for whom inno­va­tion and crea­ti­vity are parti­cu­larly important, also plays a major role. At the same time, they expect a relia­bly high quality of the parts that are proces­sed in their products.

The group employs 250 people at its sites near Bergamo and Florence; it also recently opened a branch in Paris to deepen rela­ti­ons with French luxury goods brands. The Group serves a market that has grown globally by an average of six percent over the past 25 years. 2021 sales were around 60 million euros, 16 percent more than in the pre-Corona year 2019. The market losses caused by the Corona crisis were thus offset within one year.

“The Group has an estab­lished posi­tion in a resi­li­ent market that is growing faster than the natio­nal product,” said Tom Alzin, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board, on the occa­sion of the MBO. “We want to help ensure that the manage­ment team can conti­nue the buy-and-build stra­tegy to expand the company’s geogra­phic foot­print.” Corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons have been a signi­fi­cant part of DBAG’s value enhance­ment stra­te­gies for years. In the past year alone, twelve invest­ments from the DBAG port­fo­lio comple­ted 25 corpo­rate acquisitions.

“Our agenda for the coming years includes not only corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons,” said Cesare Luzz­ana, CEO of Metal­works Holding, “but also orga­nic growth through inno­va­tive, sustainable mate­ri­als for exis­ting and new customers.”

About Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing share of equity invest­ments is accoun­ted for by compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services and soft­ware, and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner. Assets mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to 2.5 billion euros.

News

Berlin/ Regensburg/ Munich — A fund advi­sed by Elvas­ton Capi­tal (“Elvas­ton”) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in iS Soft­ware Group (“iS Soft­ware”), a German soft­ware deve­lo­per for the energy and water indus­try. The seller was WZ Energy Holding GmbH (“WZ Energy”). POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to Elvas­ton in connec­tion with the acquisition.

Based in Regens­burg, iS Soft­ware has been deve­lo­ping and distri­bu­ting stable and modern soft­ware solu­ti­ons for small and medium-sized compa­nies in the energy and water indus­try for more than 25 years. The company supports and accom­pa­nies its appro­xi­m­ately 300 custo­mers with indi­vi­dual concepts and solu­ti­ons as well as forward-looking tech­no­lo­gies. iS Soft­ware employs about 120 people at 5 loca­ti­ons and focu­ses on current topics, such as the new market commu­ni­ca­tion 2022, Redis­patch 2.0, new billing models or the SMGWA connection.

Elvas­ton is an entre­pre­neur-led invest­ment company based in Berlin, specia­li­zing in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Elvas­ton acqui­res majo­rity stakes and provi­des equity capi­tal to finance growth. The port­fo­lio includes succes­sion solu­ti­ons for entre­pre­neurs and fami­lies, group spin-offs and buy-and-build concepts in indus­tries with conso­li­da­tion poten­tial, growth finan­cing in the form of equity capi­tal increa­ses and tran­sac­tions in listed companies.

Consul­tant Elvas­ton: POELLATH

Dr. Tim Kauf­hold (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust Law, Frank­furt a.M.)
Dr. Moritz Klein (Coun­sel, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Frank­furt a.M.)
Nemanja Burgić, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Matthias Ober­bauer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)

About POELLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 150 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings regu­larly list our consul­tants as leading experts in their field.

News

Bonn / Berlin — AMCS and Quen­tic announ­ced that the compa­nies have reached an agree­ment for the purchase of Quen­tic GmbH — a leading provi­der of EHSQ and ESG report­ing — by AMCS. The acqui­si­tion is supported by AMCS’ inves­tors, inclu­ding Clear­lake Capi­tal Group, which is joining forces with AMCS for its next phase of growth. High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) will sell its shares as part of the deal. For HTGF, it is one of the most profi­ta­ble investments.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to close in the coming weeks. Follo­wing regu­la­tory appr­oval, Quen­tic will become part of AMCS.

The tran­sac­tion will give HTGF the third highest multi­ple in its fund history. The seed inves­tor from Bonn had alre­ady inves­ted in Quen­tic in 2008, accom­pa­nied it inten­si­vely for 14 years and was able to contri­bute signi­fi­cantly to the deve­lo­p­ment of the start-up through close exch­ange. HTGF reco­gni­zed the great market poten­tial of EHSQ and ESG report­ing early on. Inves­t­ing in sustainable start-ups has been an important focus of the fund since the begin­ning: Quen­tic is a leading provi­der in the field of stan­dar­di­zed soft­ware solu­ti­ons for occu­pa­tio­nal safety, envi­ron­men­tal manage­ment and sustainability.

AMCS is a leading global provi­der of inte­gra­ted soft­ware and vehicle tech­no­logy for the envi­ron­ment, recy­cling and resour­ces sectors. As part of AMCS, Quen­ti­c’s market posi­tion is to be further expan­ded. AMCS is fully aligned with Quen­ti­c’s mission to enable orga­niza­ti­ons around the world to sustain­ably manage their people, busi­ness and envi­ron­men­tal proces­ses at all levels.

The sale is a mile­stone. The foun­ding team alre­ady set the course in 2007/2008 with a view to cloud tech­no­lo­gies, the SaaS busi­ness model and then visio­nary topics such as EHSQ and ESG. “I am very happy for the three foun­ders, all of whom are still in opera­tio­nal roles, as well as all Quen­tic employees about this great success and of course to have expe­ri­en­ced this long, as well as extre­mely successful jour­ney toge­ther,” said Markus Kreß­mann, Part­ner at HTGF

“HTGF accom­pa­nied us as an inves­tor and stra­te­gic part­ner at a very early stage. For a soft­ware company like us, HTGF’s network and indus­try know­ledge are very important. We thank them for their valuable coope­ra­tion and support!” Markus Becker, CEO and co-foun­der of Quentic

Quen­tic GmbH is a spin-off of the Berlin Univer­sity of Applied Scien­ces and was supported in the early phase by an EXIST start-up grant from the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and Tech­no­logy. HTGF remained on board for seve­ral finan­cing phases and supported the company in further follow-up financing.

Today, the company has 250 employees at over 14 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Europe. Its custo­mers include more than 900 medium-sized compa­nies as well as major global corporations.

About Quen­tic
Quen­tic is a leading Soft­ware as a Service (SaaS) solu­tion provi­der for HSEQ and ESG manage­ment. The Quen­tic plat­form compri­ses ten indi­vi­du­ally combi­nable specia­list modu­les and thus offers the best prere­qui­si­tes for effi­ci­ent manage­ment in the areas of occu­pa­tio­nal safety, risks & audits, events & obser­va­tions, hazar­dous subs­tances, control of work, legal compli­ance, online instruc­tions, proces­ses, envi­ron­men­tal manage­ment and sustaina­bi­lity. They are comple­men­ted by the Quen­tic app for mobile report­ing and by powerful analy­sis opti­ons, as well as clear and daily updated dash­boards on HSEQ key data in Quen­tic Analy­tics. Over 900 custo­mers have built their custo­mi­zed and powerful HSEQ manage­ment plat­form with Quen­tic soft­ware solu­ti­ons, streng­thening their orga­niza­ti­on’s sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted Envi­ron­ment, Social and Gover­nance (ESG) respon­si­bi­lity areas. The inte­gra­tive soft­ware is suita­ble to support complete manage­ment systems accor­ding to ISO 14001, ISO 50001 and ISO 45001.
Quen­tic is head­quar­te­red in Berlin, Germany, and employs more than 250 people. Subsi­dia­ries are loca­ted in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Nether­lands, France, Spain and Italy.

News

Paris/ Frank­furt — BMW and Merce­des-Benz are selling their joint car-sharing subsi­diary “Share Now”, foun­ded in 2019, to the French-Italian car group Stellan­tis. Through the sale, they want to have more funds for other projects. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the merger control authorities.

Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Bird & Bird has advi­sed Free2move (Stellan­tis Group) on the acqui­si­tion of Share Now, a joint venture between BMW Group and Merce­des-Benz Mobi­lity AG formed in 2019.

Advi­sors BMW Group and Merce­des-Benz Mobi­lity AG: Hogan Lovells
Niko­las Zirn­gibl (Part­ner, Munich) and Thiemo Woertge (Asso­ciate, Munich) on corporate/M&A aspects; Falk Loose (Part­ner, Munich) on tax aspects; Falk Schoe­ning (Part­ner, Munich) on merger control aspects.

Free2move (Stellan­tis Group) was advi­sed by the follo­wing Bird & Bird attorneys:

France: Inter­na­tio­nal Lead and Coor­di­na­tion Carole Bodin (Part­ner), Sofia El Biyed and Céline Sol (Asso­cia­tes), all Corporate/M&A, Anne-Char­lotte Le Bihan (Part­ner) and Claire Bratel (Asso­ciate), both IP, Ariane Mole (Part­ner), Oriane Zubce­vic and Marine Besson (Asso­cia­tes), all Data Protec­tion, Boris Martor (Part­ner) and Raphael Weiss (Asso­ciate), both Regu­la­tory; Alex­andre Vuchot (Part­ner), Stéphane Leri­che (Asso­ciate) and Sacha Bettach (Asso­ciate), all Commercial/Tech & Comms, all Paris.

Germany: led by Dr. Kai Kerger (Part­ner), Johanna Schind­ler and Tamara Böhmert (Asso­cia­tes), all Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt, Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg (Part­ner, Munich) and Dr. Miriam Ball­hau­sen (Part­ner, Hamburg), both Commercial/Tech & Comms, Dr. Markus Körner (Part­ner, Munich), IP;Dr. Matthias Lang (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf) Regu­la­tion; Dr. Barbara Geck (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Labor Law.

Spain, Italy, Nether­lands: Lour­des Ayala (Part­ner, Madrid), Alberto Salvadé (Part­ner, Milan) and Pauline Vos (Part­ner — The Hague) all Corporate/M&A coor­di­na­ted the audits in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Racine acted with Bastien Thomas (Part­ner), Fran­çois Aubin and Céci­lia Pataut (Asso­cia­tes) as advi­sors to Free2move on merger control aspects.

PwC advi­sed Free2Move on the tax aspects of the tran­sac­tion with Delphine Bocquet (Part­ner, Paris) and Julien Marti­nez (Asso­cia­tes, Paris), Ralf Ulrich Brau­na­gel (Part­ner, Frank­furt) and Wiebke Henning (Asso­cia­tes, Frank­furt) and on the employ­ment aspects with Fanny Marchiset (Part­ner, Paris).

News

Munich, Germany — Life science inves­tors Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+ are advi­sing on a EUR 60 million (USD 63 million) Series B finan­cing for Tubu­lis GmbH. All exis­ting inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round, inclu­ding Bayern Kapi­tal (with Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern 2), BioMed­Part­ners, copa­rion, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), OCCIDENT and Seven­ture Partners.

The new capi­tal will be used to advance Tubu­lis’ proprie­tary pipe­line of uniquely assem­bled anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes (ADCs) toward clini­cal evalua­tion and launch programs for a range of solid tumor indi­ca­ti­ons. The new capi­tal is expec­ted to enable the company to realize the true thera­peu­tic poten­tial of ADCs through further inno­va­tion in new drug clas­ses and the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of novel cancer targets.

Tubu­lis uses proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies to deve­lop novel drugs whose mecha­nisms of action go deep at the root cause of the dise­ase in ques­tion. The goal is to expand the thera­peu­tic poten­tial of anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes (ADCs) to enable more targe­ted and effec­tive therapy of cancer as well as other diseases.

Andera Part­ners was foun­ded over 20 years ago and is a key player in private equity invest­ments inside and outside France. Andera teams manage more than €3.2 billion of invest­ment capi­tal in life scien­ces (Andera Life Scien­ces), growth and buyout capi­tal (Andera MidCap, Andera Expan­sion, Andera Crois­sance, Andera Co-Invest), non-spon­sor tran­sac­tions (Andera Acto), and envi­ron­men­tal trans­for­ma­tion (Andera Infra). The Andera Life Scien­ces team has raised over €1.1 billion through the BioDis­co­very family of funds and is curr­ently inves­t­ing from the BioDis­co­very 6 fund.

Evotec is a life science company with a unique busi­ness model dedi­ca­ted to disco­ve­ring, deve­lo­ping and deli­ve­ring highly effec­tive thera­peu­tics to pati­ents. The company’s multi­mo­dal plat­form includes a unique combi­na­tion of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies, data and science for the disco­very, deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of world-class phar­maceu­ti­cal products.

Fund+ is a Belgian venture capi­tal firm that invests in inno­va­tive Euro­pean life scien­ces compa­nies deve­lo­ping drugs, medi­cal devices and diagno­stics, with a focus on pati­ent-centric approa­ches and large unmet medi­cal needs. With over €200 million in assets under manage­ment, Fund+ has a solid track record since 2015, inves­t­ing in 17 port­fo­lio compa­nies with two major exits.

Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+ were advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Baker McKen­zie’s Corporate/M&A and Life Science teams. They regu­larly advise phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies, finan­cial inves­tors, stra­te­gic inves­tors and biotech­no­logy compa­nies on natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal health­care tran­sac­tions. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed, among others, Alle­cra Thera­peu­tics on an exclu­sive license and supply agree­ment with ADVANZ PHARMA, MODAG on a stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with Teva, Chord Thera­peu­tics on its sale to Merck KGaA, LSP as lead inves­tor in a EUR 20 million Series A equity finan­cing of Inno­va­tive Mole­cu­les, Numab Thera­peu­tics in a CHF 100 million cross-over finan­cing, Cata­lYm in a EUR 50 million Series B finan­cing led by Vesa­lius Capi­tal, Casdin Capi­tal as lead inves­tor in DNA Scrip­t’s USD 50 million exten­ded Series B equity finan­cing round, and Chr. Hansen Holding in its acqui­si­tion of Jenne­wein Biotechnology.

Legal Coun­sel Andera Part­ners, Evotec and Fund+: Baker McKenzie
Lead Part­ner Julia Braun, LL.M. (Part­ner, Munich); Corporate/M&A: Bert­hold Hummel (Part­ner, Munich), Dr. Julia Rossie (Asso­ciate, Munich)
Tran­sac­tional IP: Julia Schie­ber (Senior Asso­ciate, Zurich)
Foreign Trade Law: Alex­an­der Ehrle, Kimber­ley Fischer (both Asso­cia­tes, Berlin)
Employ­ment Law: Dr. Matthias Köhler (Part­ner, Berlin), Kers­tin Schmie­del (Asso­ciate, Berlin)

News

Madrid/ Munich — Tele­fó­nica Tech has acqui­red BE-terna, a leading Euro­pean provi­der of Micro­soft cloud solu­ti­ons for cloud-based indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons, for up to €350 million (inclu­ding poten­tial profit sharing). The acqui­si­tion posi­ti­ons Tele­fó­nica Tech as one of the leading Euro­pean provi­ders of Micro­soft solu­ti­ons and secu­res its presence in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, the Adria­tic and Scan­di­na­via. — Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed DPE Deut­sche Private Equity and other co-inves­tors on the sale of BE-terna Group to Tele­fó­nica Tech. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance.

Tele­fó­nica Tech will acquire 100 percent of the shares of BE-terna Group from Deut­sche Private Equity and other mino­rity share­hol­ders. The tran­sac­tion is subject to a valua­tion of BE-terna at 13.7 times gross opera­ting income (EV/OIBDA), taking into account syner­gies and expec­ted 2022 results. BE-terna gene­ra­ted pro forma sales of €121 million in 2021, show­ing a year-on-year growth rate of 30 percent. The tran­sac­tion will be comple­ted in the coming weeks follo­wing clearance by the German compe­ti­tion authorities.

BE-terna was foun­ded in 2005 and has a highly quali­fied team of more than 1,000 employees at 28 loca­ti­ons, inclu­ding Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, the Adria­tic and Scan­di­na­via. As one of the five largest cloud Micro­soft Dyna­mics part­ners in Europe, BE-terna specia­li­zes in driving digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion prima­rily based on Micro­soft solu­ti­ons, but also works with Infor, UI Path and Qlik to opti­mize busi­ness proces­ses for diffe­rent industries.

The acqui­si­tion expands Tele­fó­nica Tech’s geogra­phic reach and profes­sio­nal and mana­ged services capa­bi­li­ties across Europe and under­lines its ambi­tion to become a leading provi­der of tech­ni­cal services in Europe. The acqui­si­tion of BE-terna once again demons­tra­tes Tele­fó­nica Tech’s growth story, with reve­nues approa­ching the 1 billion euro mark at the end of 2021 and growing by 33.6 percent year-on-year.

Advi­sor to Tele­fó­nica Tech: Clif­ford Chance
Lead part­ner Stefan Bruder, photo © Clif­ford Chance (Frank­furt) and Simon Schmid (Düssel­dorf, both Corporate/M&A).

Inhouse at Tele­fó­nica, Diego Colchero Paetz (Gene­ral Coun­sel Tele­fó­nica Tech) and Miguel Basterra Marti­nez de San Vicente (Direc­tor Legal M&A Tele­fó­nica) led the tran­sac­tion team.

Legal advi­sors to DPE Deut­sche Private Equity: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Kilian Helm­reich (Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Lead), Isabelle Vran­cken (Senior Asso­ciate), Karl Ehren­berg (Senior Asso­ciate), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A)

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 specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

About Clif­ford Chance

Clif­ford Chance, one of the worl­d’s leading law firms, is present for its clients with around 3,400 legal advi­sors in all major busi­ness centers around the world.
In Germany, Clif­ford Chance is repre­sen­ted by around 300 lawy­ers, audi­tors, tax advi­sors and soli­ci­tors in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

News

Hamburg / Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed Aon Versi­che­rungs­mak­ler Deutsch­land GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of Karl Köll­ner GmbH Versi­che­rungs­mak­ler and Karl Köll­ner GmbH & Co KG Marine Insu­rance Brokers. Aon thus conti­nues its growth and further expands its port­fo­lio in the ship­ping, trans­port and logi­stics sector.

The divi­sion broker Karl Köll­ner, based in Hamburg, serves important major clients in the tradi­tio­nal divi­si­ons such as Property and has outstan­ding exper­tise in Marine Cargo and Hull. “Aon and Karl Köll­ner will comple­ment each other very well,” comm­ents Kai Büch­ter, CEO Aon D‑A-CH. “On the one hand, there is a broker with first-class indus­try exper­tise and, on the other, a major broker with a broad product range and inter­na­tio­nal network. Our custo­mers will bene­fit from this merger.”

The ARQIS team led by Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (photo) regu­larly acts for Aon, most recently in the acqui­si­tion of TRIUM GmbH Insu­rance Broker, a broker specia­li­zing in risk manage­ment in the real estate sector.

Advi­sor Aon: ARQIS

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead), Kamil Flak, Dr. Nima Hanifi-Atash­gah, Laura Rizzi, Jasmin Stucken­b­rock, Hannah Potter (all M+A); Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard, Tim Brese­mann (Real Estate), Tobias Neufeld, Daniel Schle­mann (Data Law); Dr. Mirjam Boche, Dr. Fried­rich Gebert, Luise Schü­ling (Insurance/Supervisory Law); Marcus Noth­hel­fer, Nora Meyer-Strat­mann, Rolf Tichy, Natha­lie Winter­meier (IP/IT); Sina Janke (Compli­ance); Jens Knip­ping (Tax); Anja Mark­worth, Constanze Eberz, Jana Ammen, Carina Grahs, Julia Rege­nauer (Labor Law).

 

News

Munich / Kaisers­lau­tern — Liberta Part­ners (“LIBERTA”), with the support of BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, acqui­res KKS Kemm­ler Kopier Systeme GmbH (“KKS”), a service provi­der in the field of mana­ged services for office infra­struc­ture, in the course of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship. The previous sole share­hol­der, Axel Kemm­ler, remains active in the company as mana­ging direc­tor and shareholder.

The company’s core compe­ten­cies are Mana­ged Print Services (MPS) and include in parti­cu­lar the manage­ment of prin­ter infra­struc­ture. This includes the opti­miza­tion, analy­sis and auto­ma­tion of prin­ting, scan­ning and copy­ing proces­ses at custo­mers. In addi­tion, the company offers solu­ti­ons in the area of digi­tal docu­ment manage­ment systems (DMS) and is curr­ently expan­ding this area signi­fi­cantly. The company was foun­ded in 1998 by Axel Kemm­ler and curr­ently employs 34 people. KKS is head­quar­te­red in Kaisers­lau­tern, with addi­tio­nal bran­ches in Pirma­sens and Landau. As the regio­nal market leader, KKS serves around 2,150 custo­mers in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Company foun­der Axel Kemm­ler commen­ted on the part­ner­ship as follows: “With LIBERTA, we have an opera­tio­nal part­ner at our side who acts with long-term and fore­sight. With our custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons, for the modern office infra­struc­ture, we plan to expand our custo­mer base and to speci­fi­cally extend our service port­fo­lio. LIBERTA will actively support us in our further deve­lo­p­ment. I am looking forward to the joint tasks and goals.”

Nils von Wietz­low, Part­ner of LIBERTA (Photo, © Liberta) and respon­si­ble for succes­sion solu­ti­ons, adds: “We are very plea­sed that Axel Kemm­ler has chosen LIBERTA to jointly shape the company’s future stra­tegy. The excel­lent repu­ta­tion in the market and the conso­li­da­ted custo­mer base will form the basis for further growth. In this context, the digi­ta­liza­tion trend of office infra­struc­ture, in the German SME sector, is the key poten­tial. We plan to map growth both orga­ni­cally and inorganically.”

This is the tenth invest­ment of Liberta Part­ners Fund II, which closed in Octo­ber 2019. The fund invests in group spin-offs and succes­sion situa­tions of family busi­nesses with a strong focus on support­ing the opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment of its port­fo­lio companies.

About Kemm­ler Kopier Systeme GmbH

Kemm­ler Kopier Systeme GmbH, based in Kaisers­lau­tern, was foun­ded in 1998 by Axel Kemm­ler and estab­lished as a market leader in the field of mana­ged services for office infra­struc­ture, with a regio­nal focus on Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate. KKS curr­ently employs 34 people at three loca­ti­ons, serving around 2,150 custo­mers. The company’s core compe­tence is Mana­ged Print Services (MPS) and includes the manage­ment of prin­ter infra­struc­ture. In parti­cu­lar, the opti­miza­tion, analy­sis and auto­ma­tion of prin­ting, scan­ning and copy­ing proces­ses at custo­mers. www.kks-kl.de

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in succes­sion situa­tions and corpo­rate spin-offs. These are actively deve­lo­ped as part of the long-term “100% Core & Care” concept and bene­fit from Liberta Part­ners’ inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial under­stan­ding. Liberta Part­ners’ team curr­ently consists of 15 employees working in M&A, corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment and legal, as well as an active indus­try advi­sory board. www.liberta-partners.com

News

Darmstadt/ Munich — Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed the foun­der and sole share­hol­der of asphalt­gold GmbH & Co KG on the sale to Arklyz Group. The Asphalt­gold foun­der will remain with the company as mana­ging direc­tor after the tran­sac­tion has been completed.

Foun­der Dani Benz has deve­lo­ped Asphalt­gold, based in Darm­stadt, into one of the leading online stores for snea­k­ers, street­wear clot­hing and life­style products in the top-tier segment since its foun­ding in 2008. In addi­tion to the online store, the company, which now has more than 200 employees, also opera­tes a flag­ship store in Darmstadt.

Arklyz Group, based in Stans, Switz­er­land, is active in the sports, life­style and athlei­sure sectors. Arklyz Group’s holdings include inter­na­tio­nal street­wear retailer The Athle­te’s Foot and sports sock manu­fac­tu­rer Intersocks.

Legal advi­sors to the seller: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)
MOOG, Darm­stadt: Marc Sälzer, LL.M. (taxes)

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 specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Dantherm Group (Dantherm), a company from the DBAG Fund VIII port­fo­lio, acqui­res Trotec GmbH. Trotec is a foun­der-mana­ged company that manu­fac­tures and sells mobile air condi­tio­ning products. The tran­sac­tion is predo­mi­nantly debt finan­ced. DBAG Fund VIII is also support­ing the tran­sac­tion with a capi­tal injec­tion of up to 15 million euros, of which the co-invest­ment by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) accounts for almost one quar­ter. As part of the tran­sac­tion, company foun­der Detlev von der Lieck is taking a signi­fi­cant stake in the newly formed group and will in future be a member of the company’s advi­sory board.

DBAG Fund VIII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Dantherm in Novem­ber 2021 as part of a manage­ment buyout and inves­ted 99 million euros, of which DBAG accoun­ted for a good 22 million euros. The oppor­tu­nity to achieve a leading posi­tion in Europe through inor­ga­nic growth is a central compo­nent of the value enhance­ment stra­tegy. The current tran­sac­tion will result in a broa­de­ning of geogra­phic market coverage and product offe­ring, as well as the addi­tion of an incre­asingly important sales chan­nel. Both compa­nies combine sales of around 360 million euros and employ a total of 950 people.

Trotec (www.trotec.de) deve­lops, produ­ces and sells trans­por­ta­ble and statio­nary devices for air dehu­mi­di­fi­ca­tion, cooling, heating and venti­la­tion as well as air filters, which are used in indus­try, commerce and by private custo­mers. In 2021, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around 170 million euros with such and other products. Like Dantherm (www.danthermgroup.com), it also bene­fi­ted from the pande­mic, which among other things led to higher demand for air filters. Trotec was foun­ded in 1994 and now employs 350 people at loca­ti­ons in ten count­ries, most of them at its head­quar­ters in Heins­berg (North Rhine-Westphalia).

While Dantherm mainly supplies busi­ness custo­mers, just under a third of Trotec’s sales are gene­ra­ted with private custo­mers. With an online portal that is successful in seve­ral languages, it is expan­ding sales oppor­tu­ni­ties, because Danther­m’s busi­ness has so far been conduc­ted mainly through whole­sa­lers and other statio­nary forms of distribution.

The market for mobile and statio­nary air-condi­tio­ning equip­ment is growing at an annual rate of between four and six percent, which is faster than the natio­nal product as a whole. Market growth is driven by climate change and the well­ness trend, among other factors, but also by stric­ter regu­la­ti­ons for more effi­ci­ent energy use.

“Dantherm and Trotec comple­ment each other perfectly,” Dantherm CEO Bjarke Brøns commen­ted on the tran­sac­tion; “the merger offers signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties given the diffe­rent market chan­nels, large product range, tech­no­logy plat­form and syner­gies in the combi­ned supply chain.” And, “We see good growth oppor­tu­ni­ties — orga­ni­cally in our busi­ness, inor­ga­ni­cally in the imple­men­ta­tion of our acqui­si­tion stra­tegy.” Trotec foun­der Detlef von der Lieck added: “I am deligh­ted that Dantherm and Trotec are joining forces with DBAG Fund VIII as a strong share­hol­der. This gives the employees and the company, which I foun­ded almost 30 years ago, excel­lent pros­pects for the future.”

“We are plea­sed that we have once again been able to gain the trust of a company foun­der who sees DBAG as the best part­ner for the further deve­lo­p­ment of his company,” said DBAG Manage­ment Board member Jannick Hune­cke now also with regard to DBAG’s most recent four invest­ments, which were also agreed with company founders.

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing share of equity invest­ments is accoun­ted for by compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services and soft­ware, and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deloitte Legal streng­thens its cross-loca­tion Dispute Reso­lu­tion & Liti­ga­tion team at its Frankfurt/Main office. Fran­cis Bellen (54) will be appoin­ted part­ner at Deloitte Legal as of May 1, 2022.

Fran­cis Bellen has repre­sen­ted clients in liti­ga­tion, arbi­tra­tion and alter­na­tive dispute reso­lu­tion for over 20 years. Most recently, he was with Reed Smith. His work focu­ses on dispu­tes in the areas of corpo­rate, commer­cial and busi­ness law, anti­trust claims for dama­ges, post‑M&A dispu­tes, and banking and finance law.
At Deloitte Legal, Fran­cis Bellen will in parti­cu­lar support the Dispute Reso­lu­tion & Liti­ga­tion service line led by Michael Falter. Fran­cis Bellen joins toge­ther with Iris Kruse, who joins Deloitte Legal as Coun­sel. With this addi­tion, the Dispute Reso­lu­tion & Liti­ga­tion service line grows to over 15 highly specia­li­zed attorneys.

Michael Falter, Head of Service Line Dispute Reso­lu­tion: “We are very plea­sed to welcome Fran­cis Bellen and Iris Kruse. With their outstan­ding expe­ri­ence as liti­ga­tors and arbi­tra­tors, we are further expan­ding our service offe­ring at the Frank­furt office and adding exper­tise in important areas of inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law, such as avia­tion and banking.”

Thomas Northoff, Mana­ging Part­ner Deloitte Legal, adds: “I am convin­ced that the addi­tion of Fran­cis Bellen will again signi­fi­cantly support and streng­then the alre­ady very successful deve­lo­p­ment of our advi­sory services in the area of liti­ga­tion, arbi­tra­tion and alter­na­tive dispute reso­lu­tion. His focus on corpo­rate, commer­cial and busi­ness law dispu­tes, post‑M&A dispu­tes as well as banking and finance law is an excel­lent fit with our Frank­furt office and our local expertise.”

Commen­ting on his moti­va­tion for the move, Fran­cis Bellen says, “What attracts me to Deloitte Legal is its compel­ling stra­tegy to expand its Dispute Reso­lu­tion service offe­ring, parti­cu­larly in the inno­va­tive manage­ment of mass liti­ga­tion and complex dispu­tes. I am very much looking forward to working with an outstan­ding cross-func­tional team.”

About Deloitte Legal and Deloitte

Deloitte Legal refers to the legal advice prac­ti­ces of the member compa­nies of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted, its affi­lia­tes or affi­lia­tes that provide legal services.

Deloitte refers to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted (“DTTL”), its global network of member firms and its affi­lia­tes (coll­ec­tively, the “Deloitte Orga­niza­tion”). DTTL (also refer­red to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and their affi­lia­tes are legally sepa­rate and inde­pen­dent enti­ties that cannot bind or obli­gate each other with respect to third parties. DTTL, each DTTL Member Company and Affi­lia­tes shall be liable only for their own acts and omis­si­ons and not for those of others. DTTL itself does not provide any services to clients. www.deloitte.com/de/UeberUns.

Deloitte is a leading global provi­der of audit and assu­rance, risk advi­sory, tax advi­sory, finan­cial advi­sory and consul­ting and rela­ted services; legal services in Germany are provi­ded by Deloitte Legal. Our global network of member firms and affi­lia­tes in more than 150 count­ries (coll­ec­tively, the “Deloitte orga­niza­tion”) provi­des services to four out of five Fortune Global 500® companies.

News

Dusseldorf/ Paris — Cycle Capi­tal and Deme­ter, leading clean­tech-focu­sed asset mana­gers, announ­ced the successful first finan­cing close for their new Circu­lar Inno­va­tion Fund (“CIF”) of $160 million and €150 million, respec­tively, with parti­ci­pa­tion from anchor inves­tor L’Oréal.

Anchor inves­tor L’Oréal is contri­bu­ting 50 million euros through its sustaina­bi­lity program L’Oréal for the Future. The fund also bene­fits from a broad range of inves­tors, inclu­ding stra­te­gic inves­tor Axens, family offices such as Haltra and Claridge, as well as private inves­tors and the fund managers.

Through this fund, the fund mana­gers are pooling their resour­ces to scale circu­lar, sustainable and profi­ta­ble growth solu­ti­ons from North America, Europe and Asia that posi­tively contri­bute to climate change miti­ga­tion and the circu­lar use of resour­ces in a variety of sectors, inclu­ding new mate­ri­als, pack­a­ging, recy­cling and waste, logi­stics, eco-effi­ci­ent proces­ses and design. The fund will leverage the invest­ment mana­gers’ expe­ri­ence in venture capi­tal, private equity and infra­struc­ture in the clean­tech sector to address the growing need for market-ready solu­ti­ons and provide capi­tal for talen­ted, entre­pre­neu­rial teams to imple­ment these innovations.

The CIF is a sustainable inno­va­tion fund clas­si­fied as “Article 9″ under the EU Regu­la­tion on sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted disclo­sure requi­re­ments in the finan­cial services sector. The Fund’s robust, relia­ble, and inno­va­tive impact measu­re­ment metho­do­logy includes due dili­gence and ongo­ing moni­to­ring of criti­cal non-finan­cial metrics, inclu­ding green­house gas emis­si­ons reduc­tions, resource use, and diver­sity within port­fo­lio compa­nies’ invest­ment hori­zons. Fund mana­gers’ compen­sa­tion is also based on the achie­ve­ment of a selec­tion of prede­fi­ned impact targets.

- “In a context of ‘now or never,’ as stated in the latest IPCC report, private compa­nies like L’Oréal must play a grea­ter role in support­ing solu­ti­ons that are criti­cal to the future of our planet and huma­nity. At L’Oréal, we believe that impact inves­t­ing is a powerful tool to address the biggest envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges and acce­le­rate the neces­sary green trans­for­ma­tion. Through the Circu­lar Inno­va­tion Fund, we are joining forces with other commit­ted play­ers to scale circu­lar and profi­ta­ble solu­ti­ons for sustainable growth.” — Alex­an­dra Palt, Chief Corpo­rate Respon­si­bi­lity Offi­cer and CEO of Fonda­tion L’Oréal.

Invest­ments in early-stage venture capi­tal funds

Follo­wing the initial closing, CIF announ­ces indi­rect invest­ments in two early stage funds focu­sed on circu­lar inno­va­tion — the U.S. Closed Loop Venture Fund II and the Euro­pean Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy Fund (“ECBF”).

Foun­ded in 2014, Closed Loop Part­ners is a New York-based invest­ment firm that includes venture capi­tal, growth capi­tal, private equity and cata­ly­tic capi­tal, and an inno­va­tion center focu­sed on advan­cing the circu­lar economy. The company’s venture capi­tal arm, Closed Loop Ventures Group, laun­ched in 2017 with one of the first venture capi­tal funds to invest in early-stage disrup­tive compa­nies deve­lo­ping breakth­rough solu­ti­ons to acce­le­rate the tran­si­tion to a circu­lar economy. In 2021, the Group laun­ched its second risk fund to build on this stra­tegy. To date, the team has made more than 30 invest­ments in both funds, targe­ting high early-stage returns.

ECBF is the first venture fund to invest exclu­si­vely in high-growth compa­nies in the Euro­pean bioe­co­nomy, inclu­ding the circu­lar economy. The fund aims to make sustainable invest­ments in our future and acce­le­rate the tran­si­tion from a fossil-based to a bio-based economy. In this way, ECBF supports compa­nies with high inno­va­tion poten­tial, attrac­tive returns and sustainable impact.
CIF will also spon­sor a global acce­le­ra­tion program through a part­ner­ship with Cycle Momen­tum. The program provi­des support for seed/series A stage start­ups with cohorts in Europe, North America and Asia over 3 years.

The CIF invest­ment team is actively explo­ring a variety of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and welco­mes inqui­ries from and colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with foun­ders and co-investors.

About Cycle Capital
Cycle Capi­tal is a sustainable inves­tor and a leading private clean­tech venture capi­tal invest­ment plat­form with $600 million in assets under manage­ment. With offices in Mont­real and Toronto, as well as Qing­dao, China, and a presence in New York and Seat­tle, Cycle Capi­tal invests throug­hout North America and China in growing and commer­ci­ally successful compa­nies that have deve­lo­ped tech­no­lo­gies to reduce green­house gas emis­si­ons and opti­mize resour­ces and proces­ses. Cycle Capi­tal is the foun­der of the Cycle Momen­tum Acce­le­ra­tor and Cana­dian co-chair of the Beyond the Billion Initia­tive — an inter­na­tio­nal campaign to mobi­lize a consor­tium of inves­tors to support women foun­ders. cyclecapital.com.

About Deme­ter
Deme­ter is a large Euro­pean invest­ment plat­form dedi­ca­ted to ecolo­gi­cal change. Deme­ter mana­ges over 1 billion euros and has alre­ady made 200 invest­ments since 2005. Deme­ter invests between 1 and 30 million euros to support compa­nies at all stages of deve­lo­p­ment: inno­va­tive start­ups, high-growth SMEs and infra­struc­ture projects. The 38-strong team works in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Greno­ble, Metz, Madrid and Düssel­dorf. Deme­ter is a respon­si­ble and commit­ted inves­tor and signa­tory to nume­rous initia­ti­ves such as PRI (Prin­ci­ple for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment), CDP (Carbon Disclo­sure Project), iC20, The Shift Project and gender diver­sity initia­ti­ves. All new Deme­ter funds are clas­si­fied as “Article 9″ under the frame­work of the new Euro­pean regu­la­tion on sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted disclo­sure requi­re­ments in the finan­cial services sector. www.demeter-im.com.

L’Oréal
For over 110 years, L’Oréal, the worl­d’s leading beauty care company, has been dedi­ca­ted to one thing: fulfil­ling the beauty desi­res of people around the world. Our goal to create the beauty that moves the world defi­nes our approach to beauty as inclu­sive, ethi­cal, gene­rous, and commit­ted to social and envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity. With our broad port­fo­lio of 35 inter­na­tio­nal brands and our ambi­tious sustaina­bi­lity commit­ments under our L’Oréal for the Future program, we offer the best in quality, effi­cacy, safety, honesty and respon­si­bi­lity to ever­yone around the world.

News

Frank­furt a. Main — The foun­ders and inves­tors (inclu­ding Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH, Fraun­ho­fer e.V. and High- Tech Grün­der­fonds) of Arioso Systems GmbH (the “Share­hol­ders”) have sold their shares in Arioso Systems GmbH (“Arioso”) to Bosch Sensor­tec GmbH, a subsi­diary of Robert Bosch GmbH (“Bosch”). Will­kie advi­sed all share­hol­ders inclu­ding the foun­ders and inves­tors (among others Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH, Fraun­ho­fer e.V. and High- Tech Grün­der­fonds) of Arioso Systems GmbH (the “Share­hol­ders”) on the sale of their shares in Bosch Sensor­tec GmbH.

The share­hol­ders have agreed to sell Arioso, a Fraun­ho­fer IPMS spin-off for the commer­cia­liza­tion of Nano­sco­pic Elec­tro­sta­tic Drive (NED) μSpea­ker- tech­no­logy, to Bosch. — Ario­so’s product port­fo­lio includes gene­ral and custom microelec­tro­me­cha­ni­cal systems (MEMS) and appli­ca­tion-speci­fic inte­gra­ted circuits (ASIC).

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in Q2 2022.

Foun­ded in 2019, Arioso aims to become a leading provi­der of μSpea­ker tech­no­logy for the ultra-mobile audio world. Unlike conven­tio­nal spea­k­ers and the few other MEMS spea­k­ers available, Ario­so’s tiny MEMS spea­k­ers contain neither a diaphragm nor magnets, but are made enti­rely of sili­con. They can be mass-produ­ced inex­pen­si­vely using stan­dard proces­ses for comple­men­tary metal oxide semi­con­duc­tors, making them easily scalable for the mass market.

Will­kie advi­sed on all aspects of the tran­sac­tion, KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed on IP, IT and data protec­tion issues.

Advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of Arioso Systems GmbH: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP

Part­ner Miriam Steets, Foto (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Jens-Olrik Murach (Anti­trust, Brussels), Coun­sel Wulf Kring (Tax, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Andrej Popp, Nils Bock (both Corporate/M&A), Martin Waskow­ski (Labor Law) and Aurel Hille (Anti­trust, all Frankfurt).

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm of more than 1,000 lawy­ers with offices in Brussels, Chicago, Frank­furt, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Milan, New York, Palo Alto, Paris, Rome, San Fran­cisco and Washing­ton. The firm is head­quar­te­red in New York at 787 Seventh Avenue, Tel: +1 212 728 8000.

The KNPZ team included part­ner Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath and asso­ciate Chris­toph Jenal (both Hamburg).

News

Munich, Germany — Kinexon, provi­der of the worl­d’s most advan­ced full-stack solu­tion for real-time connec­ti­vity, intel­li­gence and auto­ma­tion, has raised a USD 130 million Series A funding round. In addi­tion to lead inves­tor Thomas H. Lee Part­ners, L.P. (THL), BMW i Ventures, Inc. and the Tele­kom Inno­va­tion Pool (TIP), Deut­sche Tele­kom AG’s stra­te­gic invest­ment fund. Bird & Bird LLP advi­sed Kinexon on its USD 130 million Series A.

The funding will enable Kinexon to acce­le­rate inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and scale its opera­ting system for networked and auto­ma­ted processes.

Kinexon is a pioneer in the core elements of IoT. Kinexon deli­vers cloud soft­ware for captu­ring, opti­mi­zing and auto­ma­ting proces­ses in produc­tion, logi­stics and sports. Head­quar­te­red in Munich, the company now has more than 300 employees in Munich and Chicago. Kinexon laun­ched the worl­d’s most cost-effec­tive UWB sensor, enab­ling a variety of profi­ta­ble IoT appli­ca­ti­ons. Kinexon makes connec­ti­vity and precise indoor loca­liza­tion of indus­trial assets ready for the mass market for the first time.

Advi­sor Kinexon: Bird & Bird Attor­neys at Law

Lead Part­ner Stefan Münch, Coun­sel Michael Gass­ner, Coun­sel Andrea Schlote, Asso­ciate Daniel Gloor, all Corporate/M&A, Part­ner Dr. Henri­ette Picot, Commer­cial, all Munich, Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann, Finan­cing and Finan­cial Regu­la­tion, Frank­furt, Part­ner Dr. Stephan Wald­heim, Asso­ciate Tietze Tamy, both EU & Anti­trust, Düsseldorf.

Advi­sors to Thomas H. Lee Part­ners, L.P. (THL): Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Attila Oldag, Dr. Sebas­tian Häfele (both lead, both M&A/Private Equity), Dr. Alex­an­der M.H. Längs­feld (Debt Finance), Daniel Hiemer (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Thomas Diek­mann, Jan Mahlke (both M&A/Private Equity), Phil­ipp Büch­ler (Debt Finance), Dr. Tobias Stuppi (Tax)
— Kirk­land & Ellis, Chicago: Ted M. Fran­kel, P.C., Kyle P. McHugh (both M&A/Private Equity)
— Kirk­land & Ellis, London: John Patten (Tech­no­logy & IP Transactions)

News

Pfäf­fi­kon (CH) — The Ufenau Conti­nua­tion III (“UC III”) fund was successfully closed with a volume of EUR 563 million. The fund was set up to invest in the two compa­nies Corius and Altano toge­ther with the manage­ment teams. The fund will provide addi­tio­nal capi­tal to support the compa­nies’ strong growth and conti­nue the successful buy-&-build stra­tegy that Ufenau V star­ted in 2017.

UC III was capi­ta­li­zed by a group of renow­ned inves­tors, led by StepStone Group as senior lead and Five Arrows Secon­dary Oppor­tu­ni­ties as junior lead, along­side seve­ral exis­ting inves­tors in Ufenau. We are proud that we were able to attract such a high-cali­ber group of inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors for this tran­sac­tion. In addi­tion, we were able to offer our Ufenau V inves­tors a “win-win” solu­tion, with the oppor­tu­nity to earn a very attrac­tive return, or to conti­nue the buy-&-build stra­tegy for Corius and Altano by inves­t­ing in UC III.

Over the past five years, Ufenau V, in successful part­ner­ship with the manage­ment teams, has driven the strong orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth of Corius and Altano, estab­li­shing them as market leaders in the D/A/CH region. Both groups have great poten­tial to further conso­li­date their respec­tive sectors and also expand inter­na­tio­nally. As a result, both compa­nies have increased their sales more than tenfold and made a total of more than 50 acqui­si­ti­ons in the last five years. UC III will conti­nue the successful invest­ment stra­tegy of Ufenau V and use the new capi­tal for further acqui­si­ti­ons and invest­ments to successfully imple­ment the expan­sion plans of Corius and Altano.

Ralf Flore (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Ufenau: “We are plea­sed to have successfully closed UC III and to be able to move forward with the next chap­ter in the deve­lo­p­ment of Corius and Altano. On behalf of the Ufenau team, I would like to thank the new and exis­ting inves­tors who have chosen to parti­ci­pate in UC III. Further, our thanks go to the manage­ment teams of Corius and Altano who have done an outstan­ding job and we look forward to conti­nuing these successful part­ner­ships. We are very confi­dent about the next phase and look forward to conti­nuing to support the expan­sion and success of both companies.”

Advi­sor Ufenau Capi­tal Partners:

PJT Park Hill: exclu­sive place­ment agent
Stephen­son Harwood
Legal advice: GÖRG, Arendt & Meder­nach and Walder Wyss as legal advi­sors for the UC III transaction.

About Ufenau Capi­tal Partners

Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent Swiss invest­ment group based on Lake Zurich, which advi­ses private and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors on their invest­ments in corpo­rate invest­ments. Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners focu­ses on majo­rity invest­ments in service compa­nies in the DACH region, Spain as well as in the Bene­lux region active in Busi­ness Services, Health­care, IT Services, Educa­tion & Life­style and Finan­cial Services. Since 2011, Ufenau has inves­ted in over 240 service compa­nies in Europe. Through a renow­ned group of expe­ri­en­ced indus­try part­ners (owners, CEOs, CFOs), Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners pursues an active, value-crea­ting invest­ment approach on an equal footing with entre­pre­neurs and mana­gers. Ufenau closed its seventh fund with a volume of EUR 1.0 billion in the first quar­ter of this year and mana­ges a total cumu­la­tive capi­tal of EUR 2.5 billion.

About StepStone Group

StepStone is a leading global private market invest­ment firm provi­ding custo­mi­zed invest­ment, advi­sory and data solu­ti­ons to some of the worl­d’s most sophisti­ca­ted inves­tors. StepStone mana­ges more than $548 billion in private markets assets. StepSto­ne’s clients include some of the worl­d’s largest public and private pension and sove­reign wealth funds, insu­rance compa­nies, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices and private wealth clients. StepStone is a leading inves­tor in the secon­dary market and acts as a solu­tion-orien­ted stra­te­gic part­ner for private equity spon­sors. Through Decem­ber 31, 2021, StepStone has ente­red into more than $7.4 billion in 156 inves­tor-parti­ci­pa­tion and GP-led tran­sac­tions under its private equity secon­dary program.

About Five Arrows Secon­dary Opportunities

Five Arrows Secon­dary Oppor­tu­ni­ties (“FASO”) is part of the Roth­schild & Co. group’s merchant banking busi­ness with EUR 18 billion in assets under manage­ment world­wide. Five Arrows deploys Roth­schild & Co. capi­tal, along with that of a select group of leading insti­tu­tio­nal and private inves­tors, through a series of funds specia­li­zing in primary and secon­dary private equity, multi-mana­ger funds and co-invest­ments, and senior and subor­di­na­ted debt. The company has offices in New York, Los Ange­les, San Fran­cisco, London, Paris and Luxembourg.

FASO has been provi­ding custo­mi­zed liqui­dity solu­ti­ons to inves­tors and gene­ral part­ners (“GPs”) for nearly two deca­des. Its proven exper­tise in complex tran­sac­tions makes FASO one of the most relia­ble part­ners for GP-led secon­dary tran­sac­tions in Europe. FASO also shares the guiding prin­ci­ples of Roth­schild & Co Group, a stra­te­gic and respon­si­ble finan­cial services part­ner known for its crea­tive thin­king and inno­va­tive invest­ment solu­ti­ons combi­ned with a commit­ment to abso­lute discretion.

 

News

Bonn, Germany — Fagron, a global leader in phar­maceu­ti­cal manu­fac­tu­ring, announ­ced on April 14 that it has acqui­red Hiper­Scan, the German market leader in the secure iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of start­ing mate­ri­als in phar­macies. High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) is selling its shares after having closely supported the team around Dr. Alex­an­der Wolter and Michael Thoma since 2008.

The Dres­den-based tech­no­logy company Hiper­Scan is a specia­list in near-infrared (NIR) spec­tro­scopy and emer­ged in 2006 as a spin-off from the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tute for Photo­nic Micro­sys­tems (IPMS) to deve­lop inno­va­tive analy­sis systems for phar­macies and other indus­tries. With the Apo-Ident analy­sis system, which is speci­ally desi­gned for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of start­ing mate­ri­als and is used in over 5,500 phar­macies, Hiper­Scan has achie­ved market leader­ship in this segment in Germany and today employs over 50 people.

Fagron is a global leader in the phar­maceu­ti­cal manu­fac­tu­ring of perso­na­li­zed medi­ci­nes, focu­sed on provi­ding perso­na­li­zed medi­cine to hospi­tals, phar­macies, clinics and pati­ents in 35 count­ries around the world. Foun­ded in 1990, the company has over 3,000 employees world­wide. As part of the Fagron family, new markets may open up for Hiper­Scan’s tech­no­logy to further enhance safety and drive the future of perso­na­li­zed medicine.

“HTGF joined us shortly after we were foun­ded, which enab­led us to deve­lop Fraun­ho­fer IPMS Dres­den’s scan­ning grating tech­no­logy into a market-ready product. Then we gradu­ally evol­ved from a tech­no­logy provi­der to an estab­lished provi­der of indus­try solu­ti­ons that is now conside­red the gold stan­dard in German phar­macies. As part of Fagron, we can help drive the future of perso­na­li­zed medi­cine,” Dr. Alex­an­der Wolter, CEO at HiperScan.

“I have a special connec­tion with Hiper­Scan: On the one hand, the company was my first invest­ment in 2008 as a young invest­ment mana­ger at that time! On the other hand, Hiper­Scan is a prime exam­ple for seed finan­cing of tech­no­lo­gi­cally very deep compa­nies. This is all the more true since Hiper­Scan was foun­ded with MEMS tech­no­logy out of the Fraun­ho­fer IPMS. With Fagron, Hiper­Scan has now found a perfect new owner.” Explains Dr. Andreas Olmes, Prin­ci­pal at High-Tech Gründerfonds.

“We at Fraun­ho­fer Venture first came into cont­act with the Hiper­Scan spin-off idea in 2004. Mana­ging Direc­tor Alex­an­der Wolter was among the first parti­ci­pants in a now estab­lished educa­tio­nal measure for pros­pec­tive foun­ders. At the same time, the Hiper­Scan spin-off idea was supported by the prede­ces­sor program of the current AHEAD program and recei­ved further inter­nal funding after its foun­da­tion with the goal of manage­ment expan­sion.” Manfred Stöger, Invest­ment Mana­ger at Fraun­ho­fer Venture.

 

News

Hamburg — A private equity fund initia­ted by Hamburg-based family office Lennertz & Co. is taking a mino­rity stake in the inno­va­tion leader for elec­tri­fi­ca­tion tech­no­logy in the commer­cial vehicle sector. pepper motion GmbH is the worl­d’s first digi­tal OEM in the auto­mo­tive indus­try for series-ready conver­sion and retro­fit­ting (retro­fit­ting) of trucks and buses.

The engi­nee­ring company from Denken­dorf, Germany, successfully closed a Series A finan­cing round in the amount of almost EUR 30 million at the end of March 2022. Lennertz & Co. was the lead inves­tor with around 40% of the capi­tal increase. Other inves­tors include the Würth Group.

“At pepper, as an entre­pre­neu­rial and owner-mana­ged family office, we were convin­ced by both the unique tech­no­logy in the produc­tion-ready retro­fit­ting of trucks and buses and the share­hol­ders’ engi­nee­ring exper­tise in the auto­mo­tive sector, built up over 20 years,” says Phil­ipp Lennertz (photo), mana­ging part­ner of Lennertz & Co. “In this context, tech­no­logy and service make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to achie­ving global climate targets. Accor­din­gly, we see high growth poten­tial for pepper, not only in the dome­stic and Euro­pean markets, but also globally in a market that will grow by leaps and bounds in a very short time.”

Capi­tal for series produc­tion and further markets

In addi­tion to the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company’s proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies, the capi­tal raised is inten­ded in parti­cu­lar to support the ramp-up of series produc­tion with stra­te­gic part­ners and the phase of market entry in other Euro­pean count­ries that has alre­ady begun. For pepper motion, Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Poland in parti­cu­lar are among the key markets in Europe.

Poten­tial custo­mers include large exis­ting fleet owners, such as trans­por­ta­tion or truck­ing compa­nies, for whom it is diffi­cult to meet the emis­si­ons targets requi­red for their fleets by 2030. A major advan­tage for pepper motion is that the company’s multi-award-winning retro­fit­ting concept is curr­ently conside­red unbeata­ble on the market in terms of sustaina­bi­lity and total cost of ownership.

“The proof of concept has long been provi­ded with our vehic­les and etro­fit elec­tri­fi­ca­tion kits. We lead the inter­na­tio­nal retro­fit­ting indus­try as a trend­set­ter and set the stan­dards for German engi­nee­ring, inno­va­tion and quality that fleet opera­tors in the public trans­port and transport/logistics sectors can rely on,” says Andreas Hager, Mana­ging Direc­tor at pepper motion.

About Lennertz & Co.

As an entre­pre­neu­rial and owner-mana­ged family office, Lennertz & Co. is exclu­si­vely focu­sed on the success of its clients’ invest­ments. The invest­ment recom­men­da­ti­ons are in line with the perso­nal prefe­rence of the clients. They bene­fit from the inde­pen­dence of Lennertz & Co. and the exclu­si­vity of the invest­ment opportunities.

Lennertz & Co. also has a large number of autho­riza­tion certi­fi­ca­tes from the German Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity (BaFin) and is thus subject to nume­rous quali­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive requi­re­ments of both BaFin and the Deut­sche Bundesbank.

Lennertz & Co. shares its clients’ demand for fast, profound and secure decis­i­ons. In order to thoroughly examine the emer­ging oppor­tu­ni­ties in the venture and growth capi­tal, private equity and block­chain segments for its clients, Lennertz & Co. has a compe­tent team at its dispo­sal that can look back on deca­des of expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion, the advi­sory board consists of renow­ned indus­try, venture capi­tal and private equity experts such as Prof. Dr. Hein­rich von Pierer, Prof. Dr. Klaus Wuche­rer, Stefan Theis, Daniel Thung, Daniel Milleg and Florian Heinemann.

About pepper motion

The German, priva­tely finan­ced company with head­quar­ters in Denken­dorf and offices in Garching near Munich, Pader­born and Vienna (Austria) employs more than 100 people. As the first digi­tal OEM in the world (without its own warehousing and manu­fac­tu­ring), pepper offers inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion (retro­fit­ting) of used and new commer­cial vehic­les such as trucks in distri­bu­tion trans­port, buses in local public trans­port (LPT) and muni­ci­pal vehicles.

With its holi­stic approach exten­ding to tele­ma­tics, char­ging infra­struc­ture, fleet manage­ment and auto­no­mous driving, the company designs quickly imple­men­ta­ble and cost-effec­tive solu­tion packa­ges for the sustainable mobi­lity trans­for­ma­tion and a “second life” for exis­ting commer­cial vehicles.

News

Munich/ Hamburg — Adevin­ta’s mobile.de GmbH (“mobile.de”), Germany’s largest vehicle market­place, has acqui­red Null-Leasing DSB Deutsch­land GmbH (“Null-Leasing.com”), a provi­der of digi­tal leasing services in Germany. The tran­sac­tion will enable mobile.de to expand its offe­ring and further extend its exis­ting range of products and services. POELLATH advi­sed mobile.de on this transaction.

mobile.de GmbH was foun­ded in 1996 and now employs around 270 people in Germany. The company says it is Germany’s largest vehicle market for buying and selling vehic­les, with around 1.5 million cars adver­ti­sed and around 16.9 million indi­vi­dual users per month. The offer includes the entire range of new and used cars, commer­cial vehic­les and motor­cy­cles. As a “one-stop store,” mobile.de also offers finan­cing and leasing solu­ti­ons. mobile.de is a subsi­diary of Adevinta, a Norwe­gian provi­der of online clas­si­fieds, which now opera­tes digi­tal market­places in 15 countries.

Foun­ded in 2016 in Hamburg, Null-Leasing.com is one of the fastest growing online car leasing market­places for new and used cars in Germany. The acqui­si­tion of Null-Leasing.com expands mobile.de dealers’ access to clear and compre­hen­sive leasing offers and enables them to better market their vehic­les from leasing to finan­cing to cash sales.

mobile.de consul­tants: POELLATH

Dr. Matthias Bruse, Photo (Part­ner, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Tim Jung­in­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead Part­ner, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk (Senior Asso­ciate, IP, Frankfurt)
Jonas Rohde (Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)

Advi­sors Null-Leasing.com: Huth Diet­rich Hahn from Hamburg
Oliver Förs­ter and Dr. Gunnar Matschernus

News

Göttigen/ Munich — SKW Schwarz advi­sed Robert Bosch GmbH on the sale of Robert Bosch After­mar­ket Solu­ti­ons GmbH to the Chinese battery manu­fac­tu­rer Gotion High Tech.

As part of the tran­sac­tion, Gotion High-Tech also acqui­red the Bosch plant site in Göttin­gen. Bosch curr­ently supplies the global exch­ange busi­ness (Bosch Exch­ange) for selec­ted access­ories for the auto­mo­tive indus­try from the Göttin­gen plant via its own auto­mo­tive trade orga­niza­tion in Karls­ruhe. Gotion High-Tech will convert the site into a produc­tion faci­lity for lithium-ion batteries.

Advi­sor Robert Bosch GmbH: SKW Schwarz, Munich

Dr. Stephan Morsch (Lead Part­ner), Dr. Angela Poschen­rie­der (Coun­sel; both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Matthias Nord­mann (Corporate/M&A, Real Estate Tran­sac­tions), Dr. Martin Greß­lin (Labor Law), Heiko Wunder­lich, Fran­ziska Sont­heim (Asso­ciate; both Tax Law)

Inhouse: Elke Hammer, Rainer Bischof (Legal Depart­ment), Dr. Jörg Mödin­ger (Tax Department)

News

Kassel — The globally active ISOVOLTA Group has acqui­red Gurit (Kassel) GmbH from Gurit Holding. Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed ISOVOLTA Group on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in Gurit (Kassel) GmbH from Gurit Holding AG.

With around 1,500 employees, the globally active ISOVOLTA Group is a specia­list for elec­tri­cal insu­la­tion mate­ri­als, tech­ni­cal lami­na­tes and compo­si­tes and a part­ner for more than 20 indus­tries. One important area is avia­tion, where light­weight mate­ri­als for aircraft cabin inte­ri­ors are produ­ced in Wiener Neudorf/AT and in Harrisburg/USA. The ISOVOLTA Group has now acqui­red the “Aero­space” busi­ness unit of the Swiss listed company Gurit Holding AG, based in Kassel, Germany, with 80 employees, Gurit (Kassel) GmbH. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The ISOVOLTA Group is part of Constan­tia Indus­tries AG and has been a leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­rer of elec­tri­cal insu­la­tion mate­ri­als, tech­ni­cal lami­na­tes and compo­site mate­ri­als for over 70 years. The company employs over 1,500 people at nume­rous produc­tion and sales loca­ti­ons in various count­ries (inclu­ding Austria, Europe, China, North America) on three conti­nents. ISOVOLTA products are used in more than 20 indus­tries, from elec­tro­nics and e‑mobility to aero­space and mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring. In Austria, the company employs around 370 people in Wiener Neudorf and Wern­dorf near Graz.

The subsi­dia­ries of Gurit Holding AG, Wattwil/Switzerland, (SIX Swiss Exch­ange: GUR) specia­lize in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of advan­ced compo­si­tes, compo­si­tes manu­fac­tu­ring equip­ment and core kitting services. The product range includes struc­tu­ral core mate­ri­als, fiber-rein­forced prepregs, formu­la­ted products such as adhe­si­ves, resins, and struc­tu­ral compo­site tech­no­logy. Gurit supplies global growth markets such as the wind turbine indus­try, aero­space, marine, rail and many more. Gurit opera­tes manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties and offices in Austra­lia, Canada, China, Denmark, Ecua­dor, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Switz­er­land, Turkey, the United King­dom and the United States.

Legal advi­sors to ISOVOLTA AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek:
Dr. Mathias Schrö­der, LL.M.,
Fabian Becker, LL.M.,
Peter M. Schäff­ler (all corpo­rate law, M&A), all Munich
Kers­tin Deiters, LL.M., EMBA,
Prof. Dr. Martin Reufels (both Labor Law), both Cologne
Dr. Thomas Jansen (IP/IT and Data Protection),
Bettina Nehe­i­der (Public Law),
Dr. Leonie Schwarz­meier, LL.M. (Tenancy Law),
Dr. Ruth Schnei­der (Compe­ti­tion and Distri­bu­tion Law), all Munich
Bodo Dehne (Foreign Trade Law), Düsseldorf

News

Berlin — The global medi­cal tech­no­logy company Wallaby Medi­cal acqui­red the German market leader for neuro­vas­cu­lar products, phenox GmbH, and its sister company femtos GmbH. The tran­sac­tion was comple­ted with a purchase price of appro­xi­m­ately €500 million, inclu­ding mile­stone payments. Wallaby Medi­cal finan­ced the acqui­si­tion of phenox using proceeds from its previously closed Series D finan­cing round, which was supported by leading health­care investors.

Wallaby Medi­cal and phenox have been stra­te­gic part­ners since 2019. phenox exclu­si­vely distri­bu­tes Walla­by’s Avenir® Coil System in the US and Europe and Walla­by’s Espe­rance™ aspi­ra­tion cathe­ters in the US market. The now comple­ted acqui­si­tion repres­ents one of the largest trans­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tions in the medi­cal device indus­try and is driven by strong growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in terms of product port­fo­lio and geogra­phic expan­sion. In perspec­tive, the company will become a global leader in provi­ding a wide range of neuro­vas­cu­lar tech­no­lo­gies and solu­ti­ons to custo­mers and pati­ents around the world, inclu­ding the U.S., China, Europe, Japan and other inter­na­tio­nal markets.

Follo­wing the successful closing, Michael Alper, CEO of Wallaby, will now become CEO of the combi­ned company. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hermann Monstadt, foun­der of phenox, will assume the role of Mana­ging Direc­tor of phenox. All exis­ting phenox brands will be continued.

About phenox

Since its foun­ding in 2005, phenox has estab­lished itself as a global inno­va­tion leader in neuro­vas­cu­lar devices for the inter­ven­tio­nal treat­ment of stroke. The company has a broad product port­fo­lio cove­ring ischemic and hemor­rha­gic stroke treat­ment, as well as medi­cal access and care. phen­ox’s core products include the p64/p48 series flow diver­ters for the treat­ment of intra­cra­nial aneu­rysms and the pRESET series stent retrie­vers for mecha­ni­cal throm­bec­tomy in ischemic stroke. In addi­tion, phenox has its own coating tech­no­lo­gies to opti­mize its perma­nent and short-term implants. Based on inter­na­tio­nally leading clini­cal data, phenox products are distri­bu­ted in over 45 count­ries world­wide. phenox has subsi­dia­ries in Italy, Great Britain, Ireland and the USA. https://phenox.net/international.

Advi­sor Wallaby Medi­cal: YPOG
Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Stephan Bank (Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Jörn Wöbke (Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Corporate/Transactions), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Matthias Kres­ser (Corporate/Transactions), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Tax/Transactions), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Barbara Hasse (Corporate/Transactions), Associate
Chris­tiane Schnitz­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Associate

About Wallaby Medical
Wallaby Medi­cal is a global medi­cal device company specia­li­zing in the deve­lo­p­ment and commer­cia­liza­tion of neuro­vas­cu­lar inter­ven­tio­nal products for the treat­ment of stroke. Walla­by’s product port­fo­lio includes the Avenir® Coil System, a tech­ni­cally diffe­ren­tia­ted neuro­em­bo­lic coil system for the treat­ment of intra­cra­nial aneu­rysms and other neuro­vas­cu­lar anoma­lies, the Espe­rance™ Aspi­ra­tion Cathe­ter, appro­ved in the U.S. and China for the treat­ment of ischemic stroke, and the Espe­rance™ Distal Access Cathe­ter, appro­ved in China for deli­very assis­tance. In addi­tion, Wallaby has a full range of neuro­vas­cu­lar products in deve­lo­p­ment. Walla­by’s products are curr­ently distri­bu­ted in over 30 count­ries and regi­ons. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.wallabymedical.com.

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 as well as www.linkedin.com/company/ypog.

News

Munich — Sepro­Tec Multi­l­in­gual Solu­ti­ons has acqui­red 100% of the shares in tsd Tech­nik-Spra­chen­dienst GmbH from Dina Frei­bott (photo), who has deve­lo­ped the company over the past 30 years into one of the worl­d’s 30 leading language service provi­ders based in Germany. Domi­ni­que Puls and Stefan Puls as tsd manage­ment team will keep their roles in the company as mana­ging direc­tors and will be part of the future setup of SeproTec.

Proven­tis Part­ners exclu­si­vely advi­sed tsd Tech­nik-Spra­chen­dienst GmbH, Cologne/Germany, on the sale to Sepro­Tec Multi­l­in­gual Solu­ti­ons, Madrid/Spain.

McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed the share­hol­der of tsd Tech­nik-Spra­chen­dienst GmbH on the sale of the company to Sepro­Tec Multi­l­in­gual Solu­ti­ons of Spain.

The role of Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners acted as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor to the share­hol­der, Dina Frei­bott (photo) and her manage­ment team, consis­ting of Domi­ni­que and Stefan Puls, on the sale of tsd. The consul­ting services included the selec­tion of poten­tial buyers, discus­sions and nego­tia­ti­ons with the buyer, the coor­di­na­tion of the due dili­gence as well as the struc­tu­ring and nego­tia­tion of the econo­mic terms of the execu­ted share deal. The tran­sac­tion team of Proven­tis Part­ners consis­ted of Rainer Wieser (Part­ner, Munich), and Andreas König (Direc­tor, Munich).

The LSP market

Accor­ding to an analy­sis of the LSP market conduc­ted by Proven­tis Part­ners, the indus­try is facing a surge in supply as consu­mer demand for faster, more acces­si­ble media and other types of loca­liza­tion services increa­ses. There are six tech­no­logy trends: machine trans­la­tion (MT), auto­ma­ted work­flows (AW), auto­ma­ted quality assu­rance (AQA), trans­la­tion memory ™, trans­la­tion manage­ment systems (TMS), and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI)-based systems. There are two main reasons for this: decre­asing profit margins and the need for faster turn­around of trans­la­tion projects. Tech­no­logy enables a variety of tools and services that can increase opera­tio­nal effi­ci­en­cies to coun­ter­act the conti­nual price erosion in the market­place, largely due to the proli­fe­ra­tion of strea­ming services and the incre­asing volume and speed at which audio, visual and textual content is consu­med in multi­ple languages around the globe.

Tran­sac­tion analy­ses of the last three years unders­core these trends: In 71 mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons and private place­ments, the total volume of language tech­no­logy tran­sac­tions amoun­ted to EUR 1.2 billion. Cross-border acti­vity in the sector remains strong, with 41% inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment from 24 buyer nati­ons in 22 target count­ries. Most tran­sac­tions were made in the USA, China, Japan and Israel. Nearly two-thirds of all tran­sac­tions in the language tech­no­logy sector are private place­ments, with the rema­in­der being mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, ranging from the largest deals of around EUR 800 million to smal­ler invest­ment rounds of EUR 10,000.

About Sepro­Tec

Sepro­Tec Multi­l­in­gual Solu­ti­ons is a multi­l­in­gual service provi­der ranked among the top 30 language service provi­ders in the world. Sepro­Tec, foun­ded in 1989, is one of the worl­d’s largest provi­ders of trans­la­tion and inter­pre­ting services and has been part of the port­fo­lio of Spanish private equity inves­tor Nazca Capi­tal since fall 2021. The acqui­si­tion of TSD marks the company’s entry into the German market.

About tsd
Foun­ded in 1978 and head­quar­te­red in Colo­gne, Germany, tsd Tech­nik-Spra­chen­dienst GmbH has been successfully opera­ting in the trans­la­tion and loca­liza­tion indus­try for over 45 years. With perso­nal and compre­hen­sive services, tsd has become an estab­lished and expe­ri­en­ced provi­der of a wide range of language services in Germany and worldwide.

tsd pursues a holi­stic service approach that goes beyond the stan­dards of a clas­sic trans­la­tion agency. The company’s core compe­ten­cies are multi­l­in­gual projects: Trans­la­tion, review, vali­da­tion, termi­no­logy, MT solu­ti­ons, post-editing, tran­screa­tion, language consul­ting. Inno­va­tive and effi­ci­ent proces­ses in areas such as quality assu­rance (DIN ISO 900, ISO 17100 and ISO 18587, ISO 27001) and tech­no­logy charac­te­rize the working methods of tsd. In parti­cu­lar, the in-house team of lingu­ists enables tsd to cover complex custo­mer requests, respond quickly and flexi­bly, and provide high quality services. A close and trans­pa­rent custo­mer rela­ti­onship, coupled with custo­mi­zed, effi­ci­ent proces­ses, is part of tsd’s self-image. www.tsd-int.com

Advi­sor to the share­hol­der of tsd Diana Frei­bott: McDer­mott Will & Emery 
Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs (Corporate/M&A, lead), Nina Siewert, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law, both Frank­furt), Dr. Phil­ipp Schäuble (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Matthias Wein­gut, Dr. Robert Feind, LL.M., Dr. Fabian Appa­doo, Sebas­tian Gerst­ner (all Corporate/M&A)

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 more than 20 years of M&A expe­ri­ence and well over 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. The members of the Mergers Alli­ance, with its more than 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/Hamburg — EMZ Part­ners (“EMZ”), a leading Euro­pean invest­ment firm, have sold their stake in Hamburg-based spice manu­fac­tu­rer Anker­kraut to Swiss food group Nestlé. The foun­ders and the manage­ment team remain signi­fi­cantly invol­ved. The sale marks the first exit of EMZ’s Germany office and brings inves­tors a MoM (“multi­ple of money”) of well over 2.0 in less than two years. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the transaction.

Foun­ded in 2013, the inno­va­tive spice blends quickly made Anker­kraut a “Love Brand” and the number 1 chal­len­ger on the DACH spice market. Anker­kraut places great empha­sis on sustaina­bi­lity, which is evident in both the products and the pack­a­ging. The spice blends do not contain arti­fi­cial addi­ti­ves. The company also has a growing orga­nic range. Glass vials with lids made of cork instead of plas­tic also ensure complete recy­cla­bi­lity. Origi­nally a digi­tal-first company, Anker­kraut has evol­ved into an omnich­an­nel expert, gene­ra­ting about half of its sales online and half in brick-and-mortar retail.

EMZ inves­ted in Anker­kraut in Septem­ber 2020 along with the foun­der and manage­ment team. During the 20-month invest­ment period, the company quickly deve­lo­ped into one of the leading spice brands in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

“Anker­kraut was an excel­lent invest­ment for EMZ and reflects the core of our stra­tegy to invest toge­ther with dedi­ca­ted foun­ders and manage­ment teams,” says Klaus Maurer, Part­ner at EMZ. “We are plea­sed that our joint efforts to deve­lop Anker­kraut into a leading consu­mer brand have been successful and thank the entire team for their great work,” added Guntram Kieferle, Direc­tor at EMZ.

The part­ner­ship with Nestlé aims to combine Anker­krau­t’s direct-to-consu­mer and omnich­an­nel exper­tise with the exten­sive resour­ces and inter­na­tio­nal distri­bu­tion network of the Nestlé universe.

“Our part­ner­ship with EMZ has taken Anker­kraut from one mile­stone to the next and we thank the team for their support. We are very proud to have Nestlé on board as a stra­te­gic part­ner and are exci­ted about our common goal to take Anker­kraut to the next level,” says Stefan Lemcke, who foun­ded Anker­kraut toge­ther with his wife Anne.

“I am very plea­sed to welcome the Anker­kraut team to our Nestlé family. We are both convin­ced that we can learn a lot from each other and bring toge­ther the best of two worlds! For exam­ple, how brands are built, trends are picked up and inno­va­tions are crea­ted, or how a port­fo­lio can grow successfully,” comm­ents Marc Boersch, CEO of Nestlé Deutsch­land AG.

Advi­sors EMZ: Houli­han Lokey, Latham & Watkins, Deloitte, Munich Stra­tegy Group

About EMZ

EMZ is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment company that acts as a part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies. The focus of acti­vi­ties is on invest­ments along­side foun­ders, family share­hol­ders and manage­ment teams from the Paris and Munich offices. EMZ is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment fund, majo­rity owned by its employees, with a base of Euro­pean insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. The current EMZ 9 fund has a volume of more than EUR 1.0 billion, with invest­ment tickets ranging from EUR 25 to 150 million per transaction.

 

News

Karlsruhe/ Munich — German tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners and Danish IT inves­tor VIA equity announ­ced today that they are selling a majo­rity stake in SEMA, the leading Euro­pean CAD/CAM soft­ware solu­tion in the field of timber cons­truc­tion and prefa­bri­ca­ted buil­dings, to Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal. Details of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed.

SEMA, foun­ded in 1984, provi­des join­ery and prefa­bri­ca­ted cons­truc­tion compa­nies with solu­ti­ons cove­ring all acti­vi­ties rela­ted to wood and stair cons­truc­tion. On a uniform, easy-to-use program inter­face, the soft­ware offers appli­ca­ti­ons such as 2D/3D CAD plan­ning and design, photo-reali­stic visua­liza­tion, quota­tion calcu­la­tion and crea­tion, as well as produc­tion plans and working drawings. In Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Switz­er­land, SEMA has a signi­fi­cant market share and a remar­kable active custo­mer base of more than 10,500 join­ery and prefa­bri­ca­ted cons­truc­tion companies.

VIA equity and LEA Part­ners had acqui­red the majo­rity stake in SEMA in 2019 and have since supported the company in its mission to expand market leader­ship and achieve opera­tio­nal excel­lence. Under the new owners and thanks to its proven product and excel­lent custo­mer rela­ti­onships, SEMA had achie­ved signi­fi­cant sales and profit growth. As part of its invest­ment stra­tegy, SEMA broa­dened its leader­ship team, inves­ted in its tech­no­logy plat­form, acqui­red an ERP/CRM soft­ware company, and imple­men­ted seve­ral pricing and product bundle initiatives.

Alex­an­der Neuss, CEO of SEMA: “Our colla­bo­ra­tion with VIA and LEA over the past three years has really helped us to realize our full poten­tial. Our inves­tors’ exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the soft­ware market combi­ned with deep busi­ness exper­tise has been a perfect stra­te­gic fit, enab­ling us to acce­le­rate our growth and conti­nue to deli­ver indus­try-leading services and inno­va­tion to our custo­mers. I am extre­mely grateful for the colla­bo­ra­tion and now look forward to conti­nuing on our growth path and expan­ding into addi­tio­nal markets internationally.”

Chris­tian Roth (photo, © LEA Part­ners), Mana­ging Part­ner at LEA Part­ners: “We are very proud to have played a role in SEMA’s growth story over the last few years. During our colla­bo­ra­tion, the SEMA team did an outstan­ding job and made the company a true soft­ware cham­pion in its indus­try. Our team has thoroughly enjoyed helping Alex­an­der and manage­ment drive stra­tegy and growth, and we are confi­dent that their dedi­ca­tion and drive will enable them to achieve many succes­ses in the future.”

VIA equity and LEA Part­ners were advi­sed by Houli­han Lokey, Noerr and Milbank on this transaction.

About LEA Partners

With curr­ently EUR 460 million in commit­ments, LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. Based in Karls­ruhe, one of the largest tech­no­logy clus­ters in Europe, LEA has mana­ged invest­ments in nume­rous tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. www.leapartners.de.

News

Madrid/Frankfurt am Main — Alan­tra, the global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment, has advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Aakamp GmbH (“Aakamp”), a leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of vitamins, mine­rals and nutri­tio­nal supple­ments (VMS), on the sale of the company to Farm­aceu­tici Procemsa (“Procemsa”). Procemsa, a company held by Invest­in­dus­trial Growth L.P. (“Invest­in­dus­trial”), specia­li­zes in the produc­tion, pack­a­ging, and rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment of nutri­tio­nal supple­ments. The closing of the tran­sac­tion was announ­ced today.

Foun­ded in 2009, Aakamp is the main contract manu­fac­tu­rer for German VMS brands in the direct-to-consu­mer (D2C) segment. Since 2019, Auctus Capi­tal Part­ners, a leading German buy and build inves­tor, has been a majo­rity share­hol­der in the company along­side foun­der Alex­an­der Keibel and the manage­ment team. Aakamp offers the full range of dietary supple­ments (inclu­ding capsu­les, tablets, soft­gels, liquids and powders) and a full range of services (inclu­ding product deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion, pack­a­ging, labe­l­ing and storage). Aakamp has a state-of-the-art and ‑flexi­ble produc­tion faci­lity in Bred­dorf and employs around 200 people. Under the leader­ship of foun­der Alex­an­der Keibel, who will conti­nue to serve as CEO, Aakamp has achie­ved excep­tio­nal and steady growth over the past decade.

With the acqui­si­tion of Aakamp by Procemsa, Invest­in­dus­trial conti­nues its stra­tegy to build a Euro­pean leader in the VMS sector. The tran­sac­tion provi­des access to the German market, which at €2.5 billion is the third largest in Europe after Italy and the United King­dom. It is charac­te­ri­zed by the fastest growing D2C segment and is ther­e­fore of parti­cu­lar stra­te­gic importance. Procemsa is one of the largest play­ers in the Euro­pean VMS market follo­wing the comple­tion of the transaction.

The tran­sac­tion unders­cores Alan­tra’s leading posi­tion as an inter­na­tio­nal midmar­ket M&A advi­sor to the VMS and nutri­tio­nal supple­ments sectors. Alan­tra recently advi­sed on the dive­st­ments of Bee Health (UK) to INW, Nutri­sci­ence Inno­va­tions (USA) to Tilia Capi­tal, GS Capsule (China) to Advent Inter­na­tio­nal, Patent Co (Serbia) to RWA, and the acqui­si­tion of UAS Labo­ra­to­ries (USA) by Chr. Hansen and OFI (Italy) by Procemsa.

Charles Lance­ley, Head of UK Food & Nutri­tion, and Chris­to­pher Jobst, Part­ner at Alan­tra Germany, led the tran­sac­tion with the support of a team from the UK and Germany. The team’s exten­sive indus­try know­ledge and close rela­ti­onships with stra­te­gists enab­led them to achieve a highly successful outcome for Aakamp.

Chris­to­pher Jobst said: “As a leading provi­der on the German VMS market and an indis­pensable part­ner for its custo­mers, Aakamp was a sought-after asset on the Euro­pean market. Toge­ther with foun­der Alex­an­der Keibel and the other share­hol­ders, we exami­ned nume­rous opti­ons that would meet both the share­hol­ders’ and the company’s requi­re­ments in the long term. We are plea­sed to have found a part­ner in Procemsa that is an ideal stra­te­gic and cultu­ral fit for Aakamp, and we look forward to the company’s contin­ued success.”

Charles Lance­ley added, “Consu­mer spen­ding on dietary supple­ments in Europe is at record levels, and impro­ving health and well-being is among the major trends. Leading compa­nies like Aakamp play a criti­cal role in the VMS supply chain as inno­va­tors, deve­lo­pers and manu­fac­tu­r­ers, and will ther­e­fore conti­nue to attract strong inte­rest from stra­te­gic buyers and finan­cial investors.”

Alex­an­der Keibel, CEO of Aakamp, said: “We are very proud to have gained the trust of a part­ner like Invest­in­dus­trial and to be able to work with a large group like Procemsa in the future. Our market is rapidly evol­ving due to digi­ta­liza­tion and we are convin­ced that our inter­na­tio­nal foot­print will streng­then Procem­sa’s posi­tio­ning in the sector. We would like to thank Alan­tra for their support in this process. The cross-border colla­bo­ra­tion has worked seam­lessly and brought great added value.”

Andrea Bonomi, Chair­man of Invest­in­dus­tri­al’s Indus­trial Advi­sory Board, said, “This acqui­si­tion is another exam­ple of the successful conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy that Invest­in­dus­trial has imple­men­ted since the begin­ning of its opera­ti­ons, making and successfully inte­gra­ting more than 150 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons for its port­fo­lio compa­nies. Procemsa is in an excel­lent posi­tion to successfully conti­nue its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion through both acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic growth. With Aakamp, we have found a valuable addi­tion to streng­then our posi­tion in the important German market.”

About Alan­tra

Alan­tra is a global alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, invest­ment banking and credit port­fo­lio advi­sory firm focu­sed on provi­ding services to busi­nesses, fami­lies and inves­tors opera­ting in the middle market segment. The Group has more than 540 profes­sio­nals in Europe, the USA, Latin America and Asia. The Invest­ment Banking divi­sion provi­des inde­pen­dent advice on M&A, debt advi­sory, restruc­tu­ring and capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions and has advi­sed on more than 450 tran­sac­tions with a total value of over €70 billion in the last three years. Alan­tra’s specia­lists have both exten­sive global sector exper­tise and strong rela­ti­onships with local compa­nies, inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and finan­cing insti­tu­ti­ons in each of their markets. www.alantra.com

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