ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt am Main — ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners acted as IPO advi­sor to Veganz Group AG (the “Company” or “Veganz”) the Berlin-based purely plant-base­d/­ve­gan food company awarded Germany’s most inno­va­tive food brand in 20211), on its successful initial public offe­ring (“IPO”) on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Frank­fur­ter Wertpapierbörse).

In the course of the road­show process, all 547,120 offe­red ordi­nary bearer shares with no par value of the Company (“Shares”) were placed with inves­tors in the IPO at EUR 87.00 per Share. The place­ment compri­sed 388,733 new shares from a capi­tal increase, 87,024 exis­ting shares from the holdings of the selling share­hol­ders as well as an over-allot­ment consis­ting of 71,363 exis­ting shares from the holdings of the lending share­hol­ders. Ther­e­fore, the total volume of the IPO amounts to around EUR 47.6 million.

Gross proceeds from the sale of the new shares in the IPO amount to around EUR 33.8 million. Veganz intends to use the net proceeds prima­rily for the estab­lish­ment of the new produc­tion site near Berlin as well as invest­ments in the further orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth, e.g. for rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, expan­sion of field force, marke­ting and further expan­sion in selec­ted Euro­pean countries.

“Since our foun­da­tion more than 10 years ago we at Veganz are pioneers, setting stan­dards in our markets. Having accom­plished the first ‘vegan IPO’ in Germany is another mile­stone in our history. We welcome all new inves­tors at Veganz and cordi­ally invite ever­yone to parti­ci­pate with us in the poten­tial of the vegan food market. Now, it is about imple­men­ting our growth stra­tegy and fully seize the oppor­tu­ni­ties for Veganz”, reflects Jan Bredack, foun­der and CEO of Veganz.

The shares of Veganz carry the inter­na­tio­nal secu­ri­ties iden­ti­fi­ca­tion number (ISIN) DE000A3E5ED2, the German Secu­ri­ties Code (Wert­pa­pier-Kenn-Nummer (WKN)) A3E5ED and the ticker symbol VEZ.

ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners acted as IPO advi­sor to the Company.

About Veganz

Veganz — Good for you, better for ever­yone — is the brand for plant-based food. Foun­ded in Berlin in 2011, Veganz became known as the Euro­pean vegan super­mar­ket chain. With a colorful and life-affir­ming company philo­so­phy, Veganz mana­ged to break open the vegan niche and estab­lish the plant-based nutri­tion trend on the market. The current product port­fo­lio includes around 120 products (101 active products as of Septem­ber 30, 2021) across 17 cate­go­ries and is available in more than half of all Euro­pean count­ries and in 22,264 points of sale (POS) globally as of June 30, 2021, exclu­ding Veganz’ own three stores in Berlin, Germany. In addi­tion, the Veganz product port­fo­lio is conti­nuously being expan­ded to include high-quality, inno­va­tive items and the sustainable value chain is constantly being impro­ved. For this commit­ment, Veganz was the only German company to be voted one of the top inno­va­tive brands and Germany’s most inno­va­tive food brand in an exclu­sive Handels­blatt ranking in 2021.

About ACXIT

ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading inter­na­tio­nal corpo­rate finance and finan­cial advi­sory firm for mid-market clients, and entre­pre­neurs in Europe and beyond. Since 1998, we offer our clients compre­hen­sive corpo­rate finance advi­sory services inclu­ding M&A and capi­tal markets advi­sory as well as debt and stra­te­gic advi­sory. As an inde­pen­dent, priva­tely owned firm we main­tain offices and repre­sen­ta­ti­ons in Frank­furt, Munich, Zurich and New York as well as strong alli­ances in the UK and France. Our clients are corpo­ra­ti­ons, family-owned busi­nesses, entre­pre­neurs, finan­cial spon­sors and family offices.

Tran­sac­tion Team ACXIT Capi­tal Partners:
Jens Tschau­der, Mana­ging Partner
Chris­tian Ende­richs, Director
Simon Vorwerk, Analyst
Julius Ohlen­busch, Analyst

Good­win advi­sed Berlin-based Veganz Group AG on all corpo­rate law issues in connec­tion with the imple­men­ta­tion and struc­tu­ring of its IPO.
The Good­win team was led by Dr. Markus Käpplin­ger (Part­ner, Corpo­rate) with support from Heiko Penn­dorf (Part­ner, Tax), Felix Krüger (Coun­sel, Tax) and asso­cia­tes Jochim Robert, Bastian Schmack (both Corpo­rate) and commer­cial lawyer Nadine Gommel (Corpo­rate).

In close coope­ra­tion with the Good­win team, the law firm NOERR (led by Dr. Laurenz Wieneke) advi­sed on all capi­tal market law issues.

News

Munich — LEONI AG, Nurem­berg, a global provi­der of products and solu­ti­ons for energy and data manage­ment in the auto­mo­tive and other indus­tries, has deci­ded to sell its majo­rity stake in Adap­tri­city, a cloud-based Swiss network analy­sis plat­form and premium provi­der of smart grid solu­ti­ons, as part of its stra­te­gic focus on the wiring systems busi­ness. Proven­tis Part­ners advi­sed LEONI on this transaction.

The buyer is the inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting Secure Meters Ltd. head­quar­te­red in Udai­pur, Raja­sthan, India. The acqui­rer is from Proven­tis Part­ners’ Mergers Alli­ance network and was advi­sed by Singhi Advi­sors (India). For Secure Meters, Adap­tri­ci­ty’s modu­lar and cloud-based solu­tion plat­form for distri­bu­tion grid opera­tors repres­ents an ideal stra­te­gic addi­tion to its own product port­fo­lio. Secure Meters plans to invest in further expan­sion of the tech­no­logy and inte­grate Adap­tri­ci­ty’s products into its inter­na­tio­nal sales acti­vi­ties. Adap­tri­city will operate as a wholly owned subsi­diary of Secure Meters Group.

Gerd Schus­ter, Head of Stra­tegy and M&A at LEONI AG: “Proven­tis supported us throug­hout the M&A process with its profound indus­try know­ledge in the energy sector and its Mergers Alli­ance network.”

The role of Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners acted as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor to LEONI in the prepa­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the tran­sac­tion. In addi­tion to the imple­men­ta­tion of a struc­tu­red sales process, the consul­ting services included the prepa­ra­tion of marke­ting and tran­sac­tion docu­ments, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and approach of poten­tial inves­tors inclu­ding manage­ment presen­ta­ti­ons as well as support in the due dili­gence and nego­tia­tion of the tran­sac­tion. Proven­tis Part­ners worked with Singhi Advi­sors, its Mergers Alli­ance part­ner in India, who advi­sed the buyer on this tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion team of Proven­tis Part­ners: Pierre Schnei­der (Part­ner, Munich), Flo- rian Liepert (Direc­tor, Munich) and Petr Maxmi­lian Hajkr (Senior Asso­ciate, Munich).

About LEONI AG
LEONI AG, Nurem­berg, is a global supplier of products and solu­ti­ons for energy and data manage­ment in the auto­mo­tive and other indus­tries. LEONI’s largest custo­mer base is the global auto­mo­tive, commer­cial vehicle and supplier indus­try, for which the company deve­lops and produ­ces both stan­dard and special cables as well as custo­mer-speci­fic wiring systems and rela­ted compon­ents. www.leoni.com

About Secure Meters Ltd.
Secure Meters Ltd. is a priva­tely held Indian multi­na­tio­nal company with opera­ti­ons in India, the United King­dom, Austra­lia, Sweden, Italy and the Middle East. Secure Meters is a solu­tion provi­der in the field of reve­nue manage­ment, power quality and energy effi­ci­ency and is active with its product solu­ti­ons in more than 50 count­ries. Secure Meters deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets products for measu­ring and moni­to­ring energy consump­tion and has instal­led over 50 million meters world­wide and is one of the leading suppli­ers of smart and prepaid meters for elec­tri­city and gas. www.securemeters.com

About Adap­tri­city AG
Since its foun­ding in 2014 as a spin-off company of ETH Zurich, Adap­tri­city AG, based in Zurich, has estab­lished itself as a Smart­Grid inno­va­tion driver in the German-spea­king region. Adap­tri­ci­ty’s soft­ware tools enable the merging of tradi­tio­nal network plan­ning with data-based algo­rithms. The object of the company is, among other things, the deve­lo­p­ment, distri­bu­tion and licen­sing of soft­ware products for the simu­la­tion, opti­miza­tion, plan­ning and moni­to­ring of power distri­bu­tion networks, as well as the provi­sion of consul­ting services in the field of distri­bu­tion network opera­tors. Their inno­va­tive grid analy­tics tools combine tradi­tio­nal grid plan­ning prac­ti­ces with data-driven algo­rithms to ensure that all meter­ing data available on the power grid (e.g., smart meter data) is used opti­mally. www.adaptri- city.com

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

News

USA — DoorDash (NYSE: DASH) is acqui­ring Wolt, a leading food deli­very plat­form in an all-stock deal worth appro­xi­m­ately EUR 7 billion; EQT Ventures and EQT Growth will exit their holdings in Wolt and receive DoorDash stock as part of the transaction

EQT Ventures led the early Series‑A finan­cing round for Wolt in 2016 and has since been a close part­ner and advi­sor to Wolt, parti­ci­pa­ting in all subse­quent finan­cing rounds. EQT Growth inves­ted in Wolt’s latest USD 530 million round of finan­cing in Janu­ary 2021

Since its foun­ding in Finland in 2014, the Helsinki-based company has expan­ded to 23 count­ries and today employs over 4,000 people
Today it was announ­ced that DoorDash (NYSE: DASH) has ente­red into a defi­ni­tive agree­ment to acquire Wolt (the “Company”) for appro­xi­m­ately EUR 7 billion in an all-stock tran­sac­tion, subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and other custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons for tran­sac­tions of this type. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the EQT Ventures I fund (“EQT Ventures”) and EQT Growth are exiting their holdings in Wolt and recei­ving shares in DoorDash. DoorDash is a tech­no­logy company that connects consu­mers with their favo­rite local and natio­nal busi­nesses in more than 7,000 cities across the United States, Canada, Austra­lia and Japan. With the acqui­si­tion of Wolt, DoorDash will add a signi­fi­cant inter­na­tio­nal presence.

Wolt was estab­lished in 2014 in Helsinki, Finland, by CEO Miki Kuusi and co-foun­ders, who had a vision of crea­ting a truly tech-orien­ted company that would make it easy and fun to disco­ver great food deli­vered directly to home or office. Wolt’s plat­form and data-driven deli­very infra­struc­ture provide custo­mer conve­ni­ence and new reve­nue oppor­tu­ni­ties for both restau­rants and retail­ers. It has grown rapidly and today opera­tes across 23 count­ries and employs over 4,000 people.

EQT Ventures was one of Wolt’s earliest inves­tors and has parti­ci­pa­ted in all subse­quent finan­cing rounds, during which it has played a pivo­tal role in support­ing the Company to become one of the largest private tech­no­logy compa­nies in Europe. EQT Growth joined the jour­ney in Janu­ary 2021 as part of Wolt’s latest growth finan­cing round, show­ca­sing EQT’s ability to “back its winners” over time and across the EQT plat­form. Today, EQT Ventures and EQT Growth combi­ned are Wolt’s largest shareholders.

Johan Svan­ström, Part­ner within EQT Grow­th’s Advi­sory Team and Wolt board member since 2018, and Lars Jörnow, Part­ner within EQT Ventures’ Advi­sory Team and part of the initial invest­ment team for Wolt when the fund led the Series A, commen­ted, “We are thril­led to see Wolt and DoorDash join forces. EQT Ventures origi­nally inves­ted in a small, tech-obses­sed and gritty Finnish team that was looking for a hands-on and invol­ved invest­ment part­ner. Through our close working rela­ti­onship and supported by capi­tal invest­ments from EQT Ventures, and subse­quently EQT Growth, today Wolt is one of Euro­pe’s most successful private tech­no­logy compa­nies. It has been a plea­sure support­ing CEO Miki Kuusi and the team in buil­ding and scaling the company and we look forward to follo­wing them for years to come.”

Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt, said, “The entire EQT plat­form has been criti­cal in our growth and success over recent years. EQT Ventures were one of our earliest backers and have remained with us ever since. In 2021, we were deligh­ted to welcome EQT Growth to the fold as part of our latest funding round. Today, I’m incre­di­bly exci­ted to announce that Wolt is joining forces with the DoorDash team to start our next chapter.”

The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and other custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons for tran­sac­tions of this type. The DoorDash equity issued as part of the tran­sac­tion will be valued at $206.45 per share, based on DoorDa­sh’s 30 day VWAP as of Novem­ber 3, 2021.

EQT Ventures and EQT Growth were advi­sed by law firm DLA Piper.

News

Greifs­wald — Great success for Nebula Bioci­des GmbH, three inves­tors decide to invest in the Greifs­wald-based start-up. This brings the start-up a signi­fi­cant step closer to its goal of obtai­ning appr­oval for and laun­ching the highly effec­tive disin­fec­tant Sporo­san® on the market.

With a total invest­ment of 1.6 million euros, the start-up Nebula Bioci­des, foun­ded in 2019, can now take off: the appr­oval of the novel disin­fec­tion process Sporo­san® is supported by High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern mbH (MBMV) and a stra­te­gic inves­tor from the clea­ning and disin­fec­tion equip­ment sector as part of a seed financing.

“We are very plea­sed to have a strong busi­ness part­ner and, with HTGF and MBMV, two expe­ri­en­ced and network-strong finan­cial inves­tors on board,” said Dr. Jörn Winter, CEO of Nebula Biocides

Toge­ther with his colle­ague Dr. Ansgar Schmidt-Bleker, also foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Nebula Bioci­des GmbH, he had disco­vered the novel disin­fec­tion process in 2016. As part of their work at the Leib­niz Insti­tute for Plasma Rese­arch and Tech­no­logy e.V. (INP), the physi­cists iden­ti­fied the subs­tance peroxi­ni­trite acid as an effec­tive agent and deve­lo­ped the Sporo­san® process on this basis. In this process, two start­ing compon­ents react with each other for a short time and have a highly disin­fec­ting effect during this period.

Sporo­san® not only kills bacte­ria and viru­ses; even stub­born bacte­rial spores have no chance of survi­val thanks to the new process,” says Schmidt-Bleker, empha­si­zing the broad effi­cacy of the disin­fec­tant. In the future, this will also prevent infec­tions with the dange­rous hospi­tal germ Clos­tri­dio­ides diffi­cile, which leads to severe diar­rhea and is often fatal, espe­ci­ally in previously ill pati­ents. The Greifs­wald rese­ar­chers have thus achie­ved a breakth­rough — to date there is no disin­fec­tant in the world with a compa­ra­bly strong and rapid effect that is at the same time envi­ron­men­tally friendly and gentle in use.

The signi­fi­cance and poten­tial of the active ingre­di­ent were also reco­gni­zed by the three inves­tors, whose parti­ci­pa­tion will now make it possi­ble to finance the studies requi­red for approval.

“We are very proud to welcome Nebula Bioci­des to our port­fo­lio with their distinctly disrup­tive chemis­try inno­va­tion. The under­ly­ing tech­no­logy promi­ses to create nume­rous sustainable appli­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties,” Dr. Niko­laus Raupp, Invest­ment Mana­ger at High-Tech Gründerfonds

With the help of the inves­tors, the company, which now consists of a team of five, can pursue two paths at once: First, it is aiming for appr­oval as a biocide, so that Sporo­san will be available to ever­yone as a hand and surface disin­fec­tant from 2028. In paral­lel, the Nebula team is working inten­si­vely on solu­ti­ons for the spori­ci­dal repro­ces­sing of medi­cal devices with the aim of marke­ting the disin­fec­tant itself as a medi­cal device. With the stra­te­gic inves­tor, an indus­trial part­ner has alre­ady been found who would like to use Sporo­san® for its products; market launch is expec­ted in 2024. Howe­ver, the start-up is alre­ady recei­ving inqui­ries from other inte­res­ted compa­nies from a wide range of indus­tries every week, which only further unders­cores the scope of Greifs­wal­d’s inno­va­tion in the health­care, phar­maceu­ti­cal and food industries.

About Nebula Bioci­des GmbH
Nebula Bioci­des GmbH was foun­ded in 2019 as a spin-off from the Leib­niz Insti­tute for Plasma Science and Tech­no­logy e.V. (INP) by the scien­tists Dr. Jörn Winter, Dr. Ansgar Schmidt-Bleker and the direc­tor of INP Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Welt­mann in Greifs­wald. With the aim of provi­ding compre­hen­sive protec­tion against infec­tious agents, the company deve­lops appli­ca­tion-orien­ted disin­fec­tion solu­ti­ons that relia­bly kill not only bacte­ria and viru­ses but also stub­born bacte­rial spores. www.nebula-biocides.de

About Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern mbH
Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern mbH (MBMV) has been support­ing regio­nal SMEs with project finan­cing for over 28 years. It closes finan­cing gaps and at the same time puts the equity base of small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses on a broa­der footing and makes it possi­ble to realize promi­sing ideas or promi­sing busi­ness stra­te­gies. MBMV is also a relia­ble part­ner for start-ups and entre­pre­neurs. www.mbm‑v.de

News

Hamburg — A team led by YPOG part­ner Jörn Wöbke (photo) provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the share­hol­ders of KRONGAARD AG, head­quar­te­red in Hamburg, in connec­tion with the entry of the private equity inves­tor Maxburg as majo­rity share­hol­der in KRONGAARD AG and the return parti­ci­pa­tion of the sellers.

Since 2008, KRONGAARD AG has been a part­ner for compa­nies that want to respond quickly, flexi­bly and effi­ci­ently to their daily and medium-term chal­lenges in a know­ledge-based, networked and digi­tal economy. As a specia­li­zed service provi­der with a port­fo­lio of 20,000 highly quali­fied experts, KRONGAARD brings toge­ther well-known compa­nies from the DAX, the MDAX and the upper midmar­ket with inde­pen­dent consul­tants. Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners is a private equity fund focu­sed on the German-spea­king region. Maxburg focu­ses on long-term corpo­rate invest­ments with the aim of perma­nent and sustainable value enhance­ment and mana­ges seve­ral funds with a total fund volume of € 600 million.

Consul­tant KRONGAARD AG: YPOG
Dr. Jörn Wöbke (Lead/M&A, Corpo­rate Law), Partner
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Taxes), Partner
Dr. Moritz Diek­gräf (M&A, Corpo­rate Law), Senior Associate
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Senior Associate
Johan­nes Schmidt (M&A, Corpo­rate Law), Associate

News

Frank­furt am Main — Duff & Phelps, A Kroll Busi­ness, a leading global provi­der of valua­tion, corpo­rate finance, gover­nance, risk manage­ment and trans­pa­rency services and digi­tal products, is expan­ding its German tran­sac­tion advi­sory prac­tice with the addi­tion of a new Mana­ging Direc­tor: Oliver Runkel, based in Frank­furt am Main, will be respon­si­ble for Stra­tegy and Commer­cial Due Dili­gence for the German-spea­king markets.

Oliver Runkel brings over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in stra­te­gic consul­ting and evalua­tion of corpo­rate tran­sac­tions. During this period, 12 years of which at Part­ner level, he has successfully comple­ted over 200 stra­tegy and commer­cial due dili­gence (CDD) projects for private equity firms and compa­nies in various sectors. A parti­cu­lar focus was on the indus­trial, indus­trial tech­no­logy and B2B services sectors.

Prior to joining Duff & Phelps, he was a part­ner in EY’s stra­tegy and commer­cial due dili­gence advi­sory prac­tice (EY-Parthe­non) for the private equity sector, as well as helping to build the pan-Euro­pean Diver­si­fied Indus­trial Products prac­tice. In this role, he led more than 60 commer­cial due dili­gence and value crea­tion projects with tran­sac­tion values ranging from €50 million to €800 million. Prior to that, he was a part­ner at an inter­na­tio­nal stra­tegy boutique specia­li­zing in CDD, where he led the Global Indus­tri­als Products Prac­tice with a strong focus on private equity. He began his career in stra­tegy consul­ting at Accenture.

“Oliver is an expe­ri­en­ced stra­tegy and commer­cial due dili­gence consul­tant with an excel­lent track record. We are exci­ted to have him join our rapidly growing team and further streng­then our Commer­cial, Finan­cial and Tax, Opera­tio­nal and Tech­no­logy due dili­gence services,” said Andreas Stöck­lin, Head of EMEA Corpo­rate Finance and Coun­try Head Germany at Duff & Phelps, “Thanks to his excel­lent indus­try know­ledge, we are successfully deve­lo­ping our compre­hen­sive Tran­sac­tion Advi­sory solu­ti­ons and will be able to support our clients even more effec­tively in the future.”

About Duff & Phelps, A Kroll Business
The Duff & Phelps Corpo­rate Finance Prac­tice provi­des compre­hen­sive advi­sory services throug­hout all phases of a tran­sac­tion. Duff & Phelps’ inter­na­tio­nal indus­try specia­lists operate in 30 count­ries around the world, helping clients achieve corpo­rate objec­ti­ves in the areas of M&A, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and due dili­gence. Duff & Phelps is known for tech­ni­cal exper­tise, objec­tive advice, and top-notch execu­tion. www.duffandphelps.com.

About Kroll
Kroll is a leading global provi­der of valua­tion, gover­nance, risk manage­ment and trans­pa­rency services and digi­tal products. We support our clients in the areas of busi­ness valua­tions, inves­ti­ga­ti­ons, cyber secu­rity, corpo­rate finance, restruc­tu­ring, data analy­tics, and regu­la­tory and compli­ance. Kroll has around 5,000 experts in 30 count­ries world­wide. www.kroll.com.

News

Hamburg — H.I.G. Capi­tal (“H.I.G.”), a leading global alter­na­tive invest­ment firm with over $45 billion of equity capi­tal under manage­ment, is plea­sed to announce that an affi­liate has signed a defi­ni­tive agree­ment to sell CONET (the “Company”) to IK Invest­ment Part­ners. H.I.G. acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Company in 2017. The tran­sac­tion is subject to clearance by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

CONET is a leading digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion part­ner focu­sed on public sector clients and with a dedi­ca­ted SAP prac­tice. The Company offers its blue-chip custo­mer base services and solu­ti­ons in the areas of IT consul­ting, soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment and high-secu­rity IT opera­ti­ons. CONET, foun­ded in 1987 and head­quar­te­red in Hennef, Germany, employs over 1,100 specia­lists across 13 loca­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Croatia.

With the support of H.I.G., the Company imple­men­ted a compre­hen­sive expan­sion stra­tegy both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. CONET bene­fit­ted from H.I.G.‘s substan­tial exper­tise and exten­sive network in the IT services sector as well as its expe­ri­ence in successfully execu­ting buy-and-build stra­te­gies. After H.I.G.‘s initial invest­ment in 2017, CONET comple­ted three stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons which broa­dened its service offe­ring. During the past four years, CONE­T’s manage­ment more than doubled the Company’s reve­nue and streng­the­ned the Company’s posi­tion as a leading, inte­gra­ted and trus­ted part­ner for the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of its diver­si­fied custo­mer base.

Anke Höfer, CEO of CONET, said: “H.I.G.‘s trust­wor­thy and support­ive guidance was an essen­tial element for CONET to conti­nue its excep­tio­nally successful growth by expan­ding geogra­phi­cally and by adding addi­tio­nal IT and consul­ting solu­ti­ons. Toge­ther, we have successfully grown CONET into a leading and trus­ted digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion part­ner for our customers.”

Dr. Holger Klein­garn, Mana­ging Direc­tor at H.I.G., said: “We are deligh­ted to have supported CONET in its successful growth trajec­tory towards a leading digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion provi­der. CONET demons­tra­tes H.I.G.‘s ability to deve­lop compa­nies through a sustainable combi­na­tion of orga­nic growth and acqui­si­ti­ons, while at the same time further opti­mi­zing the service port­fo­lio to offer inte­gra­ted solu­tion for customers.”

Chris­tian Kraul-von Renner, Mana­ging Direc­tor at H.I.G. said: “The coope­ra­tion between CONE­T’s manage­ment team and H.I.G. has been excel­lent. Today, the Company is perfectly posi­tio­ned for further growth, and we wish the manage­ment team contin­ued success in the future.”

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the transaction.

About CONET
CONET has been a trus­ted IT part­ner for SAP, infra­struc­ture, commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment since 1987. Accor­ding to the latest survey by leading German IT publi­ca­tion Chan­nel­part­ner, CONET is ranked #2 among medium-sized German IT systems and consul­ting compa­nies. Custo­mers from indus­try and commerce, the public, as well as defense and secu­rity sectors alike, value CONE­T’s commit­ment to quality. CONE­T’s product solu­ti­ons for Criti­cal Control Room Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, Custo­mer Colla­bo­ra­tion, Enter­prise Content Manage­ment and Busi­ness Process Manage­ment are in use world­wide. CONET curr­ently employs more than 1,100 busi­nesses and IT specia­lists at 13 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Germany, Austria and Croa­tia. For more infor­ma­tion, please refer to the CONET website at www.conet.de.

About H.I.G. Capital
H.I.G. is a leading global alter­na­tive assets invest­ment firm with over $45 billion of equity capi­tal under manage­ment.* Based in Miami, and with offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Ange­les, San Fran­cisco, and Atlanta in the U.S., as well as inter­na­tio­nal affi­liate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, H.I.G. specia­li­zes in provi­ding both debt and equity capi­tal to small and mid-sized compa­nies, utili­zing a flexi­ble and opera­tio­nally focu­se­d/va­lue-added approach.

Since its foun­ding in 1993, H.I.G. has inves­ted in and mana­ged more than 300 compa­nies world­wide. The firm’s current port­fo­lio includes more than 100 compa­nies with combi­ned sales in excess of $30 billion. For more infor­ma­tion, please refer to www.higcapital.com.

News

Frank­furt a. M./ Flörs­heim — Vendis Capi­tal, an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in the Euro­pean consu­mer goods market, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in BlueBrixx and Model Car World. Foun­der and CEO Klaus Kiunke, who will conti­nue to hold a mino­rity stake, is co-inves­t­ing with Vendis Capi­tal to further drive the company’s growth and deve­lo­p­ment. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Vendis Capi­tal on this transaction.

BlueBrixx and Model Car World are two leading omnich­an­nel compa­nies based in Flörs­heim. Foun­ded in 2017, BlueBrixx is a direct-to-consu­mer brand that offers a variety of Noppen­stein sets for adult enthu­si­asts. In addi­tion, the port­fo­lio also covers various special topics such as archi­tec­ture, cars, trains, aero­space and adven­ture. Model Car World was foun­ded in 2001 and is one of the leading suppli­ers of model cars in Europe.

Vendis Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company specia­li­zing in the Euro­pean consu­mer goods market. The invest­ment in BlueBrixx and Model Car World is the fifth invest­ment of the Vendis Capi­tal III fund laun­ched in 2019 and the fourth invest­ment in Germany overall.

Advi­sors to Vendis Capi­tal: Shear­man & Sterling
Part­ners Winfried M. Carli (Munich-Finance) and Sven Opper­mann (Frank­furt-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 25 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling has offices in Frank­furt and Munich. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

News

Colo­gne — With a team led by Dr. Oliver Bött­cher and Kris­tina Schnei­der from the Colo­gne office, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed Compleo Char­ging Solu­ti­ons AG on the acqui­si­tion of E.ON subsi­diary innogy eMobi­lity Solu­ti­ons GmbH (“ieMS”).

The acqui­si­tion of ieMS, which has been under nego­tia­tion since July, will create one of Euro­pe’s leading full-service provi­ders of char­ging tech­no­logy at the Dort­mund loca­tion. With the purchase, Compleo takes over the entire work­force as well as all custo­mer rela­ti­onships of ieMS, as well as the subsi­diary of ieMS in Germany and the United King­dom. The busi­ness of ieMS’s US subsi­dia­ries remains excluded from the agree­ment. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted at the turn of the year 2021/2022.

The team led by Colo­gne-based Heuking part­ners Bött­cher and Schnei­der has alre­ady compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed Compleo on the acqui­si­tion of wallbe GmbH (now Compleo Connect GmbH) in the 1st half of 2021.

Compleo Char­ging Solu­ti­ons AG is one of the leading full-service provi­ders of char­ging tech­no­logy for elec­tric vehic­les in Europe. The company supports its busi­ness custo­mers with its char­ging tech­no­lo­gies as well as its char­ging stati­ons, the backend of the char­ging infra­struc­ture and, if requi­red, also with plan­ning, instal­la­tion, main­ten­ance and service. Compleo’s offe­ring includes both AC and DC char­ging stati­ons. DC char­ging stati­ons from Compleo are the first DC char­ging stati­ons on the market that comply with cali­bra­tion laws. The company is head­quar­te­red in Dort­mund, Germany, with product faci­li­ties loca­ted in Pader­born, Germany, in addi­tion to Dort­mund. In doing so, the manu­fac­tu­rer focu­ses on inno­va­tion, safety, consu­mer-friend­li­ness and cost-effec­ti­ve­ness. Compleo star­ted produc­tion of the first char­ging stati­ons in 2009. The fast-growing company curr­ently employs more than 400 people. Since Octo­ber 2020, Compleo has been listed in the Prime Stan­dard segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (ISIN: DE000A2QDNX9). In April 2021, Compleo acqui­red 100 percent of the shares in wallbe GmbH, now Compleo Connect GmbH.

As a tech­no­logy company with over 12 years of expe­ri­ence, ieMS deve­lops and produ­ces char­ging hard­ware as well as digi­tal services for elec­tro­mo­bi­lity. The char­ging hard­ware can be control­led using ieMS soft­ware services as well as third-party systems. The ieMS eMobi­lity backend alre­ady networks around 200,000 char­ging points in around 30 count­ries world­wide. innogy eMobi­lity Solu­ti­ons has its own sites in Germany, the UK, the USA and the Phil­ip­pi­nes and is a wholly owned subsi­diary of the E.ON Group.

Advi­sors to Compleo Char­ging Solu­ti­ons AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Oliver Bött­cher, Kris­tina Schnei­der, LL.M., (both lead part­ners), both Cologne
Michael Kömpel (all Corpo­rate, M&A), Colo­gne, Dr. Ruben A. Hofmann, Dr. Peter J. Fries (both IP), both Colo­gne, Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe, Ebru Köroglu (both Capi­tal Markets), both Colo­gne, Prof. Dr. Martin Reufels, LL.M., Markus Schmül­l­ing, Dr. Chris­toph Katern­dahl (all Labor Law), all Cologne
Dipl.-Kfm. Dr. Thors­ten Leis­b­rock (Pensi­ons), Colo­gne, Dr. Lutz M. Keppe­ler, Svea Kunz (both IT, all Colo­gne), both Cologne;
Tim Peter­mann (distri­bu­tion law), Fabian G. Gaffron, Dr. Sarah Slavik-Schulz (tax), all Hamburg;
Beatrice Stange, LL.M., Michael Vetter, LL.M. (both Anti­trust Law), both Düsseldorf
Marc Baltus (Energy Law), Düssel­dorf, Mathis Dick, LL.M. (Real Estate Law), Düssel­dorf, Dr. Susanne Stau­der (Compli­ance), Düsseldorf;
Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn (Due Dili­gence), Peter M. Schäff­ler (Tax Due Dili­gence) both Munich;
Michael Neises, Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel, Michèle von Lewin­ski (all Finan­cing) all Frankfurt

News

Mühl­heim a.d. Ruhr/ Düssel­dorf — NETWORK acted as debt advi­sor to Invi­sion, an invest­ment company, in struc­tu­ring and raising growth finan­cing for Lipo­Cli­nic Dr. Heck GmbH (“Lipo­Cli­nic”), a global leader in lipe­dema surgery.

Tran­sac­tion
Invi­sion is support­ing Lipo­Cli­nic with growth finan­cing and is pursuing its successful expan­sion stra­tegy with exis­ting manage­ment while prio­ri­tiz­ing pati­ent care quality. NETWORK successfully struc­tu­red and raised growth finan­cing for Invi­sion as debt advisor.

The Lipo­Cli­nic was foun­ded by the surgeon Dr. Falk-Chris­tian Heck in Mülheim an der Ruhr and performs more than 3,000 opera­ti­ons annu­ally in Germany at two loca­ti­ons. Since its foun­da­tion, the Lipo­Cli­nic has been deve­lo­ping new stan­dards for surgi­cal treat­ment with sustain­ably effec­tive surgi­cal methods. With an excel­lently trai­ned team of doctors and 80 employees as well as modern tech­ni­cal equip­ment, the Lipo­Cli­nic offers pati­ents first-class medi­cal know-how, inno­va­tive treat­ment methods and proven service quality. www.lipo-clinic.de

About INVISION

INVISION is the leading address when it comes to indi­vi­dual succes­sion solu­ti­ons as well as corpo­rate and growth finan­cing. As an invest­ment company based in Switz­er­land and Germany, we focus on medium-sized compa­nies in Europe, in parti­cu­lar the DACH region. — We bring many years of expe­ri­ence and are proud of our large network of busi­ness part­ners. Since our foun­ding in 1997, we have successfully supported more than 60 compa­nies in reali­zing their growth plans — parti­cu­larly in topics rela­ted to inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, inno­va­tion and product deve­lo­p­ment, the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of busi­ness proces­ses, and the imple­men­ta­tion of targe­ted addi­tio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons. Strong rela­ti­onships are an important prere­qui­site for our success. As a trus­ted part­ner, INVISION ensu­res that life’s work conti­nues and entre­pre­neu­rial success stories are writ­ten. www.invision.ch

About Network Corpo­rate Finance

Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have estab­lished oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002. www.ncf.de

News

Munich — The Munich-based secu­rity company sdm SE achie­ves an IPO. A total of 336,060 shares were placed at a unit price of 3.50 euros per share. The shares origi­nate enti­rely from a capi­tal increase. As a result, sdm recei­ved gross issue proceeds of 1,176,210 euros. With the capi­tal from the IPO, sdm intends to imple­ment its M&A stra­tegy and acce­le­rate growth.

The share is expec­ted to be listed on the Düssel­dorf Stock Exch­ange from Novem­ber 3, 2021. In addi­tion, sdm is aiming for an Xetra listing. The issuing compa­n­ion is Wege­rich, Prof. Dr. Hofmann, Zanti­o­tis & Söhne AG.

sdm SE is the holding company of the opera­ting subsi­dia­ries sdm Sicher­heits­dienste München and W&W Dienst­leis­tun­gen. Foun­ded in 1999, the group is one of the leading secu­rity service provi­ders in the Munich metro­po­li­tan region. sdm specia­li­zes in plant and property protec­tion, trans­port of valu­ables and money as well as the orga­niza­tion of events and perso­nal protec­tion. The more than 300 employees have exten­sive know­ledge in the areas of first aid and fire protec­tion and receive regu­lar trai­ning. In 2020, sdm gene­ra­ted sales of 10.4 million euros and an opera­ting profit of 0.88 million euros.

Advi­sors to sdm SE: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe, Photo (Lead Part­ner, PArt­ner Capi­tal Markets Law), Colo­gne, Made­leine Zipperle, Colo­gne, Meike Dres­ler-Lenz, Colo­gne, Anna Rich­ter, LL.M., Colo­gne, Ebru Köroglu, Cologne

News

Zug (CH) — Part­ners Group, which specia­li­zes in private equity and other private market invest­ments, has acqui­red what it says is a “signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake” in Swiss watch­ma­ker Breit­ling from British invest­ment firm CVC Capi­tal Part­ners, which has control­led the watch­ma­king group for just over four years and has perfor­med very well under the leader­ship of Geor­ges Kern, who was previously head of IWC. The tran­sac­tion was on behalf of clients, accor­ding to a Part­ners Group state­ment. The amount of the invest­ment was not disclosed.

As the NZZ writes, it should be around 25%. The parties are silent about the price, “but 700 million Fr. it should be, if not a little more,” notes the NZZ.

New two finan­cial investors

Accor­ding to Part­ners Group, the goal is to work with CVC and Breit­lin­g’s manage­ment to drive the watch­ma­ker’s deve­lo­p­ment into a “leading neo-luxury watch brand.” The co-foun­der of Part­ners Group, Alfred Gant­ner, beco­mes a member of the Board of Direc­tors of the Gren­chen-based watch­ma­king group.

Initial public offe­ring in a few years

Daniel Pindur, CVC repre­sen­ta­tive on Breit­lin­g’s board of direc­tors, said, “With Part­ners Group coming on board for the next four to five years, we’re also brin­ging new exper­tise on board.” The plan, he said, is to take Breit­ling public on the Swiss stock exch­ange in a few years. Well-known consu­mer brands or even luxury brands have not been the core busi­ness of the Zug-based asset mana­ger until now. But Alfred Gant­ner admits that he hims­elf has been a big fan ever since his wife gave him a Breit­ling as a fiftieth birth­day present three years ago.

“We also star­ted to look at the brand and the watch indus­try with Part­ners Group at that time, and for the last two years we have been talking with CVC and Geor­ges Kern about a possi­ble enga­ge­ment,” he tells NZZ. “We like how Breit­ling sets itself apart from the tradi­tio­nal, exclu­sive watch brands. The focus on casual luxury and invol­vement in trend sports such as surfing, triath­lon and biking is in keeping with the spirit of the times.”

They would also have liked to buy the whole company, but CVC wanted to remain invol­ved for good reasons and also retain control. “That’s not a problem for us because we’ve known CVC for over twenty years and have made seve­ral joint invest­ments,” Gant­ner said. Part­ners Group could well imagine remai­ning invol­ved for seve­ral years beyond a poten­tial IPO.

Breit­ling CEO Geor­ges Kern says: “The beauty of private equity is that you can act extre­mely quickly.” He is on the phone with Daniel Pindur from CVC almost every other day, and important decis­i­ons are made immediately.

There are no publicly available figu­res on Breit­lin­g’s busi­ness perfor­mance. Accor­ding to esti­ma­tes, the new team around Geor­ges Kern has been able to increase sales, which had been around CHF 400 million at the time of the take­over, to around CHF 700 million in the past four years, accor­ding to the NZZ. and even with higher margins thanks to growing direct sales. Profit at Ebitda level is expec­ted to be around CHF 175 million, accor­ding to a source quoted by Reuters.

News

Berlin — A YPOG team led by part­ner Benja­min Ullrich advi­sed Atomico and Insight Part­ners on their invest­ment in Berlin-based data startup Y42. The $31 million Series A finan­cing round was co-led by YPOG’s clients, venture capi­tal firm Atomico and New York-based private equity and venture capi­tal inves­tor Insight Part­ners. Atomico part­ner Irina Haivas will join Y42’s board as part of the invest­ment. In addi­tion, La Fami­glia and Data Commu­nity Fund parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round.

Y42 (form­erly Datos Intel­li­gence) was foun­ded in 2020 in Berlin by Hung Dang, who had previously deve­lo­ped a global data plat­form for publicly traded company CTS Even­tim. It’s a scalable data plat­form that anyone can use, unify­ing the entire data life­cy­cle from data source to dash­board in one cloud solu­tion. Y42 connects to the exis­ting data warehouse and allows even users without programming skills to inte­grate hundreds of data sources and build a scalable BI infra­struc­ture. The company plans to use the raised capi­tal to further acce­le­rate the deve­lo­p­ment of its plat­form, expand its custo­mer base and grow its team.

Advisor:inside Atomico and Insight Part­ners: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead Partner/Transactions), Partner
Emma Peters (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Senior Associate
Chris­tiane Schnitz­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Associate

Part­ners of the firm had previously advi­sed Atomico and Insight Part­ners on invest­ments in Germany and Austria, respectively.

About Y42
Foun­ded in 2020 and based in Berlin, Y42 (form­erly known as Datos-Intel­li­gence) is deve­lo­ping a data plat­form that enables any busi­ness to harness the power of data effi­ci­ently and colla­bo­ra­tively. Foun­der Hung Dang star­ted the company after expe­ri­ence in start­ups and data consul­ting, where he repea­tedly encoun­te­red compa­nies suffe­ring from the same data problems. The Y42 team is working to deve­lop an indus­try-agno­stic data plat­form that solves the problems of mana­ging complex data stacks once and for all.

About Atomico
Atomico invests in emer­ging tech foun­ders in Series A and beyond, with a parti­cu­lar focus on Europe, lever­aging its exten­sive opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence to acce­le­rate their growth. Atomico was foun­ded in 2006 and has since worked with over 100 ambi­tious teams — inclu­ding those at Klarna, Super­cell, Graph­core, Compass, Messa­ge­Bird, Master­class, Atten­tive Mobile, Pipedrive and Hinge Health. Atomic­o’s team of foun­ders, inves­tors and opera­tio­nal leaders has been respon­si­ble for global expan­sion, talent acqui­si­tion and marke­ting at compa­nies ranging from Skype and Google to Twit­ter and Uber. The company curr­ently mana­ges $4 billion in assets.

About Insight Partners
Insight Part­ners is a leading global venture capi­tal and private equity firm inves­t­ing in high-growth tech­no­logy and soft­ware scaleup compa­nies that are driving trans­for­ma­tive change in their indus­tries. Foun­ded in 1995, Insight Part­ners has inves­ted in more than 400 compa­nies world­wide and has recei­ved more than $30 billion in capi­tal commit­ments through a number of funds. Insigh­t’s mission is to find, fund and successfully part­ner with visio­nary leaders by provi­ding them with prac­ti­cal, real-world soft­ware exper­tise to drive their long-term success. Through its people and port­fo­lio, Insight fosters a culture based on the belief that scaleup and growth create oppor­tu­ni­ties for all.

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions, IT/IP and nota­rial services. 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. Today, YPOG employs more than 70 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

Berlin — Uploa­ding open invoices and recei­ving the amount imme­dia­tely is the busi­ness model of Billie, a young German finan­cial tech­no­logy company. Venture capi­ta­list Dawn Capi­tal led the $100 million funding round. The Chinese Inter­net group Tencent and Rocket Inter­net foun­der Oliver Samwer also participated.

The series of large finan­cing rounds for young German finan­cial tech­no­logy compa­nies (fintechs) conti­nues. Berlin-based fintech startup Billie — specia­li­zing in receiv­a­bles finan­cing — has recei­ved $100 million from old and new backers, brin­ging its valua­tion to an esti­ma­ted $640 million.

The grea­test stra­te­gic signi­fi­cance, howe­ver, is the entry of the Swedish fintech group Klarna. The payment service provi­der had previously announ­ced a coope­ra­tion with Billie and is taking a single-digit percen­tage stake. While Klarna offers services for private consu­mers, Billie wants to estab­lish the same offer for busi­ness custo­mers (B2B). Since many Klarna part­ners serve both private and corpo­rate custo­mers, Billie gains access to a large custo­mer base. The new capi­tal will be used to expand abroad and streng­then IT, risk manage­ment and fraud prevention.

Consul­tant Billie: Vogel Heerma Waitz

Dr. Clemens Waitz, Dr. Simon Pfef­ferle, Paul Rhode

News

Hamburg/ Munich — Maxburg Betei­li­gun­gen III (“Maxburg”), an invest­ment company advi­sed by Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners, has acqui­red a stake in Kron­gaard AG (“Kron­gaard”), one of the leading compa­nies for the provi­sion of highly quali­fied, inde­pen­dent tech­ni­cal experts for project tasks in the German economy. POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive tax advice to Maxburg in connec­tion with the investment.

Foun­ded in 2008 and based in Hamburg, Kron­gaard AG is a specia­list agency that provi­des compa­nies with free­lance experts for chal­len­ging project tasks. The port­fo­lio compri­ses around 20,000 highly quali­fied expert profiles with speci­fic expe­ri­ence in all indus­tries, making it one of the most important part­ners for compa­nies that want to respond faster, more flexi­bly and more effi­ci­ently to their daily and medium-term chal­lenges in a know­ledge-based, networked and digi­tal economy. Kroon­gard employs appro­xi­m­ately 150 people at 6 loca­ti­ons in Germany and serves over 300 well-known customers.

Maxburg is an invest­ment company focu­sed on the German-spea­king region that prima­rily supports compa­nies in part­ner­ship to drive sustainable growth. The Maxburg invest­ment compa­nies have capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling around EUR 600 million at their disposal.

POELLATH advi­sedMaxburg on all tax issues in the context of the tran­sac­tion with the follo­wing Munich team:
— Gerald Herr­mann (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Tax)
— Michael Häuß­ler (Asso­ciate, Tax)

News

Bens­heim, Germany — GHO Capi­tal Part­ners LLP, a leading London-based invest­ment advi­sor specia­li­zing in health­care invest­ments, has part­ne­red with Sanner Group to support and acce­le­rate Sanner Group’s global growth plans, inclu­ding expan­sion of manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Head­quar­te­red in Bens­heim, Germany, and employ­ing more than 600 people in seven count­ries, the family-run Sanner Group is a leading global supplier of high-quality active pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons and compon­ents for the phar­maceu­ti­cal, diagno­stics, nutraceu­ti­cal and medtech industries.

The tran­sac­tion conta­ins custo­mary condi­ti­ons and appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close in the fourth calen­dar quar­ter of 2021.

Advi­sor to GHO Capi­tal Part­ners LLP: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP
The Will­kie team led by part­ner Dr. Kamyar Abrar with the support of Coun­sel Andreas Feith and Dr. Michael Ilter (all Corpo­rate) consis­ted of Part­ners Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax; all Frank­furt) and Dr. Jens-Olrik Murach (Anti­trust, Frank- furt/Brussels), Coun­sel Ludger Kempf (Tax), Dr. Johan­nes Schmidt (Liti­ga­tion; all Frank­furt) and Geor­ges Balit (Corpo­rate, Paris), and asso­cia­tes Philip Thür­mer Real Estate), Ilie Manole (Corpo­rate), Fabian Peit­zmeier (Liti­ga­tion), Dr. Nadine Kramer (Labor Law), Nils-Ole Bock, Phil­ipp Oehler- king (both Corpo­rate; all Frank­furt), Gabri- elle Reddé (Public Law) and Emma­nuel Erdreich (Finance, both Paris).

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,000 lawy­ers with offices in Brussels, Chicago, Frank­furt am Main, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Milan, New York, Palo Alto, Paris, Rome, San Fran­cisco and Washington.

News

Hamburg/ Frank­furt a.M. — Good­win advi­sed the manage­ment of Garz & Fricke as co-seller and mino­rity share­hol­der on the sale of the Garz & Fricke Group to the Italian listed SECO S.p.A. and the re-invest­ment. Other sellers were AFINUM Siebte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG and the foun­ders, each of whom was advi­sed by other law firms. The total price of the tran­sac­tion amounts to 180 million euros.

Garz & Fricke Holding is a German manu­fac­tu­rer and deve­lo­per of hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the field of IoT based in Hamburg.

Advi­sor Garz & Fricke: Goodwin
The Good­win team was led by Dr. Markus Käpplin­ger (Part­ner, Corpo­rate) with support from Bastian Schmack (Asso­ciate, Corporate).

News

Remscheid/ Munich/ Paris — Shear­man & Ster­ling has advi­sed Euro­pean private equity firm EMZ Part­ners (EMZ) on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Hermann Pipers­berg (Pipers­berg). Peter Fischer, Mana­ging Direc­tor and share­hol­der of Pipers­berg, and the expan­ded manage­ment team are also inves­t­ing in the future of the company.

Foun­ded in Remscheid in 1843, Pipers­berg is the leading full-service part­ner for the utility indus­try in terms of manu­fac­tu­ring, cali­bra­tion, certi­fi­ca­tion and sales of gas and water meters. The company also provi­des compre­hen­sive services, such as new meter instal­la­tion, regu­lar meter chan­ges, regu­la­tory spot checks and repairs, and logistics.

About EMZ

EMZ is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment company based in Paris and Munich, which sees itself as a part­ner to medium-sized compa­nies. The focus of acti­vi­ties is on invest­ments along­side foun­ders, family share­hol­ders and mana­gers. EMZ is majo­rity control­led by its own employees and invests the money of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors from Europe. From the current fund with a volume of more than one billion euros, EMZ makes invest­ments in the amount of 10 to 150 million euros. www.emzpartners.com

Advi­sor EMZ: Shear­man & Sterling

Part­ner Winfried M. Carli and Asso­ciate Daniel Wagner (both Munich-Finance). Winfried M. Carli’s team regu­larly advi­ses EMZ on finan­cing tran­sac­tions, most recently on the finan­cing of an invest­ment in Cele­brate (card making) and Ankerkraut.

About Shear­man & Sterling

Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 25 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling has offices in Frank­furt and Munich. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

News

Munich — Great news for the Munich start-up scene: Unter­neh­mer­TUM and the TUM Venture Labs will be supported by the entre­pre­neur brot­hers Andreas and Thomas Strüng­mann with 25 million euros over the next 10 years. This funding will give Euro­pe’s largest start-up and inno­va­tion center at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich and the new TUM Venture Labs a major inter­na­tio­nal boost.

“Unter­neh­mer­TUM and TUM have built an outstan­ding start-up ecosys­tem over the last twenty years. With our commit­ment, our family would like to make a contri­bu­tion to accom­pany even more students as well as scien­tists on a successful entre­pre­neu­rial path,” say Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann.
The two entre­pre­neurs are known as successful inves­tors, having inves­ted early on in the now globally renow­ned biotech­no­logy company BioNTech and in the gene­rics manu­fac­tu­rer Hexal.

Direct rese­arch transfer

The TUM Venture Labs initia­ted by TUM and Unter­neh­mer­TUM offer an inter­na­tio­nally outstan­ding funding infra­struc­ture for one speci­fic tech­no­logy field each. They are speci­fi­cally focu­sed on signi­fi­cant tech­no­logy fields and create dyna­mic ecosys­tems of start-ups, acade­mia, inves­tors and expe­ri­en­ced companies.

The inte­gra­tive colla­bo­ra­tion of the indi­vi­dual TUM Venture Labs enables inno­va­tion to emerge at the inter­faces between tech­no­logy fields, distin­gu­is­hing them from simi­lar start-up initia­ti­ves at other top entre­pre­neu­rial univer­si­ties worldwide.
Around 100 high-poten­tial startup teams are alre­ady under the care of Venture Labs, bene­fiting from tail­o­red support services, incu­ba­tion space, trai­ning and ventu­ring programs, and access to global networks of compa­nies and inves­tors to prepare their startups.

A mile­stone for the inno­va­tion metro­po­lis of Munich

Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann, Presi­dent of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich, sees the coope­ra­tion as “another mile­stone in Munich’s deve­lo­p­ment into the leading tech­no­logy inno­va­tion center in Europe. I am confi­dent that other part­ners from busi­ness, science and poli­tics will join our initia­tive to use the TUM Venture Labs to spawn entire fami­lies of start-ups from the foun­ding state of Bava­ria that are inter­na­tio­nally compe­ti­tive with rese­arch-based deep-tech applications.”

“The unique selling point of Munich’s inno­va­tion and startup scene is the pooling of forces between univer­si­ties, start­ups, the public sector, estab­lished compa­nies and entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies,” says Prof. Helmut Schö­nen­ber­ger, foun­der and CEO of Unter­neh­mer­TUM and Vice Presi­dent Entre­pre­neur­ship at TUM. “The Strüng­mann fami­ly’s commit­ment to Unter­neh­mer­TUM and TUM Venture Labs is a wonderful exam­ple of the spirit of coope­ra­tion at Munich’s inno­va­tion and start-up location.”

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Munich / Düssel­dorf — The market for top manage­ment consul­ting has been charac­te­ri­zed by incre­asing conso­li­da­tion trends in recent years. In this dyna­mic envi­ron­ment, Water­land Private Equity and top manage­ment consul­tancy Horn & Company have ente­red into a 50/50 part­ner­ship to create a new growth plat­form for mid-market consul­ting firms.

Horn & Company is one of the leading consul­ting firms in the DACH region in the areas of stra­tegy, digi­tiza­tion and earnings enhance­ment for finan­cial service provi­ders as well as indus­trial and retail compa­nies. The share­hol­ders of Horn & Company will remain with the company in their usual capa­city and will conti­nue to assume the entre­pre­neu­rial lead respon­si­bi­lity for the opera­tio­nal consul­ting busi­ness in their role as shareholders.

Foun­ded in 2009 by Dr. Chris­tian Horn and Dr. Alex­an­der Bethke-Jaeni­cke, among others, Horn & Company is a top manage­ment consul­tancy specia­li­zing in finan­cial service provi­ders and indus­trial compa­nies with head­quar­ters in Düssel­dorf. Horn’s focus is on the design and effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of stra­tegy proces­ses and the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of finan­cial service provi­ders and indus­trial and retail compa­nies with a clear focus on measura­ble P&L impro­ve­ment, inclu­ding through data-driven analy­tics. Buil­ding on the high stan­dards of exper­tise and senio­rity of Horn & Company’s consul­ting teams, the consul­ting firm has repea­tedly been named Hidden Cham­pion of top manage­ment consul­ting for banks and insu­rance compa­nies by Manage­ment and Science. Since its foun­ding, Horn & Company has consis­t­ently achie­ved double-digit growth rates per year and today employs over 100 people at six loca­ti­ons in Germany and Austria. The entire Horn & Company leader­ship team remains active with the company.

Focus on streng­thening core compe­ten­cies and inor­ga­nic growth

Buil­ding on the company’s strong orga­nic growth, Horn & Company is expec­ted to become an even stron­ger brand in the DACH consul­ting market through indus­try conso­li­da­tion as a result of its part­ner­ship with Water­land. To this end, the part­ners plan to expand Horn & Company’s range of services in the areas of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, asset-based consul­ting, and data analy­tics, among others, as well as in other func­tional subject areas, in order to be able to offer custo­mers a holi­stic consul­ting ecosys­tem. By further dove­tail­ing and inte­gra­ting the current core compe­tence fields, the further expan­sion of the Indus­try and Trade busi­ness area in parti­cu­lar is to be acce­le­ra­ted. From the recently opened branch office in Vienna, the succes­sive inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion into neigh­bor­ing Euro­pean count­ries is also planned.

“In recent years, we have firmly estab­lished oursel­ves in the market and convin­ced a high-cali­ber client base of our unique value propo­si­tion. Now we have to conti­nue our growth path and deve­lop new oppor­tu­ni­ties through stra­te­gic steps, espe­ci­ally in the area of inor­ga­nic growth. We see poten­tial for this both verti­cally and hori­zon­tally as well as with regard to our inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy,” says Dr. Horn, Mana­ging Part­ner at Horn & Company. Dr. Bethke-Jaeni­cke, also Mana­ging Part­ner, adds: “Water­land has abso­lut­ely convin­ced us in our search for a strong growth part­ner. Water­land shares our vision of a high-growth conso­li­da­tion plat­form for medium-sized consul­ting firms and the idea of an ecosys­tem for digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion estab­lished by Horn & Company in recent years, has the neces­sary opera­tio­nal under­stan­ding in the field of profes­sio­nal services and the neces­sary indus­try exper­tise to open a new chap­ter in the Horn & Company success story toge­ther with us. We look forward to working together.”

“From the very begin­ning, we were convin­ced of Horn & Company’s clear stra­te­gic profile and unique posi­tio­ning. The consul­ting indus­try has proven to be extre­mely resi­li­ent during the chal­len­ging last months and is still highly frag­men­ted, espe­ci­ally in Germany. We see promi­sing growth poten­tial in the market, espe­ci­ally through inor­ga­nic value levers. We look forward to support­ing Horn & Company’s expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team on this deve­lo­p­ment path,” says Dr. Gregor Hengst (photo), Part­ner at Water­land Private Equity.

Water­land has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the profes­sio­nal services sector through corre­spon­ding invest­ments in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries. Water­land curr­ently alre­ady has invest­ments in compa­nies such as First Consul­ting (process consul­ting), Moore (accoun­ting & audi­ting), 9altitudes (Micro­soft Dyna­mics service provi­der), Skay­link (mana­ged cloud services), and Intracto and Side­show (digi­tal agencies).

About Water­land

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

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The company ranks fifth globally in the current HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Ranking (Janu­ary 2021).

News

Munich, Germany — EQT Ventures laun­ches invest­ment in Berlin-based food biotech startup Formo in a USD 50 million Series A finan­cing round advi­sed. In addi­tion to EQT Ventures, other backers include Elevat3 Capi­tal, Lower­car­bon Capi­tal and Lionhe­art Ventures.

Formo deve­lops sustainable, healthy and fair dairy products, support­ing a sustainable and ethi­cal food system. Form­erly known as LegenD­airy Foods, Formo is a Euro­pean leader in cellu­lar agri­cul­ture and the deve­lo­p­ment of cultu­red dairy products based on real, animal-free milk prote­ins produ­ced by precis­ion fermen­ta­tion. The finan­cing round is inten­ded to increase rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment capa­city and acce­le­rate commer­cia­liza­tion in advance of Formo’s market launch.

EQT Ventures is the venture capi­tal fund of EQT, a purpose-driven global invest­ment orga­niza­tion. EQT Ventures invests in fast-growing, inno­va­tive and tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies in all sectors world­wide, with a focus on Europe and the US.

Advi­sors to EQT: DLA Piper 
The DLA Piper team, led by Part­ner Andreas Füch­sel (Private Equity/M&A), contin­ued to include Part­ner Dr. Burk­hard Führ­meyer (IPT), Coun­sel Kaja Herr­mann (Labor Law, all Frank­furt), Senior Asso­ciate Domi­nik Wege­ner (Corpo­rate, Hamburg) and Asso­cia­tes Phil­ipp Meyer (Private Equity/M&A), Denise Peter (Labor Law, both Frank­furt) and David Sanchio Schele (Data Protec­tion, Hamburg).

About EQT

EQT Part­ners AB is an invest­ment group prima­rily active in Nort­hern Europe and Asia with its head­quar­ters in Stock­holm. It was foun­ded in 1994 by the Swedish Inves­tor AB and is still 31% owned by the latter. The remai­ning 69% is held by the company’s part­ners via EQT Part­ners BV. EQT comple­ted an initial public offe­ring on Septem­ber 24, 2019. https://eqtgroup.com

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is one of the worl­d’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.dlapiper.com

News

Hamburg — The tech­no­logy company FlyNex recently closed another finan­cing round worth milli­ons of euros to deve­lop new busi­ness areas and expand its current busi­ness. STIH­L’s entry as an inves­tor crea­tes a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship to use drones as tools for data coll­ec­tion and analy­sis in other areas such as forestry and horti­cul­ture in the coming years.

In addi­tion to the new commit­ment of STIHL Digi­tal GmbH, the finan­cing round is comple­ted by invest­ments from HTGF, TGFS (Tech­no­lo­gie-Grün­der­fonds Sach­sen), GPS Ventures and Snow­flake Ventures. The repea­ted parti­ci­pa­tion of exis­ting inves­tors in the current round demons­tra­tes the confi­dence in FlyNex to become a leading drone data platform.

As the only plat­form in Europe to date, FlyNex offers holi­stic digi­tal services for compa­nies in seven Euro­pean count­ries, with a focus on the energy supply, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, and cons­truc­tion and real estate indus­tries. In addi­tion to the crea­tion of drone data, FlyNex also offers a compre­hen­sive, seam­less service from consul­ting with the custo­mer through imple­men­ta­tion to the evalua­tion and use of the acqui­red data.

The part­ner­ship with STIHL, known in around 160 count­ries as a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of quality products for forestry, muni­ci­pa­li­ties, crafts, cons­truc­tion and gardening, gives FlyNex the oppor­tu­nity to expand its range to other indus­tries and target groups.

STIHL also sees many advan­ta­ges in the cooperation:
“We have spent a long time looking around the inter­na­tio­nal market for inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in this area and are convin­ced that we have found the right part­ner with our invest­ment in FlyNex,” says Benja­min Jung­hans, Direc­tor at STIHL Digi­tal GmbH

Both part­ners are convin­ced that they will be able to jointly deve­lop solu­ti­ons based on drone data that will be of inte­rest to many STIHL customers.

“With our end-to-end plat­form, we provide compa­nies with auto­ma­ted drones and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for data coll­ec­tion and real-time decis­ion-making. We enable compa­nies to create and process data in a way that only digi­tal aero­space compa­nies can,” explains Andreas Dunsch, CEO of FlyNex.

About FlyNex

Based in Leip­zig, Hamburg and San Fran­cisco, FlyNex is the most widely used soft­ware solu­tion for commer­cial drone projects in Europe. Through its proprie­tary cloud plat­form, FlyNex covers the entire commer­cial appli­ca­tion range for data coll­ec­tion by unman­ned aerial systems. Compa­nies can thus inte­grate drones into their own proces­ses with just a few clicks and, for exam­ple, reduce inspec­tion costs by up to 90%. Foun­ded in 2015, FlyNex is successfully used as a drone manage­ment solu­tion by well-known compa­nies and tech­no­logy leaders in the cons­truc­tion, real estate, energy and avia­tion indus­tries. FlyNex is also invol­ved in Europe-wide inno­va­tion projects for the successful inte­gra­tion of drones, such as for medi­cal trans­port, smart air traf­fic manage­ment or air cab navi­ga­tion. www.flynex.io

About STIHL

The STIHL Group deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and sells engine-powered equip­ment for forestry and agri­cul­ture as well as for land­scape main­ten­ance, the cons­truc­tion indus­try and private garden owners. The range is supple­men­ted by digi­tal solu­ti­ons and services. The products are basi­cally sold through service-provi­ding specia­list dealers and STIH­L’s own online stores, which will be expan­ded inter­na­tio­nally in the coming years — with 41 of its own sales and marke­ting compa­nies, around 120 importers and more than 54,000 specia­list dealers in over 160 count­ries. STIHL produ­ces in seven count­ries world­wide: Germany, USA, Brazil, Switz­er­land, Austria, China and the Phil­ip­pi­nes. — Since 1971, STIHL has been the worl­d’s best-selling chain­saw brand. The company was foun­ded in 1926 and has its head­quar­ters in Waib­lin­gen near Stutt­gart. STIHL gene­ra­ted sales of 4.58 billion euros in 2020 with 18,200 employees worldwide.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 650 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,800 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 140 companies.

Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and 32 companies.

News

Munich/ Frank­furt a. Main — Char­ge­Point has comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of has-to-be, a leading e‑mobility soft­ware provi­der in Europe. The soft­ware plat­form redu­ces comple­xity and frag­men­ta­tion of today’s Euro­pean char­ging infra­struc­ture land­scape and is compa­ti­ble with all char­ging stati­ons and e‑mobility services used in Europe. The acqui­si­tion of has-to-be streng­thens Char­ge­Poin­t’s posi­tion in the Euro­pean e‑mobility market.

As recently as August 2021, the company acqui­red Viri­Citi, a leading provi­der of elec­tri­fi­ca­tion solu­ti­ons for e‑buses and commer­cial fleets with a custo­mer base in Europe and North America. Toge­ther with the acqui­si­tion of has-to-be, Char­ge­Point now has a compre­hen­sive solu­tion offe­ring for elec­tric fleets worldwide.

Char­ge­Point Holdings, Inc. was successfully advi­sed by the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP (“Weil”) in the context of the appli­ca­tion for appr­oval under the Invest­ment Control Act to the Austrian Fede­ral Minis­try for Digi­ta­liza­tion and Econo­mic Loca­tion (“BMDW”) requi­red for the acqui­si­tion of has.to.be GmbH. By submit­ting a compre­hen­sive appli­ca­tion, it was possi­ble to go through the parti­ci­pa­tion in the EU scree­ning mecha­nism within the mini­mum dead­line. The BMDW did not exhaust the subse­quent appr­oval period and gran­ted the reques­ted appr­oval without any queries.

Char­ge­Point Holdings, Inc. head­quar­te­red in Camp­bell, Cali­for­nia, opera­tes the worl­d’s largest network of char­ging stati­ons for elec­tric vehic­les with a wide range of services in North America and Europe, and had announ­ced in July the acqui­si­tion of has.to.be GmbH, a leading soft­ware and service provi­der in the field of char­ging battery elec­tric vehic­les in Europe, head­quar­te­red in Austria.

The Weil team was led by Munich Corpo­rate Part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and supported by Part­ner Manuel-Peter Fringer (Corpo­rate, Munich), Coun­sel Florian Wessel (Corporate/Regulatory, Munich) and Asso­cia­tes Amelie Zabel (Corpo­rate, Munich) and Stef­fen Giolda (Corporate/Regulatory, Frankfurt).

About Char­ge­Point

Char­ge­Point is buil­ding a new char­ging network to move people and goods with elec­tri­city. Since 2007, Char­ge­Point has been commit­ted to helping busi­nesses and drivers make the tran­si­tion to elec­tric vehic­les with one of the largest EV char­ging networks and a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of char­ging solu­ti­ons. Char­ge­Poin­t’s cloud subscrip­tion plat­form and soft­ware-defi­ned char­ging hard­ware are desi­gned to provide opti­ons for every char­ging scena­rio — from resi­den­tial and multi­fa­mily to work­places, parking lots, hospi­ta­lity, retail and trans­por­ta­tion fleets of all types. Today, a Char­ge­Point account provi­des access to hundreds of thou­sands of char­ging stati­ons across North America and Europe. To date, more than 98 million char­ging events have been comple­ted, with drivers connec­ting to the Char­ge­Point network every two seconds or less.

News

Mann­heim — ADB Safe­gate Germany GmbH, a company of the ADB Safe­gate Group based in Mann­heim, Germany, has acqui­red all shares in Protec Auto­ma­tion GmbH, based in Ecken­tal-Brand near Nurem­berg. The company specia­li­zes in control tech­no­logy for airport light­ing systems, tech­no­lo­gies for feeding light­ing systems, and services for indus­trial auto­ma­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the terms of the acqui­si­tion or the purchase price.

ADB Safe­gate is a leading global provi­der of inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons to increase effi­ci­ency, safety and sustaina­bi­lity for airports, airlines and airspace surveil­lance. The company deve­lops holi­stic solu­ti­ons to improve opera­tio­nal proces­ses. The port­fo­lio includes products, systems and services for airport light­ing, intel­li­gent docking guidance and IT solutions.

The acqui­si­tion of Protec Auto­ma­tion GmbH is inten­ded to expand ADB Safe­ga­te’s posi­tion on the Euro­pean market by streng­thening its core busi­ness — espe­ci­ally for solu­ti­ons in the field of control and supply of light­ing systems. The service busi­ness is also to be streng­the­ned by the acquisition.

ADB Safe­gate Germany GmbH was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed on the acqui­si­tion of the shares in Protec Auto­ma­tion GmbH by a team of the commer­cial law firm RITTERSHAUS Rechts­an­wälte specia­li­zing in M&A tran­sac­tions under the leader­ship of the Mann­heim part­ner Dr. Moritz Weber. This was the first time RITTERSHAUS acted for a company of the ADB Safe­gate Group.

Advi­sors ADB Safe­gate Germany GmbH: RITTERSHAUS Attor­neys Mannheim
Dr. Moritz Weber, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A)
Dr. Anno Habe­rer, Part­ner (Anti­trust Law)
Johanna Bauer, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A)

Advi­sor to share­hol­der Protec Auto­ma­tion GmbH: SALLECK + PARTNER Lawy­ers Tax Advi­sors Erlangen
Dr. Bene­dikt Salleck, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A)

About RITTERSHAUS

With more than 80 lawy­ers at its offices in Frankfurt/Main, Mann­heim and Munich, RITTERSHAUS specia­li­zes in advi­sing inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting medium-sized compa­nies. Foun­ded in 1969, the firm focu­ses on corpo­rate law with a parti­cu­lar empha­sis on restruc­tu­ring, M&A, private equity and venture capi­tal tran­sac­tions, as well as corpo­rate finance and corpo­rate and asset succes­sion. Further areas of prac­tice are banking and capi­tal markets law, employ­ment law, intellec­tual property law, public law and IT law as well as real estate law. The prac­tice area of real estate law has been consider­a­bly streng­the­ned in 2021 by the trans­fer of a 15-person real estate team from Arne­cke Sibeth Dabel­stein. In addi­tion, RITTERSHAUS is inte­gra­ted into a global network with law firms on five conti­nents via Legal­ink and hand­les manda­tes world­wide on a cross-border basis. www.rittershaus.net

News

Berlin — “The German invest­ment market has shaken off the Corona shock. 6.6 billion inves­ted invest­ment compa­nies in this coun­try in the first half of 2021,” said Frank Hüther (photo), board spokes­man of the German Private Equity and Venture Capi­tal Asso­cia­tion (BVK) on the preli­mi­nary market figu­res. “After a record year in 2019 with invest­ments of €15.7 billion and an almost equally strong 2020 with €14.8 billion, we are well on track to reach this invest­ment level again in the current year. The market is curr­ently show­ing a great willing­ness to invest in all segments and has left the pande­mic behind.”

Capi­tal expen­dit­ures of EUR 6.56 billion repre­sent a slight increase compared with the prior-year half, when EUR 6.44 billion was inves­ted. A total of around 627 compa­nies were finan­ced with equity capi­tal in the first six months of the year, 376 of them with venture capital.

Venture Capi­tal with record half-year

Venture Capi­tal cele­bra­ted a record half-year. At €2.25 billion, invest­ment compa­nies have never inves­ted so much venture capi­tal in Germany in a single six-month period. This not only doubled the volume of the first half of the previous year (€1.06 billion), but alre­ady excee­ded the invest­ments for the full year 2020 (€1.94 billion). The main reason for this is the large number of triple-digit finan­cing rounds for mainly unicorn start-ups such as Celo­nis, Trade Repu­blic, Flix Mobi­lity, Wefox and Scalable Capi­tal. Here, invest­ment compa­nies have substan­ti­ally co-inves­ted along­side other inves­tors. “Venture capi­tal is curr­ently booming and the mood is excel­lent. Covid-19 is no longer a burden,” says Ulrike Hinrichs, mana­ging board member of BVK. “We need to use this momen­tum to create more beacons like the German Unicorns, but also to further advance venture capi­tal across the board.”

Buy-outs with signi­fi­cant decline

Buy-out invest­ments tota­led €2.39 billion in the first six months of the year. This was well below the prior-year figu­res (H1: EUR 5.08 billion, H2: EUR 6.55 billion). “Howe­ver, we expect some of the recently announ­ced tran­sac­tions to be comple­ted by the end of the year, and invest­ments to pick up noti­ce­ably in the second half of the year,” says Hinrichs, clas­si­fy­ing the figu­res. The largest tran­sac­tions announ­ced or alre­ady comple­ted so far this year include Birken­stock, Roden­stock, Tenta­mus Analy­tics, think-cell Soft­ware or Engel&Völkers. “Over­all, we are seeing a flurry of buyout acti­vity, which just picked up again in the middle of the year,” Hinrichs adds. As in the previous year, 65 buy-outs were coun­ted in the first six months.

The mostly SME-orien­ted mino­rity share­hol­dings (growth, repla­ce­ment and turn­around finan­cing) tota­led EUR 1.91 billion, signi­fi­cantly excee­ding the prior-year level (H1: EUR 0.29 billion, H2: EUR 0.97 billion). In this market segment, invest­ments regu­larly fluc­tuate due to indi­vi­dual large single invest­ments among estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies and more mature start-ups.

The complete, preli­mi­nary statis­tics for the first half of 2021 can be found on the website: www.bvkap.de

News

Munich — NETWORK Corpo­rate Finance acted as debt advi­sor to AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG (AFINUM) in struc­tu­ring and raising acqui­si­tion finan­cing for the purchase of TISSO Natur­pro­dukte GmbH (TISSO), a manu­fac­tu­rer of thera­peu­tic food supplements.

AFINUM acqui­res a majo­rity stake in TISSO and forms a new share­hol­der group with the exis­ting share­hol­ders and manage­ment. Toge­ther, the successful growth stra­tegy of the dietary supple­ment manu­fac­tu­rer is to be pursued and acce­le­ra­ted with further deve­lo­p­ments in the areas of sales and commu­ni­ca­tion. NETWORK, as Debt Advi­sor, struc­tu­red and raised acqui­si­tion finan­cing for AFINUM as well as an opera­ting line of credit for the company.

The company TISSO

TISSO produ­ces high-quality nutri­tio­nal supple­ments and deve­lops holi­stic therapy concepts with a focus on the treat­ment of chro­nic complaints. With exten­sive rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment resour­ces, TISSO has deep value crea­tion in the food supple­ment sector. Further­more, a nati­on­wide distri­bu­tion network of thera­pists forms the corner­stone of the company’s sales stra­tegy. In a highly compe­ti­tive search process, the exis­ting share­hol­ders selec­ted AFINUM as a future growth part­ner to opti­mally align the company for the next phase of its development.b www.tisso.de

Markus Junge remains signi­fi­cantly invol­ved in the company as CEO along­side foun­der Albert Hesse. In addi­tion, it was jointly deci­ded to give key perfor­mers a stake in the company as part of the transaction.

The invest­ment in TISSO is the twelfth tran­sac­tion of AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG. and stra­te­gi­cally rounds off the port­fo­lio. In July, the invest­ment in evitria, also in the health­care sector, was sold to the Swedish Atlas Group follo­wing successful growth.

About Network Corpo­rate Finance

Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have been able to estab­lish oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002.

News

The Silbitz Group has taken over the Torge­low iron foundry as part of a trans­fer­ring reor­ga­niza­tion. King & Wood Malle­sons (KWM) advi­sed Silbitz Group GmbH (Silbitz Group) on merger control aspects in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of the busi­ness of Eisen­gie­ße­rei Torge­low GmbH (EGT). GvW Graf von West­pha­len advi­sed the Group on the acqui­si­tion of the approx. 300 employees in terms of labor law.

Eisen­gie­ße­rei Torge­low is a tradi­tio­nal company from Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern, which has been active in the foundry indus­try for more than 260 years. With its access to the Baltic Sea, the company specia­li­zes in the produc­tion of highly complex castings for the offshore wind power industry.

With this acqui­si­tion, the Silbitz Group is expan­ding its product range in the field of rene­wa­ble ener­gies. The Silbitz Group is a group of compa­nies compri­sing various found­ries and a mecha­ni­cal proces­sor with head­quar­ters in Silbitz/Thuringia. The company, which is part of the port­fo­lio of listed Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), produ­ces castings for indus­tries such as the energy, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and trans­port sectors.

Advi­sors Silbitz Group GmbH:
King & Wood Malle­sons (KWM) — Tilman Siebert (photo) (anti­trust)

GvW Graf von West­pha­len — Part­ner Axel Klasen, Stuttgart

Other consul­tants Silbitz Group
Wellen­siek — Matthias Krämer (Corpo­rate and Insol­vency Law/M&A)

Admi­nis­tra­tor iron foundry Torgelow
PLUTA: Sebas­tian Laboga

News

Schwä­bisch Hall — Schwä­bisch Hall-based sauna manu­fac­tu­rer Klafs GmbH & Co. KG acqui­res a majo­rity stake in British swim­ming pool buil­der Guncast Swim­ming Pools Limi­ted. Klafs was advi­sed by Menold Bezler toge­ther with the British law firm Stevens & Bolton.

Guncast, a family-run busi­ness based in Petworth, West Sussex, is a provi­der of luxury swim­ming pools and employs around 40 people. Guncast had alre­ady been a supplier of Klafs products to the UK market since 2016.

Foun­ded in 1928, the family-owned company Klafs is the market leader for sauna, pool and spa equip­ment with more than 730 employees. The majo­rity take­over streng­thens Klafs’ inter­na­tio­nal positioning.

Menold Bezler advi­sed Klafs on the legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion under German law, having alre­ady acted for Klafs on the sale of a majo­rity stake to invest­ment company Egeria in Febru­ary this year. Stevens & Bolton, a long-stan­ding coope­ra­tion part­ner of Menold Bezler, assis­ted Klafs with the legal struc­tu­ring under British law.

Advi­sors to Klafs GmbH & Co. KG: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner), Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Nicole Brandt (all Corporate/M&A)

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.

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