ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Fran­furt a. M. — Perm­ira, the global invest­ment firm, and inves­tor GENUI have announ­ced that funds advi­sed by Perm­ira are acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in West­bridge Advi­sory. The Frank­furt-based firm is a leading Euro­pean energy and sustaina­bi­lity advi­sor to insti­tu­tio­nal real estate clients: West­bridge advi­ses its clients on energy procu­re­ment, impro­ving their carbon foot­print and thus meeting long-term sustaina­bi­lity targets. Outside Germany, the company has offices in London, Zurich and Warsaw. While the foun­ders of the company will signi­fi­cantly re-invest toge­ther with Perm­ira as part of the tran­sac­tion, GENUI will sell its shares. Comple­tion of the acqui­si­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted by the end of the first quar­ter of 2025. Foun­ded in 2015, West­bridge has estab­lished itself as the go-to energy and sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment advi­sor for more than 600 clients in the real estate sector. The company’s reve­nue and profi­ta­bi­lity are growing at double-digit rates. The busi­ness is bene­fiting from an incre­asing demand for green energy and CSR/ESG compli­ance consul­ting in the real estate sector. Westbridge’s services range from energy procu­re­ment consul­ting to ESG data manage­ment and green buil­ding certi­fi­ca­ti­ons. Perm­ira will support the company in its orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth plans. This applies in parti­cu­lar to the inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion in the energy and sustaina­bi­lity consul­ting market. “We are very much looking forward to writing the next chap­ter of our success story toge­ther with Perm­ira. Toge­ther we will conti­nue to inter­na­tio­na­lize our busi­ness and invest in our future growth,” said Yama Mahasher, CEO of West­bridge. “A big thank you to the team at GENUI who have successfully supported us on our growth path
since 2021. We are passio­nate about helping our clients solve their energy and sustaina­bi­lity issues. With Perm­ira as our new part­ner, we will conti­nue to drive the green trans­for­ma­tion of the real estate sector.” Florian Kreu­zer, Head of Permira’s busi­ness in the DACH region, commen­ted: “We are deligh­ted to be inves­t­ing in West­bridge along­side the foun­ders. This invest­ment once again under­lines our focus in the DACH region to support visio­nary entre­pre­neurs in their growth and expan­sion plans. Thanks to Westbridge’s important role in impro­ving the carbon foot­print of the real estate sector, this tran­sac­tion also fits well with Permira’s new climate invest­ment focus. I am perso­nally very exci­ted to join Yama and his team in crea­ting a Euro­pean cham­pion for energy and sustaina­bi­lity consul­ting in the real estate sector.” The sustaina­bi­lity trend in the real estate sector holds enorm­ous growth poten­tial. As a pioneer in this consul­ting field, West­bridge supports its clients in achie­ving complex sustaina­bi­lity goals. 

We will support Yama and the entire West­bridge team with further exper­tise in tech­no­logy and services as well as our inter­na­tio­nal network to jointly develop
new markets,” added David Brück­mann, Mana­ging Direc­tor in Permira’s Services sector. “West­bridge is an excel­lent fit with our invest­ment stra­tegy in the Services sector, which focu­ses on compa­nies with recur­ring reve­nue, strong custo­mer reten­tion and resi­li­ent growth.”
“It has been a plea­sure for our team and GENUI entre­pre­neur Andreas Jacobs, as Chair­man of the Advi­sory Board, to support West­bridge in not only growing its busi­ness and foot­print, but also further incre­asing the company’s important envi­ron­men­tal impact,” said Max Odefey of GENUI. “We are proud that West­bridge has become the market leader during GENUI’s owner­ship. Sales have increased seven-fold and a number of stra­te­gic, value-enhan­cing acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic expan­si­ons have been reali­zed. We wish the outstan­ding West­bridge team and the new majo­rity owner Perm­ira all the best for the contin­ued successful growth story.”

News

The Hague (NL) — Bizz­de­sign, a port­fo­lio company of Main Capi­tal Part­ners since 2022, acqui­res Alfa­bet from Soft­ware GmbH, another reco­gni­zed market leader in Enter­prise Archi­tec­ture (EA) and Stra­te­gic Port­fo­lio Manage­ment (SPM). This announce­ment follows the successful acqui­si­tion of MEGA Inter­na­tio­nal in Septem­ber 2024. The combi­ned group, opera­ting under the brand name “Bizz­de­sign”, will gene­rate reve­nues of around EUR 110 million, serve around 2,000 custo­mers and employ more than 600 people, buil­ding a truly global presence. 

This acqui­si­tion is the third add-on acqui­si­tion as part of Bizzdesign’s buy-and-build stra­tegy to expand its presence in the EA and SPM market. By combi­ning exper­tise and resour­ces, the new company is stra­te­gi­cally positioned
to drive further inno­va­tion in busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion and deli­ver grea­ter value to its customers
and part­ners. The combi­ned group will retain its three existing
and comple­men­tary products (Horiz­zon, HOPEX, Alfa­bet), crea­ting the
industry’s most compre­hen­sive end-to-end trans­for­ma­tion offe­ring, encom­pas­sing Enter­prise Architecture
Manage­ment (EAM), Stra­te­gic Port­fo­lio Manage­ment (SPM), Busi­ness Process Manage­ment (BPM) and
Gover­nance Risk & Compli­ance (GRC). In addi­tion, Bizz­de­sign is deve­lo­ping a new cloud-native, AI-based plat­form for busi­ness transformation.

Expan­sion of the Bizz­de­sign port­fo­lio through SPM

With the acqui­si­tion of Alfa­bet, Bizz­de­sign is expan­ding its offe­ring to the SPM market. As opera­ting models are chan­ging due to digi­ta­liza­tion, the depen­den­cies between busi­ness func­tions and IT are incre­asing. Alfa­bet, a reco­gni­zed leader in the SPM market, helps compa­nies, IT stra­te­gists and plan­ners to map and analyze these connec­tions. Bert van der Zwan, CEO of Bizz­de­sign (photo © Bert van der Zwan), commen­ted: “By combi­ning the skills and talents of three compa­nies, we will be able to scale our inno­va­tions across our joint road­maps and create more value for all our custo­mers much faster.” 

Sven van Berge Henegou­wen, Mana­ging Part­ner at Main and Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of Bizz­de­sign: “This tran­sac­tion is another important mile­stone in Bizzdesign’s growth stra­tegy and the combi­na­tion under­pins our stra­tegy to build larger inter­na­tio­nal soft­ware groups in one of our core product markets. Since the begin­ning of our stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Bizz­de­sign, we have been focu­sed on crea­ting a market-leading plat­form in enter­prise archi­tec­ture. The acqui­si­tion of Alfa­bet, follo­wing the successful acqui­si­tion of MEGA Inter­na­tio­nal, further streng­thens Bizzdesign’s market posi­tion. By combi­ning the strengths of Bizz­de­sign, MEGA Inter­na­tio­nal and Alfa­bet, we are brin­ging toge­ther three compa­nies that excel in inno­va­tion and exper­tise in EA, SPM and BPM, crea­ting a solid foun­da­tion for further global expansion.”

About Bizz­de­sign

Foun­ded in 2000, Bizz­de­sign is a leading global SaaS plat­form for Enter­prise Archi­tec­ture, reco­gni­zed as a market leader by major analyst firms such as Gart­ner and Forres­ter. Bizz­de­sign supports the world’s leading public and private orga­niza­ti­ons to ensure successful prio­ri­tiza­tion of invest­ments, trans­for­ma­tion initia­ti­ves and risk manage­ment. Bizz­de­sign helps archi­tects and execu­ti­ves to fully under­stand multi­di­men­sio­nal archi­tec­tu­ral struc­tures, design and plan both exis­ting and future archi­tec­ture. Horiz­zon provi­des a common language for busi­ness and IT stake­hol­ders with mode­ling, visua­liza­tion and analy­sis tools. Bizz­de­sign is listed in Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for EA Tools for Comple­ten­ess of Vision”. About MEGA International

MEGA Inter­na­tio­nal is a global SaaS company provi­ding enter­prise archi­tec­ture, busi­ness process analy­tics, gover­nance, risk, compli­ance and data gover­nance solu­ti­ons, opera­ting in 52 count­ries. The company’s HOPEX plat­form provi­des a colla­bo­ra­tive repo­si­tory for coll­ec­ting, visua­li­zing and analy­zing infor­ma­tion to improve plan­ning and adap­ta­bi­lity. About Alfa­bet

Alfa­bet is a market-leading enter­prise trans­for­ma­tion plat­form posi­tio­ned at the inter­sec­tion of enter­prise archi­tec­ture manage­ment (EAM) and stra­te­gic port­fo­lio manage­ment (SPM), reco­gni­zed by Gart­ner and Forres­ter as a leader in both the EA and SPM market segments (Gart­ner in EAM for 17 conse­cu­tive years). Alfabet’s products are used by more than 350 custo­mers in over 40 count­ries to plan and manage busi­ness and IT change. About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds active in the Bene­lux, DACH, Nordics and the United States with appro­xi­m­ately €6 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams of its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to create profi­ta­ble growth and larger, outstan­ding soft­ware groups. Main employs 85 people in its offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp and a branch office in Boston. Main main­ta­ins an active port­fo­lio of over 50 soft­ware compa­nies. The under­ly­ing port­fo­lio employs more than 15,000 people. 

Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main supports students with grants and scho­lar­ships to study IT and compu­ter science at tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties and univer­si­ties of applied sciences.

www.mainsoftware.de

News

Munich — Green­Gate Part­ners has advi­sed UVC Part­ners on Predium’s Series A finan­cing round. The PropTech company was able to raise a total of 13 million euros in the finan­cing round. Predium has deve­lo­ped an intel­li­gent soft­ware plat­form that combi­nes ESG manage­ment with econo­mic effi­ci­ency. The solu­tion enables real estate and finance compa­nies to meet regu­la­tory requi­re­ments while achie­ving sustainable increa­ses in value. The finan­cing round was led by Norrs­ken VC. Exis­ting inves­tors UVC Part­ners, b2venture and Mutsch­ler Ventures also parti­ci­pa­ted again in the round. The fresh capi­tal will be used to open up new markets and further deve­lop the plat­form in order to further streng­then Predium’s posi­tion as a real estate intel­li­gence plat­form and drive forward the decar­bo­niza­tion of the indus­try. The focus is on the decar­bo­niza­tion of the real estate indus­try, which is supported by data-based decis­ion-making and auto­ma­ted proces­ses. With the help of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and auto­ma­ted data analy­sis, Predium helps its clients to iden­tify ESG risks, prio­ri­tize reno­va­tion measu­res and opti­mize econo­mic decis­i­ons. Predium’s clients alre­ady include well-known compa­nies such as Deut­sche Invest­ment Group, Colliers and Baloise. About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a leading venture capi­tal firm based in Munich and Berlin that invests in Euro­pean B2B tech start-ups from pre-seed to Series A stage. With appro­xi­m­ately €400 million in assets under manage­ment, UVC Part­ners typi­cally invests between €500,000 and €10 million initi­ally and up to €30 million per company. The port­fo­lio includes indus­try leaders in deep tech, climate tech, hard­ware, soft­ware and mobi­lity with various tech­no­lo­gies and busi­ness models. Advi­sor UVC Part­ners: Green­Gate Part­ners Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH

Dr. Tobias Schön­haar, LL.M. (Bond) (Lead / Part­ner / Corporate)
Marc René Spitz, LL.M. (USC) (Part­ner / Corporate)
Constan­tin Forst­ner (Asso­ciate / Corporate)
Dr. Leonie Singer, LL.M. (Sydney) (Asso­ciate / Corporate)
Carl von Sydow (Asso­ciate / Corpo­rate) About Green­Gate Partners

Green­Gate Part­ners is a tech­no­logy law firm with special exper­tise in transactions
and venture capital. 

From offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich,
expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers offer their clients first-class advice on an equal footing.
Green­Gate Part­ners repea­tedly sets bench­marks in the German market.

News

Munich — The publi­shing group Harper­Coll­ins Germany has announ­ced the take­over of the German guide­book publisher Gräfe und Unzer (GU). The sales coope­ra­tion ISP Isar Sales Part­ner will also move under the new umbrella. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The seller is the Hamburg-based Ganske Group. With the acqui­si­tion, Harper­Coll­ins will more than double its busi­ness in Germany, Harper­Coll­ins Germany announ­ced. Gräfe und Unzer, which has been part of the Ganske publi­shing group in Hamburg since 1990, can look back on more than 300 years of publi­shing history and is argu­ably the market-leading guide­book publisher in Germany with successful best­sel­ling authors, a strong content pool and high brand aware­ness. “Gräfe und Unzer has an impres­sive publi­shing history, excep­tio­nal authors, books and brands, and has itself become a great brand that is trus­ted by gene­ra­ti­ons of readers. We are proud to welcome Gräfe und Unzer under the umbrella of the Harper­Coll­ins publi­shing group and look forward to shaping the future of the publi­shing house toge­ther with our colle­agues,” said Jürgen Welte, publisher and CEO of the Harper­Coll­ins Germany publi­shing group.

Advi­sor Harper­Coll­ins: Addle­shaw Goddard (Hamburg)

Dr. Huber­tus Schrö­der, Foto (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Manuela Finger (IP) Chris­tian Lang (Corporate/M&A; both Munich), Dr. Jan-Oliver Schrotz (Regu­la­tory), Jens Peters (Employ­ment); Asso­cia­tes: Fabian Neppe­ßen (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Theresa Rött­ger (Corporate/M&A and Regu­la­tory), Alex­an­dra Rose (Regulatory/Competition) Lars Schön­wald (IP; Munich) Inhouse Recht (Bris­tol): Tobias Hirst (Head of Legal Europe, Japan and Brazil)
Roser (Hamburg): Martin Aisen­brey (Tax) — known from the market

Advi­sor Ganske Publi­shing Group: Kümmer­lein (Essen)

Dr. Sebas­tian Longrée (lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Daisy Walzel (compe­ti­tion and anti­trust law), Dr. Jana Benzel (Corpo­rate), Jona­than Monz (employ­ment law); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Patric Sonder­mann (lead; Corporate/M&A), Johanna Pila­tus (M&A), Eva Sand­küh­ler (M&A), Roland Stem­pel­mann (IP/IT)
Inhouse Recht (Hamburg): Sven Grono­stay (Gene­ral Coun­sel) Mazars (Tax) — known from the market

News

Munich/ Berlin — YPOG has provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to global tech invest­ment fund Partech on its invest­ment of over €25 million in QPLIX, a foun­der-led wealth tech company and leader in
wealth manage­ment soft­ware for family offices and private banks. This
stra­te­gic invest­ment was made through Partech’s Growth Fund and will support
QPLIX’s growth objec­ti­ves and help to realize its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion plans. The invest­ment posi­ti­ons Partech as an inves­tor along­side Deut­sche Bank, with both jointly holding a
mino­rity stake in the company. This part­ner­ship, which builds on Partech’s exper­tise in scaling inter­na­tio­nal soft­ware busi­nesses, will streng­then QPLIX’s expan­sion into key markets inclu­ding France, Switz­er­land, the UK, the Middle East and the APAC region. Kai Linde of QPLIX GmbH said: “Partech’s global network and exten­sive exper­tise make them an ideal part­ner for our vision of inter­na­tio­nal market leader­ship in the wealth tech sector. With Partech and Deut­sche Bank, we are ideally posi­tio­ned to enter new markets.” Andrew Whiting of Partech (photo: Partech) explains: “QPLIX sets the gold stan­dard for family offices and private banks, parti­cu­larly through its exper­tise in illi­quid assets and the highest secu­rity stan­dards. We look forward to support­ing QPLIX in acce­le­ra­ting their invest­ments in new markets and further expan­ding the plat­form.” This invest­ment marks another signi­fi­cant mile­stone in QPLIX’s successful journey.
Frank Schrie­ver, Vice Chair­man of Deut­sche Bank Private Bank, commen­ted: “With the
inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion of QPLIX, new oppor­tu­ni­ties and services are also opening up for our
clients.” QPLIX’s deep under­stan­ding of client needs and commit­ment to high quality
products has earned the company a strong repu­ta­tion in the market­place. The company’s advanced
wealth manage­ment soft­ware inte­gra­tes all asset clas­ses, provi­des powerful
analy­ti­cal tools and enables highly custo­mizable report­ing. This invest­ment will enable QPLIX to conti­nue to provide compre­hen­sive wealth manage­ment solu­ti­ons for its clients. 

Advi­sor Partech: YPOG

Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (Lead, Transactions/Corporate), Part­ner, Berlin
Barbara Hasse (Transactions/Corporate), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Cyra Ditt­ber­ner (Transactions/Corporate), Asso­ciate, Munich
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Char­lotte Petrasch (IP/IT), Asso­ciate, Berlin About Partech

Partech is a global tech invest­ment firm head­quar­te­red in Paris with offices in Berlin, Dakar, Dubai, Nairobi and San Fran­cisco. Partech combi­nes capi­tal, opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence and stra­te­gic support to nurture entre­pre­neurs from seed to growth stage. Foun­ded 40 years ago in San Francisco
, Partech today has €2.5 billion in assets under manage­ment and a current port­fo­lio of 220 compa­nies span­ning 40 count­ries and 4 continents.

Further infor­ma­tion can be found at partechpartners.com About QPLIX

QPLIX deve­lops and opera­tes a leading soft­ware solu­tion for the successful digi­tal manage­ment of
sophisti­ca­ted port­fo­lios. Clients include single and multi-family offices as well as foundations,
invest­ment funds, asset mana­gers, insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and private banks across the EMEA region. The QPLIX plat­form holi­sti­cally maps both liquid and illi­quid asset clas­ses as well as various
client struc­tures and conso­li­da­tes all invest­ment data in a powerful data­base. The soft­ware enables users to perform real-time analy­ses at any time, whether via the powerful core appli­ca­tion, the indi­vi­dual end client portal or the app. QPLIX is also respon­si­ble for its own IT infra­struc­ture and secu­rity and proves to be a trust­wor­thy part­ner. This is under­li­ned by assets under manage­ment tota­ling more than 300 billion euros, which are curr­ently mana­ged via the plat­form. QPLIX GmbH was foun­ded in 2012 by Kai Linde, Phil­ipp Pötzl and Mathias Linder­meir and is head­quar­te­red in Munich. The team curr­ently consists of over 120 deve­lo­p­ment and finan­cial experts. www.qplix.com About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list law firm for tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and transactions.

The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include up-and-coming tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run SMEs as well as corpo­rate groups 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 150 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in four offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. http://www.ypog.law

News

Munich — Para­gon acqui­res a stake in Primed Group, a leading provi­der of medi­cal devices and steri­liza­tion services based in Halber­stadt, Germany. Olden­bur­gi­sche Landes­bank Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft (OLB) was advi­sed as super senior lender by the commer­cial law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Primed Group by Para­gon Part­ners. The senior tran­che was provi­ded by Capza Private Debt. Para­gon Part­ners ente­red into a part­ner­ship with Primed Group in Novem­ber 2023. Primed supplies hospi­tals and medi­cal faci­li­ties in over 60 count­ries and plans to invest in its product port­fo­lio and enter new markets with the support of Para­gon Part­ners. Working closely with the exis­ting manage­ment team, Para­gon will conti­nue the Primed Group’s alre­ady highly successful growth stra­tegy. As a deve­lo­per, manu­fac­tu­rer, steri­liza­tion service provi­der and distri­bu­tor, the Primed Group covers the entire value chain and offers an inno­va­tive and high-quality product port­fo­lio in the areas of tracheo­tomy and laryn­gec­tomy, wound drai­nage, thora­cic surgery and stool management. 

About the Primed Group

The Primed Group (head­quar­te­red in Halber­stadt) is a leading provi­der of high-quality medi­cal devices and steri­liza­tion services. With around 470 employees and a verti­cal range of manu­fac­ture that covers all produc­tion-rela­ted proces­ses, the group of compa­nies is deeply verti­cally inte­gra­ted as a deve­lo­per, manu­fac­tu­rer, steri­liza­tion service provi­der and distri­bu­tor. Inno­va­tive and certi­fied medi­cal products with a focus on tracheo­tomy and laryn­gec­tomy, wound drai­nage, thora­cic surgery and stool manage­ment are manu­fac­tu­red at seve­ral produc­tion sites in Switz­er­land and abroad. The Primed Group’s products are used in hospi­tals, the home care sector and other medi­cal faci­li­ties in more than 60 count­ries worldwide. 

About Para­gon

Para­gon is an owner-mana­ged, private group of compa­nies that has been invol­ved with medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries since it was foun­ded in 2004. Para­gon works closely with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to ensure sustainable growth and improve opera­tio­nal proces­ses. The Para­gon port­fo­lio spans various sectors and curr­ently compri­ses 14 compa­nies. Para­gon is based in Munich and curr­ently mana­ges over €2.4 billion in equity. www.paragon.de. OLB is a broadly posi­tio­ned univer­sal bank with a nati­on­wide presence and more than 150 years of expe­ri­ence in the core region of northwest Germany. Under the OLB and Bank­haus Neelmeyer brands, the Bank advi­ses its appro­xi­m­ately 1 million clients in the Private & Busi­ness Custo­mers and Corpo­rate & Diver­si­fied Lending segments.

Legal advi­sors to OLB: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich

Dr. Tilmann Gütt, LL.M. (London) (Part­ner, Banking/Finance), Anja Schmidt (Asso­ciate, Banking/Finance) 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

Möglin­gen (Germany)/ London (UK) — Thoma Bravo, a leading soft­ware invest­ment company, has successfully comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the USU Product busi­ness. USU GmbH (“USU Product”) is the Euro­pean market leader in IT manage­ment solu­ti­ons, with the core areas of IT service manage­ment, IT asset manage­ment, IT opera­ti­ons manage­ment and know­ledge manage­ment. Thoma Bravo is now the new majo­rity share­hol­der in USU Product to acce­le­rate growth and product inno­va­tion. As a result of the closing of the tran­sac­tion, the USU Product busi­ness will operate as an inde­pen­dent unit with more than 600 employees to drive the deve­lo­p­ment, imple­men­ta­tion, support and main­ten­ance of its strong product port­fo­lio. Under the leader­ship of Dr. Benja­min Strehl, the exis­ting manage­ment team will conti­nue to run the busi­ness to ensure conti­nuity for custo­mers. Bern­hard Ober­schmidt, CEO of USU Soft­ware AG, will also be a member of the Board of Direc­tors within the new holding struc­ture of USU Product. “With the closing of the tran­sac­tion, we are now fully focu­sed on expan­ding the USU plat­form and further deve­lo­ping our solu­tion offe­ring to create more value for our custo­mers,” says Benja­min Strehl, CEO of USU Product. “We are plea­sed to announce the closing of our second tran­sac­tion in the DACH region this year,” says Irina Hemmers, Part­ner at Thoma Bravo (Photo: Thoma Bravo). “We see nume­rous oppor­tu­ni­ties to further invest in the regio­nal tech­no­logy ecosys­tem and expand our port­fo­lio. The tran­sac­tion is an important mile­stone in our part­ner­ship with USU Product. Toge­ther, we will now conti­nue to scale and inno­vate the company.” Debt finan­cing for the tran­sac­tion is being provi­ded by funds advi­sed by Morgan Stan­ley Private Credit , clients of Guggen­heim Invest­ments and HSBC Inno­va­tion Banking UK.

About Thoma Bravo

Thoma Bravo is one of the largest soft­ware inves­tors in the world with more than USD 166 billion in assets under manage­ment (as of Septem­ber 30, 2024). The company uses private equity, growth equity and credit stra­te­gies to invest in growth-orien­ted, inno­va­tive compa­nies opera­ting in the soft­ware and tech­no­logy sectors. Thoma Bravo lever­a­ges its deep indus­try know­ledge and proven stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal capa­bi­li­ties to work with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to imple­ment best prac­ti­ces in opera­ti­ons and drive growth initia­ti­ves. Over the past 20+ years, the company has acqui­red or inves­ted in more than 500 compa­nies with an enter­prise value of over $265 billion, inclu­ding both control­ling and non-control­ling invest­ments. The company has offices in Chicago, Dallas, London, Miami, New York and San Fran­cisco. www.thomabravo.com

About USU Soft­ware AG

As a leading provi­der of soft­ware and services for IT and custo­mer service manage­ment, USU enables compa­nies to master the chal­lenges of today’s digi­tal world. Global orga­niza­ti­ons use our solu­ti­ons to cut costs, become more agile and reduce risk — with smar­ter services, simp­ler work­flows and better colla­bo­ra­tion. With more than 45 years of expe­ri­ence and loca­ti­ons world­wide, the USU team brings custo­mers into the future. The USU Digi­tal Consul­ting busi­ness unit remains a wholly owned subsi­diary of USU Soft­ware AG.
http://www.usu.com

News

Munich / Zurich — Liberta Part­ners, a Munich-based multi-family holding company, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Avenir Group AG, a leading provi­der of HR outsour­cing services and digi­tal solu­ti­ons head­quar­te­red in Switz­er­land. The part­ners and key execu­ti­ves have also inves­ted signi­fi­cantly in the company. The tran­sac­tion is an important mile­stone in Avenir Group’s growth stra­tegy and enables both further geogra­phic expan­sion and the streng­thening of digi­tal capa­bi­li­ties. Avenir Group was foun­ded in 2005 and is today a trus­ted part­ner for compa­nies with a wide range of HR outsour­cing services, inclu­ding assess­ment, trai­ning, consul­ting and other HR outsour­cing solu­ti­ons. With around 140 employees, Avenir serves small and medium-sized compa­nies as well as large corpo­ra­ti­ons. Toge­ther with the manage­ment, Liberta Part­ners will focus on the acce­le­ra­ted expan­sion and further deve­lo­p­ment of Avenir Group’s digi­tal “HR hub” plat­form. In addi­tion, the company’s digi­tal compe­ten­cies will be further expan­ded to better support compa­nies in opti­mi­zing and digi­tiz­ing their HR proces­ses. The part­ner­ship with Liberta Part­ners will enable the Avenir Group to tap into new market segments more quickly and drive forward its digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. A central focus is on the deve­lo­p­ment and inte­gra­tion of new soft­ware solu­ti­ons and the expan­sion of stra­te­gic part­ner­ships with leading HR soft­ware provi­ders. In this way, the Group aims to broa­den its service port­fo­lio and streng­then custo­mer loyalty. The Avenir Group is also plan­ning to expand into the German and western Swiss markets. To this end, the exis­ting service offe­ring will be adapted to the needs of new custo­mers in these regi­ons and the geogra­phi­cal presence will be expan­ded through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. “The part­ner­ship with Liberta Part­ners opens up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for us to drive and acce­le­rate our growth. Toge­ther, we will streng­then our market posi­tion and support even more compa­nies in making their HR proces­ses more effi­ci­ent and future-proof with the help of digi­tal and AI-supported services,” says Chris­toph Kohler, CEO of Avenir Group AG. “Avenir fits perfectly with our philo­so­phy of inves­t­ing in dyna­mic compa­nies with strong growth poten­tial. We see great poten­tial in the combi­na­tion of Avenir’s compre­hen­sive and strong service port­fo­lio and our exper­tise in corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment,” adds Florian Korp, Part­ner at Liberta Part­ners.

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. The company makes targe­ted invest­ments in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries, parti­cu­larly in succes­sion situa­tions and group spin-offs, with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. These compa­nies are actively deve­lo­ped as part of the “100% Core & Care” concept and bene­fit from the entre­pre­neu­rial exper­tise of Liberta Part­ners. The Liberta Part­ners team consists of 20 employees working in the areas of M&A, Corpo­rate Deve­lo­p­ment and Legal & Admi­nis­tra­tion, supported by an active indus­try advi­sory board. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at: www.liberta-partners.com About Avenir Group AG

Avenir Group AG is a leading provi­der of HR services in Switz­er­land and specia­li­zes in provi­ding tailor-made solu­ti­ons in the areas of HR consul­ting, assess­ment, trai­ning and outsour­cing. With inno­va­tive plat­forms such as “HR-Hub” and “Zeugnis.ch”, Avenir offers forward-looking solu­ti­ons for the chal­lenges of modern HR depart­ments. Compa­nies invol­ved in the transaction:
Liberta Part­ners: Florian Korp (Photo: Liberta Part­ners), Dr. Chris­tian Szcze­syn, Baran Yagiz Atmaca Legal Team: Adves­tra (Dr. Alex­an­der von Jein­sen, Beda Kauf­mann, Göktug Gürbez, Annina Hammer) HR Tech / Digi­ta­liza­tion: Work­Tech Advi­sory (Jens Bender) Tax DD: Adves­tra (Laurent Ried­weg, Dr. Jan Selt­mann) Commer­cial DD: Telescope Advi­sory (Ludwig Prel­ler, Seve­rin Forst­ner, Stefan Kupka) Finan­cial DD: 8advisory (Patric Roth, Thomas Lagler)

News

Stock­holm — Sensire, a Finnish company backed by Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”), announ­ces the acqui­si­tion of ZONITH A/S (“ZONITH”), a Danish provi­der of person­nel secu­rity soft­ware with an inter­na­tio­nal presence. This acqui­si­tion is a first step in Sensire’s buy-and-build stra­tegy to expand its presence in the HSEQ (Health, Safety, Envi­ron­ment, and Quality) market. The stra­te­gic combi­na­tion of the two compa­nies aims to create a strong force in the wider HSEQ market in North West Europe. ZONITH, head­quar­te­red in Copen­ha­gen, Denmark, provi­des a plat­form for employee safety and lone worker protec­tion. The company’s proprie­tary plat­form inte­gra­tes wire­less indoor posi­tio­ning, GPS track­ing and smart­phone appli­ca­ti­ons to ensure the safety of employees in diffe­rent envi­ron­ments. The company prima­rily serves the Danish market, but is incre­asingly present in Norway, Sweden and other parts of Europe, working with well-known custo­mers such as Arla, the City of Copen­ha­gen and HSBC Bank. Sensire, head­quar­te­red in Joen­suu, Finland, is a leading provi­der of HSEQ soft­ware with a focus on medi­cal and food safety. Its plat­form supports custo­mers such as Attendo, Fazer and Essote with tools for condi­tion moni­to­ring, task manage­ment and docu­ment manage­ment, helping them to comply with strict regu­la­tory standards. 

Driving stra­te­gic growth

The acqui­si­tion expands Sensire’s product range by inte­gra­ting ZONITH’s person­nel secu­rity solu­ti­ons, enhan­cing the company’s value propo­si­tion to new and exis­ting custo­mers. This stra­te­gic move streng­thens Sensire’s compe­ti­tive posi­tion in the HSEQ market by opening up new oppor­tu­ni­ties in the market and provi­ding a more compre­hen­sive offe­ring to its custo­mers. With ZONITH’s estab­lished presence in Denmark and growing presence in Norway, Sweden and beyond, the acqui­si­tion furthers Sensire’s geogra­phic expan­sion stra­tegy in Northwes­tern Europe and crea­tes a more solid foun­da­tion for future inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. Custo­mers of both compa­nies will bene­fit from inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons that address new secu­rity and regu­la­tory chal­lenges and promote over­all custo­mer satis­fac­tion and loyalty. Jonas Bäck­man (photo © Main Capi­tal), Sr. Invest­ment Mana­ger at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, empha­si­zes the stra­te­gic importance of the acqui­si­tion: “The acqui­si­tion of ZONITH is a signi­fi­cant step in our part­ner­ship with Sensire, which has been in place since May 2023. This stra­te­gic combi­na­tion streng­thens the Group’s posi­tion in the Nordic market, expands the product range from food safety to medi­cal safety and person­nel safety and lays the foun­da­tion for further growth in Northwes­tern Europe.” Jp Asika­i­nen, CEO of Sensire, adds: “The acqui­si­tion of ZONITH is an important mile­stone in Sensire’s jour­ney to expand and streng­then its presence in the HSEQ indus­try in Europe. By combi­ning our exper­tise in medi­cal and food safety with ZONITH’s advan­ced solu­ti­ons for person­nel safety and lone worker protec­tion, we are uniquely posi­tio­ned to deli­ver compre­hen­sive safety and compli­ance tools to our custo­mers. This move not only expands our geogra­phic reach in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and beyond, but also increa­ses the value we provide to orga­niza­ti­ons working in highly regu­la­ted and safety-criti­cal envi­ron­ments. Toge­ther, we are crea­ting safer work­places while simpli­fy­ing compli­ance for our custo­mers.” Kris­tian Hart­vig Sties­mark, CEO of ZONITH, said: “We at ZONITH are deligh­ted to join Sensire, led by Main Capi­tal Part­ners, and we look forward to working with the Sensire team to not only expand our offe­ring to clients, but also to streng­then our geogra­phic market presence. With the exper­tise of Main Capi­tal Part­ners and Sensire, we aim to drive expan­sion and foster further growth in the Euro­pean health and safety market. 

About Sensire

Sensire is a leading provi­der of medi­cal and food safety soft­ware with appro­xi­m­ately 25 employees and head­quar­ters in Joen­suu, Finland. Foun­ded in 2007 by Jp Asika­i­nen, Sensire has a long track record of deli­ve­ring high-quality medi­cal and food safety solu­ti­ons to both the private and public sectors. With over 400 custo­mers, Sensire is one of the leading provi­ders in this field. www.sensire.com

About ZONITH A/S

ZONITH was foun­ded in 2000 and is head­quar­te­red in Copen­ha­gen, Denmark. The company offers solu­ti­ons for employees who need to protect them­sel­ves against thre­ats and violence in their working envi­ron­ment. The discreet solu­ti­ons enable fast and relia­ble aler­ting and work seam­lessly both indoors and outdoors. ZONITH’s solu­ti­ons are desi­gned to protect person­nel in various sectors such as muni­ci­pa­li­ties, regi­ons, psych­ia­try, health­care, indus­try, retail and many other areas through a flexi­ble and cost-effec­tive person­nel secu­rity system. https://ZONITH.com

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds active in Northwest Europe and North America. Main has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in soft­ware inves­t­ing and works closely with the manage­ment teams in its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to build profi­ta­ble growth and larger, outstan­ding soft­ware groups. Main employs 80 people and has offices in The Hague, Stock­holm, Düssel­dorf, Antwerp and an affi­lia­ted office in Boston. Main has appro­xi­m­ately €6 billion in assets under manage­ment and curr­ently has an active port­fo­lio of over 46 soft­ware compa­nies. Toge­ther, these compa­nies employ around 15,000 people.

News

Frank­furt — EQT has acqui­red ju:niz Energy GmbH. The acqui­si­tion of ju:niz Energy GmbH is the first tran­sac­tion in the context of EQT’s new Tran­si­tion Infra­struc­ture stra­tegy. As part of this stra­tegy, EQT will provide capi­tal as well as indus­trial and tech­no­lo­gi­cal know-how and sustaina­bi­lity exper­tise to support the growth of compa­nies and the trans­for­ma­tion to a decar­bo­ni­zed and climate-resi­li­ent future. 

ju:niz Energy GmbH, based in Germany, deve­lops, builds and opera­tes grid-connec­ted battery storage systems in accordance with the latest tech­ni­cal stan­dards. The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons and approvals. 

EQT is a global invest­ment firm with total assets under manage­ment of EUR 246 billion (EUR 134 billion in fee-earning assets), divi­ded into two busi­ness segments: Private Capi­tal and Real Assets. EQT owns port­fo­lio compa­nies and assets in the Ameri­cas, Europe and Asia Paci­fic and supports them in achie­ving sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and market leadership. 

Advi­sor EQT: Gibson Dunn

Dr. Dirk Ober­bracht, Part­ner, Dr. Jan Schu­bert, Part­ner (both Frank­furt), Asso­cia­tes Dr. Dennis Seif­arth (Munich), Simon Stöhl­ker and Lisa Holl­fel­der (both Frank­furt) as well as London Part­ners Feder­ico Fruh­beck and Alice Brogi and Of Coun­sel Cason Moore (all London).

Part­ner Dr. Georg Weiden­bach and asso­cia­tes Dr. Andreas Mild­ner and Jan Voll­kam­mer (all Frank­furt) advi­sed on anti­trust and FDI aspects, part­ner Benja­min Rapp (Frank­furt and Munich) and asso­ciate Daniel Reich (Frank­furt) on tax aspects. Part­ner Sebas­tian Schoon and asso­ciate Bastiaan Wolters (both Frank­furt) advi­sed on finan­cial aspects and part­ner Kai Giesing (Munich) on IP issues. 

About Gibson Dunn

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the world’s top law firms in indus­try surveys and by major publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,900 lawy­ers in 21 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn’s offices are loca­ted in Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, Riyadh, San Fran­cisco, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit our website.

News

Rostock/ Tübingen/ Düssel­dorf — ARQIS has provi­ded legal advice to the share­hol­ders of Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH (MTR) on the sale of a majo­rity stake to SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH. SHS acqui­res the share­hol­ding for its sixth fund gene­ra­tion (SHS IV) and thus secu­res the corpo­rate succes­sion of MTR. The two previous share­hol­ders and mana­ging direc­tors of MTR will remain asso­cia­ted with MTR through a signi­fi­cant share­hol­ding. The parties invol­ved have agreed not to disc­lose further details, such as the purchase price. Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH, with main loca­ti­ons in Rostock and Berlin, is a medium-sized company that supplies pati­ents with therapy devices for home use. MTR is one of the leading therapy and reha­bi­li­ta­tion provi­ders and, as a part­ner of 80 health insu­rance compa­nies, carried out over 140,000 treat­ments in move­ment, elec­tri­cal and compres­sion therapy in 2023. SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH, based in Tübin­gen, is a private equity fund that specia­li­zes in invest­ments in the health­care sector. SHS is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which was laun­ched in 2022 and has a volume of around 270 million euros. The share­hol­ders and MTR have been advi­sed on health­care law for many years by a team from D+B Rechts­an­wälte Part­ner­schaft mbB led by Dr. Ulrich Grau, who recom­men­ded ARQIS for this tran­sac­tion. The team led by Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze then prevai­led in a pitch. 

Advi­sor Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead Part­ner), Seve­rin Stef­fens (Mana­ging Asso­ciate, both Tran­sac­tions), Part­ners: Thomas Chwa­lek (Tran­sac­tions), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping, Dennis Reisich (both Tax), Anja Mehr­tens (HR Law), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Tim Brese­mann, Diana Pucho­wezki (both Real Estate), Daniel Schle­mann (Data Law), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial), Rolf Tichy (IP), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Pensi­ons), Asso­cia­tes: Rebecca Gester (Commer­cial), Thomas Lipsky (IP), Jasmin Grünen (Tran­sac­tions), Sabine Müller, Dr. Hendrik Völker­ding (both HR Law), Senior Legal Specia­list: Qing Xia (Tran­sac­tions) D+B (Berlin)

Dr. Ulrich Grau (lead), Nicole Jesche, Tatjana Teter­ju­kow, Fran­ziska Dick­mann (all Health Law), Dr. Sabrina Neuen­dorf (Data Protec­tion Law) About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firm opera­ting internationally.

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

News

Frank­furt am Main / Garrel — Frank­furt-based private equity firm VR Equi­typ­art­ner (“VREP”) has sold its signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in Euro­pean Conve­ni­ence Food GmbH (“ECF”), a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality frozen food products, to the French food group Lambert Dodard Chan­cer­eul (“LDC Group”). As part of the tran­sac­tion, LDC Group, one of the Euro­pean market leaders in the poul­try sector and in the produc­tion of fresh and frozen conve­ni­ence products, which is majo­rity family-owned and listed on the Paris stock exch­ange, is acqui­ring the shares of all inves­tors in full. Some members of the ECF manage­ment team will conti­nue to be invol­ved in the form of a re-invest­ment. The ECF Group was formed in 2014 through the merger of the compa­nies Karl Kemper Conve­ni­ence GmbH (“Karl Kemper”) and Eich­kamp GmbH & Co. KG (“Eich­kamp”) and has deve­lo­ped into a leading player in the out-of-home cate­ring sector. The product range compri­ses over 230 products, which are sold under the Vegeta, Karl Kemper and new leaf brands. ECF also offers custo­mi­zed deep-freeze solu­ti­ons for the food proces­sing indus­try as well as indi­vi­dual private label products. The inno­va­tive vege­ta­rian product range has been parti­cu­larly successful in recent years — in line with the social mega­trend of an incre­asingly meat-free diet. In 2023, the Group gene­ra­ted conso­li­da­ted sales of almost 80 million euros, of which around 50% was attri­bu­ta­ble to the vege­ta­rian product range. VREP became the largest single inves­tor in 2013 with a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake and, toge­ther with a group of inves­tors, merged the two medium-sized compe­ti­tors Karl Kemper and Eich­kamp under the umbrella of the newly foun­ded ECF as part of a “buy-and-build” stra­tegy. In the follo­wing years, VREP consis­t­ently supported the manage­ment team in the inte­gra­tion of both compa­nies, the realignment and strin­gent imple­men­ta­tion of the growth stra­tegy as well as a targe­ted repo­si­tio­ning of the product range, as a result of which ECF achie­ved a market-leading posi­tion and at the same time took a leading posi­tion in the growing market for vege­ta­rian and vegan frozen products. “Toge­ther with the manage­ment team and our co-inves­tors, we have achie­ved a great deal in recent years and crea­ted profi­ta­ble, sustainable growth,” explains Peter Sachse, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner (photo: VREP). “With its excel­lent product quality, the consis­tent expan­sion of the vege­ta­rian and vegan segment and an outstan­ding opera­tio­nal set-up, ECF is ideally equip­ped for this deman­ding market. I am convin­ced that we have found the ideal part­ner for ECF’s next phase of growth in the LDC Group.” Bruno Lafon, CEO of LDC Inter­na­tio­nal: “The acqui­si­tion of ECF enables us to enter the stra­te­gi­cally important German market. We are deligh­ted that in ECF we have found an ideal plat­form company for further growth, whose strength and exper­tise in the out-of-home food market will greatly enrich us. Not only are we an excel­lent stra­te­gic fit, we also share common values and visi­ons for the future.” 

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the contract.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner at a glance

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

LDC (Lambert Dodard Chan­cer­eul) is a French family busi­ness specia­li­zing in the proces­sing and distri­bu­tion of poul­try and the produc­tion of fresh and frozen deli­ca­tes­sen products. With 102 loca­ti­ons, 25,000 employees and a turno­ver of 6.2 billion euros, the LDC Group is one of the Euro­pean market leaders in the poul­try sector and is repre­sen­ted in France, Poland, Hungary, Belgium and the United King­dom. The company markets its products under the Loué, Le Gaulois, Maître CoQ, Doux, Marie, Tradi­ti­ons d’Asie, Drosed and Nature et Respect brands. Its mission: to promote food sove­reig­nty while respec­ting people and nature. The LDC Group is listed on the Paris stock exch­ange and is expe­ri­en­cing sustainable, balan­ced and control­led growth, both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons in Europe. The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team: Daniel Seifert, Chris­tof Schmitt, Chris­tian Ockenfuß 

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VREP:

M&A: Houli­han Lokey (James Scal­lan) Legal: Noerr (Dr. Martin Neuhaus, Florian Döpking) Finance and Tax: Deloitte (Stefan Götzen) Commer­cial: Roland Berger (Martin Weissbart)

News

Zurich/ Unter­kulm — The KWC Group, premium specia­list for sani­tary room equip­ment, fittings and water manage­ment systems and part of the Equis­tone Funds port­fo­lio since 2021, is selling its OEM divi­sion, Nokite EcoSmart Water Heating Systems (Guang­dong) Co. (“Nokite”), to the Swiss Franke Group. KWC is thus successfully reali­zing the final step in its stra­te­gic focus on the core area of profes­sio­nal sani­tary room equip­ment, which is aimed in parti­cu­lar at (semi-)public faci­li­ties and busi­nesses. Supported by the Equis­tone funds as majo­rity share­hol­der, KWC intends to further exploit the high market poten­tial in this area and expand the busi­ness with full concen­tra­tion. Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe acqui­red a majo­rity stake in KWC Group in April 2021. As part of its new stra­te­gic focus, the KWC Group successfully sold its KWC Medi­cal divi­sion with products for the medi­cal sector to the Alum­bra Group in Janu­ary 2024. This was follo­wed in summer 2024 by the sale of the Home divi­sion with its high-quality bath­room and kitchen fittings for the private sector to the Italian sani­tary specia­list Paini. 

With around 150 employees, Nokite is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality private label kitchen fittings, which deli­vers world­wide from China and acts as a high-quality OEM supplier. Follo­wing the successful sale to the Franke Group, Nokite will now be inte­gra­ted into the busi­ness divi­sion of the leading inter­na­tio­nal supplier of kitchen equip­ment, appli­ances and access­ories, which is aimed in parti­cu­lar at private end custo­mers. In future, KWC will focus on the profes­sio­nal busi­ness, which serves (semi-)public insti­tu­ti­ons such as airports, shop­ping centers, schools, sports and leisure faci­li­ties as well as hospi­tals and secu­rity faci­li­ties. The company has loca­ti­ons in Switz­er­land, Germany, the UK, Austria, Finland and the Middle East and curr­ently employs around 400 people. Marten van der Mei, CEO of the KWC Group, and Viktor Bern­hardt, CFO, empha­size the stra­te­gic importance of this step: “The sale of the inde­pen­dent OEM divi­sion enables us to focus our resour­ces and exper­tise enti­rely on the successful profes­sio­nal busi­ness. This area offers enorm­ous market poten­tial and we want to further expand our posi­tion as a leading provi­der for (semi-)public insti­tu­ti­ons with inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons and the highest quality.” David Zahnd, Part­ner at Equis­tone, empha­si­zes: “With the sale of Nokite, KWC has successfully comple­ted its stra­te­gic realignment and can now fully focus on expan­ding the profi­ta­ble growth of the Profes­sio­nal busi­ness.” On the Equis­tone side, Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Roman E. Hegglin were invol­ved in an advi­sory capacity. 

Advi­sor Equistone:
DC Advi­sory (M&A) and Bär & Karrer (Legal & Tax). About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are among the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with an expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment team opera­ting across Europe in a total of seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds prima­rily invest in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million.

Since its foun­da­tion in 2002, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. More infor­ma­tion at www.equistonepe.com.

News

Berlin — YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the lead inves­tors Amadeus APEX Tech­no­logy Fund and Atlan­tic Labs as well as the inves­tor NRW.Bank in the € 8.6 million pre-seed finan­cing round of the AI hard­ware start-up GEMESYS. The Sony Inno­va­tion Fund and the Sili­con Valley-based Plug and Play Tech Center also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round. Foun­ded in Bochum in 2021, the start-up offers an analog chip design based on the same
infor­ma­tion-proces­sing mecha­nisms as the human brain. This enables providers
of AI hard­ware to sell a new type of chip that trains neural networks 20,000 times more energy-efficiently
than current tech­no­lo­gies. With the new funding, GEMESYS will advance its rese­arch and expand its team,
to further deve­lop its novel chip architecture. 

Consul­tant GEMESYS: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Cologne
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Anna Eick­meier (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Pia Meven (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Laura Franke (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Project Lawyer, Cologne
Dr. Jonas von Kalben (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Boris Schin­zel (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax,
banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of
clients. These include up-and-coming tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run
medium-sized compa­nies as well as corpo­rate groups and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG
is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in
Germany. YPOG curr­ently employs more than 150 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors. www.ypog.law

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) has successfully comple­ted the capi­tal raising for DBAG ECF IV with invest­ment commit­ments of around 250 million euros — for which the DBAG team was able to convince new and exis­ting inves­tors in recent months. The volume raised by DBAG ECF IV has more than doubled compared to its prede­ces­sor fund, DBAG ECF III (DBAG ECF III: EUR 106 million fund volume). DBAG ECF IV increa­ses the assets mana­ged or advi­sed by DBAG to 2.7 billion euros. DBAG and members of the DBAG Invest­ment Advi­sory Team are invol­ved with a signi­fi­cant co-invest­ment. As the majo­rity share­hol­der, DBAG ECF IV invests in family-run medium-sized compa­nies with an initial invest­ment volume of between 10 and 40 million euros. Through add-on acqui­si­ti­ons, for exam­ple, capi­tal increa­ses of up to 60 million euros can be imple­men­ted. The fund focu­ses on manage­ment buy-outs of family-run compa­nies in the context of succes­sion situa­tions and/or capi­tal increa­ses. Carve-outs of one or more busi­ness units from larger groups are also possi­ble. In addi­tion, DBAG ECF IV gene­rally aims to acquire a majo­rity stake over a period of around five years. The fund’s invest­ment period runs until the end of 2028 and it is plan­ned to make up to five further invest­ments in addi­tion to the five exis­ting invest­ments. One of the active inves­tors in the German-spea­king Mittelstand

The initial tran­sac­tions of DBAG ECF IV were made between July 2023 and Octo­ber 2024 and contri­bute to two dedi­ca­ted mega­trends in the German-spea­king region. AOE, ProMik and UNITY AG are driving digi­ta­liza­tion and the asso­cia­ted increase in produc­ti­vity. While Avrio and TBD Tech­ni­sche Bau Dienst­leis­tun­gen are bene­fiting from the energy tran­si­tion in Germany. DBAG has expan­ded its sector focus in recent years to serve these indus­tries, which are charac­te­ri­zed by struc­tu­ral growth. Since then, the team has concen­tra­ted on compa­nies in the areas of IT services and soft­ware, health­care, envi­ron­ment, energy and infra­struc­ture as well as indus­trial services and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies, i.e. compa­nies that enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­ta­liza­tion. “Despite the chal­len­ging market situa­tion, we have mana­ged to convince exis­ting and new inves­tors. This is proba­bly even rela­ted to the macroe­co­no­mic situa­tion. After all, we have often proven in the past that our team can iden­tify and successfully deve­lop attrac­tive medium-sized compa­nies even in a chal­len­ging macroe­co­no­mic envi­ron­ment,” says Tom Alzin, Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG. DBAG ECF IV bene­fits greatly from being inte­gra­ted into the DBAG ecosys­tem. The company’s invest­ment advi­sory team draws on a very broad range of expe­ri­ence with regard to German SMEs and family-run compa­nies in parti­cu­lar. The funds advi­sed by DBAG offer these compa­nies not only succes­sion solu­ti­ons, of which around 11,000 are to be imple­men­ted in Germany alone by 2026, but also indi­vi­dual equity solutions. 

DBAG ECF IV will help DBAG to further conso­li­date its posi­tion as an inves­tor in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with attrac­tive deve­lo­p­ment potential.

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

 

News

Berlin — POELLATH advi­ses Extan­tia Capi­tal on the launch of the Extan­tia Climate Flag­ship II fund with a fund volume of over EUR 200 million. Extan­tia Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“Extan­tia” or “Extan­tia Capi­tal”), a Berlin-based venture capi­tal inves­tor, has successfully closed its EuVECA fund Extan­tia Climate Flag­ship II at EUR 204 million, far excee­ding its target volume of EUR 150 million. With its climate tech fund, Extan­tia invests in young tech­no­logy compa­nies in the field of decar­bo­niza­tion. The invest­ment focus is on the areas of energy, indus­trial proces­ses, buil­dings, trans­por­ta­tion and tech­no­lo­gies for remo­ving CO2 alre­ady emit­ted from the atmo­sphere. Extan­tia Capi­tal uses its own sustaina­bi­lity center Extan­tia Ignite for its impact analy­ses. This brings toge­ther scien­tists, ESG and sustaina­bi­lity experts to create trans­pa­rency and science-based guidance for the climate inno­va­tion ecosys­tem. Extan­tia has also estab­lished its own impact guide­lines for the purpose of funding. Accor­ding to this, part of the fund manager’s remu­ne­ra­tion is linked to the achie­ve­ment of pre-defi­ned sustaina­bi­lity targets. The inves­tor base of the Extan­tia Climate Flag­ship II fund includes major insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF), Land­wirt­schaft­li­che Renten­bank, the Danish Export Invest­ment Fund (EIFO), the Austrian Fede­ral Pension Fund and KfW Capi­tal, as well as the Alli­anz insu­rance group, indus­trial compa­nies, well-known family offices and private indi­vi­du­als. Advi­sors: POELLATH advi­sed Extan­tia Capi­tal on all contrac­tual, tax and regu­la­tory aspects of the fund struc­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion as well as on the inves­tor nego­tia­ti­ons with the follo­wing Berlin team:

Dr. Philip Schwarz van Berk, LL.M. (London) (Part­ner, Lead, Private Funds)
Ronald Buge (Part­ner, Tax / Private Funds)
Nele Frie (Senior Asso­ciate, Private Funds)
Katha­rina Hammer (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)

www.pplaw.com

 

News

Munich — Since 2021, Parcel2Go has taken a leading posi­tion in the UK parcel deli­very system and made signi­fi­cant invest­ments in its tech­no­logy infra­struc­ture and opera­ting struc­ture. Parcel2Go (“the Company”), the parcel deli­very market­place and e‑commerce ship­ping plat­form, today announ­ced a change of owner­ship from EQT Mid Market Europe (“EQT”) and mino­rity inves­tors to a new inves­tor group. Parcel2Go was acqui­red in June 2021 and has estab­lished a leading posi­tion in the parcel deli­very market thanks to its commit­ment to custo­mer service and inno­va­tion. Since 2021, the company has expan­ded its smart send offe­ring and acqui­red new stra­te­gic custo­mers in the digi­tal part­ner solu­ti­ons space. The company has also made signi­fi­cant invest­ments in its tech­no­lo­gi­cal infra­struc­ture and opera­tio­nal struc­ture. Paul Doble, CEO of Parcel2Go, said: “Parcel2Go is an outstan­ding busi­ness and this tran­sac­tion posi­ti­ons us to deli­ver strong and sustainable perfor­mance over the coming years. We are grateful to our previous and current inves­tors for their support. We look forward to remai­ning at the heart of the UK parcel deli­very system as we embark on our next phase of growth.” Rikke Niel­sen (photo © EQT), Part­ner in EQT Private Equity’s advi­sory team, said: “We would like to thank the manage­ment team and all employees of Parcel2Go for their dedi­ca­tion and hard work over the past years. The company is well posi­tio­ned to conti­nue crea­ting real value for custo­mers, carri­ers and part­ners going forward.” The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons and approvals. 

About EQT

EQT is a purpose-driven global invest­ment orga­niza­tion with total assets under manage­ment of EUR 246 billion (EUR 134 billion in fee-earning assets), mana­ged in two busi­ness segments — Private Capi­tal and Real Assets. EQT owns port­fo­lio compa­nies and assets in Europe, Asia Paci­fic and the Ameri­cas and supports them in achie­ving sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and market leader­ship. Trans­la­ted with DeepL.com (free version)

News

Gütersloh/Paderborn/Bielefeld/Detmold — High­Light Capi­tal (HLC), a private equity fund from China specia­li­zing in the health­care and biotech sectors, has acqui­red a stake in the biotech company ITM Isotope Tech­no­lo­gies Munich SE (ITM). ITM is a leading radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal biotech company head­quar­te­red in Munich. BRANDI Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed High­Light Capi­tal on the invest­ment in biotech company ITM. With its stra­te­gic invest­ment, High­Light Capi­tal under­lines its commit­ment to finding invest­ments in high-growth compa­nies in the radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal sector. High­Light Capi­tal is a private invest­ment firm dedi­ca­ted to crea­ting long-term value by foste­ring tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tion. In selec­ting suita­ble compa­nies, HLC draws on in-depth know­ledge of chemis­try, biology and mate­ri­als science, utili­zing its own indus­try rese­arch and compre­hen­sive services. HLC curr­ently mana­ges over 3.8 billion US dollars and is repre­sen­ted in major finan­cial centers such as Tokyo, Shang­hai, Hong Kong and Boston. High­Light Capi­tal recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice on the inter­na­tio­nal private equity tran­sac­tion from a cross-loca­tion M&A team of the law firm BRANDI Rechts­an­wälte led by Güters­loh part­ner Dr. Cars­ten Chris­to­phery. Advi­sor High­Light Capi­tal, Shang­hai, China: BRANDI Rechts­an­wälte Gütersloh/Paderborn/Bielefeld/Detmold

Dr. Cars­ten Chris­to­phery, Part­ner (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Dr. Franz Tepper, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Dr. Sörren Kiene, Part­ner (Commer­cial), Gütersloh
Dr. Chris­toph Worms, Part­ner (Public Law), Paderborn
Dr. Rüdi­ger Osten, Part­ner (Commer­cial), Detmold
Jannis Riedl, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Dr. Clemens Meyer, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Feli­cia Deppe-Hietel, Asso­ciate (Public Law), Pader­born Advi­sor ITM Isotope Tech­no­lo­gies Munich SE: JFB Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH, Münsing
Dr. Justus Fritz Binder, Part­ner (Lead, Corporate/M&A)
Frank Mizera, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A)

News

Tübin­gen — SHS Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the German medi­cal tech­no­logy company Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock (MTR) with its sixth fund gene­ra­tion (SHS VI). The aim of the invest­ment is to further grow the core busi­ness and to support the nati­on­wide expan­sion that has alre­ady been initia­ted. One and a half years after final closing, SHS VI has thus inves­ted over 50% of the fund’s investa­ble capi­tal. The medium-sized company Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH was foun­ded in 1994, employs around 200 people and focu­ses on the provi­sion of therapy devices for home use. As a quality leader in Germany, MTR is a part­ner of over 80 health insu­rance compa­nies and carried out over 140,000 treat­ments in the areas of move­ment, elec­tri­cal and compres­sion therapy in 2023. Of the three appli­ca­tion areas in which MTR is active, move­ment therapy is the largest area. The conti­nuous passive motion (CPM) devices are used to help pati­ents restore joint mobi­lity after opera­ti­ons such as knee and hip repla­ce­ments or shoulder and elbow surgery. Another area is elec­tro­the­rapy. Here, elec­tri­cal impul­ses are used to stimu­late muscles, reli­eve pain or treat neuro­lo­gi­cal disor­ders. The newest area is compres­sion therapy. The focus here is on the treat­ment of lymph­oedema and venous disor­ders. Using inter­mit­tent pneu­ma­tic compres­sion (IPC) devices, sequen­tial pres­sure is applied to the affec­ted areas to improve circu­la­tion and reduce swel­ling. If a doctor prescri­bes therapy with an MTR therapy device for a pati­ent as part of the reco­very process, the costs are usually covered by health insu­rance. The therapy devices are then deli­vered to pati­ents for the requi­red reha­bi­li­ta­tion phase as part of a rental busi­ness model. The company also has the neces­sary service and trai­ning staff to make it easier for pati­ents to start therapy and use the devices or to cali­brate the device precis­ely to the indi­vi­dual requi­re­ments of each pati­ent. This service is carried out by MTR’s own staff and thus guaran­tees not only consis­t­ently high quality and pati­ent care, but also fast and indi­vi­dual deli­veries to the respec­tive pati­ents. Thanks to this high quality of service, MTR enjoys an excel­lent repu­ta­tion among prescrib­ing doctors and has been able to conti­nuously increase its supply figu­res in recent years. “Toge­ther with SHS, MTR will realize an important step on its expan­sion and growth path. We look forward to the support of SHS through their sector exper­tise and network in the health­care sector and hope to be able to successfully support even more pati­ents throug­hout Germany in their health reco­very proces­ses through close coope­ra­tion with SHS,” explains MTR share­hol­der Andreas Mark­schies. “I am very plea­sed that we have found the right part­ner for our company, who under­stands and respects our company history and will support us in achie­ving our further goals,” says MTR share­hol­der Matthias Liewehr. 

“We are deligh­ted to have the oppor­tu­nity to support the contin­ued growth of MTR. Since its foun­da­tion 30 years ago, the focus has always been on opti­mal pati­ent care, which has estab­lished MTR as a quality leader in its therapy segments. We want to conti­nue this success story toge­ther with the manage­ment and thus give even more pati­ents access to these therapy opti­ons. We will bene­fit from our exper­tise and expe­ri­ence in the home­care sector, which we have alre­ady demons­tra­ted in other invest­ments, such as our previous invest­ment in Medi­groba GmbH,” says SHS Capi­tal Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger Tobias Fuchs. About Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH (MTR)

Foun­ded in 1994, Medi­zin­tech­nik Rostock GmbH is a medium-sized company for pati­ent care with medi­cal products, medi­cal tech­no­logy and medi­cal aids in the fields of move­ment, elec­tro and compres­sion therapy. The company employs a total of around 200 people at its main sites in Rostock and Berlin as well as in its nati­on­wide sales force. The focus of its acti­vi­ties is the provi­sion of medi­cal aids in the home envi­ron­ment. For many years, MTR has been a contrac­tual part­ner of almost all statu­tory health insu­rance funds, employ­ers’ liabi­lity insu­rance asso­cia­ti­ons and other service provi­ders. https://mtronline.de/ About SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH

SHS is a private equity inves­tor foun­ded in 1993 that makes invest­ments in health­care compa­nies in Europe.

The focus of invest­ments is on expan­sion finan­cing, share­hol­der chan­ges and succes­sion situa­tions. “Buil­ding Euro­pean Health­care Cham­pi­ons” is the invest­ment philo­so­phy accor­ding to which SHS finan­ces and deve­lops port­fo­lio compa­nies. The Tübin­gen-based inves­tor is taking both mino­rity and majo­rity stakes. SHS funds’ natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors include pension funds, funds of funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, stra­te­gic inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and the SHS manage­ment team. The equity or equity-like invest­ment of the AIF amounts to up to € 50 million. Volu­mes in excess of this can be reali­zed with a network of co-inves­tors. In its invest­ment decis­i­ons, SHS places strong empha­sis on the conside­ra­tion of ESG aspects and has ther­e­fore commit­ted itself to the guide­lines of the UN PRI. SHS is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which was laun­ched in 2022 and has a volume of around € 270 million. http://www.shs-capital.eu

News

Frank­furt a. M. — The Munich, Frank­furt and New York offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have advi­sed Supe­rior Indus­tries Group, a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of alumi­num wheels for the auto­mo­tive indus­try, on the successful comple­tion of the restruc­tu­ring of its Euro­pean business.

As part of the restruc­tu­ring process, the German subsi­diary Supe­rior Indus­tries Produc­tion Germany GmbH was placed under protec­tive shield procee­dings. After it was not possi­ble to restruc­ture the Werdohl site due to the econo­mic condi­ti­ons, the Supe­rior Indus­tries Group succee­ded in relo­ca­ting produc­tion from Werdohl to Poland within an extre­mely tight time­frame. During the relo­ca­tion, deli­veries to OEM custo­mers were main­tai­ned in full. In addi­tion, the majo­rity of the employees affec­ted were able to find new employ­ment by setting up a trans­fer company. 

Prior to the restruc­tu­ring, Weil had alre­ady provi­ded legal advice to the company in connec­tion with the raising of new term loan finan­cing. Both Supe­rior Indus­tries Produc­tion Germany GmbH and other German Supe­rior Indus­tries group compa­nies were origi­nally invol­ved in this. As part of the restruc­tu­ring, Weil supported the corre­spon­ding imple­men­ta­tion of all restruc­tu­ring measu­res while conti­nuing the finan­cing. Paral­lel to the relo­ca­tion of produc­tion and the realignment of the Euro­pean busi­ness, the term loan finan­cing was then exten­ded in August 2024 to redeem a USD 200 million bond issued at the level of Supe­rior Indus­tries Inter­na­tio­nal, Inc. 

The restruc­tu­ring of the Euro­pean acti­vi­ties of the Supe­rior Indus­tries Group was one of Weil’s most important restruc­tu­ring manda­tes in Europe and once again demons­tra­tes the firm’s extra­or­di­nary exper­tise in trans­at­lan­tic restruc­tu­ring cases.

Advi­sor Supe­rior Indus­tries Group: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

The Weil team was led by Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt (Munich) and included part­ners Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Michael Hickey and Jessie Chiang (both Corpo­rate, New York), coun­sel Andreas Fogel (Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Matthias Eiden (Restruc­tu­ring, Frank­furt), Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe (Liti­ga­tion, Munich), Thomas Zimmer­mann (Finance, Munich) and Gero Pogrzeba (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt) as well as asso­cia­tes Caro­lin Vetter­mann (Tax, Munich), Dr. Chris­to­pher Schlet­ter (Corpo­rate, Munich), Hans-Chris­tian Mick (Finance, Frank­furt), Silvia Lengauer (Finance, Munich), Nico­las Nöller, Melina Husic (both Restruc­tu­ring, Frank­furt) and Daniel Mati­je­vic (Liti­ga­tion, Munich).

About Weil

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers. Weil has offices in New York, Boston, Brussels, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Munich, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Washing­ton, D.C. and Sili­con Valley. In Germany, the firm has two offices and around 60 lawyers/tax advi­sors in Frank­furt and Munich. The focus here is on provi­ding specia­li­zed advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal clients on cross-border private equity and M&A tran­sac­tions, high-profile liti­ga­tion manda­tes, complex restruc­tu­rings and finan­cings as well as tax struc­tu­ring. www.weil.com

News

Stutt­gart — Menold Bezler has advi­sed Filder­stadt-based rezemo GmbH on the sale of its coffee busi­ness, inclu­ding the word mark “rezemo”, to Colo­gne-based Gliss Caffee GmbH. The two foun­ders of rezemo, Stefan Zender and Julian Reitze, have estab­lished the sustainable wooden coffee capsu­les as a well-known coffee brand in the hotel and office sector via the TV show “Die Höhle der Löwen”. Follo­wing the sale of the coffee busi­ness, the foun­ders now want to concen­trate fully on sustainable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons under the “fore­wood” brand, which are alre­ady being used as alter­na­ti­ves to plas­tic and alumi­num in the food, cosme­tics and agri­cul­tu­ral indus­tries. Gliss Caffee is a family busi­ness foun­ded by Michael Gliss that roasts and sells coffee. The certi­fied orga­nic company relies on direct, fair imports and exclu­si­vely offers its own roasts from a German orga­nic roas­ting plant. Menold Bezler advi­sed rezemo on all tran­sac­tion-rela­ted legal issues.

Advi­sor rezemo GmbH: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)

Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Thomas Futte­rer (both lead), Linda Groß, Justus Häfner, Michelle Gutjahr, Lisa Marie Jäger (all Corporate/M&A), Isabelle Hörner (Commer­cial), Caro­lin Nemec, LL.M. (IT), Kath­rin Hoyer (Coun­sel, Employ­ment), Clemens Mauch (Part­ner), Laura Bommer (both Tax). (IT law), Kath­rin Hoyer (Coun­sel, employ­ment law), Clemens Mauch (Part­ner), Laura Bommer (both tax) About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a commer­cial law firm in Stutt­gart with a part­ner­ship struc­ture and around 350 employees. More than 140 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness 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 — Oakley Capi­tal, a leading pan-Euro­pean private equity inves­tor, is inves­t­ing in Konzept & Marke­ting (“K & M”) through Oakley Capi­tal Fund V. K & M is a leading inde­pen­dent Mana­ging Gene­ral Agent (“MGA”) in the German perso­nal non-life insu­rance market. Oakley will invest along­side insu­rance vete­ran Joachim Müller, former CEO of Alli­anz Commer­cial, who will over­see a buy-and-build stra­tegy as Chair­man. K & M was foun­ded in 2001 and is based in Hano­ver. In Germany, K & M opera­tes as an under­wri­ting agent for private non-life insu­rance products (property, casu­alty, liabi­lity), a growing market curr­ently valued at €28 billion. K & M deve­lops, markets and mana­ges custo­mi­zed insu­rance products on behalf of insu­rance compa­nies in an asset-light model. About K & M

The company has seen contin­ued orga­nic growth driven by high and consis­tent rene­wal rates, thanks to the company’s repu­ta­tion for custo­mer care and focus on provi­ding inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons deli­vered through seam­less digi­tal proces­ses. The German insu­rance distri­bu­tion market is highly frag­men­ted and lags behind other markets such as the UK and the US in the role that inde­pen­dent MGAs play as inter­me­dia­ries. K & M has signi­fi­cant value crea­tion poten­tial to pursue a conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy that includes insu­rance brokers and under­wri­ting with diffe­ren­tia­ted product capa­bi­li­ties at its core. Working with new Chair­man Joachim Müller, Oakley will support the K & M manage­ment team in expan­ding K & M’s product offe­ring, streng­thening the company’s distri­bu­tion func­tion and pursuing further M&A oppor­tu­ni­ties. The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the fourth quar­ter of 2024. “The German insu­rance land­scape is chan­ging signi­fi­cantly, offe­ring advan­ta­ges for inno­va­tive compa­nies like K & M to take on more of the insu­rance value chain while provi­ding better service to end custo­mers. We look forward to working with Joachim Müller to realize his growth and diver­si­fi­ca­tion stra­tegy for the company,” said Peter Dubens, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner, Oakley Capi­tal. Advi­sor Oakley Capi­tal: Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Oakley Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the Hano­ver-based under­wri­ting company Konzept & Marke­ting (K&M). www.kirkland.com
Advi­sors: Maxi­mi­lian Liegl, Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker (both lead), Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Sophia Probst, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Licht (all Private Equity/M&A)

About Oakley

We support outstan­ding mid-market compa­nies in our core sectors of tech­no­logy, consu­mer, educa­tion and busi­ness services. Oakley has raised over €8.2 billion through eight funds, backed over 40 compa­nies and comple­ted more than 150 acqui­si­ti­ons. https://www.oakleycapital.com/

 

News

Milan/London/Paris/Munich — Ambi­enta SGR SpA (“Ambi­enta”), one of Europe’s largest and leading asset mana­gers focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity, has been iden­ti­fy­ing compel­ling invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in private credit since announ­cing the first closing of the Ambi­enta Sustainable Credit Oppor­tu­ni­ties fund (“Ambi­enta Credit”) in Janu­ary this year. Ambi­enta Credit has scree­ned over 200 tran­sac­tions since the begin­ning of the year and has inves­ted in six tran­sac­tions. The strong inte­rest from compa­nies, manage­ment teams and owners vali­da­tes Ambienta’s approach of provi­ding borro­wers with insight and exper­tise on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity, coupled with prudent and market-driven credit evalua­tion. The strong commit­ment has been supported by the recruit­ment of expe­ri­en­ced profes­sio­nals with language and struc­tu­ring skills, cove­ring all major Euro­pean markets and coming from leading private credit insti­tu­ti­ons. This comple­tes the build-up of the eight-strong team. Ambi­enta Credit’s port­fo­lio curr­ently consists of estab­lished compa­nies with average double-digit EBITDA margins and average annual reve­nue growth of over 10 percent, loca­ted in various Euro­pean regi­ons (Germany, France, UK, Italy and Ireland). The tran­sac­tions cover various sectors, inclu­ding water equip­ment, rail main­ten­ance, HVAC systems (heating, venti­la­tion, air condi­tio­ning) and house­hold power supply. — All compa­nies are united by the theme of envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity as a growth driver. With an average leverage of 2.8, the port­fo­lio has an average spread over Euri­bor of around 650 basis points[1]. All invest­ments are based on the solid sustaina­bi­lity rese­arch of Ambienta’s Sustaina­bi­lity & Stra­tegy team. The team consists of scien­tists and engi­neers who specia­lize in explo­ring how envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity trends are resha­ping value chains and entire indus­tries. An exam­ple of this synergy is Ambi­enta Credit’s invest­ment in a company that is redu­cing land­fill waste through its specia­li­zed retail model, lever­aging analy­sis from Ambienta’s recent Sustaina­bi­lity Lens[2] on the topic. Ambi­enta applies its custo­mi­zed and thoughtful approach to struc­ture two-sided margin ratchets[3] at a signi­fi­cant scale. This promo­tes a commit­ment to sustainable, long-term growth and value crea­tion, which is appre­cia­ted by the port­fo­lio compa­nies. As a result, the invest­ments have a measura­ble impact on all port­fo­lio compa­nies, whether through the crea­tion of an ESG report­ing frame­work, support with mate­rial sourcing chal­lenges or the imple­men­ta­tion of KPI metrics to measure ESG perfor­mance. The port­fo­lio has contri­bu­ted to 7 out of 11 of the metrics within Ambienta’s Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Analy­sis. For exam­ple, 12 million cubic meters of water were saved, which is equi­va­lent to the annual water consump­tion of more than 200,000 people, and almost 30,000 tons of pollut­ants were avoided, which is equi­va­lent to the annual waste gene­ra­tion of 150,000 people. 

Ran Land­mann, Part­ner and Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer, and Nishan Srini­va­san, Part­ner and Head of Origi­na­tion, said: “We are deligh­ted with the success of our offe­ring to provide access to finance for mid-market compa­nies. Our enga­ge­ment with so many manage­ment teams, inves­tors and family busi­nesses proves that envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity is a consis­tent driver of growth.” Laurent Donin de Rosière, Part­ner and Head of Inves­tor Rela­ti­ons and Stra­te­gic Part­ner­ships, empha­si­zed: “The demand from limi­ted part­ners for authen­ti­cally sustainable invest­ments in the private credit sector is incre­asing, which is a very posi­tive development.”

 

About Ambi­enta

Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity inves­tor specia­li­zing in private equity, public markets and private credit. From Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges assets of more than 3 billion euros. The focus is on invest­ments in private and listed compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services improve resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion. Ambi­enta has made 75 private equity invest­ments to date. In the public equity sector, Ambi­enta has laun­ched one of the world’s largest abso­lute return funds fully focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity and mana­ges a whole range of other sustainable invest­ment products from low-risk multi-asset funds to long-only equity funds. Ambi­enta has also recently laun­ched a private credit stra­tegy, which — as with the other asset clas­ses — focu­ses on envi­ron­men­tal sustainability.

As a pioneer, Ambi­enta was one of the first signa­to­ries to the Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment (UN PRI) in 2012 and achie­ved Bene­fit Corpo­ra­tion (B Corp) status in 2019. In 2020, Ambi­enta became a member of the Insti­tu­tio­nal Inves­tors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), and in 2023 Ambi­enta set another posi­tive exam­ple for the indus­try by joining the Science-Based Targets Initia­tive (SBTi) as one of the few asset mana­gers to do so. www.ambientasgr.com

About Ambi­enta

Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity inves­tor specia­li­zing in private equity, public markets and private credit. From Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges assets of more than 3 billion euros. The focus is on invest­ments in private and listed compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services improve resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion. Ambi­enta has made 75 private equity invest­ments to date. In the public equity sector, Ambi­enta has laun­ched one of the world’s largest abso­lute return funds fully focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity and mana­ges a whole range of other sustainable invest­ment products from low-risk multi-asset funds to long-only equity funds. Ambi­enta has also recently laun­ched a private credit stra­tegy, which — as with the other asset clas­ses — focu­ses on envi­ron­men­tal sustainability.

As a pioneer, Ambi­enta was one of the first signa­to­ries to the Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment (UN PRI) in 2012 and achie­ved Bene­fit Corpo­ra­tion (B Corp) status in 2019. In 2020, Ambi­enta became a member of the Insti­tu­tio­nal Inves­tors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), and in 2023 Ambi­enta set another posi­tive exam­ple for the indus­try by joining the Science-Based Targets Initia­tive (SBTi) as one of the few asset mana­gers to do so. www.ambientasgr.com

News

Paris / Berlin — Gene­ra­tive AI is often still in its infancy. AI in radio­logy is anything but a vision of the future. The prac­ti­cal bene­fits of mediaire’s AI tech­no­logy can alre­ady be seen in over 350 hospi­tals and radio­logy prac­ti­ces across Europe. The Berlin-based start-up’s AI port­fo­lio is funda­men­tally chan­ging the way radio­lo­gists work. With this success, medi­aire has now secu­red a Euro­pean finan­cing round of €12 million, led by LBO France as lead inves­tor with the parti­ci­pa­tion of IBB Ventures and the Swiss family office Wille Finance. The finan­cing under­lines the importance of viable and vali­da­ted AI solu­ti­ons for clini­cal prac­tice. Previous medi­aire inves­tors HTGF, LIFTT and Gate­way Ventures also parti­ci­pa­ted in the over­sub­scri­bed round. mediaire’s AI solu­ti­ons are seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into diagno­stic prac­tice, reli­e­ving radio­lo­gists of routine tasks and impro­ving diagno­stic outco­mes for pati­ents. Thanks to the latest finan­cing round, medi­aire will expand its AI port­fo­lio in magne­tic reso­nance imaging (MRI) beyond the current areas of appli­ca­tion in AI-supported radio­lo­gi­cal brain, prostate and knee diagno­stics. With this next inno­va­tion step, further AI solu­ti­ons can be deve­lo­ped to enable grea­ter diagno­stic precis­ion and effi­ci­ency world­wide in the future. The finan­cing ther­e­fore repres­ents an important mile­stone for the company’s growth. “Our AI solu­ti­ons are not a dream of the future. We have alre­ady crea­ted a reality that helps doctors make infor­med decis­i­ons and provide their pati­ents with faster answers,” empha­si­zes Dr. Andreas Lemke, CEO and co-foun­der of medi­aire. “We see the posi­tive impact every day with thou­sands of radio­lo­gists, in hundreds of hospi­tals and radio­logy prac­ti­ces across Europe where our AI soft­ware is alre­ady in use. With this invest­ment, we will bring these bene­fits to many more health­care provi­ders.” “We are convin­ced that tech­no­logy can improve lives,” adds Matthes Seeling, Invest­ment Direc­tor at LBO France. “mediaire’s focus reflects our strong belief in the trans­for­ma­tive power of health­care tech­no­logy for the bene­fit of profes­sio­nals and pati­ents. The dedi­ca­ted team addres­ses a pres­sing need in the health­care sector, parti­cu­larly in the context of incre­asing global demand for fast, accu­rate and afforda­ble diagno­stics. With this invest­ment, we will actively support mediaire’s growth to achieve its ambi­tious goals and conso­li­date its posi­tion as the leading provi­der of radio­logy AI in Europe.” Dr. Ange­lika Vlachou, Part­ner at HTGF, said: “We at HTGF are very plea­sed with the deve­lo­p­ment of medi­aire over the last years and believe that the team has proven the added value for its custo­mers, the radio­lo­gists. The field of AI-based tools is evol­ving rapidly. To be successful, compa­nies need to demons­trate real product inno­va­tion that is tail­o­red to the needs of custo­mers. We look forward to conti­nuing to support the deve­lo­p­ment of mediaire.”

News

Munich / Berlin — Global arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) company Aigno­stics has closed its latest $34 million Series B funding round. The round was led by ATHOS (Munich), with invest­ments from Mayo Clinic and growth funding from HTGF. Aigno­stics also recei­ved support from exis­ting inves­tors inclu­ding Welling­ton Part­ners, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund, CARMA Fund and VC Fonds Tech­no­lo­gie, mana­ged by IBB Ventures. To date, Aigno­stics has raised over $55 million, demons­t­ra­ting inves­tor confi­dence in the company’s unique AI models and well-defi­ned commer­cial stra­tegy. Aigno­stics was foun­ded in 2018 and emer­ged in 2020 as a spin-off from Charité and the Berlin Insti­tute of Health. The AI company trans­forms complex multi­mo­dal patho­lo­gi­cal data into valuable insights. Follo­wing the closing of the latest funding round, Aigno­stics plans to deve­lop new product offe­rings for biophar­maceu­ti­cal custo­mers, drive growth in the US and deve­lop advan­ced basic models for patho­logy in colla­bo­ra­tion with the Mayo Clinic. The new funding will streng­then Aigno­stics’ capa­bi­li­ties in target funding, trans­na­tio­nal rese­arch and compa­n­ion diagno­stics (CDx) and support various stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves. “2024 was a pivo­tal year for us, which included an important stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with Bayer and the launch of our first basic model, RudolfV,” says Viktor Matyas, CEO and co-foun­der of Aigno­stics. “With RudolfV, we have gained the ability to rapidly deve­lop cost-effec­tive algo­rithms that can be trans­fer­red to the real world. With this new round of funding, we are turning our most popu­lar algo­rithms into products that will help usher in an era of truly gene­ra­lizable AI for compu­ta­tio­nal pathology.” 

About Aigno­stics

Aigno­stics is an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) company that turns complex multi­mo­da­lity patho­logy data into trans­for­ma­tive insights. By combi­ning proprie­tary access to multi­mo­da­lity clini­cal data, indus­try-leading tech­no­lo­gies and rigo­rous science, Aigno­stics deve­lops world-class products and services for the next gene­ra­tion of precis­ion medi­cine. Through colla­bo­ra­tion with its biopharma part­ners, Aigno­stics supports drug disco­very, trans­la­tio­nal rese­arch, clini­cal trials and CDx deve­lo­p­ment. Foun­ded in 2018, Aigno­stics is a spin-off of Charité Berlin, one of the largest and most renow­ned univer­sity hospi­tals in the world. Aigno­stics is funded by leading inves­tors and has offices in Berlin and New York. Further infor­ma­tion at aignostics.com.

About ATHOS

ATHOS is a single-family office (Strüng­mann Group) that supports entre­pre­neurs to posi­tively impact health and well-being. The company is a long-term majo­rity inves­tor in BioNTech. 

Advi­sor Aigno­stics: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Jonas von Kalben (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Anja Schind­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Bene­dikt Kreu­der (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Jacob Schrei­ber (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Munich

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. 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 ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 150 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in four offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. www.ypog.law

News

Israel — A HEUKING team led by part­ner Dr. Marc Scheu­ne­mann has advi­sed Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. (“Turpaz”) on the acqui­si­tion of a German food flavoring company. A wholly owned subsi­diary of Turpaz signed an agree­ment to acquire 100% of the shares in Schu­mann & Sohn GmbH (“Schu­mann”). The purchase price amounts to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 10.7 million. The tran­sac­tion was comple­ted at the time of signing and was finan­ced by a bank loan. Schu­mann, foun­ded in 1948, has expe­ri­ence and exper­tise in the field of flavors and is active in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and marke­ting of flavors and quality solu­ti­ons for the food indus­try and food supple­ments. Schu­mann opera­tes a produc­tion, R&D, appli­ca­tion and distri­bu­tion site in Karls­ruhe, Germany. Schu­mann has a broad custo­mer base, mainly in the German market. Turpaz’s entry into the German flavor market is a further step in streng­thening Turpaz’s leader­ship posi­tion and estab­li­shing its presence in Europe. Schumann’s busi­ness is highly syner­gi­stic with Turpaz’s busi­ness and is expec­ted to enable Turpaz to streng­then its product offe­ring and capi­ta­lize on cross-selling oppor­tu­ni­ties, both by expan­ding its custo­mer base and broa­de­ning its product port­fo­lio. Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. is an Israel-based company opera­ting as a chemi­cal manu­fac­tu­rer. Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. opera­tes inde­pendently and through subsi­dia­ries in Israel, the USA, Asia and Europe in four fields of acti­vity (fragran­ces, flavors, phar­maceu­ti­cals and specialty ingre­di­ents). Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exch­ange. Advi­sors to Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. HEUKING:
Dr. Marc Scheu­ne­mann, LL.M. (lead), Düsseldorf/Frankfurt,
Dr. Chris­tian Appel­baum (adver­ti­sing law),
Dr. Timo Piller (corpo­rate),
Chris­toph Hexel (employ­ment law),
Dr. Tilman Span­cken (real estate law), all Düsseldorf,
Moni­que Sandidge (employ­ment law),
Dr. Markus Collisy, Maxi­mi­lian Dehnert (both regu­la­tory), all Frankfurt

News

Frank­furt a. M. / Fürth / Forch­heim — The solec­trix Group, a port­fo­lio company of Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner, and the ASSDEV Group are joining forces to form a leading full-service part­ner for high-end elec­tro­nic solu­ti­ons. The merger combi­nes solectrix’s exper­tise in the design of inno­va­tive embedded systems with ASSDEV’s know-how in the produc­tion of complex and sophisti­ca­ted elec­tro­nic assem­blies and elec­tro­nic systems. The new group will have around 250 employees and an annual turno­ver of over 40 million euros. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to be comple­ted this year. Foun­ded in Fürth in 2005, solec­trix GmbH deve­lops high-end elec­tro­nic solu­ti­ons for appli­ca­ti­ons in medi­cal tech­no­logy, imaging, auto­mo­tive and indus­try. The service port­fo­lio includes concep­tual design, hard­ware, soft­ware and FPGA deve­lo­p­ment through to proto­ty­pes and small series produc­tion, which is carried out intern­ally by solec­trix systems GmbH at the Fürth site. VR Equi­typ­art­ner has held a mino­rity stake in solec­trix since 2021 and supports the three company foun­ders in their growth stra­tegy and in conso­li­da­ting their market posi­tion as inno­va­tion leaders. The focus here is prima­rily on the ongo­ing deve­lo­p­ment of high-quality inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and solu­ti­ons such as FPGAs, AI, camera systems and high-end hard­ware, which are incor­po­ra­ted into custo­mers’ product inno­va­tions and thus give them a compe­ti­tive edge. ASSDEV GmbH, also foun­ded in 2005 and based in Forch­heim, is a full-service part­ner for the produc­tion of highly complex and safety-rele­vant elec­tro­nic systems, which are used in parti­cu­lar in energy tech­no­logy, rail­road tech­no­logy, IoT gate­ways, tele­ma­tics and indus­try. Over 100 employees at the Forch­heim site produce complex and sophisti­ca­ted elec­tro­nic assem­blies and elec­tro­nic systems using state-of-the-art manu­fac­tu­ring and test­ing tech­no­lo­gies. The subsi­diary AST‑X GmbH deve­lops pionee­ring hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the fields of energy, mobi­lity and IoT (wire­less tech­no­lo­gies). As part of the merger, the co-foun­ders, the Leicht family, are with­dra­wing from the ASSDEV share­hol­der group, although the co-foun­der and previous Mana­ging Direc­tor Hans Hofmann will conti­nue to play a leading role in the new group and signi­fi­cantly reinvest in the company. The solec­trix foun­ding part­ners and mana­ging direc­tors Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and Jürgen Stei­nert as well as VR Equi­typ­art­ner will retain a stake in the group. The compa­nies will conti­nue to operate on the market under the names solec­trix, solec­trix Systems, ASSDEV and AST‑X. The manage­ment of the new group will consist of Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and Jürgen Stei­nert as well as Hans Hofmann. 

Hans Hofmann, Mana­ging Direc­tor of ASSDEV GmbH and AST‑X GmbH, says: “We are deligh­ted to be opening a new chap­ter in the history of both compa­nies. We have known and appre­cia­ted each other perso­nally and commer­ci­ally for many years — now what belongs toge­ther is coming toge­ther. A joint market presence and the combi­na­tion of our exper­tise is the best of both worlds and makes us a real house of compe­tence for our custo­mers.” Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, adds: “solec­trix and ASSDEV cover comple­men­tary market segments: solec­trix in the field of high-end elec­tro­nics deve­lo­p­ment and ASSDEV with high-quality EMS produc­tion and deve­lo­p­ment of indus­trial solu­ti­ons for safety-rele­vant areas. We see great poten­tial in this combi­na­tion, which bene­fits from the strong trends towards one-stop shop­ping and the growing demand for inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons. We look forward to working toge­ther with Mr. Hofmann and the employees of ASSDEV and AST‑X.” Jürgen Stei­nert, Mana­ging Direc­tor of solec­trix GmbH, empha­si­zes: “As share­hol­ders and manage­ment, we have deve­lo­ped solec­trix toge­ther with our part­ner VR Equi­typ­art­ner into a strong and successful inno­va­tion leader. Future tech­no­logy, custo­mer and employee orien­ta­tion are at the fore­front for us as a full-bloo­ded deve­lo­per. The merger with ASSDEV and AST‑X is an important step for the future of the company and the right time to combine the comple­men­tary strengths of both groups. Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and I are deligh­ted that the success story of solec­trix will conti­nue hand in hand with ASSDEV.” VR Equi­typ­art­ner at a glance

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.vrep.de. The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team :
Klaus Schnei­der, Zhao­hua Liao-Weißert, Ömer Kaya, Frank Wilden­berg, Dr. Clau­dia Willershausen 

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

Legal & Tax Due Dili­gence & Tax Struc­tu­ring, Finan­cing: McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter (Dr. Michael Cziesla, Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin, Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer, Ludwig Zesch) Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer, Ludwig Zesch) Finan­cial due dili­gence & company valua­tion: Baker Tilly WPG (Nils Klamar, Björn Prawetz, Max Bracht) Commer­cial due dili­gence: Blue­mont Consul­ting (Markus Frän­kel, Sascha Voll­mer­hau­sen, Kilian Hornung) Anti­trust advice: Lupp + Part­ner (Tilman Siebert)

News

Paris / Frank­furt a. M. — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment compa­nies, has announ­ced an agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in Vecos. Vecos is a leading global provi­der of tech­no­logy-enab­led smart locker solu­ti­ons with a focus on offices, educa­tion and health­care faci­li­ties. Ardian acqui­red the stake from Bencis, who have supported the growth of the company since their invest­ment in 2019. The manage­ment team around CEO Bram Kuipers will conti­nue to lead the company and will re-invest along­side Ardian as part of the tran­sac­tion. Vecos was foun­ded as an elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring company and, under the leader­ship of current CEO Bram Kuipers, has deve­lo­ped into a provi­der of end-to-end solu­ti­ons for smart locker systems. Vecos’ custo­mi­zed and easy-to-use locker system is speci­fi­cally desi­gned to help employees work more flexi­bly in dyna­mic and hybrid work envi­ron­ments. The solu­tion combi­nes hard­ware (physi­cal locks and termi­nals) with a proprie­tary Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) plat­form and supports various autho­riza­tion tech­no­lo­gies such as employee badges or a cloud-based app for employees. Faci­lity mana­gers bene­fit from a web-based user inter­face for remote manage­ment of the lockers and receive real-time data on their use via an online portal. The solu­ti­ons also offer cost opti­miza­tion poten­tial compared to conven­tio­nal mecha­ni­cal or elec­tro­nic locks. The Vecos solu­tion can be seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into the IT or work­place ecosys­tem of its custo­mers, enab­ling harmo­ni­zed manage­ment across all loca­ti­ons. Vecos has long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships with blue-chip compa­nies world­wide and has a strong presence in Europe, Asia-Paci­fic and the USA. The sustained trend towards hybrid working models in compa­nies is leading to an incre­asing demand for flexi­ble office solu­tion concepts. Vecos is ideally posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from this trend. The dyna­mic market deve­lo­p­ment supports Ardian’s invest­ment thesis: against the back­drop of the growing importance of flexi­bi­lity and adap­ta­bi­lity in the work­place, the rele­vance of Vecos’ offe­ring is incre­asing. Compa­nies are speci­fi­cally looking for solu­ti­ons with which they can tailor their office space to the new usage beha­vior of their employees. In addi­tion, Vecos addres­ses compa­nies’ efforts to achieve envi­ron­men­tal targets, for exam­ple in rela­tion to their carbon foot­print. This concern is in line with Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy. Toge­ther with Vecos’ manage­ment team, Ardian looks forward to support­ing the company on its plan­ned growth path in the coming years. “This acqui­si­tion repres­ents a signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­nity for both Ardian and Vecos. Our part­ner­ship with the Vecos manage­ment team will focus, among other things, on further acce­le­ra­ting inter­na­tio­nal growth in Europe, parti­cu­larly in Germany and France, as well as in the US. 

In addi­tion, we see great poten­tial in the appli­ca­tion of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence-based digi­tal solu­ti­ons to support opera­tio­nal proces­ses,” explains Florian Haas, Direc­tor Expan­sion at ARDIAN. “The part­ner­ship with Vecos is Ardian Expansion’s second invest­ment in the Nether­lands and under­lines our ambi­ti­ons in the region. We are exci­ted about the oppor­tu­nity to support Vecos’ manage­ment team in the next phase of growth through our Ardian plat­form,” said Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Mana­ging Direc­tor Expan­sion at ARDIAN. “Ardian is the ideal part­ner for us due to our shared values and goals. Ardian’s exper­tise in scaling busi­nesses combi­ned with its commit­ment to sustainable growth will enable us to further expand our leading posi­tion in the smart locker segment and extend our reach in key growth markets. We look forward to seizing these oppor­tu­ni­ties toge­ther to play an active role in the realiza­tion of future work­place envi­ron­ments,” said Bram Kuipers, CEO, VECOS.

Parties invol­ved in the transaction

Ardian: Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Florian Haas, Max Dolata, Stef­fen Prochazka, Janine Paus­tian, Mathieu Lebrun Bencis: Katrien Bosquet, Bo Kroe­zen M&A: Jeffe­ries (Serge Fiel­mich, Lars van Leeu­wen­stijn, Ritika Langer) Legal: Clif­ford Chance (Jeroen Thijs­sen, Simon Reitz) Commer­cial: EY Parthe­non (Georg Hoch­leit­ner, Dr. Burak Yahsi) Finan­cial: Deloitte (Egon Sach­sal­ber, Nils Nobereit)

Tax / Struc­tu­ring: EY (Anne Mieke Holland)

Tech: Arte­fact (Arnold Struik, Jur Gaarlandt)

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