ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — ARQIS advi­sed SkyFive AG on its Pre-Series A finan­cing round. The invest­ment round was led by a large insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor from Germany. This joined exis­ting inves­tors, all of whom doubled their initial invest­ment. In addi­tion, two well-known private inves­tors joined the company: Louis Belan­ger-Martin, serial entre­pre­neur and co-foun­der of Global Eagle, and Alain Lejeune, an expe­ri­en­ced mana­ger from the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons indus­try with firm roots in China.

SkyFive provi­des high-speed broad­band services to the avia­tion indus­try — based on its paten­ted Air-To-Ground (A2G) solu­tion that uses stan­dard mobile network compon­ents. A2G is the only tech­no­logy that can serve the ever-growing demand for broad­band connec­ti­vity in the sky. Here, broad­band connec­ti­vity is a key factor in impro­ving opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency, gene­ra­ting ancil­lary reve­nue, and also provi­ding a safer travel expe­ri­ence that requi­res fewer cont­acts and touches.

SkyFi­ve’s A2G solu­tion is alre­ady deployed across Europe. Most recently, SkyFive signed an agree­ment with Airbus in August to provide an A2G solu­tion for China, which has become the largest air-traf­fic market. The capi­tal from the current finan­cing round will enable SkyFive to expand its services and acce­le­rate its global expansion.

The ARQIS team around Dr. Mauritz von Einem and Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem alre­ady supported SkyFive in the acqui­si­tion of the key assets of Noki­a’s A2G busi­ness as well as in the seed finan­cing at the end of last year. In the run-up to the current finan­cing round, ARQIS had also mana­ged the conver­sion of SkyFive into a public company in the summer of 2020. Curr­ently, ARQIS is alre­ady mana­ging nego­tia­ti­ons with a number of inter­na­tio­nal insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors for the Series A finan­cing round that SkyFive aims to close in early 2021.

Advisor SkyFive: ARQIS Rechtsanwälte (Munich)

Dr. Mauritz von Einem and Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem, Foto (both lead; both Tran­sac­tions), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur, Louisa Theresa Graf (both Tran­sac­tions), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (IP), Tanja Kurt­zer (Labor Law)

About ARQIS
ARQIS Attor­neys at Law is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) intends to conti­nue growing: The net asset value of private equity invest­ments is expec­ted to increase by an average of between 14 percent and 19 percent in the current and the two follo­wing finan­cial years, while earnings from fund advi­sory services are expec­ted to reach a double-digit million euro amount in each case. This is accor­ding to the listed private equity company’s medium-term plan­ning published today with the Group’s 2019/2020 annual finan­cial report.

The basis for this growth is signi­fi­cantly higher invest­ments by DBAG along­side the funds it advi­ses, as well as invest­ments finan­ced exclu­si­vely from DBAG’s balance sheet: While an average of around 72 million euros has flowed into invest­ments in mid-market compa­nies over the past five years, around 120 million euros are plan­ned annu­ally until 2023. “If nothing else, the Covid 19 pande­mic is opening up invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties that we intend to target,” said DBAG CEO Tors­ten Grede, adding, “We have expan­ded our plat­form for equity solu­ti­ons in the midmar­ket and inves­ted in our invest­ment team.”

Net asset value of private equity invest­ments impac­ted by pande­mic in 2019/2020
Accor­ding to the plan­ning, DBAG’s growth will acce­le­rate: Between 2014 and 2019, the net asset value of private equity invest­ments had increased by around 13 percent annu­ally. It is expec­ted to grow by up to 19 percent per year until 2023. The growth would also more than offset the setback expe­ri­en­ced in net asset value due to the impact of the pande­mic on port­fo­lio compa­nies in fiscal year 2019/2020 (Oct. 1‑Sept. 30). At 422.0 million euros, adjus­ted for the effect of the distri­bu­tion to share­hol­ders, it fell 5.8 percent short of the previous year’s figure, but reached the upper end of the fore­cast revi­sed after the Corona shock in the spring. In parti­cu­lar, share­hol­dings with a strong link to indus­try suffe­red in some cases heavy losses in reve­nues and earnings and did not achieve their origi­nal budgets; this resul­ted in corre­spon­ding impairm­ents of these share­hol­dings. Once again, invest­ments in broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons or soft­ware compa­nies, which are bene­fiting from the acce­le­ra­ted digi­tiza­tion in many areas of life and busi­ness models, deve­lo­ped encouragingly.

Due to the special nature of its private equity busi­ness, DBAG does not manage its busi­ness using tradi­tio­nal annual perfor­mance indi­ca­tors such as EBIT or return on sales. Instead, the key perfor­mance indi­ca­tors are the varia­bles that DBAG can influence and that deter­mine the value of the two busi­ness areas of private equity invest­ments and fund advi­sory services — the net asset value of private equity invest­ments and the result of fund advi­sory services. Accor­din­gly, conso­li­da­ted net profit is not a key perfor­mance indi­ca­tor; it amounts to ‑16.8 million euros, driven by the
Perfor­mance of private equity invest­ments. This segment closed 2019/2020 with earnings before taxes of ‑25.2 million euros, down 67.3 million euros on the previous fiscal year.

Key figu­res (IFRS) 2019/2020 2018/2019
Segment result Private Equity Invest­ments -€25.2 million €42.1 million
Segment result Fund Consul­ting €9.5 million €3.0 million
Net asset value € 422.0 million € 472.1 million
Net result -€16.8 million €45.9 million
Divi­dend (2019/2020: propo­sed) €0.80 €1.50

Fund consul­tancy bene­fits from the launch of the new DBAG fund
Earnings in the second segment, fund advi­sory services, excee­ded expec­ta­ti­ons: at 9.5 million euros, they reached their highest level since the intro­duc­tion of segment report­ing in 2013/2014. The basis for the signi­fi­cant increase compared with the previous year (€3.0 million) is higher income from the fund busi­ness and lower provi­si­ons for varia­ble compen­sa­tion — this prima­rily reflects the perfor­mance of the port­fo­lio. Income was signi­fi­cantly higher (€30.6 million after €28.2 million) because DBAG has also been recei­ving income for advi­sing DBAG Fund VIII since its launch in August 2020.

The fund had been closed in May with a volume of 1.109 billion euros. As a result, the assets advi­sed and mana­ged by DBAG, which form the basis for measu­ring income from the fund busi­ness, rose to around €2.6 billion (Septem­ber 30, 2019: €1.7 billion).

Divi­dend propo­sal: 0.80 euros per share
The divi­dend propo­sal for the past finan­cial year — 0.80 euros per share — does not imply any change in DBAG’s divi­dend policy. “It prima­rily takes into account the expec­ted later returns from the port­fo­lio as a result of longer holding peri­ods for our indus­trial holdings,” said CFO Susanne Zeid­ler, explai­ning the propo­sal. He added: “We expect that as the econo­mic envi­ron­ment norma­li­zes after the pande­mic subs­i­des, we will be able to return to our policy of stable and, when­ever possi­ble, rising divi­dends next year with a divi­dend of between 1.00 and 1.20 euros per share.” The divi­dend propo­sal corre­sponds to a yield of 2.4 percent based on the average price of DBAG shares for the year.

Invest­ment decis­i­ons trig­ge­red for 314 million euros
DBAG’s invest­ment team has trig­ge­red invest­ment decis­i­ons of 314 million euros in 2019/2020. Three of these invol­ved manage­ment buyouts (MBOs) struc­tu­red for the new fund within the first two months of its invest­ment period. In addi­tion, there was another MBO with DBAG Fund VII and a first long-term invest­ment — a mino­rity stake in a fast-growing company, finan­ced exclu­si­vely from DBAG funds. Six port­fo­lio compa­nies grew stron­gly through a total of 14 corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons; these acqui­si­ti­ons, mainly finan­ced by the port­fo­lio compa­nies them­sel­ves, serve to acce­le­rate the imple­men­ta­tion of the stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio companies.

96.8 million of the invest­ment decis­i­ons were finan­ced by DBAG from its own balance sheet. This included €5.2 million for seven port­fo­lio compa­nies that were hit harder than average by the Corona pande­mic; the addi­tio­nal equity was used to support debt finan­cing solu­ti­ons to improve the finan­cial resour­ces of these companies.

Equity ratio remains very high at 89 percent
DBAG has a solid balance sheet with an equity ratio of around 89 percent. Cash and cash equi­va­lents decreased shar­ply compared with the previous year as a result of the high level of capi­tal expen­dit­ure. Once again, these signi­fi­cantly exceed the reco­veries from the port­fo­lio. With the conclu­sion of a further credit line, DBAG increased its finan­cial room for maneu­ver by 40 million euros. In 2019/2020, DBAG was able to add six invest­ments to its port­fo­lio, inclu­ding the MBOs of Carton­plast and the DING Group, which had alre­ady been agreed in 2018/2019. One company left the port­fo­lio; this dispo­sal had also been agreed in the previous year. The two (partial) dispo­sals agreed in 2019/2020 will not take effect until the new fiscal year. As of Septem­ber 30, the port­fo­lio consis­ted of 32 invest­ments in compa­nies of the (predo­mi­nantly) German Mittelstand.

“Stra­te­gic inte­rest in mature holdings”
The DBAG Manage­ment Board is confi­dent for the new, current 2019/2020 finan­cial year and beyond. “Our posi­tion in the market is good, we can have about one billion of capi­tal ready to invest and invest in new invest­ments,” the report conti­nues. In view of the ongo­ing pande­mic, DBAG intends to place parti­cu­larly high demands on the quality of the busi­ness model, its stra­te­gic importance and the growth of the respec­tive market when asses­sing invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. “Invest­ments from the IT services and soft­ware and broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors are the main candi­da­tes for this, but also Indus­try­Tech compa­nies,” says board spokes­man Grede, “for exam­ple, manu­fac­tu­r­ers of such indus­trial compon­ents whose products make auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion possi­ble in the first place.” In addi­tion, DBAG intends to address invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in compa­nies in special situa­tions, i.e. those with perfor­mance-rela­ted equity requirements.

Due to the econo­mic weak­ness that has persis­ted in parts of the indus­try for some time, dispo­sals have recently been delayed. The DBAG port­fo­lio conta­ins a number of compa­nies that have been supported for a longer period of time; change proces­ses that were initia­ted at the start of the invest­ment are well advan­ced. “We are expe­ri­en­cing inte­rest from stra­te­gic inves­tors in such invest­ments,” CFO Zeid­ler said today. And further: “Howe­ver, should dispo­sals and corre­spon­ding returns be further delayed, the addi­tio­nal credit line gives us flexi­bi­lity to take advan­tage of attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties at any time — in addi­tion, we are exami­ning other finan­cing opti­ons, for exam­ple on the equity side.”

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in new growth sectors such as broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to 2.6 billion euros

News

Munich, London, Paris — Silver­fleet Capi­tal, the pan-Euro­pean private equity firm, has signed an agree­ment to sell 7days to a consor­tium of inves­tors inclu­ding Chequers Capi­tal and Para­gon Part­ners. 7days is a provi­der of work­wear for medi­cal profes­si­ons head­quar­te­red in Germany. For Silver­fleet Capi­tal, the gross money multi­ple is 3.1x. Details of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to close in Janu­ary 2021, are not being disclosed.

7days was foun­ded in 1999 in Lotte near Osna­brück. Today, the company is a leading supplier of modern and inno­va­tive work­wear for medi­cal profes­si­ons. 7days designs, manu­fac­tures and distri­bu­tes a wide range of high-quality products, from jackets to lab coats, for more than 300,000 health­care custo­mers in twelve count­ries, inclu­ding Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, France, Belgium, the Nether­lands and Scandinavia.

7days combi­nes a fully inte­gra­ted multi-chan­nel distri­bu­tion plat­form, inclu­ding both cata­log marke­ting and strong e‑commerce chan­nels, with a verti­cally inte­gra­ted busi­ness model with diver­si­fied supply chains and in-house CSR (1)-compliant design and manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties. This enab­led the company to achieve stable, coun­ter­cy­cli­cal growth in its home market and also inter­na­tio­nally. Today, 7days employs 240 people across four loca­ti­ons and is expec­ted to gene­rate reve­nues of over €40 million in 2020 — repre­sen­ting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% during Silver­flee­t’s holding period. 7days is a certi­fied member of amfori BSCI (Busi­ness Social Compli­ance Initia­tive) — an initia­tive aimed at impro­ving social stan­dards in value chains world­wide — and is commit­ted to the BSCI Code of Conduct for Fair and Social Production.

Silver­fleet inves­ted in 7days from its mid-market fund in early 2018. Against the back­drop of a highly frag­men­ted health­care work­wear market, Silver­fleet saw great poten­tial here for sustainable long-term growth and expan­sion into new markets. Ther­e­fore, Silver­fleet desi­gned and imple­men­ted a successful trans­for­ma­tion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy for 7days, as part of which the company acqui­red Praxis Herning, a Danish provi­der of medi­cal work­wear for the Scan­di­na­vian market, in Decem­ber 2018, signi­fi­cantly expan­ding its geogra­phic reach. In addi­tion, Silver­fleet supported the company during its nearly three-year holding period in expan­ding its online sales chan­nels and imple­men­ting inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed, CSR-compli­ant procu­re­ment and produc­tion standards.

“We would like to take this oppor­tu­nity to thank Ulrich Dölken and Cars­ten Meyer, CEO and CFO of 7days, for the trustful coope­ra­tion over the past years. 7days is a typi­cal exam­ple of a Silver­fleet invest­ment — a leading company in a niche market with compel­ling unique selling propo­si­ti­ons, an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and poten­tial for trans­for­ma­tion and opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ment as well as inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. We are proud to have supported 7days on its growth trajec­tory to date and in its trans­for­ma­tion into a leading and inno­va­tive provi­der of high quality and fashionable work­wear for the health­care sector in Europe. We are plea­sed to place 7days in such capa­ble hands as it conti­nues on its growth path,” said Joachim Braun, Part­ner at Silver­fleet Capital.

“We have taken a number of important steps to further expand 7days’ posi­tion as a market leader, both orga­ni­cally and through a stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion. 7days has not only proven resi­li­ent to crisis, parti­cu­larly during the current COVID-19 pande­mic, but has also deli­vered sustained above-market growth,” adds Benja­min Hubner, Prin­ci­pal at Silver­fleet Capital.

“In recent years, we have been able to posi­tion oursel­ves very well in the Euro­pean market for medi­cal work­wear by impro­ving our online sales chan­nels and deve­lo­ping new custo­mer segments based on their indi­vi­dual requi­re­ments. We were also able to expand into the Scan­di­na­vian market through a targe­ted stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion. This would not have been possi­ble without the support of Silver­fleet Capi­tal, for which we would like to express our grati­tude. With the support of our new part­ners Chequers Capi­tal and Para­gon Part­ners, we want to conti­nue to achieve the highest custo­mer satis­fac­tion with high-quality work­wear for medi­cal profes­sio­nals in the future,” say Ulrich Dölken and Cars­ten Meyer, CEO and CFO of 7days.

At Silver­fleet, Joachim Braun and Benja­min Hubner were respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The invest­ment company was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by William Blair (M&A), PwC (Finan­cial, Tax, ESG), Latham & Watkins (Tax), McDer­mott (Corpo­rate Legal), Shear­man & Ster­ling (Banking Legal) and goetz­part­ners (Commer­cial).

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years. The 31-strong invest­ment team works from Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.
Nume­rous invest­ments were made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros, inclu­ding: Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion based in the United King­dom; Life­time Trai­ning, a provi­der of trai­ning programs based in the United King­dom; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, an opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses based in the United King­dom; 7days, a German provi­der of medi­cal work­wear, among others.

Silver­fleet Capi­tal also main­ta­ins an invest­ment team focu­sed on smal­ler middle-market compa­nies that has alre­ady made two successful invest­ments: STAXS Conta­mi­na­tion Control Experts, a leading supplier of clean­room supplies in the Bene­lux (closed in Janu­ary 2019), and Trust­Quay, a leading provi­der of trust and fund admi­nis­tra­tion soft­ware for the trust and corpo­rate services industry.
Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth by inves­t­ing in compa­nies in its core sectors that bene­fit from speci­fic, long-term trends. Silver­fleet supports these compa­nies in their future growth stra­te­gies. As part of these stra­te­gies, invest­ments are made in orga­nic growth drivers, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons or opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ment proces­ses. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €2.1 billion in 32 companies.
Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four key indus­tries: Busi­ness and Finan­cial Services, Health­care, Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Retail and Consu­mer Goods.
Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 29% of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 32% in the UK and Ireland, 21% in Scan­di­na­via, 15% in France and Bene­lux (includes an invest­ment sourced in Belgium and head­quar­te­red in the US), and 3% in other count­ries. www.silverfleetcapital.com

About Chequers
Origi­nally French subsi­diary of the Char­ter­house Group foun­ded in Paris in 1972. Inde­pen­dent since 2000 under the name Chequers Capi­tal. 300 invest­ments made in Europe in just under 50 years. 2017 Closing of Chequers Capi­tal XVII with a volume of €1.1 billion.

Our invest­ment stra­tegy: compa­nies with a value of €80 million to €500 million. Capi­tal invest­ment of €40 million to €150 million per tran­sac­tion. Compa­nies based in France, Germany, Italy, Bene­lux count­ries, Switz­er­land and Spain. Acti­vity in the indus­trial, service and commer­cial sectors. Wide range of tran­sac­tion types: MBO & LBO, indus­try conso­li­da­tion, deve­lo­p­ment capi­tal, owner­ship restruc­tu­ring, spin-off, turn­around. As majo­rity or mino­rity share­hol­der in close coope­ra­tion with manage­ment for a period of 5 to 10 years. www.chequerscpaital.com

News

Berlin — SMP advi­sed the startup SellerX on its seed finan­cing round. The company’s equity and debt finan­cing was led by Cherry Ventures, Felix Capi­tal, and Sili­con Valley-based VC Triple­Point Capi­tal, tota­ling €100 million. Other inves­tors include Village Global and seve­ral busi­ness angels, inclu­ding Zalando co-foun­der David Schnei­der and former Amazon UK CEO Chris North.

SellerX says it plans to use the fresh capi­tal to acquire up to 40 Amazon stores over the next 18 months, as well as expand its team. A team led by SMP part­ner Martin Scha­per provi­ded legal advice to SellerX in connec­tion with the debt finan­cing in the seed finan­cing round.

“Acqui­ring and growing Amazon stores is certainly one of the hottest busi­ness models right now. Congra­tu­la­ti­ons to the entire SellerX team on this remar­kable achie­ve­ment. “, says Martin Schaper.

SellerX
SellerX is a VC-funded startup that buys and builds out Amazon stores. With its growing and diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of FBA (Fulfill­ment by Amazon) sellers, SellerX aims to further opti­mize and grow its acqui­red busi­nesses to estab­lish sustainable consu­mer brands in the home, garden and pet supply cate­go­ries. The Berlin-based company was foun­ded in 2020 by Phil­ipp Trie­bel and Malte Horeys­eck and curr­ently employs around 25 people, accor­ding to the company.

Consul­tant SellerX: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per, Partner
Dr. Martyna Sabat, Associate
Matthias Kres­ser, Senior Associate

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent 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. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS mana­ged the Series B finan­cing round of Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung AG on behalf of the company and the exis­ting inves­tors. The exis­ting inves­tors are Schnei­der­Gol­ling & Cie. Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, copa­rion GmbH & Co. KG, Deut­sche Rück­ver­si­che­rung and ALSTIN Capi­tal, the inde­pen­dent venture capi­tal fund of Cars­ten Maschmeyer and his part­ners. They all expan­ded their investment.

With Elevat3, Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung was able to win another well-known capi­tal provi­der as lead inves­tor for the finan­cing round. The new growth fund of Chris­tian Anger­mayer, Thomas Hanke and Dr. Marlon Brau­mann invests tens of milli­ons in the digi­tal insu­rance company as part of a capi­tal increase. The Series B round was supported by IEG — Invest­ment Banking Group.

As the first fully digi­ta­li­zed insu­rance company with a BaFin license in Germany, Neodi­gi­tal offers insu­rance solu­ti­ons such as perso­nal liabi­lity, house­hold, bicy­cle, cell phone and pet owner liabi­lity insu­rance. To date, Neodi­gi­tal has won 175,000 custo­mers with its fully auto­ma­ted busi­ness concept and is curr­ently growing at a rate of appro­xi­m­ately 16,000 new custo­mers per month.

The ARQIS team around Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze alre­ady supported Schnei­der­Gol­ling and as well as copa­rion during their entry into Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung as well as during the finan­cing round at the begin­ning of this year, when Deut­sche Rück­ver­si­che­rung and ALSTIN joined as new investors.

Advi­sor Neodi­gi­tal Insurance/Old Inves­tors ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead Part­ner); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Nima Hanifi-Atash­gah, Kamil Flak (all Corporate/Venture Capital)
EY Law (Frank­furt): Dr. Ansgar Becker (Lead); Asso­cia­tes: Robert Jung, Yun Shi, Pia Wenz (all Regulatory)

About ARQIS
ARQIS Attor­neys at Law is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Zurich/ Stutt­gart — The Swiss indus­trial group Artum AG has acqui­red a stake in Eppstein­FOILS GmbH & Co KG. One of the sellers is the invest­ment company Corner­stone Capi­tal. Toge­ther with long-time mana­ging direc­tor Dirk Mälzer, Artum plans to conti­nue the success story of Eppstein­FOILS GmbH & Co. KG as a hidden cham­pion in a market niche and to further streng­then the current market posi­tion of the Eppstein Group in line with its long-term invest­ment approach. Artum was advi­sed by a team led by Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, Part­ner at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

Eppstein­FOILS GmbH & Co. KG manu­fac­tures high-quality and extre­mely thin tech­ni­cal non-ferrous metal foils. The films produ­ced by the company, which was foun­ded in Eppstein in 1852, are used speci­fi­cally in the fields of medi­cal tech­no­logy, mate­ri­als test­ing, the pack­a­ging indus­try and elec­tro­nics. Around 100 employees work for the company.

Artum AG is a Swiss indus­trial group owned by entre­pre­neurs. Artum has no inten­tion to resell the compa­nies in which it has inves­ted. The long-term stra­tegy is aimed at turning medium-sized compa­nies into powerful and profi­ta­ble inter­na­tio­nal indus­trial groups. Since 2001, Artum has built 15 compa­nies into eight indus­try groups and deve­lo­ped them into market leaders.

Advi­sors to Artum AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, LL.M. (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Stuttgart
Marcel Behrendt (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Stuttgart
Dr. Alex­an­der Schott (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Stuttgart
Dr. Till Naruisch, LL.M (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Frankfurt
Dr. Frank Baßler (Real Estate Law), Stuttgart
Michael Below (Public Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Anne Schulz (Public Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Stefan Jöster (Insu­rance Law), LL.M., Cologne
Chris­toph Hexel (Labor Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Alex­an­der Bork (Labor Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Markus Klin­ger (IP/IT), Stuttgart
Dr. Felix Drefs (IP/IT), Stuttgart
Phil­ipp Roman Schrö­ler (IP), Düsseldorf
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg
Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (Anti­trust Law), Hamburg

News

Berlin/ Vienna — SMP advi­sed the Euro­pean VC inves­tor Speed­in­vest on the struc­tu­ring of the second focus fund gene­ra­tion Speed­in­vest x 2. The backers again include the two anchor inves­tors of the first Speed­in­vest fund, Russ­me­dia and the Styria Media Group from Austria. The Speed­in­vest x 2 focus fund invests in pre-seed, seed and Series A finan­cing rounds of promi­sing start­ups in the digi­tal market­places and network effects sectors. Speed­in­vest recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice from a team led by SMP part­ner Stephan Bank.

“With the various focus funds, Speed­in­vest bund­les concen­tra­ted sector exper­tise. The success of this invest­ment stra­tegy was recently demons­tra­ted again in the USD 250 million Series C round of the port­fo­lio company Tier Mobi­lity. We are very plea­sed that SMP was able to accom­pany the largest Austrian VC fund after the struc­tu­ring of the Speed­in­vest 3 fund now also in the launch of the second focus fund gene­ra­tion of Speed­in­vest x 2″, says Stephan Bank.

About Speed­in­vest
Speed­in­vest is a Euro­pean venture capi­ta­list head­quar­te­red in Vienna that focu­ses on early-stage invest­ments in DeepT­ech, FinTech, Digi­tal Health, Consu­mer­Tech, Indus­tri­al­Tech and Network Effects. Speed­in­vest relies on a combi­na­tion of hori­zon­tal fund gene­ra­ti­ons and verti­cal focus funds docked to them. Speed­in­vest Group employs more than 40 invest­ment profes­sio­nals who work toge­ther in sector-focu­sed teams and 20 opera­tio­nal profes­sio­nals who provide full-service HR, marke­ting, busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment and U.S. expan­sion support to port­fo­lio compa­nies. Speed­in­vest has offices in London, Berlin, Paris, Munich, Vienna and San Fran­cisco. Speed­in­ves­t’s port­fo­lio compa­nies include Tier Mobi­lity, Wefox, Legal OS, Planetly, Candis and Fincompare.

Advi­sor Speed­in­vest: SMP
Dr. Stephan Bank (structuring/lead manage­ment), Partner
Matthias Enge (Struc­tu­ring), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory Law), Partner
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Regu­la­tory Law), Associate

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent 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. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

News

Munich — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) sell their majo­rity stake in Eschen­bach Holding GmbH (“Eschen­bach”), Nurem­berg. Eschen­bach is a German market leader in eyewear and spec­ta­cle frames, vision aids and ready-to-wear sunglas­ses with strong posi­tio­ning in Europe and the USA. Toge­ther with the British Inspecs Group plc (“Inspecs”), based in Bath and listed in London, Eschen­bach will further expand this strong market posi­tion. The details of the tran­sac­tion are not being disc­lo­sed and the tran­sac­tion remains subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties and the fulfill­ment of contrac­tual conditions.

Foun­ded in 1913, Eschen­bach is today the world market leader for opti­cal vision aids and one of the leading global desi­gners of eyewear and opti­cal products. Whether with its charac­terful eyewear brands, its magni­fy­ing vision aids or its bino­cu­lars, the company combi­nes award-winning design with relia­ble quality. This is also demons­tra­ted by seve­ral “Red Dot Awards” that Eschen­bach has recei­ved for its eyewear coll­ec­tions in the past three years alone. Accor­ding to current figu­res from the Gesell­schaft für Konsum­for­schung (GfK), the company has also been the leader in the German market for eyeglass frames in all price segments since the end of 2019.

Barclays Private Equity, Equis­to­ne’s prede­ces­sor, had acqui­red Eschen­bach toge­ther with the manage­ment team from the foun­ding family and a finan­cial inves­tor in July 2007. Since then, sales have increased from an initial €100 million to €143 million in 2019. This period also includes the stra­te­gic sale of the Tech­ni­cal Optics divi­sion in 2014 and the important acqui­si­ti­ons of the British eyewear supplier Inter­na­tio­nal Ey ewear Limi­ted (2008) and the US eyewear brand Tura (2009).

Inspecs, a desi­gner, manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of eyeglass frames and lenses was foun­ded in 1988 by Robin Totter­man (CEO). The Group produ­ces a wide range of eyewear frames for the opti­cal, sunglas­ses and safety segments, which are sold either “bran­ded” (under license or through the Group’s own brands) or “OEM” (inclu­ding trade­marks on behalf of retail custo­mers and unbran­ded). As one of the few compa­nies able to offer such a one-stop-shop solu­tion for inter­na­tio­nal retail chains, Inspecs is ideally posi­tio­ned to conti­nue gaining market share in the growing global eyewear market. Inspecs’ custo­mers include inter­na­tio­nally posi­tio­ned retail­ers in the opti­cal segment and beyond, as well as whole­sa­lers and inde­pen­dent opti­ci­ans. The Group’s distri­bu­tion network covers 80 count­ries and reaches appro­xi­m­ately 30,000 points of sale. Inspecs opera­tes globally with offices in the UK, Portu­gal, Scan­di­na­via, the USA and China (Hong Kong, Macau and Shen­zen), and manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties in Viet­nam, China, the UK and Italy.

Dr. Marc Arens, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Part­ner of Equis­tone at the Munich loca­tion: “The succes­ses of our time toge­ther, an extre­mely posi­tive fiscal year 2019 and a new five-year growth stra­tegy provide Eschen­bach with the ideal basis for further successful corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment. The merger with Inspecs will give Eschen­bach addi­tio­nal impe­tus for a new chap­ter in its success story and sustain­ably streng­then its global compe­ti­tive position.”

“In the very good coope­ra­tion over the past ten years, Equis­tone has always proven to be a relia­ble and growth-orien­ted inves­tor and part­ner,” adds Eschen­bach CEO Dr. Jörg Zobel. “Toge­ther with Equis­tone, we have found the ideal stra­te­gic part­ner for our future five-year stra­tegy in Inspecs. We have big goals that we want to realize toge­ther with our new part­ner. In doing so, high stan­dards of craft­sman­ship and quality as well as the opti­mal combi­na­tion of form and func­tion in design shall remain essen­tial for us.”

“We have been follo­wing Eschen­bach’s deve­lo­p­ment with inte­rest for some time and are plea­sed to welcome Germany’s No. 1 eyewear manu­fac­tu­rer and its team to the Inspecs Group. The combi­na­tion of these two indus­try-leading compa­nies crea­tes the sixth largest eyewear provi­der in the world over­all and will allow us to expand into addi­tio­nal key markets around the world while further diver­si­fy­ing our combi­ned custo­mer and product port­fo­lio. This is an exci­ting time for the indus­try and I am alre­ady looking forward to working with Eschen­bach,” said Robin Totter­man, CEO of Inspecs.

Respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone are Michael H. Bork, Dr. Marc Arens and Julia Lucà. Equis­tone and Eschen­bach were advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (M&A), Ashurst (Legal), E&Y Parthe­non (Stra­tegy) and E&Y (Finan­cial & Tax). Inspecs was advi­sed by Living­stone (M&A), Gleiss Lutz (Legal) and KPMG (Finan­cial & Tax).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 150 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 40 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. www.equistone.de / www.equistonepe.com.

About Eschen­bach www.eschenbach-optik.com.

About Inspecs https://inspecs.com.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Mark­grö­nin­gen — Kälte Eckert GmbH is pushing ahead with its plat­form stra­tegy to become the leading supplier of refri­ge­ra­tion systems in southern Germany by acqui­ring SOS Klima­tech­nik from Königs­dorf near Munich. The seller of the shares is the sole share­hol­der Alex­an­der Stiegler Iurato, who will remain with the company as mana­ging direc­tor. The inte­gra­tion of quali­fied employees, the trans­fer of know-how and the expan­sion of the catch­ment area in the Munich metro­po­li­tan region are the goals of the part­ner­ship. For the port­fo­lio company of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, this is the third add-on within a year: In Novem­ber 2019, the foun­da­tion was laid through the merger with Günther Kälte­tech­nik, and in April 2020, Gart­ner Keil GmbH was acquired.

Foun­ded in 1998, SOS Kälte­tech­nik GmbH near Munich specia­li­zes in the instal­la­tion of refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and heat pump tech­no­logy and works for commer­cial, indus­trial and private custo­mers. The company has a team of highly quali­fied employees who specia­lize in opti­mally adap­ting the perfor­mance of the instal­led cooling units to the condi­ti­ons of the premi­ses to be cooled. SOS Kälte­tech­nik GmbH takes care of the main­ten­ance and service work itself.

“The tran­sac­tion unders­cores the strength of our long-term invest­ment approach, which we consis­t­ently pursue in part­ner­ship with our port­fo­lio compa­nies, even in the market envi­ron­ment curr­ently charac­te­ri­zed by the Covid-19 pande­mic,” said Chris­tian Futter­lieb (photo), mana­ging direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner. “As part of the tran­sac­tion, Kälte Eckert gains access to more highly quali­fied person­nel and can in turn trans­fer its know-how for natu­ral refri­ger­ants to SOS Kälte­tech­nik. Thus, the company can be expan­ded into a support­ing service subsi­diary. This is an important step for Kälte Ecker­t’s plat­form stra­tegy on the way to beco­ming the leading supplier in southern Germany.”

The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner has held a majo­rity stake in Kälte Eckert since August 2017 and is support­ing the tradi­tio­nal company, which was foun­ded more than 50 years ago, in its further growth. There, special plants for commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion with a focus on canteen kitchens, indus­try and air condi­tio­ning are prima­rily realized.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH
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 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. www.vrep.de.

Refri­ge­ra­tion Eckert at a glance
Kälte Eckert GmbH specia­li­zes in special plant engi­nee­ring for commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion with a focus on indus­trial kitchens, indus­trial refri­ge­ra­tion and air condi­tio­ning. In addi­tion, the company is the nati­on­wide tech­no­logy leader in the field of alter­na­tive ecolo­gi­cal coolants. Custo­mers include major corpo­ra­ti­ons such as Daim­ler, UniCre­dit and LBBW. Foun­ded in 1966 by Horst Eckert, the company is now mana­ged by his sons Michael Eckert and Holger Eckert. www.kaelte-eckert.de

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

Legal: HEUKING KÜHN LÜER WOJTEK, Stutt­gart, with Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein and Char­lotte Schmitt

Finan­cial & Tax: Helmer & Part­ner, Heiden­heim, with Dr. Rüdi­ger Frieß

M & A: Stein­beis Consul­ting Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons, Stutt­gart, with Ulrich Praßler
RALA-Consul­ting, Waakir­chen, with Rain­hardt Lange
Bocon Unter­neh­mens­be­ra­tung, Reichers­beu­ern, with Michael Böddeker

News

Munich / Dela­ware — The fintech startup specia­li­zing in block­chain compli­ance solutions
Dela­ware-basedNota­bene has raised a seed funding round of USD 1.7
million comple­ted. The panel was led by block­chain and
Fintech inves­tors Castle Island Ventures and Green Visor Capi­tal from the
USA. As a Euro­pean inves­tor from the very begin­ning, the early-stage
Block­chain fund Signa­ture Ventures, based in Munich and Berlin, has already
inves­ted in the company since July of this year.

Nota­bly, block­chain enables compa­nies such as crypto exch­an­ges to meet the increasingly
to meet new compli­ance requi­re­ments. The plat­form makes it possi­ble for
Compli­ance depart­ments consider­a­bly easier and more cost-effective,
Risk-based moni­to­ring of tran­sac­tions for KYC stan­dards and possi­ble money laundering.
check The inter­na­tio­nal company with head­quar­ters in the USA and the
Switz­er­land was foun­ded at the begin­ning of 2020 by an indus­try-expe­ri­en­ced and diverse
Foun­ding team estab­lished from Europe, the USA and South America
cooperates.

About Signa­ture Ventures
Block­chain marks the next step in the evolu­tion of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion by shif­ting the para­digm from centra­li­zed data silos to decen­tra­li­zed, open data flows with the user at the heart of it.
As a dedi­ca­ted Block­chain fund with top-level indus­try experts, we are firmly rooted in the crypto commu­nity. We have access to an exten­sive ecosys­tem linking key Block­chain indus­try play­ers, VCs, corpo­ra­tes and acade­mics to connect and acce­le­rate our port­fo­lio compa­nies with the best busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties. Our vast indus­try exper­tise and network makes us attrac­tive for highly specia­li­zed start­ups and foun­ders who are looking for smart money.

News

Frank­furt a. M./ Munich — The German offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have again recor­ded good growth > of 5 percent in the current fiscal year due to their good market posi­tion, espe­ci­ally in the areas of restruc­tu­ring and private equity. To reflect this once again very posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment, the follo­wing lawy­ers have been appoin­ted Coun­sel with effect from Janu­ary 1, 2021: Dr. Matthias Eiden (Restruc­tu­ring, Frank­furt), Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Private Equity, Frank­furt), Florian Wessel (Private Equity, Munich).

In addi­tion, Manuel-Peter Fringer (photo) was also elec­ted part­ner of the firm effec­tive Janu­ary 1, 2021. Mr. Fringer is a part­ner in the private equity prac­tice in the firm’s Munich office and advi­ses on cross-border tran­sac­tions. Most recently, he advi­sed KKR and Noval­pina Capi­tal, among others, on various transactions.
“The elec­tion of Manuel-Peter Fringer as Part­ner, as well as the appoint­ment of three addi­tio­nal attor­neys in both of the firm’s German offices as Coun­sel, is a reflec­tion of the firm’s contin­ued success story and will allow us to conti­nue to capi­ta­lize on future growth poten­tial and further expand our market posi­tion,” said Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt, Mana­ging Part­ner of the German offices.

Below is a list of some of the manda­tes that the firm has acted as legal coun­sel for this year, and which have contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to its success:
* Exide Tech­no­lo­gies as part of a compre­hen­sive restruc­tu­ring of the entire Group and a realignment of the Euro­pean group of compa­nies (Germany, France, Scan­di­na­via, Bene­lux, Spain, Portu­gal) and its subse­quent sale
* Advent Inter­na­tio­nal on the acqui­si­tion of a stake in Aareon AG
* Olym­pic Enter­tain­ment Group (share­hol­der Noval­pina Capi­tal) in the realignment of its online busi­ness activities.
* Inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor group in the bidding process for Avaloq
* Terreal when buying Creaton
* Santé Cie (port­fo­lio company of Ardian) on the acqui­si­tion of Aposan.

News

Within a short period of time, Enpal mana­ged to close two rounds of finan­cing with Zalando foun­ders Robert Gentz, David Schnei­der and Rubin Ritter, as well as with Prince­ville Climate Tech­no­logy, an invest­ment fund backed and finan­ced by actor and envi­ron­men­tal acti­vist Leonardo DiCa­prio. Flick Gocke Schaum­burg advi­sed tech entre­pre­neur Lukasz Gadow­ski (photo) on various rounds of finan­cing for Berlin-based solar start-up Enpal.

Lukasz Gadow­ski hims­elf and Alex­an­der Samwer’s fund Picus Capi­tal, which also has a stake in Enpal, had inves­ted in previous finan­cing rounds. On this occa­sion, Flick Gocke Schaum­burg also alre­ady stood along­side Lukasz Gadowski.

Enpal now has 400 employees and offers solar systems for rent. Homeow­ners can obtain green power modu­les more cost-effec­tively through the rental model than is possi­ble through purchase. At the end of the lease term, tenants can purchase the modules.

Advi­sor Lukasz Gadow­ski: Flick Gocke Schaum­burg (Berlin)
Mathias Bülow (lead); Asso­ciate: Justus Bode (both Private Equity/Venture Capital)

News

Munich — Silver Invest­ment Part­ners has sold its stake in Land­bä­cke­rei SOMMER, the largest regio­nal quality bakery in Sauer­land and the surroun­ding area with around 60 stores and nearly 500 employees, to finan­cial inves­tor Auctus Capi­tal Part­ners. Network Corpo­rate Finance exclu­si­vely advi­sed the owners and the company on the transaction.

Tran­sac­tion
With the acqui­si­tion of SOMMER, AUCTUS plans to accom­pany the further growth of the bakery chain. In addi­tion to orga­nic deve­lo­p­ment, the growth stra­tegy also focu­ses on regio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons. Barbara Zeyß remains with SOMMER as Mana­ging Direc­tor and conti­nues to expand her share­hol­ding in the company.

The company
SOMMER was foun­ded in 1927 in Eslohe-Bremke and has estab­lished itself as a regio­nal quality leader in the Sauer­land region. The company opera­tes loca­ti­ons in single loca­ti­ons as well as in the fore­courts of high-traf­fic super­mar­kets and hyper­mar­kets. Follo­wing the take­over by Silver Invest­ment Part­ners and with the arri­val of Ms. Barbara Zeyß as mana­ging part­ner, there was a stra­te­gic realignment of the branch port­fo­lio and the intro­duc­tion of manage­ment and control­ling systems. These measu­res have impro­ved proces­ses and produc­tion plan­ning and signi­fi­cantly increased SOMMER’s results. Today, SOMMER serves both the bakery and quick service markets with its wide range of bread, pastries and snacks.

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

 

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte has advi­sed BMG on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the inde­pen­dent German promo­ter Under­co­ver GmbH. The two compa­nies will work toge­ther in the future as part of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship. Under­co­ver foun­der and CEO Michael Schacke and the 30-strong team will remain with the company.

The tran­sac­tion marks BMG’s first entry into the live music busi­ness in the company’s history. Under the umbrella of the Bertels­mann Content Alli­ance, the new divi­sion will also work with Bertels­man­n’s other content busi­nesses in Germany, such as Medi­en­gruppe RTL Deutsch­land, RTL Radio, UFA, the Penguin Random House publi­shing group and Gruner + Jahr.

Under­co­ver GmbH was foun­ded in Braun­schweig in 1991 and orga­ni­zes over 200 concerts and shows a year in nort­hern Germany alone. In addi­tion, Under­co­ver deve­lops and produ­ces its own formats and has been booking tours and festi­vals of natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal artists in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land for 15 years.

Consul­tant BMG:
SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte, Munich: Dr. Matthias Nord­mann (Corporate/M&A, Lead), Eva Bona­cker (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Martin Land­auer (Labor Law), Stefan C. Schi­cker, LL.M. (IP); Asso­ciate: David Leon Solberg (Corporate/M&A)

News

Frank­furt a. M. — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN CAPITAL”) on its invest­ment in Forto GmbH. The $50 million funding round led by INVEN CAPITAL also included parti­ci­pa­tion from Iris Capi­tal and exis­ting inves­tors such as Maersk, North­zone, Cherry Ventures, H14 and Rider Global.

Forto GmbH (form­erly Freight­Hub), based in Berlin, is a digi­tal logi­stics service provi­der that enables its custo­mers to digi­tally manage global supply chains from the manu­fac­tu­rer to the end custo­mer. The company now has more than 2,000 custo­mers, inclu­ding compa­nies such as Home24, Miele and Viess­mann. Foun­ded in 2016, the company is growing rapidly and curr­ently employs around 300 people.

INVEN CAPITAL is the venture capi­tal arm of the ČEZ Group, whose invest­ment focus is on invest­ments in clean-tech and new-energy companies.

Weil’s Frank­furt office regu­larly advi­ses INVEN on its invest­ments, inclu­ding the recent finan­cing round at Zolar GmbH, the sale of its stake in home battery storage provi­der sonnen to Shell Over­seas Invest­ment B.V., the invest­ment in start-up Cloud&Heat Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH and the recent finan­cing round at Sunfire GmbH.

The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Chris­tian Tapp­ei­ner. He was supported by Coun­sel Konrad v. Buch­waldt and Asso­cia­tes Julian Schwa­ne­beck, Stef­fen Giolda, Sara Afschar-Hamdi, Simon Stei­ner, Mario Kuhn (all Corpo­rate), Mareike Pfeif­fer, Lili­anna Ranody (both Labor Law), Markus Cejka (Finance), Alisa Preiß­ler, Dr. Chris­tian Widera (both Tax) as well as Para­le­gals Nata­scha Späth and Kris­tina Thiel.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley and Washing­ton, D.C.

News

Berlin — Soft­ware company Jobpal has sold all its shares in the company to US-based HR tech provi­der SmartRe­crui­ters. SmartRe­crui­ters is tapping into the robot-driven recruit­ment process auto­ma­tion (RPA) market through the acqui­si­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. An SMP team led by part­ner Malte Berg­mann, photo, advi­sed on the exit toge­ther with UK law firm Withers.

Jobpal
Foun­ded in 2016 as a startup by a German team, Jobpal is a soft­ware company deve­lo­ping on AI-powered chat­bots that auto­mate commu­ni­ca­tion between employ­ers and appli­cants. Jobpal curr­ently employs around 25 people.

SmartRe­crui­ters
SmartRe­crui­ters is a recrui­ting soft­ware provi­der head­quar­te­red in San Fran­cisco with addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons in Poland, Germany, UK and France. The company was foun­ded in 2010 by Jerome Ternynck.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent 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. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Consul­tant Jobpal: SMP
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Lead Part­ner, Taxes), Partner
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Corpo­rate, M&A), Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Taxes), Senior Associate

News

Finland — IQM Quan­tum Compu­ters, the Euro­pean leader in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of super­con­duc­ting quan­tum compu­ters, secu­res EUR 39 million in a new round of finan­cing. This brings the total amount raised to date to EUR 71 million — one of the highest amounts raised by a Euro­pean deep tech start-up in a single year.

Lead inves­tor MIG led the round of exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding Tesi, Open­O­cean, Maki.vc, Vito Ventures and Matadero QED, as well as new inves­tors inclu­ding Vsquared, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capi­tal and Tencent.

Head­quar­te­red in Helsinki with a second office in Munich, the deep-tech company supplies commer­ci­ally available quan­tum compu­ters for rese­arch labo­ra­to­ries and super­com­pu­ting centers. The high-perfor­mance compu­ters are expec­ted to solve extre­mely complex compu­ta­tio­nal tasks within hours — a task that previously took seve­ral years. Through a unique co-design approach, IQM provi­des quan­tum bene­fits to indus­trial custo­mers through appli­ca­tion-speci­fic proces­sors. The company thus supplies the complete hard­ware stack for a quan­tum compu­ter, which inte­gra­tes various tech­no­lo­gies and enables coope­ra­tion with quan­tum soft­ware companies.

Quan­tum compu­ting is still in a rela­tively early stage of deve­lo­p­ment, but experts say it will gain elemen­tal importance in the coming decade, making major breakth­roughs in health­care, logi­stics, finance, chemis­try and other fields.

IQM is one of the fastest growing compa­nies in the quan­tum compu­ting sector and alre­ady has one of the worl­d’s largest quan­tum engi­nee­ring teams. Funding from the current round will be used to acce­le­rate hard­ware deve­lo­p­ment and produce appli­ca­tion-speci­fic quan­tum compu­ters. In addi­tion, a large portion of the funding will go toward retai­ning and retai­ning the best talent in quan­tum compu­ting, as well as the sales and busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment teams.

Advi­sor to MIG Fund: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
MIG Fonds is a long-term client of LUTZ | ABEL. In the current finan­cing round, the advi­sory team consis­ted of Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch, LL.M. (lead) and Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (both VC / M&A, Munich) together.

News

Munich — Bearing­Point sells its inde­pen­dent Regu­la­tory Tech­no­logy (RegTech) divi­sion to leading private equity inves­tor Nordic Capi­tal in a share deal. The closing of the tran­sac­tion with Nordic Capi­tal is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. DLA Piper advi­sed Bearing­Point on this transaction.

The tran­sac­tion is the result of a stra­te­gic process to acce­le­rate the growth of the RegTech divi­sion as a soft­ware company provi­ding specia­li­zed, profes­sio­nal and mana­ged services along the regu­la­tory value chain. Bearing­Point will conti­nue to act as a stra­te­gic consul­ting part­ner and retain a mino­rity stake in RegTech.

RegTech is a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in the areas of regu­la­tory and risk tech­no­logy, tax tech­no­logy and report­ing services along the regu­la­tory value chain. Through close cont­act with regu­la­tors and as a member of key stan­dards commit­tees, RegTech is actively invol­ved in the draf­ting and deve­lo­p­ment of regu­la­tory stan­dards. With more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence in the indus­try, RegTech is firmly estab­lished as a market leader in Europe.

Bearing­Point is a leading global inde­pen­dent manage­ment and tech­no­logy consul­ting firm with a network of consul­tants that includes more than 10,000 employees and supports clients in over 70 count­ries. The company opera­tes in three busi­ness areas: The first covers the consul­ting busi­ness and focu­ses on five key areas to drive growth in all regi­ons. The second unit provi­des IP-driven mana­ged services beyond SaaS, offe­ring its custo­mers mission-criti­cal services that support busi­ness success. The third unit provi­des soft­ware solu­ti­ons for successful digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. It is also focu­sed on explo­ring inno­va­tive busi­ness models with custo­mers and part­ners by funding and deve­lo­ping start-ups.

Advi­sor Bearing­Point: DLA Piper
Lead Part­ner Dr. Thomas Schmuck, Senior Asso­ciate Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin. The other team members were part­ners Andreas Füch­sel (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Marie-Theres Rämer (Tax, all Frank­furt), Jan Pohle (IPT), Prof. Dr. Ludger Gies­berts (Lit&Reg, both Colo­gne) and Semin O, coun­sel Sergej Bräuer (both Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Dr. Thilo Streit (Lit&Reg) and Dr. Thors­ten Ammann (IPT, both Colo­gne), senior asso­cia­tes Niklas Mangels, Phil­ipp Groll (both Corporate/M&A), Miray Kavruk (all Frank­furt) and France Vehar (Colo­gne, both IPT), and asso­cia­tes Phil­ipp Meyer (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Andreas Rüdi­ger (IPT, Colo­gne). DLA Piper teams from the UK, Ireland, the Nether­lands, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Roma­nia were invol­ved in the consultancy.

The project was mana­ged in-house at Bearing­Point by Dr. Andreas Schöp­perle, Foto (Group Gene­ral Coun­sel) and Rainer Schö­ner (Senior Coun­sel). The tran­sac­tion was mana­ged at Bearing­Point by the M&A unit within Bearing­Point Capi­tal, led by Patrick Palm­gren toge­ther with Andreas Flach (Bearing­Point Chief Finan­cial Officer).

About DLA Piper
DLA Piper is one of the worl­d’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 240 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich.

News

Munich, Germany — Cata­lYm, an inno­va­tive biotech company deve­lo­ping novel immu­no­the­rapy approa­ches against cancer, has successfully closed its €50 million Series B finan­cing. The finan­cing consor­tium, led by lead inves­tor Vesa­lius Bioca­pi­tal III, also includes Novar­tis Venture Fund (NVF), Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern, copa­rion and foun­ding inves­tors Forbion and BioGe­nera­tion Ventures. Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from Vesa­lius, NVF and Bayern Kapi­tal will join the advi­sory board as new members.

The funding combi­ned with the strong commit­ment of exis­ting and new venture capi­tal inves­tors enables the all-important further deve­lo­p­ment of anti­bo­dies in the field of immuno-onco­logy. — Baker McKen­zie ‘s Life Scien­ces team, led by Julia Braun, advi­sed Cata­lYm on all legal aspects of the Series B financing.

“The times of COVID-19 in parti­cu­lar are an exci­ting period for our client and the indus­try as a whole. Toge­ther with our client and our team of specia­li­zed biotech­no­logy and life scien­ces lawy­ers, we successfully secu­red funds for further rese­arch in the health­care sector with this tran­sac­tion,” commen­ted Coun­sel Julia Braun.

Cata­lYm is a biophar­maceu­ti­cal company deve­lo­ping novel cancer immu­no­the­ra­pies targe­ting growth and diffe­ren­tia­tion factor 15 (GDF-15). The company was estab­lished with start-up funding from Forbion and BGV in 2016 as a spin-off of the Univer­sity Women’s Hospi­tal Würz­burg and based on the work of Prof. Dr. Jörg Wisch­husen. Cata­lYm is led by an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team with exten­sive exper­tise in immuno-onco­logy drug deve­lo­p­ment and deal expe­ri­ence, and supported by inter­na­tio­nal venture capitalists.

Baker McKen­zie’s Corporate/M&A and Life Scien­ces team regu­larly advi­ses large phar­maceu­ti­cal, finan­cial inves­tor and early stage biotech­no­logy compa­nies on dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal health­care tran­sac­tions. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed, among others, Casdin Capi­tal as lead inves­tor in DNA Scrip­t’s USD 50 million exten­ded Series‑B finan­cing round, Chr. Hansen Holding on its acqui­si­tion of Jenne­wein, Cure­Vac on its stra­te­gic mRNA tech­no­logy colla­bo­ra­tion with GSK, LSP Life Science Part­ners on a USD 38.5 million Series‑B finan­cing in DNA Script, Gala­pa­gos on a 10-year global rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment colla­bo­ra­tion with Gilead, Hita­chi Chemi­cal Company, Tokyo, in the acqui­si­tion of German apceth Biopharma, Forbion as lead inves­tor in a EUR 17 million Series‑C equity finan­cing of Omei­cos Thera­peu­tics and in a USD 54 million Series‑A finan­cing of Gotham Thera­peu­tics Corpo­ra­tion, Mundi­pharma in the sale of its Limburg manu­fac­tu­ring facility.

Legal advi­sor Cata­lYm: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Corporate/M&A: Julia Braun (Coun­sel, Munich)
Corporate/M&A: Bert­hold Hummel (Part­ner, Munich), Michelle Karrer, Dr. Julia Rossié (both Asso­ciate, Munich)
Public Law: Anahita Thoms (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Alex­an­der Ehrle (Asso­ciate, Berlin)
Anti­trust & Trade: Dr. Jonas Brueck­ner (Coun­sel, Berlin)
Pharma: Dr. Chris­tian Burholt (Part­ner, Berlin)

About Baker McKenzie
Baker McKen­zie advi­ses clients to successfully deal with the chal­lenges of globa­liza­tion. We solve complex legal problems across natio­nal borders and legal fields. Our unique culture — grown over 70 years — enables our 13,000 employees to under­stand local markets while opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. We use the trus­ting and friendly coope­ra­tion in our inter­na­tio­nal network for the bene­fit of our clients.

In Germany, around 200 lawy­ers with proven profes­sio­nal exper­tise and inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence repre­sent the inte­rests of their clients at the offices in Berlin, Düssel­dorf, Frankfurt/Main and Munich. As one of the leading German law firms, Baker McKen­zie advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons in all areas of commer­cial law.

News

Karls­ruhe, Germany — Tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners (“LEA”) is selling IDL, a leading provi­der of finan­cial perfor­mance manage­ment soft­ware (FPM), to insightsoft­ware, a global leader in finan­cial report­ing and enter­prise perfor­mance manage­ment solu­ti­ons. Behind insightsoft­ware are the two private equity inves­tors TA Asso­cia­tes and Genstar Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the key points of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance and is expec­ted in the course of this year. This is the second exit for LEA from the €200m B2B tech fund focu­sed on soft­ware compa­nies from the DACH region.

IDL has specia­li­zed in the deve­lo­p­ment of FPM soft­ware solu­ti­ons for conso­li­da­tion, plan­ning, analy­sis and report­ing since 1990. Clas­si­fied by the analyst firm BARC as a market leader with a top posi­tion in the area of “Port­fo­lio Capa­bi­li­ties”, IDL serves corpo­rate groups and inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting medium-sized compa­nies in a wide range of industries.

LEA’s invest­ment was made in early 2019 based on its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in leading soft­ware compa­nies with high shares of recur­ring reve­nue and substan­tial growth poten­tial. LEA was convin­ced by IDL’s unique market posi­tion of provi­ding mission-criti­cal soft­ware to a broad and loyal custo­mer base. LEA supported IDL in its trans­for­ma­tion from a foun­der-led company to a leading FPM provi­der in the German-spea­king region. Key initia­ti­ves here were the expan­sion of the manage­ment team, the estab­lish­ment of an indi­rect part­ner sales chan­nel, and the imple­men­ta­tion of a compre­hen­sive M&A stra­tegy. IDL was able to signi­fi­cantly expand its custo­mer base during this period and signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate growth in reve­nues and EBITDA.

Bern­ward Egenolf, foun­der of IDL, said, “Our decis­ion to select LEA as a part­ner for IDL’s next stage of deve­lo­p­ment has proven abso­lut­ely correct. We were able to launch decisive stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves and complete our product port­fo­lio through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. The expe­ri­ence LEA has brought to the table has been instru­men­tal in acce­le­ra­ting our growth. We are now looking forward to bene­fiting from insightsoft­ware’s global network as we conti­nue to internationalize.”

Sebas­tian Müller, foun­der of LEA, added: “We were able to inten­si­vely support IDL in a variety of stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves in the areas of tech­no­logy, sales, marke­ting and M&A, thus contri­bu­ting to a signi­fi­cant acce­le­ra­tion of growth. We have enjoyed our part­ner­ship with IDL and wish the entire team much success with their new part­ner insightsoftware.”

Follo­wing BELLIN’s exit to Coupa Soft­ware in June 2020, the tran­sac­tion repres­ents the second exit from the €200 million LEA Mittel­stands­part­ner fund. LEA was advi­sed by GCA Altium and Milbank in the transaction.

About LEA Partners
LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. Based in Karls­ruhe, one of the largest tech­no­logy clus­ters in Europe, LEA Part­ners has mana­ged invest­ments in nume­rous tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. With two invest­ment vehic­les for all company phases and a strong network of opera­tio­nal sector experts as well as stra­te­gic part­ners, LEA Part­ners can contri­bute substan­tial added value to the deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy companies.

News

Stuttgart/ Schwä­bisch Gmünd — Menold Bezler advi­sed BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, based in Stutt­gart, on the acqui­si­tion of a mino­rity stake of 40% in QLOCKTWO Group, based in Schwä­bisch Gmünd.

At QLOCKTWO, word clocks have been turned into design objects in an artis­a­nal produc­tion process since 2009. The time is displayed typo­gra­phi­cally with lumi­nous dots, and the language of the clock is varia­ble. The design has won over 30 inter­na­tio­nal awards, inclu­ding the Red Dot Design Award. World­wide sales are hand­led by a network of around 1,000 specia­list retail part­ners, the company’s own flag­ship stores and the online store.

BWK is one of the largest German capi­tal invest­ment compa­nies. With a long-term invest­ment approach, BWK supports medium-sized compa­nies from a broad range of indus­tries with equity capital.

Menold Bezler advi­sed BWK on its entry as a mino­rity share­hol­der in all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion. BWK regu­larly trusts the law firm when acqui­ring majo­rity or mino­rity stakes, most recently, for exam­ple, in the mino­rity stake in the manu­fac­tu­rer of auto­ma­ted measu­ring and test­ing tech­no­logy Xactools GmbH.

Advi­sors to BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Thomas Futte­rer, Kers­tin Lauber, Dr. Andreas Mayr, Nicole Brandt (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Jochen Bern­hard (Part­ner), Eliana Koch-Heint­ze­ler (both Anti­trust), Dr. Cars­ten Ulbricht (Part­ner), Carlo Kunz (both IT Law), Dr. Julia Schnei­der (Part­ner), Markus Kleinn (both Intellec­tual Property), Marc Ehrmann, LL.M. (Real Estate Law), Stef­fen Foll­ner (Banking Law & Finan­cing), Kath­rin Seiz (Labor Law)

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

News

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed the foun­ders of 089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH, Georg Anger­meier and Gunter Maisch, on the sale of all their shares in the company to GMGT Acqui­si­tion GmbH, a company of the Köberl Group, in which the invest­ment company Gimv holds a stake. 089 Immo­bi­len­ma­nage­ment GmbH is a provi­der of faci­lity services with loca­ti­ons in Munich and Augsburg.

Listed on the Brussels Euron­ext stock exch­ange, Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with a mana­ged port­fo­lio of more than 50 invest­ments. The compa­nies gene­rate combi­ned sales of over 2.5 billion euros and employ around 14,000 people.

Advi­sors to Gunter Maisch and Georg Anger­meier: McDer­mott Will & Emery
Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Phil­ipp Schäuble (Labor Law), Nina Siewert, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law; both Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Robert Feind (Corporate/M&A), Fran­ziska Leub­ner (Labor Law)

About 089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH
089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH is one of the leading faci­lity manage­ment compa­nies with a focus on jani­to­rial services in the Munich metro­po­li­tan region. In total, the company looks after around 28,000 resi­den­tial units in the areas of winter services, clea­ning, gardening and buil­ding services. www.089immobilienmanagement.de.

About the Köberl Group
The group of compa­nies is one of the leading full-service provi­ders of buil­ding tech­no­logy and faci­lity manage­ment services in the southern German market. The group of compa­nies, which employs a total of around 500 people and achie­ves a total output of over 75 million euros, includes Fink Gebäu­de­tech­nik GmbH & Co KG, GEMA Gebäu­de­ma­nage­ment GmbH and 089 Immo­bi­li­en­ma­nage­ment GmbH. www.firmengruppe-koeberl.de.

About GIMV
For 40 years, Gimv has been iden­ti­fy­ing entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and support­ing them as a Euro­pean invest­ment company on their way to market leader­ship. Listed on Euron­ext Brussels, Gimv curr­ently has a port­fo­lio of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 1.1 billion in invest­ments in over 50 holdings, which toge­ther realize reve­nues of more than EUR 2.75 billion and employ 14,000 people.

News

Munich — Myra Secu­rity recei­ves another round of finan­cing from Round2 Capi­tal. The cyber secu­rity company is focu­sing on expan­sion in times of growing digi­ta­liza­tion. LUTZ | ABEL advi­ses Round2 Capi­tal on invest­ment in Myra Secu­rity. Round2 Capi­tal is a Vienna-based inves­tor, with a focus on scale-ups.

The Munich-based cyber secu­rity company offers its custo­mers a Secu­rity-as-a-Service cloud plat­form to protect their own data traf­fic as well as networks from poten­tial cyber attacks. The cyber secu­rity provi­der counts custo­mers such as the German govern­ment, various minis­tries, the Euro­pean Central Bank, various finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and global e‑commerce play­ers among its custo­mers. Against the back­drop of growing digi­tiza­tion, demand is incre­asing for solu­ti­ons to protect these often highly sensi­tive data volu­mes from attack.

As a German provi­der, Myra Secu­rity is alre­ady well posi­tio­ned in the German and Euro­pean markets. Through the invest­ment, the company aims to further expand, deve­lop its service and increase its brand awareness.

Advi­sor Round2 Capi­tal GmbH: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
The consul­ting team around Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (Lead, VC / M&A, Munich) consis­ted of Dr. Corne­lius Renner (IT Law and Data Protec­tion, Berlin), Ute Schenn (Corpo­rate Law, Stutt­gart) and Caro­lin Lang, LL.M. (VC / M&A, Munich) together.

Advi­sor Myra Secu­rity GmbH: Baker Tilly (Daniel Laws)

News

Munich — ARQIS has supported the Munich-based multi-family holding Liberta Part­ners in the acqui­si­tion of Kienzle Auto­mo­tive GmbH. The tran­sac­tion was carried out through Liberta Part­ners Fund II as part of a succes­sor part­ner­ship. Closing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to take place in early November.

Kienzle is the leading German provi­der of sales and rela­ted services for networked devices and systems in the auto­mo­tive after­mar­ket sector. In the area of data manage­ment and fleet tele­ma­tics, Kienzle works with estab­lished soft­ware deve­lo­pers to create custo­mer-speci­fic evalua­tions and readout opti­ons. The medium-sized company is based in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

“The name Kienzle has stood for relia­bi­lity in the trans­por­ta­tion indus­try for more than 70 years,” says Nils von Wietz­low, part­ner at Liberta and respon­si­ble for succes­sion solu­ti­ons. “We want to conti­nue to be a relia­ble part­ner in the vehicle tech­no­logy sector and consis­t­ently expand the tele­ma­tics sector by streng­thening the distri­bu­tion system.” Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in succes­sion situa­tions and corpo­rate spin-offs.

ARQIS has acted for Liberta Part­ners for the second time. For exam­ple, Dr. Mauritz von Einem’s team advi­sed on the acqui­si­tion of the Liech­ten­stein-based mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring company FMA Mecha­tro­nik Solu­ti­ons and the take­over of the tour opera­tor Ameropa, a former subsi­diary of Deut­sche Bahn AG.

Advi­sor Liberta Part­ners: ARQIS Attor­neys at Law
Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Lead; Corporate/M&A/Taxes), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP/Commercial; both Munich), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law), Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate; all Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur (Corporate/M&A), Tanja Kurt­zer (Labor Law), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (IP/Commercial; all Munich), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Labor Law), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate; both Düsseldorf)
Niit­väli (Frank­furt): Evelyn Niit­väli (Anti­trust)

About ARQIS
ARQIS Attor­neys at Law is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. www.arqis.com.

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance has advi­sed venture capi­tal inves­tor TVM Capi­tal Life Science on the signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed closing of its TVM Life Science Inno­va­tion II fund. At $478 million, the fund repres­ents the company’s largest fund to date.

TVM, a leading life science venture capi­tal firm in North America and Europe, provi­des venture capi­tal to inter­na­tio­nal biophar­maceu­ti­cal, medi­cal device and diagno­stic compa­nies in North America and Europe. The Company invests in compa­nies that offer a visi­ble and attrac­tive exit stra­tegy from the outset, with the aim of maxi­mi­zing returns and gene­ra­ting signi­fi­cant liqui­dity for inves­tors at an early stage.

With support from top-tier dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors, inclu­ding Eli Lilly, other stra­te­gic inves­tors, pension funds, endow­ments, funds of funds, asset mana­gers and leading U.S. banks, as well as family offices from North and South America, Europe and South Korea, TVM closed its fund at a total of $478 million.

TVM was foun­ded in 1983 and is inter­na­tio­nally posi­tio­ned with offices in Luxem­bourg and Canada as well as consul­ting offices in Germany and other locations.

Advi­sor TVM: Clif­ford Chance
The inter­na­tio­nal Clif­ford Chance team for TVM was led by part­ner Sonya Pauls (Corporate/Private Equity, Munich).

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

News

Munich/ Krif­tel — Para­gon Part­ners acqui­res Casto­lin Eutec­tic, a leading global provi­der of wear protec­tion and repair solu­ti­ons for indus­trial equip­ment, from Messer Group. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Para­gon Part­ners on the refi­nan­cing for the acqui­si­tion of Casto­lin Eutectic.

Casto­lin Eutec­tic, based in Krif­tel, Germany, offers the full range of consu­ma­bles, equip­ment and services in welding, brazing and coating tech­no­lo­gies. With six plants world­wide, Casto­lin Eutec­tic manu­fac­tures products that are used in main­ten­ance and repair work by its own service team and by more than 40,000 custo­mers in over 50 indus­tries, inclu­ding engi­nee­ring & tooling, oil & gas, steel, mining, cement, glass, power gene­ra­tion and agri­cul­ture. The more than 1,600 employees gene­rate annual sales of €300 million. With more than 100 years of expe­ri­ence in the main­ten­ance and repair busi­ness, the Casto­lin Eutec­tic brand is known for outstan­ding tech­ni­cal exper­tise and quality.

PARAGON PARTNERS, foun­ded in 2004, is a leading private equity firm in Europe with more than EUR 1.2 billion in equity under manage­ment. PARAGON PARTNERS works with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and market leader­ship. PARAGON PARTNERS unlocks new value in funda­men­tally attrac­tive busi­nesses and has the ability to address comple­xity on both the tran­sac­tional and opera­tio­nal sides, repo­si­tio­ning busi­nesses through custo­mi­zed value crea­tion programs. The company is based in Munich, Germany.

Advi­sors to para­gon Part­ners: Shear­man & Sterling
Lead: Part­ner Winfried M. Carli, Part­ner Michael J. Stein­berg (New York Finance) and Part­ner Pierre-Nico­las Ferrand (Paris Finance), Of Coun­sel Danforth Newcomb (New York Compli­ance) and Asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu, Marius Garnatz and Martina Buller (all Germany Finance) as well as Akofa Tsiagbe, Omer K. Hashmi, Jordan Franks (all New York Finance) and Yaelle Cohen (Paris Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 24 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed the Austrian Onesty Group GmbH in connec­tion with the sale of shares in the Liech­ten­stein life insurer Pris­ma­Life AG to Barme­nia Versi­che­rungs­gruppe. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory approvals.

Barme­nia coope­ra­tes with Pris­ma­Life and acqui­res 25.1 percent of the shares in Pris­ma­Life. The company is to be deve­lo­ped into a compe­tence center for inter­na­tio­nal offe­rings of unit-linked life insurance.

Pris­ma­Life AG is one of Liech­ten­stein’s leading life insu­rance compa­nies and is head­quar­te­red in Ruggell. The company mana­ges custo­mer funds of around 1.3 billion euros.

The Onesty Group is an inde­pen­dent bancassu­rance company based in Austria.

Advi­sor Onesty Group GmbH: SKW Schwarz Rechtsanwälte
Dr. Stephan Morsch (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Angela Poschen­rie­der (Corporate/M&A)

News

Stutt­gart — Menold Bezler advi­sed the share­hol­ders of the smart home provi­der homee GmbH on the sale of one third of their shares to Novaco Invest GmbH. The remai­ning shares are still held by Code­ate­lier GmbH from Stutt­gart and the Austrian energy service provi­der Ener­gie Stei­er­mark AG.

The Berlin-based start-up homee offers a modu­lar smart home solu­tion that combi­nes diffe­rent wire­less stan­dards from diffe­rent manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Users can expand the appli­ca­tion as desi­red via add-on modu­les in cube form and control the devices remo­tely via an app.

Novaco Invest is a subsi­diary of the Markt­hei­den­feld sun protec­tion supplier Warema Renk­hoff SE. Warema and homee alre­ady worked toge­ther on the deve­lo­p­ment of the Warema WMS cube and the parti­ci­pa­tion is inten­ded to further streng­then this coope­ra­tion. Warema contri­bu­tes exper­tise in the areas of indoor climate, sunlight manage­ment and elec­tro­nic compon­ents in particular.

A Menold Bezler team advi­sed the share­hol­ders of homee GmbH on all tran­sac­tion-rela­ted legal issues.

Advi­sors Code­ate­lier GmbH and Ener­gie Stei­er­mark AG: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Jens Schmelt (lead part­ner), Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (both corpo­rate law/M&A)

Advi­sor Novaco Invest GmbH: Esche
Dr. Stephan Bauer, Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Hamburg
Lara Bos, Asso­ciate, Corporate
Hendrik Grei­nert, Asso­ciate, Corporate
Greta Groffy, Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law

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

Subscribe newsletter

Here you can read about the latest transactions, IPOs, private equity deals and venture capital investments, who has raised a new fund, how Buy & Build activities are going.

Get in touch

Contact us!
fyb [at] fyb.de

Send email