Author: Tatjana Anderer

Frank­furt am Main / Bonn — With alre­ady eight restau­rants in the Rhine and Ruhr regi­ons and soon a flag­ship loca­tion in Frank­furt am Main, the young gastro­nomy brand “The ASH” is on course for expan­sion. The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner is support­ing the fine-casual dining concept with capi­tal in the single-digit million range as part of a mezza­nine finan­cing to enable it to imple­ment its growth plans in an even more targe­ted manner.

The ASH is a brand laun­ched in 2015 by KSH 2 System­gas­tro­no­mie GmbH, which in turn is part of the Apei­ron Group. Apei­ron also opera­tes the Bullitt and Ginyuu brands and fran­chi­ses seve­ral L’Os­te­ria stores. Foun­der and co-CEO is Kent Hahne, an indus­try great who has been invol­ved in the deve­lo­p­ment of fran­chise systems such as Segaf­redo Germany and Vapiano, among others.

The ASH restau­rants take the idea of Ameri­can Supper Clubs from the 1920s. In a mix of restau­rant and bar, they combine steaks, burgers, fish and salads with hip drinks in a spacious atmo­sphere. The ambi­ance features an open kitchen with a centrally loca­ted lava grill, a long cock­tail bar and high-top tables, and a DJ booth. The ASH alre­ady employs more than 460 people and recently increased sales by 80 percent to around EUR 14 million; reve­nues of more than EUR 20 million are targe­ted for 2019.

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Co-Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, says: “Kent Hahne is a very successful and expe­ri­en­ced system cate­rer whose enthu­si­asm for his concept is simply infec­tious. The first The ASH restau­rants have estab­lished them­sel­ves very successfully within a very short time. We are deligh­ted to be part of this growth story and to be able to expe­ri­ence the deve­lo­p­ment of the latest offshoot up close here in Frank­fur­t’s new Mari­en­fo­rum.” Kent Hahne adds: “We are very plea­sed about the part­ner­ship with VR Equi­typ­art­ner. We have always percei­ved the decis­ion-making process as very profes­sio­nal and fair. We will conti­nue on the chosen path toge­ther in the coming years.”

About 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 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million. www.vrep.de.

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:
Commer­cial: Clau­dia Driver, Hamburg (former GF Jim Block and Block Bräu)Finan­cial: WKGT, Düssel­dorf, with Klaus Schaldt and Dr. Anne Schül­lerTax, Legal: WKGT, Düssel­dorf, with Tors­ten Reschke and Heike Welling

Hamburg — Allen & Overy LLP has advi­sed Hambur­ger Gesell­schaft für Vermö­gens- und Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment (HGV), the invest­ment holding company of the Free and Hansea­tic City of Hamburg (FHH), on the acqui­si­tion of the remai­ning shares in Wärme Hamburg GmbH from Vatten­fall. Based on the agreed mini­mum purchase price of 950 million euros, HGV paid a purchase price of 625 million euros for the remai­ning 74.9 percent of the shares.

The company opera­tes the Hamburg district heating network as well as local gene­ra­tion faci­li­ties, e.g. the Wedel and Tief­stack combi­ned heat and power plants. At the same time, the Wedel combi­ned heat and power plant had to be spun off from another company in a paral­lel project and trans­fer­red to the target company. Until now, the FHH owned 25.1 percent of the district heating company. Although the acqui­si­tion was made by exer­cis­ing a purchase option nego­tia­ted in imple­men­ta­tion of the “Our Hamburg — Our Network” refe­ren­dum, the tran­sac­tion ulti­m­ately took more than a year to complete.

The Allen & Overy team had alre­ady advi­sed HGV in 2011 on the acqui­si­tion of stra­te­gic stakes in the compa­nies that operate the supply networks in Hamburg for elec­tri­city, gas and district heating. In addi­tion, Allen & Overy assis­ted HGV in the step-by-step imple­men­ta­tion of the full buyback of Hambur­g’s energy networks follo­wing the adop­tion of the refe­ren­dum. The current tran­sac­tion thus marks the conclu­sion of a series of acqui­si­ti­ons in which FHH has alre­ady taken over Strom­netz Hamburg GmbH and the corre­spon­ding service areas, inclu­ding meter­ing and support for trans­port faci­li­ties, from Vatten­fall and Gasnetz Hamburg GmbH from E.ON.

By buying back the energy infra­struc­ture, the Hamburg Senate is laying the foun­da­tion for a successful energy turn­around in Hamburg. The Hansea­tic City aims to signi­fi­cantly reduce green­house gas emis­si­ons. The tran­sac­tion is regarded as the final mile­stone in the complete remu­ni­ci­pa­liza­tion of Hambur­g’s energy supply.

The Allen & Overy team included Part­ner Dr. Helge Schä­fer and Coun­sel Dr. Rüdi­ger Klüber (joint lead), Asso­cia­tes Dr. Moritz Merke­nich and Dr. Moritz Meis­ter (all Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Part­ner Dr. Heike Weber and Senior Asso­ciate Tim Spran­ger (both Tax, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Ellen Braun (Anti­trust, Hamburg) as well as Part­ner Jan-Erik Wind­thorst (Frank­furt), Coun­sel Dr. Alice Broich­mann (Munich) and Senior Asso­ciate Dr. Nico­las Gillen (all Dispute Reso­lu­tion, Frankfurt).

About Allen & Overy
Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,500 employees, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 550 part­ners, in 44 offices worldwide.

Allen & Overy is repre­sen­ted in Germany at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg and Munich with appro­xi­m­ately 220 lawy­ers, inclu­ding 47 part­ners. The lawy­ers advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies prima­rily in the areas of banking, finance and capi­tal markets law, corpo­rate law and M&A, tax law as well as other areas of busi­ness law.

Frank­furt am Main -Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in Carton­plast Group GmbH (Carton­plast), Euro­pe’s leading opera­tor of a pool system for reusable plas­tic layer pads used in parti­cu­lar for trans­port­ing glass contai­ners in the beverage and food indus­tries. As part of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), DBAG Fund VII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, will acquire the majo­rity of shares in Carton­plast from the finan­cial inves­tor Stir­ling Square Capi­tal Part­ners, based in London.

DBAG will investaround 26 million euros along­side the fund; in future, it will hold around 17 percent of the shares in Carton­plast. In addi­tion, the company’s manage­ment will also remain invol­ved. The closing of the purchase agree­ment is subject to the appr­oval of the anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is not expec­ted before Octo­ber 2019. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

DBAG Fund VII has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies, prima­rily in German-spea­king count­ries, since Decem­ber 2016. Carton­plast is DBAG Fund VII’s eighth invest­ment in total and the third for which its top-up fund is also used. With the Carton­plast tran­sac­tion, appro­xi­m­ately 71 percent of the invest­ment commit­ments of the main fund and appro­xi­m­ately 59 percent of the capi­tal commit­ments of the top-up fund of DBAG Fund VII will be invested.

Carton­plast (www.cartonplast.com) was foun­ded in 1985. The company prima­rily rents reusable and recy­clable plas­tic liners for trans­port­ing glass bott­les, cans and other glass or PET contai­ners for food to the manu­fac­tu­r­ers of these contai­ners. Carton­plast has estab­lished a closed logi­stics loop within the value chain of its custo­mers, which includes not only rental but also coll­ec­tion, sort­ing and clea­ning of the layer pads. Compared to card­board layer pads, plas­tic layer pads are more hygie­nic, safer for trans­port and — due to their reusa­bi­lity — more cost-efficient.

In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Diet­zen­bach, Carton­plast has 16 other sites — abroad, espe­ci­ally in Western and Central Europe, Turkey, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. In 2018, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around 80 million euros; around three quar­ters of this was attri­bu­ta­ble to the plas­tic layer pad rental business.

With its close custo­mer rela­ti­onships, Carton­plast has estab­lished a leading posi­tion throug­hout Europe in a market with solid growth rates. The company is bene­fiting from an incre­asing outsour­cing trend as well as from sustaina­bi­lity efforts and the growing importance of the circu­lar economy. In the coming years, Carton­plast is to conti­nue to grow dyna­mi­cally through inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. In addi­tion, the offer is to be expan­ded, for exam­ple, through the addi­tio­nal rental of pallets and plas­tic cover caps.

“Stable market condi­ti­ons and a strong market posi­tion make Carton­plast an attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­nity for DBAG,” commen­ted Tors­ten Grede, Spokes­man of DBAG’s Manage­ment Board, on the occa­sion of the signing of the contract. “We were also convin­ced by the entre­pre­neu­rial vision of the manage­ment. We see very good condi­ti­ons for further profi­ta­ble growth.”

“In the coming years, we will conti­nue our inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion,” said Serkan Koray, CEO of Carton­plast. “With DBAG, we have a strong and expe­ri­en­ced part­ner at our side who will accom­pany us in this important deve­lo­p­ment step.”

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests along­side DBAG funds in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are parti­cu­larly strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. With this expe­ri­ence, know-how and equity, it streng­thens the port­fo­lio compa­nies in imple­men­ting a long-term, value-enhan­cing corpo­rate stra­tegy. The entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 1.7 billion euros.

Munich, Germany — Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”), one of Euro­pe’s most active equity inves­tors, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Omni­care, a Germany-wide phar­maceu­ti­cal whole­sa­ler focu­sed on the distri­bu­tion of finis­hed dosage forms for the pati­ent-speci­fic produc­tion of cancer drugs. The seller of the shares is the current consor­tium of share­hol­ders, which reta­ins a signi­fi­cant stake. — The manage­ment team around Mana­ging Direc­tor Oliver Tamimi will conti­nue to be respon­si­ble for the company and will make a signi­fi­cant invest­ment in the course of the tran­sac­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The acqui­si­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the fourth quar­ter of 2019.

Omni­care was foun­ded in 2002 as a phar­maceu­ti­cal specialty whole­sa­ler for outpa­ti­ent onco­logy care in Germany. To date, the company has become the market leader for the distri­bu­tion of finis­hed onco­logy drugs requi­red by phar­macies for pati­ent-speci­fic infu­si­ons. In addi­tion to the supply of finis­hed phar­maceu­ti­cals, Omni­care has been deve­lo­ping important services for highly specia­li­zed phar­macies and medi­cal prac­ti­ces since 2012 for quality assu­rance, clean­room hygiene moni­to­ring, and the trai­ning and conti­nuing educa­tion of specia­list staff. In early 2019, these services were expan­ded to become the Omni­care Quality Initia­tive, with the goal of provi­ding safe, high-quality care to onco­logy patients.

In 2018, Omni­care also estab­lished the “German Onco­logy Network” of leading onco­logy prac­ti­ces and has been conti­nuously expan­ding it ever since. The goal of this network is the struc­tu­ral streng­thening and further deve­lo­p­ment of onco­logy prac­ti­ces for the bene­fit of pati­ents. Omni­care has syste­ma­ti­cally deve­lo­ped into a leading plat­form for outpa­ti­ent onco­logy care in Germany. In this way, the company is making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to provi­ding the best possi­ble care for cancer pati­ents close to home in Germany. Omni­care gene­ra­tes annual sales of appro­xi­m­ately 670 million euros and employs 193 people in Unter­föh­ring, Colo­gne and Calw. In 2019, Omni­care is expec­ted to achieve sales growth of around 5 percent.

Dirk Sche­kerka (photo), Senior Part­ner and Coun­try Head DACH at Equis­tone, says: “Omni­ca­re’s busi­ness model aims to contri­bute to the secu­rity of care and the highest quality of therapy for cancer pati­ents close to home. We are plea­sed to part­ner with the company in this endea­vor.” Alexis Milko­vic, Part­ner at Equis­tone, adds: “Omni­care has a strong market posi­tion, an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and excel­lent employees. These are excel­lent prere­qui­si­tes for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the company. As a new share­hol­der, we want to support Omni­care in further streng­thening and sustain­ably expan­ding its position.”

Oliver Tamimi, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Omni­care, says: “With Equis­tone, we have found a relia­ble and well-funded new part­ner for the further deve­lo­p­ment of our company. With Equis­to­ne’s support, we want to conti­nuously improve the care of cancer pati­ents in Germany close to their homes and on an outpa­ti­ent basis.”

On the Equis­tone side, Dirk Sche­kerka, Alexis Milko­vic and Julia Bruns­wi­cker are respon­si­ble for the transaction.

Advi­sor Equistone: 
P+P (Legal & Tax), Alva­rez & Marsal (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Finan­cial), Houli­han Lokey (Finan­cing), Dechert (Anti­trust), Shear­man & Ster­ling (Legal Finan­cing) and ETS (Insu­rance).

On Omni­ca­re’s side, Henge­ler Müller (Legal and Anti­trust), BCG (Commer­cial), KPMG (Finan­cial), EY (Tax), Lincoln Inter­na­tio­nal (M&A) and Honert & Part­ner (MEP) advi­sed the manage­ment team on the transaction.

About Omni­care
Omni­care was foun­ded in 2002 as a phar­maceu­ti­cal whole­sa­ler supp­ly­ing specia­li­zed phar­macies throug­hout Germany. Since 2012, it has been working as a coope­ra­tive of cyto­sta­tics manu­fac­tu­ring phar­macies to preserve and secure the future of outpa­ti­ent onco­logy in Germany. The Omni­care Quality Initia­tive enables phar­macies to safely and effi­ci­ently provide onco­logy prac­ti­ces and their pati­ents with essen­tial medi­ca­ti­ons for survi­val. With the German Onco­logy Network, Omni­care has laun­ched a plat­form of leading onco­logy prac­ti­ces to streng­then outpa­ti­ent pati­ent care. In addi­tion, the company offers prac­tice-rele­vant trai­ning for prac­ti­ces and phar­macies and provi­des soft­ware solu­ti­ons that enable effi­ci­ent and safe chemo­the­rapy plan­ning and ordering.

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of Euro­pe’s leading equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in six 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 foun­ding, equity has been inves­ted in more than 140 tran­sac­tions, 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 at the hard cap.

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) closes the first nine months of finan­cial year 2018/2019 with conso­li­da­ted earnings of 12.6 million euros. The reason for the signi­fi­cant decline compared to the corre­spon­ding period of the previous year, when conso­li­da­ted net income amoun­ted to 27.7 million euros, is the lower result from the invest­ment busi­ness: A lower valua­tion result could not be fully compen­sa­ted by posi­tive earnings contri­bu­ti­ons from disposals.

In its 2018/2019 half-year report, DBAG had repor­ted that most port­fo­lio compa­nies had budgeted for higher reve­nues and earnings in 2019 and conside­red them­sel­ves to be on a good track. This has not chan­ged in prin­ci­ple. In the mean­time, howe­ver, there have been incre­asing signs of a slow­down in econo­mic momen­tum — partly due to the simme­ring global trade conflicts. This leads to lower than expec­ted earnings at some port­fo­lio compa­nies and thus has a nega­tive impact on the valua­tion of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and earnings from the invest­ment busi­ness. In the third quar­ter of the current fiscal year in parti­cu­lar, there was also a nega­tive earnings contri­bu­tion from the change in the debt of the port­fo­lio compa­nies. In the case of one port­fo­lio company, for exam­ple, the finan­cing of an acqui­si­tion had impac­ted its leverage ratio and subse­quently its valuation.

Howe­ver, the fact that DBAG’s port­fo­lio is diver­si­fied is paying off. “The econo­mic slow­down in various sectors contrasts with posi­tive deve­lo­p­ments at port­fo­lio compa­nies in other sectors. For exam­ple, invest­ments in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sector with a focus on fast inter­net have recently deve­lo­ped very posi­tively,” states DBAG’s quar­terly state­ment published today. On balance, the opera­ting perfor­mance of the port­fo­lio compa­nies, i.e. the change in earnings and debt, contri­bu­ted 6.2 million euros to earnings in the first nine months, compared with 13.3 million euros in the corre­spon­ding prior-year period.

The dispo­sals of the share­hol­dings in Infiana and Novo­press, which were agreed after the report­ing date, made a posi­tive contri­bu­tion of 13.7 million euros to the conso­li­da­ted result. In both cases, the proceeds from the sale excee­ded the carry­ing amount of the invest­ments as of March 31, 2019. The corre­spon­ding value contri­bu­ti­ons were included in the valua­tion of the two invest­ments as of June 30, 2019. “The recently announ­ced dispo­sals once again under­line the success of our invest­ment acti­vi­ties,” commen­ted Susanne Zeid­ler, CFO of DBAG, in connec­tion with the publi­ca­tion of the quar­terly finan­cial state­ments. And he conti­nues: “In both cases, we have multi­plied the capi­tal inves­ted. Our success is ther­e­fore not reflec­ted in the valua­tion result of a single quar­ter, but is only deter­mi­ned after seve­ral years, when we sell an invest­ment again.”

At the begin­ning of the current finan­cial year, the partly massive decline in the earnings multi­ples of listed peer compa­nies, which DBAG uses to value its port­fo­lio compa­nies, had a strong impact on conso­li­da­ted earnings. Follo­wing a signi­fi­cant reco­very in valua­tion multi­ples in the second and third quar­ters, this capi­tal market effect was again almost neutral as of June 30, 2019.

Earnings before taxes in the Private Equity Invest­ments segment reached 11.0 million euros after the first nine months of the finan­cial year, down 12.5 million euros on the segment result for the same period of the previous year. This was due to signi­fi­cantly lower earnings from the invest­ment busi­ness. The fund consul­ting segment perfor­med worse than plan­ned, with earnings before taxes of 1.6 million euros, compared with 4.2 million euros in the corre­spon­ding prior-year period. As expec­ted, income from manage­ment and advi­sory services for DBAG Fund VI, DBAG Fund V and DBAG ECF decli­ned. Howe­ver, there were also unplan­ned expen­ses, higher expen­ses for uncom­ple­ted tran­sac­tions and higher person­nel expen­ses due to varia­ble compen­sa­tion for DBAG employees follo­wing successful dispo­sals and new invest­ments. Conso­li­da­ted net income of 12.6 million euros resul­ted in a return on equity of 3.1 percent in the first nine months.

In view of incre­asing macroe­co­no­mic uncer­tain­ties, DBAG redu­ced its fore­cast for the current fiscal year on July 10, 2019. Assum­ing stable valua­tion condi­ti­ons on the capi­tal market, it expects conso­li­da­ted earnings for the 2018/2019 finan­cial year to be at least positive.

DBAG contin­ued to invest along­side DBAG Fund VII in the third quar­ter of 2018/2019. The MBO of IT services company Cloudf­light was the fund’s seventh invest­ment. With the fulfill­ment of the legal requi­re­ments, the invest­ment in the radio­logy group blikk was also comple­ted in the third quar­ter. This means that around 65 percent of the invest­ment commit­ments of DBAG Fund VII, which has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies since Decem­ber 2016, are commit­ted. “That is why we remain confi­dent about the future,” affirmed CFO Susanne Zeid­ler. “With these invest­ments, we have laid the foun­da­tion for future success.”

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests along­side DBAG funds in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are parti­cu­larly strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. With this expe­ri­ence, know-how and equity, it streng­thens the port­fo­lio compa­nies in imple­men­ting a long-term, value-enhan­cing corpo­rate stra­tegy. The entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 1.7 billion euros.

Frank­furt a. Main — The IK Invest­ment Part­ners advi­sed fund comple­tes acqui­si­tion of LAP GmbH Laser Appli­ca­ti­ons from thePri­vate Equity company Capi­ton AG. LAP, based in Lüne­burg, Germany, is a leading supplier of laser posi­tio­ning systems as well as soft­ware and hard­ware for quality assu­rance in radia­tion therapy. — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance has advi­sed a consor­tium of banks on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of LAP GmbH Laser Appli­ca­ti­ons by funds advi­sed by IK Invest­ment Partners.

The banking syndi­cate finan­cing the acqui­si­tion includes Commerz­bank AG, Deut­sche Apothe­ker- und Ärzte­bank eG, Hermes Direct Lending, Idin­vest Part­ners S.A., Raiff­ei­sen Bank Inter­na­tio­nal AG, Siemens Bank GmbH as well as SEB AB Frank­furt Branch and COMMERZBANK Finance & Covered Bond S.A. as agent and secu­rity agent.

About IK Invest­ment Partners
IK Invest­ment Part­ners is a Euro­pean private equity advi­sory group with Nordic roots, opera­ting across Nort­hern Conti­nen­tal Europe. Focu­sed on inves­t­ing in compa­nies with strong under­ly­ing poten­tial, we are proud to support the IK Funds as they part­ner with manage­ment teams and inves­tors to grow busi­nesses, improve perfor­mance and create sustainable value for all our stakeholders.

Deeply commit­ted to foste­ring growth, we apply an active approach to our invest­ments and aim to create robust, well posi­tio­ned compa­nies with excel­lent long-term pros­pects. Foun­ded in 1989, we have helped over 125 compa­nies expand and deve­lop sustain­ably. We strive constantly to make a diffe­rence to our port­fo­lio compa­nies, our inves­tors and to society.

About Clif­ford Chance
The inter­na­tio­nal Clif­ford Chance team was led by part­ner Stef­fen Schell­schmidt (Banking & Capi­tal Markets, Frankfurt).
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.

Munich/ Frank­furt a. Main — The Munich and Frank­furt offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have advi­sed KKR on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake for more than €600 million in the German FinTech company heidel­pay (Heidel­ber­ger Payment GmbH) from AnaCap Finan­cial Part­ners. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to the appr­oval of BaFin and other regu­la­tory autho­ri­ties as well as custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Foun­ded in 2003 and based in Heidel­berg, the heidel­pay Group is one of the fastest growing full-service provi­ders of elec­tro­nic payment services in Europe.

The Weil team was led in this tran­sac­tion by Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt (photo). and compri­sed the part­ners Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger (Corpo­rate, Munich) and Dr. Uwe Hart­mann (Regu­la­tory, Frank­furt) as well as the asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer, Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler, Andreas Fogel (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Ansgar Wimber, Florian Wessel (both Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Benja­min Rapp (Tax, Munich), Mareike Pfeif­fer (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Svenja Wach­tel (Liti­ga­tion, Munich), Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe, Dr. Barbara Sand­fuchs (both IT/IP, Munich) and Para­le­gal Madleen Düdder (Corpo­rate, Munich).

About Weil, Gotshal & Manges 
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, Warsaw and Washing­ton, D.C. www.weil.com

Frank­furt / Wies­ba­den (Germany), Tokyo (Japan) — From Triton (“Triton”) advi­sed funds have comple­ted the sale of COBEX, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of carbon and graphite products for alumi­num, primary iron and iron and other smel­ting indus­tries, to TokaiCarbon Co, Ltd (“Tokai Carbon”), a pioneer in the Japa­nese carbon products indus­try, for an enter­prise value of EUR 825 million.

Triton acqui­red COBEX, SGL Group’s former catho­des, furnace linings and carbon elec­tro­des busi­ness, in 2017. About Cobex­COBEX is a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of carbon and graphite products for the primary alumi­num and iron indus­tries and other metall­ur­gi­cal smel­ting proces­ses. COBEX’s core compe­ten­cies lie in the produc­tion of premium quality catho­des, furnace linings and carbon elec­tro­des with maxi­mum consis­tency. COBEX main­ta­ins long-stan­ding, trus­ting part­ner­ships with nume­rous custo­mers around the world.

With inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons COBEX helps its custo­mers to create added value and opti­mize total cost of owner­ship. A highly quali­fied team with many years of expe­ri­ence in product deve­lo­p­ment and appli­ca­tion supports custo­mers with tech­ni­cal know­ledge and skills. COBEX is based in Wies­ba­den, Germany. The company also has two plants in Poland and sales and tech­ni­cal services in China. https://cobexgroup.com

About Tokai Carbon
Tokai Carbon was foun­ded in 1918 and has been a market leader for over 100 years in manu­fac­tu­ring and distri­bu­ting a wide range of high-quality carbon and graphite products to nume­rous global custo­mers in a wide range of indus­tries, inclu­ding steel, auto­mo­bi­les, semi­con­duc­tors and elec­tro­nic compon­ents. Tokai Carbon has deve­lo­ped and deli­vered cutting-edge carbon product exper­tise to meet custo­mer needs. Tokai Carbon main­ta­ins a global network of 42 sites in 10 count­ries in Asia, Europe and North America. The company had conso­li­da­ted sales of JPY231 billion and total assets of JPY317 billion for the year ended Decem­ber 31, 2018. Tokai Carbon is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.For more infor­ma­tion: www.tokaicarbon.co.jp/en/

About Triton
Since its foun­ding in 1997, Triton has laun­ched nine funds and focu­sed on compa­nies in the indus­trial, services, consu­mer goods and health­care sectors. The Triton funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Europe and support their posi­tive development.Triton’s goal is to successfully deve­lop its port­fo­lio compa­nies over the long term by working in part­ner­ship. Triton and its manage­ment strive to gene­rate posi­tive change and growth through the sustainable impro­ve­ment of opera­tio­nal proces­ses and struc­tures. At present, Triton’s port­fo­lio includes 37 compa­nies with total sales of around EUR 14.6 billion and around 72,400 employees.

Munich/Stuttgart — Toge­ther with all other share­hol­ders, Gimv is selling its shares in the Stutt­gart-based soft­ware company thinkstep AG (www.thinkstep.com). The buyer is the US soft­ware service provi­der Sphera Solu­ti­ons. Thanks to the sustained support of all share­hol­ders, thinkstep has recor­ded a very posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment and was able to successfully convert the busi­ness model to a soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) solution.

The globally active company, head­quar­te­red in Lein­fel­den-Echter­din­gen near Stutt­gart, was foun­ded in 1991 and offers soft­ware and consul­ting services that help compa­nies manage sustaina­bi­lity and reduce their envi­ron­men­tal foot­print. Over the last few years, thinkstep has been able to steadily expand its impres­sive custo­mer base and today serves over 2,000 custo­mers from 20 indus­tries, inclu­ding in parti­cu­lar a large number of leading “Fortune 500” compa­nies from Germany and around the world.

thinkstep AG opera­tes in three busi­ness units: In the Corpo­rate Sustaina­bi­lity divi­sion, sustaina­bi­lity proces­ses are intro­du­ced and imple­men­ted. These include, for exam­ple, Group-wide energy manage­ment, corpo­rate social respon­si­bi­lity manage­ment and active resource opti­miza­tion. In the area of product sustaina­bi­lity, envi­ron­men­tal aspects are alre­ady taken into account in the deve­lo­p­ment phase and thus inte­gra­ted into subse­quent product manage­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses. With the help of thinkstep’s product compli­ance solu­tion, compli­ance and repu­ta­tion risks can be iden­ti­fied and redu­ced at an early stage.

Gimv joined thinkstep in 2010 with a mino­rity stake toge­ther with Next47 with the aim of support­ing the company with capi­tal, know-how and network in its global expan­sion, opera­tio­nal streng­thening and simul­ta­neous trans­for­ma­tion from a licen­sing to a SaaS model. In the course of this, Gimv and Next47 gradu­ally increased their joint commit­ment, while at the same time some of the foun­ders remained on board with mino­rity stakes. In this way, thinkstep has grown into a leading global soft­ware provi­der in the field of Enter­prise Sustaina­bi­lity and Compli­ance Solu­ti­ons. With the sale and the plan­ned subse­quent inte­gra­tion into Sphera, the next step in the successful deve­lo­p­ment of the company is now being taken.

Dr. Sven Oleow­nik (photo), Part­ner and Head of Germany at Gimv, says: “thinkstep has under­gone a remar­kable trans­for­ma­tion in recent years and funda­men­tally reshaped its busi­ness model. Buil­ding on a very loyal custo­mer base, it has simul­ta­neously been able to further advance its global opera­ti­ons and tech­no­lo­gi­cal base. With inves­tors and consu­mers placing incre­asing importance on compa­nies opera­ting ethi­cally and envi­ron­men­tally consciously, the market for sustaina­bi­lity solu­ti­ons is highly attrac­tive and growing stron­gly. thinkstep is ideally posi­tio­ned for the future to further expand its market leader­ship now under a new flag.”

Lisa Henge­rer, Asso­ciate at Gimv in Munich and respon­si­ble for the Smart Indus­tries plat­form, adds: “thinkstep is another success story within our Smart Indus­tries soft­ware divi­sion. The sale to Sphera Solu­ti­ons is once again an excel­lent exam­ple of our ambi­tion to accom­pany our port­fo­lio compa­nies in their stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment and growth to become attrac­tive for an inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned indus­trial company like Sphera.”

The tran­sac­tion has no mate­rial impact on the net asset value of Gimv as of March 31, 2019. The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding appr­oval by the compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties. Further finan­cial details will not be disclosed.

About Gimv
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with almost 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity. The company is listed on Euron­ext Brussels, curr­ently mana­ges around EUR 1.1 billion and curr­ently invests in 55 port­fo­lio compa­nies, which toge­ther realize a turno­ver of more than EUR 2.75 billion and employ 14,000 people.

Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the four invest­ment plat­forms Connec­ted Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities is mana­ged by a dedi­ca­ted and compe­tent team, each based in Gimv’s home markets — Bene­lux, France and DACH — and supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts.

Milan/Düsseldorf/London — Ambi­enta SGR SpA, one of the largest sustaina­bi­lity-focu­sed private equity inves­tors in Europe, announ­ces that its port­fo­lio company Aroma­ta­Group SRL (“Aromata”) has comple­ted the 100% acqui­si­tion of Indus­trie Prodotti Alimen­tari Manenti (“IPAM”), a market leader in the produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of ingre­di­ents for the food industry.

The flavor and colo­rants market is worth over €12 billion and is expec­ted to grow at an annual rate of 3–4% over the next five years, under­pin­ned by long-term sustainable growth drivers. Ambi­enta reco­gni­zed the growth poten­tial of natu­ral food ingre­di­ents. Natu­ral raw mate­ri­als repre­sent the stron­gest growth driver in the food indus­try, with global growth of 7% versus zero growth for synthe­tic products. Substi­tu­tion of synthe­tic chemi­cals (from oil or inor­ga­nic chemi­cals) in flavor or colo­rant recipes with natu­ral ingre­di­ents that are orga­nic and pose no health risks is incre­asingly prefer­red by food manu­fac­tu­r­ers and consumers.

As a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of natu­ral flavors and colors for the food indus­try, Aromata is well posi­tio­ned to support the shift to natu­ral, healt­hier foods. Aromata has three produc­tion faci­li­ties in nort­hern Italy and serves over 1,200 custo­mers in 50 count­ries. In 2018, the Group gene­ra­ted appro­xi­m­ately 30 million euros in sales, 5 million euros in EBITDA and contri­bu­ted to avoi­ding 83 tons of pollut­ants. After a successful 2018, Aromata conti­nues to invest to expand its product and appli­ca­tion port­fo­lio: the acqui­si­tion of IPAM marks Aroma­ta’s expan­sion into the adja­cent savory ingre­di­ents market.

IPAM is the Italian leader in the produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of high quality and func­tional ingre­di­ents for the food indus­try, such as bread­crumbs and dough mixes, mari­na­des and flavors. IPAM is based in Zibello Pole­sine, in the heart of the Italian “Food Valley”, and supplies over 300 custo­mers from two produc­tion sites.

The acqui­si­tion of IPAM will enable Aromata to gain a foot­hold in the large and attrac­tive ‘savory’ ingre­di­ent market, offer new custo­mers a more exten­sive range of natu­ral flavors and colors, and jointly deve­lop both compa­nies’ natu­ral ingre­di­ent offe­rings. The tran­sac­tion provi­des Aromata with further expan­sion in the ingre­di­ents market to meet incre­asing custo­mer demand.

Hans Udo Wenzel, Presi­dent of Aroma­ta­Group, says: “The acqui­si­tion of IPAM is the first step in Aroma­ta’s stra­te­gic expan­sion plan, enab­ling Aromata to broa­den its product range and streng­then its main compe­ti­tive advan­tage, which is to offer a full range of products to its customers.”

Euge­nio Manenti, foun­der and CEO of IPAM, added, “We are very plea­sed to join Aroma­ta’s buy-and-build project and further expand the group’s leader­ship in natu­ral ingredients.”

Mauro Roversi (photo), Part­ner & Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer at Ambi­enta, commen­ted, “Stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons are key to the growth of our port­fo­lio compa­nies. We welcome the IPAM team to Aromata and look forward to further growing our joint business.”

About Ambi­enta
Ambi­enta is a leading Euro­pean private equity fund based in Milan, Düssel­dorf and London. The focus is on growth invest­ments in indus­trial compa­nies that focus on sustaina­bi­lity trends. With over €1 billion in funds under manage­ment, the worl­d’s largest pool of capi­tal for this stra­tegy, Ambi­enta has made 32 resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal invest­ments across Europe to date. Ambi­enta actively parti­ci­pa­tes in the deve­lo­p­ment of its port­fo­lio compa­nies, provi­ding indus­try and manage­ment exper­tise and global connec­ti­vity. www.ambientasgr.com.

Munich — PARAGON PARTNERS, one of the leading invest­ment compa­nies in the German-spea­king region, recently closed its PARAGON FUND III (“P3”) with capi­tal commit­ments of EUR 783 million. Due to strong demand, P3 signi­fi­cantly excee­ded both the origi­nal target size and the size of the prede­ces­sor fund, which closed at EUR 412 million.

The new fund was over­sub­scri­bed and gene­ra­ted strong demand mainly from exis­ting inves­tors, but also from some new ones. This helps PARAGON PARTNERS to broa­den its inves­tor base and further deve­lop its rela­ti­onships in Europe and North America. Euro­pean inves­tors, and espe­ci­ally inves­tors from German-spea­king count­ries, conti­nue to be well repre­sen­ted. The inves­tor base includes renow­ned insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as funds of funds, public and company pension funds, insu­rance compa­nies, foun­da­ti­ons and family holding companies.

With the new fund, PARAGON PARTNERS can further expand its posi­tion as one of the leading invest­ment compa­nies in the German-spea­king region with a focus on sustainable value-orien­ted invest­ments in the range of EUR 30 million to EUR 250 million.

PARAGON PARTNERS is also plea­sed to announce the first invest­ment of the new fund: pro optik, the third largest opti­cian chain in Germany. The chain curr­ently compri­ses a network of 145 stores based on a successful part­ner­ship model, offe­ring its part­ners the oppor­tu­nity to act as either joint venture or fran­chise part­ners. pro optik sells around 400,000 pairs of glas­ses a year and the product range extends from high-quality frames from both well-known top brands and less expen­sive own brands to high-quality lenses and glas­ses. The company has also recently expan­ded its offe­ring to include hearing aids. In 2018, pro optik gene­ra­ted sales of EUR 125 million.

PARAGON PARTNERS conti­nues its proven invest­ment stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with opera­tio­nal growth and value enhance­ment poten­tial in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land, as well as selec­tively in neigh­bor­ing count­ries. The invest­ment company is commit­ted to a sustainable invest­ment approach and inte­gra­tes envi­ron­men­tal, social and honest corpo­rate gover­nance conside­ra­ti­ons into its invest­ment decis­i­ons and also trans­fers these sustaina­bi­lity stan­dards into the corpo­rate gover­nance of its port­fo­lio companies.

The Munich-based fund is advi­sed by a moti­va­ted team of invest­ment mana­gers with many years of invest­ment and exten­sive opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence, charac­te­ri­zed by strong cohe­sion and stabi­lity for more than 15 years.

About PARAGON PARTNERS
PARAGON PARTNERS is a private equity company foun­ded in 2004 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 from both a tran­sac­tional and opera­tio­nal perspec­tive and to repo­si­tion busi­nesses through custo­mi­zed value crea­tion programs.

Antwerp (BE) / Munich — Gimv, Sofin­nova and Gilde Health­care sell their shares in the biophar­maceu­ti­cal company Breath Thera­peu­tics. The company, which specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment of first-in-class inha­la­tion solu­ti­ons for severe lung dise­a­ses, raised appro­xi­m­ately €43.5 million in 2017 in one of the largest Euro­pean Series A rounds to date. With the support of the inves­tors, two global Phase III studies on inha­la­tion therapy solu­ti­ons for the rare lung dise­ase Bron­chio­li­tis Obli­terans Syndrome (BOS) have now been initia­ted. There is curr­ently no appro­ved therapy for BOS and the dise­ase is fatal in many cases. The buyer of Breath Thera­peu­tics is the Italian family-owned phar­maceu­ti­cal and chemi­cal company Zambon.

Gimv joined Sofin­nova Part­ners (France) as lead inves­tor in Breath Thera­peu­tics in March 2017. Other inves­tors were Gilde Health­care (Nether­lands) and PARI Pharma as licen­sor for the inha­la­tion devices. In addi­tion to the finan­cial support, Gimv’s exper­tise was also crucial to the success of the spin-out process, to the syndi­ca­tion of the finan­cing struc­ture, to the imple­men­ta­tion of the stra­tegy, and to the imple­men­ta­tion of lean, inter­nal proces­ses. Thanks to this exter­nal know-how, Breath Thera­peu­tics has been able to further deve­lop its own inno­va­tion capa­bi­li­ties into a mature therapy solu­tion, as well as to build up a top-class team of experts in Europe and the USA.

Dr. Karl Nägler, Part­ner and respon­si­ble for the Health & Care plat­form at Gimv Germany, says: “We are even more plea­sed with the successful deve­lo­p­ment of the company over the past two years, as Gimv was signi­fi­cantly invol­ved in the stra­te­gic direc­tion and setting up of the plat­form for growth from the very begin­ning. The poten­tial of Breath Thera­peu­tics and the compound was clear to us at an early stage, as lung dise­a­ses are unfort­u­na­tely on the rise — espe­ci­ally due to envi­ron­men­tal factors and chan­ging life­styles. Against this back­ground, with Zambon’s support, Breath Thera­peu­tics is in an excel­lent posi­tion to successfully commer­cia­lize the product in the future and to deve­lop new fields of application.”

Dr. Jens Stege­mann, Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer at Breath Thera­peu­tics, adds: “With this compound, Breath Thera­peu­tics has deve­lo­ped a product that can signi­fi­cantly improve the lives of many people. We have found a part­ner that shares our vision in Zambon, an inno­va­tive company with high ethi­cal stan­dards and a clear focus on pati­ent well-being. Alre­ady, we have advan­ced the deve­lo­p­ment of a poten­tial first-in-class therapy for BOS, initia­ted two global Phase III trials, and are thus excel­lently posi­tio­ned in the market. Thanks to Zambon’s infra­struc­ture, exper­tise and clear focus on rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, we can acce­le­rate these proces­ses even further and make the treat­ment available to as many people as possi­ble as quickly as possi­ble. We would like to thank our former part­ners Gimv, Sofin­nova and Gilde Health­care for their support, which was crucial to the successful deve­lo­p­ment of our company, espe­ci­ally in the early years.”

This tran­sac­tion increa­ses Gimv’s NAV by EUR 20 million (as of March 31, 2019). With this invest­ment, Gimv achie­ved an ROI above its stated long-term target of 15%.

About Gimv
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with almost 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity. The company is listed on Euron­ext Brussels, curr­ently mana­ges around EUR 1.1 billion and curr­ently invests in 55 port­fo­lio compa­nies, which toge­ther realize a turno­ver of more than EUR 2.75 billion and employ 14,000 people.

Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the four invest­ment plat­forms Connec­ted Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities is mana­ged by a dedi­ca­ted and compe­tent team, each based in Gimv’s home markets — Bene­lux, France and DACH — and supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts.