ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — ARQIS advi­sed Liberta Part­ners, a Munich-based multi-family holding company, on its new invest­ment struc­ture as well as on the first closing of its second fund. Behind the capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling more than EUR 50 million are prima­rily entre­pre­neurs and wealthy private individuals.

Dr. Peter Franke, foun­ding part­ner of Liberta Part­ners: “We are proud of the strong recep­tion from exis­ting and new inves­tors who support our stra­tegy. Our core compe­tence remains the active, entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive deve­lo­p­ment of our port­fo­lio compa­nies, espe­ci­ally with the diverse digi­tal oppor­tu­ni­ties our world offers today.”

Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with clear opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in group spin-offs and succes­sion situa­tions. These are actively deve­lo­ped and bene­fit from the inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial under­stan­ding of Liberta Part­ners. The Liberta Part­ners team curr­ently consists of nine profes­sio­nals from the areas of M&A, opera­ti­ons and legal

Advi­sors to Liberta Part­ners: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Munich)
Mauritz von Einem, Photo (Lead; Corporate/Tax), Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem, Dr. Chris­tof Schnei­der, Elisa­beth Falte­rer (all Corporate)

Flick Gocke Schaum­burg (Munich): Chris­tian Schatz (Regu­la­tion)

News

Berlin — Commit­Med GmbH has acqui­red the senior e‑commerce provi­der Prose­nio. The two compa­nies will conti­nue to exist as Commit­Med and will operate under the brand name ProSe­nio-24.

Prose­nio GmbH was foun­ded in 2009 and is based in Augs­burg. Prose­nio offers more than 8,000 products in the area of Elderly Care as well as hearing and vision aids for around 200,000 end custo­mers (target group 65+) on its product stores and supplies medi­cal supply stores, hearing aid acou­sti­ci­ans, opti­ci­ans, phar­macies, senior citi­zen stores etc. throug­hout Europe.

Commit­Med, based in Berlin, was foun­ded in 2011 and is now the market leader in the ship­ping of care aids with its complete care aid service of the “Pfle­ge­Box”. The company has around 3,000 care services as long-term part­ners. Commit­Med has been part of the port­fo­lio of growth finan­cier yabeo since 2014, having alre­ady inves­ted in digi­tal home emer­gency call provi­der Libify and digi­tal care service Cera in the UK.

With the acqui­si­tion, Commit­Med owner yabeo, which has been inves­ted since 2014, crea­tes a profi­ta­ble, tech­no­logy-based medium-sized company with annual sales of more than 16 million euros. ProSe­nio-24 is the leading company in this segment in Germany right away, with curr­ently around 250,000 custo­mers and 3,000 part­ner care services. This joint market access forms the basis for the expo­nen­tial growth of ProSe­nio-24 in the coming years: The goal is 50 million euros in annual sales by 2024, with 500,000 end custo­mers and 5,000 part­ner care services.

ProSe­nio-24 will operate as a plat­form prima­rily in the stra­te­gic segments of senior care and medi­cal supply stores, as well as expan­ding its posi­tio­ning as a product and service part­ner for care services.

Advi­sors to Commit­Med and Yabeo: P+P Pöllath + Partners
Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Philip Mostertz (Senior Asso­ciate, Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin)
Markus Döll­ner (Asso­ciate, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)

News

Frank­furt a. M. — Funds mana­ged by Ardian have acqui­red shares of UniCre­dit Bank AG and the manage­men­t’s invest­ment company in Swan­Cap Part­ners GmbH. Ardian had prevai­led in the bidding process. Manage­men­t’s affi­liate reta­ins a mino­rity inte­rest and a control­ling inte­rest with respect to Swan­Cap. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the Swan­Cap manage­ment on both tran­sac­tional and fund law issues. Curr­ently, Swan­Cap mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately EUR 3 billion in private equity investments.

UniCre­dit Bank AG had sold part of its private equity port­fo­lio in 2013 to funds advi­sed by Swan­Cap with its own back-invest­ment in Swan­Cap and with the parti­ci­pa­tion of the then senior manage­ment of UniCre­di­t’s private equity divi­sion. P+P was also active in this sale as well as in the launch of the Swan­Cap funds.

Swan­Cap is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment manage­ment and advi­sory plat­form with offices in Munich, Luxem­bourg, Milan and New York. Swan­Cap specia­li­zes in private equity buyouts and has predo­mi­nantly insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. Curr­ently, Swan­Cap mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately EUR 3 billion in private equity investments.

Ardian is a private invest­ment house with appro­xi­m­ately USD 90 billion in assets under manage­ment or advi­sory across Europe, the Ameri­cas and Asia. Ardian intends to further expand Swan­Cap’s market posi­tion with its proven Swan­Cap Management.

Advi­sors to Swan­Cap Part­ners: P+P Pöllath + Partners 
Dr. Eva Nase (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Munich)
Jens Hörmann (Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Peter Bujot­zek, LL.M. (Part­ner, Private Funds, Frank­furt am Main)
Jasmin Wagner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich)
Thies Jacob, LL.M. (Auck­land) (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
André Blischke (Asso­ciate, Private Funds, Frank­furt am Main)

News

Munich — SCHEMA, a port­fo­lio company of IK Invest­ment Part­ners has acqui­red 73% of the shares in TID Infor­ma­tik GmbH. The SCHEMA Group thus expands its previous 27% share in TID Infor­ma­tik to 100%.

As a new wholly owned subsi­diary of the SCHEMA Group, TID Infor­ma­tik will conti­nue to operate on the market as an inde­pen­dent company along­side SCHEMA Consul­ting and SCHEMA Systems. The current mana­ging direc­tors Robert Schä­fer and Rafi Boud­jakdjian will conti­nue to lead TID Infor­ma­tik GmbH as mana­ging directors.

TID Infor­ma­tik GmbH was foun­ded in 1992 by Robert Schä­fer as a service provi­der in the field of tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­tion. Today, TID Infor­ma­tik is a successful and fast-growing soft­ware company offe­ring CATA­LOG­crea­tor®, the market-leading soft­ware plat­form for elec­tro­nic spare parts busi­ness, service infor­ma­tion systems and portals. The head­quar­ters of TID Infor­ma­tik GmbH is in Inning am Ammer­see, further­more the company has a branch office in Amberg. TID Infor­ma­tik employs 50 people at both loca­ti­ons and plans to grow further in the coming years.
SCHEMA and TID, as well as the respec­tive manage­ment, are convin­ced that an even more inten­sive stra­te­gic coope­ra­tion can addi­tio­nally streng­then the alre­ady curr­ently impres­sive growth of both companies.

IK Invest­ment Part­ners is a Euro­pean private equity firm with an invest­ment focus on the Nordic count­ries, the DACH region and France/Benelux. Since 1989, IK has laun­ched funds with a cumu­la­tive equity volume of almost €10 billion and inves­ted in more than 125 Euro­pean compa­nies. The IK Funds support compa­nies with signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial and their manage­ment teams in deve­lo­ping busi­ness models for the future, streng­thening the compa­nies’ market posi­tion and thus crea­ting outstan­ding long-term deve­lo­p­ment potential.

Advi­sor TID: Concen­tro Manage­ment AG 
Michael Raab (Part­ner), Sebas­tian Mink (Prin­ci­pal), Julia Albert (Consul­tant), Julian Schie­ner (Consul­tant)

Advi­sors to IK Invest­ment Part­ners: Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling previously advi­sed on the finan­cing of the 2018 acqui­si­tion of SCHEMA Group. The Shear­man & Ster­ling team included Part­ner Winfried M. Carli and Asso­ciate Andreas Breu (both Germany-Finance).

About Concen­tro AG
Concen­tro Manage­ment AG is a medium-sized consul­ting company with a focus on M&A consul­ting, mainly in tran­si­tion situa­tions, restruc­tu­ring consul­ting and corpo­rate manage­ment. With 35 employees at four loca­ti­ons in Germany, Concen­tro works in an imple­men­ta­tion and success-orien­ted manner. The aim is to gene­rate added value for the custo­mer through an indi­vi­dual consul­ting service.

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 23 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 — DPE Deut­sche Private Equity (DPE) has sold its mino­rity stake in Webtrekk GmbH to US-based Mapp Digi­tal US, LLC, San Diego. Mapp is one of the worl­d’s largest provi­ders of marke­ting tech­no­logy. With now more than 140 employees, Webtrekk has estab­lished itself as one of the market-leading premium custo­mer analy­tics plat­forms in Europe since DPE parti­ci­pa­ted with growth finan­cing in 2014. Webtrekk supports its custo­mers in under­stan­ding and analy­zing the beha­vior of their website and app users across devices and apply­ing it speci­fi­cally to marke­ting measu­res. Webtrek­k’s custo­mers include, for exam­ple, ProSiebenSat1 Media AG, Flix­Bus, Porsche and ING. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to the usual reser­va­tions — inclu­ding appr­oval by the compe­ti­tion authorities.

Mapp provi­des digi­tal marke­ting solu­ti­ons that combine custo­mer acqui­si­tion and reten­tion on a simple plat­form with inte­gra­ted cross-chan­nel capa­bi­li­ties. Head­quar­te­red in San Diego with global offices in eight count­ries, Mapp is a port­fo­lio company of Marlin Equity Part­ners, a global invest­ment firm with over $6.7 billion in assets under management.

Advi­sors to Mapp Digi­tal US/ Marlin Equity Part­ners: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
A team led by Dr. Marc Scheu­ne­mann advi­sed U.S. marke­ting tech­no­logy company Mapp Digi­tal US, LLC on its acqui­si­tion of Webtrekk, the German market leader for marke­ting analy­tics and custo­mer intel­li­gence. The seller is DPE Deut­sche Private Equity and other co-inves­tors. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the second quar­ter of 2019. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

 

News

Tübingen/Berlin, May 14, 2019 — With its fifth fund, the Tübin­gen-based medi­cal tech­no­logy inves­tor SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH is inves­t­ing a mid-single-digit million amount in Better­guards Tech­no­logy GmbH. The tech­no­logy of the Berlin-Bran­den­burg company is aimed prima­rily at manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the sports equip­ment, ortho­pe­dic tech­no­logy and occu­pa­tio­nal safety sectors. Based on an inno­va­tive combi­na­tion of mate­ri­als, Better­guards has deve­lo­ped a plat­form tech­no­logy that protects human joints, preven­ting liga­ment and tendon inju­ries in parti­cu­lar. In addi­tion to SHS, previous inves­tors BFB Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal, a subsi­diary of Bran­den­bur­g’s deve­lo­p­ment bank ILB, and Die Brücken­Köpfe also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. For SHS, it is the third invest­ment from the fifth fund. The fund will be used to build a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of medi­cal tech­no­logy and life science compa­nies. Final closing of the fund is expec­ted shortly.

Better­guards Tech­no­logy GmbH, foun­ded in 2014 and based in Berlin with a produc­tion faci­lity in Bran­den­burg, deve­lops and produ­ces intel­li­gent compon­ents (so-called adap­tors) that can be inte­gra­ted, for exam­ple, into sports shoes, banda­ges or protec­tive work shoes. Equip­ped with this unique selling point, wearers can be protec­ted from joint inju­ries. Better­guards is alre­ady working with Juzo, a provi­der of sports medi­cal banda­ges and orthotics.

The under­ly­ing, broadly paten­ted tech­no­logy combi­nes free­dom of move­ment and protec­tion: Better­guards’ Adap­tor, which stret­ches during normal move­ments, stif­fens within a very short time only during very fast, criti­cal move­ments — such as when twis­ting an ankle — and thus protects the joint from over­ex­ten­sion; after­wards, imme­dia­tely after the criti­cal force has passed, it returns to its stretcha­ble initial state and allows a natu­ral move­ment pattern.

“We are very plea­sed to have another specia­list in the medi­cal tech­no­logy and health­care market on board with SHS. SHS’ indus­try exper­tise and know-how will further help us to posi­tion our company even better in the health­care market and to fully exploit the growth poten­tial of our plat­form tech­no­logy,” says Vinzenz Bich­ler, foun­der and CEO of Better­guards.

Corne­lius Maas, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at SHS, comm­ents: “What impres­sed us about Better­guards was the combi­na­tion of new-mate­ri­als and engi­nee­ring exper­tise. For ankle protec­tion, the company has alre­ady ente­red into a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with a renow­ned ortho­pe­dic tech­no­logy manu­fac­tu­rer. We are convin­ced that we have iden­ti­fied a high-growth company in Better­guards, which we are happy to support in its further deve­lo­p­ment steps. We are very much looking forward to the cooperation.”

“With Better­guards, our team was able to realize the third tran­sac­tion for our SHS V fund from our strong deal pipe­line. Inves­tors looking for a private equity invest­ment in the high-growth medi­cal tech­no­logy and life science market can still parti­ci­pate in the sector fund for a few more weeks,” says Huber­tus Leon­hardt, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Part­ner at SHS

About SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH
Tübin­gen-based SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment invests in medi­cal tech­no­logy and life science compa­nies with a focus on expan­sion finan­cing, share­hol­der chan­ges and succes­sion situa­tions. In doing so, SHS enters into both mino­rity and majo­rity share­hol­dings. As an expe­ri­en­ced indus­try inves­tor, the company, which was foun­ded in 1993, supports the growth of its port­fo­lio compa­nies through a network of colla­bo­ra­ti­ons, for exam­ple in the intro­duc­tion of new products, regu­la­tory issues or entry into addi­tio­nal markets.

The German and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors in SHS funds include profes­sio­nal pension funds, pension funds, stra­te­gic inves­tors, funds of funds, family offices, entre­pre­neurs and the SHS manage­ment team. The equity invest­ment of the AIFM-regis­tered company is up to € 30 million, volu­mes excee­ding this can be imple­men­ted with a network of co-inves­tors. SHS is curr­ently laun­ching its fifth fund. The fund has alre­ady recei­ved capi­tal commit­ments of more than EUR 100 million and is still open to inves­tors until June 30, 2019. www.shs-capital.eu

 

News

Aachen/Mönchengladbach, May 14, 2019 — The 
Seed Fund III Aachen and Mönchengladbach
 is taking a stake in the Aachen-based startup Taxy.io GmbH as part of a seven-figure finan­cing round. The young company deve­lops arti­fi­ci­ally intel­li­gent soft­ware solu­ti­ons for digi­ta­liza­tion in tax consul­ting and audi­ting. In addi­tion to the Seed Fonds III, NRW.Bank and seve­ral busi­ness angels are also inves­t­ing in the seed finan­cing. In addi­tion to their mone­tary contri­bu­tion, they are also contri­bu­ting profound indus­try exper­tise, sales networks and entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence. Thanks to an EXIST start-up grant from the Euro­pean Union and the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, as well as its own initial sales, the young company was able to further deve­lop its products and achieve its first sales succes­ses. The seed funding will be used for staff deve­lo­p­ment, further deve­lo­p­ment of the soft­ware and further market launch.

More time for the essentials
Taxy.io GmbH deve­lops and distri­bu­tes B2B soft­ware solu­ti­ons for tax consul­tants, audi­tors and employees in finance depart­ments. “Tax firms still have to invest a lot of time and money in legal lite­ra­ture and rese­arch work,” says Daniel Kirch, CFO and one of the company’s four foun­ders. “Our auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons help find the desi­red answers to tax-rela­ted ques­ti­ons and proac­tively inform the tax advi­sor about new consul­ting occa­si­ons. This gives advi­sors and experts more capa­city to devote to actual custo­mer needs.”

The tech­no­lo­gi­cal focus of the Taxy.io soft­ware is on the auto­ma­tion of consul­ting and rese­arch proces­ses using arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI). The soft­ware suite can be purcha­sed as a license model or inte­gra­ted into exis­ting soft­ware as an exter­nal solu­tion, for exam­ple via a programming inter­face (API).

Proac­tive infor­ma­tion compa­ri­son with current chan­ges in legislation
The Tax Feed module, which auto­ma­ti­cally iden­ti­fies consul­ting events, is the flag­ship of the Taxy.io product world: Using a simul­ta­neous analy­sis, the program compa­res the current tax law lite­ra­ture with the consul­tan­t’s clients and calcu­la­tes which infor­ma­tion is rele­vant for which client. The consul­ting events iden­ti­fied in this way are made available auto­ma­ti­cally and the consul­tant can evaluate them for his respec­tive client without any further rese­arch effort.

“Digi­ta­liza­tion is an abso­lute trend topic and is high on the agenda of every company — inclu­ding tax consul­tants and audi­tors,” says Markus Krücke­meier, mana­ging direc­tor of the manage­ment company of the Seed Fonds Aachen and Mönchen­glad­bach. “Taxy.io is signi­fi­cantly driving the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion in the indus­try by making basic proces­ses signi­fi­cantly more effi­ci­ent. The model also offers tremen­dous oppor­tu­nity for wide­spread use in the market­place via inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, expan­sion to other areas of law, and a programming inter­face to other soft­ware systems.”

The four foun­ders (photo) Daniel Kirch, Sven Peper, Stef­fen Kirch­hoff and Sven Weber, who alre­ady know each other from their studies at RWTH Aachen Univer­sity, are very well networked in the startup and inves­tor scene and have alre­ady recei­ved seve­ral awards with Taxy.io. Well-foun­ded exper­tise in the fields of tech­no­logy and finance combi­ned with many years of profes­sio­nal expe­ri­ence charac­te­rize the manage­ment of the young company.

News

Hamburg — Cybus, Hamburg-based provi­der of Indus­trial IoT solu­ti­ons, has raised a seven-figure sum in a recent finan­cing round. The round was led by btov Part­ners’ Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies Fund. Seve­ral private inves­tors and successful entre­pre­neurs from the btov network as well as exis­ting share­hol­ders of Cybus were invol­ved. The capi­tal raised will be inves­ted mainly in expan­ding the sales, marke­ting and IT deve­lo­p­ment teams. Cybus is the second company to receive funding from the new btov Fund. This company specia­li­zes in indus­tri­ally rele­vant hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons in Europe. — Cybus was advi­sed by LUTZ | ABEL .

The Hamburg-based startup sells a soft­ware-based IIoT gate­way solu­tion for mana­ging the flow of data between produc­tion machi­nes, enter­prise IT systems and exter­nal IoT cloud plat­forms. The “Connect­ware” product makes it possi­ble to effi­ci­ently connect machi­nes and entire facto­ries with one or more exter­nal cloud services. The solu­tion allows granu­lar defi­ni­tion of access rights to machine data and control of data flow. This allows both machine manu­fac­tu­r­ers (OEMs) and machine opera­tors to remain inde­pen­dent of the major IIoT plat­forms, build a future-proof IT/OT data infra­struc­ture, and comply with upco­ming cyber­se­cu­rity stan­dards such as the IEC 62443 stan­dard for indus­trial commu­ni­ca­tion networks. Photo Cybus, foun­ding team: Peter Sorowka (CTO), Marius Schme­ding (CPO) and Pierre Manière (CEO).

Cybus successfully enters the market
Leading indus­trial compa­nies such as SCHUNK or B. Braun manage criti­cal produc­tion data with Cybus Connect­ware. This enables them to map data from hete­ro­ge­neous machi­nery to a central seman­tic data model and bene­fit from highly scalable edge compu­ting capa­bi­li­ties to perform some of the data analy­tics “on premise” and directly in the factory.

Robert Gallen­ber­ger, Part­ner of btov Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies Fund, explains: “We have been watching the emer­ging IIoT infra­struc­ture market for some time. From our perspec­tive, Cybus’ product offe­ring and vision provi­des the most focu­sed response to the growing stra­te­gic tussle between machine manu­fac­tu­r­ers and opera­tors and the major IIoT plat­forms over access to machine data, control of data flow, and who ulti­m­ately owns the data.”

Consul­tant Cybus: LUTZ | ABEL 
Lead consul­ting attor­ney, Dr. Lorenz Jellinghaus.

News

Infra­struc­ture inves­tor 3i buys rail vehicle leasing company Disa Assets from Dutch state rail opera­tor Neder­lands Spoor­we­gen. Disa owns 54 diesel trains, which it leases to Abel­lio on a long-term basis. Follo­wing the purchase of the company, 3i has refi­nan­ced the Disa busi­ness with money from insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. Nothing is known about the value of the transaction.

The acqui­si­tion of Disa in the bidding process was closely tied to the successful refi­nan­cing of the leasing company. The new inves­tors include Meag Munich Ergo Asset Manage­ment, the joint asset mana­ger of Munich Re and the Ergo Group, and Sumitomo Mitui Banking Corpo­ra­tion (SMBC). The latter contri­bu­tes to the finan­cing mix with a tradi­tio­nal bank loan, while Meag invests in bonds issued by Disa. The refi­nan­cing replaces a Kfw-Ipex loan finan­cing at an early stage.

The asset mana­ger is looking for alter­na­tive long-term invest­ments in view of the low inte­rest rates that can be reali­zed on the capi­tal market. This is the second time that the subsi­diary of the two insu­r­ers has inves­ted in rail vehic­les. The risk-rela­ted higher inte­rest rates on these assets result from the fact that the vehic­les can run for 24 years, but the public trans­port contracts that guaran­tee their use only run for 12 years. So the inves­tors are specu­la­ting that the vehic­les will be used again afterwards.

Abel­lio was awarded the conces­sion to operate the network in Central Germany in 2015 and has been opera­ting it since the end of 2018. With nine million train kilo­me­ters, the contract is one of the largest in German local rail passen­ger trans­port (SPNV). Abel­lio is also a subsi­diary of the Dutch state railroads.

Advi­ses 3i Euro­pean Opera­tio­nal Projects Funds: Ashurst (Frank­furt)
Dr. Bene­dikt von Schor­le­mer (Corporate/M&A), Derk Opitz (Finan­cing; both lead), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Uibe­lei­sen (Infrastructure/M&A), Holger Mlynek (Infrastructure/Public Commer­cial Law), Dr. Philip Cavail­lès; Asso­cia­tes: Jan van Kisfeld, Jan Ischreyt (all Corporate/M&A)

Advi­sor Neder­landse Spoorwegen/NS Finan­cial Services
Clif­ford Chance (Munich): Markus Muhs (Lead; Corporate/Private Equity), Dr. Chris­tof Häfner (Banking), Thors­ten Sauer­he­ring, Dr. Domi­nik Engl (both Tax; the latter three Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Wenzel Rich­ter, Konstan­tin Heil­mann (both Corporate/Private Equity)

Inhouse Law (Utrecht): Bart van Hors­sen, Michel Hoogen­dorn, Ronald Klein Wassink, Osman Aksoycan

News

ARQIS advi­sed Allo­heim Senio­ren-Resi­den­zen SE on the acqui­si­tion of the Pro Talis Group from Meppen, which is active in inpa­ti­ent care, outpa­ti­ent care, day care and assis­ted living. The acqui­si­tion is subject to the appr­oval of the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The Pro Talis Group opera­tes 14 senior centers with over 1,100 nursing beds, an outpa­ti­ent service, two day care centers and two assis­ted living faci­li­ties with a total of 54 apart­ments. Since Egbert Möller foun­ded the family busi­ness in 2003, the company has steadily expan­ded its regio­nal presence and is now active in three German states.

Follo­wing comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, which is expec­ted before the end of the summer, Allo­heim will combine around 23,000 nursing beds and apart­ments for assis­ted living under its umbrella, thus streng­thening its presence in North Rhine-West­pha­lia, Lower Saxony and Schles­wig-Holstein. The faci­li­ties and care services of the Pro Talis brand will conti­nue to operate under the old name.

Rainer Hohmann, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Allo­heim, says: “With the Pro Talis faci­li­ties, the Allo­heim Group is gaining attrac­tive growth in modern, beau­tiful and high-quality equip­ped homes in attrac­tive loca­ti­ons. We now want to work with the Pro Talis staff to expand our offe­rings and realize further projects. We look forward to working together.”

ARQIS has alre­ady been invol­ved in nume­rous add-on acqui­si­ti­ons of the Allo­heim Group since 2010, most recently in the acqui­si­tion of the CMS group of compa­nies at the end of 2018. The firm also regu­larly advi­ses Allo­heim on real estate law.

Advi­sor to Allo­heim: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze, Photo (Lead Part­ner; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Chris­tof Schnei­der (Finan­cing), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Johan­nes Landry (Commer­cial); Coun­sel: Saskia Kirsch­baum (Labor Law) Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP); Asso­cia­tes: Thomas Chwa­lek (Head of Due Dili­gence), Malte Grie­pen­burg (Health Care), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate), Sina Janke (IP/Compliance), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Labor Law), Elisa­beth Falte­rer (Finan­cing), Dr. Liliia Sagun, Carina Grahs (both Legal Support Specialists)

News

Munich — BayWa AG has acqui­red a stake in Tjiko GmbH by way of a cash capi­tal increase. A team led by Dr. Mathias Schrö­der, Part­ner at the Munich office of law firm Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice.

Tjiko GmbH is a young and inno­va­tive company from Rosen­heim, Germany, which is the first supplier of indi­vi­dual bath­room modu­les in timber cons­truc­tion to bring new effi­ci­ency to the cons­truc­tion proces­ses of multi-storey timber construction.

BayWa AG is an inter­na­tio­nally active trading and services group. In the Agri­cul­ture, Energy and Cons­truc­tion busi­ness segments, trading and logi­stics form the over­ar­ching core compe­ten­cies. In addi­tion, the BayWa Group is also invol­ved in the venture capi­tal sector and invests in promi­sing young companies.

Advi­sors to BayWa AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Mathias Schrö­der, LL.M. (lead part­ner), Fabian Becker, LL.M., Peter M. Schäff­ler, Alex­an­der Weber, LL.M., Dr. Markus Rabe, LL.M. (all corpo­rate law/M&A, venture capi­tal), all Munich;
Astrid Well­hö­ner, LL.M. Eur., Stepha­nie Wurm (both Employ­ment Law), both Munich
Domi­nik Eicke­meier, Dr. Lutz M. Keppe­ler (both IP&IT), both Cologne

News

Munich — AFINUM Fünfte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by AFINUM Manage­ment GmbH, has sold its stake in Sinnex Group to the French Groupe Méri­guet, a leading provi­der of reno­va­tion services for high-end real estate and luxury properties.

Sinnex (www.sinnex.com) is a company specia­li­zing in the highest quality inte­rior finis­hes for luxury yachts, private resi­den­ces as well as private aircraft. The main focus of the busi­ness is luxury yachts for private owners, espe­ci­ally super luxury yachts with a length of more than 40 meters. AFINUM took over the majo­rity of the shares from the foun­ders in April 2010 and arran­ged their entre­pre­neu­rial succes­sion in the period there­af­ter. During the holding period, the company’s perfor­mance more than doubled and today Sinnex is one of the top suppli­ers in this segment.

Within the Méri­guet Group, Sinnex is also expec­ted to contri­bute his profes­sio­nal skills to projects outside his tradi­tio­nal areas, parti­cu­larly in the resi­den­tial sector. Sinnex opera­tes a plant in Griffen/Austria for produc­tion purpo­ses and has an effi­ci­ent network of supplier opera­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally in Southe­as­tern Europe.

AFINUM is an inde­pen­dent manage­ment-owned invest­ment company with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe. Photo: Dr. Thomas Bühler, Part­ner and Dr. Gernot Eisin­ger, Part­ner (left)

News

Basel — ALENTIS Thera­peu­tics (“ALENTIS”), a Swiss-French biotech company is deve­lo­ping new, inno­va­tive drugs for the treat­ment of advan­ced liver dise­a­ses and cancer. In a CHF 12.5 million (€11.1 million; USD 12.5 million) Series A finan­cing, Swiss venture capi­tal firms BioMed­Part­ners and BB Pureos Bioven­tures led the consor­tium, which was joined by BPI France, Schro­der Adveq and the German High Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF).

Dr. Markus L.E.Ewert, MBA has been appoin­ted CEO of the new company. He was previously a board member at Ablynx and contri­bu­ted to one of the largest U.S. biotech IPOs of the year and the very successful sale of Ablynx to Sanofi. Previously, Dr. Ewert led global corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment at GE Health­care, held leader­ship posi­ti­ons at Novar­tis, and successfully built life science compa­nies based on innovation.

ALENTIS’ most advan­ced project is a huma­ni­zed mono­clonal anti­body against a protein that plays a key role in the patho­logy of liver fibro­sis and hepa­to­cel­lu­lar carci­noma. Limi­ted thera­peu­tic opti­ons are available for the treat­ment of advan­ced liver dise­ase and cancer. Alen­tis’ inno­va­tive project aims to address this major clini­cal problem.

ALENTIS rese­arch is based on an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy plat­form that uses a gene expres­sion signa­ture that diffe­ren­tia­tes between good and poor progno­sis in liver dise­ase. This plat­form can be used to find and deve­lop further drug candi­da­tes for the treat­ment of advan­ced liver dise­a­ses and cancer.

ALENTIS is based on ground­brea­king rese­arch conduc­ted by Prof. Dr. Thomas Baumer­t’s labo­ra­tory at the Univer­sity of Stras­bourg, the Inserm Insti­tute for Viral and Liver Dise­ase, the Labo­ra­tory of Excel­lence HepSYS and the Insti­tut Hospi­tal-Univer­si­taire Stras­bourg, and other colla­bo­ra­tors, inclu­ding Prof. Dr. Yujin Hoshida at the Univer­sity of Texas Southwes­tern in Dallas. SATT Conec­tus, the tech­no­logy trans­fer support orga­niza­tion in Alsace (France), was instru­men­tal in provi­ding, buil­ding and secu­ring the patent port­fo­lio licen­sed to ALENTIS. BaseLaunch, an inno­va­tion acce­le­ra­tor opera­ted by BaselArea.swiss, was instru­men­tal in the early stages of the company’s crea­tion as a finan­cial and opera­tio­nal supporter. Through this tri-natio­nal colla­bo­ra­tion, ALENTIS is now head­quar­te­red in Basel, Switz­er­land with a subsi­diary in Stras­bourg, France and a branch office in Germany.

Thomas F. Baumert, M.D., Profes­sor of Medi­cine, Head of the Inserm Rese­arch Insti­tute and Chair of Hepa­to­logy at the Univer­sity Hospi­tal of Stras­bourg, and prin­ci­pal foun­der of ALENTIS, said, “Toge­ther with my colle­agues, we are exci­ted to bring our new thera­peu­tic approa­ches with their inno­va­tive and promi­sing mecha­nism of action into the clinic. Our goal is to improve the treat­ment of pati­ents with advan­ced liver disease.”

Dr. Andreas Wallnöfer, former Head of Clini­cal Rese­arch & Early Deve­lo­p­ment at F. Hoff­mann-La Roche Ltd. and now Gene­ral Part­ner at the Basel-based venture capi­tal firm BioMed­Part­ners, added: “The precli­ni­cal data set of the ALENTIS lead program is very compre­hen­sive and convin­cing. They demons­trate the thera­peu­tic poten­tial of the new phar­ma­co­lo­gi­cal approach in the treat­ment of advan­ced liver dise­a­ses of diffe­rent patho­ge­ne­sis. Prof. Baumer­t’s rese­arch is trans­la­tio­nal and links rese­arch and clinic through a progno­stic gene expres­sion signa­ture. This is extre­mely valuable for the opti­mal charac­te­riza­tion and deve­lo­p­ment of the most advan­ced project and for the disco­very of further programs for the treat­ment of liver diseases.”

The Board of Direc­tors of ALENTIS will be compo­sed of Neil Golds­mith, Co-Foun­der and Chair­man; Andreas Wallnöfer, Gene­ral Part­ner at BioMed­Part­ners; Martin Münch­bach, Mana­ging Part­ner at BB Pureos Bioven­tures; Benoit Barteau, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at BPI France, and Prof. Thomas F.Baumert, Prin­ci­pal Founder

About ALENTIS Therapeutics
ALENTIS Thera­peu­tics (ALENTIS) disco­vers and deve­lops inno­va­tive drugs for the treat­ment of advan­ced liver dise­a­ses such as liver fibro­sis, cirrho­sis and liver cancer (hepa­to­cel­lu­lar carci­noma, HCC). — The Swiss-French biotech company, estab­lished as ALENTIS Thera­peu­tics AG in March 2019, is head­quar­te­red in Basel, Switz­er­land, with a subsi­diary in Stras­bourg, France, and a branch office in Germany.

ALENTIS has licen­sed plat­form tech­no­lo­gies and mono­clonal anti­bo­dies that are the result of more than a decade of rese­arch by the Univer­sity of Stras­bourg and Inserm, the French Natio­nal Insti­tute of Health and Mount Sinai Hospi­tal, New York.

Priva­tely held ALENTIS is funded by leading venture inves­tors BioMed­Part­ners, BB Pureos Bioven­tures, BPI France, Schro­der Adveq and the German High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF).

News

Frank­furt a. M. — VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH has acqui­red a mino­rity stake in Infor­ma­tik Consul­ting Systems AG (ICS). The acqui­si­tion is part of a succes­sion plan and is aimed at conti­nuing the successful growth of ICS. VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH was advi­sed by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek with a team led by Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein and Bene­dikt Raisch.

The manage­ment of the company is in the hands of the previous board member and share­hol­der Cid Kiefer, who will in future hold a majo­rity stake in the company toge­ther with two other share­hol­ders. The previous passive family share­hol­ders, the Winkel and Hämer fami­lies, are leaving the company. Toge­ther, the share­hol­ders intend to expand the range of services as well as explore the opening of new loca­ti­ons and the acqui­si­tion of compa­nies. In this context, addi­tio­nal specia­lists are to be recrui­ted and the orga­niza­tio­nal struc­ture adapted to the incre­asing size of the company.

Stutt­gart-based ICS AG is a family-run IT consul­ting and engi­nee­ring company that has been deve­lo­ping solu­ti­ons for complex IT envi­ron­ments for more than 50 years. The company employs around 120 people at four loca­ti­ons in Germany and a subsi­diary in Switz­er­land. ICS is active in the fields of “Trans­por­ta­tion” (control and safety tech­no­logy for rail infra­struc­ture), “Indus­trial Engi­nee­ring” (main­ten­ance of IT systems in logi­stics and produc­tion) and “Infor­ma­tion Secu­rity” (deve­lo­p­ment, certi­fi­ca­tion and opera­tion of infor­ma­tion secu­rity systems).

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH
VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in the DACH region. VR Equi­typ­art­ner supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. In doing so, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of company deve­lo­p­ments before short-term exit thin­king. VR Equi­typ­art­ner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.

Advi­sors to VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (lead manage­ment, M&A),
Bene­dikt Raisch (Lead Part­ner, M&A),
Corne­lia Schwiz­ler (Corpo­rate / M&A),
Dr. Markus Klin­ger (IT/IP),
Dr. Felix Drefs (IT/IP),
Dr. Anne de Boer LL.M. (Funding),
Andreas Lutz (Real Estate Law),
Dr. Anto­nia Stein (Labor Law),
Dr. Nicole Armin­geon (Public Law), all Stuttgart
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg
Dr. Ruth Schnei­der (Commer­cial), Munich

News

Hano­ver — NORD Holding Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, Hano­ver, has sold its mino­rity share­hol­ding in AVISTA OIL AG, one of the leading compa­nies in used oil proces­sing in Europe and the USA, to Bitbur­ger Holding GmbH and SKion GmbH.

The mino­rity invest­ment by NORD Holding was made as part of a growth finan­cing to imple­ment AVISTA OIL’s long-term stra­tegy of further inter­na­tio­na­li­zing its busi­ness and expan­ding its product port­fo­lio. “We are plea­sed to have been able to guide AVISTA OIL’s outstan­ding manage­ment team through key stra­te­gic decis­i­ons in recent years, inclu­ding their move into the U.S. The new share­hol­der struc­ture now allows AVISTA OIL to take the next step in its growth,” says Andreas Bösen­berg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of NORD Holding. “We have more than achie­ved our common goals in the coope­ra­tion with NORD Holding. The perso­nal and very trus­ting rela­ti­onship will certainly conti­nue beyond his reti­re­ment as a share­hol­der of AVISTA OIL,” adds Marc Verfürth, member of the board of AVISTA OIL AG.

About AVISTA OIL AG
AVISTA OIL AG is one of the leading compa­nies in used oil rege­ne­ra­tion in Europe and the USA with an annual rege­ne­ra­tion capa­city of almost 500,000 tons today. In the oil upcy­cling segment, AVISTA OIL has a current capa­city of more than 300,000 tons, with another 100,000 tons under cons­truc­tion, and is one of the tech­no­logy leaders in the produc­tion of high-quality base oils and lubri­cants from used oils. A number of subsi­dia­ries and asso­cia­ted compa­nies are bund­led under the umbrella of AVISTA OIL AG, which performs all func­tions from coll­ec­tion & logi­stics, re-refi­ning and lubri­cant produc­tion to inter­na­tio­nal distri­bu­tion. AVISTA OIL employs around 700 people at seve­ral refi­nery sites in Europe and the USA.

About NORD Holding
With its 50-year history and assets under manage­ment of € 2 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund of funds invest­ments. The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king count­ries. The Fund Invest­ments busi­ness unit targets the small- and mid-cap segment of the Euro­pean private equity market and focu­ses on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor inves­tor. The fund of funds divi­sion curr­ently mana­ges € 1.3 billion and is one of the most successful fund of funds compa­nies in Europe.

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed the inves­tors in the first finan­cing round of the Colo­gne-based ice cream startup NOMOO, a brand of NRDS GmbH. A group of three venture capi­ta­lists ( Quest Solu­ti­ons GmbH, Siltho Rese­arch GmbH and AM1 Ventures GmbH) parti­ci­pa­ted in the invest­ment. Details of the finan­cing round were not disclosed.

NOMOO distri­bu­tes the first flavorful ice cream that is 100% plant-based. After a 600% growth of the brand in 2018, the growth is plan­ned to increase further in 2019. So far, the startup has a strong presence prima­rily in NRW. NRDS GmbH intends to use the fresh capi­tal to make NOMOO known throug­hout Germany. At the same time, NOMOO’s products will be made available nati­on­wide in grocery stores, restau­rants and also through online mail order.

Advi­sor to inves­tors: ARQIS Attor­neys at Law
Dr. Mirjam Boche (lead, M&A/Venture Capi­tal), Malte Grie­pen­burg (Corpo­rate), Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP), Saskia Kirsch­baum (Labor Law)

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 at its current offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 45 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on the core issues of German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. The focus is on M&A, corpo­rate law, private equity, venture capi­tal, employ­ment law, private clients, intellec­tual property, liti­ga­tion as well as real estate law and tax law. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Lands­hu­t­/­Plan­egg-Martins­ried/ New York, April 17, 2019 — The Martins­ried-based biophar­maceu­ti­cal company Immu­nic Thera­peu­tics (“Immu­nic”) has successfully made the leap to the NASDAQ tech­no­logy exch­ange in a so-called reverse take­over. This is the first time that a port­fo­lio company of Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern, mana­ged by Bayern Kapi­tal , has succee­ded in going public. Toge­ther with a consor­tium of inves­tors, Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern inves­ted in the company in 2016 as part of a Series A round, thus laying the finan­cial foun­da­tion for the company’s posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. The stock market listing is now expec­ted to provide Immu­nic with finan­cing secu­rity for its further deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties and thus unleash further growth momen­tum. Simul­ta­neously with the closing of the tran­sac­tion, Bayern Kapi­tal and six other inves­tors have again inves­ted a total of 26.7 million euros (around 30 million US dollars) in the former Bava­rian start-up.

Immu­nic is a biotech company foun­ded in 2016. The company’s deve­lo­p­ment pipe­line today includes selec­tive, orally available immu­no­logy thera­pies for the treat­ment of chro­nic inflamm­a­tory and auto­im­mune dise­a­ses such as ulce­ra­tive coli­tis, Crohn’s dise­ase, relapsing-remit­ting multi­ple scle­ro­sis and psoria­sis. As part of a share exch­ange (so-called reverse take­over) with the alre­ady listed company Vital Thera­pies Inc. Immu­nic has successfully made the step to the NASDAQ. The company’s common stock, with the new common name of Immu­nic Inc. have been traded on NASDAQ since April 15, 2019. The main objec­tive of the newly formed company is to conti­nue the deve­lo­p­ment of drugs for chro­nic inflamm­a­tory and auto­im­mune dise­a­ses until they are ready for the market.

Dr. Daniel Vitt, CEO of Immu­nic AG, says: “Inves­tors such as Bayern Kapi­tal with the Bava­rian Growth Fund have given us the oppor­tu­nity to form, deve­lop and grow as an inde­pen­dent company. The fact that we can now take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ties offe­red by the capi­tal market to enter the next phase of our corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment also has to do with the fact that we have been able to count on the contin­ued trust of our inves­tors from the very beginning.”

Bava­ria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs, Hubert Aiwan­ger, on Immu­nic’s stock market listing: “We have endo­wed the Bava­rian Growth Fund with 100 million euros. The exam­ple of Immu­nic shows that this money is well inves­ted. The market is open to inno­va­tive and well-mana­ged start-ups — even IPOs are possi­ble in a very short time.”

About Immu­nic, Inc.
Immu­nic, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMUX) is a clini­cal-stage biophar­maceu­ti­cal company with a pipe­line of selec­tive, orally available immu­no­logy thera­pies for the treat­ment of chro­nic inflamm­a­tory and auto­im­mune dise­a­ses, inclu­ding ulce­ra­tive coli­tis, Crohn’s dise­ase, relapsing-remit­ting multi­ple scle­ro­sis and psoria­sis. The company is deve­lo­ping three small mole­cule products: IMU-838 is a selec­tive immu­no­mo­du­la­tor that inhi­bits intracel­lu­lar meta­bo­lism of acti­va­ted immune cells by blocking the enzyme DHODH; IMU-935 is an inverse agonist of RORγt; and IMU-856 targets resto­ra­tion of intesti­nal barrier func­tion. Immu­nic’s most advan­ced deve­lo­p­ment program, IMU-838, is in Phase 2 clini­cal trials for the treat­ment of ulce­ra­tive coli­tis and relapsing-remit­ting multi­ple scle­ro­sis. Another Phase 2 trial in Crohn’s dise­ase is plan­ned for 2019. An inves­ti­ga­tor-initia­ted, proof-of-concept clini­cal trial of IMU-838 in primary scle­ro­sing cholang­i­tis is also plan­ned at Mayo Clinic. For more infor­ma­tion: www.immunic-therapeutics.com.

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal curr­ently mana­ges eleven invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 325 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 290 million euros of venture capi­tal in 265 inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 5,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. www.bayernkapital.de

News

Munich, London, Paris — Prefere Resins, one of Euro­pe’s leading phen­o­lic and amino resin produ­cers head­quar­te­red in Erkner, Bran­den­burg, near Berlin, is taking an important step in expan­ding its global market posi­tion: The port­fo­lio company from the second fund of the Euro­pean invest­ment company Silver­fleet Capi­tal has ente­red into an agree­ment with the British INEOS Enter­pri­ses signed a purchase agree­ment for the Mela­mi­nes and Para­form busi­nesses. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval; closing is expec­ted later this year. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Prefere Resins specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­ture and distri­bu­tion of phen­o­lic and amino resins used as a base for compo­site mate­ri­als in the cons­truc­tion, insu­la­tion and indus­trial sectors. The company has produc­tion faci­li­ties in Germany, Finland, the UK, France, Poland and Roma­nia, three rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment sites (Germany, Austria and Finland) and four regio­nal sales offices (Germany, the UK, Finland and Austria). The company employs more than 320 people and its annual produc­tion volume is about 350,000 tons.

With the acqui­si­tion of the INEOS Mela­mi­nes & Para­form busi­ness units, Prefere Resins expands its global reach with addi­tio­nal produc­tion faci­li­ties in the US and Germany, as well as a contract manu­fac­tu­ring faci­lity in Indo­ne­sia. INEOS Para­form is conside­red the second-largest supplier of the basic chemi­cal para­form­alde­hyde in Europe. Around 120 employees work at the Mainz site, where form­alde­hyde and form­alde­hyde deri­va­ti­ves have been produ­ced for more than 100 years. At INEOS Mela­mi­nes, one of the worl­d’s leading suppli­ers of mela­mine resins with around 150 employees, indus­trial custo­mers in the coatings, paper, texti­les, tires, rubber and deco­ra­tive lami­na­tes sectors are served from Frank­furt, Spring­field (USA) and via contract manu­fac­tu­ring in Sura­baya (Indo­ne­sia).

“The acqui­si­tion of the two busi­ness units of INEOS Enter­pri­ses, which are excel­lently posi­tio­ned in the market, marks a mile­stone in our growth stra­tegy for Prefere Resins. With the addi­tio­nal exper­tise in the mela­mine resins, form­alde­hyde and form­alde­hyde deri­va­ti­ves segments, we are getting closer to our goal of posi­tio­ning oursel­ves as a global resins produ­cer,” says Arno Knebel­kamp, CEO of Prefere Resins Holding GmbH. Jenni­fer Regehr, who was respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion in Silver­fleet Capi­tal’s Munich office, adds: “Our invest­ments aim to help market leaders in niches to achieve new growth. We are plea­sed that Prefere Resins has alre­ady succee­ded in this within one year of our invest­ment and that the next deve­lo­p­ment step could be initiated.”

At Silver­fleet Capi­tal, Guntram Kieferle from the Munich office is invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion in addi­tion to Jenni­fer Regehr.

About Prefere Resins
Prefere Resins is one of the leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­r­ers in Europe. Seven produc­tion sites in six Euro­pean count­ries are control­led from the company’s head­quar­ters in Erkner near Berlin. Thanks to their safety-rele­vant proper­ties combi­ned with an attrac­tive price-perfor­mance ratio, phen­o­lic resins are among the most widely used ther­mo­sets and can be used in a wide variety of areas, which include cons­truc­tion, insu­la­tion (insu­la­ting mate­ri­als) and indus­try (auto­mo­tive and mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring). With more than 320 employees, the company produ­ces around 350,000 metric tons of phen­o­lic and amino resins and suita­ble addi­ti­ves each year, gene­ra­ting annual sales of around 250 million euros. www.prefereresins.com

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years. The 30-strong invest­ment team works from Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a U.K. manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a U.K. provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, a British opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses; 7days, a German supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

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 €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

News

Tokyo/ Munich — Japa­nese tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons group Soft­bank plans to acquire a stake in Wire­card and invest around 900 million euros in the payment services provider.

For this purpose, Wire­card is to issue a conver­ti­ble bond that can be conver­ted into a total of 6,923,076 Wire­card shares (curr­ently corre­spon­ding to approx. 5.6% of the share capi­tal) at a conver­sion price of EUR 130 per Wire­card share after a period of 5 years. The Annual Gene­ral Meeting of Wire­card AG on June 18, 2019 is expec­ted to decide on the issue of this conver­ti­ble bond to Soft­bank exclu­ding the subscrip­tion rights of current share­hol­ders. This would make Soft­bank the Bava­rian company ‘s fourth-largest inves­tor after MB Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft — the invest­ment vehicle of Wire­card CEO Markus Braun — the invest­ment bank Gold­man Sachs and the asset mana­ger Black­rock.

Advi­sors to Wire­card: Noerr LLP and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher 

Advi­sors to Soft­bank: Sulli­van & Cromwell

 

News

Antwerp — Euro­pean private equity firm Gimv has announ­ced the forma­tion of a life scien­ces advi­sory board. The new board consists of six expe­ri­en­ced indus­try experts with exper­tise in drug and medi­cal device deve­lo­p­ment, company buil­ding, and mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons. Michel Darnaud (form­erly respon­si­ble for cardiac surgery at Liva­Nova), Peter Hirth (former CEO of Plex­xi­kon), Ismail Kola (former CSO at UCB), Kasim Kutay (CEO of Novo Holdings), Alex­andre LeBe­aut (CSO of Ipsen) and Edwin Moses (former CEO of Ablynx) will assist Gimv’s life scien­ces team with port­fo­lio deve­lo­p­ment, new deal origi­na­tion and gene­ral indus­try trend analysis.

Gimv has inves­ted in more than 80 life scien­ces compa­nies since 1982 and has consis­t­ently gene­ra­ted outstan­ding returns. Success stories include Ablynx, Plex­xi­kon, Devgen, Cova­gen Proso­nix and Endo­sense. As part of the broa­der “Health & Care” plat­form, Gimv’s life scien­ces team invests in biotech­no­logy and medi­cal tech­no­logy start-ups — both early and later stage. An invest­ment volume of 10–25 million euros per company is targe­ted, with finan­cing provi­ded through Gimv’s own balance sheet as part of an ever­green struc­ture. The Life Scien­ces team, led by part­ners Dr. Karl Nägler, Bram Vanpa­rys and Patrick Van Bene­den, curr­ently mana­ges a port­fo­lio of eleven compa­nies. The plan is to expand the port­fo­lio to 15 to 20 compa­nies in the coming years.

Dr. Karl Nägler, Part­ner Gimv Germany says: “The estab­lish­ment of this advi­sory board illus­tra­tes Gimv’s ambi­ti­ons in the fields of biotech­no­logy and medi­cal tech­no­logy for the coming years. At Gimv, we want to support ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs as part­ners. Through our new advi­sory board, we are expan­ding our network and adding value to our portfolio.”

Bram Vanpa­rys, Part­ner Gimv Belgium adds, “We are very plea­sed to estab­lish a close colla­bo­ra­tion with these renow­ned and successful experts, each of whom has alre­ady achie­ved great things in our indus­try. With this colla­bo­ra­tion, we succeed in further enhan­cing the value Gimv offers to pati­ents, port­fo­lio compa­nies and shareholders.”

News

Munich, London, Paris — Silver­fleet Capi­tal, a pan-Euro­pean private equity firm, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in CARE Ferti­lity Holdings Limi­ted (“CARE”). Head­quar­te­red in Notting­ham, England, the company is a leading opera­tor of ferti­lity clinics in the United King­dom. CARE’s above-average success rates are based on a strong scien­ti­fic and clini­cal approach. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Foun­ded in 1997, the company opera­tes nine clinics and 13 offices in the United King­dom and Ireland. Since its incep­tion, CARE has helped launch the birth of more than 30,000 babies. The company’s success rate across all key metrics is among the highest in the UK. With exten­sive rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties, CARE is an inno­va­tion driver in the indus­try. The company lever­a­ges data and clini­cal exper­tise to pioneer cutting-edge treat­ments and proce­du­res to market.

The invest­ment in CARE is based on Silver­flee­t’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in health­care and its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in high-growth markets — in this case, ferti­lity services — and helping compa­nies expand dome­sti­cally and inter­na­tio­nally. With the help of Silver­fleet, CARE will conti­nue its strong, diver­si­fied growth trajec­tory. This includes expan­ding the clinic network in the UK, deve­lo­ping new products and services to improve pati­ent success rates, and making further acqui­si­ti­ons to conso­li­date the highly frag­men­ted market in order to build an inter­na­tio­nal plat­form in the ferti­lity clinic sector.

The invest­ment in CARE is Silver­flee­t’s ninth over­all from the current fund and comple­ments a port­fo­lio that includes compa­nies in the UK, France, Scan­di­na­via and Germany.

Alfa Chan (photo), Part­ner at Silver­fleet and respon­si­ble for health­care invest­ments, says: “CARE is the clear market leader in a sector that shows high growth poten­tial as the demand for ferti­lity services conti­nues to increase. The CARE brand has a strong repu­ta­tion and treat­ment outco­mes are leading the market. We look forward to working closely with the manage­ment team and employees to further deve­lop the business.”

David Burford, CEO of CARE, adds, “Silver­fleet is the ideal part­ner to take our company to the next level of its growth. Silver­flee­t’s impres­sive track record of helping compa­nies execute their growth plans, as well as their exten­sive invest­ment expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector, will be very valuable. I’ve known the Silver­fleet team for a long time and look forward to imple­men­ting our plans together.”

The Silver­fleet team for this tran­sac­tion includes Alfa Chan, Sumit Dheir, Peter Kise­nyi and Domi­nic Mitchell, based in Silver­fleet Capi­tal’s London office.

Consul­tant Silverfleet:
Lincoln (M&A), PwC (Finan­cial, Commer­cial & Tax), Ropes & Gray (Legal, Corpo­rate), Deloitte (Debt Advi­sory), WA Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons (Poli­ti­cal), Intui­tus (IT) and AJ Gallag­her (Insu­rance).
Apollo provi­ded the debt capi­tal.

About CARE Fertility
Foun­ded in 1997, CARE Ferti­lity is the leading ferti­lity service provi­der in the United King­dom, having successfully laun­ched the birth of more than 30,0000 babies since its incep­tion. CARE is an inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed brand and is synony­mous with inno­va­tion with leading ferti­lity success rates driven by clini­cal excel­lence and conti­nuous improvement.

Today, CARE Ferti­lity opera­tes nine CARE clinics and 13 offices, provi­ding compre­hen­sive coverage in the United King­dom and Ireland.

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years. The 30-strong invest­ment team works from Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a UK-based manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a UK-based provi­der of trai­ning programs; 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 supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

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 €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four indus­try focus areas:
Busi­ness and finan­cial services, health­care, manu­fac­tu­ring, and retail and consu­mer goods. Its exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector is based on seve­ral successful previous invest­ments — inclu­ding Aesica (phar­maceu­ti­cal contract deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring) and Steri­ge­nics (contract steri­liza­tion services), which gene­ra­ted returns of 3.3x and 3.6x, respectively.

Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the U.K. and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (includes an invest­ment head­quar­te­red in the U.S. and sourcing in Belgium).

News

Munich — DLA Piper has FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co. KG on an invest­ment of up to USD two million as part of a Series A finan­cing round in Moon­light­ing, Inc, opera­tor of the on-demand free­lance plat­form Moon­light­ing. The goal of the invest­ment is to inte­grate the open source block­chain soft­ware EOSIO into Moon­light­in­g’s Block­chain Profile Manage­ment System (BPMS).

Moon­light­ing is the first on-demand mobile solu­tion that uses a block­chain-powered plat­form and proprie­tary tokens to create a virtual market­place for self-employed and small busi­ness refer­rals. Foun­ded in 2014 in Char­lot­tes­ville, Virgi­nia, the company will use the invest­ment to trans­fer more than 700,000 user profiles to its block­chain using EOSIO. Each profile beco­mes trans­fera­ble and conta­ins important data such as ratings, recom­men­da­ti­ons, and confir­ma­ti­ons of third-party licen­ses and certi­fi­ca­tes. Moon­light­ing will also trans­fer its mobile manage­ment tools, such as CRM or mobile payment, to the block­chain to enable users to work secu­rely online.

FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co KG is a fund mana­ged by FinLab AG that invests exclu­si­vely in projects based on the open source block­chain soft­ware EOSIO. The fund focu­ses on seed and early-stage start­ups seeking equity invest­ment. The joint fund of USD 100 million was laun­ched by Block.one, the company behind EOSIO, and FinLab AG.

Advi­sor FinLab EOS VC Europe I: DLA Piper 
The DLA Piper team led by part­ner Simon Vogel also included senior asso­ciate Michael Rebholz (both Private Equity/Venture Capi­tal, Munich). In addi­tion, part­ners Danish Hamid (Washing­ton D.C.) and Mark F. Radcliffe and asso­cia­tes Kyle de Neve and Syeda Nazifa Nawroj (all Corporate/M&A, Sili­con Valley) were invol­ved in the advisory.

News

Hamburg/ Oberhausen/ Munich — BDO Legal advi­sed DMB Deut­sche Motor­sport Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft on the sale of NetRange MMH GmbH, the leading provi­der of cloud-based info­tain­ment solu­ti­ons for smart TVs and connec­ted cars. The acqui­rer is ACCESS Europe GmbH, a provi­der of connec­ted enter­tain­ment and also a German subsi­diary of the listed Japa­nese company ACCESS CO., LTD.

Hamburg-based NetRange MMH GmbH was foun­ded in 2009 by Jan Wendt and quickly became a pioneer in smart TV solu­ti­ons. With an inter­na­tio­nal network of curr­ently over 4,000 part­ners in more than 100 count­ries, the company has become the leading content provi­der and serves major custo­mers such as Grun­dig, Loewe and Voda­fone. Mean­while, NetRange has also expan­ded its offe­ring to include info­tain­ment for cars. DMB is an invest­ment holding of Jan Wendt.

Ober­hau­sen-based ACCESS Europe GmbH, which reports to Tokyo-based ACCESS CO. LTD., has been a provi­der of forward-looking IT solu­ti­ons around mobile commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and network soft­ware tech­no­lo­gies for a wide range of play­ers around the world since the 1980s. Mean­while, its soft­ware solu­ti­ons have been instal­led on more than 1.5 billion devices world­wide — inclu­ding cars, TVs, smart­phones, tablets, game conso­les and more. With this acqui­si­tion, ACCESS Europe GmbH aims to become the market leader in the field of soft­ware-based info­tain­ment solutions.

Jan Wendt on the tran­sac­tion: “I am deligh­ted to have found a buyer that is an excel­lent stra­te­gic fit for NetRange. The acqui­si­tion has set a mile­stone for the connec­ted car indus­try. At the same time, it is a strong response to the growing colla­bo­ra­tion between the auto­mo­tive and enter­tain­ment indus­tries. ACCESS will successfully deve­lop NetRan­ge’s busi­ness as a global, publicly traded company. In the dive­st­ment process, the fast and profes­sio­nal advice provi­ded by BDO Legal contri­bu­ted to the success of this very ambi­tious tran­sac­tion in terms of time.”

Advi­sor DMB Deut­sche Motor­sport Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH:
Legal Advi­sory: BDO Legal Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH
The advi­sory services of BDO Legal Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH compri­sed the entire legal advice to DMB: Dr. Daniel Wied (lead, M&A/Munich), Dr. Konstan­tin Michel­sen (M&A/Hamburg), Peter Klumpp (Tax/Hamburg), Hans-Gerd Hunfeld (Tax/Hamburg), Peter Bellen­dorf (M&A/Hamburg), Yana Krause (M&A/Hamburg), Luisa Reimitz (M&A/Hamburg)

M&A Advi­sory: Clip­per­ton

Advi­sor ACCESS CO, LTD: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

News

Düssel­dorf — Douglas is ente­ring into a coope­ra­tion with Welmoa, a start-up for beauty services on demand. In the course of this, the perfu­mery giant is not only a clas­sic venture capi­ta­list, but also a media-for-equity investor.

Welmoa offers beauty services on demand and is alre­ady repre­sen­ted with its services in six cities in Germany. Speci­fi­cally, custo­mers can use the app to book appli­ca­ti­ons such as makeup, massa­ges, nail care or hair styling. The treat­ments take placeSo calcu­late your indi­vi­dual SEO budget now then at the desi­red loca­tion. The various beauty treat­ments can be booked seven days a week.

Addi­tio­nal entry offers
Exis­ting Douglas custo­mers are to bene­fit from further intro­duc­tory offers in the future. “The coope­ra­tion with Welmoa is to provide this service to our custo­mers. We are so convin­ced by the concept of being pampe­red with high-quality beauty services in the place of your choice that we are beco­ming active as an inves­tor,” says Tina Müller (photo), Group CEO of Douglas. “Inno­va­tive compa­nies are turning to web apps and head­less CMS.”

The equip­ment needed for the treat­ment is brought by the respec­tive service provi­ders. In order to be booka­ble through Welmo­a’s app, they must go through a three-stage selec­tion process to ensure they meet the requi­red standards.

News

Munich — The Munich office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP has advi­sed MS Indus­trie AG on the sale of the produc­tion of valve train systems for the Daim­ler world engine at the US site in Webber­ville, Michi­gan. As part of the tran­sac­tion, MS Power­train Tech­no­lo­gie GmbH, Tros­sin­gen, a subsi­diary of MS Indus­trie AG, acqui­red 100% of the shares in MS Indus­tries Inc. and its rele­vant subsi­dia­ries to the Italian Gnutti Carlo Group, a global indus­trial group specia­li­zing in power­train compon­ents and alumi­num die casting.

MS Indus­trie AG, head­quar­te­red in Munich, is the listed parent company of a focu­sed indus­trial group for drive tech­no­logy and ultra­so­nic technology.

Advi­sors to MS Indus­trie AG:Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Munich-based Part­ner Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger, Photo (Corpo­rate) and was supported by Munich part­ner Tobias Geer­ling (Tax) and part­ners Matthew Goul­ding (Corpo­rate, Boston) and Mark Schwed (Tax, New York) as well as asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer, Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler, Ramona Fren­zel, Caro­lin Ober­maier (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Michael Messina (Corpo­rate, Boston) and Lorraine Shub (Tax, New York).

News

Berlin/ Munich — The indus­trial insurer HDI Global SE is inves­t­ing 12 million euros in the company buil­der Next Big Thing AG(NBT) via Hanno­ver Digi­tal Invest. The Series A round also invol­ves the inves­tor EOS VC , which is mana­ged by FinLab. NBT posi­ti­ons itself as a company buil­der, inno­va­tion hub and think tank. DLA Piper advi­sed FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co. KG as co-inves­tor on the invest­ment of up to two million euros.

Foun­ded in 2016, Next Big Thing AG is the leading company buil­der in the field of IoT and Block­chain and offers compre­hen­sive services for the deve­lo­p­ment of joint ventures. With its exper­tise, the company, which employs 61 people from 21 count­ries, offers a plat­form for foun­ders, entre­pre­neurs, inves­tors as well as poli­ti­ci­ans in Germany and Europe. Next Big Thing AG is part of de:hub, the digi­tal hub initia­tive of the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, which aims to inte­grate medium-sized and large compa­nies with new inno­va­tion part­ners from science and the start-up scene into a Germany-wide digi­tal network.

FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co KG is a fund mana­ged by FinLab AG that invests exclu­si­vely in projects based on the open source block­chain soft­ware EOS.IO. The fund focu­ses on seed and early-stage start­ups seeking equity invest­ment. The joint fund of USD 100 million was laun­ched by Block.one, the company behind EOS.IO, and FinLab AG.

The DLA Piper team led by part­ner Simon Vogel also included senior asso­ciate Michael Rebholz (both Private Equity/Venture Capi­tal, Munich).

News

Berlin - Moon­fare has closed an over­sub­scri­bed Series A finan­cing round. In total they raised €25m of capi­tal to date with it’s team of 23 people, a board of direc­tors of 4 and 34 inves­tors. Accor­ding to the foun­der Alex­an­der Argy­ros’ (photo)philo­so­phy, the capi­tal will be dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding upon Moon­fa­re’s world-class invest­ment plat­form that enables private indi­vi­du­als to invest into top-tier private equity funds.

Moon­fa­re’s share­hol­der base is now compri­sed of more than 100 private equity insi­ders, C‑level execu­ti­ves and entre­pre­neurs from across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. This is one of the largest Series A rounds ever done in Europe by indi­vi­dual inves­tors. We thank our share­hol­ders and Moon­fare inves­tors for their conti­nuous trust and support.

To date, Moon­fare has brought six top-tier private equity funds to market inclu­ding offe­rings from EQT, the Carlyle Group and Warburg Pincus. In 2019 alone, we expect to bring an addi­tio­nal 8–10 funds on the plat­form. www.moonfare.com .

 

News

Frank­furt am Main/ Oslo — The Norwe­gian Infront ASA has acqui­red the German vwd Group GmbH inclu­ding its Euro­pean subsi­dia­ries to create the leading Euro­pean provi­der of finan­cial market solu­ti­ons. The current majo­rity owner, private equity giant The Carlyle Group, had acqui­red its shares in 2012. Bird & Bird LLP advi­sed Infront ASA on this transaction

The Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity (BaFin) must now decide on the execu­tion of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion with a purchase price of EUR 130 million is plan­ned for the second quar­ter of 2019.

With the forth­co­ming take­over, Infront will acquire not only vwd Group GmbH but also all nine Euro­pean subsi­dia­ries, inclu­ding vwd Verei­nigte Wirt­schafts­dienste GmbH, as well as other compa­nies in Germany, the Nether­lands, Belgium, Luxem­bourg, Italy and Switz­er­land. Head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main, vwd offers fintech and regtech products and services for the invest­ment indus­try. The acqui­si­tion extends Infron­t’s reach to conti­nen­tal Europe through its Nordic home markets and opera­ti­ons in the UK, France and South Africa, crea­ting Euro­pe’s leading finan­cial market solu­ti­ons provi­der. (stock market advertisement)

Infront is a global Norwe­gian finan­cial analy­sis provi­der and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exch­ange. The company relies on highly inno­va­tive tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons in the form of Soft­ware as a Service (Saas) and cloud-based appli­ca­ti­ons. Infront ASA provi­des its clients with market data, trading solu­ti­ons and up-to-date news for profes­sio­nal and private inves­tors in the Nordic count­ries and inter­na­tio­nally. With the so-called Infront Profes­sio­nal Termi­nal, users can access market data, company news, and analy­ses in real time, as well as trade elec­tro­ni­cally on the finan­cial market. The company was foun­ded in Oslo in 1998.

Bird & Bird and its inter­na­tio­nal team led by part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (Corporate/M&A) advi­sed the German, Dutch and Belgian markets. In addi­tion to corpo­rate law, the focus was on regu­la­tory issues rela­ting to the finan­cial services indus­try. The inter­na­tio­nal lead for the tran­sac­tion was provi­ded by the Norwe­gian law firm Selmer.

Advi­sor Infront ASA: Bird & Bird (Germany, The Hague and Brussels)
Part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (Lead Part­ner ) and Asso­ciate Dr. Ann-Kris­tin Asmuß, LL.M. (Corporate/M&A) as well as Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann (Lead Part­ner Regu­la­tion) and Asso­ciate Johan­nes Wirtz, LL.M. (Banking & Finance/Regulation) formed the core team. Also invol­ved were asso­cia­tes Inga Kerner, Chyn­gyz Timur, LL.M. and Michael Maier (Corporate/M&A) as well as Julia Fröh­der (Banking & Finance/Regulation), Part­ner Dr. Barbara Geck and Asso­ciate Florian Kesse­nich (Labor Law), Part­ner Jörg-Alex­an­der Paul and Asso­ciate Holger Nieden­führ (Commercial/IT) and Senior Coun­sel Mascha Grund­mann (Intellec­tual Property); Part­ner Pauline Vos and Asso­ciate Marinke Moeli­ker, (Corporate/M&A), Anne­ma­rieke van Vlodrop (Labor Law) and Coun­sel Karen Berg (Commer­cial), all Nether­lands; Part­ner Paul Hermant and Asso­cia­tes Cedric Berck­mans, (Corporate/M&A), Anton Aerts (Labor Law), all Belgium.

Selmer AS (Norway): Thomas G. Miche­let, Remi Dramstad and Jon Fred­rik Johan­sen (joint lead)Schellenberg Witt­mer (Switz­er­land): Pascal Hubli and Karin Mülchi
Gattai Minoli Agos­ti­nelli Part­ners (Italy): Nicola Marte­gani and Gerardo Gabrielli

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