ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News
Munich/Plettenberg, Febru­ary 21, 2018 — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are selling shares in Plet­ten­berg-based auto­mo­tive supplier E. WINKEMANN. The majo­rity of the shares will be acqui­red by Cathay Capi­tal MidCap Fund, which is advi­sed by Cathay Capi­tal Private Equity. Equis­tone and the mana­ging direc­tors of E. WINKEMANN will remain invol­ved. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the tran­sac­tion. The sale is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties.
In its now 80-year company history, E. WINKEMANN GmbH has become a major manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion metal stam­pings and today employs 380 people. From its loca­tion in the Märki­scher Kreis region, the company prima­rily supplies well-known German and inter­na­tio­nal auto­mo­tive suppli­ers and manu­fac­tu­r­ers world­wide. Equis­tone had inves­ted in the company in May 2012. Since then, E. WINKEMANN has deve­lo­ped convin­cin­gly. Sales increased from appro­xi­m­ately 66 million euros in 2012 to around 91 million euros in 2017. Last year alone, there was an increase of more than ten percent.
Over the past six years, Equis­tone has accom­pa­nied E. WINKEMANN on its way from a family-owned company to a conti­nuing successful medium-sized enter­prise with parti­ci­pa­ting manage­ment. This made it possi­ble to support the company’s flexi­ble busi­ness model with rapid decis­ion-making proces­ses and a high degree of free­dom on site, which ensu­res short product and deve­lo­p­ment cycles, espe­ci­ally in the dyna­mic envi­ron­ment of the auto­mo­tive indus­try. At the same time, Equis­tone enab­led the neces­sary invest­ments to further expand the company. As a result, E. WINKEMANN was able to grow sustain­ably by deve­lo­ping new products and inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and by addres­sing new customers.
“Toge­ther with the dedi­ca­ted manage­ment and the highly quali­fied employee base, we have mana­ged to signi­fi­cantly deve­lop an alre­ady well-posi­tio­ned company,” says Dirk Sche­kerka, Coun­try Head DACH at Equis­tone. “The know-how and expe­ri­ence of the entire work­force are key drivers of E. WINKE­MAN­N’s strong posi­tion. The new part­ner will accom­pany the company into the next growth phase and expand its strong posi­tion in further markets, espe­ci­ally in Asia. We are plea­sed to remain asso­cia­ted with E. WINKEMANN as a share­hol­der and to conti­nue to support the company’s development.”
“Six years ago, in the course of succes­sion plan­ning, we carefully sear­ched for a suita­ble part­ner to secure the future of E.WINKEMANN. It turned out that we found the right part­ner in Equis­tone: Toge­ther we were able to secure long-term growth and expand into new markets,” says Dr. Bernd Sent, CEO of the company. “With its exper­tise in the auto­mo­tive supply indus­try and its profound expe­ri­ence in the syste­ma­tic and long-term orien­ted deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized compa­nies, the Equis­tone team has supported the achie­ve­ment of our goals at all times. With Cathay Capi­tal, we now want to conti­nue on the path we have chosen.”
Respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone are Dirk Sche­kerka and Stefan Maser.
Advi­sors to Equis­tone: Robert W. Baird & Co. (M&A) and P+P Pöllath & Part­ners (Legal/Tax).
About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe 
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of Euro­pe’s leading equity inves­tors with a team of more than 35 invest­ment specia­lists in six offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, 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.
About E. WINKEMANN GmbH
Since its foun­da­tion in 1938, the tradi­tio­nal company E. WINKEMANN has deve­lo­ped into one of the most important and effi­ci­ent manu­fac­tu­r­ers of precis­ion metal stam­pings. The Plet­ten­berg (NRW) site now employs around 380 people. Custo­mers come from almost all indus­trial sectors, with the global auto­mo­tive and auto­mo­tive supply indus­try being the main focus. For precis­ion stam­ped metal parts, E. WINKEMANN is a compe­tent part­ner for the imple­men­ta­tion of custo­mer-speci­fic requi­re­ments. The company relies on its 80 years of expe­ri­ence and the supe­rior tech­ni­cal know-how of its employees. High-precis­ion stam­ped, embos­sed, bent and drawn parts are produ­ced in a modern machine park with a high degree of in-house produc­tion depth. All areas of the company are subject to a conti­nuous impro­ve­ment process based on effec­tive zero-defect stra­te­gies. E. WINKEMANN GmbH offers a compre­hen­sive range of services from product deve­lo­p­ment to series production.
News

Düssel­dorf, Germany - Allen & Overy LLP advi­sed US-based Eli Global LLC (Eli) on the acqui­si­tion of finanzen.de Vermitt­lungs­ge­sell­schaft für Verbrau­cher­ver­träge AG(finanzen.de) and its subsi­dia­ries in Germany, France, the UK and Switz­er­land from Black­fin Capi­tal Part­ners and the foun­ders of finanzen.de.

Finanzen.de is a successful Insur­Tech company based in Berlin and the leading Euro­pean online market­place for consu­mer leads in the finance and insu­rance sector.

The acqui­si­tion of finanzen.de is Eli’s first tran­sac­tion in Germany and the first company in Eli’s new finan­cial and insu­rance services port­fo­lio, which will consist of a diver­si­fied mix of compa­nies offe­ring such services and cover various sectors and sub-sectors. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to take place later this year. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The Allen & Overyteam consis­ted of Part­ner Dr. Jan Schrö­der and Coun­sel Anne Fischer (both Lead, bothCorporate/M&A/Insurance Corpo­rate), Part­ner Tobias Neufeld, Asso­ciate Catha­rina Glugla (both Data Protec­tion and Labor Law), Senior Asso­ciate Miray Kavruk (IP/IT, all Düssel­dorf) as well as Part­ner Thomas Neubaum , Coun­sel Bianca Engel­mann, Senior Asociate Elke Funken-Hötzel and Asso­ciate Dr. Anna Serwotka (all Banking and Finance, both Frank­furt). — In addi­tion, teams from Allen & Over­y’s Paris and London offices were involved.

The law firm Niede­rer Kraft & Frey advi­sed on Swiss law.

About Allen & Overy
Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,400 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 50 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.

 

News

London — IK Invest­ment Part­ners (“IK”), a leading pan-Euro­pean private equity firm, today announ­ced the closing of its IK Small Cap II Fund (“IK Small Cap II” or “the Fund”) at the hard cap of €550 million set out in the Fund’s Artic­les of Asso­cia­tion. The fund was signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed and was placed exclu­si­vely with exis­ting inves­tors of IK.

The new fund is twice the size of its prede­ces­sor, which was IK’s first small cap fund closed in March 2016 at a hard cap of 277 million euros. The IK Small Cap I Fund has inves­ted in 12 compa­nies, of which three invest­ments have been successfully sold to date.

Like its prede­ces­sor fund, IK Small Cap II will focus on growth compa­nies in the core markets of Bene­lux, DACH, France and the Scan­di­na­vian count­ries. The invest­ments are carried out by a dedi­ca­ted small cap team with offices in Amster­dam, Hamburg, Paris and Stockholm.

Chris­to­pher Masek (photo), CEO of IK Invest­ment Part­ners, said, “Compa­nies, such as those that fall within the invest­ment focus of IK Small Cap II, are, we believe, the drivers of econo­mic growth and job crea­tion in Europe. The contin­ued confi­dence and support of our inves­tors unders­cores the high importance of inves­t­ing in this market segment, enab­ling compa­nies to enter their next phase of growth.”

Kris­tian Carls­son Kemp­pi­nen, Part­ner and respon­si­ble for the IK Small Cap Funds at IK Invest­ment Part­ners, added: “In 2017, we have seen an unpre­ce­den­ted abun­dance of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, with very crea­tive and ambi­tious compa­nies. We look forward to iden­ti­fy­ing and helping these future indus­try leaders reach their full potential.”

Nils Pohl­mann, Part­ner at IK Invest­ment Part­ners, said: “We are encou­ra­ged by the large number of excel­lent compa­nies in the DACH region and the resul­ting invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. IK’s value crea­tion approach combi­nes buy-and-build stra­te­gies and opera­tio­nal excel­lence, making it ideally aligned with high-growth natio­nal and global cham­pi­ons of the German Mittelstand.”

Gregor Korte, Part­ner at IK Invest­ment Part­ners, added: “Our far-reaching Euro­pean plat­form, combi­ned with our exten­sive local market know­ledge, offers unique growth oppor­tu­ni­ties to ambi­tious German small cap compa­nies. We look forward to part­ne­ring further with talen­ted entre­pre­neurs in the DACH region and helping them grow their businesses.”

Kirk­land & Ellis was manda­ted to provide legal advice to the IK Small Cap II Fund.

About 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 more than 9.5 billion euros and inves­ted in more than 115 Euro­pean compa­nies through the funds. The IK funds invest toge­ther with the respec­tive manage­ment and their inves­tors in medium-sized compa­nies with signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial in order to create successful, well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with excel­lent pros­pects for the future.

News

Bietig­heim Bissingen/ Eschborn/ Frank­furt a. M. — Funds advi­sed by private equity firm Triton have successfully comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of BFC Fahr­zeug­teile in Bietig­heim Bissin­gen. BFC Fahr­zeug­teile GmbH is a leading global specia­list and tech­no­logy leader in the field of metal clam­ping profiles for the auto­mo­tive indus­try and main­ta­ins produc­tion sites in Germany, China, Turkey and the USA.

The Triton funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Europe and support their posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. They focus on compa­nies in the indus­trial, services and consu­mer goods/healthcare sectors. Triton’s goal is to successfully deve­lop its port­fo­lio compa­nies in the long term by working toge­ther as part­ners. 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 36 compa­nies with total sales of around EUR 14.2 billion and around 91,000 employees. The Triton funds are advi­sed by expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment profes­sio­nals based in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Italy, the UK, the US, China, Luxem­bourg and Jersey.

The inter­na­tio­nally active BFC Fahr­zeug­teile Group, head­quar­te­red in Bietig­heim-Bissin­gen, is one of the global market leaders in the field of metal clam­ping profiles for the auto­mo­tive indus­try. These products are mainly used in vehicle door, trunk and other body seals. BFC also designs and manu­fac­tures the machi­nes used, opera­ting highly flexi­ble produc­tion lines at seve­ral loca­ti­ons in Germany (2), the USA, China (2) and Turkey.

In the context of the tran­sac­tion, Triton was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed by a team of Rödl & Part­ner specia­li­zed in private equity tran­sac­tions under the leader­ship of part­ner Jochen Reis in the context of the finan­cial due dili­gence. The Tran­sac­tion Services team led by Jochen Reis advi­ses private equity compa­nies in parti­cu­lar on natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tion projects at the Esch­born / Frank­furt office.

About Triton
The invest­ment company Triton invests prima­rily in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxem­bourg, the Nether­lands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switz­er­land. We focus on medium-sized compa­nies that have the poten­tial to grow conti­nuously over econo­mic cycles. To foster this poten­tial, we work closely with the respec­tive manage­ment teams. Our invest­ment focus is on the indus­trial, service and consu­mer goods sectors

We curr­ently have invest­ments in compa­nies in Denmark, Germany, Finland, Luxem­bourg, Norway and Sweden. These compa­nies gene­rate total sales of around 14.2 billion euros and employ a total of around 91,000 people.

Advi­sor Triton: Rödl & Part­ner Eschborn
Jochen Reis, Head of Tran­sac­tion Services Esch­born, Diplom-Kauf­mann, Part­ner (Finan­cial Due Dili­gence), Simon Nieder­mann, Asso­ciate (Finan­cial Due Diligence)

About Rödl & Partner
As lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, busi­ness and IT consul­tants and audi­tors, we are repre­sen­ted at 108 of our own loca­ti­ons in 50 count­ries. Our clients trust our 4,500 colle­agues worldwide.

News

Trois­dorf — Effec­tive Janu­ary 17, 2018, the Reifen­häu­ser Group will acquire the EDS Group, an inter­na­tio­nal supplier of high-quality extru­sion dies. The inter­na­tio­nal nozzle specia­list EDS stands for tailor-made products in nozzle manu­fac­tu­ring and is a specia­list for flat nozz­les; Reifen­häu­ser stands inter­na­tio­nally for inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies in plas­tics extrusion.

Reifen­häu­ser is thus expan­ding its know-how in the compon­ents busi­ness and posi­tio­ning itself as a leading compon­ents supplier for extru­ders and dies. The acqui­si­tion combi­nes the strengths of both high-perfor­mance brands. EDS and Reifen­häu­ser comple­ment each other perfectly in terms of design and manu­fac­tu­ring know-how. With the acqui­si­tion, custo­mers will bene­fit in the future from shared high-perfor­mance tech­no­logy and manu­fac­tu­ring resour­ces as well as a global sales struc­ture. Over­all, Reifen­häu­ser is massi­vely expan­ding its tech­no­logy leader­ship in the field of nozzle produc­tion with this transaction.

MAYLAND AG was exclu­si­vely manda­ted with the sales process by Mr. Müller, the owner of the EDS Group. The process was successfully comple­ted in Decem­ber 2017 within a period of only four months with the sale to the Reifen­häu­ser Group.

About MAYLAND AG
MAYLAND is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged M&A consul­tancy based in Düssel­dorf. Since its foun­da­tion in 1998, MAYLAND, CEO Matthias C. Just (photo), has been deve­lo­ping indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons for the purchase and sale of compa­nies or parts of compa­nies with owners and manage­ment of both medium-sized compa­nies and corpo­rate groups and imple­men­ting these tran­sac­tions toge­ther with the decis­ion-makers. MAYLAND also arran­ges any neces­sary or requi­red finan­cing or asso­cia­ted restructuring.

MAYLAND provi­des struc­tu­red process manage­ment for these natio­nal and cross-border projects and coor­di­na­tes all services for a successful comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion. With analy­ti­cal excel­lence, many years of expe­ri­ence and a commit­ment to part­ner­ship, MAYLAND struc­tures tran­sac­tions in all phases of a company. MAYLAND atta­ches parti­cu­lar importance to custo­mi­zed and holi­stic solu­ti­ons, trans­pa­rent consul­ting services and long-term custo­mer rela­ti­onships based on trust.

News

Munich — Private equity inves­tor Gene­ral Atlan­tic was successful in the bidding process for a mino­rity stake in the digi­tal divi­sion of ProSiebenSat.1 Group. The parties announ­ced that Gene­ral Atlan­tic is acqui­ring a 25.1 percent stake in NuCom Group. The tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties, is based on an enter­prise value of the NuCom Group of EUR 1.8 billion.

In the NuCom Group, ProSiebenSat.l Media SE bund­les ten stra­te­gic invest­ments in predo­mi­nantly digi­tal commerce plat­forms, inclu­ding Veri­vox, Parship Elite Group and Jochen Schwei­zer mydays Group. The compa­nies bene­fit from the parent company’s high TV reach and mutual syner­gies, and are growing steadily on this basis. With Gene­ral Atlan­tic as a part­ner, ProSiebenSat.1 wants to further expand and inter­na­tio­na­lize the digi­tal division.

Gene­ral Atlan­tic is distin­gu­is­hed by deca­des of exper­tise as a stra­te­gic inves­tor in global compa­nies in the Inter­net and tech­no­logy sectors. Gene­ral Atlan­tic provi­des capi­tal and stra­te­gic support to compa­nies with high growth poten­tial. The fund employs more than 110 invest­ment profes­sio­nals across its offices in New York, Amster­dam, Beijing, Green­wich, Hong Kong, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Shang­hai and Singa­pore, and mana­ges more than $20 billion in assets.

Advi­sor Gene­ral Atlan­tic: Gleiss Lutz 
Lead Corporate/M&A Part­ners Dr. Jan Bals­sen (Munich) and Dr. Jan Bauer (Frank­furt)
Dr. Tobias Falk­ner (Coun­sel), Dr. Verena Kopp­mann, Dr. Tobias Harzenet­ter (Coun­sel), Dr. Stephan Dangel­mayer, Dr. Olaf Hohle­fel­der, Dr. Johan­nes Witt­mann, (all Corporate/M&A, all Munich), Dr. Stefan Mayer (Part­ner), Dr. Ocka Stumm (both Tax, both Frank­furt), Dr. Matthias Werner (Coun­sel), Dr. Björn Kalb­fus (Coun­sel), Dr. Manuel Klar, Dr. Theresa Uhlen­hut (all Munich), Dr. Hannah Bug (Berlin, all IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Dr. Stefan Aubel (Part­ner, Frank­furt, Capi­tal Markets), Dr. Jens Günther (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Bögl­mül­ler, Dr. Eva Heup (all Labor Law, all Munich), Dr. Reimar Buch­ner (Part­ner), Dr. Jan-Peter Spie­gel (Coun­sel, both Medi­cal Law, both Berlin), Dr. Phil­ipp Naab (Coun­sel), Svenja Bender (both Real Estate Law, both Frank­furt), Dr. Luid­ger Röck­rath (Coun­sel), Simon Fischer (both Dispute Reso­lu­tion), Dr. Petra Lins­meier (Part­ner) and Dr. Daniel Petzold (both Anti­trust Law, all Munich).

 

Gene­ral Atlan­tic is to acquire 25.1 percent of the shares in the Nucom Group , which includes online plat­forms such as Veri­vox and Parship, the company announ­ced in Unter­föh­ring. The Nucom Group is valued at 1.8 billion euros.
AdTech Ad
This confirmed the specu­la­tion about the deal that had been circu­la­ting for seve­ral days and had alre­ady caused slight price jumps in the share price. The inves­tor is highly regarded in the indus­try for his exten­sive exper­tise. A few years ago, for exam­ple, he was a major share­hol­der in Axel Sprin­ger’s online clas­si­fieds busi­ness. He is also known in Germany as a co-owner of the long-distance bus opera­tor Flix­bus — in the USA, he holds shares in Airbnb and Uber, among others.

News

Pinnen­berg — The phar­maceu­ti­cal factory Evers GmbH & Co KG sells to the Chinese company Bright Future Phar­maceu­ti­cal Labo­ra­to­ries Ltd. The company produ­ces mainly natu­ral medi­ci­nes for the urology and gastro­en­te­ro­logy sector, which are sold inter­na­tio­nally and very stron­gly on the Asian market, espe­ci­ally in Japan and China. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The family busi­ness Phar­ma­zeu­ti­sche Fabrik Evers GmbH & Co KG was foun­ded in 1933. Head­quar­te­red in Pinne­berg, near Hamburg, Germany, the company focu­ses on a selec­ted range of natu­ral medi­ci­nes for the urology and gastro­en­te­ro­logy sectors and acts as a licen­sor in seve­ral count­ries. The Evipro­stat S, Evipro­stat N and Gallith brands are among the estab­lished products in this field.

Estab­lished in 1993, Bright Future Phar­maceu­ti­cal Labo­ra­to­ries Ltd is the largest GMP (Good Manu­fac­tu­ring Prac­tice) certi­fied phar­maceu­ti­cal manu­fac­tu­rer in Hong Kong. The company, with more than 7,000 employees, provi­des people with access to medi­ci­nes at afforda­ble prices and is parti­cu­larly active in key growth markets such as Hong Kong, main­land China, North America, Africa, Southe­ast Asia and Europe.

Advi­sors to Evers GmbH & Co KG: DLA Piper
The tran­sac­tion once again under­lines the exten­sive expe­ri­ence of the DLA Piper German China Desk, this time on the German seller side.

The core team of DLA Piper under the leader­ship of part­ner Dr. Nils Krause (photo ) contin­ued to consist of senior asso­ciate Dr. Jan-Phil­ipp Meier and asso­cia­tes Dr. Jasper von Georg and Ronja Hecker (all Corpo­rate, Hamburg). In addi­tion, Part­ner Guido Kleve, Coun­sel Dr. Thilo Streit (both Liti­ga­tion and Regu­la­tory, Colo­gne) and Chris­tian Lonquich (Real Estate, Frank­furt) as well as Tran­sac­tion Lawyer Hui Hao (Corpo­rate, Hamburg) were part of the team.

News

Düssel­dorf — The law firm FPS provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the family share­hol­ders of the coupling manu­fac­tu­rer CENTA Antriebe Kirschey GmbH (“CENTA”) on the sale of their shares in the context of a bidding compe­ti­tion to the Ameri­can drive and conveyor chain manu­fac­tu­rer Rexnord Corpo­ra­tion (“Rexnord”). The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been comple­ted follo­wing appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

Foun­ded in 1970 and head­quar­te­red in Haan, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, the family-owned company CENTA is one of the worl­d’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of advan­ced flexi­ble couplings and drive shafts for rail, indus­try, marine and the energy sector. The company has an inter­na­tio­nal presence with ten subsi­dia­ries, around 30 agen­cies and two licen­sees, and opera­tes produc­tion sites in Germany, England, the USA and China. With more than 500 employees world­wide, CENTA recently achie­ved sales of over EUR 100 million.

NYSE-listed Rexnord is head­quar­te­red in Milwau­kee, Wiscon­sin, USA, and produ­ces compon­ents in the field of drive tech­no­logy and for conveyor tech­no­logy, for exam­ple chains, couplings and conveyor systems, at more than 20 manu­fac­tu­ring sites with more than 8,000 employees world­wide. In Europe, Rexnord opera­tes seven manu­fac­tu­ring and logi­stics sites, inclu­ding Betz­dorf in Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate and Dortmund.

Under the leader­ship of Düssel­dorf M&A Part­ner Dr. Georg-Peter Kränz­lin (photo) toge­ther with Asso­cia­ted Part­ner Dr. Sebas­tian Weller, FPS provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal support and advice to the tran­sac­tion and all family share­hol­ders of CENTA across all offices. The inter­na­tio­nal law firm network of FPS was consul­ted for the foreign companies.

Advi­sors to CENTA Antriebe Kirschey GmbH: FPS Fritze Wicke Seelig Düsseldorf
Dr. Georg-Peter Kränz­lin, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Sebas­tian Weller, Asso­cia­ted Part­ner (Co-Lead, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Anja Krüger, Asso­cia­ted Part­ner (Corpo­rate, M&A)
Tobias Törnig, Part­ner (Real Estate)
Dr. Karl Fried­rich Dumoulin, Part­ner (IP)

Rexnord was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Baker & McKen­zie, led by Dr. Florian Kästle and Dr. Doro­thee Prosteder.

News

Berlin — German private equity firm Odewald KMU (Berlin) has sold 7days Group, a provi­der of work­wear for the health­care sector, to Silver­fleet Capi­tal. — The company’s foun­ders, Marc Staper­feld and Ulrich Dölken, conti­nue to be invol­ved in the company through a reverse shareholding.

7days designs, manu­fac­tures and distri­bu­tes work­wear for medi­cal profes­si­ons. The product range includes medi­cal and labo­ra­tory coats, tops, pants, shoes and access­ories. A special focus is on the offer for medi­cal and dental prac­ti­ces. Foun­ded in 1999, the company is head­quar­te­red in Lotte near Osnabrück.

Odewald KMU (Berlin) also acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Langer & Laumann Inge­nieur­büro GmbH.

Langer & Laumann Inge­nieur­büro GmbH specia­li­zes in the instal­la­tion and moder­niza­tion of door drives for eleva­tors and safety doors on or in machi­nes. The previous owners have taken a reverse stake in the tran­sac­tion and will conti­nue to manage the group. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the amount of the investment.

The invest­ment is the third invest­ment of the new Odewald KMU II Fund. Odewald KMU invests in medium-sized, estab­lished and high-growth compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Inves­tors are predo­mi­nantly German insti­tu­tio­nal asset manage­ment compa­nies and wealthy private inves­tors. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners has alre­ady provi­ded tax advice to the first invest­ments of the Odewald KMU II Fund.

Advi­sor Odewald SME: P+P Pöllath + Partners
In both tran­sac­tions Odewald KMU was advi­sed on tax matters by:
— Alex­an­der Pupe­ter (Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Tax, Munich)
— Mareen Glaab (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Tax, Munich)

News

Münster/Paris — eCAPI­TAL (Müns­ter) and Deme­ter Part­ners (Paris) have signed a coope­ra­tion agree­ment to mutually comple­ment their exper­tise in the common invest­ment areas of Clean­tech, Indus­try 4.0 and New Mate­ri­als and to jointly deve­lop a compre­hen­sive sector under­stan­ding at Euro­pean level. The part­ner­ship means addi­tio­nal added value for both the inves­tors in the funds and the entre­pre­neurs in the investments.

As part of the coope­ra­tion, the two venture capi­tal compa­nies will support each other in moni­to­ring indus­tries and invest­ment trends, exch­ange coun­try-speci­fic know­ledge, provide the part­ner’s port­fo­lio compa­nies with access to their own networks and support each other in fundraising.

Deme­ter (www.demeter-im.com) is a leading Euro­pean private equity inves­tor in the field of ecolo­gi­cal trans­for­ma­tion and energy tran­si­tion. The company’s funds invest amounts ranging from €500,000 to €30 million to support compa­nies in this sector at all stages of deve­lo­p­ment: thus, Deme­ter accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive start-ups, high-growth SMEs, as well as mid-cap compa­nies and infra­struc­ture projects. The Deme­ter team, consis­ting of 33 employees in Paris, Greno­ble, Metz and Madrid, mana­ges a total of €1 billion and has reali­zed 120 invest­ments in the last twelve years.

eCAPI­TAL (www.ecapital.de) is a leading German venture capi­tal firm that invests in inno­va­tive compa­nies in early to later stage phases. For almost two deca­des, eCAPI­TAL has been support­ing fast-growing compa­nies in the areas of Clean­tech, Indus­try 4.0, Soft­ware / IT and New Mate­ri­als — with the goal of deve­lo­ping them into global market leaders. Curr­ently eCAPI­TAL mana­ges six funds with a subscrip­tion capi­tal of more than € 220 million.

“On the one hand, the coope­ra­tion between Deme­ter and eCAPI­TAL allows both compa­nies to further focus as well as build on their strengths in their respec­tive home markets, while on the other hand, the reach in terms of addi­tio­nal Euro­pean networks is increased to best support the global ambi­ti­ons of the port­fo­lio compa­nies,” says Willi Mann­heims, Mana­ging Part­ner at eCAPI­TAL.

“We are very exci­ted about the part­ner­ship of our compa­nies, which share a common vision and culture. Our primary goal is to enable the deve­lo­p­ment of cham­pi­ons of envi­ron­men­tal change and energy tran­si­tion, and to support them in moving into new dimen­si­ons in these markets,” says Stéphane Ville­croze, Mana­ging Part­ner at Deme­ter.

News

Commerz­Ven­tures GmbH has inves­ted in Payworks, a provi­der of mobile payment services, as part of a Series B finan­cing round.

Commerz­Ven­tures as well as Visa inves­ted in the company for the first time as main inves­tors. In addi­tion, legacy inves­tors Speed­in­vest and Finparx were also repre­sen­ted again. In total, Payworks raised $14.5 million in new capi­tal from inves­tors for its inter­na­tio­nal growth and inno­va­tion strategy.

Payworks inte­gra­tes mobile payments into apps and card readers. The Munich-based company offers a B2B service that provi­des an easy path to mobile payment (point-of-sale) capa­bi­li­ties. The GmbH was foun­ded in April 2012 by Chris­tian Deger, David Bellem, Simon Eumes and Johan­nes Lechner.

Commerz­Ven­tures GmbH is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Commerz­bank based in Frank­furt. The corpo­rate venture capi­tal company with a focus on finan­cial services invests in young compa­nies that specia­lize in inno­va­tive products, services and tech­no­lo­gies in the FinTech sector.

Advi­sor Commerz­Ven­tures: P+P Pöllath + Partners 
— Dr. Michael Inhes­ter (Part­ner, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
— Andreas Kühnert (Asso­ciate, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich)

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed Posei­don GmbH on the sale of great­con­tent AG to the MAIRDUMONT media group. A private family of inves­tors is behind Posei­don GmbH. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Berlin-based great­con­tent AG has been on the market since 2011 with an online plat­form that offers compa­nies access to profes­sio­nal authors for marke­ting and SEO content and has since become one of the market leaders in Europe. Custo­mers include online fashion retailer Zalando, car rental company Sixt, C&A and Kayak.

“After a phase of conti­nuous growth, now is the right time to trans­fer great­con­tent into a larger corpo­rate struc­ture. We are looking forward to further expan­ding our offe­ring in the future toge­ther with an estab­lished stra­te­gic part­ner like MAIRDUMONT,” explains Daniel Förs­ter­mann, member of the board of great­con­tent AG. Mr. Förs­ter­mann will conti­nue to manage the busi­ness after the change of ownership.

MAIRDUMONT is the leading company for tourist infor­ma­tion in Europe. The offe­ring covers the entire media spec­trum of print, online and mobile. More than 10 media compa­nies world­wide belong to the MAIRDUMONT Group.

Advi­sors to Posei­don GmbH: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Lars Laeger (M&A, lead); Johan­nes Landry (Commer­cial); Asso­cia­tes: Thomas Chwa­lek (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Markus Schwip­per (Labor Law), Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP; both Munich)

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 lawy­ers 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 as well as intellec­tual property and liti­ga­tion. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Munich — Munich-based parking sensor provi­der Cler­ver­citi Systems has found a second inves­tor in EnBW New Ventures. The venture capi­tal subsi­diary of the Baden-Würt­tem­berg-based energy giant is inves­t­ing ten million euros in the start-up, which wants to take the plunge into the Ameri­can market. The group of inves­tors in Clever­citi Systems alre­ady includes the Belgian invest­ment company SPDG.

Clever­citi Systems has been produ­cing systems for energy-saving parking manage­ment since 2012. Free parking spaces are displayed to the minute by means of perma­nently instal­led sensors. In 2016, the company was able to win the Belgian inves­tor SPDG. With EnBW New Ventures, the company is now aiming to market its digi­tal tech­no­logy internationally.

For some time now, EnBW New Ventures has been making targe­ted invest­ments in young compa­nies that repre­sent the digi­ta­li­zed energy world of the future. The port­fo­lio includes, for exam­ple, Theva, a Bava­rian equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer, and Lumen­aza, a Berlin-based soft­ware company foun­ded in 2013 that offers solu­ti­ons for regio­nal power supply.

Advi­sor EnBW: Weit­nauer (Munich)
Dr. Wolf­gang Weit­nauer (Corporate/M&A)
Inhouse Legal: Martin Düker (Gene­ral Counsel)

Advi­sors to Clever­citi Systems: Baker & McKen­zie (Munich)
Dr. Michael Barto­sch (Lead), Bert­hold Hummel (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Lothar Deter­mann (IP Law; San Fran­cisco); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Tino Marz, Hanna Lütkens (both Corpo­rate), Fabian Bött­ger (Munich), Dr. Markus Hecht (both IP Law; Frankfurt)
GKK Part­ners (Munich)
Hermann Krämer (auditor/tax consul­tant) — known from the market

News

Osna­brück, Germany — The German manu­fac­tu­rer of copper products, KME, issues a bond with a volume of €300 million. The bond (A2G8U5) pays inves­tors a fixed annual inte­rest rate of 6.75% until matu­rity on Feb. 1, 2023. This is paid in April and Octo­ber of each year. The issue price was 98.953%, which repre­sen­ted a spread of +693 bps over the compa­ra­ble Bund. The wholly owned subsi­diary of the Milan-based Intek Group S.p.A. included three addi­tio­nal termi­na­tion dates in the terms and condi­ti­ons of the issue, in addi­tion to a Make Whole option.

The Frank­furt office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed KME AG, an inter­na­tio­nally active manu­fac­tu­rer of copper and copper alloys, on the successful place­ment of a high-yield bond with a volume of EUR 300 million and a matu­rity date of 2023. The proceeds of the issue will be used to redeem exis­ting liabilities.

The place­ment of the bond issued by KME AG to insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors was mana­ged by Gold­man Sachs Inter­na­tio­nal, BNP PARIBAS and Deut­sche Bank as Global Co-ordi­na­tors and Joint Book­run­ners. KME AG’s capi­tal market debut with this bond follows a successful inter­nal reor­ga­niza­tion with signi­fi­cant increa­ses in value added.

Weil’s advi­sory team was led by Frank­furt part­ner Michael Kohl (Banking & Finance) and supported by part­ners Dr. Wolf­ram Distler (Banking & Finance, Frank­furt) and Dr. Ingo Kleut­gens (Tax, Frank­furt), coun­sel Dr. Heiner Drüke (Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt) and Frank­furt asso­cia­tes Julia Schum, Stef­fen Giolda and para­le­gal Nico Schub­art (all Banking & Finance, Frankfurt).

Weil has been advi­sing the Osna­brück-based KME Group for many years on its inter­na­tio­nal bank finan­cing (borro­wing base finan­cing) as well as multi-juris­dic­tional factoring.

News

Oldenburg/ Paris — The fast-growing French market leader for photo­fi­nis­hing apps will become part of the Euro­pean photo­fi­nis­hing market leader: CEWE Stif­tung & Co. KGaA (SDAX, ISIN: DE 0005403901), head­quar­te­red in Olden­burg, has reached an agree­ment with the owners of the Cheerz Group (Paris) on a share­hol­ding. The Cheerz Group (Paris) is growing dyna­mi­cally in France, Spain and Italy with its premium brand “Cheerz,” which is prima­rily targe­ted at smart­phone users. — CEWE, which was foun­ded in 1961 and has around 3,500 employees, is initi­ally acqui­ring around 80 % of the shares in the Cheerz Group for 36 million euros. The tran­sac­tion values the company at slightly more than one and a half times expec­ted 2018 reve­nue. The CEWE Board of Manage­ment initi­ally expects the take­over — inclu­ding purchase price allo­ca­tion and tran­sac­tion costs — to have a nega­tive EBIT effect of around 4 million euros in the current busi­ness year.

Sustained posi­tive effect on enter­prise value expected
The CEWE Board of Manage­ment expects the invest­ment to streng­then busi­ness in France and Southern Europe through addi­tio­nal growth in mobile busi­ness. He also anti­ci­pa­tes syner­gies in the areas of mobile compe­tence, purcha­sing, produc­tion and logi­stics. “We are certain that this invest­ment will have a lasting posi­tive effect on the value of the company as a whole,” says Dr. Chris­tian Friege, Chair­man of the Board of Manage­ment of CEWE Stif­tung & Co. KGaA. “In addi­tion to the clas­sic syner­gies, we were convin­ced by the high level of custo­mer orien­ta­tion, the user-friendly solu­tion, the posi­tio­ning as a premium brand, and the tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise of the strong, entre­pre­neu­rial manage­ment team. We want to main­tain this posi­tive culture and these compe­ten­cies in exactly the same way. Cheerz stands for a convin­cing idea: A fast way to a cool product!”, Friege continues.

Aure­lien de Meaux and Antoine Le Conte, foun­ders of Cheerz, add: “We are deligh­ted to have found a part­ner in CEWE that stands for the highest produc­tion quality and scala­bi­lity and can thus best support our dyna­mic growth in France and Southern Europe. We want to grow into a new dimen­sion with a true Euro­pean cham­pion — quickly, easily and in a direct way. Just the way we are. It was important for us that CEWE appre­cia­tes and wants to main­tain our corpo­rate culture. It’s a perfect fit!”

Advi­sers to CEWE Stif­tung & Co. KGaA: P+P Pöllath + Part­ners and its French part­ner law firm Jeantet

P+P:
Otto Haber­stock (Part­ner, Lead, M&A, Munich)
Dr. Eva Nase (Part­ner, Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann (Coun­sel, Merger Control, Frankfurt)
Phil­ipp Opitz (Senior Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets, Munich)

Jean­tet:
Karl Hepp de Seve­lin­ges (Part­ner, Lead M&A, Paris)
Michael Samol (Coun­sel, M&A, Paris)
Ruben Koslar (Asso­ciate, M&A, Paris)
Gabriel di Chiara (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax, Paris)
Fréde­ric Sardain (Part­ner, IP, Paris)

 

News

Berlin — InFarm recei­ves EUR 20 million Series A finan­cing from Cherry Ventures, led by Balder­ton Capi­tal. In addi­tion to new share­hol­ders such as Triple­Point and Mons Invest­ments LLC, exis­ting inves­tors Cherry Ventures, Quadia and Local­Globe also parti­ci­pa­ted. Cherry Ventures was advi­sed by Clemens Waitz and Sabine Röth of the law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz. Spring 2017, Clemens Waitz and Sabine Röth (Photo) advi­sed Cherry Ventures on the seed finan­cing round led by Cherry Ventures. In this frame­work, Quadia and Local­Globe had also participated.

InFarm, a verti­cal farming startup, was foun­ded in 2013. There are now more than 50 verti­cal farms in Berlin restau­rant kitchens, super­mar­kets and warehou­ses, inclu­ding Edeka and Metro stores. With the fresh money, InFarm plans to go to Paris, London and Copen­ha­gen this year, as well as launch in other German cities.

Consul­tant: Vogel Heerma Waitz
Dr. Clemens Waitz (Part­ner)
Sabine Röth (Part­ner)

About Vogel Heerma Waitz
Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media that has been in opera­tion since May 2014 and can draw on a total of more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence of its part­ners and staff in connec­tion with growth capi­tal financings.

News

Brussels, Febru­ary 9, 2018 — svt Holding GmbH (“svt”), a port­fo­lio company of Ergon Capi­tal Part­ners III S.A. (“Ergon”), joins forces with the Rolf Kuhn Group, consis­ting of Rolf Kuhn GmbH and an indi­rect 90% inte­rest in Rolf Kuhn Brand­schutz GmbH, Austria, as well as Flamro Brand­schutz-Systeme GmbH, Prüf- und Tech­nik­zen­trum Brand­schutz GmbH and Kuhn Service GmbH (the “Rolf Kuhn Group”).

The Rolf Kuhn Group, foun­ded in 1976, is a leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of fire protec­tion mate­ri­als for the proces­sing indus­try, espe­ci­ally the door indus­try, for complete systems in buil­ding services as well as fire protec­tion access­ories for the glazing indus­try. Flamro, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of bulk­head systems, has also been part of the Rolf Kuhn Group since 2012, as has Brand­che­mie since 2016.

The merger of the Rolf Kuhn Group and svt crea­tes a leading Euro­pean supplier of fire protec­tion products with the largest and most compre­hen­sive product port­fo­lio. Toge­ther, the group employs over 600 people and gene­ra­tes sales of appro­xi­m­ately €150 million in over 60 count­ries. The Group has an exten­sive port­fo­lio of over 400 natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal approvals

Mr. Jürgen Wied, as the respon­si­ble opera­tio­nal mana­ging direc­tor in the compa­nies of the Rolf Kuhn Group, looks back on 23 years of expe­ri­ence with the Rolf Kuhn Group and will conti­nue to hold the opera­tio­nal respon­si­bi­lity. Mr. Harald Kuhn, as previous share­hol­der of the Rolf Kuhn Group, will contri­bute his valuable expe­ri­ence to the joint group within the frame­work of an advi­sory board posi­tion. Mr. Stef­fen Gerdau will lead the Group as CEO.

“After long and inten­sive deli­be­ra­ti­ons on the solu­tion for the succes­sion of the Rolf Kuhn Group, I am convin­ced to have found the ideal part­ner in svt. The acti­vi­ties of the two compa­nies, which have grown conti­nuously in recent years, comple­ment each other perfectly,” commen­ted Harald Kuhn. Stef­fen Gerdau said, “I am looking forward to working with the employees of the Rolf Kuhn Group. svt and Rolf Kuhn comple­ment each other ideally and I am convin­ced that toge­ther the new group will serve its custo­mers even more successfully in the natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal markets.”

Wolf­gang de Limburg, Mana­ging Part­ner of Ergon, added: “We are very plea­sed to accom­pany svt and Rolf Kuhn in this important stra­te­gic step. We are convin­ced of the indus­trial logic of the merger and thank both manage­ment teams and Mr. Kuhn for their confi­dence in Ergon as a new share­hol­der.” Nils Lüssem, Part­ner at Ergon in Germany added: “The combi­ned group forms a leading Euro­pean market player in the attrac­tive niche market of products for preven­tive passive fire protec­tion. We are plea­sed to be able to support the combi­ned group in the future.” — The merger is subject to the suspen­sive condi­tion of anti­trust approval.

About Rolf Kuhn Group
The Rolf Kuhn Group was foun­ded in 1976 and has its head­quar­ters in Ernd­te­brück in North Rhine-West­pha­lia. The Rolf Kuhn Group is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of fire protec­tion mate­ri­als for the proces­sing indus­try, espe­ci­ally the door indus­try, for complete systems in buil­ding tech­no­logy as well as fire protec­tion access­ories for the glazing indus­try. With ~160 employees, the group distri­bu­tes its products in Germany and inter­na­tio­nally in ~60 count­ries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
www.kuhn-brandschutz.com and www.flamro.de

About svt
svt was foun­ded in 1969 and has its head­quar­ters in Seeve­tal near Hamburg. svt is a leading supplier of products for preven­tive passive fire protec­tion and their instal­la­tion. In addi­tion, svt is a full-service provi­der for damage resto­ra­tion services follo­wing fire, water and natu­ral hazards damage, as well as for the removal of pollut­ants. With ~450 employees, svt serves its custo­mers through its nati­on­wide network of 32 offices and through its subsi­dia­ries in Singa­pore, Dubai and Poland. www.svt.de

About Ergon Capi­tal Part­ners III S.A.
Ergon Capi­tal Part­ners III S.A. (“Ergon”) is a leading middle market inves­tor with ~€500 million of capi­tal under manage­ment, predo­mi­nantly finan­ced by the family holding company Groupe Bruxel­les Lambert (“GBL”). Ergon is a disci­pli­ned and discreet share­hol­der with “friendly” capi­tal and a focus on profes­sio­na­liza­tion, opera­tio­nal value enhance­ment and growth. Ergon is targe­ting equity invest­ments of €25 million to €75 million in leading compa­nies with sustainable compe­ti­tive posi­ti­ons in Bene­lux, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Switz­er­land. Ergon is advi­sed by Ergon Capi­tal Advi­sors with offices in Brussels, Madrid, Milan, Munich and Paris.
Since its foun­da­tion in 2005, Ergon has inves­ted in 18 port­fo­lio compa­nies (5 in Bene­lux, 3 in Germany, 2 in France, 7 in Italy and 1 in Spain) as well as 31 addi­tio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons with a volume of € 3.0 billion.

News

Frank­furt a. M. — FAZIT-STIFTUNG, which includes Frank­fur­ter Allge­meine Zeitung GmbH as well as Frank­fur­ter Socie­tät GmbH, and Zeitungs­hol­ding Hessen (“ZHH”), owned by Ippen Medi­en­gruppe and the Rempel fami­ly’s MDV-Medi­en­gruppe, have reached an agree­ment on the sale of Medi­en­gruppe Frank­furt to ZHH. The sale is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

The Frank­furt Media Group compri­ses the Frank­fur­ter Rund­schau, the Frank­fur­ter Neue Presse with its regio­nal editi­ons, the adver­ti­sing jour­nal Mix am Mitt­woch, the marke­ting company RheinMain.Media, the digi­tal agency Rhein-Main.Net and the Frank­fur­ter Societäts-Druckerei.

Advi­sor to FAZIT-STIFTUNG: Henge­ler Mueller 
Active were the part­ners Dr. Joachim Rosen­gar­ten(photo(Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Alf-Henrik Bischke (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Ernst-Thomas Kraft (Tax, Frank­furt) and Dr. Fabian Alex­an­der Quast (Public Commer­cial Law, Berlin), Coun­sel Dr. Markus Ernst (Tax, Munich) and Asso­cia­tes Dr. Thomas Lang, Till Wans­le­ben (both Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Phil­ipp Otto Neideck (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf) and Dr. Peter Diete­rich (Public Commer­cial Law, Berlin).

News

Munich — Private equity inves­tor EQT sells CBR Fashion Group to Alteri Inves­tors. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the sales price.

With its Street One and Cecil brands, the CBR Fashion Group is one of the five largest women’s fashion manu­fac­tu­r­ers in Germany. The group employs over 1,200 people and supplies more than 8,300 sales outlets in 19 Euro­pean count­ries. In Novem­ber 2017, CBR Fashion Group issued a bond in the amount of 450 million euros through. In the past fiscal year to June 2017, CBR had gene­ra­ted sales of around 579 million euros, with earnings before inte­rest, taxes, depre­cia­tion and amor­tiza­tion (Ebitda) of around 100 million euros, accor­ding to the company. Private equity inves­tor EQT had owned CBR Fashion Group since 2007.

The British invest­ment company Alteri Inves­tors was foun­ded in 2014, the company invests in Euro­pean retail compa­nies. The joint venture part­ner is the invest­ment mana­ger Apollo Global Management.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sedEQT on the manage­ment invest­ment in the tran­sac­tion with the follo­wing Munich team:
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, M&A/PE, MPP)
Dr. Tim Kauf­hold (Coun­sel, M&A/PE, MPP)
Dr. Sebas­tian Sumal­vico (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, MPP)
Matthias Ober­bauer (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, MPP)

P+P Pöllath + Part­ner regu­larly advi­ses EQT on manage­ment invest­ments, for exam­ple on the sale of SAG to SPIE or the sale of BSN medi­cal to the Swedish SCA.

News

Buda­pest (Hungary) / Berlin — Sabine Röth and Clemens Waitz of Vogel Heerma Waitz advi­sed AImo­tive, based in Buda­pest, on a USD 38 million / EUR 32 million Series C finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by B Capi­tal Group and Prime Ventures. Cisco Invest­ments, Samsung Cata­lyst Fund, and Series A and Series B inves­tors Robert Bosch Venture Capi­tal, Inven­ture, Draper Asso­cia­tes and Day One Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted. AImo­tive, active in Auto­no­mous Driving Tech­no­logy, will use the new capi­tal to further deve­lop its proprie­tary auto­no­mous driving tech­no­logy, which is prima­rily based on conven­tio­nally available came­ras combi­ned with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence image processing.

 

Advi­sors to AImo­tive: Vogel Heerma Waitz
Sabine Röth (Part­ner)
Dr. Clemens Waitz (Part­ner)

About­Vo­gel Heerma Waitz
Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media that has been in opera­tion since May 2014 and can draw on a total of more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence of its part­ners and staff in connec­tion with growth capi­tal financings.

About B Capi­tal Group
B Capi­tal Group is a global venture capi­tal firm that invests in pionee­ring indus­trial logi­stics, health­care, fintech and consu­mer enablem­ent compa­nies that are primed to scale across the global stage. Foun­ded in part­ner­ship with The Boston Consul­ting Group, B Capi­tal Group deli­vers unique access to top corpo­ra­ti­ons to match cutting-edge start-ups with the worl­d’s leading CEOs, plat­forms, and brands. www.bcapgroup.com.

About Prime Ventures
Prime Ventures is a leading venture capi­tal and growth equity firm focu­sing on inves­t­ing in high growth Euro­pean tech­no­logy compa­nies. The firm lever­a­ges its capi­tal, expe­ri­ence and network to actively guide its port­fo­lio to become global cate­gory leaders. From its offices in The Nether­lands and the UK the inde­pen­dent part­ner­ship mana­ges over 500 million euro in commit­ted capi­tal. www.primeventures.com.

News

Hamburg — New busi­ness models that contri­bute to corpo­rate know­ledge and its deve­lo­p­ment are worth a whop­ping 85 million to the Otto Group. They are now to be made available for self-foun­da­ti­ons in the startup sector. This is inten­ded to streng­then corpo­rate company buil­ding through Otto Group Digi­tal Solu­ti­ons (OGDS), one of the company’s stra­te­gic pillars

OGDS will focus on the crea­tion of retail-rela­ted start­ups in order to actively shape the digi­tal future of the Otto Group. Two to three new busi­ness models with a focus on logi­stics, e‑commerce and fintech are to be crea­ted each year in the inter­nal company forge.

Since 2012, this model has been an inte­gral part of the digi­tal stra­tegy and successfully imple­men­ted by the company buil­der Liquid Labs; more than ten compa­nies have alre­ady been foun­ded since then. This makes the Otto Group a pioneer in the area of company-owned incubators.

“We solve the chal­lenges of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion with the advan­ta­ges of a startup and the connec­tion to the stra­te­gic assets of the Otto Group. This model gives us a clear compe­ti­tive advan­tage. Unlike exter­nal start­ups, we can take advan­tage of the Group struc­ture, still test our ideas quickly and immensely acce­le­rate the growth of our start­ups,” explains Paul Joze­fak (pictu­red), mana­ging direc­tor of Otto Group Digi­tal Solu­ti­ons and Liquid Labs, in a press release issued by the company yester­day (Tues­day).

“By focu­sing on our own start­ups, we are clearly focu­sing on inno­va­tions for our core busi­ness rather than on quick returns. With our start­ups, we are not only driving our own digi­tiza­tion, but also provi­ding the market with digi­tal solu­ti­ons for the future,” confirms Dr. Rainer Hille­brand, Member of the Group Manage­ment Board respon­si­ble for Group Stra­tegy, E‑Commerce, Busi­ness Intel­li­gence and Deputy Chair­man of the Manage­ment Board.

Previous OGDS start­ups include coll­ec­tAI, an end-to-end digi­tal receiv­a­bles manage­ment provi­der; RISK IDENT, a service that detects frau­du­lent acti­vity during online orde­ring and payment proces­ses in real time; and Border­Guru, a full-service solu­tion for cross-border e‑commerce that is now part of Hermes Group. They have all been able to deve­lop into estab­lished play­ers in the free market, offe­ring added value along their value chain to trading and finan­cial compa­nies in particular.

Other start­ups include Shopping24 Inter­net Group, a provi­der of shop­ping portals and product search engi­nes, Otto Group Media for data-driven adver­ti­sing, and the two idea labs Liquid Labs and Into‑e.

One advan­tage for OGDS is that it can use inter­nal Otto Group assets, such as know­ledge of custo­mer groups, website reach or logi­stics infra­struc­ture as stra­te­gic leverage to acce­le­rate growth and ther­eby build market-rele­vant businesses.

News

Munich / Zurich — In 2017, the pan-Euro­pean equity inves­tor Equis­tone once again under­pin­ned its posi­tion as one of the leading private equity houses targe­ting medium-sized compa­nies in the German-spea­king region. With a total of 17 tran­sac­tions for which the German and Swiss team was respon­si­ble in the past twelve months, the Mittel­stand inves­tor excee­ded the previous year’s figure of 13 deals. In a chal­len­ging market, three compa­nies were acqui­red, three dive­s­ted and eleven acqui­si­ti­ons were made for port­fo­lio companies.

Important invest­ments in the midmarket
In 2017, Equis­tone acqui­red three compa­nies: the refi­ner of fresh meat products Group of Butchers, the street­wear retailer DefShop, and the prefa­bri­ca­ted house group around Bien-Zenker and Hanse Haus. Group of Butchers, based in the Nether­lands, distri­bu­tes meat and sausage products through retail, super­mar­ket chains and out-of-home segments. The meat produ­cer brings toge­ther six local produ­cers in the Nether­lands and Belgium under its umbrella. A stable custo­mer base, sales at a solid level and a perma­nent work­force of 350 employees are the ideal start­ing point for further orga­nic growth and for bene­fiting from market conso­li­da­tion in other regi­ons through stra­te­gic acquisitions.

DefShop is one of the leading multich­an­nel retail­ers for urban street­wear, espe­ci­ally for young people, in Germany. The range includes clot­hing, shoes and access­ories from well-known manu­fac­tu­r­ers such as Adidas and Nike, as well as estab­lished own and licen­sed brands. The artic­les are sold prima­rily via the company’s own online B2C plat­form, but also via statio­nary stores and a network of Euro­pean whole­sale custo­mers. The joint work of manage­ment and Equis­tone on the next phase of growth will focus prima­rily on acce­le­ra­ted growth in the B2C and B2B segments, further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and streng­thening the private label strategy.

In Decem­ber, Equis­tone announ­ced the purchase of Bien-Zenker and Hanse Haus. The compa­nies of the Prefa­bri­ca­ted Houses Group design, produce, sell and build prefa­bri­ca­ted houses in Germany as well as in Switz­er­land and the UK. With Bien-Zenker, Living Haus and Hanse Haus, the Group has three stron­gly posi­tio­ned brands and a broad range of prefa­bri­ca­ted house solu­ti­ons that serve diffe­rent custo­mer and price segments with consis­t­ently high-quality products. A highly frag­men­ted market offers good oppor­tu­ni­ties here, espe­ci­ally for orga­nic growth strategies.

Successful exits after successful development
Equis­tone trans­fer­red three of its port­fo­lio compa­nies to other hands in fiscal 2017. “We focus on the sustainable success of our invest­ments. The goal is to opti­mize the market posi­tion of the compa­nies in our port­fo­lio through process and product inno­va­tions and to realize orga­nic growth toge­ther with the manage­ment and employees,” explains Michael H. Bork, Senior Part­ner and Mana­ging Direc­tor at Equis­tone (Photo) explains: “When we sell a company, it is very important to us to find the right part­ner who will open up further growth poten­tial and take the respec­tive company into the next deve­lo­p­ment phase. We succee­ded in this again last year — for exam­ple with the sale of the Horn­schuch Group to Conti­nen­tal, of EuroAvio­nics to HENSOLDT and of OASE to the US private equity house Argand Part­ners. We expect the favorable envi­ron­ment for exits to conti­nue in 2018, in which capi­tal and the willing­ness to invest on the part of inves­tors meet suita­ble tran­sac­tion candi­da­tes,” Michael H. Bork continues.

Equis­tone had inves­ted in Konrad Horn­schuch AG in 2008, at that time still under the company name Barclays Private Equity, and successfully comple­ted the resale of the group to Conti­nen­tal in March 2017. The company value and the market posi­tion of the surface specia­list from Weiß­bach had deve­lo­ped signi­fi­cantly in recent years. Sales increased during Equis­to­ne’s invol­vement from 140 million euros (2008) to appro­xi­m­ately 450 million euros (2016). As part of an ambi­tious buy-and-build stra­tegy, two German and one US company were acqui­red, the product port­fo­lio was massi­vely expan­ded and new produc­tion sites were estab­lished. Toge­ther with Equis­tone, manage­ment succee­ded in over­co­ming the conse­quen­ces of the finan­cial crisis and retur­ning to a sustainable growth path.

In mid-August, the sale of EuroAvio­nics, a manu­fac­tu­rer and global tech­no­logy leader of civil avio­nics systems, to HENSOLDT AG was comple­ted. During the invest­ment period, the company has conti­nuously deve­lo­ped its market posi­tion and global presence, prima­rily through the expan­sion of its product port­fo­lio and inter­na­tio­nal acquisitions.

THE OASE Group, an inter­na­tio­nal specia­list in water gardens, aqua­tics and foun­tain tech­no­logy, was sold in Octo­ber. The company is a highly regarded, strong brand inter­na­tio­nally thanks to sensa­tio­nal instal­la­ti­ons such as the “Dance of the Cranes” in Singa­pore or the multi­me­dia foun­tain instal­la­tion in front of the Petro­nas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. The drivers of orga­nic growth in the period under review were the expan­sion of the product port­fo­lio, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and a targe­ted buy-and-build stra­tegy in neigh­bor­ing segments. With success: during Equis­to­ne’s invol­vement, the group’s sales grew from around 100 million euros (2011) to around 155 million euros (2017) while profi­ta­bi­lity increased. OASE employs appro­xi­m­ately 750 people worldwide.

Targe­ted busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment through acqui­si­ti­ons of port­fo­lio companies
Equis­tone has been known in the indus­try for many years for its capi­tal strength, but more importantly for its profound support in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the asset during the invest­ment. “The stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of our port­fo­lio compa­nies is a key element of our invest­ment approach: We help compa­nies to deve­lop their growth poten­tial. Today, 20 medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands rely on our expe­ri­ence, exper­tise and capi­tal strength. For exam­ple, we support market posi­tio­ning and conso­li­da­tion by acqui­ring suita­ble compa­nies that fit the port­fo­lio company’s growth stra­tegy. We intend to conti­nue on this course in 2018,” summa­ri­zes Dr. Marc Arens, Part­ner at Equistone.

In the past year, Equis­tone was able to realize seve­ral add-on acqui­si­ti­ons for its investments:

Sport­group expan­ded its presence in Austra­lia, North America and Asia through five acqui­si­ti­ons and conso­li­da­ted its posi­tion as market leader in the global market for sports surfaces: In addi­tion to SCM, the Austra­lian compa­nies ProGrass, NewTurf and Wm Loud, as well as Malay­sia’s Fairm­ont, joined the group in 2017 as renow­ned suppli­ers of arti­fi­cial turf and sports faci­lity surfaces. Sport­group — part of Equis­to­ne’s port­fo­lio since mid-2015 and head­quar­te­red in Ingol­stadt — is a specia­list in the design of arti­fi­cial turf and sports field surfaces for major sport­ing events and stadium construction.
VIVONIO, a stra­te­gic alli­ance of major furni­ture manu­fac­tu­r­ers based in Munich, made two stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons in 2017. In March 2017, VIVONIO acqui­red the Dutch company Note­born, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of custom cabi­nets and comple­men­tary products. In Septem­ber, fm Büro­mö­bel Franz Meyer GmbH & Co. KG from Bösel (Lower Saxony) joined the company. The company is focu­sed on manu­fac­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion of office and lounge furni­ture. With both add-ons, VIVONIO aims to expand its presence in Germany as well as inter­na­tio­nally and streng­then its posi­tion as a player in the Euro­pean market.
Since its acqui­si­tion by Equis­tone in August 2016, the Swiss ROTH GROUP — a provi­der of services in the field of fire protec­tion, insu­la­tion and coatings — has alre­ady acqui­red four compa­nies, thus expan­ding its market posi­tion and service port­fo­lio. Two add-ons of these were made in the past year: At the begin­ning of 2017, the Group streng­the­ned its presence in Western Switz­er­land with the acqui­si­tion of INTUM SA, and in Septem­ber ROTH inten­si­fied an exis­ting stra­te­gic part­ner­ship and inte­gra­ted Nyfe­ler + Keller.
Equis­to­ne’s port­fo­lio company Case­king, an online retailer of gaming and PC access­ories active in Europe, acqui­red Portu­gal’s Global­data in Febru­ary and Trigono in Novem­ber. Trigono, based in Sweden with a subsi­diary in Norway, sells hard­ware and soft­ware for retail and busi­ness custo­mers. The acqui­si­tion streng­thens the Case­king Group’s posi­tion in the Scan­di­na­vian market and other key Euro­pean regi­ons. At the same time, Case­kin­g’s broad range of brands should in turn open up growth oppor­tu­ni­ties for its new part­ner Trigono.

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of Euro­pe’s leading equity inves­tors with a team of more than 35 invest­ment specia­lists in six offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, 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.

News

Berlin - The busi­ness climate in the German private equity market impro­ved again in the third quar­ter of 2017. The busi­ness climate index of the German Private Equity Baro­me­ter rose by 4.9 points to 70.2 balance points, signi­fi­cantly excee­ding its record value from the second quar­ter of 2017. The indi­ca­tor for the current busi­ness situa­tion rose by 1.9 points to 70.5 balance points, while the indi­ca­tor for busi­ness expec­ta­ti­ons increased by 8 points to 69.8 balance points.

The deve­lo­p­ment reflects a new record high in the early-stage segment of the private equity market. Here, the busi­ness climate indi­ca­tor rose by 12.8 points to 69.1 balance points. Both the current busi­ness situa­tion (+9.1 to 66.7 balance points) and the busi­ness expec­ta­ti­ons (+16.5 to 71.5 balance points) are picking up significantly.

The VC busi­ness climate is being driven by rising valua­tions of exit and funding oppor­tu­ni­ties, which are reaching new highs. In addi­tion, the fund­rai­sing and inno­va­tion climate remains very good. Assess­ments of the level and quality of deal flow as well as entry prices have also stabi­li­zed at their respec­tive levels after slip­ping in the previous quarter.

The busi­ness climate in the late-stage segment remains excep­tio­nally good. At 71.1 balance points (-0.4), the busi­ness climate indi­ca­tor here in the third quar­ter of 2017 remains only slightly below its best value of the previous quar­ter. Inves­tors’ assess­ment of their current busi­ness situa­tion is slightly worse than in the second quar­ter, but they are some­what more opti­mi­stic about their busi­ness expec­ta­ti­ons. The indi­ca­tor for the current busi­ness situa­tion decreased by 2.6 points to 73.7 balance points, while the indi­ca­tor for busi­ness expec­ta­ti­ons increased by 1.8 points to 68.5 balance points.

The still very good busi­ness climate in the late-stage segment is supported by almost the entire market envi­ron­ment: fund­rai­sing climate, assess­ment of the level and quality of deal flow and exit climate show top values. Entry-level prices remain proble­ma­tic: Dissa­tis­fac­tion with called valua­tions is incre­asing for the sixth quar­ter in a row.

“The unpre­ce­den­tedly good fund­rai­sing climate is now also reaching start-ups,” says Dr. Jörg Zeuner, Chief Econo­mist at KfW, “finan­cing rounds are getting bigger. The latest BVK figu­res show that more than twice as much was inves­ted per start-up in the last two half-years as in 2012 and before. The higher finan­cing rounds are neces­sary in order to prevent dome­stic start-ups from falling behind inter­na­tio­nally from the outset. For local VC inves­tors, the situa­tion still takes some getting used to, as can be seen from their dissa­tis­fac­tion with entry prices.”

Ulrike Hinrichs, Mana­ging Member of the BVK Board, adds: “It is parti­cu­larly plea­sing that the very good mood and opti­mism about the future have now also reached the VC sector. Here, a lot has been done in recent years by all parties invol­ved to advance Germany in start-up finan­cing. Looking at the gene­rally high level of valua­tions, it is important to note that macroe­co­no­mic condi­ti­ons, low inte­rest rates, but also strong company results thanks to the Draghi stimu­lus are contri­bu­ting to these company valua­tions. But this is not private equity or venture capi­tal speci­fic, if you look at the German and inter­na­tio­nal stock indi­ces, which are rushing from record to record these days.”

News

Berlin — Berlin-based startup Home­bell recei­ves new capi­tal tota­ling around €11 million in a Series B finan­cing round. The new inves­tors include (among others) insu­rance compa­nies AXA and Helve­tia as well as Seven­Ven­tures, the finan­cial inves­tor of the ProSiebenSat1 media group. Part of the finan­cing amount flows into TV adver­ti­sing time provi­ded by the ProSiebenSat1 Group. Home­bell was foun­ded in Berlin in Septem­ber 2015.

The company offers online place­ment of handy­man services such as pain­ting or elec­tri­cal work. Home­bell was alre­ady able to coll­ect milli­ons of euros in invest­ments at the start. The inves­tors at the time included Index Ventures, the invest­ment company Lake­star and the Rocket Inter­net fund Rocket Inter­net Capi­tal Part­ners.

With the new money, the plat­form intends to further expand its presence in Germany and the Nether­lands and grow by adding new product cate­go­ries. In the future, for exam­ple, the website will also offer custo­mers inspi­ra­tion and ideas for renovation.

Advi­sor Home­bell: P+P Pöllath + Partners
The P+P Venture Capi­tal Team Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead, VC, Munich/Berlin) and Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, VC, Munich/Berlin) has advi­sed Home­bell since its incep­tion and so also in the current finan­cing round.

News

Berlin — Through its tech­no­logy fund Vision Fund, Japa­nese tele­coms group Soft­Bank is inves­t­ing EUR 460 million in the Berlin-based used car plat­form “Wir kaufen Dein Auto” of Auto1 Group GmbH. Appro­xi­m­ately half of the invest­ment will flow directly into the company in exch­ange for newly issued shares. P+P advi­sed the exis­ting inves­tor DN Capi­tal on the new finan­cing round and on various share sales in connec­tion with the current finan­cing round.

With a valua­tion of EUR 2.9 billion, Auto1, whose best-known current offe­ring is the Wirkaufendeinauto.de plat­form, is now one of the most valuable tech start­ups in Europe. — Auto1 was foun­ded in 2012 by Hakan Koç and Chris­tian Berter­mann. Accor­ding to its own figu­res, the online market­place for the purchase and sale of used cars sold more than 300,000 vehic­les in 2016. Sales in 2016 amoun­ted to 1.5 billion euros.

The startup has recei­ved nearly EUR 900 million in funding so far from inves­tors inclu­ding DN Capi­tal, JP Morgan and Gold­man Sachs. In the last finan­cing round in May 2017, EUR 360 million was raised from VC Target Global and the Scot­tish invest­ment company Bail­lie Gifford, among others.

Soft­Bank had most recently inves­ted in tech­no­logy compa­nies such as the messen­ger service Slack via its $90 billion Vision Fund.

Advi­sor to the previous inves­tor DN Capi­tal: P+P Pöllath + Partners
Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead, VC, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, VC, Munich/Berlin)

News

Schaff­hau­sen (Switzerland)/Greenville, PA (USA)/Weilheim — A consor­tium of finan­cial inves­tors has sold the Zarges Group. These included funds from Baird Capi­tal and Gran­ville, as well as VR Equi­typ­art­ner. The new owner of Zarges is Schaff­hau­sen-based WernerCo, a port­fo­lio company of the Triton IV fund. A purchase price has not yet been disclosed.

WernerCo, a port­fo­lio company of the Triton IV Fund and an inter­na­tio­nal supplier of access products, fall protec­tion equip­ment, and storage and trans­por­ta­tion systems, today comple­ted its acqui­si­tion of the ZARGES Group after recei­ving regu­la­tory appr­ovals. Due to the good comple­ment of the product and service port­fo­lio, WernerCo is able to streng­then its leading posi­tion in Europe through the acqui­si­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction.

“ZARGES is a major market player in conti­nen­tal Europe and will be added to the WernerCo Group port­fo­lio with its attrac­tive brands. Both compa­nies operate in comple­men­tary markets with the same under­stan­ding of product quality, design and deli­very relia­bi­lity. This tran­sac­tion is an important mile­stone for us, conti­nuing our stra­tegy to deli­ver inno­va­tive products and systems to our global custo­mers,” said Edward Geri­cke, Presi­dent of Werner­Co’s U.S. busi­ness and current CEO.

“Under the owner­ship of funds mana­ged by Baird Capi­tal and Gran­ville, as well as VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH and the manage­ment team, ZARGES Group has successfully focu­sed on its core acti­vi­ties and achie­ved impres­sive impro­ve­ments,” said Mathias Schirmer, member of the company’s advi­sory board and part­ner at Baird Capital.

“ZARGES is an impres­sive company with a focus on product inno­va­tion and quality. We are convin­ced of the company’s contin­ued posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment and the mutual bene­fits for WernerCo and ZARGES. We look forward to support­ing the growth trajec­tory in the coming years,” says Ruth Linz, Invest­ment Advi­sory Profes­sio­nal and Advi­sor to Triton Funds.

About ZARGES Group
The ZARGES Group, head­quar­te­red in Weil­heim, Germany, is a globally active company with around 800 employees at three produc­tion sites in Europe. The Group sells its products in Germany, France, Sweden, the UK, Denmark, Norway and the Nether­lands, among other count­ries. Inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and in-depth expe­ri­ence with high-quality alumi­num make ZARGES the leading company in three major busi­ness segments: Clim­bing — Pack­a­ging, Trans­port, Storage — Special Cons­truc­tions. ZARGES products combine the many advan­ta­ges of alumi­num, such as high stabi­lity with low weight, corro­sion resis­tance and flexi­bi­lity of use. The company has the right solu­tion for every requi­re­ment and can also offer custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons. Whether from indus­try, trade, service or commerce, custo­mers appre­ciate ZARGES as a relia­ble part­ner and bene­fit from the quality, know-how and compre­hen­sive service they have enjoyed for many years after purcha­sing the products.

Advi­sor TRITON: White & Case
Dr. Hendrik Röhricht (Private Equity/M&A), Gernot Wagner (Capi­tal Markets; both lead), Dr. Bodo Bender (Tax), Dr. Justus Herr­lin­ger, Dr. Lars Peter­sen (both Hamburg), Marc Israel (London), Katar­zyna Czapra­cka (Warsaw; all Anti­trust), Vanessa Schür­mann, Sebas­tian Schrag, Justin Wagstaff (London; all three Banking and Finance), Ingrid Wijn­ma­len (Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Andreas Klein (Dispute Reso­lu­tion); Asso­cia­tes: Simon Rommel­fan­ger, Dr. Jan Eich­städt (both M&A), Anne-Sophie von Köster (Real Estate), Dr. Daniel Valdini (Anti­trust; Hamburg), Andreas Kössel (Labor Law), Irina Schult­heiß (Banking and Finance), Giuditta Caldini (Anti­trust; Brussels), Vero­nika Merjava (Private Equity/M&A; Prague), Claire Jordan (Banking and Finance; New York).

Advi­sor to seller: Gibson Dunn & Crut­cher (Munich)
Dr. Ferdi­nand From­hol­zer (M&A; lead), Dr. Hans-Martin Schmid (tax law), Sebas­tian Schoon (finance law), Michael Walt­her (anti­trust law), Dr. Mark Zimmer (labor law), Kai Gesing (anti­trust law); asso­cia­tes: Sonja Rutt­mann, Dr. Johanna Hauser, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Hoff­mann (all M&A), Daniel Gebauer (real estate law)
Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy (Frank­furt): Dr. Thomas Ingen­ho­ven; Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Katja Lehr, Dr. Tim Löper (all Banking and Finance)

Advi­sors to banks: Weil Gotshal & Manges (New York)
Daniel Dokos (lead), Dr. Wolf­ram Distler (Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Justin Lee, Julia Schum (Frank­furt; all Banking and Finance)

News

Frei­burg — The Bros. Knauf KG, based in Ipho­fen, took over all shares in the Neurup­pin-based family company Opitz Holz­bau GmbH & Co KG at the turn of the year. The globally active manu­fac­tu­rer of buil­ding mate­ri­als and cons­truc­tion systems is thus streng­thening its commit­ment to the future market of light­weight cons­truc­tion. Opitz Holz­bau specia­li­zes in the produc­tion and marke­ting of prefa­bri­ca­ted light­weight cons­truc­tion elements, in this case mainly wooden panel buil­ding elements. With the sale, the family busi­ness sett­les the company succes­sion. Knauf will conti­nue to operate Opitz as an inde­pen­dent company at the exis­ting site.

The family-run tradi­tio­nal company Opitz is one of the leading suppli­ers of carpen­try and prefa­bri­ca­ted cons­truc­tion compa­nies in the field of join­ery, nail plate trus­ses and wooden panel buil­ding elements in Germany. In the modern future factory of Opitz Holz­bau in Neurup­pin (Bran­den­burg), the company manu­fac­tures, among other things, wall, roof and ceiling elements for buil­dings in low-energy and passive cons­truc­tion. Opitz Holz­bau will be contin­ued by Knauf as an inde­pen­dent company. In addi­tion to the clas­sic busi­ness, the sale of wooden panel buil­ding elements, Knauf is plan­ning to manu­fac­ture light­weight steel buil­ding elements for faca­des, walls and ceilings in Neuruppin.

The Knauf Group is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers of buil­ding mate­ri­als and buil­ding systems. Knauf is repre­sen­ted by produc­tion faci­li­ties and sales orga­niza­ti­ons in more than 86 count­ries at over 220 loca­ti­ons world­wide. Knauf plants produce modern drywall systems, plas­ters and access­ories, ther­mal insu­la­tion compo­site systems, paints, flowing screeds and floo­ring systems, machi­nes and tools for the appli­ca­tion of these products as well as insu­la­tion mate­ri­als. In fiscal 2016, the Knauf Group gene­ra­ted annual sales of 6.5 billion euros with around 27,400 employees worldwide.

In the context of the tran­sac­tion, Knauf was advi­sed by a corpo­rate and M&A team of the commer­cial law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner in Frei­burg and Frank­furt under the lead of FGvW part­ner Dr. Barbara Mayer (photo) provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice in all legal areas: from legal due dili­gence to contract nego­tia­ti­ons and labor law issues to the closing. FGvW has acted for Knauf for many years; in parti­cu­lar, FGvW part­ner Gerhard Manz has advi­sed on nume­rous tran­sac­tions for the company in recent years. Opitz Holz­bau was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by lawy­ers from Warth & Klein Grant Thorn­ton in Düsseldorf.

Advi­sor Knauf Group: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Partner
Dr. Barbara Mayer, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A), Freiburg
Gerhard Manz, Part­ner (Corpo­rate, M&A), Freiburg
Julia Rein­hardt, Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate)
Frie­de­rike Schäff­ler, Part­ner (Real Estate, State Aid Law)
Dr. Sabine Schrö­ter, Part­ner (Labor Law), Frankfurt
Susanne Lüdde­cke, Local Part­ner (Labor Law), Frank­furt­A­bout Fried­rich Graf von

About West­pha­len & Partner
Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner is one of the leading inde­pen­dent German commer­cial law firms. The firm’s appro­xi­m­ately 85 lawy­ers, 31 of whom are part­ners, advise compa­nies world­wide from offices in Colo­gne, Frei­burg, Frank­furt am Main, Alicante and Brussels, as well as from coope­ra­tion offices in Shang­hai, São Paulo and Istan­bul. In total, the firm has around 200 employees. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.fgvw.de.

News

Düssel­dorf / London — ARQIS advi­sed Katjes Fassin GmbH & Co KG (Katjes Germany) on its invest­ment in the British start-up Candy Kittens.

Foun­ded in London in 2012 by Jamie Laing (photo left), star of the British TV series ‘Made in Chel­sea’, and Ed Williams (photo right), the company has quickly become one of the UK’s best-known candy brands with its inno­va­tive gour­met sweets in authen­tic flavors and origi­nal pack­a­ging. All products are gluten-free and are made without arti­fi­cial flavors or colors.

ARQIS regu­larly advi­ses the Katjes Group on tran­sac­tions. The firm also advi­sed the confec­tion­ery manu­fac­tu­rer in 2016 on its entry into Veganz, Euro­pe’s pioneer in vegan food, and in previous years on its acqui­si­ti­ons of confec­tion­ery produ­cers Pias­ten and Dallmann.

Advi­sors Katjes Germany: ARQIS Attor­neys at Law 
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP; Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Thomas Chwa­lek (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP; Munich)
Reynolds Porter Cham­ber­lain (London): Nigel Coll­ins et al (UK 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 lawy­ers 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 as well as intellec­tual property and liti­ga­tion. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

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