Deutsche Beteiligungs AG invests in digitizer MAIT

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in MAIT GmbH (MAIT). The company is a leading digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for SMEs. In a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), the DBAG-advi­­sed private equity fund DBAG Fund VIII will acquire all shares in MAIT. The closing of the purchase agree­ment is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is sche­du­led for the fourth quar­ter. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. In the course of the MBO, the mana­ging direc­tors and other mana­gers will substan­ti­ally reinvest in MAIT.

From system house to holi­stic solu­tion provi­der for ERP, PLM and IT

MAIT’s history dates back to 1957. Origi­nally an office orga­niza­tion company, it initi­ally deve­lo­ped into a system house before beco­ming an end-to-end digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try with its head­quar­ters in Rott­weil. The company ranks 6th in the Lünen­donk list of the top 10 medium-sized IT consul­ting and soft­ware inte­gra­tion compa­nies and has more than 25 loca­ti­ons spread across Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and Bene­lux. From there, around 900 employees support around 7,000 custo­mers. Most of these are medium-sized manu­fac­tu­ring companies. 

MAIT’s inte­gra­ted solu­tion port­fo­lio — consis­ting of PLM-ERP soft­ware and IT services — forms a compre­hen­sive offe­ring along the entire value chain. This supports custo­mers on their long-term digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney. The aim is to create a “digi­tal home” for all product, produc­­tion-rela­­ted and commer­cial data. This crea­tes a digi­tal busi­ness frame­work that supports MAIT’s custo­mers in beco­ming sustainable, effi­ci­ent and trans­pa­rent “model-based” and data-driven compa­nies. PLM (Product Life­cy­cle Manage­ment) and ERP (Enter­prise Resource Plan­ning) solu­ti­ons are highly rele­vant for compa­nies in the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try. MAIT is one of the largest and longest-stan­­ding stra­te­gic part­ners of leading global soft­ware compa­nies for their imple­men­ta­tion. In order to meet custo­­mer-speci­­fic requi­re­ments, MAIT supple­ments PLM and ERP systems with its own soft­ware modu­les. The company also offers cloud and mana­ged services. 

The high level of custo­mer satis­fac­tion is reflec­ted in the long-term nature of the busi­ness rela­ti­onships. More than 60% of all custo­mer rela­ti­onships have exis­ted for more than a decade. 

Jannick Hune­cke (© dbag), member of the Manage­ment Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, says: “With MAIT, we are support­ing a leading digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for indus­trial SMEs that fits seam­lessly into our port­fo­lio. More than 20 percent of this port­fo­lio now consists of compa­nies in the IT services and soft­ware sector. MAIT combi­nes in-depth, end-to-end process know-how with excel­lent tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise and has a strong base of recur­ring reve­nues. We will support MAIT’s manage­ment in shaping the next phase of growth.”

The tran­sac­tion unders­cores DBAG’s role as a pace­set­ter in the resur­gent German M&A market: after the invest­ment in FinMatch, MAIT is alre­ady the second invest­ment within a few weeks. “We are selec­tively seizing oppor­tu­ni­ties in an envi­ron­ment that is still charac­te­ri­zed by uncer­tainty. This dyna­mic demons­tra­tes our ability to iden­tify and deve­lop first-class growth compa­nies even in chal­len­ging phases,” conti­nues Jannick Hunecke. 

Market envi­ron­ment and strategy

Accor­ding to indus­try analy­ses, the market for PLM services will grow by nine to twelve percent annu­ally until 2030; pene­tra­tion in medium-sized mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring compa­nies is only around 50 percent. Driven by cost pres­sure, regu­la­tory requi­re­ments and shorter deve­lo­p­ment cycles, demand is rising conti­nuously. Thanks to long-stan­­ding part­ner­ships with market-leading tech­no­logy part­ners and a proven buy-and-build stra­tegy — 24 successfully inte­gra­ted acqui­si­ti­ons to date — MAIT is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from this trend. 

Stefan Niehus­mann, CEO of MAIT, comm­ents on the tran­sac­tion: “With DBAG, we are gaining an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner who under­stands our busi­ness model and will support our growth in the long term. After 24 successfully inte­gra­ted acqui­si­ti­ons, DBAG’s exper­tise opens up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for us to roll out our plat­form inter­na­tio­nally and offer our custo­mers even more compre­hen­sive solutions.”

Toge­ther with MAIT, DBAG plans to struc­ture further add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. The aim is to use the frag­men­ta­tion of the market for further deve­lo­p­ment and to expand and further scale the inter­na­tio­nal business. 

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of Germany’s most renow­ned private equity compa­nies. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­­tio­­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The sector focus is on produ­cers of indus­trial goods, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­ta­liza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the IT services, soft­ware, health­care, envi­ron­ment, energy and infra­struc­ture sectors. DBAG has also been active in Italy since 2020 and has had its own office in Milan since 2021. The assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to around 2.7 billion euros. ELF Capi­tal comple­ments DBAG’s range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs with private debt. — www.dbag.de