DRS Investment acquires stake in AURENA

Hatten — DRS Invest­ment (DRS) has acqui­red a stake in the Austrian auction service provi­der AURENA. — HEUKING provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to DRS and its subsi­dia­ries, inclu­ding DRS KVG GmbH, on the struc­tu­ring, launch and closing of the special AIF Skywards GmbH & Co KG as well as on the acqui­si­tion of the majo­rity stake by the fund in AURENA. 

In addi­tion to the tran­sac­tion, HEUKING also advi­sed on the launch of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion program in AURENA. DRS Invest­ment is invol­ved in the fund as initiator. 

DRS Invest­ment SE is a German private invest­ment company with a focus on tech­­no­­logy-enab­­led service compa­nies (“tech-enab­­led services”). The invest­ment focus is on scalable service plat­forms that enable opera­tio­nal excel­lence and sustainable value crea­tion through the use of tech­no­logy. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, DRS has actively supported its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their long-term development. 

Since its foun­da­tion in 2012, AURENA has estab­lished itself as the market leader in Austria — an end-to-end digi­ta­li­zed auction process and its own high-perfor­­mance auction plat­form make it possi­ble to auction large quan­ti­ties of goods in the shor­test possi­ble time. Over 12,700 auctions have been held to date. More than 180 employees are invol­ved in auction projects in Austria and neigh­bor­ing Euro­pean countries. 

The aim of the part­ner­ship is further geogra­phi­cal expan­sion, parti­cu­larly in Germany. Andreas Spie­gel, foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of DRS Invest­ment SE, explains: “With the acqui­si­tion of AURENA, we are gaining a tech­no­lo­gi­cally advan­ced auction service provi­der for our DRS port­fo­lio. Our aim is to estab­lish AURENA as the leading plat­form for asset liqui­da­tion throug­hout Europe.” 

HEUKING advi­sed DRS Invest­ment SE and DRS KVG GmbH under the lead manage­ment of Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel and Ulrich Weide­mann on the struc­tu­ring of the special AIF Skywards GmbH & Co. KG as well as on the acqui­si­tion of the majo­rity stake (and struc­tu­ring of the transaction).

In addi­tion to HEUKING, DRS Invest­ment SE was advi­sed by PWC (Stefa­nie Tiele­mann) and in Austria by Dorda Rechts­an­wälte GmbH (Chris­tian Ritschka). The sellers of AURENA were advi­sed by Brandl Talos (Roman Rericha) and Ego Humrich Wyen (Jan-Henning Wyen, Achim Spengler). 

Advi­sor DRS Invest­ment SE: HEUKING

Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel (lead), (invest­ment funds),
Ulrich Weide­mann (lead), (private equity / corpo­rate law),
Klaus Weinand-Härer (tax law / private equity),
Frank Holl­stein (corpo­rate law / M&A),
Thalia Roth (invest­ment funds), all Frankfurt