Munich — Offi­cium GmbH has comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of ifena GmbH, successfully conti­nuing its buy-and-build stra­tegy. The fast-growing port­fo­lio company of the invest­ment company EMERAM is inde­pen­dent and one of Germany’s leading meter­ing and billing service provi­ders for water and heat in apart­ment buil­dings and commer­cial proper­ties. As an umbrella company of regio­nal meter­ing service provi­ders, the current tran­sac­tion means that the company has acqui­red nine provi­ders in the past 22 months and mana­ges more than one million meters. — The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. Offi­cium was advi­sed by Noerr (Legal).

With its ninth acqui­si­tion, Offi­cium is now also repre­sen­ted in the Munich metro­po­li­tan region. The Group is thus consis­t­ently expan­ding its presence in Bavaria.

Dr. Alexis Tran-Viet (Photo © Emeram)., Part­ner at EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, explains: “With ifena, Offi­cium beco­mes a tech­no­logy company with soft­ware that can read and analyze data across manu­fac­tu­r­ers and can ther­e­fore be used much more flexi­bly. This means that new busi­ness areas such as the digi­tiza­tion of real estate and energy effi­ci­ency coope­ra­ti­ons resul­ting from the amend­ment of the Heating Costs Ordi­nance can be deve­lo­ped more quickly.”

Stephan Kier­meyer, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Offi­ciumadds: “By further deve­lo­ping and scaling ifena’s open plat­form, we will be able to offer our custo­mers and part­ners other services and products in addi­tion to heating cost billing that make a valuable contri­bu­tion to climate protec­tion. The aim is to further expand our market share in Munich, both orga­ni­cally and inor­ga­ni­cally. With our expe­ri­ence and inno­va­tive strength, for exam­ple in digi­tal solu­ti­ons, we are a strong part­ner for property manage­ment compa­nies. In addi­tion, we offer a future-proof soft­ware plat­form for other inde­pen­dent meter­ing service provi­ders who are facing tech­no­lo­gi­cal chal­lenges or are simply looking for a succes­sion solu­tion for their company. Our pipe­line for further growth is well filled.”

ifena foun­der Alex­an­der Lass­lop: “We are deligh­ted about the sale to an expe­ri­en­ced and fast-growing provi­der of heating cost billing services in Germany. The tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped by ifena will enable even more consu­mers to enjoy daily consump­tion trans­pa­rency and thus savings in the future. Against the back­drop of current price increa­ses in the energy sector and ambi­tious climate protec­tion targets, this is more rele­vant than ever and can be offe­red to all inte­res­ted Offi­cium custo­mers in the future.”

ABOUT OFFICIUM — www.officium.gmbh

Offi­cium GmbH is one of the leading inde­pen­dent meter­ing and energy service provi­ders for consump­­tion-based meter­ing and billing of water and heat for the housing indus­try. The company was estab­lished as a plat­form invest­ment of funds advi­sed by EMERAM in 2020. As an umbrella company, Offi­cium mana­ges nume­rous regio­nal provi­ders and has a presence prima­rily in Berlin, Bran­den­burg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-West­­pha­­lia (for exam­ple, Düssel­dorf and Duis­burg), Meck­­len­­burg-Western Pome­ra­nia, Saxony-Anhalt (Dessau-Roßlau), Saxony (Dres­den and Chem­nitz), Thurin­gia, and Bava­ria (Upper and Lower Fran­co­nia and Munich). Custo­mers are prima­rily small and medium-sized property manage­ment compa­nies and private land­lords. More than one million measu­ring units are now supplied.

About EMERAM CAPITAL PARTNERS — www.emeram.com

EMERAM is one of the leading invest­ment mana­gers for medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide more than €500 million in capi­tal for the deve­lo­p­ment of growth compa­nies. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies from the Technology/Software, Value-added Services and New Consu­mer Stap­les sectors. EMERAM acts as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for its compa­nies and promo­tes the sustainable growth (orga­nic and inor­ga­nic) of the port­fo­lio compa­nies. In addi­tion, the focus is on the imple­men­ta­tion of holi­stic ESG concepts.

The port­fo­lio curr­ently consists of six plat­form invest­ments with a cumu­la­tive work­force of more than 2,500. The compa­nies conti­nuously achieve double-digit orga­nic sales growth. In addi­tion, a total of 31 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons to date have acce­le­ra­ted growth and enab­led inter­na­tio­nal expansion.