Frank­furt am Main — IMAP advi­sed the Swiss finan­cial inves­tor Invi­sion on the sale to Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG). DBAG, toge­ther with DBAG Fund VII, will hold a majo­rity stake in the leading supplier of fire protec­tion systems for machine tools; the family of foun­der Klaus Bauer and CEO Frank Foddi will conti­nue to hold stakes in the company. The closing of the purchase agree­ment is sche­du­led for the coming quar­ter; the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties still have to approve the transaction.

Kraft & Bauer deve­lops, produ­ces and installs fire protec­tion systems for around 800 diffe­rent types of machine tools. The focus here is on micro­­pro­ces­­sor-control­­led extin­gu­is­hing systems that detect a fire based on sensors and initiate the extin­gu­is­hing process. The fire protec­tion systems are either instal­led directly on the machine by Kraft & Bauer employees or sold as a kit to the machine manu­fac­tu­rer. Kraft & Bauer employs around 80 people at its head­quar­ters in Holz­ger­lin­gen (Baden-Würt­­te­m­­berg), at a plant in Bann­wil (Switz­er­land) and at 13 service loca­ti­ons in Germany, Switz­er­land and Italy. The company gene­ra­tes around 30 percent of its sales in the service business.

In 2013, Invi­sion acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Kraft & Bauer from its foun­der Klaus Bauer as part of a succes­sion solu­tion. With the sale, the last port­fo­lio company of the INVISION IV L.P. fund, which was laun­ched in 2008, was successfully realized.

“Kraft & Bauer has grown by an average of 10% every year since INVISION joined the company. Custo­mers appre­ciate the high product quality as well as the asso­cia­ted outstan­ding service,” explains Martin Spirig, Part­ner in Charge at INVISION. Frank Becker, Mana­ging Part­ner of INVISION, adds, “This is thanks to the manage­ment team with foun­der Klaus Bauer and Mana­ging Direc­tor Frank Foddi, as well as all Kraft & Bauer employees, whom we would like to thank for their successful cooperation.”

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes and advi­ses closed-end private equity funds and invests along­side DBAG funds in well-posi­­tio­­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 1.8 billion euros.

Advi­sors Invi­sion: IMAP
Dr. Cars­ten Lehmann, Phil­ipp Noack and Atanas Petkov of IMAP exclu­si­vely advi­sed the sellers and supported them in struc­tu­ring, nego­tia­ting and closing the tran­sac­tion in a compe­ti­tive process.

About IMAP
Foun­ded in 1973, IMAP is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and largest Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons orga­niza­ti­ons in the world with offices in 35 count­ries. More than 450 M&A advi­sors in inter­na­tio­nal sector teams specia­lize in corpo­rate sales, cross-border acqui­si­ti­ons and stra­te­gic finan­cing issues. Its clients are prima­rily family-owned compa­nies from the midmar­ket, but also include large natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons as well as finan­cial inves­tors, family offices and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. World­wide, IMAP accom­pa­nies about 200 tran­sac­tions per year with a total volume of more than USD 10 billion.