Munich — PRIMEPULSE SE has sold its majo­rity stake in the listed company KATEK SE. The buyer was Kontron Acqui­si­ti­ons GmbH, a wholly-owned subsi­diary of Kontron AG, which is also listed on the stock exch­ange. A HEUKING team led by Munich part­ner Boris Dürr advi­sed PRIMEPULSE SE on this transaction.

Speci­fi­cally, this invol­ved the sale of around 60% of all KATEK shares. The purchase price for the share package is around EUR 130 million. Anti­trust appr­oval is still pending and the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by March 2024. Kontron will gain control of KATEK SE as a result of the tran­sac­tion and will make a manda­tory offer to the outside share­hol­ders follo­wing the transaction.

The KATEK Group is one of the leading elec­tro­nics service provi­ders in Europe. The range of services covers the entire life cycle of elec­tro­nic assem­blies and devices. KATEK places parti­cu­lar empha­sis on the deve­lo­p­ment of rene­wa­ble energy tech­no­lo­gies such as control elec­tro­nics for photo­vol­taic systems and intel­li­gent char­ging solu­ti­ons for elec­tric vehic­les. With more than 3,500 employees at loca­ti­ons in Europe, Asia and North America, the KATEK Group is expec­ted to gene­rate sales of over EUR 750 million in the 2023 finan­cial year.

PRIMEPULSE SE is an invest­ment holding company based in Munich. PRIMEPULSE is backed by the successful foun­ders, entre­pre­neurs and long-stan­­ding mana­gers of TecDAX-listed CANCOM SE. PRIMEPULSE’s invest­ment acti­vi­ties focus on the IT & tech­no­logy sector and rela­ted growth markets. PRIMEPULSE’s port­fo­lio compa­nies include the listed company Stem­mer Imaging AG and the cloud mana­ged service provi­der glueck­kanja AG.

The Austrian company Kontron AG specia­li­zes in auto­no­mous commu­ni­ca­tion between devices (Inter­net of Things, IoT). With the acqui­si­tion of KATEK, Kontron is expan­ding its product port­fo­lio in the fast-growing areas of photo­vol­taics and eMobi­lity Smart Char­ging. The take­over of KATEK SE is the largest acqui­si­tion in Kontron’s history. In connec­tion with the take­over, Kontron increased its fore­cast for 2024 to a conso­li­da­ted turno­ver of at least EUR 1.9 billion and a net profit of around EUR 100 million.

The Heuking team regu­larly advi­ses PRIMEPULSE on tran­sac­tions and other projects, inclu­ding in 2018 when PRIMPULSE took over the then KATEK GmbH from the Kath­rein Group. HEUKING subse­quently advi­sed on seve­ral add-on tran­sac­tions and also supported the IPO of KATEK SE in 2021.

Consul­tant PRIMEPULSE SE: HEUKING

Boris Dürr (lead, M&A), Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (corpo­rate law/M&A), Peter M. Schäff­ler (tax law), Andreas Schruff, Felix Noack (both corpo­rate law/M&A), all Munich.