Stutt­gart — The Stut­t­­gart-based invest­ment company Finexx has supported its port­fo­lio company GSE Vertrieb with capi­tal for the stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion of the FITNE brand. The Saar­­brü­­cken-based specia­list for orga­nic nutri­tio­nal supple­ments takes over FITNE from LOGOCOS Natur­kos­me­tik AG, a subsi­diary of the consu­mer goods group L’Oréal, and thus expands its port­fo­lio by curr­ently 27 nutri­tio­nal supple­ments and cosme­tic products. The tran­sac­tion crea­tes FITNE Health Care GmbH, which toge­ther with GSE Vertrieb Biolo­gi­sche Nahrungs­­er­­gän­­zungs- und Heil­mit­tel GmbH will be part of BioneXX Holding, in which Finexx holds a majo­rity stake. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details.

The FITNE brand was foun­ded in 1994 and since then has successfully compe­ted with orga­nic quality products for main­tai­ning health, vita­lity and joie de vivre, which are mainly sold in health food stores and orga­nic stores. FITNE was part of the LOGOCOS Group since 2014. GSE has also been on the market since 1994 and deve­lops and distri­bu­tes food supple­ments on an orga­nic certi­fied basis through natu­ral food retail­ers. Last Novem­ber, Finexx had acqui­red the GSE shares as part of a long-term succes­sion plan.

“We want to support GSE in further expan­ding its leading market posi­tion. Our stra­tegy includes a number of measu­res for further orga­nic growth, but also the expan­sion of the plat­form via suita­ble acqui­si­ti­ons when the oppor­tu­nity arises,” explains Finexx co-mana­­ging direc­tor Matthias Heining. “The acqui­si­tion of the renow­ned FITNE brand will allow GSE to bene­fit even more from the contin­ued growth in demand for health main­ten­ance products.”

Expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­ger streng­thens Finexx team
In addi­tion to GSE, Finexx also holds a majo­rity stake in Sicko, a provi­der of all aspects of digi­tiza­tion and auto­ma­tion of proces­ses in the wood­wor­king indus­try. Finexx also holds shares in the welding specia­list WIDOS. The focus of the invest­ment company is on estab­lished, small and medium-sized compa­nies in Germany; Finexx supports these compa­nies in their further deve­lo­p­ment as a part­ner with strong capi­tal and know-how. “Without inter­vening in day-to-day opera­ti­ons, we support manage­ment across the entire spec­trum of corpo­rate proces­ses. As with the current tran­sac­tion, the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of a buy-and-build stra­tegy can also be a key compo­nent of this,” says Co-Mana­­ging Direc­tor Dr. Markus Seiler. “We are plea­sed to be able to convince more and more family busi­ness owners and manage­ment teams of the oppor­tu­ni­ties of part­ne­ring with Finexx.”

In order to manage the growing number of invest­ments even more inten­si­vely and also to iden­tify further invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, the team around the expe­ri­en­ced mana­ging direc­tors Matthias Heining and Dr. Markus Seiler has now brought in rein­force­ments: Frank Weller (44) has come on board as Invest­ment Direc­tor as of July 1, 2019. He moves from the invest­ment company BWK in Stutt­gart, where he spent eleven years as a senior invest­ment mana­ger looking after nume­rous medium-sized compa­nies. This period also saw an inten­sive colla­bo­ra­tion with Matthias Heining, who was Mana­ging Direc­tor at BWK between 2008 and 2013. Frank Weller holds a degree in econo­mics and also has seve­ral years of profes­sio­nal expe­ri­ence in audi­ting at Price­wa­ter­hous­e­Coo­pers. Matthias Heining: “We are very plea­sed about the addi­tion to the team — Frank Weller will conti­nue to drive Finexx’s growth course with valuable know-how.”

About Finexx
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is a consul­ting company foun­ded in 2013 that specia­li­zes in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies. Typi­cal fields of acti­vity are growth invest­ment and acqui­si­tion finan­cing as well as the support of chan­ges in the share­hol­der struc­ture and succes­sion planning.

Finexx invests long-term funds (equity capi­tal of between 5 and 50 million euros), mainly in the form of majo­rity share­hol­dings, in compa­nies from the German-spea­king region, inclu­ding insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds. These have sales of EUR 10 million or more, a quali­fied manage­ment team, and can demons­trate sustainable earnings power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model.

The team has many years of indus­trial and manage­ment expe­ri­ence as well as profound know-how in the invest­ment sector — both are brought to bear for the successful further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies and in the asso­cia­ted change proces­ses. Finexx supports manage­ment by provi­ding active commer­cial and tech­ni­cal advice without inter­fe­ring with day-to-day opera­ti­ons, as well as a cross-indus­­try network. www.finexx.de