Frei­burg — The Schölly family has sold the majo­rity of its shares in Baden-Würt­­te­m­­berg-based Schölly Fiber­op­tic GmbH to Aescu­lap AG, a subsi­diary of phar­maceu­ti­cal group B. Braun SE, but will retain a 30 percent stake. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to anti­trust clearance. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Schölly Fiber­op­tic was compre­hen­si­vely legally advi­sed on the sale by a corpo­rate and M&A team from the law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, led by Dr. Barbara Mayer. FGvW thus once again unders­cores the strong health­care exper­tise of its M&A prac­tice. FGvW previously advi­sed Schölly Fiber­op­tic on the sale of its robo­tics endo­scopy busi­ness to Intui­tive Surgi­cal in 2019. Schölly was advi­sed on tax matters by Hanns-Georg Schell and Clau­dio Schmitt of the audi­ting and tax consul­ting firm BANSBACH GmbH in Frei­burg. Aescu­lap AG was advi­sed by a team from the law firm Brei­ten Burk­hardt under the leader­ship of Dr. Chris­tian Ulrich Wolf in Hamburg.

The medi­cal tech­no­logy company Schölly Fiber­op­tic GmbH, based in Denz­lin­gen / Baden-Würt­­te­m­­berg, specia­li­zes in engi­nee­ring and the produc­tion of custo­mi­zed visua­liza­tion systems in the busi­ness areas of Medi­cal Endo­scopy and Visual Inspec­tion. Since 1998, the owners of the globally active company have been both the Schölly family and Aescu­lap AG in Tutt­lin­gen. Schölly Fiber­op­tic was foun­ded in 1973 and curr­ently employs about 550 people.

Aescu­lap AG, with around 3,600 employees and head­quar­ters in Tutt­lin­gen, is a leading global supplier of products and services in the field of medi­cal tech­no­logy. The company is part of the B. Braun Group.

Advi­sors to Schölly Fiber­op­tic GmbH: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, Freiburg
Dr. Barbara Mayer, Frei­burg, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Jan Barth, Frei­burg, Senior Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A)
Daniel Rombach, Frei­burg, Asso­ciate (Merger Control)

BANSBACH GmbH, Freiburg
Hanns-Georg Schell, Mana­ging Part­ner (Tax Law)
Clau­dio Schmitt, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tax Law)