Berlin — Capi­ton has announ­ced the closing of its EUR 248 million “capi­ton Quan­tum” conti­nua­tion fund. In addi­tion to exis­ting and new capi­ton inves­tors, high-profile blue-chip secon­dary inves­tors led by Eura­zeo and Uniges­tion have also inves­ted in capi­ton Quan­tum. capi­ton Quan­tum has reinves­ted in Raith and AEMtec, two leading indus­trial tech­no­logy compa­nies origi­nally acqui­red by capi­ton Fund V in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

The Conti­nua­tion Fund capi­ton Quan­tum was estab­lished to invest in the compa­nies AEMtec GmbH(“AEMtec”) and Raith GmbH (“Raith”). This will provide the compa­nies with addi­tio­nal capi­tal and time to conti­nue the very successful growth stra­te­gies that have been imple­men­ted in both compa­nies since capiton’s entry via the capi­ton V fund. AEMtec is one of the leading specia­lists in the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of complex opto- and microelec­tro­nic modu­les through to complete systems. Raith is a leading provi­der of precis­ion tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for nano-fabri­­ca­­tion, elec­tron beam litho­gra­phy, focu­sed ion beam manu­fac­tu­ring, nano-engi­­nee­ring and reverse engi­nee­ring applications.

The conti­nua­tion fund will provide addi­tio­nal capi­tal to Raith and AEMtec to acce­le­rate their orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth and allow the capi­ton team to conti­nue inves­t­ing in both compa­nies to support their next phase of growth. Both compa­nies were origi­nally acqui­red by the capi­ton V fund. Raith, a leading equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer in the nano­tech­no­logy sector, has alre­ady been part of the capi­ton port­fo­lio since 2016, and capi­ton inves­ted in AEMtec, a full-service provi­der of state-of-the-art microelec­tro­nic and opto­elec­tro­nic systems, in 2019.

We are very plea­sed to have attrac­ted a high cali­ber group of blue chip secon­dary inves­tors led by Eura­zeo and Uniges­tion along­side exis­ting and new capi­ton LPs. This under­lines the strong convic­tion in favor of robust German SMEs even in times of considera­ble market volatility.

Under capiton’s owner­ship, Raith and AEMtec have focu­sed on capa­city expan­sion, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and impro­ving their tech­no­logy offe­ring. Toge­ther with the two manage­ment teams, we will conti­nue to execute on a combi­na­tion of orga­nic initia­ti­ves and trans­for­ma­tive bolt-on acqui­si­ti­ons. Both manage­ment teams will remain heavily invested.

Chris­toph Karbenk, Mana­ging Part­ner at capi­ton, comm­ents: “On behalf of the entire capi­ton team, I would like to thank the group of inves­tors who supported us in this tran­sac­tion as well as the manage­ment teams who have done an excel­lent job to date. We are very exci­ted to conti­nue this successful part­ner­ship and take both compa­nies to the next level. The tran­sac­tion gene­ra­tes strong returns for our exis­ting capi­ton V LPs, who have been given the full option to either gene­rate liqui­dity or parti­ci­pate in the next chap­ter of both companies.”

Dr. Ralf Jede, CEO of Raith, said: “We are very proud to have deve­lo­ped Raith into the world market leader for nano­fa­bri­ca­tion equip­ment. Many thanks to the great commit­ment of all Raith employees and the trustful part­ner­ship with capi­ton. We very much look forward to working with capi­ton Quan­tum to realize further highly attrac­tive growth opportunities.”

Jan Trom­mers­hau­sen, CEO of AEMtec, said, “We look forward to the next chap­ter of our part­ner­ship with capi­ton, with all AEMtec employees remai­ning stron­gly commit­ted to the company. We are exci­ted to be able to leverage inter­na­tio­nal buy-and-build oppor­tu­ni­ties to further streng­then our posi­tion as a leading full-service provi­der of advan­ced micro- and opto­elec­tro­nic systems.”

Consul­tant Capiton:

UBS Private Funds Group, a fully inte­gra­ted part of UBS Invest­ment Bank, as exclu­sive secon­dary advisor

Legal advice: Stephen­son Harwood, POELLATH, BMH Bräu­ti­gam and Ashurst

EY (tax and struc­tu­ring advice), Houli­han Lokey (debt advice), Deloitte (legal and finan­cial due dili­gence), Roland Berger (commer­cial due dili­gence) and Kroll (fair­ness opinion).

The main inves­tors were advi­sed by Hogan Lovells. The tran­sac­tion was nota­ri­zed by CMS Hasche Sigle.

BMH BRÄUTIGAM advi­sed finan­cial inves­tor capi­ton in the context of the newly laun­ched 248 million Euro fund “capi­ton Quan­tum” on the acqui­si­tion of the stakes in the leading German high-tech compa­nies Raith and AEMtec.