Alantra advised HQ Equita on the sale of its portfolio company ROVEMA GmbH to Franz Haniel & Cie.

Oct 2017

Sell-side advisory

Alantra has advised HQ Equita on the sale of ROVEMA, a leading provider of world-class vertical food packaging machinery, to Franz Haniel & Cie. The transaction is subject only to customary regulatory approvals. Headquartered in Fernwald, Hesse, ROVEMA is a German manufacturer of premium vertical form, fill and seal (VFFS) machinery, largely for food applications, as well as dosing systems, cartoners and end-of-line (EoL) packaging machines. Furthermore, ROVEMA offers turnkey systems and a variety of spare parts and services for its machines, which still set the benchmark in terms of quality and performance since its founding 60 years ago.

With around 600 skilled employees and an international setup of sales and service subsidiaries, the company is able to serve both global blue-chip customers as well as more regionally focused food producers worldwide. Under the ownership of HQ Equita and the leadership of Mr. Thomas Becker, ROVEMA has continued its strong growth trajectory (ca. 15% p.a.) through an innovative product portfolio and a very substantial customer service business driven by its large installed base. The business is expected to generate sales of around €100m in 2017 with industry leading profit margins.

“Alantra’s dedicated sector focus on industrial automation, unique transaction experience and close relationships with all key strategic and financial buyers made them the ideal partner for this process. Alantra ran a highly competitive and very well structured process, leading to an outstanding result for ROVEMA and its shareholders,” commented Christine Weiss, Partner at HQ Equita.

“I am extremely happy about having chosen Alantra to guide ROVEMA through the demanding last 5 months. Due to the terrific efforts of the entire Alantra team and the extremely well thought through process design, we were able to attract significant interest from both strategic and financial buyers, which allowed us in the end to have a number of very interesting opportunities from which to choose our optimal long-term partner for the future. I am impressed by the high degree of senior involvement throughout the entire process and the hands-on mentality of the whole Alantra team, which was clearly one of the key success factors for this transaction,” remarked Thomas Becker, CEO and shareholder of ROVEMA.

Franz Haniel & Cie. is a 100% family-owned industrial holding company founded in 1756 in Duisburg, Germany. Haniel holds a diverse portfolio consisting of six direct equity investment including Metro AG, CWS-boco and TAKKT AG. ROVEMA will form the nucleus of a new division active in food packaging machinery and peripheral technology.