Alantra advised Quadriga Capital on the sale of M&R Automation

Jun 2017

Sell-side advisory

Alantra has advised Funds advised by Quadriga Capital on its sale of M&R Automation GmbH, a leading industrial automation company to PIA Automation Holding GmbH which recently was spun off from Preh Group (part of Chinese listed Joyson Electronics). The combination of M&R Automation and PIA Automation will create a leading global automation player with complementary automation offerings. The new partnership with M&R Automation will both complement the portfolio in the area of powertrain and e-mobility production solutions and lend a sustained impetus to the trending theme of Industry 4.0. Alantra’s Frankfurt team provided exclusive M&A advice to Quadriga Capital. The transaction is still subject to approval by the competent authorities. Alantra initiated the transaction and supported Quadriga Capital and the M&R Automation team throughout this highly efficient bilateral process.

Quadriga Capital Beteiligungsberatung GmbH advises, among others, funds and their institutional investors specializing in the acquisition of small and medium-sized enterprises based in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as their neighboring countries. These funds focus on growth strategies for companies in the fields of smart industries, Healthcare, consumer goods/e-commerce, and services & software.

The automation specialist PIA Automation has been spun off from Preh IMA Automation, a subsidiary of the automotive supplier Preh GmbH in Bad Neustadt a.d. Saale, and set up as an independent company of Jeff Wang and the management. PIA Automation develops, plans and builds flexible and powerful assembly and production lines for companies in the fields of automotive supply, electrical engineering, consumer goods, medicine/pharmaceuticals, renewable energy and cosmetics. Its services range from the manual assembly workplace to the fully automatic production plant with integrated test technology and data documentation. The operational Preh IMA Automation GmbH generated a turnover of around EUR 126 million in 2016 with strong double-digit growth and currently employs about 700 people. The PIA Automation Holding has been based in Frankfurt am Main since April 2017.