Successor solution for PDV-Systeme GmbH ensures future growth

As part of the long-term prepa­ra­tion for the suc­ces­sion plan of PDV-Sys­teme GmbH, Aheim Cap­i­tal, NORD Hold­ing and TIB / bm|t have acquired shares in the Erfurt-based com­pany. PDV-Sys­teme GmbH founder and long­time CEO, Wolf­gang Schulz, has handed over the man­age­ment of daily oper­a­tions to co-CEOs, Dirk Ner­ling and Gre­gor Lietz, who have already been in their posi­tions for two years. Schulz will now sit on the newly-estab­lished Advi­sory Board of PDV-Sys­teme. “PDV-Sys­teme has devel­oped through­out its his­tory as an impor­tant player in the Ger­man e‑Government mar­ket,” Wolf­gang Schulz said at the Thuringian company’s 25^th anniver­sary in Octo­ber of this year. With more than 100 employ­ees, the soft­ware man­u­fac­turer is cur­rently one of Ger­many’s lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers of sys­tems for elec­tronic records man­age­ment in the pub­lic sec­tor. The founder chose to divest the Erfurt-based com­pany to a long term-ori­ented invest­ment com­pany in the con­text of its suc­ces­sion plan. Schulz com­mis­sioned Blue Cor­po­rate Finance AG, a lead­ing inde­pen­dent cor­po­rate finance com­pany in Europe, to lead the sale process. Along with Aheim Cap­i­tal as the lead investor, NORD Hold­ing and the bm|t‑managed Thüringer Indus­triebeteili­gungs-GmbH & Co. KG (TIB) have acquired shares. The new share­hold­ers place empha­sis on the long-term devel­op­ment of the Erfurt com­pany. To ensure a high level of con­ti­nu­ity, daily oper­a­tions will be con­tin­ued by oper­at­ing co-CEOs Gre­gor Lietz and Dirk Ner­ling. In addi­tion, Wolf­gang Schulz joined the newly-estab­lished Advi­sory Board of PDV-Sys­teme, so that the exten­sive expe­ri­ence of the founder will con­tinue to ben­e­fit the com­pany. Frank Henkel­mann, as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Aheim Cap­i­tal, accepted the chair­man­ship of the advi­sory board and share­holder meetings.

About PDV-Sys­teme (www.pdv.de)

PDV-Sys­teme GmbH was founded in Erfurt in Octo­ber 1990. The com­pany devel­ops elec­tronic fil­ing and doc­u­ment man­age­ment soft­ware for pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion sys­tems. The 100 employ­ees of the com­pany achieved a turnover of €16.1 mil­lion in the past fis­cal year.

About Aheim Cap­i­tal (www.aheim.com)

Aheim Cap­i­tal invests in prof­itable medium-sized com­pa­nies with a turnover of up to €75 mil­lion as well as advises funds and co-investors involved in suc­ces­sion solu­tions, growth sit­u­a­tions and cor­po­rate spin-offs. Espe­cially in com­plex, sen­si­tive suc­ces­sion sit­u­a­tions, Aheim stands together with own­ers as a com­pe­tent and reli­able part­ner. Aheim is flex­i­ble and devel­ops indi­vid­u­ally-tai­lored share­holder struc­ture solu­tions inclu­sively with all stake­hold­ers, includ­ing major­ity and qual­i­fied minor­ity interests.

About NORD Hold­ing (www.nordholding.de)

For over 45 years, NORD Hold­ing has been one of the lead­ing pri­vate equity investors for the upper Mit­tel­stand. Their main activ­i­ties are the struc­tur­ing and financ­ing of com­pany suc­ces­sion mod­els, acqui­si­tion of cor­po­rate divi­sions and sub­sidiaries, and expan­sion finance for SMEs. Investors in NORD Hold­ing include sev­eral North Ger­man sav­ings banks, pub­lic insur­ance com­pa­nies and pen­sion funds as well as the North Ger­man Lan­des­bank. Cur­rently, the com­pany is engaged in Ger­many and Ger­man-speak­ing coun­tries with more than 20 sub­sidiaries. Through its umbrella fund, NORD Hold­ing has invested €500 mil­lion in asso­ci­ated com­pa­nies in other Euro­pean coun­tries and thus offers port­fo­lio com­pa­nies an inter­na­tional network.

About bm|t

Erfurt-based bm|t (beteili­gungs­man­age­ment thürin­gen GmbH) is a sub­sidiary of Thüringer Auf­baubank and the pre­mier part­ner for invest­ments in Thuringia. bm|t cur­rently man­ages eight funds with a total vol­ume of around €300 mil­lion, focus­ing on inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies across all indus­tries and at all stages of com­pany devel­op­ment, includ­ing com­pa­nies in the start-up and growth phases as well as busi­ness suc­ces­sion situations.

About Blue Cor­po­rate Finance (www.bluecf.com)

Blue Cor­po­rate Finance sup­ports Mit­tel­stand com­pa­nies in the acqui­si­tion and sale of com­pa­nies or parts of com­pa­nies, cap­i­tal mar­kets trans­ac­tions and financ­ing as a tem­po­rary “exter­nal cor­po­rate finance depart­ment.” Since 2001, Blue Cor­po­rate Finance has suc­cess­fully com­pleted 200 trans­ac­tions in ser­vice to its customers.