Monthly Archives: May 2017

EFG International completes integration of BSI in Luxembourg

EFG International today announces that it has completed the legal and operational integration of BSI in Luxembourg by way of a merger, including the BSI branch in Italy.
In line with the previously announced gradual process to integrate BSI into EFG, the acquired business from BSI’s entity in Luxembourg, including the BSI branch in Italy, has been migrated to EFG Bank in Luxembourg.
BSI (Europe) S.A, the official name of BSI in Luxembourg, is now legally and operationally integrated into EFG Bank (Luxembourg) S.A. The combined business has its registered office in 56, Grand-Rue, L-1660 Luxembourg, and will now operate in the market solely under the EFG name.
By way of this merger, EFG further strengthens its presence in Luxembourg, remaining focused on providing superior service with a long-term perspective in wealth and asset management.
With this step, the EFG brand will also be introduced in Italy for the first time. For the combined business, Italy is one of the strategic markets, and EFG is present in Milan, Como and Genoa.

About EFG International
EFG International is a global private banking group offering private banking and asset management services and is headquartered in Zurich. EFG International’s group of private banking businesses operates in around 40 locations worldwide. Its registered shares (EFGN) are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange.
EFG International AG, Bleicherweg 8, 8001 Zurich, Switzerland
www.efginternational.com

Categories: News

Tags:

Almi Invest invests in the medtech company B! BB Instruments

Press Release • May 03, 2017 07:13 CEST
Superstartup of the Year (2016) Ulf Skarin, The Week’s Stores, Mikael Karlsson, Almi Invest, Charles Walther, Bibb Instruments, Maria Kesslling, Almi Invest and PO Lindsten, Weekly Stores. 

Almi Invest invests just under SEK 1 million in B! BB Instruments, a company in Lund that develops an instrument that enables quick and easy testing of suspected cancer patients. The issue of a total of SEK 4.6 million also includes Swedish Growth Fund, Christer Fåhraeus via Fårö Capital and a number of private and institutional investors. The money will go for launch of the company’s first product in the Nordic market. 

B! BB develops EndoDrill, an instrument that facilitates the diagnosis of cancer tumors by drilling into the tissue. This makes it possible to reach deep-lying tumors. This differs from today’s methods that are difficult to capture deeply lying tissue. 

The first version of EndoDrill is used to take samples in the stomach, where tumors are difficult to diagnose with today’s methods. Today, repeated samples must be taken or waived until the tumor has grown in size, causing unnecessary suffering to the patient. Often surgery is required to make a final diagnosis. With EndoDrill, you can easily set an early and safe diagnosis, which allows the patient to get the right treatment faster. 

EndoDrill has the potential to become a new standard method for sampling in deep-lying tumors, says Per Antonsson, Investment Manager at Almi Invest. This would save a lot of money for healthcare as you can reduce the number of tests and avoid unnecessary operations. 

B! BB already has orders for EndoDrill from several hospitals in Sweden and deliveries of sterile disposable instruments are scheduled for 2017. The company was named 2016 for the Superstartup of the Year by Almi Invest in cooperation with Veckans Affärer. 

https://www.va.se/nyheter/2016/05/10/arets-superentreprenor/ 

Financing enables the launch of EndoDrill and continued development of other closely related biopsy instruments for major indications, such as lung, intestinal, prostate and breast cancer. Our vision is to improve diagnostics for many of the most common forms of cancer, and we see a significant market potential in this, says Fredrik Lindblad, CEO B! BB Instruments. 

For further information, please contact: 

Per Antonsson, Investment Manager Almi Invest, tel 070 872 87 17, mail per.antonsson@almiinvest.se
Fredrik Lindblad, CEO B! BB, tel 0708-999 486, mail fredrik.lindblad@bibbinstruments.com
Maria Kessling, Communications Manager Almi Invest, tel. 076-880 88 10, mail maria.kessling@almiinvest.se 

About Almi Invest 

Almi Invest is Sweden’s most active investor in startups. We make investments throughout the country through 8 regional venture capital companies and a national venture capital company in GreenTech. Almi Invest manages approximately SEK 3 billion and has since invested approximately 600 startups. Our best holdings have been acquired by Google, Microsoft, Qlik and Apple, for example, or listed on different stock exchanges. Almi Invest is a venture capital company within the Almi Group.

Categories: News

Tags:

Adelis New Owner in Knightec

Adelis

Adelis Equity Partners becomes the new majority owner in Knightec together with founders Dimitris Gioulekas and Håkan Jarnbjer. Mr Gioulekas and Mr Jarnbjer remain significant shareholders and will continue in their current roles, CEO and Business Unit Manager Technology, respectively. In conjunction with the transaction, management and other key employees will also become owners in the company. With Adelis as its new partner, Knightec will take the next step in its growth strategy.

Since inception in 2003, Knightec has grown significantly and today employs over 500 consultants with revenues of SEK 500 million. Together with Adelis, Knightec will continue its growth strategy, make necessary investments and position itself as the strategic partner to its customers and preferred employer for its employees.

”We are delighted with Adelis as our new partner. Adelis is an experienced owner who shares our values about entrepreneurship, creativity and teamwork. Their industrial network, experience and track record from developing professional services businesses make Adelis our ideal partner”, says Dimitris Gioulekas, CEO at Knightec.

”We see Knightec’s success story as the result of a unique culture, driven and technically skilled consultants as well as successful leadership. We look forward to developing Knightec into the market leader within product development together with the management team and the rest of the organisation”, says Erik Hallert at Adelis.

The transaction is subject to competition clearance.

For further information:

Dimitris Gioulekas, dimitris.gioulekas@knightec.se, +46 705 699 688

Erik Hallert, erik.hallert@adelisequity.com, +46 709 36 80 41

About Knightec

Knightec is a fast growing consultant company offering engineering specialist services for an increased product profitability, from idea to quality assured product. Knightec operates within Automotive, Life Science, Defense, Energy, Packaging and Machinery. Our vision is to drive change in the consultancy business by introducing new business models based on customer value. For further information please visit www.knightec.se/en .

About Adelis Equity Partners

Adelis is an active investor and partner in creating value at medium sized Nordic companies. Adelis was founded in 2012 with the goal of building the leading middle market investment firm in the Nordics. Adelis’ team members have extensive Private Equity experience, have invested in over 50 companies and have been members of the board in more than 50 middle market companies. Our current fund size is approximately €400 million. For more information please visit www.adelisequity.com .

Categories: News

Tags:

Gimv invests in emerging immuno-oncology company ImCheck Therapeutics

GIMV

Gimv invests in emerging immuno-oncology company ImCheck Therapeutics

Gimv today announces a EUR 5 million investment in French ImCheck Therapeutics, an emerging player in the field of cancer and auto-immune immunotherapies that focuses on the development of first-in-class antibodies that activate the immune system against different cancer types. This investment is part of a total Series A financing of EUR 20 million from a consortium of specialized life sciences investors including Kurma, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), Idinvest and Life Science Partners (LSP).

ImCheck Therapeutics was founded in 2015 as a spin-off from the Paoli-Calmettes Cancer Institute in Marseille (France). The company is developing innovative antibody therapeutics in the field of immuno-oncology, based on scientific assets originating from the pioneering work of Prof. Daniel Olive. The funds will be used to advance its lead candidates towards clinical development, as well as to progress its discovery programs.

Karl Nägler, Partner in Gimv’s Health and Care platform, on this transaction: «We are excited to partner with ImCheck and with such a strong syndicate of first class biotech investors, given the game-changing potential of ImCheck’s development candidates for the treatment of cancer. After earlier investments in Topas Therapeutics, G-Therapeutics, Endostim, Spineart and Breath Therapeutics, ImCheck Therapeutics in the sixth new investment of Gimv’s Health & Care team over the past 12 months.»

Categories: News

Tags:

Summa Equity invests in Pagero Group

Summa Equity invests in Pagero Group, a company that develops and markets Pagero Online, a cloud-based network platform for communication of business documents within the purchase-to-pay, order-to-cash and logistic-to-pay (TMS) processes. Summa Equity becomes the largest shareholder. CEO Bengt Nilsson and management will remain invested alongside Summa Equity.

Christian Melby, Partner at Summa Equity, said : “In our extensive search for the next global trend, we have met a lot of companies with interesting applications for business support within procurement and order-to-cash. However, most of them were either built on a closed network or traditional EDI connections. We believe in Pagero’s philosophy of offering an open platform, connecting businesses with all their customers and suppliers in an easy and cost-efficient way that allows room for correct and fast decision-making in a global and competitive world.”

Since its foundation, Pagero has developed into a modern SaaS provider with more than 80 per cent recurring revenues, over 20,000 customers, more than 1.5 million transactions per month, and a network that reaches millions of companies directly and via roaming agreements. The value-added services enable Pagero’s customers to achieve accurate data and obtain a 100 per cent digital inbound and outbound business document flow, resulting in minimal error handling, compliance with local VAT regulation and control over company spend. Pagero Online is independent of ERP systems and therefore suits companies of all sizes and within all industries. It is also interconnected with an extensive number of other networks for global reach.

Bengt Nilsson, CEO of Pagero, said: “Summa Equity’s confidence in Pagero is a clear sign that our choice of strategy and business model are right. Thanks to Summa Equity’s funding and commitment to Pagero, we can continue with our growth strategy and bring our services to a market largely driven by legislation with high demands on compliance. Our goal is to be the top-of-mind player on the market enabling companies all over the globe to streamline their business processes with accurate data and a 100 per cent digital business document flow.”

Pagero has over 190 employees and a strong innovation focus, with 50 employees in R&D. It is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, with offices in Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Rome, Madrid, Paris, Istanbul and Dubai. Pagero is in an expansive growth phase and saw revenues grow to SEK 168m in 2016.

The investment will be made through a rights issue of SEK 100 million and the acquisition of shares from existing shareholders. Summa Equity will support Pagero through continued investments in R&D, new markets, and people with the ambition of sustaining the company’s high growth trajectory. Pagero is expected to benefit from the global trends towards increasing digitalisation and automation of business processes, and increasing regulatory demands on compliance.

Ends

For more information, please contact:

Christian Melby, Partner, Summa Equity, +47 958 13 277, christian.melby@summaequity.com

Bengt Nilsson, CEO, Pagero Group, +46 708 11 22 11, bengt.nilsson@pagero.com

About Summa Equity

Summa Equity was formed in 2016 by partners with a shared vision of building a leading specialised private equity firm in the Nordic lower mid-market, positioned to capture the investment opportunity provided by the thematic megatrends expected to drive growth over the long term. The firm focuses on sectors related to four megatrend-driven themes: resource scarcity, energy efficiency, changing demographics and tech-enabled businesses. Summa Equity closed its first fund in February 2017 with commitments of SEK 4.5 billion.

Categories: News

Tags:

Gimv invests in emerging immuno-oncology company ImCheck Therapeutics

GIMV

Gimv invests in immuno-oncology company ImCheck Therapeutics

Gimv today announces a EUR 5 million investment in French ImCheck Therapeutics, an emerging player in the field of cancer and auto-immune immunotherapies that focuses on the development of first-in-class antibodies that activate the immune system against different cancer types. This investment is part of a total Series A financing of EUR 20 million from a consortium of specialized life sciences investors including Kurma, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), Idinvest and Life Science Partners (LSP).

ImCheck Therapeutics was founded in 2015 as a spin-off from the Paoli-Calmettes Cancer Institute in Marseille (France). The company is developing innovative antibody therapeutics in the field of immuno-oncology, based on scientific assets originating from the pioneering work of Prof. Daniel Olive. The funds will be used to advance its lead candidates towards clinical development, as well as to progress its discovery programs.

Karl Nägler, Partner in Gimv’s Health and Care platform, on this transaction: «We are excited to partner with ImCheck and with such a strong syndicate of first class biotech investors, given the game-changing potential of ImCheck’s development candidates for the treatment of cancer. After earlier investments in Topas Therapeutics, G-Therapeutics, Endostim, Spineart and Breath Therapeutics, ImCheck Therapeutics in the sixth new investment of Gimv’s Health & Care team over the past 12 months.»

Categories: News

Tags:

Danish joint venture completes second UK biomass power plant ahead of schedule

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners

As of 22 April 2017, the Snetterton Renewable Energy Plant has been handed over to the owners after a construction period of 29 months, which is one month ahead of schedule and within the agreed investment budget of GBP 175m. The biomass plant has a capacity of 44MW and will generate enough green electricity to supply 82,000 homes and save over 300,000 tonnes of CO2 every year.

In 2013, Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor A/S (BWSC) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), together with PensionDanmark, formed a joint venture, BWSC PLC Ltd. (BPCL), to build, own and operate biomass power plants. The company closed its first contract for the Brigg project in 2013, and the project entered commercial operation in January 2016. The second project is the Snetterton project where the investment decision was taken in November 2014.

Snetterton, which is located in Norfolk in East Anglia, England, is based on Danish biomass energy technology supplied by BWSC under a turnkey EPC contract. Furthermore, BWSC is responsible for operation and maintenance of the plant under a 15-year O&M agreement, which commenced on the date of completion of the plant. The local staff consists of around 30 employees.

Snetterton is owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure I K/S, which has PensionDanmark as the founding and sole investor, together with BWSC.

“We are very pleased with the good cooperation with CIP and BWSC. The completion of our second project together, is a strong evidence of the success of our joint venture model. It provides PensionDanmark with an attractive return, and at the same time, we are helping to increase Danish energy technology exports and are supporting the transition to a climate-friendly energy production. We look forward to more projects together,” says Torben Möger Pedersen, CEO, PensionDanmark.

“The completion of the Snetterton power plant is an important milestone in achieving BWSC’s strategic objective of growth by financing of and investing in power plants. The collaboration with CIP and PensionDanmark has strengthened BWSC’s position as market leader within building, operating and owning decentralised biomass power plants, and we look forward to continuing this fruitful partnership”, says Anders Heine Jensen, CEO in BWSC.

“The completion of Snetterton is a continuation of the successful cooperation between PensionDanmark, BWSC and CIP, which started with the Brigg power plant. The completion ahead of schedule also demonstrates the value of forming partnerships between financial investors and strong industrial companies”, says Christina G. Sørensen, Senior Partner in CIP.

Snetterton

For further information, please contact:

Ulrikke Ekelund, PensionDanmark +45 2019 9238 or email: uek@pension.dk, web: www.pension.dk
Mette Mulipola, BWSC +45 48102302 or email: mknm@bwsc.dk, web: www.bwsc.com
Kristina Negendahl Jessen, CIP +45 70705151 or email: cip@cip.dk, web: www.cip.dk
Peter Sills, BWSC East Anglia Ltd. +44 7976 437 467 press@snettertonbiomass.com web: www.snettertonbiomass.com

Notes to Editors

Facts about the project:

Snetterton Renewable Energy Plant (Snetterton), which is located in Norfolk in East Anglia, England, is based on Danish biomass energy technology supplied by BWSC under a turnkey EPC contract. Furthermore, BWSC is responsible for operation and maintenance of the plant under a 15-year O&M agreement. Snetterton is a primarily straw fueled plant and has a capacity of 44MW, corresponding to the total consumption of 82,000 households, and will reduce annual CO2 emissions by an estimated 300,000 tonnes. The plant consumes in the region of 250,000 tonnes of straw per year which is sourced from farmers throughout the local region. The boiler of the plant was supplied by the former Danish high-tech company BWE which was acquired by BWSC in February 2017 through an asset deal.

Facts about the parties:

About PensionDanmark

PensionDanmark is a labor market pension fund and among the 50 largest pension funds in Europe. PensionDanmark manages pension and insurance schemes, health care and educational funds on behalf of 695,000 members employed at 26,000 businesses within the Danish private and public sector. PensionDanmark is a not-for-profit and owned by our members. As a result, all profits go to our members. Premium income totaled EUR 1.7bn in 2016. By the end of 2016 PensionDanmark had EUR 29,6bn under management. PensionDanmark currently has EUR 2.4bn invested in infrastructure and expects to invest a further EUR 1.1bn in infrastructure over the coming years.

About Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor A/S (BWSC)

Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor A/S (BWSC) is a Danish engineering and contracting company which develops, builds, operates and owns high-performance biomass, biogas and diesel power plants. The majority of the projects are supplied as turnkey plants, and BWSC has delivered more than 180 power plants to 53 countries worldwide with a total capacity of more than 3,500 MW. Currently, BWSC has ongoing activities in England, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Mauritius, Faroe Islands, Sri Lanka and Kenya. In 2016, BWSC generated revenue of DKK 2.9bn, and the order backlog amounted to DKK 6.7bn at end-2016, which is an all-time high. In February 2017, BWSC acquired the assets of the Danish boiler manufacturer Burmeister & Wain Energy (BWE) and thus secured its position as a leading energy company on the global market for small and medium-sized biomass power plants. BWSC originates from the stationary engine division of Burmeister & Wain (B&W), which has built and installed diesel engines for power plants since 1904. BWSC was established as a separate specialist company in 1980 and was acquired by Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. in 1990. In February 2017, BWSC acquired key assets from Burmeister & Wain Energy.

About Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners K/S (CIP) is a fund management company founded in 2012 by senior executives from the energy industry and PensionDanmark. CIP is owned and managed by the five partners, Jakob Baruël Poulsen, Rune Bro Róin, Torsten Lodberg Smed, Christian T. Skakkebæk and Christina Grumstrup Sørensen. All five partners have extensive experience within infrastructure investments and mergers & acquisitions. CIP currently manages the funds Copenhagen Infrastructure I K/S, CI Artemis K/S, Copenhagen Infrastructure II K/S, and Copenhagen Infrastructure III K/S. Copenhagen Infrastructure I K/S and CI Artemis K/S both have PensionDanmark as sole investor, while Copenhagen Infrastructure II and III K/S have multiple Danish and international institutional investors.

 

 

Categories: News

Tags: