Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised funds managed by Alpina Capital Partners LLP (‘’Alpina Partners’’) on the acquisition of all shares in OR Soft Jänicke GmbH and ORSOFT GmbH (together “ORSOFT”) from their founding family. The management team will be supported by Christian von Stengel with ORSOFT’s founder and former CEO Dr Winfried Jänicke joining the company’s advisory board. ORSOFT intends to cooperate closely with Germanedge, Alpina Partners’ buy-and-build strategy in the manufacturing execution systems (“MES”) space.
ORSOFT was founded in 1990 as a university spin-off and has been profitable since its inception. The Leipzig-based company has approx. 90 employees and offers solutions for advanced planning and scheduling (“APS”), supply chain management (“SCM”), master data management as well as specific applications for the healthcare sector. To date, the company has executed more than 500 projects in various industries including pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, chemicals, industrial manufacturing and automotive. ORSOFT is a long-standing partner of SAP and offers solutions complementary to SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA.
Alpina Partners is an owner-managed, independent investment firm with approximately €300m in assets under management. The firm focusses on small and mid-sized businesses in Europe with strong technical USPs. Alpina Partners supports entrepreneurs and management teams to implement its growth strategies and is supported by the European Union through the “Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme” (CIP).
The WFW Germany Team advising Alpina Partners was led by Munich Corporate Partner Dr Dirk Janssen. He was supported by Partner Anne Kleffmann (Employment), Senior Associate Marian Peter Wieczorke, Associate Silvia Rava(both Corporate) and Associate Maximillian Koch (Employment). Hamburg Banking & Finance Partner Dr Stefan Kilgus and Senior Associate Paul-Vincent Hahn advised on the financing aspects of the transaction.
