Proventis Partners advises mobileX on the sale to Solvares Group

Munich, July 6, 2022 – The shareholders of Munich-based mobileX AG, a leading provider of software solutions for Field Service Management (FSM), have sold 100% of their shares to Solvares Group, a portfolio company of Deutsche Beteiligungs AG, Frankfurt am Main. mobileX has been a premium provider in the FSM market for more than 20 years and supports medium-sized and large companies with its deployment planning and mobile solutions for technical customer service and maintenance.

The Transaction

mobileX AG, founded in Munich in 2000, is one of the German pioneers as a provider of field service management software solutions. More than 12,000 users worldwide use software products from mobileX. The FSM market itself is growing at a rate of approx. 15% p.a. and is estimated to exceed USD 7 billion in 2027. Proventis Partners was mandated by the company and its shareholders to find a strategic partner for mobileX in order to exploit growth potential, both geographically and sectorally.

The Solvares Group won the structured, global process. The Solvares Group, a portfolio company of Deutsche Beteiligungs AG (DBAG) and the DBAG Expansion Capital Fund (ECF), which it advises, is the European market leader for resource optimization and was formed from the mergers of FLS, portatour, Städtler and opheo. mobileX is the fifth acquisition since DBAG and DBAG ECF joined the company.

The decisive factors were both the strategic and technical fit as well as the cultural fit between the two companies. As a result, the management board of mobileX remains completely on board to shape the joint perspective for mobileX in the Solvares Group.

Hannes Heckner, CEO of mobileX AG, says: “We would like to thank the entire Proventis team for their empathy with our special requirements, their negotiating skills as well as their commitment, helpfulness and availability during the entire course of the project. Especially as an entrepreneur going through such a process for the first time, it has more than proved its worth for us to be able to fall back on the knowledge and many years of experience of the Proventis team. This has given us a sense of security and sovereignty at every stage of the project.”

“We would like to thank the mobileX team for the pleasant cooperation over the past months” says Jan Pörschmann, Managing Partner at Proventis Partners, “this was a challenging transaction with many facets. And it was worth it! We are more than confident that the symbiosis of the two companies will result in a market leader with German roots for global FSM applications.”

The Role of Proventis Partners

Proventis Partners acted as exclusive M&A advisor to the shareholders of mobileX in the preparation and implementation of the transaction. In addition to the implementation of a structured sales process, the consulting services included the preparation of marketing and transaction documents, identification and approach of potential investors including management presentations as well as support in the due diligence and negotiation of the transaction. During the sales process, the Solvares Group was quickly identified by the sellers as the preferred partner, as the two software platforms complement each other perfectly. For Proventis, the focus was not only on providing technical transaction advice, but also on harmonizing the seller’s interests, as four of the five sellers remained operationally in the company (three of them on the board of directors) and one seller had only a shareholder role. The transaction team of Proventis Partners consisted of Jan Pörschmann (Managing Partner, Munich), Florian Liepert (Director, Munich) and Maximilian Gluchowski (Senior Associate, Munich).

About mobileX AG

Founded in 2000, mobileX AG develops and distributes software for technical service and maintenance. The applications support the optimization of various business processes, for example the planning and control of operations in the technical field service. Solutions from mobileX enable field staff to access order data from the ERP system and transmit feedback and reports directly to the back office. Customers of the Munich-based software provider include TK Elevators, Melitta, MVV, M-net and Olympus Surgical Technologies Europe.

Further information is available at https://www.mobilexag.de

About Solvares Group

The Solvares Group is the European champion for resource optimization along the entire value chain. The portfolio includes solutions for the entire supply and service chain – from transport logistics to sales and field service. The focus is always on intelligent resource optimization through best-of-breed solutions for the customer. The Solvares Group was formed in 2018 with the acquisition of FLS GmbH. The expansion with impactit GmbH from Vienna, Städtler Logistik GmbH from Nuremberg and Opheo Solutions GmbH from Hamburg in 2021 created a market leader for resource optimization in Europe. In June 2022, mobileX AG from Munich was added as the fifth company. The Solvares Group employs 339 people at 9 locations in 4 countries. Headquarter is Heikendorf near Kiel.

Further information is available at https://solvares.com

About Deutsche Beteiligungs AG

Deutsche Beteiligungs AG is a listed private equity company. The focus of its investments is on medium-sized companies. Since its foundation more than 50 years ago, equity capital has been provided to over 300 companies.

Further information is available at https://www.dbag.de/

About Proventis Partners

Proventis Partners is a partner-managed M&A advisory firm whose clients include a majority of medium-sized family-owned companies, group subsidiaries as well as private equity funds. With more than 30 M&A advisors, Proventis Partners is one of the largest independent M&A advisors in the German-speaking region and looks back on 20 years of M&A experience and more than 300 completed transactions. The M&A consultants with offices in Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Munich and Zurich are active in the sectors Industrials & Chemicals, Business Services, Consumer & Retail, TMT, Healthcare and Energy & Sustainability. The exclusive membership in Mergers Alliance – an international partnership of leading M&A specialists – enables Proventis Partners to support clients in 30 countries in the most important markets worldwide. The members of Mergers Alliance, with over 200 M&A professionals, provide Proventis Partners and thus its clients with unique access to local markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa.