Carlsquare paves the way for Swedish companies to do M&A deals in Germany

Interest in Germany has grown enormously since Brexit made the UK less attractive for Swedish companies – but at the same time, the German market for M&A transactions is much more challenging to navigate.

Here, Carlsquare is uniquely positioned in Sweden to act as a bridge between the two countries, says Anders Elgemyr, CEO and Managing Partner of Carlsquare in Sweden.
Germany is Sweden’s largest trading partner, but company information is not nearly as accessible as in Sweden. In Germany, you cannot search on the web to find out about a company´s profits, turnover, or owners. Instead, one would usually have to research companies in person, by visiting the specific town and country, explains Anders Elgemyr.

Carlsquare currently has 50,000 German companies in its database, plus established connections to all significant PE companies and owner families.

The merger created unique expertise
Carlsquare’s brand is new following a merger in 2019 between four European M&A advisors. The merger has created a unique link between Sweden and Germany for corporate transactions.

In the past year, we have advised on transactions where Swedish companies such as Add-secure, Transcom, Altor, IK, and Viva Wine group have bought German companies, says Erik Lundberg, a partner in Stockholm and responsible for M&A in Sweden.

The Swedish office has 17 employees, most of whom have extensive experience working in the industry, particularly in telecoms, software, real estate, and life science. This provides a deep understanding of transactions in these sectors.

For 2021, the Carlsquare Group set an internal target to reach 52 transactions, i.e. one deal per week. 

“But Carlsquare have already reached this figure in November, and then there is still the industry´s Christmas rush when everyone tries to close their deals before the end of the year,” says Erik Lundberg.

Several major deals recently
However, Carlsquare in Stockholm is not only targeting Germany. Significant recent transactions include Beijer Refs purchase of Inventor in Greece, and the spin-off of Telia Carrier from Telia to Polhem Infra – the latter entity receiving a market value of around SEK 10 billion.

Recently, Carlsquare also assisted Candles Scandinavia as a partner when the scented candle company was listed on First North in Stockholm as of the 8^th November 2021.

In regard to IPO´s, Carlsquare broadens its offering to include Dual Track, where an IPO and non-quoted transaction process are run in parallel to optimise its exit strategy. Given Carlsquare’s strength and experience in compiling and evaluating financial information required in M&A, the company sees an excellent opportunity to provide a more robust offering in the IPO processes. This is something that differentiates it from most of the players in the market. 

“Carlsquare take overall responsibility for the process which few of our competitors can match. We take the role of a project manager and coordinate all workstreams and parties from the start to help the client get the best deal, whether it’s a sale of the whole company or an IPO,” concludes Anders Elgemyr.

FACT
Carlsquare has offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, London, Munich, and Stockholm. We are at the top in the DACH region (the German-speaking countries in Europe) in terms of M&A deals in small and medium-sized companies, i.e. transactions up to SEK 10 billion in market value.