31 Jan 2022
Carlsquare advises XING on the acquisition of Intelligence Competence Center (Deutschland) AG
23 Jan 2015
Hamburg, 22 January 2015 – XING AG (O1BC/ISINDE000XNG888) is acquiring all shares in Aschaffenburg-based Intelligence Competence Center (Deutschland) AG with economic effect from 1 January 2015. Among other things, Intelligence Competence Center AG operates the www.jobbörse.com website, which is the largest jobs search engine in German-speaking countries with over 2.5 million job ads. In doing so, XING is also gaining access to Jobbörse.com’s search technology, which currently searches around 15 million domains, including more than 1.5 million corporate sites. XING AG is initially paying approximately EUR 6.3 million for 100% of the shares to all of the shareholders. Depending on the achievement of operating targets for 2015 and 2016, the main shareholder and founder of Intelligence Competence Center AG may receive additional purchase price payments of up to EUR 2.4 million by February 2017.
Thomas Vollmoeller, XING AG CEO, said: “We’ll be able to offer our users far more and a greater range of job ads. This will boost our members’ chances of finding the right job for their lifestyle. On top of that, non-members will benefit from XING Jobs.”[nbsp]
Last September XING relaunched its jobs product as part of a careers offensive. In doing so, XING made job ads available to non-XING members on a website outside of the XING platform for the first time. XING Jobs also provides information highly relevant to today’s working world that is not available on conventional job boards. One such example is where jobseekers can view job ads posted by companies that offer family-friendly working conditions or social and environmental expertise.[nbsp]
By acquiring Intelligence Competence Center AG, XING is also taking over the company’s sophisticated search technology, which currently searches around 15 million domains, including more than 1.5 million corporate sites.[nbsp]
Today’s acquisition will see XING pay Intelligence Competence Center AG shareholders around €6.3 million. Depending on the achievement of operating targets for 2015 and 2016, the main shareholder, founder and current CEO of Intelligence Competence Center AG, Torsten Heissler, may receive additional earn-out payments of up to EUR 2.4 million by February 2017. Torsten Heissler said: “We have a number of great ideas to drive the HR market. Over the coming years we intend to work together to turn these ideas into reality and continue to grow. Together with XING and its strong team, we have far more opportunities than we would have if we continued alone. My team and I are looking forward to these exciting challenges.” The Intelligence Competence Center AG headquarters are in Aschaffenburg, and this will remain so following the acquisition by XING. The company is profitable. In order to ideally lever all of the synergies, XING will comprehensively integrate Intelligence Competence Center AG, its technology and its job ads into XING AG and XING’s products during the course of the year. The Jobbörse.com domain will remain as it is. The company currently employs 13 people who will all be kept on after being fully integrated into XING AG.[nbsp]
Carlsquare advised XING during the transaction process.[nbsp]
About XING
XING is the social network for business professionals. The XING Group has around 8.3 million users in its core German-speaking market, more than 8 million of whom are XING platform members. XING is a platform where professionals from all kinds of different industries can meet up, find jobs, colleagues, new assignments, cooperation partners, experts and generate business ideas. Members can meet and exchange views in over 66,000 specialist groups, while also getting together at networking events. The platform is operated by XING AG, which was founded in Hamburg, Germany, in 2003, has been publicly listed since 2006, and listed on the TecDAX since September 2011. In December 2010, XING acquired amiando AG, a Munich-based company and Europe’s leading provider of online event management and ticketing. Since the end of 2013 the company has been trading under the name XING EVENTS GmbH. The acquisition of kununu GmbH, the leading platform for employer reviews in German-speaking countries, allows XING to extend its position as the social recruiting market leader. At the start of 2015 XING also acquired Intelligence Competence Center AG, including its Jobbörse.com website which is the largest jobs search engine in German-speaking countries with over 2.5 million jobs. Visit www.xing.com for further details.[nbsp]
About Intelligence Competence Center (Deutschland) AG
The Intelligence Competence Center was founded in 2005 by Torsten Heissler as technology company with professional consultation focused on search technology. The specialist in IT architecture, knowledge management, and ontology (semantic search) offers individual solutions for complex information networks. With more than 2.5 million jobs, Jobbörse.com is the largest job search engine in German-speaking countries. With an own search technology, approx. 15 million domains, among them more than 1.5 million corporate websites, are searched by Jobbörse.com. The company (formerly: iCjobs) has been awarded second place as best job platform in Germany twice in a row and won best website of the year in the category career in 2013. Please visit www.jobbörse.com for further details.[nbsp]
About Carlsquare
Carlsquare and the international M[&]A network Globalscope offer integrated cross-border M[&]A consulting services for medium-sized transactions. Carlsquare – a partner led corporate finance firm – advises businesses and shareholders to realise their strategic objectives ensuring the highest level of quality. Carlsquare is managed by three partners and is based in Hamburg and Munich with 18 employees. Globalscope has 38 members in 44 countries with more than 400 professionals worldwide.
Deal Team / Kontakt:
Carlsquare GmbH
Valentinskamp 24
20354 Hamburg
