Deutsche Beteiligungs AG acquires Romaco group

Management buyout of manufacturer of packaging and food processing equipment

Frankfurt am Main, 31 March 2011. Deutsche Beteiligungs AG (DBAG) and its managed closed-end private equity fund DBAG Fund V announced today that they will acquire the Romaco group (“Romaco”) in a management buyout. DBAG and seller Robbins & Myers Inc., a NYSE listed company headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, USA, signed a contract to that effect. The purchase price for the company is 61 million euros. DBAG will invest some eight million euros from its balance sheet and hold a 19 percent interest in Romaco. DBAG Fund V and Romaco’s management will acquire the remaining shares.

Romaco (www.romaco.com) designs and manufactures machines and complete lines for packaging and processing applications. The group’s products can be categorised into two segments: The first is filling, dosing and packaging machines and lines for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. The Romaco packaging segment focuses on technically sophisticated flexible machines for medium-batch production environments. This segment is currently benefiting from the strong global expansion of generic drug producers and contract packers (a company that packages drugs for other pharmaceutical companies). Romaco’s other segment is process technology, which provides machines and complete processing lines primarily for the food, healthcare and cosmetic industries. The group employs a staff of 450 at three primary locations (its headquarters in Karlsruhe, Germany; in Rheinfelden, Switzerland; and in Bologna, Italy). This team is supported globally in more than 100 markets through a network of agencies and local service and support centres.

About two-thirds of its expected 2011 revenues of 100 million euros (financial year ending 31 August) will come from packaging machine construction. These include machines that blister-pack tablets and capsules as well as cartoning equipment that packs blisters and other products into cartons and cases. Romaco’s product range also encompasses machines for sterile filling solutions as well as for strip packaging applications, such as for effervescent tablets. Romaco develops and manufactures these machines and provides a full range of support services; among these services are a large variety of high precision, product-specific format parts to adapt machines to different tablet forms and packaging sizes. With its packaging machines, Romaco is benefiting from the growth drivers in the pharmaceutical market – a growing population worldwide, an aging population in industrialised nations and rising prosperity in emerging countries. Focused on flexible machines for medium-batch production environments, Romaco is growing strongly in Asia, India and Eastern Europe – major production regions for generics manufacturers and contract packers.

The remaining portion of revenues is generated by machines for processing solutions, used, for instance, in the production of pasty edibles (mustard, mayonnaise) as well as for ointments, eye drops, gels and suspensions. Romaco has a large installed base of machines and is a leading global manufacturer in this attractive and stable segment. The company can draw on a wealth of application knowledge and skills in process technology, particularly in the food and healthcare industries. Therefore new products are therefore frequently developed in partnership with Romaco’s specialists and engineers.

“Romaco creates an excellent opportunity for us to invest in a highly attractive and strongly growing segment of Europe’s mechanical engineering sector,” said Dr Rolf Scheffels, member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Beteiligungs AG, following the signing of the agreement. “In partnering with Romaco’s management, we aim to take a major step forward in the group’s internationalisation, based on its benchmark technologies,” Dr Scheffels went on to say. “The focus will be on, among other things, expanding the service business, strengthening the sales network and transferring process knowledge and skills to other applications, such as for the cosmetics industry. Growth will largely be organic, but will also come from complementary add-on acquisitions.”

The Romaco group was formed in the 1990s by a private investor through the acquisition of several mid-sized companies. Robbins & Myers took over the group in 2001, which it will now divest to focus on other business sectors. Romaco is present in the market with a number of different brands, including Noack, Promatic, Siebler, Macofar, Bosspak, Unipac and FrymaKoruma.

The deal is conditional upon the approval of the anti-trust authorities. It is expected to be completed by the end of April.