• Transactions

Auria Solutions Carve-Out and Sale of Business Unit to PARTER CAPITAL

The Company

Auria Solutions ("Auria") is a leading supplier of automotive flooring, acoustic and fiber-based solutions for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and trucks. 

With currently around 4,700 employees, the Group has a very important international footprint with headquarters in the UK (Birmingham), USA (Southfield, Michigan), China (Shanghai) and Germany (Düsseldorf) and currently operates 18 plants and 10 Engineering, Testing & Tooling Centers worldwide.

Auria Solutions ("Auria") is a leading supplier of automotive flooring, acoustic and synthetic fibre solutions for both cars, commercial vehicles and trucks. 

With currently approx. 4,700 employees, the group has a very international set-up with headquarters in the UK (Birmingham), USA (Southfield, Michigan), China (Shanghai) and Germany (Düsseldorf) and currently operates 18 plants and 10 Engineering, Testing & Tooling Centres worldwide. 

The Transaction

At the Hamburg location, Auria operated two plants for the production of elastomeric floor coverings, especially for the truck and other commercial vehicle industries. With origins in the former Phönix-Werke in Hamburg (now mainly Continental), the high level of material expertise in the rubber sector and the existing plant infrastructure make this site one of the key suppliers for relevant applications in Germany and other European countries. Since the business was declared as a "non-core business" within the framework of Auria's corporate strategy, Auria's objective was to find a suitable partner to take over and further develop the site. Due to the existing legal and operational integration into the Auria Group, a key transaction requirement was the carve-out of the business into its own legal structure as well as the transfer (via asset deal, transfer of the main contracts and accompanying transition services agreements) into an independent "stand-alone" organization. As part of a structured M&A process, Parter Capital, an investor specialized in carve-out transactions with relevant experience in the automotive sector, was selected as the buyer, which will further develop the business under the name "Hanseatic Elastomer Components" in the future.

Scope of Mandate

ARGONAS acted as exclusive M&A advisor to Auria in the preparation (incl. carve-out planning) and implementation of the transaction in close cooperation with the management team of the plant as well as Auria's senior management teams in Germany, UK and USA.

Christian Berkhoff

Managing Partner/Co-Founder

Christian Berkhoff is Managing Partner at ARGONAS und has more than 20 years of experience in Corporate Finance Advisory und Investment Banking. 

At ARGONAS, Christian leads M&A and financing projects across a broad spectrum of industries, sectors and company situations. Christian’s focus areas are businesses in the Industrial & Automotive and Business Services space as well as complex financing solutions and M&A situations. 

Selected transaction references comprise inter alia the sale of the Siemens subsidiary Symeo to US-listed Analog Devices, the sale of Tecno Plast to Swedish Indutrade Group in the context of a succession solution, the carve-out and sale of a business segment for the international Auria Solutions Group as well as multiple financing and M&A projects for Feuer powertrain. 

Prior to co-founding ARGONAS, Christian inter alia worked for J.P. Morgan in London and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in Frankfurt, where he predominantly advised multinational corporations and large midmarket companies on structured debt and hybrid capital solutions.

Christian holds a degree in business administration from Goethe-University Frankfurt and a Masters in Finance degree from London Business School.