• Transactions

RLE International Acquisition of Parts of the KONTEC Group from Insolvency

The Company

With more than 1,800 employees in Germany, Great Britain, Spain, India, China, Australia and the USA, and a turnover of more than EUR 100 million, RLE International is one of the leading global development, technology and consulting services for the international automotive, service and energy industries as well as the mechanical engineering sector. The company was founded in 1985 by Ralf Laufenberg and Robert Rupa in Cologne.

The Transaction

KONTEC, a German provider of engineering services for the automotive industry with a total of 280 employees and sales of EUR 25 million, belonged to the Swiss Baumot/Twintec Group before filing for insolvency and had been in trouble since 2015 due to declining sales. The company had to file for insolvency in January 2017. After the failure of the insolvency in self-administration, the transaction process with RLE International was initiated by ARGONAS and successfully implemented in a very challenging timeframe.

Sascha Männel, Vice President at ARGONAS, highlights: "We are delighted to have completed this transaction for our clients in just 5 weeks and to have laid the foundation for further growth, especially in the future fields of electrics/electronics and autonomous driving." "KONTEC's clients also faced major challenges as a result of the insolvency, which makes it all the more pleasing that it was possible to ensure a trouble-free transfer of projects at such short notice," adds Sebastian Bauch, also Vice President at ARGONAS.

Scope of Mandate

ARGONAS acted as exclusive buy-side advisor to the company, providing full advice and support in all aspects of the preparation and implementation of the process.

Sascha Männel

MANAGING DIRECTOR/CO-FOUNDER

Sascha Männel is Managing Director at ARGONAS and has more than 15 years of experience in the areas of Corporate Finance Advisory and Investment Banking. 

At ARGONAS, Sascha is responsible for deal origination and market analysis and further supports M&A and financing projects across a wide range of industries, sectors and company situations. Sascha’s focus areas are businesses in the Industrial & Automotive, Engineering, Logistics and Packaging space as well as the support of growth companies and special situations. 

Selected transaction references comprise inter alia the sale of the automotive positioning and software specialist Naventik to the Swiss listed semiconductor manufacturer u-blox AG and the sale of vPool Logistics to the Dutch Faber Halbertsma Group (Pooling Partners / PAKI Logistics). 

Before co-founding ARGONAS, Sascha worked for Freitag & Co. in Frankfurt am Main from 2008 to 2009 and for IEG - Investment Banking in Berlin from 2009 to 2012, where he advised medium-sized companies and international groups on mid-market M&A transactions in Germany, Eastern Europe and Turkey. Previously, he worked for Berenberg Bank, E&Y, Freshfields and KPMG in Berlin and Hamburg. 

Sascha holds a degree in business administration at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences in Sankt Augustin, a degree in business law at the University of Applied Sciences Nordhessen as well an MSc in Global Banking and Finance at the European Business School London (EBS London).