AUCTUS half-year report 2023

Dear friends and business partners of AUCTUS,

Over the past 12 months, we have seen the typical pattern of the recession’s impact on the investment sector: strong investor restraint, flight to ‘safe’ assets, falling prices, higher risk premiums, difficult financing and significantly fewer transactions.

While company valuations continue to fall and financing remains difficult, we are nevertheless seeing increasing signs that the crisis is coming to an end. The portfolio is quite resilient and is even growing slightly, our companies are finding it easier to recruit staff, the supply of goods is improving significantly and digitalization is bringing (slight) productivity gains. Above all, we are seeing a significant increase in our deal activity and are about to close several new platform companies. Experience shows that the 2-3 post-crisis years are the most profitable, as valuations remain low and business plans generally develop better than conservative plans. We have therefore ramped up our investment activity to 100% and are going full throttle again.

In the first half of the year, most of our platform companies achieved pleasing growth and expanded both geographically and in terms of their product range.

Life Couriers – is an international group of specialist logistics service providers specializing in logistics in the life science and healthcare sectors. The group is developing rapidly in exciting life science transportation areas such as stem cells, clinical trials and radiopharmaceuticals. This year, the position is to be further expanded with 3-4 acquisitions.

Acquisition criteria: Logistics companies with >1m EBIT in life science sectors (pharma, bioscience, medical technology, CRO, etc.).

Builtech – the leading 360° TGA (technical building equipment) platform in Germany – has successfully completed the brand rollout. The companies in the group continue to operate under their own names with regional roots, but with common colors and logos. More than 1,000 employees were provided with new work clothing. Look out for the Builtech vehicles in your area – they are real eye-catchers!

Acquisition criteria: B2B in the TGA sector with >1m EBITDA (heating, heat pump/air conditioning, cooling, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, etc.)

May Group – Seith the merger of 7 independent digital agencies in 2022, the MAI Group is set for growth, as MAI also announces a new company acquisition and grows to around 400 digital experts when Christian Tiedemann takes over as CEO. As an internationally operating specialist agency for digital performance marketing, xpose360 strengthens MAI’s comprehensive range of services and holistic approach.

Acquisition criteria: Digital agencies (consulting and implementation services; digital products (CX/UX, mobile applications) in the DACH region with min. 700k EBITDA and >10% EBITDA margin.

Terras – With recent acquisitions and a sharpening of the Group strategy, Terras is developing into a national infrastructure provider (“Building Connections”) in order to address Germany’s key challenges as a Group (energy and mobility transition, development and renovation of German infrastructure). Terras remains on a strong growth trajectory in 2023 and plans to generate total output of EUR 100 million >

Acquisition criteria: executing companies (classic civil engineering, special civil engineering, track construction) and service providers (resources: quarries, landfills, recycling; soil investigations, testing, drilling) with >1m EBITDA; DACH/Benelux

We will continue to benefit from this great mood until the end of the year and draw new energy, which we will use for the successful development of our portfolio!

We would like to thank you for your trust and look forward to working with you in the second half of the year.

Your AUCTUS team