Kerry Group plc (‘Kerry‘), the global taste and nutri­tion com­pany based in Ire­land and listed on the Euronext Dublin and Lon­don Stock Exchange, today announced it has reached an agree­ment to acquire 92% of the issued share cap­i­tal of c‑LEcta GmbH (‘c‑LEcta‘) for a con­sid­er­a­tion of €137m, with man­age­ment to retain the balance.

c‑LEcta is a world-lead­ing biotech­nol­ogy com­pany with a focus on enzyme engi­neer­ing and appli­ca­tion in reg­u­lated mar­kets like the food and pharma indus­tries. The com­pany is based in Leipzig, Ger­many, and has estab­lished itself as a lead­ing player in the real­iza­tion of high-value biotech prod­ucts, either in the form of in-house devel­op­ments or in close coop­er­a­tion with indus­try. The com­pany cur­rently employs more than 100 people.

bm|t invested in c‑LEcta in a growth financ­ing round together with a Bel­gian spe­cial­ized sec­tor fund in July 2018 and actively sup­ported the company’s strong growth.

Sebas­t­ian Kned­lik, Senior Invest­ment Man­ager at bm|t, com­ments: “This highly qual­i­fied and extremely ded­i­cated team achieved a truly impres­sive per­for­mance by using its world-lead­ing tech­nol­ogy plat­form to gen­er­ate high mar­gin busi­ness. It has been a real plea­sure to work with the c‑LEcta team and sup­port them on their out­stand­ing growth path dur­ing the last four years.”

As a result of the sale bm|t quadru­pled its orig­i­nal invest­ment and increased the value by more than € 10m.

About bm‑t beteiligungsmanagement thüringen gmbh (bm|t)

Erfurt-based, bm|t is the first address for invest­ments in Thuringia, Ger­many. bm|t cur­rently man­ages nine funds with a total vol­ume of over EUR 350 mil­lion and invests in inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies with strong growth poten­tial across all sec­tors and all phases of the cor­po­rate lifecycle.

www.bm‑t.com