DLA Piper has advised Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) on the sale of CERM, a global provider of Management Information System (MIS) software for the printing industry, in a Management Buyout (MBO).

CERM was part of the Heidelberg Group since 2011 and is an international specialist for MIS software in the label and packaging printing segment with over 400 printing plants worldwide as customers. The new owner will be the current management of CERM with additional involvement of an investor.

For Heidelberg, the sale is a further step in the transformation process initiated earlier this year with the aim of stabilizing the group financially in the long term and focusing on the core business of sheetfed printing. DLA Piper, under the leadership of the partners Dr. Benjamin Parameswaran, Dr. Henriette Norda and Mike Danielewsky, is providing Heidelberg with comprehensive legal support in this restructuring process. In this context, DLA Piper most recently advised Heidelberg on the sale of the Gallus Group to the Swiss packaging group benpac holding ag.

The current sale of CERM was jointly led by partner Dr Benjamin Parameswaran and counsel Dr Philipp Clemens with further support by senior associate Friederike Rickers (all Corporate/M&A, Hamburg). In addition, partners Jan Pohle (IT/Data Protection, Cologne), Semin O (Antitrust) and Dr Burkhard Führmeyer (IPT, both Frankfurt), counsels Dr Susanne Weckbach (Commercial, Munich), Dr Thorsten Ammann (IT/Data Protection, Cologne) and Sergej Bräuer (Antitrust, Frankfurt) as well as Senior Associate Hubertus Neu (Corporate, Cologne) advised on this transaction.

From the international DLA Piper offices partner Koen Selleslags and lead lawyer Wouter Verhelst (both Corporate, Antwerp) as well as partner Kristof de Vulder (IPT, Brussels) were also involved.

Heidelberger’s in-house team was led by Sascha Donat (Head of M&A) and further included Florian Zwoboda (Legal Counsel).