Milbank LLP advised German Equity Partners V (“GEP V”), a fund managed by independent German investment company ECM Equity Capital Management GmbH (“ECM”), and the management on the sale of their stakes in Berlin software developer PikeTec GmbH (“PikeTec”) to Synopsys, Inc., a US-based global leader in electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor IP.
ECM is an independent, growth-oriented investment company based in Frankfurt am Main. The company acts as a manager and consultant for the equity fund German Equity Partners I-V and focuses on the acquisition of established medium-sized companies in the DACH region. ECM is currently investing €325 million from its fifth fund GEP V with external capital commitments.
PikeTec was founded in Berlin in 2007 and is now one of the leading providers of specialized test software with a team of around 60 software developers and engineers. PikeTec develops the testing tool TPT and also offers Testing-as-a-Service. PikeTec advises companies in the field of testing safety-relevant embedded systems, assumes test modelling, execution and evaluation for external customers and is also active in test tool development and integration. The TPT software is compatible with various safety standards and is used in all software development phases (MiL, SiL, PiL, HiL).
The Milbank team that advised ECM on the corporate and tax aspects of the transaction was led by partner Michael Bernhardt (Corporate/M&A) and included partners Matthias Schell (Tax) and Alexander Rinne (Antitrust) as well as special counsel Sebastian Dexheimer and associates Sarah-Maria Resch, Steffen Post, Dennis Amiri, Josephine Schuster (all Corporate/M&A), Arne Hammerich (Tax) and Marlies Zeck (Antitrust).
