Billionaire German brothers Andreas and Thomas Struengmann have agreed to acquire Schuelke & Mayr GmbH, the maker of hand sanitizer owned by EQT AB.
(Bloomberg) — Billionaire German brothers Andreas and Thomas Struengmann have agreed to acquire Schuelke & Mayr GmbH, the maker of hand sanitizer owned by EQT AB.
The sale to a consortium led by the Struengmanns’ family office, Athos Service, was announced in a statement on Monday that confirmed an earlier Bloomberg News report.
Financial details were not disclosed. The deal values Schuelke at about €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion), people with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.
EQT acquired Schuelke in 2020 from Air Liquide SA of France. The German firm was founded more than 130 years ago in Hamburg by Rudolf Schuelke and Julius Mayr, who started producing Lysol disinfectant. Now, the company is present in more than 100 countries and makes disinfectants for hands, skin and surfaces, as well as wound antisepsis products, according to the EQT website.
The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a surge in demand for infection-protection supplies, as have longer-term trends related to an aging population, hospital-acquired infections and stricter regulatory requirements.
EQT agreed to sell Schuelke’s personal care business in 2021 to US chemical-additives maker Ashland Global Holdings for €262.5 million. The private equity firm has generated a five times return on its investment in Schuelke, according to one person familiar with the matter.
The Struengmann brothers set up their family office, Athos Service, soon after drug giant Novartis AG announced in 2005 it was buying their drugmaker, Hexal, along with their stake in affiliate EON Labs for a combined €5.7 billion.
Since then, they’ve made a fortune investing in health-care firms including BioNTech SE, the German firm that developed the Covid-19 vaccine with Pfizer Inc. The brothers are worth a combined $25 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
EQT has been working on selling a number of portfolio companies as it plans for its next flagship fund. The firm in June agreed to offload industrial technology company Ellab to health-care giant Novo Nordisk A/S, and it’s also exploring a sale of Danish software maker Sitecore, Bloomberg News has reported.
Returning money to its investors will help EQT as it seeks to close its next flagship buyout fund, which has a target of €20 billion.
EQT worked with Bank of America Corp., Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Deloitte and Bain & Co. on the sale of Schuelke.
(Adds detail on EQT return in sixth paragraph.)
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