Agic, Capvis, Gilde, Nordic Capital in final Amann Girrbach round

Fabian Graber
22 February 2018

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Capvis, Gilde and Chinese sponsor Agic are understood to have joined front-runner Nordic Capital in the final round for the sale of Amann Girrbach, an Austrian dental prosthetics company.

The information was originally reported by Unquote sister publication Mergermarket, citing two sources familiar with the situation.

Valuation multiples stand in the teens, according to a third and fourth source familiar with the round.

Bidders are fully in due diligence now, and the vendor – private equity house TA Associates – will collect final offers for the company in early April, said two further sources.

The company's EBITDA for 2017 stands in the €25m region.

Sell-side adviser Goldman Sachs kicked off TA's second attempt to exit Amann Girrbach last month with the distribution of investment memoranda. The adviser was mandated for the first try in 2016, when TA had held early-stage talks with strategics as part of the auction. But the process was put on hold when Amann Girrbach CEO Marco Ratz had a severe skiing accident in January last year.

US strategic buyers had already approached TA in 2015 and 2016, and mid-market private equity firms, as well as merged strategic dental player Dentsply Sirona, were also likely to be interested in Amann Girrbach.

The company generated EBITDA in the €18-22m range as of July 2016, and had been expected to fetch an EV multiple of 12-14x EBITDA at the time. But the price tag will also depend on what comes out of the due diligence, as well as how comfortable bidders are with the international growth story. US strategics were keen to acquire Amann Girrbach, because the US and Brazil became key growth drivers for the business after a meagre performance in these regions during 2010-2012, when TA acquired it from Alpine Ventures.

Amann Girrbach develops, manufactures and sells precision systems and consumables for dental laboratories in 90 countries. It focuses on computer-aided design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM) solutions for dental products. The company launched in 1978 and is based in Koblach.

Nordic Capital declined to comment. TA Associates, Agic, Capvis and Gilde did not return requests for comment.