Carlyle acquires SER

The selling shareholders will retain a significant minority stake. A spokesperson for Carlyle confirmed that, until this acquisition, the founder and existing shareholders had kept ownership of the company private.

Equity for the investment comes from CETP III, a €657m pan-European growth fund focused on technology companies. The vehicle closed on its €656m hard-cap in 2015. Carlyle's CETP funds usually target businesses with enterprise values between €25-150m. The fund was 55% deployed as of May 2018, according to Unquote Data.

Carlyle cited the customer focus and innovation of SER as attractive factors. CETP's investment, knowledge of mid-market software and global network will be used to drive growth for SER.

Either managing director and co-head of CETP Michael Wand or managing director Thorsten Dippel will join the board of directors.

The transaction has been approved by the relevant antitrust authorities.

Company
Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Bonn, Germany, SER employs 550 people. The company has 10 locations in Germany and 22 globally. It offers software that combines capturing, electronic archiving, electronic records, collaboration, workflow and business process management. The group owns 15 companies.

People
Carlyle Group – Michael Wand (managing director, co-head of CETP); Thorsten Dippel (managing director).

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