Equita purchases Windstar Medical

The deal value is understood to be between €50-100m.

Equita invested via its Equita Holding and Equita CoVest vehicles. Equita CoVest held a final close on €135m and invests exclusively alongside Equita's other funds. Equita Holding is a €315m evergreen fund first set up in 2007.

The official transfer of ownership will occur on 15 December. The existing management team and staff will continue to run Windstar Medical, with the company's founders retaining a significant stake.

Equita will support Windstar's continuing international expansion.

Its purchase comes shortly after divesting conveyor belt manufacturer Transnorm to IK Investment Partners in late November.

Company
Windstar can trace its roots back to 1993, when the founders set up Promarcon, a marketing and consulting company. This incorporated the three groups: Claricon, a consumer service and market research company; branding and consulting firm Brand Scout; and PureArt, a packaging design and communication business. Districon and Dr Kleine Pharma, the distribution entities, were set up in 1999. In 2008, the companies merged to form Windstar Medical.

Headquartered in Wehrheim, with additional offices in Bielefeld and Würzburg, its non-prescription health products are sold in non-pharmacy outlets, such as supermarkets. It covers all aspects of healthcare from product development to customer service and sales. As well as creating new drugs, it also redesigns prescription drugs for the mass market.

Windstar's own brands include SOS, Well&Slim and GreenDoc. It has also set up online shop Good Vita. It generates sales of around €60m per year and has 100 employees.

People
Wilfried Eichhorn and Thomas Kleine are co-founders of Windstar. Hansjörg Schnabel is a managing director at Equita and was accompanied by Jan Drewitz and Matthias Tabbert on the deal.

Advisers
Equity – Lukas & Company (Commercial due diligence); Ebner Stolz (Financial due diligence); Watson Farley & Williams (Legal, tax, corporate finance); Forstmann & Büttner (Regulatory due diligence); Mesterheide (Insurance due diligence).

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