Seafort acquires Avedo from Auctus

Katharina Semke
25 February 2016

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Seafort Advisors and Onics have acquired German dialogue marketing company Avedo from Auctus.

Following the sale process, which was conducted via an auction, Onics retained a minority stake, while Auctus fully exited the company. Seafort stated it was successful in landing the deal because its strategy for the company was compatible with that of Torsten Krause, Avedo's CEO and a major shareholder of Onics. Seaford plans several add-on acquisitions for Avedo, pointing out that there are many consolidation opportunities in the call centre market right now. The deal was leveraged under 50%.

Seafort emerged from Beaufort Capital. While Beaufort mainly focused on minority stakes, Seafort is focused on leveraged buyouts. The GP is currently investing from its second Seafort Advisors Fund, which closed in Q4 2015 on €50m. The first vehicle closed on the same sum in 2013.

The investor describes its vehicles as secondary direct funds. The LPs are large institutional investors such as pension funds from the US, England and France.

Previous funding
Avedo came into being in 2013 through the merger of Benchmark Partner and Tema Direkt by Auctus Capital. The GP acquired a 75% of Rostock-based call centre company Benchmark in May 2010 via its funds Auctus II A, Auctus II B and Auctus Team GbR. The management held the remaining shares.

Onics had owned dialogue marketing company Tema Direkt since 2011, with Auctus investing in the company in June 2013. In 2014, Avedo acquired the telemarketing agency Zoiros IT.

Company
Founded in 2013 and based in Leipzig, with additional sites in Rostock, Cologne and Munich, Avedo is a dialogue marketing company, specialised in lead management, telemarketing and telesales, as well as business process outsourcing. It offers companies services regarding their existing customers, development and execution of distribution and marketing campaigns and lead management.

Avedo employs 800 people and has business customers from the energy, telecommunication, insurance and publishing industries.

People
Auctus – Ingo Krocke (managing partner).
Seafort Advisors – Johann David Herstatt (partner).
Avedo/Onics – Torsten Krause (Avedo CEO and major shareholder of Onics).

Advisers
Equity – CMS (legal); EY (tax); Lansdowne (commercial due diligence).