A team of Gleiss Lutz lawyers has advised the family-owned Ritter Group on the sale of the undertaking to the US technology company Avantor. The purchase price is approximately EUR 890 million, subject to additional payments depending on the achievement of certain performance-based milestones. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021.
Headquartered in Schwabmünchen, Germany, Ritter is one of the fastest growing manufacturers of high-quality consumables for liquid handling, automated analyses and clinical studies, including conductive pipette tips. These consumables are key for a wide variety of molecular screening and diagnostic applications, including real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), or as part of drug development and clinical trial testing in pharma and biotech applications.
Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Avantor is a leading global provider of products and services used in the most important research, development and production activities of customers in the advanced technologies, biotech and healthcare industries and the public sector. The company serves 225,000 customer locations worldwide and works with research laboratories and scientists in more than 180 countries.
The following Gleiss Lutz team advised Ritter on the transaction: Dr. Jochen Tyrolt (partner, Stuttgart), Dr. Christian Cascante (partner, Frankfurt, both lead), Johannes Schrägle (counsel, Stuttgart), Dr. Patrick Mossler (partner), Dr. Daniel Heck (counsel, both Hamburg), Florian Schorn (Munich), Dr. Lucas Hertneck, Nikolas Frey (both Stuttgart, all M&A), Dr. Dirk Wasmann (partner, Stuttgart), Dr. Thorsten Gayk (counsel, Hamburg, both Corporate), Dr. Johann Wagner (partner), Dr. Thomas Bücheler (both Tax, Hamburg), Dr. Doris-Maria Schuster (partner), Dr. Daniela Mayr (both Hamburg), Prof. Dr. Martin Diller (partner), Dr. Sebastian Ernst (both Stuttgart, all Employment), Dr. Alexander Molle (partner), Dr. Matthias Schilde, Jan Hinrichs (all IP/IT), Dr. Christian Hamann (partner), Simon Wegmann (both Data Protection), Dr. Enno Burk (counsel), Dr. Christina Fröb (both Healthcare, all Berlin), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (partner), Aylin Hoffs (both Foreign Trade, both Düsseldorf), Dr. Moritz Holm-Hadulla (partner), Dr. Andreas Schüssel (both Competition/Antitrust), Dr. Simon Wagner (counsel, Dispute Resolution, all Stuttgart), Frank Schlobach (partner), Dr. Thomas Kulzer (counsel, both Finance), Konrad Discher (Counsel, Real Estate, all Frankfurt).
As lead counsel, Gleiss Lutz worked with teams in various jurisdictions.
Gleiss Lutz regularly advises family-owned businesses in connection with high-volume sales transactions, including the owners of ZKW on the sale of the company to the Korean technology group LG for EUR 1.1 billion or the owners of Getrag on the sale to Magna for EUR 1.75 billion.
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