Sobera Capital restructures German portfolio

Sobera Capital, a Berlin-based direct secondaries firm, has completed a fund restructuring deal involving evergreen vehicles backed by German institutions.

The firm restructured the four vehicles into private equity vehicles which it now manages, Johannes Rabini, co-founder and managing partner at Sobera, told Secondaries Investor. The funds, which hold a total of 23 technology, healthcare and manufacturing-focused assets, are: S-Refit, S-Refit EFRE Fonds Bayern, medTECH Capital Fonds and S-Partner Kapital.

The average investment in each of the assets was around €2 million.

The four funds were backed by 21 German savings banks, an unnamed technology transfer institution and German government-owned development bank Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau. Investors in the vehicles had been searching for a solution for their holdings after the death of S-Refit chief executive Peter Terhart in 2014, according to Rabini.

Sobera agreed to take over management of the vehicles in July and implement a management fee and carried interest structure. At this stage, all investors have decided to remain in the funds, and Sobera may look to run a liquidity process for investors to sell their stakes in future if they wish to divest, he said.

Sobera, which has also secured debt financing for S-Refit, will now focus on follow-on investments for the portfolio and will not make new investments from the funds, Rabini said. Two investment professionals from S-Refit and its chief financial officer have joined Sobera, and the firm has opened an office in the southeastern German city of Regensburg as part of the transaction.

The assets include Curadis, a biotech company focusing on diseases and cancer; AMICRA, a supplier of ultra high precision bonding equipment; and cerboMed, a medical device company focusing on neuromodulation, according to S-Refit’s website.

Sobera was established in 2003 and has €70 million in assets under management, according to PEI data.