Change of ownership for Romaco Group

Robbins & Myers (R&M) announced the sale of its Romaco Group (Romaco) to Deutsche Beteiligungs (DBAG) and its managed closed-end private equity Fund V in a management buyout. The purchase price is Euro 61 million.

DBAG, based in Frankfurt, is a leading publicly listed private equity company. “Romaco creates an excellent opportunity for us to invest in one of the most attractive and strongly growing segments in Europe’s mechanical engineering sector,” said Dr. Rolf Scheffells, member of the Board of Management of DB AG. “In partnering with Romaco’s management, we aim to take a major step forward in the group’s internationalization, based on its benchmark technologies. “The focus will be on, among other things, expanding the service business, strengthening the sales network and transferring process knowledge and skills to other applications, such as for the cosmetics industry. Growth will largely be organic but will also come from complementary add-on acquisitions".

R&M has owned Romaco since 2001, during which time it supported the company as it went through a significant transition to become a more focused engineering business, developing customer solutions for various forms of drug packaging and delivery systems and complex processing applications.

“The sale of Romaco supports our strategy of becoming more focused around core Robbins & Myers’ technologies in fluid management and process control”, commented Peter Wallace, President and CEO of R&M. “Deutsche Beteiligungs has signaled that they plan to grow the business with further investment and strategic acquisitions. This transaction should be a great strategic move for both companies.”

The deal is conditional upon the approval of the German anti-trust authorities and is expected to be completed by the end of April 2011.