Flick Gocke Schaumburg advises leverdy on press wholesaler merger

Major German press wholesalers leverdy, Wilhelm Schmitz, PMG, and Keppel have merged to form QTRADO GmbH & Co. KG with effect from January 1, 2019. The German Federal Cartel Office had already approved the merger without conditions in July 2018. QTRADO will commence operations in April 2019. A team of Flick Gocke Schaumburg in Bonn advised leverdy on the transaction, including the overall coordination of the merger documentation and the application for the binding ruling.

With a consolidated annual turnover of around EUR 250 million (2017), QTRADO will be Germany’s largest press wholesaler. The joint venture, headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany, covers the current grosso outlet areas of Leverkusen, Duisburg, Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen and Krefeld. The companies ZTV Logistik (in future: QTRADO Logistics) and Hollmann will also be united under QTRADO Holding, which was founded in September 2018.

QTRADO will supply more than 11,000 sales points in the Rhine-Ruhr region with press products. leverdy will contribute around 4,250 retail customers to the joint venture, Schmitz just under 3,400, PMG 2,200 and Keppel about 1,650.

Flick Gocke Schaumburg partner Philipp Rulf has been advising leverdy, the largest merger participant with a share of 44.5%, for several years and has already assisted with the company’s previous mergers.

Advisers to leverdy GmbH & Co. KG:
Flick Gocke Schaumburg, Bonn: Philipp Rulf (lead), Stefan Thilo (both corporate/M&A), Matthias Rogall (tax), Daniel Dreßler (auditing), Philipp Schweitzer (real estate, Frankfurt); associates: Frieder Mörwald, Tobias Schwan (both tax)