Naxicap Partners, an affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers, is to become the new majority shareholder of TEUFEL following the exit of Hg and, in partnership with its existing management led by Sascha Mallah and Joachim Wimmers, plans a new phase of growth for the company.
Founded in 1979 in Berlin, Teufel is a direct-to-consumer audio brand primarily active mostly in German speaking countries. Teufel has achieved sales of EUR100m+ of as of June 2017 and experienced continuous and impressive growth over the past five years.
Teufel has built an efficient and agile business model that allows it to succeed in the fast-changing consumer audio market. It will continue to rely on its key strengths and outstanding brand recognition to further develop its core markets and to position itself within high potential product categories.
The new management team in place since 2016 has chosen Naxicap Partners for its next phase of growth due to their deep knowledge of and experience in developing B2C businesses. Naxicap Partners will accompany Teufel’s management in the positioning of the brand as a genuine pan-European leader in the coming years.
The equity transaction is completed by a financing from BlueBay Asset Management.
“We wish Sascha and Joachim well for the next phase of growth and we congratulate them and the team at Teufel for the great results over the last few years. Teufel has achieved a number of milestones during this time, including the acquisition of Raumfeld in 2010 and substantial revenue growth, increasing from around EUR40m to over EUR100m today,” say Martin Block and Stefan Margolis, Hg.
“We are very happy to be joining forces with Naxicap Partners, a very successful and experienced investor in the field of consumer audio. Together we are going to tap Teufel’s full potential across new markets. We will continue to offer our core products, such as AI speakers, headphones, portable audio and compact home cinema, to a wider direct customer base. We want to thank Hg for their strong commitment over the years and highly valuable support. The future will be loud!” says Sascha Mallah and Joachim Wimmers.
“Teufel has successfully switched from being a traditional loudspeaker company to a high-quality European audio brand over the past few years. The existing management team has given a new direction to this historic company through improved operational performance and a reinforced brand. We also believe they have the potential to further strengthen and enlarge their customer base,” commented Angèle Faugier, Partner, Naxicap Partners.
