Solvesta AG, a listed Munich based venture capital company acquired the business operations of the old-established, but insolvent print service provider PHOENIX PRINT GmbH (formerly Universitätsdruckerei Stürtz), located in Würzburg.

PHOENIX PRINT is the third largest producer of superior books and magazines nationwide. The company goes back to Universitätsdruckerei H. Stürtz AG, which was founded in 1830, hence PHOENIX PRINT is looking back on a history of almost 200 years. The company has a very good reputation within the line.

The production consists of a printing shop and a large bindery. The core capabilities of PHOENIX PRINT comprise the business divisions “special information” and “educational books”. Primarily, PHOENIX PRINT produces four-color books of different sizes, runs and versions, as well as book-alikes such as “bookazines”, hardcover catalogues for different industries and various journals and periodicals. Notable publisher, media corporations and conventional educational publisher are counted among the customers of PHOENIX PRINT.

Since December 2015, PHOENIX PRINT, which reached a turnover of about EUR 52 Mio in 2015, was under restructuring insolvency proceedings as debtor in possession. The acquisition by Solvesta now secures more than 200 jobs.

Subsequently Solvesta is planning to improve the liquidity of PHOENIX PRINT for pending investments and to support PHOENIX PRINT to establish new products in order to gain a new market positioning with a deeper value creation.

TRACC LEGAL with Dr. Thomas Lotz in charge acted as advisor to Solvesta. The custodian of PHOENIX PRINT, attorney-at-law Matthias Reinel of HWR Würzburg, was advised by the two restructuring specialists, attorney-at-law Jan Metzner and attorney-at-law Nils Andersson-Lindström, both Schultze & Braun.