White & Case advises Nordic Capital on its investment in the Dach region

White & Case has advised private equity investor Nordic Capital on its investment in Bilthouse Group, a new umbrella combining financial services providers (Baufi24 Baufinanzierung, Hüttig & Rompf and Creditweb). The new company Bithouse creates a leading group for mortage, brockerage, generating a combined financing.

Nordic Capital will support the new holding company Bilthouse as majority shareholder with its sector expertise as well as additional growth capital of EUR 30 million. This additional primary capital investment will help Bilthouse combine and grow its online and offline capabilities to create clear value-add for end customers.

For Nordic capital this investment represents its first incursion in the financial services sector in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).

From the outset, Bilthouse will be one of the main players in the German B2C segment for mortgage brokerage. The Bilthouse brands employ around 700 people and the companies currently generate a combined mortgage financing volume of around EUR 5 billion per year. Nordic Capital plans, in partnership with the founders and management, to actively support the new company’s growth, drawing on its experience from previous investments in financial services providers and comparison websites.

Nordic Capital  currently has six portfolio companies in the sector, including online comparison platform Sambla Group, credit management company Intrum, payment services provider Trustly and digital retail banks Nordax and Bank Norwegian.

White & Case advisory work involved a broad multidisciplinary lawyers. The transaction’s team was led from Frankfurts’ office by partner Stefan Koch (partner) together with partners Tomislav Vrabec, Sebastian Pitz, Bodo Bender, Tim Bracksiek, Sebastian Stütze, Anna Dold, Marco Stephan and associates Kai Neumann, Justus Redeker, Alexander Sansotta, Mathias Bogusch. From the Hamburgs’ office, Moritz Müller-Buttmann (partner) and Jana Rudt from Berlin office. Axel Schulz (partner) together with Marios Gavriiloglou and Daniel North collaborated from Brussels.