Sun, investments and geo-politics: FCF's famous "Family to Family" day

Yesterday, on a beautiful Munich day, FCF hosted its 13th “Family to Family” event in the lovely Charles Hotel close to the Old Botanical Garden. Whilst the world wallowed in a warm autumn sun, refreshed by a slight but cooling breeze and entertained by the Celtics football choirs, Bavarian family offices came together to meet German listed and family-owned businesses. These, it has been noted, have shown an interesting outperformance against most benchmark indices over the last decade.

A potential reason for this might be that family-owned enterprises tend to manage their business with a long-term view underpinned, dare I say it, by a conservative approach. This, of course, is in keeping with the general investment philosophy of most family offices and private investors. In this context, and given the satisfactory risk-return structure, investments in public and family-owned enterprises ought to play an important role in the allocation of family assets into liquid investments.

Arno Fuchs, CEO of FCF, the boutique investment bank situated in the heart of Munich, brought together, as is his wont, top executives of five public and one private family-backed businesses. They presented their equity stories over the course of the day. During the early evening, the Right Honourable Gisela Stuart MP, gave a barn storming keynote on Brexit, displaying a Mozart-like sense for the audience, charmed, in turn, by her forthrightness, humour and in-depth grasp of matters pertaining to the UK’s exit of the European Union.

We had the pleasure of hearing Adi Drotleff, CEO of Mensch & Maschine AG, an application software firm with a market cap for EUR 356.8m with sales of EUR 169m. The organisation is a leading European supplier of Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM), Product Data Management (PDM) and Building Information Management (BIM) software. MuM was founded in 1984 and headquartered in Wessling near Munich, employing approximately 790 people. The company was listed on the Frankfurt and Munich stock exchange since 1997.

Thereafter, we heard from Enis Ersü, CEO of Isra Vision, a group that focuses on electronic equipment and instruments with a market cap of EUR 732.4m and sales of EUR 146.6m. The company is one of the world′s top companies for industrial image processing (Machine Vision) as well as a global leader in surface inspection of web materials and 3D machine vision applications. Isra was set up in 1985 and is headquartered in Darmstadt. The group employs around 700 people and has been listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange since 2000

In addition, we had the honour of hearing from Christian von Volkmann the CFO of MagForce AG, a healthcare equipment group with a market cap of EUR 202.2m and sales of EUR 3.1m. Magforce is a leading medical device company in the field of nanomedicine-focused oncology. They operate through its different segments: NanoTherm? therapy for the targeted treatment of solid tumors; NanoTherm? , a ferrofluid liquid; NanoPlan? , a therapy planning software; and NanoActivator? , a magnetic field applicator used for tumors ? NanoTherm ? , NanoPlan ? and NanoActivator ? have received EU-wide regulatory approval as medical devices for the treatment of brain tumors and are trademarks of the MagForce AG in selected countries. MagForce was set up in 1997 and is headquartered in Berlin, where my wife grew up. They employ 25 people and have been listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange since 2007.

After a delightful coffee break, we heard from André Marques, the charismatic Director Finance & Investor Relations at EQS. The company has an estimated market cap of EUR 72.5m with a top line of EUR 32.2m. They are a technology provider for digital investor relations, corporate communications and compliance – making the fun bits of the job that much more fun. The company has offices in all of the world’s key financial markets with over 8,000 clients globally and holds a majority interest in ARIVA.DE AG. The group’s main technology is the EQS COCKPIT, a cloud-based IR workflow platform including CMS, CRM and insider data. The group was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Munich. They employ 350 people and have been listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange since 2006

We also had a great presentation from the super professional Claudia Heinle, who took the audience’s breath away by presenting MTU Aero Engines, an aerospace and defence group with a market cap of EUR 8,122.1m and sales of EUR 5,203.6m. The company is a German aircraft engine manufacturer with 14 company locations worldwide. They designs, develops, manufactures and supports commercial and military engines, modules and components. MTU is built on three pillars: Commercial OEM Business, Military OEM Business and Commercial MRO Business. Operating since 1913 and headquartered in Munich, MTU currently employs 9,000 people and has been listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange since 2005.

Last, but definitely not least, we were captivated by Volker Pfahlert, the CEO of numares AG, a potentially revolutionary diagnostics group with current sales of EUR 4.6m. Numares develops and markets products for clinical diagnostics and life science research. Its AXINON in vitro diagnostic (IVD) system and diagnostic tests employ nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy creating a numeric spectrum to evaluate metabolomic networks. The output from these analyses provide information on the disease status of patients to physicians. It is used in the areas of cardiovascular diseases, nephrology, oncology, and neurology. The group was launched in 2004 as a “spin-off” of the Institute of Biophysics at the University of Regensburg. Numares is headquartered in Regensburg, Germany, with offices in Boston, USA, as well as Singapore and currently employs around 65 people worldwide.

And, as aforementioned, capping an marvellous day, we heard a captivating keynote speech from Gisela Stuart, a former member of the British Parliament, Health Minister and key player in the Brexit referendum. She explained, in perfect German, to a German audience, the importance of democracy in the creation of stable polities. It was a remarkable finale to a noteworthy day.

All thanks must go to the FCF team.