AURELIUS Equity Opportunities & : completes its acquisition of Office Depot Europe

Munich / London, January 2, 2017 - AURELIUS Equity Opportunities SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN: DE000A0JK2A8) has completed its acquisition of the European operations of the U.S. company Office Depot, Inc. The approximately 6,000 employees working in the acquired operations booked revenues of around EUR 2 billion. This makes the acquisition the biggest to date in the history of AURELIUS in terms of revenues. The seller is Florida-based Office Depot, Inc., a vendor of office supplies and services. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. Thus, the AURELIUS Group now has 23 consolidated subsidiaries generating annualized consolidated revenues of around EUR 4.5 billion.

Office Depot Europe with strong brands and Europe-wide setup

Boasting a strong brand name and a loyal customer base, Office Depot Europe operates in 14 European countries across three main activities and brands: 'Viking,' Contract, and Retail. Under the prestigious 'Viking' brand, the company is a leading vendor in six product areas: office supplies, printing and document services, paper, computers and printers, business services like facility management, and office furniture, with direct sales to over 1.2 million small and mid-sized firms in ten European countries via the online channel, mail order, and call centers. The main markets for 'Viking' are the region covering Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, plus the UK. The Contract segment, which boasts an attractive and loyal customer base together with a stable distribution network, maintains contracts to supply over 100,000 large business customers and corporations in the main markets in the UK, Benelux/France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The Retail segment sells products under the strong Office Depot brand to over 600,000 active customers in over 100 stores and online.

Brisk transaction activity in 2016: Annualized consolidated revenues rise to approx. EUR 4.5 billion

AURELIUS Equity Opportunities completed a total of nine company acquisitions, including three add-on acquisitions, and sold six portfolio companies in 2016. Having been announced in December 2016, the acquisition of AH Industries, a leading supplier of components, modules, and systems for the wind, the minerals, and the cement industry, which is based in Ribe (Denmark), should be completed in the first quarter of 2017.

'2016 was another exciting and very successful year for the AURELIUS Equity Opportunities Group. Our Europe-wide set-up has paid off, as our foreign offices made an important contribution to the Group's success by generating significant transactions,' said Dr. Dirk Markus, CEO. 'We are ideally set up for fiscal year 2017 and are optimistic about the coming months because we have a well-filled transaction pipeline.'