ICG Is Said to Buy Billionaire Brenninkmeijers' ProAlpha

(Bloomberg) -- British buyout firm Intermediate Capital Group Plc agreed to buy German software company ProAlpha Business Solutions GmbH from Bregal Investments, the private-equity investment arm of the Brenninkmeijer family, according to people familiar with the matter.

The deal values the software maker at more than 400 million euros ($472 million), the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. The billionaire Brenninkmeijers, who also own European clothing retailer C&A Group, plan to reinvest in ProAlpha to hold on to a minority stake, the people said.

ProAlpha, which makes software that helps businesses manage their accounts, had also attracted interest from other private-equity firms, the people said. The agreement is the latest in a string of German software deals.

ProAlpha confirmed an investment by ICG, as London-based Intermediate Capital Group is known. The company, based in Weilerbach near Kaiserslautern in southwestern Germany, intends to use the money to speed up growth and expand internationally, it said Tuesday in a statement on its website. It didn’t give financial details or the stake ICG acquired.

A representative for Bregal declined to comment. ICG didn’t immediately respond to a call and email.

ICG fell 0.7 percent to 920 pence as of 9:12 a.m. in London. The stock has risen 31 percent this year.

Permira, one of Europe’s biggest private-equity companies, is considering options including a sale for business software maker TeamViewer GmbH, people with knowledge of the matter have said. In September, the London-based buyout firm agreed to acquire the majority of German payroll software provider Personal & Informatik AG from HgCapital. ICG, which has a market value of about 2.7 billion pounds ($3.5 billion), was one of the co-investors in Norwegian business software provider Visma Group in June.

Bregal bought a majority stake in ProAlpha in 2013. ProAlpha is one of Germany’s largest makers of enterprise resource planning software, competing with the likes of SAP SE. ProAlpha counts more than 100,000 users in small-to-mid sized companies, according to its website. It generated more than 100 million euros in sales last year.

To contact the reporters on this story: Stefan Nicola in Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.net, Manuel Baigorri in London at mbaigorri@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Aaron Kirchfeld at akirchfeld@bloomberg.net, Amy Thomson, Dinesh Nair