FORUM acquires HSH Software GmbH

Transaction Announcement

FORUM Family Office acquires 100% of HSH Software GmbH

FORUM Family Office (“FORUM”) has acquired 100% of the shares in HSH Software GmbH (“HSH”), based in Ahrensfelde near Berlin, through its sector holding company FORUM Software Mittelstandsholding SE. In 2018, HSH generated sales of approximately € 21 million. The revenue mix in 2018 was as follows:

1. Maintenance 70 %
2. Licenses 20 %
3. Project 10%

The revenue mix is strongly determined by recurring revenues, which means that the company is a perfect fit for FORUM's focus on “subscription businesses”.

HSH is the second largest private provider of municipal software in Germany. In the registration office, approx. 60 million inhabitants are managed with the main product MESO - with a 72% market share, HSH is the absolute market leader here.

The VOIS software platform has been marketed since 2016. VOIS bundles the majority of official software applications on one platform, thus offering authorities the possibility of replacing the historically grown fragmentation of software providers in the municipal sector with an integrated solution with a uniform user interface. The aim is to increase the number of specialist procedures covered by HSH in the public administration of the Federal Republic from currently 2 to a double-digit number.

HSH was founded on February 19, 1991 by Stephan Hauber and his business partners Petra Heller and Monika Stracke. Their entrepreneurial vision at the time was that mainframes in municipal administration would be replaced by PCs. Therefore, they developed software for compressing large amounts of data for official data. At the turn of the millennium, the second generation of the software (client-server architecture) was then used on a large scale. Since 2016, the third generation of the software has been available on the market as a web solution on the VOIS platform developed in-house.

FORUM's continuation concept envisages the further marketing of VOIS and the development of further applications, especially for the citizen's office. Accompanying acquisitions are also intended to expand HSH's field of application. In addition, the strong corporate culture with the central values of employee development, long-term orientation and customer orientation is to be further cultivated.

In terms of personnel, continuity is guaranteed for at least the next 5 years: the two managing directors, Stephan Hauber and Petra Heller, will remain on board until at least 2024. The same applies to the employees of the 2nd management level. Comment by Mr. Hauber:

“We deliberately chose FORUM as HSH's strategic partner because this is the best way for us to guarantee important values such as reliability, long-term orientation and our own identity as a medium-sized company and carry them into the future. Reliability was a significant feature of our discussions with Dr. Wittek. Long-term orientation is the declared goal of Forum and of decisive importance for HSH, because we want to be a reliable partner for our employees, partners and customers in the long term. It was also decisive for us that we can continue our basic ideas of how we manage the company and position it on the market. This, coupled with new impulses and ideas from FORUM, allows us to tackle the next tasks with maximum optimism.“

FORUM Family Office is a long-term investor in medium-sized companies. The core business is "subscription businesses" with recurring revenues. Software is a key activity of FORUM and is to be further expanded. HSH is the second software transaction within the last 9 months. As owners, we contribute our expertise primarily in the areas of corporate development, sales and personnel development. We are looking for majority shareholdings with € 3 million - € 50 million in sales.

​