Harris Williams & Co., a preeminent middle market investment bank focused on the advisory needs of clients worldwide, has announced the pending sale of Grohmann Engineering GmbH (Grohmann Engineering) to Tesla Motors. Grohmann Engineering is a developer and manufacturer of highly customized, high-yield, multi-process modular assembly solutions for future oriented end-markets. Harris Williams & Co. served as the exclusive financial adviser to Klaus Grohmann, founder and majority stakeholder of Grohmann Engineering, and Deutsche Beteiligungs AG (DBAG), a leading German-listed private equity company and minority stakeholder of Grohmann Engineering. Post transaction, Grohmann Engineering will become Tesla Grohmann Automation and serve as the initial base for Tesla Advanced Automation Germany headquarters, with other locations to follow. The pending transaction is expected to close by year-end and was led by Jeffery Perkins, Lars Friemann and Florian Ripperger of Harris Williams & Co.’s Frankfurt office.

Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, noted, “This will really be our first acquisition of significance in our whole history. We thought it was important that Tesla becomes, in part, a German company. That’s what this was all about. We expect this to help drive exponential improvements in our production process, in terms of both speed and quality of output, while cutting the cost-per-vehicle at the same time. The new facility will also grow its engineering workforce considerably in the next two years, with a target of adding more than 1,000 jobs throughout our new Advanced Automation division in both engineering and skilled technician roles.”

Torsten Grede, spokesman of DBAG’s board of management, said, “This exit concludes a highly successful growth financing investment in one of our core sectors. With its technology leadership, Grohmann Engineering exemplifies the hidden champions in Germany’s ‘Mittelstand’ without whom key innovations would not occur. Moreover, Grohmann Engineering is an outstanding example of the excellent progress technology-geared mid-market companies can make when backed by growth capital and the support of professional investors.”

Jeffery Perkins, a managing director at Harris Williams & Co., stated, “We are very happy that Grohmann Engineering has found a new partner in Tesla that will greatly benefit from Grohmann Engineering’s technological leadership, while also supporting the company’s continued growth and Industry 4.0 leadership role in its selected end markets. This transaction further demonstrates Harris Williams & Co.’s focus on advising market leading family owned businesses and supporting them on finding their optimal partner. We very much enjoyed working with Mr. Grohmann and his team on this successful transaction.”