Exyte built Infineon’s new semiconductor factory in Villach.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
Frankfurt According to financial circles, the Stuttgart plant manufacturer Exyte is looking for an investor. Austrian entrepreneur Georg Stumpf wants to sell a minority stake in the hopes of a total valuation of around four billion euros, according to people familiar with the matter.
Deutsche Bank is organizing the investor process for the plant manufacturer, which is currently benefiting massively from the chip boom. The process is just beginning and decisions cannot be expected in the short term. Exyte and Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
Exyte CEO Wolfgang Büchele announced in April in an interview with the Handelsblatt that the company would grow to sales of ten billion euros by 2027 – double the figure for 2021. In view of dramatic supply bottlenecks, chip groups are currently investing billions in new plants worldwide. Büchele explained that incoming orders in the first few months of the year were well above expectations. His customers include Intel and Infineon.
But there are also critical voices about the company’s prospects. “The chip cycle is already at its peak,” said a person familiar with the industry.
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Exyte has tried several times to inspire investors – so far without success. The company originally wanted to go public in 2018 and was targeting a valuation of three billion euros. That didn’t work any more than an IPO using a spac deal, i.e. a merger with a listed company shell.
Exyte is currently working for the wafer manufacturer Siltronic in Freiberg, Saxony, and in Singapore.
(Photo: Paul Schmidt/ Siltronic)
According to financial circles, Exyte had already almost reached an agreement with a US spac last year, but there was no investor interest in the necessary capital increase (pipe) at the time. The deal was called off.
>> Read also: Billions for new factories: Infineon increases the pace of investment
Exyte sees itself as a leading provider for the planning, development and construction of high-tech systems, especially chip plants. The consulting firm McKinsey estimates that sales in the chip industry will increase by up to eight percent every year up to 2030. Dozens of new plants are needed to meet this demand. In Europe alone, production capacity will have to quadruple if the EU wants to achieve the goal it has set itself.
The name is hardly known to the public, but Exyte has a long tradition: the company, founded in 1912 by Karl Meissner and Paul Wurst, is one of the pioneers of clean room technology. In the past 30 years, the owners have changed frequently, and the CEOs even more so. The company has belonged to Georg Stumpf since 2009.
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