Stroer is acquiring the Ranger Marketing Group, one of Germany's largest dialogue marketing specialists. The vendor is Waterland Private Equity. This acquisition will enable Stroer to expand the dialogue marketing activities of its recently acquired subsidiary, the Avedo Group. The purchase price was not disclosed. The transaction is expected to complete in the third quarter of 2017.

An international CMS team headed by lead partner Dr Tobias Schneider advised the Avedo Group on all legal aspects of the acquisition. The Stuttgart-based partner also provided advice approximately one month ago on the sale of the Avedo Group to Stroer.

Stroer SE & Co. KGaA is a leading digital multi-channel media company that offers its advertising customers tailored and fully integrated premium communication solutions. In the digital media field, Stroer sets groundbreaking standards for innovation and quality in Europe and opens up new opportunities for advertisers to make targeted approaches to customers.

The Stroer Group markets and operates several thousand websites, mainly in the German-speaking countries, plus around 300,000 advertising surfaces in the out-of-home segment. It employs some 4,600 people at over 70 locations and generated sales of EUR 1.12 billion in the 2016 financial year. Stroer SE & Co. KGaA is listed on Deutsche Borse's MDAX index.

The Avedo Group is a Leipzig-based marketing specialist focusing on telesales and dialogue marketing. The company was founded in 2004 and its six call centres now handle over 30 million calls a year.

The Ranger Group is a direct sales specialist and one of Europe's leading dialogue marketing companies, making over one million calls a month. The Group primarily operates in Germany and addresses both private and corporate customers in the telecommunications, energy, retail, finance and media sectors.

Waterland is an independent private equity investment group that helps companies to realise their growth ambitions. Waterland has offices in the Netherlands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), Germany (Munich, Dusseldorf), Poland (Warsaw) and the UK (Manchester). It currently manages capital commitments worth EUR 4 billion.

CMS Germany

Dr Tobias Schneider, Lead Partner, M&A
Dr Georg Lauster, Counsel
Christina Lung, Associate, both Corporate/M&A
Dr Marc Seibold, Partner
Dr Andreas Grunert, Senior Associate, both Banking & Finance
Dr Christian Haellmigk, Partner, Competition & EU
Carsten Domke, Partner
Dr Boris Alles, Senior Associate, both Labor, Employment & Pensions
Dr Gerald Grafe, Partner, Commercial
Dr Volker Zerr, Partner
Jacqueline Terhoven, Senior Associate, both Real Estate & Public

CMS France

Jean-Robert Bousquet, Partner
Cecile Sommelet, Counsel
Pierre Bondu, Associate, all Corporate/M&A

CMS UK

Helen Rodwell, Partner
Lucie Halloova, Associate, both Corporate/M&A

CMS Switzerland

Dr Stephan Werlen, Partner
Pascal Stocker, Associate, both Corporate/M&A

CMS Belgium

Arnaud Van Oekel, Partner
David Prync, Senior Associate
Arnaud Browet, Junior Associate, all Corporate/M&A

CMS Hungary

Martin Wodraschke, Partner, Corporate/M&A

CMS Netherlands

Mark Ziekman, Partner Herman van Aerts, Counsel
Patrick Chung Claudia van der Schoot, both Junior Associates, all Corporate/M&A

CMS Poland

Blazej Zagorski, Counsel
Grzegorz Paczek, Senior Associate, both Corporate/M&A