New masters at Cilo, Allegro & Co?

As vibrant as the e-bike market is, it is challenging and difficult for many founders and entrepreneurs. Alexander Müller, founder and managing director of Colag AG, under which the well-known bicycle and e-bike brands Cilo, Allegro, Zenith, Saxonette and Simpel are distributed, has found a successor solution with CONSTELLATION's participation in Colag AG.

In this context, we received the following press release, which we reproduce here in unabridged form:

Zurich, September 5, 2018 - As part of a succession solution for founder Alexander Müller, the CONSTELLATION V fund advised by CONSTELLATION CAPITAL AG is taking a stake in Colag AG.

Colag is one of the leading distributors of e-bikes in Switzerland. The well-known Swiss traditional brands "Cilo", "Allegro" as well as "Saxonette" and "Zenith" are in the company's portfolio. Colag will become part of the newly founded Swiss E-Mobility Group AG, under whose umbrella future investments of CONSTELLATION V in the e-mobility sector will be consolidated.

It commented Alexander Müller as follows: "With CONSTELLATION, an industrially competent financial investor is taking a stake in Colag. The investment is a first step in the succession solution for me. In a second step, after more than 20 years, I plan to hand over the operational management of Colag by the end of this year at the latest. A new business manager will be introduced in due course. I will continue in the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors." The "Colag" brand will continue to exist and guarantee an unchanged high standard of service for the products distributed. Further investments will be made in the in-house 2Rad brands "Cilo", "Allegro", "Zenith" and "Saxonette" and the successful model of the traditional Swiss brands will be further sharpened and driven forward.

"The establishment of the Swiss E-Mobility Group marks the beginning of the development of our e-mobility platform in the DACH region. We are currently in advanced exclusive talks with additional companies in the DACH region that would ideally complement Colag. We look forward to building the Swiss E-Mobility Group into the leading platform for e-mobility services in the DACH region," said Dr. Philipp Hofstetter, Chairman of the Board of Swiss E-Mobility Group.

Alexandre Faddoul remains Head of Sales and Member of the Executive Board of Colag and now also holds these positions in the Swiss E-Mobility Group. He will also become a co-owner of the Swiss E-Mobility Group. Stefan Jochum will take over the finance function in Colag and in the Swiss E-Mobility Group.

CONSTELLATION is a Swiss investment group founded in 1992 and based on Lake Zurich. CONSTELLATION focuses exclusively on majority investments in service companies based in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, which are active in the areas of Business Services, Education & Lifestyle, Healthcare and Financial Services. Through an extensive circle of renowned and experienced industry partners (owners, CEOs, CFOs), CONSTELLATION pursues an active value-added investment approach at eye level with the entrepreneurs.