Each month, we present you with a selection of M&A transactions, enabling you to decipher industry trends. Here are the transactions we have selected for July in Luxembourg, Belgium and France:
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Louyet, a Belgian automotive group, takes over the automotive activities of the Luxembourg-based Arnold Kontz group, including its six Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Lotus dealerships in Luxembourg. Louyet has around 20 sales outlets in Belgium, mainly BMW and Mini dealerships, employs 603 people and has sales of €666 million in 2023. Arnold Kontz, meanwhile, is refocusing on soft mobility, keeping its bicycle stores.
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Wargaming (creator of the famous game World of Tanks), Constructor Capital and Han River Partners invest $60 million in Series A in GCore, a Luxembourg-based company specializing in IT infrastructure, to accelerate in the AI sector. GCore has been developing cloud solutions since 2015, offering a global IT infrastructure on six continents with a network of over 180 points of presence. Initially developed for online gaming, GCore’s infrastructure is now used to train artificial intelligence models, requiring significant computing power.
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BPCE, France’s second-largest banking group, acquires Nagelmackers, Belgium’s oldest bank founded in 1747, from Chinese conglomerate Anbang. Nagelmackers has €4.8 billion in assets under management and around 50 branches, and in recent years has specialized in services for high-net-worth clients and large institutional investors. This acquisition enables BPCE, which has been present in Belgium for ten years via its Caisse d’Epargne Belgium branch, to broaden the scope of its activities in Belgium.
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Ardian, the French investment fund, is taking over the activities of Magimix and Robot-Coupe, two iconic French food processor brands owned by the de Jenlis family. The two brands are valued at €1.5 billion, or between 12.5x and 13.6x EBITDA. Ardian was in competition with industrial groups such as Seb, and other funds such as PAI Partners and CVC.
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Emmi, the Swiss dairy giant, acquires the French group Mademoiselle Desserts, specialized in frozen pastries for professionals. With sales of €420 million, Mademoiselle Desserts was previously owned by the IK Partners fund. The company is valued at almost €900 million, corresponding to a multiple of over 12 times EBITDA.
Sources: S&P Capital IQ Pro, Capital Finance, Paperjam, L’Echo, Les Echos
#M&A #Mergers & Acquisitions #Market trends #Corporate strategy #Luxembourg #Belgium #France
