
Eurazeo to acquire Montefiore’s Asmodée
Eurazeo has entered exclusive talks to acquire French party games publisher and distributor Asmodée from Montefiore Investment for an enterprise value of €143m.
Subject to agreement from competition authorities, Eurazeo will supply approximately €102m in the transaction, while Asmodée's management and founders will reinvest €13m.
Montefiore bought Asmodée in a secondary buyout from Naxicap Partners in January 2008. The firm acquired a 60% stake in the company as part of a deal with management worth €40-50m. Asmodée's management retained the remaining 40% shareholding in the company.
The equity-to-debt ratio of Montefiore's 2008 investment in Asmodée was approximately 50:50, according to unquote" data. Debt was provided by HSBC, Crédit Lyonnais and Banque Populaire Rives de Paris.
The GP then provided acquisition finance to the company in January 2009 and May 2010. Asmodée acquired a 60% stake in UK-based Esdevium Games in 2010 and acquired Belgian game distributor Hodin, Spanish games developer Cromola and Germany-based Proludo in 2009.
Montefiore recently closed its third fund, Montefiore Investment III, on its hard-cap of €240m. The fund had originally targeted €180m and had raised this within four months of launching the vehicle in May 2012.
Company
Asmodée is a publisher and distributor of party games, board games and trading cards. Founded in 1995, the company is headquartered in Paris with additional offices in the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Canada and the US.
Asmodée employs 180 staff and generated turnover of €110m in 2012, a 13% increase compared with 2011. In the year prior to Montefiore's investment in the company (2007), the company recorded turnover of €27.7m.
People
Stéphane Carville is the CEO of Asmodée. Virginie Morgon is Eurazeo's chief investment officer. Montefiore president Eric Bismuth and managing director Daniel Elalouf worked on the firm's original investment in Asmodée in 2008.
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