Zurmont Madison sells CLS for $77m

Ellie Pullen
14 November 2014

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Zurmont Madison Private Equity has sold CLS Communications, a Swiss provider of translation services, to Nasdaq-listed Lionbridge Technologies for $77m (CHF 74m).

Zurmont has sold its 70% stake in the business.

Lionbridge is funding the acquisition with existing cash and a new credit facility underwritten by HSBC. The acquisition values the combined entity at $600m.

Previous investment
Zurmont acquired a majority interest in CLS in July 2009. The deal comprised an increase in the company's equity as well as the partial exit for some of its managing shareholders. CLS's existing management team retained a substantial minority interest.

At the time of Zurmont's acquisition, CLS generated around CHF 50m in turnover and employed 350 staff.

In September of the same year, Zurmont provided CLS with acquisition finance for the bolt-on of Canadian firm Lexi-tech International. In January last year, the GP provided more acquisition finance for CLS's bolt-on of German documentation provider 4-Text.

Overall, Zurmont provided CLS with a total of CHF 23m in additional capital for three bolt-ons over the course of its holding period.

Company
Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Zurich, CLS is a provider of multilingual translation, editing and writing services. Industries it serves include banking and finance, corporate communications, investor relations and legal.

CLS has 11 divisions, including those based in the UK, France, Denmark and Spain. The company employs 600 staff and generates $85m in revenues. It also has a network of 5,000 external language specialists.

People
Matthias Trümpy is the CEO of CLS. Rory Cowan is CEO of Lionbridge.

Advisers
Vendor – William Blair, Philipp Mohr (Corporate finance); Wenger & Vieli, Christoph Schmid (Legal); EY, Michael Messerli, Georg Lutz (Financial due diligence, tax).
Acquirer – Union Square Advisers, Wayne Kawarabayashi (Corporate finance); Vischer, Matthias Staehelin (Legal); KPMG, Thomas Pizzuti, Joshua Martin, Alain Christe (Financial due diligence, tax).