Ardian readies engineering and consultancy group Expleo for sale

The French buyout group has appointed Citi to manage the sale of its co-controlling stake in the business, the sources said. Boston Consulting Group is providing commercial due diligence, two of the sources added.

Expleo, which provides services in areas including quality services, engineering and management consulting, is being marketed off an EBITDA of between EUR 100m-EUR 117m for FY22, two of the sources said.

The company recorded a turnover of over EUR 1bn in FY21, a 12% increase year-on-year, while it recorded an EBITDA (IFR16) of EUR 92.4m, a 23% increase compared with 2020.

The sale is expected to be predominately sponsor-led, two sources said, although strategics are also showing early-stage interest, one of the sources added.

Ardian acquired a 60% stake in Expleo, formally known as Assystem Technologies, from parent company Assystem, which retained a 40% minority stake.

The company rebranded itself as Expleo in February 2019 following its acquisition of Assystem’s Global Product Solutions division and a slate of buys in 2018 including SQS Software Quality Systems, the German provider of software testing and quality management services.

Expleo acquired Assystem’s life sciences and general industry technical assistance for EUR 28m last month.

The group is active in 30 countries and has approximately 15,000 consultants and industry experts. It specialises in offering industry-specific expertise in areas including consultancy and business agility, product design, production and in-service support.

Ardian and Expleo declined to comment. A spokesperson for BCG said that it does not comment on specific clients and projects to protect client confidentiality. Assystem and Citi and did not reply to a request for comment.

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• Topics
• Exits
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• France
• Citigroup
• Ardian (formerly Axa PE)