IK Investment-backed Eres expected to hit the auction block by 2024

Myriam Mariotte , Arezki Yaiche and Dominic Pasteiner
24 August 2023

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IK Investment is considering the sale of Eres, a French employee savings distribution and management specialist, two sources familiar told this news service.

The auction process is pencilled in for next year, the sources familiar and a sector advisor added. Cambon is viewed as likely to secure an advisory mandate, they said.

The group is expected to be valued at a few hundred million euros, the first source said. Eres registered EUR 34.9m revenue in 2020, according to French business registry.

Cambon and another undisclosed bank were approached for a sale mandate, this source familiar said. IK Investment bought into the business in 2019. This source had heard they are ready to sell.

Cambon advised Eres on the sale process four years ago, as reported. The midcap M&A bank was also mandated by the group for its acquisition of a French smaller peer Bienprévoir.fr - Primaliance in November 2022.

Last month, Cambon completed the sale of Groupe Premium, as reported. The firm is very knowledgeable in wealth management, another sector advisor said.

Messier & Associés advised IK when it bought into Eres in 2019. It was marketed off an EUR 12m-EUR 13m EBITDA in 2019, as previously reported.

IK Investment recently sold a peer French acquisition platform for independent financial advisors Valoria, for around EUR 500m valuation, as reported. The sector is quite attractive, one of the sources said, noting that a few years ago companies in the segment were sold at low valuations and have kept on growing since then.

Eres has more than EUR 5.5bn assets under management, with 28,000 corporates and 300,000 beneficiaries in their customer base, according to its official website.

Eres has a Likely to Exit Score* of 35, partly down to low sponsor exit activity in the sector over the past six months, as well as the length of time since its last bolt-on acquisition.

Cambon declined to comment. Eres was not able to respond to our request for comment ahead of publication. IK Investment did not reply to requests for comment.

*Mergermarket's LTE predictive analytics assign a score to sponsor-backed companies to help track and predict when an exit could occur through M&A, an IPO, a direct listing or a deSPAC transaction.