PE-backed Neovia sold to trade in €1.53bn deal

Francesca Veronesi
03 July 2018

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PE-backed Neovia Group, a France-based provider of animal food, premixes and additives, has been sold to US-based corporate Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), an agricultural commodities and products company.

Neovia is majority-owned by French agricultural cooperative group InVivo, while Eurazeo, Unigrains, Idia and CDC International Capital hold minority stakes in the business.

Neovia's parent company, InVivo, is organised around four fields of expertise: agriculture, animal nutrition and health, retail, and wine. Founded in 1963, the group has a workforce of 9,200 people, generates revenues of €6.4bn and has a presence in 31 countries worldwide.

Eurazeo was planning to exit the investment around 2020, but Neovia started attracting interest from corporates so the company's owners decided to proceed with an auction this year, a person familiar to the situation disclosed.

The Goldman Sachs-run auction was only opened to an international group of corporates, Unquote understands. A trade sale exit was seen as most profitable and in the long-term interest of the business.

Previous funding
Unigrains and Idia (then known as Idia Crédit Agricole) first invested in Neovia in 2007, alongside parent company InVivo. Neovia was known as InVivo NSA until it rebranded in 2016.

Eurazeo acquired a 17.3% stake in the business in 2015, investing alongside InVivo, which retained a 67% stake, previous backers Unigrains and Idia, as well as new backer CDC International Capital.

That year, the business secured €215m from Eurazeo and CDC International Capital alongside existing investors Unigrains and Idia. Eurazeo contributed €114m to the round, drawing capital from its vehicle Eurazeo Capital II.

Company
Founded in France in 1954, Neovia manufactures and sells nutrition products for the animal foods industry, such as additives and ingredients, aquaculture and complete feeds.

The business generated sales of €1.7bn in 2017, of which more than 75% is accounted for by sales from outside western Europe. Since the 2015 buyout, Neovia completed 15 acquisitions.

Based in Saint Nolff, the company has 8,200 employees. It manages 11 research and development centres in six countries.

People
InVivo – Thierry Blandinières (CEO).
ADM – Vince Macciocchi (president, nutrition); Juan Luciano (chairperson, CEO).
Eurazeo – Wilfried Piskula (managing director).

Advisers
Equity – Lazard (corporate finance); Baker McKenzie (legal).