LBO France completes FH Ortho trade sale

Greg Gille
03 November 2020

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French GP LBO France has completed the sale of FH Ortho to Japanese trade buyer Olympus Corporation.

The deal was struck over the summer, according to a press release from the company.

Spine Innovations, which regroups the spine prosthetics activities of FH Ortho, will become independent and remain owned by a number of its current shareholders, including LBO France.

LBO France acquired Fournitures Hospitalières Group (FH), a French manufacturer of orthopaedic prostheses, in a secondary buyout in 2014. FH's founding shareholder – the Hermann family – and the company's management retained shareholdings in the business.

Naxicap Partners, CM-CIC Investissement and BNP Paribas Développement co-invested alongside LBO France. ActoMezz provided a mezzanine facility for the transaction.

LBO France acquired the company in 2014 via its €154m Hexagone III fund, a small-cap fund that invested in companies with enterprise values of up to €100m.

In mid-2018, Muzinich & Co arranged a debt refinancing of €18m for FH Ortho. This refinanced all of FH Orthopedics' mezzanine debt and most of its existing bank debt, with the aim of simplifying the company's debt structure.

Company
Founded in 1964, FH Ortho is a manufacturer of orthopaedic prostheses. Its product range includes hip, knee and foot prostheses, as well as those for upper extremities such as shoulders, ligamentoplasty and lumbar discs.

Its business is divided between France (which accounts for slightly more than half of its revenues) and the international market through a network of distributors and subsidiaries in the US, the UK and Poland.

LBO France said in a statement that the company grew by 50% during its ownership, with significant growth in exports.

People
LBO France – Arthur Bernardin (managing director).

Advisers
Vendors – Edmond de Rothschild Corporate Finance, Nicolas Durieux, Pierre Boscher, Adrien Dumaine-Martin (M&A); Winston & Strawn, Nicola Di Giovanni, Aurélie Camard, Julia Brochet (legal); Arsene Taxand, Denis Andres, Vincent Briand (tax); EY, Jean-François Nadaud, François Estin (financial due diligence).