Latour Capital buys Oxand

Greg Gille
13 March 2013

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Latour Capital has taken a majority stake in the buyout of Oxand, a French engineering and consulting firm specialised in the risk-based management of industrial infrastructure.

Following the all-equity transaction, Latour will have invested a third of its maiden fund Latour Capital I, which closed on its €115m hard-cap in November last year.

The mid-cap GP – co-founded by former finance minister Alain Madelin – targets French SMEs with a particular focus on non-core spin-offs and digital media companies. It invests in businesses valued in the €15-50m range, with equity tickets in the €5-15m range.

As part of the buyout, Oxand acquired UK-based Venn Engineering Services, which specialises in the decommissioning of nuclear plants, in a bid to strengthen its nuclear business unit.

Oxand CEO and founder Bruno Gérard, along with the rest of its management team, will retain 40% of the company's shares. Auriga Patners, which has backed the business with growth capital since 2004, will exit Oxand following the transaction. Energy company EDF, which previously owned 20% of Oxand, reduced its stake to around 4%.

Company
Founded in 2002 as a spin-off from EDF, Oxand is an engineering, management and process consultancy company that partners with strategic clients in the energy and transport industries.

Oxand will employ 130 staff and generate a €15m turnover post-merger, with a profit margin in excess of 14%.

People
Cédric Bannel and Gaspard Lacoeuilhe worked on the deal for Latour.

Advisers
Equity – JLA Finance (Financial due diligence); Fidufrance (Legal); Cheylat Energies (Commercial due diligence); Deloitte Corporate Finance (M&A).
Vendors – Eversheds (Legal).