Weinberg buys Climater off Industries & Finances

Industries & Finances reaped a 3.5x multiple on its original investment and reinvested to hold around 5% of Climater.

WCP, which invests from the €418m WCP1 vehicle, was joined by 70 members of Climater's management as well as Grand Sud-Ouest Capital and Nord-Midi Pyrénées Développement – Crédit Agricole's regional growth capital arms.

Given Climater's resilience in the downturn, I&F was initially keen to keep backing the business. The firm however came to the conclusion that such a move would extend its holding period for too long. In addition, it realised that Climater's next stage of development would necessitate the resources of a larger private equity owner.

I&F therefore mandated Hawkpoint to run an auction process involving both PE houses and trade buyers. It also received several pre-emptive offers prior to the formal sale process but these could not match I&F's pricing expectations.

Strenghtened by the new capital structure, Climater aims to double in size in the next four to five years.

Debt
Crédit Agricole Nord Midi Pyrénées and CIC Sud Ouest co-arranged a senior debt package, which was further syndicated to BNP Paribas and LCL.

Previous funding
I&F backed the inception of Climater in 2007 by merging four family-owned companies. It sourced the deal through the chief executive of one of its portfolio companies at the time.

Climater has since acquired another 10 new businesses, which caused the group's turnover to grow from €22.5m to €75m while headcount rose from 130 to 440 people.

Company
Moissac-based Climatec is a diversified engineering group focusing on climate-related projects. It targets a range of markets including the aerospace industry, healthcare establishments and office buildings. Its services range from plumbing to insulation and ventilation systems.

Climater's EBITDA margin currently stands at around 10% of revenues.

People
Nicolas Truelle, Jérôme Louvet and Benjamin Rousseau-Calisti led the deal for WCP. Pierre Mestchersky, Jacques de Bazelaire and Nicolas de Chatellus represented Industries & Finances.

Advisers
Equity – Latham, Olivier du Mottay, Charles-Antoine Guelluy (Legal).
Vendor – Hawkpoint, Charles Andrez, Nicolas Royer, Veronika Patkai (M&A); Morgan Lewis, Anne Tolila, Matthias Grolier (Legal); KPMG, Vincent Delmas, Olivier Boumendil, Fabien Thieblemont (Financial due diligence); Adam Thorpe (Commercial due diligence).
Management – Morgan Lewis, Anne Tolila, Matthias Grolier (Legal).

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