Argos Soditic exits Davey Bickford in €103.3m trade sale

José Rojo
26 March 2015

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Argos Soditic has sold French detonator business Davey Bickford to Eneax, a subsidiary of Chilean company Sigdo Koppers, following exclusive negotiations.

The Paris-based buyout firm reaped €103.3m in proceeds from the sale to Enaex.

The company was the last asset of the conglomerate Financière Harlé Bickford (FHB) still owned by Paris-based Argos Soditic since the firm acquired FHB in an MBO transaction in 2007.

According to unquote" data, FHB's enterprise value was estimated to sit between €40–50m at the time. The deal featured a senior debt package supplied by Société Générale that was repaid in advance between 2008 and 2009.

The GP drew the capital from its Euroknights V fund, a Switzerland-based vehicle that targets €5m-50m investments in Italian, French and Swiss companies with revenues between €20m-400m.

After the fund's launch in 2005 with a target of €250m, a first close was held at €192m in February 2006. This was followed by a second close at €267m and a final close at €275m in September and December of the same year.

Since then, Argos has exited several FHB divisions including Jaybeam Wireless, a manufacturer of cellular antennas for wireless communications, which was sold to US connector specialist Amphenol in February 2009. That year, the firm also divested the last remaining real estate assets of the FHB conglomerate.

The exits were part of Argos's plan to dispose of FHB's non-core activities and concentrate on the pyrotechnical initiation sector. Divestments also included the sale of the automotive pyrotechnic assets to German group TRW, as well as a number of minority participations in the manufacturing and distribution of explosives.

According to Argos, the revenues generated by Davey Bickford's electronic initiation systems increased sevenfold between 2007–2014, while the group's consolidated turnover jumped from €30m to €70m in the same period. Annual capital expenditure meanwhile increased from €600,000 before 2007 to €3.5m after the buyout.

Company
Founded in 1972, Davey Bickford is a designer, manufacturer and distributor of pyrotechnic electronic initiation systems and conventional detonators used in the mining, quarrying and construction sectors. Headquartered in Héry, the company has a workforce of around 600 and reported €51.92m in revenues in 2013.

People
Argos Soditic was represented by partners Louis Godron and Karel Kroupa, while Enaex was represneted by CEO Juan Andrés Errázuriz Domínguez. Daniel Degove is the CEO of Davey Bickford.

Advisors
Vendor – PwC Corporate Finance, Tarique Shakir-Khalil, Geoffroy Pacault, Emmanuel Aubry, Morgane Proux (M&A), Sylvain Lambert (Environmental due diligence); Mayer Brown, Emily Pennec, Ségolène Dufetel (Legal); Alexis Dargent (Management due diligence); 8 Advisory, Eric Demuyt, Benoît Bestion (Financial due diligence); Estin & Co, Jean Estin, Geoffroy Rupprecht (Commercial due diligence); Arsène Taxand, Franck Chaminade (Tax); URS, Bertrand Latrobe (Environmental due diligence).
Acquirer – Allen & Overy, Alexandre Ancel, Arnaud de Rochebrune, Flora Leon-Serviere (Legal); Deloitte, Leonardo Clavijo, Vadym Diablo, Robert Causee (Financial due diligence, tax); TAJ, Christophe Le Bon, Nicolas Meurant, Delphine Gilles (Management due diligence).