LBO France buys Fournitures Hospitalières

Ellie Pullen
18 November 2014

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LBO France has acquired Fournitures Hospitalières Group (FH), a French manufacturer of orthopaedic prostheses, in a secondary buyout.

LBO France has acquired its stake from BPI France and Paris-based investor Matignon Investissement et Conseil. FH's founding shareholder – the Hermann family – and the company's management have retained shareholdings in the business.

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

BPI and Matignon invested €7m in FH in March 2008, with the latter investing via its €80m Matignon Technologies II fund, which held its final close in June 2007 just shy of its €100m target.

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

The deal marks LBO France's fourth buyout this year, following the acquisitions of French limestone quarry Vaglio and Italian audio equipment producer Fine Sounds in May, as well as the more recent acquisition of French cosmetics brand Payot in September.

Company
Founded in 1964, FH is headquartered in Alsace with subsidiaries located in Chicago and Poznań in Poland.

The company manufactures orthopaedic prostheses. Its product range includes hip, knee and foot prostheses, prostheses for upper extremities such as shoulders, ligamentoplasty and lumbar disc prostheses.

The company generated €30m in revenues last year. It employs 180 staff. According to the company, its sales have increased by 50% since BPI and Matignon invested in 2008.

People
Jean-Marc Idier is the CEO of FH. LBO France partner and head of Hexagone Jean Marie Leroy, director Arthur Bernardin, analyst Louis de Lummen and legal counsel Karine Callec worked on the deal.

Florence Trinquet-Cirilli worked on the deal for Naxicap alongside CM-CIC's Thierry Wendling and Frédérique Cassignol from BNP Paribas.

Emmanuelle Gervais and Romain Gauvrit worked on the sale for BPI alongside Matignon's Christian Haas.

Advisers
Equity – Potomac Capital Conseil, Sebastien Drouot, Pierre Costes (Corporate finance); Paul Hastings, Pascal de Moidrey, Edith Boucaya, Laurent Ragot, Mounir Letayf (Legal); Deloitte, Cyril Stivala, Frédérique Chenevoy (Financial due diligence); LEK, Serge Hovsepian, Arnaud Sergent (Strategic due diligence); Marsh, Yasmin Sour (Insurance due diligence).
Management – Jones Day, Emmanuel de La Rochethulon, Renaud Bonnet (Legal).
Vendors – Piper Jaffray, Neil Mackison, James White (Corporate finance); Alerion, Pierre-Olivier Brouard, Jérôme Werner, Louise Ferreira (Legal); PwC, Philippe Chavane (Financial due diligence).