AtriA Capital Partenaires sells LPR

Anneken Tappe
04 October 2011

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French mid-market firm AtriA Capital Partenaires has sold portfolio company La Palette Rouge (LPR) to Euro Pool System.

The acquirer is planning to drive LPR's further growth in core markets and strengthen the company's pan-European presence. LPR will keep operating under its own name as a division of Euro Pool System.

Previous funding
AtriA first invested in the company when backing an MBO from Algeco in 2006. The deal was estimated at €50-100m, with equity sourced from AtriA Private Equity Fund II. AtriA took a majority stake in the company, while management retained 15%. The deal had originated from an auction led my Rothschild.

Senior debt was provided by Credit Agricole with mezzanine provided by Euromezzanine.

Company
LPR is a Toulouse-based firm specialised in full-service pallet-pooling solutions. It offers a collection and delivery service for pallets in 12 European countries. The company, founded in 1992, employs 200 people and has offices in eight different countries.

People
Patrick Bertiaux and Thomas Geneton led the deal for AtriA, while Peter Willems and Alex Timmerman acted on behalf of Euro Pool System. Euromezzanine, which underwrote the mezzanine debt for AtriA in 2006, was represented by Thierry Raiff and Ajit Jayaratnam. Thorsten Wolf is CEO of LPR.

Advisers
Vendor – Rothschild, Richard Thil, Fabrice Martineau, Matthieu Mourette, Nicolas Perianin (Corporate finance); Mayer Brown, Olivier Aubouin, Marie Pouget (Legal); PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sabine Durand-Hayes, Catherine Olive, Xavier Etienne (Tax, legal, financial due diligence); Roland Berger, Henri-Pierre Vacher (Commerical due diligence).
Acquirer – KPMG, Onno Sloterdijk, Paul de Hek (Corporate finance); Gide Loyette Nouel, Mathieu Roy, Alexis Pailleret (Legal).
Management – De Pardieu Brocas Maffei, Nicolas Favre (Legal); PricewaterhouseCoopers, Herve Colson (Corporate finance).