Questel (France) - Dec 2007

SG Capital Europe has led the LBO of intellectual property advisory business Questel. SG Capital took more than 50% of Questel for around €40m while management and employees retain more than 30%. More than 80% of employees took up the share offer. The Besson family retained around 10%.

Company

Paris-based Questel was founded in 1979 as a telesystems company and a subsidiary of France Telecom. It merged with US company Orbit in 1994. It was bought and restructured by Jean Besson in 2000. Questel’s services cover patents, trademarks and industrial design, databases, search and monitoring services, workflow solutions and docketing software. Questel acquired US patent company DigiPat and Belgian trademarks company Edital in 2005. It expanded its industrial designs sector with the acquisition of DesignMuster in 2006. Questel has offices in Paris, Brussels and Washington DC and employs around 100 people.

Debt

Senior debt of about E12m was provided by BNP and Banque Palatine, while the mezzanine debt was provided CIC Mezzanine.

People

Charles Besson is CEO of Questel. Phillipe Renié and Gregoire de Castelnau worked on the deal for SG Capital Europe.

Advisers

Equity - SJ Berwin LLP, Christophe Digoy (Legal)Equity - The van Tulleken Company London, Michael Doyle (Corporate Finance)Vendor - ACE Conseil, Virginie Marrer (Legal)

Sourced from: France unquote" 88 (Feb 2008)

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Send to  

• Topics
• France
• Buyouts
• Technology
• France