Alto Partners buys Costruzione Emiliana Ingranaggi

The GP acquired a stake of approximately 75% in a deal that valued the company at around €75m, equal to 5.5x its EBITDA, according to press reports.

The vendors are the founding Boni family, who will retain the remaining minority stake and continue to lead the company.

The acquisition was supported by a debt package provided by Banco BPM as lead arranger and Intesa Sanpaolo.

The deal was made via a newco called Spare Partners, which will be used by the GP as an aggregation platform across the Italian industrial vehicle spare parts sector.

Alto plans to boost CEI's organic growth through an intensive market penetration in new geographies and further improve the company's product quality, brand recognition and logistic efficiency, while expanding its product range and offering.

Alto invested in CEI via Alto Capital IV, which held a final close on its €210m hard-cap in April 2018. The vehicle targets Italian SMEs generating revenues within the €20-80m bracket, and deploys equity tickets of €15-25m.

CEI is the sixth investment made by the fund, following haircare products specialist Tricobiotos; yarns for knitwear producer Millefili; cous cous maker Bia; dermo-cosmetic expert OFI; and air conditioning specialist Olimpia Splendid.

The GP also manages Alto Capital III, which is fully invested and holds four remaining assets in its portfolio: luxury furniture specialist IPE-Visionnaire; natural cosmetics manufacturer Harbor; stationery expert Legami; and bread producer Semenzato.

Company
Established in 1969 and headquartered in Anzola dell'Emilia, near Bologna, CEI specialises in in the design and production of aftermarket spare parts for trucks and heavy commercial vehicles.

Its offering includes a wide variety of products focused on heavy commercial vehicles above 3.5 tonnes, primarily gears for gearboxes and differentials, as well as parts for steering and braking systems, suspensions and engine.

CEI generated EBITDA of around €13.5m from revenues of €62m in 2019, of which 85% came from abroad.

People
Alto Partners – Stefano Scarpis, Raffaele de Courten (founding partners); Tommaso Meregalli (investment analyst).

Advisers
Equity – Goetz Partners (financial due diligence); R&D Advisory (corporate finance); R&P Legal (legal); Athena Audit (tax); Tauw (environmental due diligence); Sopabroker (insurance due diligence).
Company – K Finance (corporate finance); Gianni Origoni Grippo Cappelli & Partners (legal).

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• Topics
• Buyouts
• Southern Europe
• Industrials
• Alto Partners
• Italy