Bridgepoint sells Rovensa to Partners Group in €1bn deal

Alessia Argentieri
20 July 2020

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Swiss private equity firm Partners Group has acquired Portuguese agrichemical business Rovensa from Bridgepoint in a deal that gives the company an enterprise value of €1bn.

Bridgepoint mandated HSBC and Uría Menéndez for the sale of the company at the beginning of the year. Several industrial investors and private equity houses, including Ardian, Permira and Carlyle, showed interest. According to press reports, PAI Partners, Pamplona Capital Management and Partners Group reached the second round of the auction in March and presented three binding offers.

The sale ends a four-year holding period for Bridgepoint, which bought a majority stake in Rovensa in a carve-out from Sapec in a deal valued at €456m. A pool of banks consisting of BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, Rabobank and Mizuho provided a €250m debt package to support the transaction, comprising €190m in senior debt and €60m in retained cashflow.

Under Bridgepoint's ownership, the company boosted its growth both organically and through the execution of six strategic add-ons.

Following this SBO, Partners Group intends to work closely with Rovensa's management team, led by CEO Eric van Innis, with the aim of accelerating the development of the company's biological portfolio.

The GP also plans to support the business in boosting its international expansion, pursuing an intensive aggregation strategy with selected add-ons in the coming years, and enlarging its market share by focusing on high-growth market niches.

The firm is currently investing via its latest Partners Group Direct Equity Fund, which was launched in 2019 with a €5bn target.

Company
Established in 1926 and headquartered in Lisbon, Rovensa manufactures crop protection products, such as herbicides, insecticides and fungicides, as well as speciality crop nutrition fertilisers, including micronutrients and biostimulants.

The company has three divisions: bionutrition, which provides agricultural crops with nutrients for growth and healthy development; crop protection, which eliminates or prevents biological threats in crops; and biocontrol, which offers products based on biological inputs, such as plant extracts and micro-organisms.

Rovensa's products are sold in more than 70 countries worldwide, and it generates annual revenues of around €360m.

People
Partners Group – Andrew Deakin (managing director).
Bridgepoint – Hector Perez (partner responsible for Iberia investments).
Rovensa – Eric Van Innis (CEO).

Advisers
Equity – HSBC (corporate finance); JP Morgan (corporate finance); Uría Menéndez (legal); PwC (financial due diligence).
Vendor – Ropes & Gray (legal); Cuatrecasas (legal).