Astorg sells Audiotonix to Ardian

Katharine Hidalgo
16 December 2019

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Astorg has sold a majority stake in electronic music equipment designer and manufacturer Audiotonix to Ardian.

The deal is reported to value the company at €1bn. The company's management, as well as Astorg, will reinvest as part of the transaction.

Astorg had been planning to auction off Audiotonix in 2020 and had been contacted by around six interested parties from the private equity sector; however, Ardian pre-empted the process by making its offer, according to Unquote sister publication Debtwire.

Audiotonix is the first realisation from Astorg VI, which closed on €2.1bn in 2016, according to Unquote Data. During the firm's holding period, the group launched a series of new products and acquired SSL and Klang.

The company refinanced its £31m second lien tranche provided by MV Credit with senior debt in June 2018. As part of the refinancing, $57m's worth of preference shares were redeemed and $7m in dividends was paid through an increase of the first lien, according to Debtwire.

Previous funding
Epiris acquired Allen & Health from trade player D&M Holdings for £43m in 2013. In 2014, the firm acquired Calrec from the same vendor for £14m and merged the two portfolio companies to form Audiotonix.

Later in 2014, Epiris acquired Digicio from Livingbridge and Mobeus Equity Partners for more than £50m and merged the company with Audiotonix.

Epiris sold the combined company to Astorg in 2017, generating a 4.8x return, representing an IRR of 51%. The deal valued the company at around £203m, according to Unquote sister publication Mergermarket. A group of banks, including Bank of Ireland, NIBC, Crédit Agricole, Mediterranean, HSBC and MV Credit, arranged a £172m senior debt package to support the deal, according to Debtwire.

Company
Chessington-headquartered Audiotonix designs and manufactures audio mixing consoles for live events, music recording and broadcast. Its brands, which include Allen & Heath, Calrec, Digico, DiGiGrid, Klang:technologies and Solid State Logic, support live sound for a variety of formats such as concerts, TV, theatre shows and live events. The company employs around 550 people.

Founded in 2014, the company generated EBITDA of around £55m in March 2019, according to Debtwire. It reported annual revenues of $155.13m and a net profit of $9.26m in March 2018.

People
Ardian – Olivier Personnaz, Bruno Ladrière (managing directors).
Astorg – François de Mitry (managing partner); Stéphane Epin (partner).
Audiotonix – James Gordon (CEO).