Paris, July 23rd , 2019 – Ecritel Group, the managed hosting and e-commerce specialist, is restructuring its capital by bringing LBO France on board via the fund Capdev FRR France FPCI. The deal will allow the founding managers and majority shareholders Audrey and Thierry Louail to increase their stake in the company, and will also allow a number of managers to become shareholders. The financial sponsors Nextstage AM and Isatis Capital, investors since 2014, will exit upon closing of the transaction.
Ecritel Group was created in 2006 by Audrey and Thierry Louail and controls Ecritel in France (founded in 1985) and internationally a half-dozen similarly named subsidiaries. It supports companies and institutions through their digital transformation by offering cloud architecture, hosting, web services management, content delivery, security and legal compliance services. The same services provided throughout Europe from France are delivered by local teams in the Americas (USA, Canada, Brazil) and Asia (Russia, China, Hong Kong). Ecritel Group’s 2018 revenues were €24 million, growing stongly over the prior year. This evidences the robustness of its business model and the management team’s success in consolidating its position in a fast-growing market, driven by firms eager to outsource and streamline the management of their IT infrastructure via cloud technology.
As a leading player in its market, Ecritel Group, with the backing of the LBO France teams, plans to accelerate its development in France through organic growth and M&A, and develop its geographical footprint abroad.
“We have the chance to support a company with experienced management, proven track record of growth and strong prospects for future expansion. We are delighted to support the founders and managers of the company in a promising development project, based upon the resilience of the hosting business and attractive opportunities for external growth” said Nicolas Manardo, Managing Director at LBO France.
“We are confident the trend will continue towards IT outsourcing, migration to private or public clouds and standardisation of services through container technologies both among e-tailers and online service providers. This is why we have implemented an ambitious development plan which should allow us to double revenue in 4 years” said Audrey and Thierry Louail, founders of Ecritel Group.
Main participants in the transaction:
Buyers & advisers
Founders: Audrey Louail, Thierry Louail
Founders’ lawyers: 186|AVOCATS (Vandrille Spire)
LBO France : Nicolas Manardo, Charles Béal
Legal, tax and social compliance and consultancy to LBO France: GFP Avocats (Dimitri Pubellier, Julien Vaucheret and Florence Dupont)
Financial due diligence LBO France : KPMG (Damien Moron, Sophie Dervain, Hassina Oudjane)
Strategic due diligence LBO France: EY Parthenon (Etienne Costes, Thomas Solelhac, Charles Viennot)
Technical and technological due diligence LBO France: Netsystems (Olivier Cazzulo)
Sellers & advisers Nextstage AM (seller): Jean-David Haas, Julien Potier, Arthur Vigneras
Isatis Capital (seller): Laurent Baudino, François-Xavier Lehman
Sellers’ legal adviser: Fieldfisher (Pascal Squercioni)
Consultants to founders and selling shareholders: Atout Capital: Mélanie Bonanno, Pauline Colrat
Financing banks & advisers Banks: BNP Paribas et Caisse d’Epargne IDF (co-bookrunners) and HSBC
Banks’ legal adviser: Volt (Alexandre Tron)
About LBO France
As a key player in private equity with €4bn of capital under management, LBO France is an independent company that has been supporting French and Italian companies in their growth for more than 30 years. Its investment strategy is built on 4 distinct segments managed by dedicated teams: (i) Mid Cap Buyout through the White Knight funds and Small Cap Buyout through the Hexagone/Small Caps Opportunities funds, (ii) Venture Capital through the SISA/Digital Health funds, (iii) Real Estate through the White Stone and Lapillus funds, (iv) Debt. Historically focused on Institutional and Family Office investors, LBO France has recently launched the FCPR White Caps Selection, a private equity fund accessible to individuals through multi-strategy funds. LBO France is 100% owned by its management and employs nearly 60 professionals. In the framework of its Small Cap investment strategy, LBO France has been awarded a mandate by Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites, with the capacity to perform minority capital development investments.
About Ecritel
Group Ecritel is a specialist provider of managed hosting services for e-commerce, online service providers and any organisation using critical online tools. To optimize service quality, Ecritel Group offers a full range of services: consultancy on cloud architecture, private, public or hybrid cloud hosting, coordination and facilities management, support for containerization, website acceleration, secure hosting and dissemination, financial (PCI-DSS) and personal data (GDPR, HADS) compliance. The group offers identical services abroad, tailored to local law and run by local teams in the American (USA, Canada, Brazil) and Asian (Russia, China, Hong Kong) subsidiaries. Ecritel’s teams in France are based in Paris 3 (Clichy), Nantes, Bordeaux and Toulouse. The group is ISO 9001 and 27001 certified. It has 200 employees, two-thirds of whom are based in France. Its own backbone includes linked data centres across 3 continents.
Press contacts
Agence Shan
Léa Schultz – + 33 1 42 86 82 41 – lea.schultz@shan.fr
Laetitia Hottinguer – + 33 1 44 50 58 78 – laetitia.hottinguer@shan.fr