Arcapita Bank and its affiliates have signed a definitive purchase agreement to acquire Compagnie Europeenne de Prestations Logistiques (CEPL), a European warehouse logistics service provider.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed but the deal is believed to rank as the largest leveraged buyout (LBO) in France this year.
The Bahrain-based international investment bank is making the purchase from French private equity firm Sagard, and the current management.
CEPL, headquartered in Beville le Comte, France, operates across 23 sites in France and Germany, and has approximately 2,200 employees.
It provides clients with a single managed central location from which it prepares detailed orders for individual retail outlets on a national, pan-European or global basis.
The current management team, led by chief executive officer and founder Thierry Ortmans and chief operating officer Akim Lamrani, will continue in their current roles and have increased their equity investment in the business.
“This is one of the few transactions of this size in Europe to have secured LBO financing in these tough market conditions, which attests to the quality of the business, as well as the strong reputation that Arcapita has built within Europe,” said Arcapita chief executive officer Atif A Abdulmalik.
Arcapita managed the transaction out of its London office.
“Through their dedication to exceptional levels of service and operational excellence, Thierry Ortmans and his highly motivated management team have built up a very high quality portfolio of customers within a short time frame,” said Arcapita’s head of European corporate investments Mounzer Nasr.
“Arcapita currently owns more than five million sq m of industrial warehouse facilities globally, and the acquisition of CEPL has the potential for significant synergies with our existing portfolio of logistics investments.
“We look forward to working with the current management team and employees, and investing in CEPL’s next phase of growth.”
Arcapita’s portfolio of industrial warehouses is one of Europe’s largest, and it has recently added Pinnacle, a fast growing industrial warehouse developer and operator in Central and Eastern Europe, to its existing investments in the sector.
“We are extremely pleased to have secured investment from an international partner of the calibre of Arcapita,” said Ortmans.
“This is an important milestone in the development of CEPL and we believe that with their experience in the sector, Arcapita will be a valuable partner as we continue the international growth of CEPL.”
Financing for the transaction was provided by a consortium of banks including Royal Bank of Scotland, SocGen, Calyon and ING.