Arcapita Bank B.S.C.(c), a leading international investment firm headquartered in Bahrain, today announced that it and its affiliates have signed a definitive purchase agreement to acquire Compagnie Européenne de Prestations Logistiques (“CEPL”), a leading European warehouse logistics service provider, from French private equity firm Sagard, and current management. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed but the deal ranks as the largest LBO in France this year.
CEPL, headquartered in Béville le Comte, France, operates across 23 sites in France and Germany, and has approximately 2,200 employees.
Founded in 1998, CEPL 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 Thierry Ortmans, CEO and founder, and Akim Lamrani, COO, will continue in their current roles and have increased their equity investment in the business.
Atif A. Abdulmalik, Arcapita’s Chief Executive Officer, said “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.”
Arcapita managed the transaction out of its London office. Mounzer Nasr, head of Arcapita’s European Corporate Investments added “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. Arcapita currently owns more than 5 million square meters 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.
Thierry Ortmans, CEO and founder of CEPL said: “We are extremely pleased to have secured investment from an international partner of the caliber of Arcapita. 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 RBS, SocGen, Calyon and ING.
© 2008 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
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