GSA Goes with the Flow in French Valve Sale
December 2005
Livingstone and its French Global M&A partner Financière de Courcelles (‘FdeC’) have completed the sale of La Robinetterie Industrielle (‘LRI’) on behalf of GSA Group Pty Ltd of Australia (‘GSA’).
LRI, headquartered in Montreuil, in the outskirts of Paris, is France’s leading independent distributor of valves and pumps to the commercial HVAC and industrial markets. The company employs 160 staff across 13 distribution outlets, services by two regional centres in Montreuil and Carcassone. LRI is on course to achieve sales of €40 million in 2005.
Founded in 1947, LRI was acquired by GSA in 1993 and has since purchased three regional distributors to achieve a comprehensive national coverage. Melbourne-based GSA is one of the world’s leading manufacturer’s of safety valves for the plumbing industry. Family-owned, GSA generates sales of approximately €200 million.
Following a strategic review, GSA concluded that LRI would be best developed further by a new strategic partner and approached Livingstone to handle the sale. Comments Livingstone partner Jeremy Furniss, “We immediately involved Veronique Zeid-Maurel, the partner at our French Global M&A partners, FdeC, with whom we have handled several transactions for large groups in the recent past, including Honeywell and Avon Rubber.”
The opportunity attracted considerable interest among trade buyers internationally but FdeC concluded that a private equity backed deal would offer the best result for GSA. LRI’s President, Christian Chaudron, was keen to continue the business’s development as an independent distributor and has led a management buy-out of the company, backed by French private equity house, Quartus. Founded in 1998 by Patrick Jemelen, Antione de la Rigodiere and Frederic, Quartus invests in mid-cap non-listed companies with significant growth potential.
Livingstone deal leader Daniel Domberger comments, “This is an excellent example of our cross-border capability, acting for an Australian group on a French deal. Our Global M&A partnership gives us a quite unique reach for clients interested in completing cross-border deals with values of between £10m and £100m.”
The LRI deal represents a further success for Livingstone’s Engineering team, which has an excellent track record in the valves and flow control sector, having handled the sale of non-core businesses for such major groups as IMI, Meggitt and Tyco.
For further information contact:
Jeremy Furniss
T: +44 20 7484 4703
E: furniss@livingstonepartners.co.uk
Daniel Domberger
T: +44 20 7484 4731
E: domberger@livingstonepartners.co.uk