News

Ardian has entered exclusive talks to sell its stake in Bricoprivé.com to Florac Investissements. No financial terms were disclosed. Bricoprivé.com is a French private sales website for DIY, gardening and home improvements products.

PRESS RELEASE

Paris, 28 March 2018 – Ardian, a world-leading private investment house, today announces that it has entered into exclusive discussions with Florac Investissements to sell its stake in Bricoprivé.com, the leading private sales website for DIY, gardening and home improvements products. As part of the sale, the founders, Julien Boué and Marc Leverger, are reinvesting in the Company.

Founded in Toulouse in 2012, Bricoprivé offers a wide range of professional-quality products at affordable prices. This positioning, coupled with its founders’ significant expertise, has enabled the Company to achieve rapid and profitable growth, with revenues increasing fourfold from €28 million in 2015 to provisionally €100 million in June 2018. Since Ardian’s investment Bricoprivé has opened in three international markets (Spain, Italy and Portugal) and acquired two companies with complementary activities (Racetools and Noova) in 2017, all the while continuing to grow its core offering.

Ardian made its first investment in June 2015 and financed a second transaction in June 2016 to support the company’s strong growth.

Julien Boué, Co-Founder of Bricoprivé.com, said: “This deal is the logical continuation of Bricoprivé’s development. We have strengthened the company by developing its expertise and digital and logistical tools, started internationalisation and overcome the challenges of external growth. The success of our strategy has enabled us to achieve revenues of €100 million sooner than anticipated, which has generated requests from various stakeholders, leading the way to a natural next stage of our growth.”

Marc Leverger, Co-Founder of Bricoprivé.com, added: “We are pleased to welcome Florac as shareholders in Bricoprivé. This deal supports our continued ambitious growth. We would like to thank Ardian for its support during what have been key moments of our development, enabling us to reach significant milestones of growth. We are happy that Ardian will be by our side for the new stage of our development.”

Laurent Foata, Head of Ardian Growth, added: “The founders of Bricoprivé have managed to create a leading company and have reached a significant size in just five years, desptive a very competitive market. Their entrepreneurial talent has made all the difference and we are happy to support a deal which will allow Marc and Julien to continue the company’s growth.”

Romain Chiudini, Director at Ardian Growth, added: “We are happy to have supported Bricoprivé’s ambitions. The company was able to embark on a impressive growth trajectory through the rapid implementation of a shared strategy and the quality of its management team.”

LIST OF PARTIES INVOLVED
Ardian: Laurent Foata, Romain Chiudini
Bricoprivé: Marc Leverger, Julien Boué
Financial adviser (Seller): Rothschild Transaction R (Pierre Sader, Benjamin Osdoit, Romain Galven)
Legal Adviser: Jones Day (Renaud Bonnet, Florent Le Prado)
VDD: Eight Advisory: Christophe Delas

ABOUT BRICOPRIVÉ.COM
Created in October 2012 in Toulouse and managed by Julien Boué and Marc Leverger, Bricoprive.com is the first website for private sales dedicated to DIY, gardening and home improvement.

As a major player in e-commerce in the DIY sector in France, Bricoprive.com organizes private sales for its 3 million members for the sector’s main brands (Facom, Legrand, Caterpillar, AEG Powertools) in three different product ranges: DIY, gardening, home, professional textile, car/motorcycle and high tech.

In agreement with these brands, Bricoprivé organizes 7 to 8 private integrated sales daily (logistics, customer service, webmarketing, sales…) on all their overstock and end-of-life products.

Regarded as a central sales hub (4 logistics platforms in France, commercial coverage across the country), with its community of highly targeted members the website also represents an excellent communications platform for brands.

After 3.5 years of very strong growth, nearly 55 million euros in volume of business over the last 12 months and the recruitment of 105 employees, Bricoprivé begins a new stage of its development with the opening of its sites in Italy and Spain. www.bricoprive.com

ABOUT ARDIAN
Ardian is a world-leading private investment house with assets of US$67bn managed or advised in Europe, North America and Asia. The company is majority-owned by its employees. It keeps entrepreneurship at its heart and focuses on delivering excellent investment performance to its global investor base. Through its commitment to shared outcomes for all stakeholders, Ardian’s activities fuel individual, corporate and economic growth around the world.

Holding close its core values of excellence, loyalty and entrepreneurship, Ardian maintains a truly global network, with more than 490 employees working from 13 offices across Europe (Frankfurt, Jersey, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), North America (New York, San Francisco) and Asia (Beijing, Singapore, Tokyo). It manages funds on behalf of about 700 clients through five pillars of investment expertise: Fund of Funds, Direct Funds, Infrastructure, Real Estate and Private Debt. Follow Ardian on Twitter @Ardian www.ardian.com