EFESO Consulting, Eurazeo PME and Argos Wityu have announced the signing of an agreement for the acquisition of EFESO Consulting by Eurazeo PME, alongside management. Eurazeo PME will hold approximately 70% of the capital. The transaction is expected to close in January 2019, after the release from suspensive conditions and approval from competition authorities. Eurazeo PME’s investment will total approximately €56M, including equity and quasi-equity instruments.

The shared ambition of Eurazeo PME and the management team is to accelerate the growth of EFESO Consulting by reinforcing the company’s positioning as the world-leading specialist in operational excellence consulting, particularly through accretive acquisitions and by deploying its renewed digital offering. For the execution of this strategy, EFESO Consulting will have full access to Eurazeo PME’s international network, which includes Eurazeo’s offices in the US, China, and Brazil; international partnerships, most notably in Germany; and corporate functions (including for acquisition integration, digital, Corporate and Social Responsibility).

Luca Lecchi and Bruno Machiels will become Co-CEOs of EFESO Consulting. Filippo Mantegazza, Founder and President who has led the Group for thirty years, will continue to actively accompany EFESO Consulting and will become a member of the supervisory board.

Neovian Partners conducted business due diligence for Efeso Consulting, which included classic commercial due diligence (Patrick Richer), HR/Leadership due diligence (Annick Kervella) and IT due diligence (Patrick Richer).

 

Q&A - Patrick Richer & Annick Kervella

Can you tell us about Neovian Partners’ involvement in the transaction?

Neovian Partners was able to offer four of our offers to provide a bespoke solution to Eurazeo PME. In our due diligence we carried out a commercial due diligence, a screening of potential build up opportunities, a technological due diligence of EFESO’s digital solution (code, architecture, scalability, security etc.) and an HR/Talent Management due diligence.

What was your specific role?

Patrick Richer managed the commercial due diligence, the screening and the technological due diligence and Annick Kervella managed the HR/Talent Management due diligence.

What were some of the key challenges that you were faced with and how did you overcome them?

The auction was very competitive and the timeframe was very limited, so time management was one of the key success factors on this one. We qualified 58 acquisition targets for EFESO, on a worldwide basis and ran three Expert Sessions with our client and EFESO’s management (Talent Management, Digital, and M&A) on top of our market analysis.