Sale of the ALTONA-ALTHOME Group to the SAB Group

Paris, June 10, 2021 – TwinL Investment Banking, specialized in corporate sales and acquisitions, announces the sale of the Althome-Altona Group to the SAB Group.

The TwinL team, specialized in sales and acquisitions of companies, advised the shareholders of the Althome-Altona Group, 14 M€ of turnover, in their operation of backing an industrial group and it is the SAB Group which was selected. The ambition of the new Group is to rapidly surpass the €50 million turnover by combining the industrial power of the SAB Group and the sales force that the Althome-Altona Group represents in distribution.

Francis Cadreils, CEO of the Althome-Altona Group wanted to ensure a good transmission after 25 years of development of his Group.
With turnover expected to grow to €14 million in 2021, still marked by the Covid crisis, the TwinL team was tasked by the Althome-Altona Group’s executive director and shareholders to ensure the overall management of the sale process: For this mission, TwinL approached the main market players in France and Europe before concluding discussions and negotiating agreements with the SAB Group, an industrial group specializing in plastics processing based in the Rhône-Alpes region.

The TwinL team’s roadmap was to select the company that would allow Managers and teams to pursue the adventure together in order to flourish in a new Group.

Interview with Francis Cadreils:

Q: Althome-Altona, a great success story, why this decision to sell your Group?
Our activity is international and this situation leads to sustained work with a lot of travel. Our Group has progressed over the last 5 years in an important way and at an age close to retirement we must remain lucid about our physical abilities. No children of shareholder families wishing to take over the company, the best solution was to sell the Group in order to ensure sustainability to all our employees who have engaged with us in this incredible adventure, some of whom have been for more than 20 years and to value our investment.

Q: Why did you initially decide to be accompanied by an investment bank like TwinL?
Our success over the past 20 years has been based on the principle of doing well what we knew how to do and outsourcing everything we didn’t know how to do to focus on the essentials. When selling our Group it was important to be accompanied by real professionals. In addition, we did not have the time and expertise to carry out this operation.

Q: A year after this choice, do you still think it was useful to be accompanied in this process of transfer by an Investment Bank and why?
Even more than at the time of our choice and the signing of the Assignment Mandate! It seems obvious to us now that if we had sold the Group by ourselves we would have made several communications errors and certainly bad choices. Given our strong growth situation, we had too much «head in the bar» to be lucid and logical in our choices. TwinL’s expertise has helped us a lot in our choices.

Q : Would you recommend the TwinL team to other business owners who are thinking about their future sale?
Without a doubt because outside the Altona-Althome Group we sold a few months ago the Foresta Group (3 production plants (in France and Romania) in the garden shed world) and we were doubly able to judge the professionalism of the TwinL team. They have always been very honest in the interests of both parties, resulting in significant respect for buyers, a key element in the trust and success of these two transactions.