Omnes, through its Omnes Mezzanis 3 fund, has completed its 8th sponsorless deal through its reinvestment in Biosyl, following its previous sponsorless deal with the company in 2019.Biosyl is a leading industrial player in France in manufacturing wood pellets. Omnes, already a shareholder in the group, has reinvested alongside the company founder. Minority investors 123 IM, SOFIMAC as well as the forestry cooperative Unisylva complete the funding round.
Debt was provided by BPI and a banking consortium led by BNP Paribas, comprising La Banque Postale, HSBC, Banque Populaire Bourgogne and Banque Populaire Auvergne.
Founded in 2010, Biosyl transforms wood waste and residues from sustainably managed forests into energy with low CO2 emissions. Biosyl adds value to wood chips and saw-mill waste by producing wood pellets for domestic stoves and pellet boilers. Located in Nièvre on 12 hectares of land, in the heart of forest residue, it has an EUR18.5 million turnover. Omnes carried out its first sponsorless investment in Biosyl in 2019, as part of a shareholder restructuring and an increase in the stakeholding of the founding manager. Yhe group then had a production capacity of 100,000 tons of pellets per year.
Omnes’s reinvestment in 2020 will allow the group to double its production capacity while maintaining its short-circuit approach with the construction of a factory in a new geographical area, in Auvergne.
Biosyl is the main producer in this local market, and one of the five largest manufacturers in France.
The company is also the first French player capable of developing small diameter hardwoods.
A source of renewable energy, wood pellets are a low-carbon fuel that is fully in line with the energy transition and the fight against climate change.
Camille Delibes, Partner in charge of Private Debt, Omnes, says: “We are very pleased to continue to support Antoine de Cockborne with this new project. Pellet stove heating is an alternative, economical and green solution that appeals to private individuals in France. Pellet sales are growing steadily.”
Antoine de Cockborne, Biosyl Chairman, says: “Omnes’s renewed trust is allowing Biosyl to continue its short-circuit development and meet the growing expectation for low CO2 energy by the French market. I am therefore delighted that OMNES is supporting me in launching the group’s second unit, a major and strategic industrial development for the group.”
