Omnes Capital has used a capital development transaction to buy a core minority shareholding in Batiweb, a digital platform serving the construction sector that brings together building trade professionals and consumers.
Ardian, the independent private investment company, has sold its shareholding in the company.
At the same time, Batiweb has acquired Habitat Trade to expand its geographical footprint and gain high value-added expertise. This deal has given rise to the Batiweb Group. The combined group posted sales of close to EUR10 million.
With backing from Matmut Innovation and other co-investors, Omnes Capital’s Small Cap funds supported the LBO, which saw Nicolas Ricart, the founder and manager, significantly increase his holding to become the majority shareholder.
Founded in 2005, the Batiweb Group is France’s number two digital portal bringing building trade professionals together with consumers, predominantly in the home renovation segment. Batiweb is active in three complementary areas – intermediation, media and B2B services. Between 2013 and 2016, the group more than doubled its revenues and tripled its profitability by developing and enriching its expertise and its new content through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions.
The group is in advanced discussions to perform further external growths mostly in France but also abroad. It aims to triple its revenues over the next four years.
“We originally invested in Batiweb with the objective together with Nicolas Ricart of making it a leader in its marketplace. We are delighted to have achieved that goal and pleased to see that its growth will continue with another high-quality partner,” says Romain Chiudini, senior investment manager at Ardian Growth.
“Ardian Growth provided us with substantial support while we were first building the company. Based on this experience, I firmly believed in that it makes good sense to partner with Omnes Capital given its sector knowledge and expertise in industry consolidation through multiple external growths. Our Group can now use these additional financial resources to play a leading role in sector concentration and to speed up its ambitious development plan,” says Nicolas Ricart, chairman of the Batiweb Group.
“We had the opportunity to go through friendly discussions with Nicolas Ricart aimed at sharing the same development views of Batiweb and allowing the financial investors to monetise their holding while injecting fresh impetus into the Group’s expansion. The Group’s growth and profitability profile has primed it to play the role of consolidator in the sector through external growths in France and overseas and the recruitment of key talent to support its manager,” says Frédéric Mimoun, director at Omnes Capital.
Nicolas Gomart, chief executive officer of Matmut Group and chairman of Matmut Innovation, adds: “The home is one of the priority areas for our group, which currently manages close to 2.2 million home insurance policies. Matmut Innovation is the group unit handling acquisitions of shareholdings and financing the development of start-ups providing technological innovations for the insurance value chain. With this deal we are again demonstrating our determination to deliver on our commitment to provide high-quality services to consumers and businesses, with a focus on the home.”
