Private equity firm HIG Capital has sold the Holding VM Industries group (H-VMI) to Actomezz (the mezzanine financing team of ACG Capital) and management.
The H-VMI group was created in late 2009 following the partial acquisition of the automobile connectivity business of the Molex group at the Villemur-sur-Tarn site by HIG Capital. It has 270 employees across France, Germany and the UK, including 65 on the Villemur-sur-Tarn site.
Marc Laisné, CEO of the H-VMI group, says: "We would like to thank HIG for their unflagging belief in our company's potential. Their backing enabled us to turn around a distressed business. Our partnership, based on trust and communication, was a great success as evidenced by the group's continuous growth for 6 years. We are now ready to move on to the second phase of our history and continue with our growth strategy. We would like to thank Actomezz for its trust and we are very happy to start this new stage with its backing."
Olivier Boyadjian, Managing Director of HIG France, says: "H-VMI is the perfect illustration of a successful manufacturing turnaround project. We are very proud to have backed the turnaround of a distressed business to turn it into a lasting, international group with double digit growth. We honored and even exceeded our commitments and our goals by turning around the business through capital expenditure focusing on R&D and by taking it global.”
Laurent Fichter, ActoMezz Director, adds: "We were very impressed by the quality of the turnaround of the H-VMI group during these last few years and are delighted to back the management team in a new stage of its development via an arrangement that allows a wider group of managers to become shareholders.”
