H.I.G. Capital Announces Sale of Holding VM Industries Group (former Molex) to ActoMezz and Management
PARIS – March 24, 2016 – H.I.G. Capital (“H.I.G.”), a leading global private equity firm, announced that it 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 H.I.G. 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, explained: “We would like to thank H.I.G. 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 H.I.G. France, commented: “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 added: “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.”
About H.I.G. Capital
H.I.G. is a leading global private equity and alternative assets investment firm with $19 billion of equity capital under management.* Based in Miami, and with offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Atlanta in the U.S., as well as international affiliate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Rio de Janeiro, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/ value-added approach:
- H.I.G.’s equity funds invest in management buyouts, recapitalizations and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses.
- H.I.G.’s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. is also a leading CLO manager, through its WhiteHorse family of vehicles, and manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance.
- H.I.G.’s real estate funds invest in equity and debt opportunities across property types and geographies.
Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 200 companies worldwide. The firm’s current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $30 billion. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at www.hig.com.
About ActoMezz
ActoMezz is the mezzanine team of ACG Capital and manages more than €400 million. ActoMezz is the leading partner of managers of French small and mid-sized businesses who wish to buy out their company. ActoMezz also backs the financial partners of businesses whose share capital is being transferred, allowing managers to achieve accretion. ACG Capital is a member of ACG Group, a leading European private equity firm. With €3 billion in assets under management, ACG Group offers institutional and individual investors a choice of funds covering all asset classes.
* Based on total capital commitments to funds managed by H.I.G. Capital and its affiliates