Newsletter - DEFI Gestion
Transcription
Newsletter - DEFI Gestion
Newsletter fEBRUARY 2008 Visit our website www.defigestion.ch defi gESTION sa Gross IRR of 40% on LBO and expansion of the team Despite the financial turmoil at the end 2008, DEFI Gestion achieved an excellent performance. The objectives of the VDCapital L.P. fund were met and three exits are already ongoing for the first half of 2009. The Fund has an IRR of 40% on transactions sold in the LBO segment so far. Regarding DEFI EuroCap III L.P., the investment period is continuing with an acquisition in the health sector in order to create a center of expertise in that field. Finally, ICR also continued its investment period with the acquisition of Diagnoplex, a start-up operating in the field of molecular diagnostics. DEFI’s team is growing. The arrival of Miss Sandy Clavien, a graduate of HEC Lausanne, and Mr. Dominique Morisod, a longtime associate of DEFI, has strengthened the buy-out team. We welcome them. Sandy Clavien, Patrice Crisinel, Mohammed Diab, Sarah Meier, Jacques Berger, Dominique Morisod, Claude Suard, Arnaud Cronel, Lina Nicolet, François Marcos The team currently totals 10 professionals with confirmed track records to manage the wealth of their investors and to actively support entrepreneurs. Buy-Out operations DEFI EuroCap III Launched in 2006 Pan-European Small Caps strategy Total commitment: 54 mio € Investment period DEFI Gestion, Sinequanon and Luxempart closed the 2nd financing round of DS Care DS Care, our Luxembourg-based company incorporated in early 2008 (see Newsletter of May 2008), has taken another step to reach its aim of becoming a major European player in the field of homes for elderly people. For the time being, the development strategy focuses on nursing homes located in the North of Italy. The implementation of acquisitions is going as expected thanks to an efficient and experienced management team. The Italian market is currently underdeveloped with only 1.3 beds per 100 persons aged 65+, compared with a European aver- age of 5.9 beds (“Where to be in European nursing care”, Dexia, June 25, 2008). That means large capacity needs in a market where bed growth is regulated, thus creating significant entry barriers. In February 2008, DS Care Italia finalized the acquisition of Argento Vivo, a company of two nursing homes based in Milan (300 beds). Since June 2008, the entity has been managing an additional 160 beds for a nursing home located in Vittuone, close to Milan. The new financing round closed on the 16th of December 2008 will allow the company to finance multiple acquisition projects in the pipeline in Italy, including advanced DEFI EuroCap III Buy-Out Operations (continued) (continued) projects where an exclusivity period has been obtained. The current projects represent about 1,000 beds located in the northern regions of Italy. In its vision to create a pool of expertise, DEFI EuroCap III bought a minority stake in Emera Exploitations, the 8th largest private player in the French market of retirement homes. www.argentovivospa.it www.emera.fr Reinforcement of the Board of Directors of Plumettaz Holding SA In order to build its strategic level of expertise, Mrs. Adrienne Corboud Fumagalli, Vice-President of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), joined the Board of Directors of Plumettaz Holding SA. Contact: Jacques Berger phone +41 21 614 34 44 jberger@defigestion.ch VDCapital Launched in 2001 Total commitments: 67 mio CHF Divestment period Mrs. Corboud Fumagalli, Vice-President for innovation and development at the EPFL and President of the FIT (Foundation for Technological Innovation), has experience of the media and telecom world (various management functions at Swisscom) and will support the Plumettaz Group in the next steps of its development. www.plumettaz.ch Adrienne Corboud Fumagalli The support of DEFI Gestion helps Stradeblu take a new start Corsica Sardinia Ferries, one of Europe’s leading maritime transport companies based in France and Italy, has been approached to put new life into Stradeblu. Some of the shares held by initial financial investors were bought by that company, and to date it is the majority shareholder. In this new stage of development, VDCapital remains a minority shareholder, which has invested with Corsica Sardinia Ferries and the founder and CEO Mr. Cimaschi. The integration of Stradeblu into this entity brought major synergies and cost savings to the Italian company, particularly in terms of fuel costs, port costs (relocation of travel operations from Genoa to Savona) and insurance premiums. This new dynamic also features the operation of a new Strada Gothica boat, a ship similar in size and capacity to Strada Gigante. www.strade-blu.it www.corsica-ferries.fr Captain Tortue: 4 times the amount invested, which corresponds to an IRR of 62% In 2008 Captain Tortue (private sales of clothes for women and children in homes based on the Tupperware model) continued its spectacular ascension with sales of 45 million euros (+18%). In 2009, the company will benefit from two new growth vectors, namely an additional line of clothing for older women and a new range of lingerie following the acquisition of Java in early February 2009. That acquisition, the first carried out by the company, will generate considerable synergies in terms of design and purchase and sales networks. Java will be proposed to the network of the sales persons of Captain Tortue (2,000 people), and the network of Java (200 people) will be able to enjoy the marketing leverage of Captain Tortue to distribute the different brands of the company. In terms of capital, the strong performance of Captain Tortue enabled historical investors like VDCapital to obtain a price earnout, part of which was paid in December VDCapital Buy-Out operations (continued) (continued) Contact: Mohammed Diab phone +41 21 614 34 44 mdiab@defigestion.ch 2008. As a result, VDCapital returned an amount of CHF 3 million to its investors in addition to the CHF 14 million already distributed in the summer of 2007. That successful transaction allowed VDCapital to realize a performance of 4 times the amount invested in that stake, before reinvestment, which corresponds to an IRR of 62%. Note that besides the additional vendor loan, VDCapital has a remaining investment of 8% in Captain Tortue. www.captaintortue.com Venture operations ICR Launched end 2006 Financing of innovative startups which have a substantial potential market and an experienced team as well as a strong business plan Investment period Contact: Claude Suard phone +41 21 614 34 21 csuard@defigestion.ch Initiative Capital Romandie Our regional venture capital fund “Initiative Capital Romandie” (ICR) closed its 4th investment last December by financing the Lausanne-based start-up Diagnoplex. method to detect that type of cancer. The niche market of molecular diagnostic is growing fast and other companies are trying to develop similar tests. Diagnoplex, a company operating in the field of molecular diagnostics, was founded by Stavros Sterianos and Kurzio Ruegg. Their main objective was to develop a noninvasive test to detect colorectal cancer. The business model of the firm is to optimize a set of bio-markers specific to this type of cancer through clinical studies and to then market a high added-value screening kit to laboratories. Diagnoplex, however, has a competitive advantage, not only because its test can detect very early stages of cancer, but also because it can detect pre-cancerous tumors. That enables early treatments to take place, and very promising tests have already taken place on more than 120 patients with the help of Lausanne’s University hospital (CHUV) and the ISREC (Swiss Institute for experimental cancer research). The company leverages a proprietary molecular platform which enables it to routinely quantify a large number of bio-markers in an economical way. That platform can be used in the future to develop other similar tests. Diagnoplex addresses a USD 1 billion market made up of the 200 million people at risk of developing colorectal cancer in western countries. ICR has co-invested along with Novartis Bioventures and Neomed for a total Series A round of CHF 10 million. To date, less than 20% of the people aged above 50 go through systematic colorectal cancer screening, mainly because of the invasive, risky and unpleasant nature of colonoscopy, currently the only reliable www.diagnoplex.com