Charterhouse Capital Partners won auction for Optima srl, a leading manufacturer of ingredients for artisanal ice cream active with the Mec3 brand with an estimated global market share of about 12%.
Charterhouse’s bid was preferred to bids from many other private equity firms such as Permira, Cinven and Carlyle. Also Froneri, a joint venture in the icecream and frozen products sector between Swiss food giant Nestlé and British icecream leader R&R (controlled by Pai Partners) was said to have studied the dossier.
Sellers are The Riverside Company and its co-investors Lexington Partners, Parkwood e Intermediate Capital Group, who bought control of the company in February 2014, while the founder Giordano Emendatori had retained a 20% stake in the company and then divested completely. That deal had been financed by Intermediate Capital Group and GE Capital Interbanca (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Back then Optima srl had been valued about 140 million euros, after having reached about 100 million euros in consoldiated revenues in 2013 and 17 millions in ebitda. Charterhouse’s deal value has not been disclosed now but MF Milano Finanza writes today the enterprise value is 400 million euros, with 300 million euros of equity value. Led by ceo Claudio Riva, the company is expetec to reach 110 million euros in revenues at the end of 2016 with 29 millions in ebitda after having reached 105 million euros in revenues in 2015 with 25 millions of ebitda (see here an analysis by Leanus for the operative parent company alone, after free registration and login).
Established in 1984 and headquartered in Rimini (Bologna), Optima offers a complete portfolio of top quality products among which pastes, bases and powders, gelato kit and syrups. The company is active in over 140 countries and can boast a particularly strong position in Germany and Brazil.
Charterhouse Capital Partners is investing its X Fund (which has just announed a final closing at 2.3 billion euros) la raccolta a quota 2,3 miliardi di euro). Fineurop Soditic acted as exclusive financial advisor to Charterhouse; Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, Cappelli & Partners as legal advisor, Bain & Company and Long Term Partners performed the Business Due Diligence; Pricewaterhouse the Financial Due Diligence and Marlborough Partners acted as debt advisor. Riverside was advised by Rothschild (financial), Allen & Overy (legal) and Alix Partners (Business Due Diligence).
The acquisition of Optima-Mec3 is Charterhouse’s third investment in Italy in 3 years and follows the acquisitions of  DOC Generici (acquired in Summer 2013 and sold last Spring) and Nuova Castelli (acquired in 2014). Those three deals have been followed for Chartehouse by the partner Giuseppe Prestìa.
