The London and Paris offices of Debevoise & Plimpton are advising AltaOne Capital LLP, acting in consortium with Silver Lake, in its agreement to acquire 37.6% of the share capital of Cegid Group, a leading French enterprise management software and cloud services provided. The consortium will acquire the shares from Groupama SA, Groupama Gan Vie and ICMI, a company controlled by Jean-Michel Aulas. The offer values 100% of the issued and outstanding ordinary shares of Cegid Group at c.€580 million (on a fully diluted basis). In addition to the 37.6% stake, several major shareholders representing together an additional 5.9% have undertaken to tender their shares into the offer which would represent a combined 43.5%. The offer will close successfully when the Consortium obtains in excess of 50% of Cegid Group’s share capital or voting rights.
AltaOne is an investment firm based in London and founded in 2015 by Behdad Alizadeh and Shahriar Tadjbakhsh. AltaOne’s investment strategy includes acquiring significant ownership stakes in a small number of European companies that are leaders in their markets, and in which it can enhance the long term value of their businesses as an active professional shareholder. AltaOne’s principals have substantial public and private company investment experience as anchor shareholders across a broad range of industries, including technology, media and telecommunications.
Cegid is a leading player in the digital transformation of companies, providing cloud services and enterprise software to private companies and public entities alike. Cegid addresses the management needs of companies and public entities of all sizes in the fields of finance, taxation and human resources, and offers industry-specific solutions to companies in the manufacturing, trade, services and retail sectors as well as to the accounting profession. Based on MoBiCloTM, its technological concept combining Mobility, Business Intelligence and the Cloud, Cegid’s innovation strategy integrates the new ways in which people use software. Cegid is an international group with more than 2,200 employees, 30 locations in France, and over 15 subsidiaries and offices worldwide. Cegid serves more than 135,000 clients and 430,000 users, including over 150,000 in SaaS mode. In 2015, its revenues exceeded €300 million on a pro forma basis. Cegid is listed on Euronext Paris.
The Debevoise team advising AltaOne is led by London partner Raman Bet-Mansour and includes London-based partners Geoffrey Kittredge and Matthew D. Saronson, Paris-based international counsel Philippe Tengelmann, and London-based associates Dominic Blaxill, Paul Eastham, Matt Pincus and Andrew C. Rearick.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is a premier law firm with market-leading practices, a global perspective and strong New York roots. We deliver effective solutions to our clients’ most important legal challenges, applying clear commercial judgment and a distinctively collaborative approach.