You acquired the Chargeurs group in 2015, via the Colombus holding company. What attracted you to the company?
Michaël Fribourg: Chargeurs was a little-known champion of French manufacturing, with specialist industrial businesses that showed huge potential that could be realised in particular by optimising its client base, product portfolio and geographical footprint. Together with my partners, we were convinced that these businesses could be turned into genuine world leaders, operating in very promising niches and protected by high entry barriers. Based on the German Mittelstand model, the idea was to go further down the road of consolidation and differentiation, with the aim of making each Chargeurs business a game-changer in its market.
How was the acquisition organised?
M.F.: With the support of several French institutional investors and via our joint holding company Colombus Holding, we made a pre-emptive offer to buy the company from the Seydoux family, which had owned it since 1980. The existing owners saw that our plans - supported by a new generation of European investors - represented an opportunity to safeguard the group's future and boost its growth potential.
What strategy have you adopted to achieve those ambitions?
M.F.: Our "Game Changer" programme has various aspects, including industrial efficiency and innovation at all levels: in technology, sales and marketing, but also talent management. This transformation strategy, combined with a highly dynamic approach to acquisitions, has enabled us to raise our business standards in each of our business areas, and staff at all levels of the company have been quick to buy into what we are doing.
Today, we are outperforming the competition in each of our business areas.
What are your main areas of development over the medium term?
M.F.: After the consolidation and transformation phase, which has enabled us to take the group to a new level in terms of scale, we are now starting to step up organic growth and acquisitions. Having done in-depth business intelligence and sector analysis work on our own businesses and on adjacent industries, we are planning to expand our business portfolio in order to create world leaders in areas where we see the greatest growth potential.
Why did you involve Crédit Mutuel Equity in your project?
M.F.: We worked with Crédit Mutuel Equity (formerly CM-CIC Investissement) at a very early stage of this adventure. As with all the investors accompanying us, we share the same philosophy of operational excellence, an ability to take a long-term - or very long-term - view, and a sense of partnership. Crédit Mutuel Equity is also one of only a few companies that invest their own equity, with the long-term commitment and responsive analysis that entails. That profile fits perfectly with our development vision.
What the partner says
It took a lot of audacity, ambition and perseverance to acquire a company like Chargeurs. Michaël Fribourg clearly had those qualities when he asked us to help him buy Chargeurs and to offer its previous owners, Messrs Seydoux and Malone, a real ownership and management solution.
We shared Michaël Fribourg's strong conviction that Chargeurs was a group with huge potential, and although we were impressed by his strong, clear vision of the strategy to be adopted, we have learned to work together. As a result, we have created and developed a relationship of trust.
Over its 145-year history, the Chargeurs group has forged an effective business model focused on operational excellence and constantly providing its clients with innovative solutions. It is also a multi-faceted group, operating in very technical business areas that require a high level of expertise. Those characteristics deserve to continue long into the future!
That is the aim of the various projects undertaken by Michaël Fribourg and his teams, which have allowed them to boost the group's performance very quickly and establish it as a game-changer in its industrial niche markets.
€38.0 m
of recurring operating
income in 2016
27.0%
increase in recurring
operating income in 2016
€506.0 m of revenue in 2016