Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises Butler Capital Partners on the potential sale of the Anovo Group to Ingram Micro

The international law firm Clifford Chance is advising the Butler Capital Partners investment fund on the potential sale of the Anovo Group, an electronic equipment repair and reconditioning company, to the American distributor Ingram Micro.

Butler Capital Partners and Ingram Micro have been engaged in exclusive discussions since June 2014 with a view to selling the Anovo Group, whose head office is located in Suresnes.

The Anovo Group's main assets were taken over in 2011 by Butler Capital Partners as part of one of the biggest asset transfer programmes to have taken place in France. Over the last three years Butler Capital Partners and a management team that has for the most part been renewed have undertaken far-reaching changes in the Group. The take-over offer provides for keeping the present management team as it is. After a return to break-even within the first year and a series of profitable years since then, the new Anovo Group has seen turnover grow by 40% and staff numbers rise by 25% over three years.

With 2014 turnover of 350 million Euros and a staff of 5100 working in eleven countries throughout the world, the Anovo Group is a world leader in both standard and mobile telecommunication product repair, reconditioning and return logistics services.

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange and present in 39 countries with 21,800 employees, Ingram Micro is the second largest distributor of electronic products in the world and has turnover of 42.6 billion Euros.

Extensive areas of commercial complementarity exist between the two groups, particularly with Ingram's Mobile Division and its global service supply strategy covering the life cycle of mobile items.

Butler Capital Partners and Ingram Micro could finalize their agreement within the next few weeks following consultations with the unions; the agreement would still, however, be subject to authorization on the part of the competition authorities.

Clifford Chance advises Butler Capital Partners with a team comprising Yves Wehrli (Partner), Marianne Pezant (Counsel) and Marie-Aude Kfouri, Alexandre Lagarrigue (Partner) for the tax aspects, Grégory Sroussi for the commercial contracts and Bernardo del Rosal (Of Counsel) and Luis Alonso (Madrid office) for the Spanish law aspects.