Mécatherm
- Investment date : November 2003
- Transaction size (Enterprise Value) : <100€m
- Industry : Manufacturing
- Activity : Manufacturing of integrated bread production lines
- Previous Majority Shareholder : Private / Family
- Status : Sold to Alpha in September 2006
- Fund : Astorg III

Mecatherm is the world leader for bread and viennoiseries integrated production lines (fresh or frozen, cooked or pre-cooked). Its customers are large industrial bakeries around the world and 75% of its sales are made outside France.
After selling to Astorg Partners, the Mécatherm’s founder delegated operational management to his COO, thus ensuring a soft transition for the company.
The company was delisted (over the counter Market) in December 2004, and kept expanding and gaining market share in new countries or new market segments.

• An all powerful player thanks to a unique know-how and patented technologies.
• Important growth prospects through an extension of the product range to include production lines for mid-size bakeries.
• An “engineering” rather than “manufacturing” business model that is not capital intensive and hence highly cash-flow generative.

«
Joining forces with Astorg was a great success which rests certainly on the quality of the Mécatherm Company but also for a big part, on the quality of support, reflection and assistance to strategic decision making that Astorg brought with them.
The Astorg teams took it at heart to understand our business and our market. We were able to take advantage of their experience when deciding on strategic options.
Astorg’s approach is not only financial with a view to check the numbers, but it is also based on a constant need to understand the business behind the numbers. »
Bernard Zorn, chairman of Mécatherm