After an exceptional first half of the year in the French M&A market, the sector is now experiencing the initial impact of the current economic climate, with lengthier processes, more in-depth due diligence, and investors refocusing their attention on resilient sectors.
Anne-Laure Beuriot’s perspective on the M&A market and the behaviour of company managers within this inflationary context.
The effects of the crisis are glaringly obvious: no company is immune from experiencing difficulties or from losing market value.
To protect oneself, there is a solution: the Owner Buy Out (OBO).
This financial and legal arrangement enables a shareholder-manager to increase the value of their assets while safeguarding their company’s business.
Who benefits from an OBO? How does it work? What are the drivers? What are the risks?
In this video interview, Germain Simoneau explains in detail the principles of this “sale to oneself” and its advantages.
For more information on how the OBO works, please contact Germain Simoneau.
Created in 2013, Carmine Capital provides entrepreneurial investment banking services. The firm assists managers and shareholders of SMEs across all sectors of activity in their transfer, acquisition, and fundraising transactions. Carmine Capital’s particularity: putting people at the heart of financial transactions. We spoke with Anne-Laure Beuriot, founding partner, and Germain Simoneau, partner.
Anne-Laure Beuriot: The Small Caps (SME) market was lacking firms offering genuine quality of execution, structured and clear processes, along with a detailed knowledge of their clients’ financial, professional, and personal issues. I created Carmine Capital with the objective of providing a new value proposition for SME managers and shareholders. My ambition was to establish a benchmark brand in this market, guaranteeing a solid bond of trust between managers and their intermediary.
It should also be noted that M&A advisory services have historically been conducted from a strictly financial perspective. Carmine Capital distinguishes itself from this model by adopting an entrepreneurial approach to the support of a divestment, acquisition, or fundraising transaction.
Our considerable growth over the last few years confirms that this approach is relevant, over the long term, for all companies and their employees. Our objective in providing this support is to create a sense of purpose for companies and their employees, as well as to generate financial value.
A-L.B.: Carmine Capital advocates a controlled quality of execution. This is put into practice by a team of some ten analysts, trained by me, all applying the same methodology and processes. They analyse the company, its environment, and its ecosystem, while also factoring in the company’s unique DNA.
We also place a strong emphasis on proximity. Understanding our clients requires getting to know their entrepreneurial environment. Consequently, we initiated our development by opening local offices and subsidiaries. Currently, we are present in Toulouse, Lille, Nantes, and Dijon. Carmine Capital also has an international presence to meet the growth-through-acquisition needs of our clients. An office has already been opened in Geneva, and another is planned for Lisbon within the next 24 months.
Our third pillar is transparency. Thanks to our MyCarmine software platform, developed at the outset of the company, each client can track the progress of their project at any time.
We are the only firm in France and in Europe to offer this level of visibility. The process of building a company will have represented years of work, or in some cases a lifetime for the managers we support. It is therefore essential for us to enable them to be kept informed in real time, ensuring they remain at the heart of the strategy as we pursue a capital transaction. This frees them, reassures them, and commits us to providing an impeccable quality of service.
This transparency also enables us to engage in strategic, rather than merely informative, dialogue. This brings us closer to our clients.
A-L.B.: We favour operations that convey meaning to the company and its manager. Therefore, upon initiating a new file, we invest a great deal of time and energy in properly understanding a client’s personal, professional, and financial circumstances, to guide them towards the best possible transaction.
Carmine Capital also advocates its own diversity. In a market that is traditionally very male-dominated and stereotyped, we encourage gender, cultural, and generational diversity. We sincerely believe in collective intelligence. It is because our profiles are so diverse yet complementary that we are enriched. This strengthens our ability to adapt to our clients, who are all so different from one another.
A-L.B.: When a client first comes to us, we introduce them to all the partners who are best suited to their project, depending on the transaction: investment funds, acquirers, or targets. Carmine Capital will have already identified beforehand which partner best corresponds to the client’s entrepreneurial DNA. For example, as part of a fundraising project, we will present the investment funds in terms of their positioning: entrepreneurial or institutional profile, restrictions or not on their investment period, involvement of the fund vis-à-vis their holdings, and so on.
We ensure that the partner and our client both share the same vision of the company’s development. It is this compatibility that creates value and enables the company’s growth to be maintained over time, thus protecting our client’s business assets.
Germain Simoneau: We are also called on to help owner-managers to diversify their assets. The health crisis and the subsequent strained international context are having a violent effect on the economy and companies. Until now, economic crises tended to slow down business activity in general, affecting all companies rather evenly. The Covid crisis was a new kind of economic storm affecting specific industries and companies in unpredictable ways. Owner-managers and their families can no longer afford such a degree of sectoral exposure in terms of capital.
This is why we support them in transactions that involve rethinking the human/capital relationship, by listening to them and understanding them in order to build together the best solutions enabling a better coverage of their risks. We strive to ensure that these new, secure organisations are fully consistent with the personal aspirations of the managers and shareholders. This attentiveness is possible thanks to our diversity, our proximity, and our entrepreneurial experience. Therefore, there will always be someone at Carmine Capital who truly resonates with a client’s particular personality.
For more information, please contact Anne-Laure Beuriot.
Carmine Capital set its sights on revealing the potential of an SME and optimising its value. This investment bank breaks the rules to offer an expertise adapted to SMEs. Anne-Laure Beuriot, founding partner, discusses her ambitions.
The idea originated in 2012. Our ambition was to satisfy a demand that was not being met by the existing M&A players: to support SME managers in their capital transactions with a service based on respect for their personal, professional, and financial issues. Our main objective at Carmine Capital is to preserve the entrepreneurial DNA of the companies.
I absolutely insisted on putting people at the heart of financial transactions. To support them in their disposal, acquisition, and fund-raising efforts, SME managers deserve to be accompanied by experienced yet humble employees who are genuinely committed to understanding them. The DNA of a company is too often overlooked. And yet it is essential to the success of a capital operation since it guarantees its long-term growth prospects. You put people together before you put finances together.
Our investment bank operates on three pillars, starting with the quality of execution. I make a point of ensuring that each manager is accompanied according to accepted best practices, regardless of the collaborator involved in the transaction. I trained our associates to make sure they all apply the same methodology and processes.
Our second pillar is proximity. Understanding our clients requires getting to know their entrepreneurial environment. We initiated our regional development in 2018 and are now present in Toulouse, Lille, Nantes, and Dijon. We also opened an office in Geneva at the end of 2021 to address clients’ acquisition requirements in Switzerland.
Our third pillar is transparency. We provide our clients with access to a software platform we developed when Carmine was created (MyCarmine) which affords them visibility on all the actions we take on their project. This transparency obliges us to remain beyond reproach in the execution of our missions.
For this reason, Carmine is one of the very few investment banks to advocate transparency. This transparency enables us to increase efficiency and reassure managers. Breaking codes is something that is in our DNA and it also applies internally. In this highly male-dominated sector, we opted for gender, generational, and social diversity. We are respectful of the balance between professional and private life, which I believe is essential to remaining objective and dispassionate in the advice we give. Finally, commitment is a determining value for our team. To reinforce this spirit, we regularly organise team events, such as our participation in the New York half-marathon last March.
Having a broad vision is crucial when you are a company leader. This enables me to modify our strategy throughout the company’s development. To achieve this, I am supported by a professional coach for the past two years and I also belong to several executive networks, including the APM. To attain success in your entrepreneurial project, you have to stick to your convictions. Once others can see the meaning you bring to your actions, you create value. Our objectives for the year 2024 are to reach the threshold of 50 employees, to open a subsidiary in Lisbon and in Montreal, and to develop two new activities – Carmine Croissance and Carmine Corporate Finance.
For more information, please contact Anne-Laure Beuriot.
Nicolas Heintz joins Carmine Capital on April 1st as a senior associate.
Nicolas is a graduate of EM Lyon’s Grande Ecole programme. After working for La Française Real Estate Managers in London, Nicolas started his M&A career in 2017 at Crédit Agricole CIB within the Execution Team. In 2019, he joined Lazard’s generalist team where he mainly focused on deals in the healthcare, chemical, and Financial Institutions Group (FIG) fields.
On behalf of the team, Anne-Laure Beuriot, Founding Partner of Carmine Capital, is delighted with Nicolas’ arrival:
« We are delighted to welcome this new talent to our team. The early part of 2022 was shaped by intense activity and strong development in the provinces and in Switzerland. This recruitment comes alongside the arrival of Thao Dallas in Toulouse and the appointment of Shamina Hassanaly as Director. A further recruitment should be announced within the next few weeks. Strengthening our team will enable us to further our growth while ensuring our clients receive tailor-made support.”
For more information, please contact: Anne-Laure Beuriot
Another event of Cercle Carmine Capital, the preferred meeting place for our clients – managers and shareholders of SMEs.
The members of Cercle Carmine Capital gathered yesterday for a very private dinner with Franck Mesnel, French rugby legend and founder of Eden Park.
Franck spoke to us of his career as a professional sportsman and then as a manager with humour and humility, telling us about the good times as well as the hard times. He pointed out some fascinating parallels between the world of sports and the world of business.
Good moments of exchange and meetings shared between the entrepreneurs.
Carmine Capital continues to expand with the arrival of Emmanuel Longin, in charge of developing the firm’s divestment, acquisition, and fundraising activities in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region.
Graduated from ESSEC, class of 2009, and holder of the Jurist Diploma in Corporate Consulting (DJCE), Emmanuel is an entrepreneur at heart. Emmanuel spent fifteen years developing companies and assisting them in their fundraising projects and in setting up structured financing. His technical background, combined with his entrepreneurial experience, enables him to fully grasp the challenges faced by business leaders, thereby better understanding and advising them.
On behalf of the team, Germain Simoneau, Partner at Carmine Capital, is delighted: “We are very happy to welcome Emmanuel whose background corresponds so well to Carmine’s DNA: a strong academic background in law and finance combined with a robust entrepreneurial culture.“
For his part, Emmanuel Longin comments: “Joining Carmine Capital represents a twofold challenge for me:
Emmanuel is the 2009 winner of the Entreprendre 92 network.
Carmine Capital accelerates its development plan with the launch of its activities in Switzerland and by welcoming Benoît Galliou to reinforce its team of experts and support its growth.
To further support its growth, Carmine Capital is strengthening its team with the arrival of a new business manager, thus confirming its ambition to become the reference merchant bank in France and in Europe for SMEs, their managers, and their shareholders.
Graduated from the SKEMA Business School’s Grande École programme, Benoît began his career in M&A in 2018 at ACTICAM, a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole specialising in supporting SMEs and SMIs in the Greater West region of France. He then gained valuable experience at the investment bank Capival where he worked with Antoine Vintzel, who has since become a Director at Carmine Capital in charge of the expertise division. In 2020, Benoît joined the Corporate & Investment Bank department of Delubac & Cie before joining Carmine Capital in November 2021 as a Business Manager.
Anne-Laure Beuriot, Founding Partner of Carmine Capital, declared: “We are delighted to enhance our expertise with the arrival of Benoît Galliou. The year 2021 was quite intense and the months to come are going to be very exciting thanks to our successful set-ups in the French regions and Overseas as well as some very interesting opportunities in Switzerland! Our team puts into practice on a daily basis what motivated the creation of Carmine in 2013: putting people at the heart of M&A transactions.”
Carmine Capital is taking advantage of this new recruitment to expand its offices. The Paris team is now located on the other side of the Place de la Madeleine on Rue Pasquier. The team is still backed by Stéphane Carnenac, Etienne Barbry, and Sandrine Moreau, respectively in charge of developing the Occitania, Hauts-de-France, and Pays de La Loire regions.
Anne-Laure Beuriot was a guest on the Enjeux & Priorités programme on B Smart on 18/10/2021.
Speaking to Jean-Marc Sylvestre on his programme focusing on VSE & SME managers, Anne-Laure Beuriot returned to the reasons behind the creation of Carmine Capital in 2013 and to its values.
“Putting people back at the heart of M&A operations and guaranteeing flawless execution, with total transparency, remain our key priorities!”
Spotlight, to be viewed in full on the B Smart website.
