Algaia strengthens its shareholding structure

Algaia, S.A announced today the acquisition of about 31% of its shares by SAPEC sgps and its controlling shareholder, the Velge family, by purchasing of Demeter & Cap Decisif stakes.

Maabarot Products Ltd, SuperNova Invest and Algaia management maintain their respective stockholding positions.
 

Algaia SA is a well-established global player in the field of specialty seaweed extracts benefiting from unique R&D and production capabilities. Last year, most of its revenues were generated in Food, Personal Care and Nutraceutical applications. Algaia owns a novel and proprietary technology allowing the Biorefinery of brown algae not only into Alginates but also in other valuable compounds such as Biostimulants for the crop nutrition industry. Algaia’s facility is strategically located in Britany (France) next to abundant renewable fresh brown seaweed biomass, enabling the company to get sustainable and reliable supply. Algaia is today the world largest buyer of French seaweed, with about 40,000 tons being transformed every year in its Lannilis facility.
 

“The vast experience of Sapec group and Antoine Velge, his CEO and shareholder, will be extremely valuable to Algaia’s development and Board of Directors” commented Eyal Shalmon, Algaia’s Chairman of the Board. “Algaia is today uniquely positioned in the marine extract industry. The company benefits from outstanding, focused, R&D and production capabilities, able to co-extract multiple compounds out of the same natural marine raw material. Algaia offers today a large portfolio of algae based solutions for the Nutrition, Health, Cosmetic and Agriculture arenas. Maabarot Products Ltd, SuperNova Invest and Algaia management are all very pleased to welcome Antoine within the company’s board of directors. We will establish together new ways to develop the company faster.” Eyal added
 

Since the divestiture in 2016 of its Agro Business (Sapec Agro and Tradecorp) to Bridgepoint (Private Equity firm) for an enterprise value of over 450 million Euros, Sapec’s shareholders successfully achieved a public repurchase process to make the group 100% privately owned. Since then, the company pursued a strategy to re-deploy its cash positions.
 

“Our investment in Algaia is part of an overall strategy to develop in businesses where we see significant growth opportunities” commented Antoine Velge, Sapec’s CEO. ”Algae based products correspond to multiple market demands, all looking for more natural and sustainable solutions. During the Due Diligence process, we were impressed by Algaia’s vision, people, outstanding assets, innovation capabilities and execution drive. We share with Maabarot and SuperNova similar values and we are excited to start contributing to the company’s development” Antoine added.
 

Details of the transaction were kept confidential.
 

“Both Demeter and Cap Decisif are very pleased with this transaction” said Eric Marty, Demeter VC’s Managing Partner “We are particularly proud to have, together with Algaia’s CEO and the other shareholders, brought the company from just a start-up to about 20 million & 100 employees scale in just less than 3 years. Over this first quarter of 2019, the company is recording strong double digit growth. Maabarot, SAPEC sgps & SuperNova are complementary and synergistic stakeholders. They will bring Algaia to a much larger dimension” added Eric.