Paris (France), 15 September 2020
Apax Partners has entered into exclusive negotiations with the shareholders of Groupe Crystal with a view to acquiring a majority stake in the company.
Groupe Crystal is one of France’s leading IFAs (independent financial advisors), offering a unique blend of services for expatriates and interprofessional channels. Groupe Crystal currently has 300 employees and 35,000 clients, including 5,000 outside France, and is principally owned by its management team, the OFI group and the Apicil group.
Apax Partners would invest via its mid-market activity and the Apax France X fund. This investment would be achieved alongside Groupe Crystal’s management team, including Bruno Narchal and Jean Maximilien Vancayezeele, and the OFI group. It would foster Groupe Crystal’s development, three years after the acquisition of Expert & Finance.
At the same time, the Apicil group, the OFI group and the executives of Alpheys, Philippe Michel Labrosse and Sisouphan Tran, entered into exclusive negotiations with Groupe Crystal to acquire its minority stake in Alpheys.
Definitive agreements related to these transactions could be executed once employee representative bodies have been informed and consulted. The completion of these agreements must also be approved by the relevant regulatory authorities.
About Groupe Crystal
Today, with 35 000 clients, 300 employees and more than 8 billion euros of assets under management, the Crystal – Expert & Finance Group is one of the French leaders in IFA. Its different entities – Crystal Finance, Alpheys, Crystal Mobility and Expert & Finance – deliver a very high level of expertise, solutions and services to their clients and chartered accountant partners and IFA throughout its 29 implantations in France and worldwide.
About Apax Partners
Apax Partners is a leading European private equity firm based in Paris. With over 45 years of experience, Apax Partners provides long-term equity financing to build and strengthen world-class companies. Funds managed and advised by Apax Partners exceed €4 billion. These funds invest in fastgrowing middle-market companies across four sectors of specialisation: Tech & Telecom, Consumer, Healthcare and Services.
Paris-headquartered Apax Partners (www.apax.fr) and London-headquartered Apax Partners (www.apax.com) have a shared history but are separate, independent private equity firms.
About the OFI Group
Incorporated in 1971, OFI Asset Management is one of the most important French asset management companies with 72 billion Euros in assets under management as of end June 2020. The Group has honed its expertise in both collective management and discretionary management, in listed and unlisted assets, and offers a range of solutions and services tailored to a diverse range of investor profiles.
OFI Asset Management is one of the biggest independent SRI Asset Manager on the French market and is backed by two large institutional groups, Macif and Matmut, that provide a solid shareholder base and is anchored in the social economy.
About the APICIL Group
www.groupe-apicil.com
@GroupeAPICIL
The APICIL Group is the third french social protection group, with a turnover of €3.2 billion. It offers a full range of high-performance, bespoke solutions in health and personal protection, savings and financial services, and retirement planning for individuals and professionals. Every day, the Group’s 2,176 employees lend their expertise to more than 47,000 companies and 2 million protected policyholders. With its members, the Group is dedicated to meeting its customers’ needs, from the most general to the most specific (disability, construction industry, etc.), and in all stages of their lives. As a representative and mutualist company, the APICIL Group supports general-interest causes, thereby contributing to the successful progress of major societal projects.