Marguerite to acquire a majority stake in Jifmar
Marguerite II, a leading European infrastructure fund, agreed the acquisition of a 65% stake in Jifmar Offshore Services S.A.S. from RAISE Investissement which has been supporting the company since 2016, according to the company's release.
Headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, Jifmar is a leading integrated marine and engineering solutions provider which operates a fleet of 45 vessels and 34 complimentary equipment (remotely operated underwater vehicles, sonar, pontoons). It employs circa 295 people.
Jifmar was created in 2005 initially to provide operational and safety support services to oil & gas companies. Since then, it has developed into a leading provider of engineering solutions for marine and subsea projects in shallow waters, expanding into the renewable energy, power, telecom, aquaculture and civil engineering sectors.
As part of the transaction, the co-founders of the company, Jean-Michel Berud, CEO, and Foad Zahedi, chairman of the supervisory board, will remain in place and reinvest in the company alongside Marguerite. The transaction is expected to be completed in Q2 2022.
Marguerite aims to support Jifmar in its transition to next-generation offshore service vessels operations to address the decarbonization challenges of the sector. Jifmar is an innovative company at the forefront of the industry, as demonstrated by the Canopée project jointly developed with Zéphyr & Borée, that entails the construction and operation of the first modern wind-propelled cargo ship specially designed to transport Ariane 6 launcher components from Europe to French Guyana. Jifmar has also taken steps towards the decarbonisation of its fleet by implementing dual fuel or hybrid electric motoring solutions.
This transaction is Marguerite II’s second investment in 2022 after the acquisition of the biogas industrial group Keon (France), and the sixth in the last 12 months following the investments in intermodal freight transport operator GTS (Italy), district heating developer Rebi (Spain), green data centre operator Conapto (Sweden) and solar/storage independent power producer ZE Energy (France).
Marguerite was advised by Invest Corporate Finance (M&A), Willkie Farr & Gallagher (legal), Skylark (technical and commercial), Ensphere (ESG), KPMG (financial and tax) and Howden (insurance and W&I).
