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BC Partners wins contest to buy Picard Surgeles from Candover

Pan-European buy-out firm BC Partners has won the hotly contested auction for French frozen food retailer Picard Surgeles with a bid of more than E1.3bn. The sale provides a good exit for the private equity consortium Candover that bought the business from Carrefour back in 2001.

BC Partners had to overcome competition from US group KKR and rival European firms PAI and Eurazeo to win the auction. Picard has 570 stores across France and 45 in Italy as well as providing a home delivery service. Its turnover in the year to the end of March 2004 was E747m.

Candover and its former partner Chevrillon and Associes led the E920m buy-out of Picard in February 2001 and was backed by Montagu Private Equity and Astorg.

Cyrille Chevrillon, a managing director of Candover, said: 'Picard has been a very successful investment for its investors, generating a return of 2.7 times for the Candover 1997 fund over a period of three and a half years.'

Candover has realised more than E1.5bn from a string of both full and partial exits over the past 12 months. These have included the sale of Baxi to BC Partners, Clondalkin to Warburg Pincus, and a succession of trade sales.

Both of BC Partners major acquisitions this year have been sourced from Candover.

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