Partners Group Buys into Rovensa
Swiss-headquartered multinational private investor Partners Group has agreed to buy a majority stake in Portuguese crop protection company Rovensa from rival investment group Bridgepoint for about €1 billion.
People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News that Partners Group had edged out other suitors, including AEA Investors and Pamplona Capital Management.
Partners Group said it will now work with Rovensa’s management to accelerate the development of the Lisbon firm’s biological solutions portfolio, continue its internationalization and make further select acquisitions to expand its capabilities.
Rovensa has three divisions: BioNutrition; Crop Protection; and BioControl. Annual sales are approximately €360 million.
“The company is ideally positioned to capitalize on the growing trend towards sustainable agricultural products, which will be a core element of the strategy we will continue to pursue,” said Andrew Deakin, Partners Group managing director in Europe.
Hector Perez, the Bridgestone partner responsible for investments in Iberia, added that since buying Rovensa in 2017, the agrochemicals firm had made six strategic bolt-on acquisitions. The most recent was in March 2020, when Rovensa’s biocontrol business Idai Nature bought Grupo Agrotecnologia, a Spanish company specializing in microbial-based biopesticides.
According to Bloomberg, Bridgepoint revived the sale process for Rovensa last month, having postponed it in March because of the coronavirus outbreak. Bridgepoint paid €456 million for the company, formerly known as Sapec Agro.
