Callista Private Equity GmbH & Co.KG (“Callista Private Equity“) acquires PCH Metals S.A.S. (“PCH Metals“), a Châlons-en-Champagne, France based international production facility with a focus on HVAC products (heating radiators and ventilation equipment) from Zehnder Group, a stock exchange listed Swiss industrial group.
The ca. 100 employees of the plant produce heating radiators and sheet metal products for Zehnder Group. In order to mitigate declining volumes in the radiator business, PCH Metals increasingly focusses on sheet metal products. In order to speed up this development and to increase the plant’s utilization, the revenue share of third party sheet metal production shall be developed sustainably. While sheet metal production for external clients is a non-core activity of Zehnder Group, Callista Private Equity is focussed on restructuring the entity, thus targeting an adequate market position for the company. In this regard, the future independence of the company as well as the development of sales capabilities are key priorities.
Callista Private Equity plans to strengthen the company’s infrastructure and thus to facilitate sustainable business success of the standalone entity. To achieve this objective, Callista will follow up on the strategic shift of the production plant towards sheet metal processing which has already been initiated by Zehnder Group. Furthermore, Callista is going to target the generation of third party revenues. The operations of PCH Metals will be expanded in the future while all employment contracts will be taken over within the context of a production site guarantee. PCH Metals will remain an important supplier of radiators and sheet metal components for Zehnder Group. Both parties agreed to maintain confidentiality on all further details of the transaction.
Two years after its inception, Callista Private Equity thus successfully completed the sixth transaction and its first acquisition in France.
Olaf Meier, Chief Executive Officer of Callista Private Equity, comments on the development: “”We are very excited about the new addition to our portfolio and the confidence expressed by the seller in the course of the transaction. Due to its outstanding technological expertise, we are convinced that PCH Metals will have better future prospects in a stand-alone setup, than it had when being a small unit within a global industrial group. Callista thus intends to initiate carve-out already during August in order to achieve PCH Metals’ independence as soon as possible.”