EQUITA assisted CMI Group

K Finance - Mid-market M&A advisory
Gruppo CMI 1920x1080
Gruppo CMI 1920x1080

ItalGlobal Partners has sold the Bologna-based CMI Group, in which it was a 70 percent shareholder, a leading manufacturer of hinges for household appliances with about 150 employees and offices in Italy and Poland, to China's Guangdong Xingye Investment LLC, the controlling holding company of China's listed Guandong SACA Group. The deal includes reinvestment by the founding shareholders and CEO Paolo Santini with a 9 percent stake and a development plan with CMI as a bridgehead to acquire new markets and companies in Europe.

CMI Group was assisted by K Finance, the Italian partner of Clairfield International, for the financial advisory side and Studio Gattai Minoli Agostinelli & Partners for the legal side. SACA, on the other hand, used the Chinese firm Great Wall Securities for the advisory part, PwC for accounting and financial due diligence, and the firm McDermott, Will & Emery for the legal part. The transaction was financially supported by Unicredit.

The transaction in a nutshell

2017 05 Tombstone CMI Guangdong SACA

The deal includes a development plan with CMI as a beachhead to acquire new markets and companies in Europe.

Client:
CMI Group
Date:
May 2017
Mandate:
ItalGlobal Partners has sold the Bologna-based CMI Group to China's Guangdong Xingye Investment LLC Group.
Role:
Financial Advisor
Value:
Undisclosed
Team:
M&A advisory
Advisor:
EQUITA Mid Cap Advisory

The company

CMI Group (Cerniere Meccaniche Industriali) has been a benchmark in the field of mechanical hinges for household appliances for more than 25 years. Vertical integration of processes and production internationalization have enabled the transformation from a local production company to an industrial group with global visibility, under the leadership of founder Eros Gherardi, who in early 2014 was joined by a group of private investors coordinated by Italglobal Partners. Today the CMI Group has a turnover of about 25 million euros, about 150 employees and three production sites. At the end of 2014, CGD also joined the CMI Group, which has grown from a small artisan business in Emilia to an established company specializing in mold design and construction and sheet metal processing with presses of up to 300 tons. Rounding out the team is CMI Poland, founded in record time in 2014, which is now the logistics and production base for serving the production facilities of the CMI Group's multinational customers. 

Guandong Xingye Investment LLC controls Guandong SACA Precision Manufacturing ( site), which - listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange with a capitalization of 400 million euros - is one of China's largest companies in the industry, capable of producing more than 6 million furniture slides per month with two 150-thousand-square-meter factories in Qingyuan and Taizhou and 700 workers. In 2016, SACA's sales exceeded $70 million, and for the future the Group plans to use the significant cash raised on the stock market to finance an ambitious international growth program.