Business services
€600m
France FR

Scope of intervention

Sycomore Corporate Finance acted as financial advisor to to Crédit Agricole Assurances Predica

Date of closing

October 2021
In October 2021, world leading event organizer Comexposium – number one in France – exited on schedule from its safeguard procedure opened in September 2020 and returned to normal management of operations.

The company entered the protective safeguard procedure – reserved for sound companies experiencing one-off difficulties – to protect itself from the pandemic impacts on its business.

The support of the group’s shareholders, Crédit Agricole Assurances and CCI Paris Ile-de-France, notably in the form of a €110m equity contribution, enabled Comexposium to get through the period and prepare the recovery while maintaining its leadership position.

Rationale

  • Protect Comexposium from the immediate impact of the pandemic
  • Provide the group with enough liquidity and equity to get through the pandemic and restart its business, both in France and abroad
  • Prepare the group’s Safeguard Plan to address (renegotiation, term-out) the group’s commitments

Comexposium at a glance

The Comexposium group is one of the world’s leading event organizers, staging B2B and B2C events worldwide and covering 11 sectors as wide-ranging as food, agriculture, fashion, digital, security, construction, high-tech, optics and transport. Comexposium welcomes more than 3.5 million visitors and 48,000 exhibitors annually in 26 countries around the world.

Headquartered in France, Comexposium has a sales network and employees in 20 countries.