Astorg, a leading Pan-European private equity firm, announces that it enters into exclusive negotiations to acquire a majority stake in Lebronze alloys ("LBA" or "the Company"), a global leader in the Advanced materials space, in partnership with Michel Dumont, who would remain a significant shareholder and Executive Chairman. Through this investment, Astorg would closely collaborate with the management team as they continue to deliver on their strategy and support the acceleration of LBA's growth.
Headquartered in France, LBA offers a wide range of specialty copper alloys, each with specific properties (thermal resistance, ability to withstand frictions, conductivity, etc.) making them critical components in a large variety of systems and end-markets - including Aerospace, Medical devices, Energy, Electronics, Luxury, etc. - for 600+ customers across the world.
The Company, which has over 700 employees across nine locations with main production sites in France and Germany, has experienced strong organic growth benefiting from macro-trends such as the energy transition and digitalization, which are both fueling the long-term need for copper alloys. In addition to its industry-leading alloys expertise and production technology, LBA has also implemented a wide range of ESG initiatives resulting in a Gold rating from Ecovadis, ranking them in the 99th percentile in its industry globally.
LBA's entire leadership team looks forward to this next chapter in close collaboration with Astorg. Together, their ambition would be to catalyst LBA's growth by leveraging its differentiated capabilities to enter into new applications, increase market shares in fast growing geographies like the USA or India and expand downstream the value chain with the roll-out of service centers. The investment would be part of the Astorg VIII portfolio and would represent the eight portfolio company of the fund to date.
