V4C makes investment in Romanian hearing aid retailer
CLARFON SA is the largest retail network for hearing aids and related ENT equipment in Romania with 62 shops throughout the country.
Source: https://www.value4capital.com/
May 30, 2023
Value4Capital, the lower mid-market Polish and central European buy-out manager, today announced the completion of the acquisition of Clarfon SA (www.clarfon.ro), a Romanian company retailing hearing aids, laryngology devices and accessories. ACP Credit provided debt financing for the acquisition. Transaction terms were not disclosed.
Clarfon has served more than 60,000 Romanian patients since its founding in 2003. In 2022, it reported a turnover of some €8.7m. Mr. Ionut Stefănescu, who has led the company’s expansion from only 15 stores when he took over in 2011, will continue as General Manager and retain a meaningful equity stake in the business alongside V4C.
Bogdan Chirită, Partner at V4C, commented: Clarfon is our second investment in Romania from the current fund, following last year’s investment in GoMag. These deals follow our prior fund’s successful investment in MedLife S.A. Clarfon is growing rapidly, with a strong brand and a recurring revenue base from its loyal clients. Romania is significantly underpenetrated in hearing aid shops (less than a quarter of the number of shops per inhabitant compared to Poland) and has a much lower doption of hearing devices (half that of Poland and 3- 5x lower than Western Europe), opening the avenue for further growth as accessibility and incomes improve. Along with the current management, we expect to continue to expand Clarfon’s footprint to improve the population’s access to modern and effective hearing devices.
Mr. Stefănescu noted: Partnering with V4C comes as both a natural and significant step for me and the company I’ve helped build. We have the ambition to significantly increase the presence of Clarfon throughout Romania and improve access to a better and active lifestyle for our increasingly aging population. Bringing in a strong financial partner at this stage will allow us to pursue opportunities for market consolidation and provide Clarfon access to additional financial resources and expertise, while maintaining the independence of our business to offer our clients the choice of the best products available on the market today.
Bill Watson, V4C Managing Partner, concluded: Romania remains an important market for V4C, as demonstrated by this investment. We look forward to continuing to back growing, Romanian market leaders to help them become bigger and better companies.
The V4C deal team included Bogdan Chirită, Bill Watson, Weronika Przybylska and Piotr Misztal. They were advised by Ileana Vaida and Gloria Pop from Pop Attorneys at Law for legal diligence and transaction execution, EY for financial and tax due diligence and PWC for commercial due diligence. Van Campen Liem, Luxembourg, acted as legal advisers on the debt financing. The Sellers were advised by EY and Bancila, Diaconu and Associates. ACP Credit’s team was led by Ciprian Nicolae. They were advised by Wolf Theiss, Bucharest.
About V4C
Value4Capital specialises in private equity investments in service businesses, looking for opportunities where the service has a strong local delivery component. It focuses on Poland, but selectively invests in Romania, the Baltics and the other EU member states of central Europe. Owned and managed by its senior partners, V4C has over 25 years of mid-market experience in the region.
The V4C Poland Plus Fund, which held its final closing in July 2019, benefits from financial backing from the European Union under the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), set up under the Investment Plan for Europe. The Polish Growth Fund of Funds (PGFF) is also an indirect investor in the Fund. The PGFF is an initiative created by cooperation between BGK (Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego in Polish) and the European Investment Fund.
Contact
Bogdan Chirită, Partner
+40 741 215 582