On April 16, 2024, MBO+ sold its stake in BCF Life Sciences to Sparkfood, a Sonae Group subsidiary, for an enterprise value of €175 million.
Over the last five years, MBO+ has supported growth at BCF Life Sciences—a specialist in high-quality amino acid extraction for the pharmaceutical, animal nutrition, and biostimulant industries—helping it notch up revenues of €53.5 million in 2023.
MBO+ focused support on three growth areas:
- Devoting significant resources to innovation and consistently showcasing BCF products’ added value through collaborations between the R&D team and public and private research teams around the world. This approach strengthened the company’s strategic positioning and culminated in two marketing authorizations for the company’s biostimulants.
- Investing heavily in the company’s manufacturing facilities so it could pursue its growth trajectory and guarantee its clients a high level of quality.
- Constantly improving BCF’s environmental impact by increasing its energy efficiency and expanding its range of organic farming biostimulants. BCF Life Sciences will also open its own wastewater treatment plant this year and will therefore be able to recycle and reuse wastewater on-site, saving 80,000 m3 of water a year.
Sparkfood invests in innovative solutions for more sustainable food. It will leverage BCF Life Sciences’ potential through major manufacturing investments so BCF can continue to grow both profitably and sustainably. These investments will increase production capacity while continuing to ramp up sales, especially in biostimulants.
“We are proud and delighted to have helped Jacques, Renaud, and their team develop BCF Life Sciences both in France and internationally. The last five years together have been extremely fruitful, meeting our targets for business growth, value creation, and tremendous progress in all the company’s ESG indicators. BCF Life Sciences is now on sounder footing than ever, and ideally poised to accelerate its development. We wish its management team all the success they deserve and can’t wait to see what they achieve with Sparkfood.”
Xavier de Prévoisin, Partner, MBO+
“Our time with MBO+ from 2018 to 2023 was a great phase for our company. They helped us grow, dial in our focus, and embed ESG in our strategy. And let’s not forget the crucial ingredient for success: the trust between the MBO+ and BCF Life Sciences teams.”
Jacques Pidoux, CEO, BCF Life Sciences