Clearwater has advised the shareholders of Kinougarde group, the French leader in childcare services, on its primary LBO sponsored by Raise Investissement and Geneo Capital Entrepreneur, alongside Hervé Lecat and the management team.
Specialising in children's services, the group is built around two recognised brands: Kinougarde and Complétude. In the last couple of years, Kinougarde has become the French leader in home-based childcare, including school and nursery outings and support for extracurricular activities. Complétude is the second largest provider of tutoring services in France, offering private, group and online lessons. Through these two activities, the group supports 35,000 families across France.
The group offers its services throughout France via a network of thirty agencies and the support of two internal call centres, coordinating the action of 16,200 Kinougarde childcare providers and 9,200 teaching assistants for Complétude. This hybrid organisation, supported by a proprietary and disruptive technological tool, allows the group to ensure the proximity and responsiveness necessary for a quality service to families as well as the selection of the best caregivers.
The group is growing rapidly and has a turnover of around €75m and its ambition for the future is to strengthen its leading position in the field of childcare services and to develop in new market segments such as home care. By relying on the same key success factors and building on its quality of service, the group hopes to become a major player in the personal services sector.
To support its development, Hervé Lecat, the founder, decided to open the capital to two reference shareholders, Geneo Capital Entrepreneur and Raise Investissement, and to all 54 group executives. Hervé Lecat remains the majority shareholder following this reconfiguration of the capital. This acquisition has been financed by a French pool of lenders composed of Arkéa, CIC, Société Générale and Schelcher Prince Gestion.
