Sycomore Corporate Finance advises Groupe Santiane and its management

We are pleased to announce that on December 10^th, 2020, Latour Capital (“Latour”), an independent French private equity company, has acquired Groupe Santiane (the “Company”), an insurance company specializing in individual health and protection insurance policies.

Founded in 2007, Groupe Santiane generates more than €70m in revenues and employs nearly 400 employees in 4 locations (Nice, Paris, Lille and Casablanca).

Built on strong entrepreneurial and human values, the Company has been able to grow profitably over the years thanks to its two activities:

• Santiane: A leader in online distribution of complementary health, personal and funeral insurances for retail clients with nearly 60,000 new contracts per year
• Néoliane: A leading player in wholesale brokerage for health insurance with a network of more than 500 independent distributors and a growth of 35% over the past two years

Overall, the Company covers more than 400,000 customers.

Latour and the Management team will now continue to engage in the ambitious growth project of the Company, built on several strategic guidelines:

• Further improve the user experience for clients and distribution partners
• Build a strong brand for Santiane in order to thrive in a competitive market and further increase market share
• Team-up with insurance partners to create new products that offer the best guarantee / price ratio on the market by replicating the strengths of the Company in healthcare insurance to other insurance markets
• Invest significantly in human resources, which is the main asset of the Company

This strategy will require investments that could include both organic and external growth projects.

The objective of the Company is to generate €100m in revenues by 2023.

Pierre-Alain de Malleray, President of Groupe Santiane declares: “We are delighted to start this new phase of growth with Latour, a solid, trustworthy and strong shareholder with an entrepreneurial culture. We thank BlackFin Capital Partners for its support during the previous round, which allowed the Company to double its revenues organically”.

In the context of the transaction, Sycomore Corporate Finance acted as financial advisor to Groupe Santiane and its Management. The Sycomore transaction team comprised Pierre-Arnaud de Lacharrière, Quentin de Freminville and Hugo Coicaud.