According to a press release from the Nicollin group, “under the terms of this agreement, Morgan Stanley will become the majority shareholder” of the group, while the family will “retain a minority stake and management role.”
French group Nicollin has entered into “exclusive negotiations” with US bank Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure fund, MSIP, to sell it a majority stake in its environment and water divisions, the company said in a press release on Friday.
“Under the terms of this agreement, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners will become the majority shareholder of Nicollin Environnement, with the Nicollin family retaining a minority stake and management role alongside MSIP,” details the family group, founded in 1945 and headquartered in Montpellier.
“Multiple Scenarios” Explored by the Nicollin Family
The planned deal concerns Nicollin Environnement, which employs 4,800 people in waste management, urban cleanliness, and water and sanitation and has an annual turnover of 450 million euros, a company spokesman said.
The activities of the Services division (cleanliness, security, maintenance of buildings and green spaces, etc.), i.e. 7,200 employees, with a turnover of 250 million euros, “are excluded from the scope of this operation and remain exclusively in the hands of the Nicollin family,” according to the same source. The exact stake that MSIP will own in Nicollin Environnement, the transaction amount and the negotiation schedule have not been specified.
Before deciding to sell a majority stake, the Nicollin family “examined several scenarios,” convinced that “significant investment” was needed to “support” the changes taking place: “the environmental transition, decarbonization, electrification of vehicle fleets, artificial intelligence, modernization of industrial tools or even changes in societal expectations,” the press release said.
At the end of the process, “the teams will remain in place, operations will continue as usual, and the commitments made to customers, communities and partners will remain unchanged,” the group also assures. The operation is “unrelated” to the decision last week by the group’s two leaders, Laurent and Olivier Nicollen, to abandon, after months of deliberation, the resale of MHSC, the football club currently in Ligue 2 created by their father Louis 52 years ago, a group spokesman said.
The Nicollin Group was founded in 1945 by Marcel Nicollin, who started out trading coal and later moved into the waste treatment and recycling business. The company experienced significant growth under the leadership of the Nicollin family and became a major player in the environmental services sector in France. Today the group is led by Olivier and Laurent Nicollin and works in the areas of waste collection and recycling, clean cities, sanitation and environmental services.