Natixis Partners advised Innovafonds on the sale of Pagès Group to Cerea Partners

On 28th May 2020, Cerea completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Pagès Group, a designer and manufacturer of high performance automation systems. Innovafonds, the previous shareholder, reinvested in this new operation alongside the Management. Founded in 1984 in Foncine-le-Haut, the Group has developed a unique globally renowned expertise in robotic In-Mold Labeling (IML) systems and has progressively become the global leader in this niche market. The Group doubled its size over the last 4 years, progressively expanding its solutions and services offering to become an expert in high performance automated robotic solutions (spiders, assembling, sorting, loading / unloading, monitoring systems, etc.). The Group also accelerated its transformation by investing in the digitalisation of its organisation (implementation of collaborative tools, lean manufacturing etc.) and product offering (connected machines, predictive maintenance, etc.) to bring additional value to its international client base active on the food & beverage, medical and industrial markets. The acquisitions of Polymac in the Netherlands in 2018 and Process Industries in France in 2019 allowed the Group to further enrich its expertise, broaden its clients portfolio and accelerate its international reach. With a current presence in France, the Netherlands, the US, China and Australia, Pagès Group now starts a new development phase, with the ambition to strengthen its positions on the food processing and medical segments, to develop its robotic offering and to expand its international footprint, in particular in North America and Germany.