Sofina is completely leaving refrigerated truck specialist Petit Forestier

Petit Forestier and the asset manager Wren House buy Sofina’s remaining stake (34%) in the French refrigerated truck specialist. It was one of the heaviest holdings in the Boël holding portfolio.

Two weeks ago it emerged that Sofina was negotiating with two parties about the sale of its shares in the refrigerated truck specialist Petit Forestier: an infrastructure fund of KKR and Wren House. The latter came out on top. The asset manager will take over the Sofina shares together with Petit Forestier itself. Wren House has ties to Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund.

Wren House joins the capital alongside the founding Forestier family. In 2020, Léonard Forestier, a representative of the fourth generation, took over operational management. His father Jean-Claude is chairman of the board of directors.

Petit Forestier has been in Sofina’s portfolio since 2007

. The Belgian holding company entered the company when it delisted from the stock exchange. Sofina initially owned 19.9 percent of the shares and gradually increased this to 43.2 percent. In the middle of last year, the Boël family holding company sold about 9 percent of the shares to the Forestier family.

Petit Forestier was one of Sofina’s heaviest participations: it was in third place in the top ten largest participations at the end of last year. The Boël holding had two representatives on the board of directors of the French group. It achieved a turnover of 1.07 billion euros last year and is expected to achieve an annual gross operating profit (EBITDA) of ‘several hundreds of millions of euros’. It is active in 21 countries, has a fleet of almost 80,000 trucks and 5,600 employees.