The Carlyle Group, CVC Capital Partners and Advent International Make Healthy Exit from Materis

Luxembourg - Funds advised by CVC Capital Partners, Advent International and The Carlyle Group have signed an agreement to sell their shares in Materis to LBO France for an enterprise value around €1.1 billion. This represents a strong exit for the three private equity firms, with an exit multiple of more than two times the equity money invested.

The consortium of private equity firms acquired the majority stake in Materis in January 2001 from Lafarge for an enterprise value of €890 million.

Materis, formerly named Lafarge Specialty Materials, is a building materials company, composed of five divisions, including admixtures, aluminates, decorative paint, mortars and refractories. Materis has over 5,000 employees and is active in more than 20 countries. The company posted annual revenues of €1.2 billion in 2002.

The closing of the sale is expected by the end of October further to the clearance of the anti-trust authorities.

"Materis has been a successful investment for Carlyle and we are very pleased to be able to return capital to our investors at an attractive return and in line with expectations." said Benoît Colas, director of The Carlyle Group in Paris.

Eric Adjoubel, Managing Director of Advent International in Paris said, "Materis is a solid company with steady revenues and solid positions. It has made progress over the last few years and will certainly continue to do so. It has been a pleasure to work with its management."

Bertrand Finet, director of CVC Capital Partners, "This deal demonstrates another solid return on investment for our portfolio and the partnership of the three private equity firms provided strong financial and management support to the Materis team."

The advisors to the Materis shareholders were Rothschild & Cie, Willkie Farr & Gallagher as legal advisers and Ernst & Young.

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