Ergon Capital To Sell Looping Group

As announced last Friday, the Belgian investment company Ergon Capital Partners and French national investment bank Bpifrance intend to sell Looping Group, the operator of 15 leisure parks in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, to its management team alongside Mubadala Capital, the financial investment arm of Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Investment Company. Together with Mubadala and the rest of Looping Group’s management team, founding President Laurent Bruloy and General Manager Stéphane da Cunha will jointly control the group in future.

Wolfgang de Limburg, Managing Partner of Ergon, comments on the transaction: “We are very pleased with our successful partnership with Looping’s management team. Over the life of this investment, Ergon supported the Group’s significant expansion in new geographies through acquisitions of flagship parks and significant investments in infrastructures and a new accommodation activity, while keeping a constant focus on operational excellence and safety. We trust that Looping and its outstanding management team will succeed in further creating value in the future and are convinced that Mubadala will be an excellent partner for the Group’s next phase of growth.”

Stéphane da Cunha adds, “Mubadala would be the perfect partner, sharing our long term vision and ambitions, to develop our Group through our three strategic pillars: strengthen the attractiveness of our sites, leverage our concept of immersive and exclusive accommodations at a larger scale in our wildlife parks and accelerate our buy-and-build strategy, […]”. 

To complete the transaction, an antitrust approval process must be conducted in Germany. Founded in 2011, Looping Group, which has been part of Ergon since 2016 (cp. EAP news of 30 Mar 2016), welcomes around 4.6 million visitors annually at their parks with a turnover of in excess of 110 million Euro. (eap)