Credit Mutuel Equity invests in Van Den Casteele

By acquiring a minority stake in Van Den Casteele, which currently generates €10m in annual turnover, Crédit Mutuel Equity executes a strategic capital increase designed to drastically upgrade the regional manufacturer's industrial production capacity. Officially announced in September 2026, this growth equity transaction provides the necessary financial architecture to support an ambitious capital expenditure roadmap, with the premium ice cream maker planning to invest approximately twenty million euros over the next three years. The core strategic rationale behind this institutional funding round centers on constructing a completely new, state-of-the-art production and storage facility located in Bailleul, scheduled for operational delivery by the end of 2027. This specialized industrial project is engineered to directly resolve existing capacity bottlenecks while strictly adhering to internal ESG objectives. Specifically, the new infrastructure will optimize the management of water, energy, and logistical flows, while the installation of an advanced freezing tunnel will significantly reduce the physical strain experienced by the production workforce. With the manufacturing constraints alleviated, the financial sponsor's capital injection will directly fund an aggressive commercial rollout plan. The executive board intends to execute a controlled retail expansion by opening one to two new physical stores annually over the next five-year horizon. This targeted deployment will aggressively densify the brand's territorial footprint across its home market and adjacent geographies, explicitly targeting the Eastern and Western regions of France, as well as initiating cross-border penetration into Belgium. Furthermore, the strategic roadmap includes the systematic implementation of dedicated brand corners within selected third-party retail distributors. To ensure the financial viability of this corporate milestone, the specialized Transaction Services teams at Baker Tilly were mandated to provide comprehensive financial expertise and due diligence support throughout the capitalization process.

The acquisition of Van Den Casteele is part of the growth strategy of Credit Mutuel Equity, which already has several external growth operations under its belt, notably Netcloud in 2026.