Five Arrows takes majority stake in EOS Corrugated Group

Five Arrows entered exclusive negotiations on 10 November 2026 to acquire a majority interest in EOS Corrugated Group from Sagard and Orso Partners, alongside a management team that reinvested, at an enterprise value of €300–700M representing an EV/EBITDA multiple of 10x–18x. EOS Corrugated Group manufactures and distributes the consumable parts that corrugated board machines wear out in the course of production: the steel rules that cut and crease the board, the anvil covers against which those rules press, the belts that carry the sheets through the line and the flexographic plates that print on them. It employs around 375 people across thirteen production sites and warehouses in Spain, France, Italy, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand, trades through seven brands and sells into more than 130 countries. Revenue amounted to €50–100M. Replacement rather than installation drives the demand, since each of these parts wears out at intervals measured in weeks or months and the box plant cannot run without them, which gives the supplier a volume of orders tied to its customers’ output rather than to their investment decisions. Tooling must also be made to the specification of each customer’s machine and each box design, so the supplier holds the drawings and the production data for the installations it serves, which a competitor would have to reconstruct before it could quote. Corrugated packaging has grown with online retailing, which ships goods in boxes rather than displaying them on shelves, and the company has grown at more than 10% a year since its formation in 2009. Sagard had acquired the business in 2021 from Capza, and the sale process conducted by Edmond de Rothschild drew HLD, Stirling Square, Dentressangle, Ardian Expansion and Peninsula Capital among others. Edmond de Rothschild Corporate Finance advised Sagard, Orso Partners and the management team.

The acquisition of EOS Corrugated Group is part of the growth strategy of Five Arrows, which already has several external growth operations under its belt, notably Hublo in 2025.