Bridgepoint has acquired a majority stake in Financière CEP from the American private equity firm JC Flowers & Co and the group's founder, Hubert Guillard. This secondary LBO follows an unsuccessful sale process in 2017. The transaction was secured via a preemptive offer signed in early March 2020, just before the COVID-19 lockdowns. The management team, led by CEO Philippe Gravier, is reinvesting alongside Bridgepoint to support an ambitious growth project. The strategic rationale for the deal is to capitalize on CEP's leadership in the French loan insurance and mortgage brokerage markets. Bridgepoint aims to accelerate the group's digital investments and pursue a strategy of international diversification and product expansion across Europe.

KEREIS, which reported an EBITDA margin of LOGIN in 2019, is valued in this transaction at an EV/EBITDA multiple of LOGIN, representing a LOGIN discount to the 14.0x average currently observed in the Financial Services sector.

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