UNIGRAINS supports 90 portfolio companies. How was your international strategy built?
We are an investment firm founded over 60 years ago. We invest exclusively in the agri-food sector, across the entire value chain – that is our primary differentiator. The second is that we operate with a long-term horizon, offering capital stability and ongoing support to the families and executives with whom Unigrains has built a trusting, close-knit relationship. We position ourselves as an active investor, partnering with companies to achieve their growth ambitions, particularly internationally.
Our internationalization strategy began over fifteen years ago. The premise was simple: our portfolio companies have global needs, and we must support them. We structured a dedicated team and forged partnerships with specialized funds in the US, Africa, Asia, and Brazil – a logic of market intelligence and forward-looking strategy. We also have offices in Milan and Madrid. Global expansion is a major value-creation lever for our portfolio companies. The numbers speak for themselves: the weighted international revenue of our portfolio is nearly 40%. And 91% of our mid-cap portfolio companies operate internationally.
Why choose to work with external partners like Altios rather than keeping everything in-house?
When I was entrusted with our international development, we asked ourselves a simple question: where do we have strong capabilities, and where are our blind spots? What are the priorities and needs of our companies? We cannot have teams everywhere. What we are looking for is the ability to guide an international strategy, but also to pressure-test it. And that is much easier when you rely on external expertise rather than a single internal viewpoint.
So, we opted to partner with Altios, particularly for operational support. The criteria were clear: find a partner with a pragmatic, rigorous approach who genuinely listens to CEOs. Our portfolio is highly diverse, ranging from SMEs in their first primary buyout to mid-caps that already generate 80% of their revenue abroad. They don’t have the same reflexes, nor the same needs.
Could you share an example of international acceleration you are proud of?
The example that comes to mind is Pasquier. We have been supporting them for a long time. They had already made an acquisition on the US West Coast but were looking for an East Coast foothold. The topic kept coming up without ever materializing.
What changed was bringing in a local partner who successfully guided them through the key phases of the transaction and deal execution. Because that is often where things stall: the way deals are executed in the US is not the same as in Europe. It was a three-way effort: the local partner, our M&A advisory boutique Messis, and the group’s internal teams. All the ingredients clicked. That deal perfectly matched what Pasquier was looking for in terms of size, maturity, and growth momentum. And it validated the value of our partnership-driven approach.
Could you share a case that was more difficult for you?
There is a Spanish company, La Finca, which generates almost all of its revenue in Spain. A financial sponsor wanted to push for rapid international expansion into Italy without a real strategy – driven mostly by opportunism. I strongly disagreed with that approach.
We introduced this company to our partners, specifically in the UK, to pressure-test their plan: which product to highlight, which market to truly target, and how to enter it properly. To me, that is also our role: preventing SMEs – who don’t have ten shots at getting it right internationally – from making costly mistakes. You cannot afford to burn your brand with a bad importer. A stop-and-go international approach, lacking a mid-term strategy, can sometimes work, but it is a massive gamble.
More broadly, the frustrations in this business are the deals you miss because the executives fail to adapt to the pace of local transactions. We have identified fantastic targets in the US that we couldn’t close for that exact reason.
UNIGRAINS is a minority investor. How do you convince executives to commit to international expansion when you cannot force them to do so?
We are a minority investor, and we fully embrace that. We are also highly active, and we embrace that as well. Our philosophy isn’t to twist a CEO’s arm. Besides, having a majority stake wouldn’t necessarily be the silver bullet in the situations where we invest. At the end of the day, it is always the management team that executes the work.
Our strength is our long-term horizon. Being a minority shareholder forces us to tackle issues upstream and build a genuine relationship of trust. Roughly a third of our annual investments are reinvestments in companies we have already backed, structuring new operations to support their next growth cycle. We have been partnering with some for decades – not because we’ve passively held the shares for 30 years, but because we have actively supported them through multiple cycles. Financial partners rotate around them; UNIGRAINS remains by their side.
And practically speaking, to convince a CEO to adopt a new partner, we don’t force them. We prefer a pragmatic, incentive-based approach to win them over. For instance, we might cover the upfront costs of an advisory mission because we are highly confident in the solution we are proposing. That is how you drive an initiative: with concrete solutions, track records, case studies, and high-caliber partners like Altios.
In your view, what are the major challenges for the internationalization of French agri-food companies over the next five years?
I remain highly confident in France’s international potential in this sector. The agri-food industry is a pillar of European sovereignty and excellence, boasting global leaders like Lactalis or Danone. We are probably France’s third-largest export sector, right behind healthcare and luxury goods.
But we must be realistic. French companies have mastered the logic of exporting, but they sometimes hesitate to cross the real threshold: establishing a physical footprint. Yet, when a market is validated and proves strategic, you have to go all-in, make the acquisition, accept the valuation multiples, and deploy the CAPEX.
Another point: we may have been too hyper-focused on the US in recent years. Southeast Asia, Latin America, and certain emerging markets like Mexico deserve far more attention. Finally, the Italians are teaching us a lesson on one specific front: they sell the “Made in Italy” brand collectively and in a highly coordinated way. We tend to sell our own individual brands and products. We need to start thinking about a more concerted approach to “Made in France.”
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