BIC acquires Rocketbook: moving into digital writing through external growth

BIC, a global leader in affordable writing

Headquartered in Clichy, France, and with more than 75 years of history, BIC is one of the world's leading makers of stationery, lighters and shavers: the company was built on a simple idea — making writing and everyday essentials accessible to everyone, everywhere. Listed on Euronext Paris (SBF 120 and CAC Mid 60 indices), the group reported revenue of EUR 1,949.4 million in 2019 and sells its products — including well-known brands such as Cristal, Tipp-Ex and Conté — in more than 160 countries. Its strategy combines long-standing manufacturing excellence with targeted acquisitions in growth segments, particularly creative expression and digital writing.

Rocketbook, the US pioneer of the smart reusable notebook

Founded in 2014 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Joe Lemay and Jake Epstein, Rocketbook created a new stationery category: reusable notebooks — the Core and Fusion ranges — that you write on with an erasable pen, whose pages are scanned to the cloud through a dedicated app and then wiped clean to be reused indefinitely. Profitable and growing fast, the company generated USD 32 million in revenue in its 2020 financial year, up 35% year on year, and its Core notebook is the best-selling reusable notebook on Amazon — retailing at under USD 40, with 70% of sales made in the United States. Both co-founders publicly welcomed their shared vision with the acquirer and are staying on within the group, with the ambition of developing the brand internationally.

What the press said

The deal was announced on 9 November 2020 in a regulated press release, widely covered by the French press, and completed on 15 December 2020. An overview of the main coverage:

Why this acquisition, and why this target

For BIC, the stakes were strategic: its historic writing-instrument business faced the digitalisation of everyday habits, and the group was looking for a credible entry point into digital writing — a market estimated at some EUR 4 billion by 2025. Rather than develop a connected offer on its own, it acquired the brand that already led the category in the United States, with a profitable product and an established user community. “We are taking a new step: bringing handwriting and digital together,” said Gonzalve Bich, the group's Chief Executive Officer, at the time of the announcement. The equation is one of time saved: a leadership position that takes years to build can be bought in a matter of weeks.

On the target side, Rocketbook ticked rare boxes. Born of crowdfunding and e-commerce, the brand had shown that a new category — the connected reusable notebook — could be profitable: USD 32 million in sales, 35% growth, the number-one spot in its category on Amazon, and a decisive intangible asset, the app that links paper to the cloud and keeps the user community loyal. Its limitation was geographic — 70% of sales in the United States — and that is precisely what gives the combination its industrial logic: BIC's global distribution network, present in more than 160 countries, is the natural lever for taking the brand international.

When established manufacturers buy their own transformation

This deal reflects a deep-seated trend in consumer goods: faced with the digitalisation of everyday habits, long-established industrial groups are acquiring digital-native brands rather than letting their categories be disrupted. Digital writing — smart notebooks, connected pens, tablets and styluses — is growing at a sustained pace, driven by expectations of mobility, sharing and sustainability: one reusable notebook replaces dozens of exercise books, an environmental argument that has become a commercial one.

The deal also shows the vitality of the transatlantic model: a young US brand born of crowdfunding, profitable within six years, finds in a listed European group the global platform it would not have built on its own — while the acquirer secures, for an initial payment of EUR 34 million plus a performance-linked earn-out, an option on the future of its own category. Founders retained, brand preserved, distribution multiplied: the textbook scenario of a successful transformational acquisition.

What a deal like this demands of a buy-side adviser

On this deal, BIC was supported by its own advisers, named in the official press release. We analyse it here as a case study: this is how Collaboration Capital's method approaches each of the four stages of an external growth mandate of this kind — a consumer goods manufacturer acquiring a digital-native brand.