Mergers & Acquisitions · Completed deal · Buy-side advisory

Cogem acquires Mika&L'eau: a water-treatment network tightens its home-region coverage

How COGEM, the point-of-use water-treatment specialist based in the Lyon metropolitan area, acquired Mika&L'eau — the Bouvesse-Quirieu company located where the Isère, Ain and Savoie départements meet, specialising in water softeners, reverse osmosis and filtration — the need, the approach, the stakes and the macroeconomic reading of a deal effective since 18 June 2025, which tightens the network in its home region after the Gradignan, Reims, Gémenos and Arles milestones.

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1996

year the acquirer was founded, in the Lyon metropolitan area

published milestones in the series, from Gradignan to Bouvesse-Quirieu

départements at whose crossroads the target is located

2025

deal effective since 18 June

The acquirer

COGEM, the consolidator of point-of-use water treatment

Founded in 1996 and based in Vaulx-en-Velin, in the Lyon metropolitan area, COGEM is a French company specialising in the sale, installation and maintenance of point-of-use water-treatment solutions — water purified where it is consumed, in homes as well as in businesses and public bodies. A privately held company, it builds its model on long-term service: sale, installation and then maintenance, controlling each stage of the equipment life cycle and maintaining lasting customer relationships. Its published strategy is to build territorial coverage by integrating specialised regional players — a series running from Gradignan to Reims, Gémenos and Arles — and the acquisition of Mika&L'eau, its first milestone of 2025, opens the second phase: after expansion comes densification of its home region.

The target's core know-how: equip, then maintain — the performance of water softeners and reverse-osmosis units depends on regular servicing

CG COGEM Point-of-use water treatment — Vaulx-en-Velin, Lyon metropolitan area (1996) cogem.fr

ML Mika&L'eau Softeners, reverse osmosis & filtration — Bouvesse-Quirieu, Isère · integrated into COGEM cogem.fr — Isère

The seller

Mika&L'eau, local expertise where three départements meet

Based in Bouvesse-Quirieu, in the Isère département, Mika&L'eau grew around a specialist business selling, installing and servicing water-treatment equipment — water softeners, reverse-osmosis systems and other treatment and filtration equipment, together with their servicing and cleaning. Its distinguishing feature is twofold: geography — a long-standing base where the Isère, Ain and Savoie départements meet, an anchor point serving three départements — and relationships: a loyal local customer base and a portfolio of maintenance contracts, the recurring asset that the announcement describes as strengthening the acquirer's service portfolio. Its integration, effective since 18 June 2025, is built on stated continuity: the acquirer intends to keep serving customers with an approach based on proximity, availability and quality of service, while giving them access to the resources and expertise of a specialist group.

What was at stake

Why this acquisition, and why this target

For COGEM, the deal marks a second strategic phase: having extended its network far from its base — Gradignan in the south-west, Reims in Champagne, Gémenos and Arles in Provence — the consolidator is now densifying its home region. "Developing a national player specialising in water treatment", states the acquirer's announcement: a national network is not built only by moving further away — it is also strengthened at home, and the Bouvesse-Quirieu base, where Isère, Ain and Savoie meet, offers exactly that: a new anchor point east of Lyon, closer ties with a local customer base, and the integration of customers and maintenance contracts that strengthen the group's recurring portfolio.

The strategic stake: an anchor that radiates outwards — one point where three départements meet densifies the home region

On the target side, Mika&L'eau offered the profile favoured by the group's published doctrine — strong technical expertise and close customer relationships — in exactly the geography that was missing: east of Lyon, on the edge of three départements, where a long-standing local presence is worth years of prospecting. Its assets are those of the model: a loyal customer base, a portfolio of maintenance contracts — the recurring revenue on which the performance of softeners and reverse-osmosis units depends, since regular servicing is the very condition of the water quality they deliver — and the local know-how that the announcement promises to preserve while giving it a new dimension within the group — the formula that sums up every integration in the series.

The macroeconomic reading

Water treatment consolidates into networks, region by region

This deal illustrates the network logic spreading through local water treatment: a market driven by growing concern for water quality, hard water in many areas and the equipment of homes and businesses alike — softeners, reverse-osmosis units, filtration — whose performance depends on regular servicing: service creates the value, and service requires proximity. The sector is still made up of local firms with loyal customers, often facing succession — and consolidators build their networks there milestone by milestone, balancing two complementary moves: expansion, which plants the flag in new regions, and densification, which tightens coverage where the brand is already known.

The scope of the deal is domestic and telling of this second move: after four expansion milestones — the south-west, Champagne, Provence — the Lyon-based consolidator chose, for its first milestone of 2025, to densify Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, its home region, by integrating the Bouvesse-Quirieu base where Isère, Ain and Savoie meet. For local customers, continuity is the published promise — proximity, availability and quality of service, backed by a group's resources; for regional specialists, the series shows that a business transfer can preserve local expertise while giving it national reach; and for the market, it confirms that a coherent network is built in both directions: by expanding, and by putting down roots.

A short domestic consolidation: the fifth published milestone densifies the home region, east of Lyon

The adviser's role

Collaboration Capital's added value on this mandate

On this deal, Collaboration Capital acted as buy-side adviser. Densifying a network plays out in four stages — and when the acquirer is consolidating its own region, fine-grained geography becomes the first criterion of the file.

A clear understanding of the mandate

Framing a densification differs from framing an expansion: the trade's channel stays the same — local word of mouth, installed equipment that calls for servicing, the contract that brings the technician back — but the thesis becomes geometric. The aim is no longer to plant a flag in a new region but to tighten coverage around existing bases: to identify, in the home region, local businesses whose catchment area complements the group's without overlapping it — and for the area east of Lyon, the brief pointed to an anchor radiating towards Isère, Ain and Savoie.

Sourcing and assessing targets

Assessing a local water-treatment business means measuring the assets of the model: the customer base — its loyalty, its split between households and businesses, its geographical density; the portfolio of maintenance contracts — their number, their age, their renewal rate, the recurrence that transfers; the technical range — softeners, reverse osmosis, filtration, and the servicing and cleaning capability that keeps equipment running; and the criterion specific to densification: the complementarity of the catchment area, checked map in hand, municipality by municipality, so that the new anchor point extends the network instead of competing with it.

Off-market channel

Off-market sourcing

Collaboration Capital's technological edge lies in how it identifies targets: semantic clustering and machine-learning algorithms rather than sector and administrative classifications. Official activity codes put companies into boxes that cannot serve an acquirer's overall objective — they ignore the real business, the distribution model, the customer mix and the business model. Semantic analysis, by contrast, reads what companies actually do and maps those that match the acquisition thesis in every dimension, including — above all — those that are not for sale. For regional densification, it is the precision instrument par excellence: among installers that classifications lump together with plumbing, it singles out the water-treatment business with recurring contracts — and places it on the map, at the exact crossroads where the network needed its anchor point.

On-market channel

On-market sourcing

The same infrastructure applies to the visible market: the technology extracts the acquisitions and disposals completed in the client's target sector — and, above all, identifies the dealmakers who led them: lawyers, auditors, lending banks and investment funds, assessing how specialised each one is in the sector concerned.

Collaboration Capital thus identifies the dealmakers who are genuinely active in the sector sought, finds their professional contact details — emails and phone numbers — and reaches out to present the client's acquisition project. This is how the on-market channel is fed: it gives the client access to the businesses for sale circulating on the market, at the moment they circulate, through the people who circulate them — an active channel for local service businesses, whose transfers go through regional networks and local advisers.

Combined, these two channels raise the level of the sourcing game: Collaboration Capital's technology infrastructure becomes a genuine game changer for acquisition projects. It is designed for ambitious companies that want to build their external growth on this high-level infrastructure.

III

Direct approach and introductions

Approaching a local business in the acquirer's own region has its own delicacy: the two firms often know each other by reputation, sometimes as competitors — and the pitch must turn proximity into an asset. It rested on three clear points: a shared trade — the same equipment, the same servicing work, the same service culture; the series as proof — four published integrations, from Gradignan to Arles, showing that acquired customers are well served and know-how preserved; and the regional project: becoming the eastern anchor of a network under construction, rather than an isolated player in a consolidating market.

Negotiation through to closing

Structuring followed the series' proven pattern: defining the perimeter — the customer base, the maintenance contracts and their transferability; reviewing recurrence — the age of the portfolio, its renewal rate, the geographical spread of customers across the three départements; checking territorial complementarity — what the anchor point brings to the existing network; and the transfer timetable: the deal effective on 18 June 2025, the published date that organises the switchover of contracts and service visits. Continuity of service was treated as the core clause of the deal — proximity, availability and quality of service, maintained for customers with the group's resources.

The deal at a glance

Acquirer: COGEM — Vaulx-en-Velin, Lyon metropolitan area · founded 1996 · point-of-use water treatment
Target: Mika&L'eau — Bouvesse-Quirieu, Isère · where the Isère, Ain and Savoie départements meet
Target's business: sale, installation and servicing of water-treatment equipment — softeners, reverse osmosis, filtration · servicing and cleaning
Nature of the deal: integration of the customer base and maintenance contracts · published continuity of service · effective since 18 June 2025
Year: 2025
Our role: Buy-side advisory

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Sommaire

The acquirer: COGEM
The seller: Mika&L'eau
The stakes and the target
The macroeconomic reading
The adviser's added value

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