Louis Lecoeur acquires Les Agnels: the entrepreneurial acquisition of a lavender house founded in 1895

Louis Lecoeur, the entrepreneurial buyer

A French entrepreneurial buyer and investor, Louis Lecoeur is making this acquisition in a personal capacity — the figure of the individual buyer who commits to a business in order to run and grow it, the opposite of a purely financial deal. His approach, as published when the deal was announced, is that of an entrepreneurial acquisition: a commitment based on continuity and development, without the exit horizon of a fund or the standardisation of a group. His stated strategy for Les Agnels is a balance: preserving the fundamentals that built the house's reputation — its Provençal roots, its mastery of know-how, the quality of its products — while continuing to modernise and develop it, notably through direct sales, e-commerce and the creation of new products that make the most of the estate's crops.

Les Agnels, the Luberon's lavender house

Based in Apt, Provence, in the heart of the Luberon, Les Agnels is a family-run farm and aromatic plant distillery whose know-how has been handed down since 1895 — five generations of grower-distillers since the first still was installed in the family hamlet — centred on lavender, lavandin, thyme, rosemary and helichrysum. Its distinguishing feature is an integrated value chain — grower, producer, wholesaler and distiller all at once, from cultivation to packaging, with some fifty hectares of aromatic plants grown with a preference for organic methods — extended by a genuine aromatherapy and wellbeing brand, with its Tradition, Signature and Pur Nature ranges, and by a visitor business at the distillery, combining tours, workshops and a producer's shop. The entrepreneurial acquisition opens a new chapter founded on continuity: identity, local roots and know-how preserved, with growth accelerated through direct sales and e-commerce.

Why this acquisition, and why this target

For an entrepreneurial buyer, the challenge is to find the complete house: not a raw-material producer, exposed on its own to market prices and harvest risks, but an integrated business that controls its chain — its crops, its distillation, its packaging — and has already turned its know-how into a brand and a direct relationship with its customers. "An entrepreneurial approach based on continuity and development", says the acquirer's press release: control of production is described as the strategic advantage — developing new products and making better use of the raw materials grown on the estate — and growth runs through the channels the house has already opened, direct sales and e-commerce, without abandoning anything that underpins its reputation.

On the target side, Les Agnels brought together what the market almost never offers in a single house: 130 years of history and five generations of know-how — the intangible asset nothing can replace; genuine vertical integration, from field to still to bottle; some fifty hectares of its own crops, grown with a preference for organic methods; distillation processes that set the standard; an established brand with its three ranges and its direct customers; and a tourism pillar — tours, workshops, producer's shop — that roots the business in its territory as much as it diversifies its revenue. For a family of five generations, selling is not disposing of an asset: it is entrusting a story — and the published promise of the acquisition, to preserve identity, roots and know-how, answered precisely that requirement.

Family heritage businesses are finding their entrepreneurial buyers

This deal sheds light on two converging trends. On one side, the French perfume, aromatic and medicinal plant sector — with Provence lavender as its emblem — is riding the wave of aromatherapy, natural products and wellbeing, extended by the rise of agritourism, which turns production sites into destinations. On the other, there is the major issue of succession in family farms and businesses when the next generation does not take over. Between a sale to an industrial group — which absorbs — and backing from a fund — which sells on — entrepreneurial acquisition is emerging as the third way: an individual who commits for the long term, takes over management and drives growth, while preserving what gives heritage businesses their value — identity, roots, know-how.

The deal's reach is domestic and heritage-driven in the fullest sense: a Provençal house founded in 1895, handed down over five generations, continues its story under the leadership of a committed buyer, with its crops, distillery, brand and visitor site — jobs, farmland and local roots preserved in the heart of the Luberon. The announced growth uses today's channels — direct sales, e-commerce, greater processing of the estate's raw materials into new products — without touching what cannot be rebuilt: 130 years of reputation. A successful succession at the scale of one house — and a model for the thousands of heritage businesses that will be looking for their own buyers over the coming decade.

Collaboration Capital's added value on this buy-side mandate

On this deal, Collaboration Capital acted as buy-side adviser. The entrepreneurial acquisition of a heritage business plays out in four stages — and the nature of the acquirer, an individual facing a five-generation family, makes it the most human configuration in the profession.