ROTEM acquires AVL – Atelier de la Vallée du Loir: a distressed business acquisition that preserves industrial know-how

ROTEM, the French specialist in industrial wheels

Founded in 1969 and based in Roncq, in northern France, ROTEM is the French specialist in the design, manufacture and sale of wheels, castors, rollers and tyres for a wide range of industrial sectors. A privately held company with more than five decades of experience, it offers a catalogue of more than 20,000 references — rubber, polyurethane, polyamide, polypropylene, steel, stainless steel, cast iron and various resins — serving industrial applications, materials handling equipment, local authorities and hospitals, complemented by technical services such as polyurethane re-treading of wheels and rollers. Its growth rests on technical mastery of mobility and materials handling solutions — and the acquisition of AVL adds a new move: preserving a neighbouring industrial know-how by giving it the means for a fresh start, with a second base in the heart of France.

AVL, the Atelier de la Vallée du Loir and its long-standing know-how

Based in Bonneval, Eure-et-Loir, in the Centre-Val de Loire region, AVL — the Atelier de la Vallée du Loir — has a long-standing business in the manufacture, design and sale of wheels, castors and other equipment, complemented by trading activities and related services. Its distinctive feature is industrial expertise built over several decades in exactly the same trade as the buyer — the complementarity of know-how and positioning that the press release describes as the basis of the combination. Its transfer took the court-supervised route, as published by the acquirer itself: after receivership proceedings (redressement judiciaire) were opened in 2024, the Commercial Court of Chartres approved a court-ordered sale plan (plan de cession) in favour of ROTEM on 24 October 2025 — the business is now part of the group, and the Bonneval site continues under the AVL Roulettes brand, with its local roots.

Why this acquisition, and why this target

For ROTEM, the stakes were both industrial and territorial: strengthen its capacity, bring in new know-how and consolidate its position in the French market for mobility and materials handling solutions — and do so by adding to its historic site in the north a second base in the centre of the country, with the Bonneval site improving the group's distribution and responsiveness to its markets. But a court-supervised acquisition gives these classic objectives an extra dimension: "the opportunity to preserve and develop existing industrial know-how", says the acquirer's press release (translated from French) — buying through a sale plan means acquiring and safeguarding in a single move: the plant, the skills and the local roots of a peer that the proceedings might otherwise have seen disappear.

On the target side, AVL brought together what gives an industrial acquisition its value: the same trade — wheels and castors, precisely, down to the related design and trading activities —, long-standing know-how built over several decades in the Loir valley, and a strategic location: Bonneval, in Centre-Val de Loire, the anchor point in the heart of the country that the northern buyer's network lacked. Within the sale plan, these assets — the plant, the skills, the brand, the customer relationships — found in ROTEM the most natural buyer: a peer in the same trade, able to assess every machine and every reference with full knowledge, and to give the acquired workshop the resources, commercial expertise and industrial capacity of a group established since 1969 — with the AVL Roulettes brand continuing the business in Bonneval.

Acquiring a distressed business: a way to preserve the industrial fabric

This deal sheds light on a discreet but essential part of the M&A market: acquiring companies in insolvency proceedings. In specialist manufacturing niches — industrial wheels, serving materials handling, intralogistics, local authorities and hospitals, are a textbook example —, a company's difficulties put far more than its accounts at stake: accumulated know-how, equipment, a brand, local roots. The sale plan approved by the commercial court is designed precisely to safeguard them: it transfers the business to a buyer with a continuity plan — and in such cases, buyers from the same trade are often best placed, as the only ones able to value the plant properly and give the know-how an industrial future.

The scope of the deal is domestic and regional: from the Nord to Centre-Val de Loire, the Roncq specialist extends its industrial network while preserving the Bonneval workshop — the business integrated, the AVL Roulettes brand retained, the local roots kept, and a secondary site that brings the group closer to its customers and improves its distribution in the heart of the country. For the sector, the deal illustrates the economic purpose of a court-ordered sale: allowing decades of know-how to change hands rather than disappear — and for industrial acquirers, it is a reminder that a complete external growth strategy can also seize these particular windows, where the timetable is set by the court and the goal is continuity.

The value Collaboration Capital added to this assignment

On this deal, Collaboration Capital acted as buy-side adviser. Acquiring a business through a court-ordered sale plan follows four stages — the same as any acquisition, but set to a particular metronome: the court's timetable.