Humens

SUCCESSFUL DIVESTMENT

In collaboration with its partners Ardian, Mérieux Equity Partners and Eximium, Eurazeo’s Mid-Large Buyout team sold its stake in Humens to Leto Partners, a French private equity firm focused on decarbonisation. The divestment is the result of Humens’ successful transformation on both financial and non-financial aspects and of Eurazeo’s extensive strategic input since the company was carved out from the Seqens group in December 2021.

With the support of Leto Partners, Humens is moving towards new horizons, placing innovation and the energy transition at the heart of its strategy.

SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP

Humens was initially part of the Seqens group when Seqens was acquired by Eurazeo in 2016 and has since emerged as a leading player in its industry. It mainly supplies sodium bicarbonate to the pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and agri-food industries, as well as soda ash, which is used in the production of flat and container glass.

Under the impetus of Eurazeo, Humens has placed energy transition at the heart of its growth strategy, with the ambition to become carbon-neutral by 2035. To this end, Humens has set targets of phasing out coal from its industrial process from 2023 and of reducing its carbon intensity by 60% by 2025 (tonnes of CO2 per tonne of product, compared to 2017). To achieve those targets, the company has built a biomass power plant, operational since 2023, and a RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel) plant, scheduled to come into service in 2025. Through these efforts, Humens should avoid 1,359,000 tonnes of GHG emissions between 2017 and 2025. In addition, as part of a balanced approach to CSR (corporate social responsibility), Eurazeo has helped Humens improve its social and governance practices, including implementing a responsible sourcing plan with its suppliers between 2018 and 2020 (as part of its duty-of-care plan) and increasing the proportion of women and independent members on its supervisory board.

A PROMISING FUTURE

In the last seven years, Humens has benefited from the day-to-day involvement of Eurazeo’s teams, who have provided a solid and constant support, materialized notably by a geographical expansion in Asia with the construction of a greenfield sodium bicarbonate plant in Singapore. Leto Partners’ support and expertise will enable Humens to accelerate its CSR roadmap and will facilitate new ambitions and collaborations in order to achieve audacious environmental and economic targets.