”Grolleau: Our order book has more than doubled”Laurent Marbach, Chairman and CEO of Grolleau


Reserving good surprises shortly after its IPO is rare enough to be underlined and justify a spotlight. We therefore questioned its management during a visit to the headquarters of this SME from Angers. Former subsidiary in difficulty of the American giant Flextronics, this company founded in 1950 regained its independence in 2010 when its current manager bought it with the help of a private industrial investor (Active’Invest). The 200-person SME now supplies outdoor technical equipment, starting with urban cabinets (telecoms/energy) and more recently electric charging stations, markets in which it ranks number one. Discovery.

Examples of Grolleau equipment (source: company presentation – June 2022)

What has the IPO changed for you and for the company?

“Very few things in reality. As a subsidiary of an American group, we had acquired a certain number of habits in terms of reporting. Some executives were already shareholders before the IPO, some employees bought shares during the operation. Our issue of securities on the market, twice oversubscribed, enabled us to raise €8 million: enough to accelerate internal and external growth. As for the share price, there is no need to attach too much importance to it, we we can only act on the results!”

Grolleau returned to strong growth last year. Where is she from ?

“Indeed, we are proud to have almost erased the health crisis and to have returned to profit. The production of charging stations for electric vehicles, in which we have achieved a 20% market share, has driven growth. In particular, we delivered 1,991 charging points to Total Energies for the city of Paris, bringing us, all products combined, to more than €3.8 million in turnover compared to €0.4 million with this client the previous year. customer with us is far from over. We have just won a contract to deploy 350 terminals in the group’s service stations in France over the 2022-23 financial year. Our ambition now in this market is to become the manufacturer, white-label, ultra-fast direct current charging stations (>100 kW DC). We have received a subsidy of €800,000 from the Automobile and Aeronautical modernization funds of the France Relance plan. In the long term, we estimate the potential of this market Approximately 3,000 terminals. The stakes are therefore very high for Grolleau, even if we will make sure to establish our growth trajectory in our 3 markets (Urban, Telecoms, Industry) like the current breakdown of our order book of €11.7 million, in 125% increase over one year.

Ambitions in 3 areas: Urban, Telecom and Industry (source: company presentation June 2022)

How do you deal with shortages and price hikes?

“We have no production stoppages, just a few small supplier delivery delays that we are trying to limit by stocking a few more components than usual. We are trying as far as possible to pass on price increases to our customers, knowing that increases in raw materials are passed on much more easily than other increases in costs such as energy Over the previous year, our margin on purchasing costs remained almost stable in percentage terms given the mix More than the gross margin, we take care to preserve our rate of added value, by seeking to preserve the 40% threshold, which is more or less easy depending on the degree of competition in our various markets. offer of services by capitalizing on the supply of our equipment should allow us to increase in value and improve the recurrence of our invoicing. I am thinking in particular of the supply and maintenance of sensors which will allow us to offer data recovery and recovery services for the city of tomorrow. This will be one of the keys, with the activity effect which should lead us to a turnover of €50m in 2025/26, of the targeted doubling of our EBITDA margin by this horizon, to 8-10% against 4.5% over the last financial year. .”

Grolleau is aiming for €50 million in turnover in 2025-26. Does it go through acquisitions?

“We are above all seeking to acquire skills, strategic bricks, as we have just done in the industry division with the acquisition of 28.7% of the capital of the solutions editor Nexence for €0.2 million. This software, which specializes in the customer is a specialist in connected lockers, which will enable us to enrich our offer of lockers. Now, if we identify a larger target, capable of strengthening our product offers or offering more services and added value to our customers, we will study it carefully.A German acquisition, for example, would help us to conquer markets in this difficult but high-potential territory.

The objectives displayed during the IPO were confirmed in June 2022



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