Lucibel, a French LED lighting company, has acquired Cordel, a company that specializes in shop lighting. Lucibel purchased 100% of the shares in the company. With this take-over, Lucibel places “shop lighting” at the core of its development strategy. Cordel, has a head-office in Brittany, France and coverage throughout the entire country. Cordel employs a workforce of 60 and carries out more than 20,000 maintenance interventions per year for its customers.
The company, which has been profitable from day one, registered an annual revenue of 10 M€ in 2012. The company’s clientele base is reportedly comprised of more than 30,000 sales outlets, 17,000 of which are clothing stores, 4,000 chemists and 1,000 jewellery stores. With its incorporation into the Lucibel group, Cordel will benefit from the expertise and LED technology of the Lucibel R&D teams specifically targeting the shop lighting sector. This expertise will uniquely enable Cordel to be the first company in France to propose a complete range of LED lighting products in the retail sector.
Lucibel notes that LED lighting is indeed particularly well suited to the retail lighting market because it not only offers a considerable reduction in energy consumption, maintenance and air conditioning costs, but also offers enhanced valuation of the products on display in the shop with a subsequent significant increase in turn-over for the retail outlet concerned.
Fabien Mevel, Managing Director and majority shareholder in the company Cordel, joins the Lucibel group as delegate managing director and member of the board of directors of the newly formed group. He explained why he joined the Lucibel group, he saying, “The incontestable technological leadership of Lucibel in the field of LED lighting has convinced us that joining forces with Lucibel is the best way of guaranteeing Cordel’s customers that they will continue to benefit from the most innovative and efficient technical solutions available on the market. Furthermore, we also intend to implement the Cordel business model at an international level, in particular in countries where Lucibel has already set up branch offices.”
Frédéric Granotier, Chairman and Managing Director of Lucibel commented, “With the European LED lighting market the way it is today, companies who limited their activity to the simple import of low-quality, badly-designed Chinese LED products are currently in an extremely delicate financial situation. Lucibel is able to confirm that it has fully mastered the design of LED lighting products and possesses the expertise necessary to guarantee long-term success. Indeed, as LED technology is rapidly evolving, only continuous product innovation and the development of high-end products will allow profitable acquisition of market share and successful deployment of an external expansion strategy.”
Granotier added, “In the world of lighting, which has been turned upside down by the introduction of electronic circuitry, the objective of Lucibel is to consolidate its position by acquiring other skill sectors in the coming months, both in France and abroad.”
