Legrand Acquires Champion ONE Family of Brands, Champion ONE, Approved Networks, and U.S. Critical
Company Extends Support of Evolving Mission-Critical IT Space Needs,
Continuing Best-of-Breed Technologies into Optical Networking
West Hartford, Connecticut
February 11, 2021
Legrand, the global specialist in electrical, digital building, and data center infrastructures, today announced it has acquired from A&M Capital Opportunities the Champion ONE (C1) family of brands, leading providers of optical networking components and solutions for the telecommunication, content provider, data center, and enterprise markets. Today’s news marks the latest move by Legrand to support data center and mission-critical IT’s ever-growing need for reliable, highly available and scalable power and connectivity solutions.
With lab, office and warehouse locations in both Lake Forest, CA and Independence, OH, the C1 family of brands, which include Champion ONE, Approved Networks, and U.S. Critical, will join previous acquisitions AFCO, Electrorack, Ortronics, Raritan, Server Technology, and Starline in Legrand North and Central America’s Data, Power and Control (DPC) division.
“The C1 family of brands complement Legrand’s previous acquisitions to provide strong world-class engineering talent for unrivaled, customized IT infrastructure solutions,” said John Selldorff, President and CEO, Legrand North and Central America. “In addition, the acquisition expands our extensive mission-critical customer footprint and our reach in emerging tech, 5G and the evolving content delivery markets. We look forward to offering customers and partners our new enhanced solutions.”
Moving forward, the acquisition will strengthen and help the C1 family of brands grow its sales and channel relationships as its vendor-agnostic transceivers are introduced to Legrand’s extensive IT industry partners.
“Legrand is a visionary that combines best-of-breed technologies to uniquely engineer world-renowned solutions for mission-critical facilities,” said Michael Rapp, CEO, C1 family of brands. “We are excited to work closely with their engineering, marketing, and sales teams to broaden our reach in support of today’s evolving data center requirements.”
About Champion ONE
Champion ONE (C1) and their family of vertically specific brands are best in class providers of optical networking components and solutions for the communications service provider (CSP), data center, enterprise, and health care markets.
C1 Family of Brands history of industry-leading quality and performance is backed by extensive qualification, programming and environmental test capabilities which guarantee compliance and compatibility in over 100 Network Equipment Manufacturer (NEM) environments. This commitment to optical compliance and testing has driven C1 to be the partner of choice in high speed connectivity for the most demanding networks in the world.
About Legrand and Legrand, North and Central America
Legrand is the global specialist in electrical and digital building infrastructures. Its comprehensive offering of solutions for commercial, industrial and residential markets makes it a benchmark for customers worldwide. The Group harnesses technological and societal trends with lasting impacts on buildings with the purpose of improving life by transforming the spaces where people live, work and meet with electrical, digital infrastructures and connected solutions that are simple, innovative and sustainable. Drawing on an approach that involves all teams and stakeholders, Legrand is pursuing its strategy of profitable and sustainable growth driven by acquisitions and innovation, with a steady flow of new offerings—including Eliot* connected products with enhanced value in use. Legrand reported sales of over €6.6 billion ($7.4 billion) in 2019. Legrand has a strong presence in North and Central America, with a portfolio of well-known market brands and product lines. The company is listed on Euronext Paris and is notably a component stock of the CAC 40 and Euronext ESG 80 indexes. (code ISIN FR0010307819).
https://www.legrandgroup.com www.legrand.us
About A&M Capital Opportunities
A&M Capital Opportunities (“AMCO”), with total capital commitments of $500 million, is Alvarez & Marsal Capital’s lower middle-market growth strategy, focused on shared control and structured minority equity investments in North America. AMCO partners with business owners and management teams to help recapitalize and grow businesses, leveraging deep operational capabilities and industry relationships to position them for accelerated long-term growth. Alvarez & Marsal Capital is a multi-strategy private equity investment firm with over $3 billion in total assets under management across four funds and three investment strategies, which is augmented by its strategic association with Alvarez & Marsal, one of the largest operationally-focused advisory firms in the world.
Additional Details
Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath acted as legal advisor to Legrand on the transaction. Zukerman Gore Brandeis & Crossman, LLP acted as legal advisor to Champion ONE on the transaction and Stifel acted as financial advisor to Champion ONE on the transaction.
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Jacquline Boas
Director of Corporate Communications
Legrand, North and Central America
978-872-5162
jacqueline.boas@legrand.us
Betsey Rogers
Public Relations
BridgeView Marketing
603-821-0809
betsey@bridgeviewmarketing.com
