PPM Capital (Orefi) - April 2006

PPM Capital has announced the disposal of Orefi to Investcorp for an undisclosed consideration.

Orefi is a leading European industrial supply distributor, with the second leading position in France and the fourth leading position in the Netherlands, and revenues totalling £293m in 2005. The group distributes over 300,000 products for industrial production processes to customers from a wide variety of industries through its network of 99 branch locations.

Investcorp recently acquired auto parts retailer Autodistribution and has indicated that it may explore the possibility of merging AD's industrial supply activities with Orefi to create the leading French industrial supplies distributor.

Canaccord Genuity has advised PPM Capital from the outset of this project, who selected Investcorp from a short-list of retained second-round bidders.