PGB Holding, a market leader in fastening materials in Belgium, has acquired Connecton Fasteners from Groep Roussel, with advice from Argo Law.
According to PGB Holding’s advisors at Argo Law (Bert Van Ingelghem, Jasper Willems, Lena Pepa, Bram Santy and Christophe Verhelst), the acquisition of Connecton Fasteners will expand the PGB Group’s product offering, adding local manufacturing capabilities in a segment that has largely been sourced internationally.
“Argo also advised Waterland on its original acquisition of a majority stake in PGB and continues to support the group on its further expansion,” the company said in a statement.
Through its new owner, Connecton will also have the opportunity to strengthen its anchoring solutions for the construction industry, while Groep Roussel turns its focus to producing sustainable binders and low-impact facing bricks.
The group expects that energy-intensive and high-carbon building materials such as ceramics and cement will rapidly lose ground to more affordable, low-impact alternatives. As such, the decision to sell Connecton forms part of Groep Roussel’s broader transformation strategy to exit the anchoring and cement sectors, which shareholders say require increasingly specialised investments and their own growth strategies – no longer compatible under a single management team.
“As a family-run group, we strongly believe in growth driven by our own strengths. To realise this ambition, we have chosen to pool our resources and investments,” explained CEO Mark Roussel. “More than 500 builders have already opted for our hybrid low-impact facing bricks. Production of binders in Mons is now also fully operational, with an output of more than 1,000 tonnes per day, meaning that there, too, the focus can now shift further towards innovative alternatives.”
For Connecton, which generates an annual turnover of approximately 26 million euros and employs around 70 people, this decision meant finding a new shareholder to support the company’s future expansion plans. “That partner was found in PGB Holding, which has the financial clout and organisational capacity to further expand the business.”
