Heritage

Who owns Heritage?

Heritage has Andera Partners on file as a lender through Acto Mezzanine IV (2020 vintage), financing since 2021. Its equity owner is not tracked by GP Intel yet.

Hand-verified · updated 2026-04-21

About Heritage

Heritage is a Nanterre-based consumer goods company that owns and revives a portfolio of historic French household-care brands, spanning home cleaning, specialty droguerie products and laundry care. Its stable includes O'Cedar for wood and floor care, Vigor and Terra surface cleaners, Baranne leather care, Decap'Four oven cleaners, Miror metal care and the Minidou fabric softener, brands that together carry several centuries of combined heritage. The business positions itself as an independent French champion of authentic, made-in-France household maintenance, sourcing more than three-quarters of its output from a dozen domestic factories rather than owning plants of its own. It distributes primarily through French large-scale retail and reported revenue of around EUR 20 million in 2022.

Ownership journey

Heritage was founded in 2021 by Daniel Chassagnon and Richard Lerosey, who built it immediately after selling their previous ecological-detergent business, Swania, to Henkel. In December 2021 the pair reacquired from Henkel a portfolio of household-care brands, structuring the deal as a sponsorless management buyout in which the founders and their team retained majority equity. Andera Partners supported the transaction by providing roughly EUR 13 million of mezzanine and minority financing through its Acto Mezzanine IV fund, alongside a senior banking facility arranged by an LCL-led syndicate. The financing closed on 21 December 2021 as debt and minority capital rather than a controlling equity stake, leaving management in control of the company.

Under PE ownership

Since the 2021 financing, Heritage has expanded its brand roster and repatriated production. In 2022 it relaunched Bonux, a laundry detergent that had disappeared from French shelves more than a decade earlier, taking the portfolio to eight brands. The company lifted the share of made-in-France manufacturing across its ranges toward 80 percent by the end of 2023, working with roughly a dozen domestic factories, and widened retail distribution from about 40 percent coverage at founding to more than 60 percent, reaching Intermarche, Leclerc, Monoprix, Carrefour and Casino. It also pursued environmental redesign, introducing recyclable cardboard aerosol caps on O'Cedar that removed some 11 tonnes of plastic. Management has signalled further acquisitions of iconic heritage brands across droguerie, perfumery and hygiene.