OREANDA-NEWS. September 11, 2015. ENGIE, through its subsidiary Cofely Axima, a leader in HVAC, refrigeration, and fire protection technology in France, is acquiring Nexilis, a major player in HVAC technology in southeastern France. The merger gives Cofely Axima a stronger presence in the greater Mediterranean arc while expanding the expertise available to Nexilis to meet the new challenges of the energy transition.

Though the Nexilis group itself was formed in 2000, it draws on more than 50 years of experience from its founding company Crudeli, which initially specialized in plumbing before moving into HVAC. Nexilis is a leader in its market in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA) and Languedoc-Roussillon regions of France as well as in Corsica. Today, Nexilis is made up of 11 companies with a total of 362 employees and revenue of €75 million in 2014. This makes Cofely Axima, also present in the PACA region, the main HVAC player in southeastern France and feeds the momentum it has gained in recent years, with 7,000 employees and €1.2 billion in revenue generated in France and abroad in 2014.

Deepening our expertise to respond to the energy transition

“This acquisition is an important milestone in the development of Cofely Axima. We live in exciting times; a new era for energy is underway. Our challenge is to help our customers benefit from the energy transition. This is why we are consolidating our position in southeastern France, to stay in touch with the challenges our customers face and provide them with increasingly innovative, competitive solutions. With Nexilis, we also opted to acquire a company with a similar culture, since we share the same corporate vision focused on innovation and cohesive teams,” explains Jean-Pascal de Peretti, CEO of Cofely Axima.

“Our merger with Cofely Axima is a logical business decision that also supports our desire to gain more expertise in this rapidly changing market, particularly when it comes to the challenges of the energy transition. It is also an accelerator for our group, part of a long-term approach based on shared human values and entrepreneurial spirit,” adds Gilles Gaudin, Chairman of the Nexilis group.

Some of the latest air conditioning projects by Cofely Axima and Nexilis are the designer outlets at Miramas, the Arena in Aix-en-Provence, the Marseille University Hospital, Tour Odéon, Tour Marseillaise, Hôtel de Paris in Monaco, the Occitane in Manosque, the ARENA and the Saint-Roch clinic in Montpellier and the Roman culture museum in Nîmes. The two companies are now united to pursue their development in support of future projects in southeastern France.