M&A 2025 review: after two years of strong nominal growth driven by post-Covid catch-up and inflationary conditions, the cleaning sector completed in 2025 a normalization cycle that began in 2023. In France, the cleaning, hygiene, and associated services industry generates €21B in revenue, employs nearly 600,000 people, and comprises about 15,000 companies. While the sector is still mostly composed of SMEs, economic concentration is increasing: the top 50 players alone generate €8.1B, representing 43% of total sector revenue.
Activity remained dynamic in 2024, growing +4.3%, but showed a clear slowdown compared to the exceptional increases of +8.9% in 2021 and +7.5% in 2022. This deceleration reflects the end of mechanical price adjustments and the entry into a tighter economic environment, with stricter budget trade-offs among clients.
In this context, profitability pressures intensified. The sector faces a mismatch between rising labor costs and the ability to adjust prices in a structurally competitive market. Available 2025 indicators confirm this shift: in Q1, only 54% of executives felt confident, 44% of companies reported decreased profitability in 2024, and nearly 80% indicated they could not fully pass on cost increases to prices.
For 2025, studies estimated that revenue growth in corporate cleaning would be limited to around +3.5%, due to combined macroeconomic slowdown and increasing margin pressures.
Routine cleaning remains the core of activity, representing over 80% of the corporate cleaning market. This share drops to around 60% when considering a broader perimeter including associated services. In both cases, these recurring services continue to act as a stabilizer, supported by structural factors such as the growth of collective housing. Conversely, rationalization of office space and declining outsourced office demand weighed on the office cleaning segment in 2025.
In the medium term, forecasts point to moderate but sustainable growth. The sector is expected to continue on this trajectory through 2026–2027 without returning to post-Covid exceptional levels, in a market increasingly driven by higher-value services, specialization (industry, healthcare, bio-cleaning), and scale effects linked to the sector’s gradual structuring.
Sector Trends
Five years after the health crisis, cleaning remains a key factor in health and quality of life. More than two-thirds of French citizens report increased awareness of the role of cleaning companies and staff, and 96% consider cleanliness and hygiene indispensable in public spaces. Within companies, cleanliness is even the top workplace priority (74%), far ahead of lighting (31%) and noise levels (30%).
This heightened expectation is accompanied by a structural outsourcing trend. In 2024, 72% of services were outsourced (28% internalized), with outsourced services expected to reach 76% by 2029, driven by the search for flexibility and more specialized services. Within this broader perimeter, routine cleaning remains dominant (60% of the market), while specialized cleaning already accounts for 33%, reflecting the rising demand for higher-value services.
Competitive pressures are pushing players to accelerate multiservice diversification and differentiation. A Xerfi study highlights that associated services (reception, maintenance, waste management, landscaping, etc.) represent approximately €1.5B, or nearly 10% of cleaning company activity, and are a key lever for securing contracts. This transformation aligns with growing ESG expectations: 54% of companies report engagement on these topics, and the use of ecolabel-certified products has increased (+22% between 2017 and 2023).
Key Challenges Moving Forward
By 2026, the sector’s growth is expected to be more “disciplined,” with value creation relying primarily on companies’ ability to finance rising requirements (quality, organization, ESG, etc.) within a still highly constrained contractual framework. The market is projected to continue growing, with MSI Reports anticipating +8% between 2025 and 2029, following +12.1% growth between 2019 and 2024.
A central issue remains contract sustainability, particularly in public procurement, which accounts for 25% of sector revenue and issues nearly 1,900 tenders annually. Evaluation remains highly price-sensitive (44% price / 47% technical / 9% sustainability on average), making the search for genuinely fundable “best-value” solutions crucial, especially as the CAP (Fare Propreté) systematically reviews more than half of open procedures and can amend tender specifications.
Sustainability also depends on delivering promised services in a labor-intensive sector: nearly 600,000 employees, or more than 1 in 35 in the commercial sector. HR challenges are structural, with 24% of employees aged 55+ and 28% of foreign nationality, making attractiveness, training, and staff retention key performance factors.
These challenges occur in a rapidly structuring market: average company age is 6.6 years, with only 25% older than 10 years. The threshold for critical size has nearly doubled over the past five years to enter the top 50. Capacity to invest (organization, HR, quality, ESG) is thus decisive despite margin constraints.
2025 M&A Review
In 2025, external growth remained a major lever in the cleaning sector. In a highly competitive market, buyers sought to accelerate scale, strengthen territorial coverage, integrate specialized skills, and expand into complementary services.
For large groups, 2025 featured high-impact structuring operations. Samsic finalized the merger with Pro Impec to strengthen customer proximity and national coverage of soft services. Complementarily, the group sold its Île-de-France urban cleaning activities to Sepur, including contracts and teams.
In another segment, Elior Group (via Elior Santé) acquired Nouvelle Victoria to strengthen local presence and develop a portfolio more exposed to resilient sectors like healthcare.
Beyond these emblematic deals, 2025 confirmed active “platform-based” consolidation led by regional groups pursuing build-ups. NSI Groupe multiplied acquisitions, including JLP Services and Thiebat to strengthen capabilities, and expanded westward via GPNI, its third acquisition in 2025.
Similarly, EMN was very active: after acquiring Danicott Propreté to strengthen Azur Net Poitou, it completed multiple acquisitions in Île-de-France and Lyon (Morel Entretien Immeubles, MP Rea, Simeli), then announced Solynet, its fifth external growth deal in 2025 (25th since creation), illustrating a deliberate strategy of integrating local players to expand territorial coverage.
On more targeted scopes, Engelis continued development with the acquisition of Sol-Net, and Île-de-France players like Awen Services used acquisitions (including business assets) to densify their network and broaden their service offerings.
Consolidation also extended to the hygiene/distribution ecosystem: Paredes-Orapi acquired Toussaint (France and Luxembourg) to strengthen European positioning. In trading, CMC Expansion acquired Haltys to consolidate regional positioning and ultracleaning expertise. Investor-backed platforms continued to pursue build-ups, e.g., GSF (TowerBrook-backed) welcomed Pénélope to expand its scope.
Expert Insight – Eric Laune on 2026
“In 2026, the cleaning market should continue moving toward platform-based consolidation, with targeted acquisitions strengthening territorial coverage and specialized skills. Players combining local expertise, service diversification, and regional scale will have a strategic window to create value and stand out in a competitive market.”
2026 has already begun with another transaction: AURIS Finance supported the sale of RM Propreté to NSI Groupe, demonstrating continued active build-up strategies in the sector.
Bibliography
Monde de la Propreté. (2025). Chiffres clés 2025 : chiffres clés & actions prioritaires.
Xerfi. (2025, 8 September). Les services de nettoyage aux entreprises (Ref. 25SAE11).
Services Propreté. Actualités & opérations en 2025.
