After Spain in 2016 and Germany in 2017, the French private debt and mezzanine operator Capzanine opens in Italy too, in Milan (see the press release here). The office will be led by Philippe Minard, supported by Riccardo Dore and Tommaso Galletta, all coming from Emisys Capital sgr.
The latter, founded in October 2013 by the merger of the teams of the two specialized mezzanine finance operators, AF Mezzanine and Mezzanove Capital (see here a previous post by BeBeez), launched the Emisys fund, which today no longer owns any shareholding in portfolio, after having sold its latest investment in the Italian camping village leader Club del Sole to the NB Aurora listed investment vehicle last November (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Depending on the circumstances, Capzanine invests as a majority or minority shareholder and/or as a private debt investor (mezzanine, unitranche, senior debt), in small and medium Italian non-capitalized companies, with an enterprise value from 30 to 400 million euros. The Italian team will focus on investments in Italian SMEs and on transalpine development projects of the fund’s French, Spanish and German companies.
Capzanine is a trade name: the real name of the management company is Atalante sas. Founded in 2004, Capzanine is supported by the French insurance giant Axa, which since 2005 has been a shareholder of the management company and is one of the main investors in the Capzanine funds, together with Eurazeo. In recent days Axa has bought from Eurazeo its 22% stake in Atalante (see the press release here) and has reached 46%, with the remaining 54% still being controlled by the Capzanine management team, as it was already been announced in January 2019 (see the press release here).
Capzanine now has around 2.5 billion in assets under management. In particular, it manages the Capzanine, Capzanine II, Capzanine III and Capzanine IV funds, which have raised 203 million, 325 million, 350 million and 350 million euros in 2005, 2008, 2013 and 2016 respectively. At the beginning of 2018, Capzine also launched the Capzanine Situations Spéciales fund (see the press release here) with a target of 250-300 million euros.
Finally, the French company set up the ArteMid joint venture with Amiral Gestion. The jv manages the Artemid Corporate Loan funds. The Artemid funds, which at the date of mid-April 2018 had raised 758 million euros, provide direct lending to French companies, alongside the bank credit lines.
The last Capzanine fund has already carried out four deals in Spain in the last two years and one in Italy in January 2018, when it joined Cerea Capital in the acquisition from PM & Partners sgr and from the managers of Monviso spa, the Italian manufacturer of bakery products (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
