Eurazeo, the asset management group specialising in alternative investments listed on Euronext Paris, is targeting private investors. With €35 billion in assets under management at the end of last September, of which 74% in private equity (buyout, venture, growth and secondary), 21% in private debt and 5% in real assets, Eurazeo has already realised € 813m in inflows from wealth management in 2022 for a total of around €4bn and has a target to reach 20% of total assets under management from wealth management by 2027. This was made clear in the presentation to analysts prepared for the group’s Capital Markets Day on 30 November.
And Italian investors, clients of wealth management companies, are in the front row among the next targets of Eurazeo, which not by chance invited a large number of wealth managers to an exclusive wine-tasting evening at Cracco Restaurant in Milan on 23 November. And Christophe Bavière and William Kadouch-Chassaing, co-CEOs of Eurazeo, who welcomed the guests, together with Julien Trezza, director in charge of fundraising for Southern Europe, and Francesco Orsi, managing director of the Italian team, said to BeBeez International: “We are negotiating with some counterparts. The goal is to find an agreement with an Italian wealth manager for whom we can structure an ad hoc product for its clients, for example one that replicates our private debt and secondary private equity strategies”‘.
Eurazeo is currently active in debt with the two Senior Loan and Senior Secured direct lending sub-funds of Eurazeo Investment Manager’s EPD VI fund, which were authorised in May 2022 by the Bank of Italy to provide credit south of the Alps (see here a previous article by BeBeez). The fund’s funding closed at the end of November at €3.2 billion, of which €900 million came from private investors (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
Eurazeo thus continues the great trend of democratising alternative assets, following its numerous successes in other countries in Europe, a trend that has already seen other international private capital giants enter into agreements with Italian private banking networks to place ad hoc products with their clients. Examples include Blackstone with Unicredit, Apollo Global Management with Mediobanca and Carlyle and Lion River with Banca Generali.
That said, Italian companies also remain a target for Eurazeo’s funds. “In total to date we have invested around one billion euros in Italy“, the two co-CEOs said further.
Led in Italy by Emmanuelle Tanguy and Daniele Frati, the group’s private debt fund has closed four direct lending deals in the past year and a half. Last November, in fact, it announced the financing with a unitranche loan of a deal by Azimut Libera Impresa sgr (ALI), on behalf of the private equity funds Azimut Demos 1 and AZ Eltif – Ophelia, which acquired a majority stake in the Milan-based Value Group, a national and European leader in the management of emergencies and operational irregularities (IROP) as well as in the management of crews in the air, sea and rail transport sectors (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
In May, on the other hand, Eurazeo had financed, again with a unitranche loan, the acquisition of control of the general contractor Exa Group by the French private equity fund Montefiore Investments (see here a previous article by BeBeez).In July 2022, the French asset manager’s debt fund had financed the acquisition of a majority stake in Passione Unghie by Trilantic Europe (see here a previous article by BeBeez). Finally, also in the summer of 2022, Eurazeo, through the provision of a PiK loan, supported the acquisition by NB Renaissance (Neuberger Berman group) of Arbo, a leading company in boiler spare parts (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
As far as private equity is concerned, Eurazeo has been present in our country for years, with, for example, the majority stake acquired in 2019 in Efeso Consulting, a consulting firm founded in 1980 in Italy and now present with 35 offices in 26 countries, with a strong presence in Europe, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia. The Italian branch, based in Milan, can count on 45 people out of a global total of around 800 professionals. In 2019, the group had acquired the stake through the Eurazeo PME fund (see here a previous article by BeBeez). At the end of November, the fund sold its stake and reinvested 35% with the Eurazeo Small-mid buyout fund, while another 35% was acquired by the new investor TowerBrook Capital Partners (see here a previous article by BeBeez). Meanwhile last May, Efeso acquired Tsetinis Consulting, a management consulting company focused on performance improvement with strong end-to-end innovation capabilities ranging from product conception and research and development to purchasing management and production (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
It should also be recalled that Eurazeo in 2019 wiped out its stake in Moncler, the down brand listed on the Italian stock exchange in 2013. Eurazeo’s investment in Moncler had lasted eight years, generating an overall gain of EUR 1.4 billion, equal to a multiple of 4.8 times the capital invested and an annual IRR of 43% (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
Now the French asset manager’s goal is to return to investing more consistently in Italian SMEs. Mr. Orsi told BeBeez International: “We are particularly interested in the healthcare & life sciences sectors, insurance services and software services for finance, and more generally all BtoB services supported by a technological component. Our preferred approach is growth acceleration, especially international, organic growth and through build-ups: we are looking for mid-cap companies, leaders in their market segment, to be transformed into global platforms”‘”.
Finally, on the real assets front, in Italy Eurazeo now manages a portfolio of hotels acquired from the French group Accor. In July 2016, in fact, AccorHotels announced the sale of a portfolio of 85 hotels in Europe in the Economy and Midscale segments, for a total consideration of €504 million (see the press release here), under the terms announced at the end of January of the same year (see the press release here). These hotels are combined in Grape Hospitality, a dedicated hotel platform controlled by Eurazeo. But “Eurazeo’s investment focus is on real assets in the broadest sense and therefore not pure real estate, ranging from leisure to infrastructure assets, energy transition and biogas plants, among others. For each strategy we have dedicated teams and funds”, concluded Mr. Orsi. On this issue recall that last March Eurazeo announced the second closing at €420 million of its Eurazeo Transition Infrastructure Fund, thus reaching 80% of its overall funding target (see the press release here).
