The year 2023 was a turbulent year for private equity players, with a decreasing number of operations and amounts raised, according to the consulting firm Bain & Company.
The year 2023 has been complicated in France for management companies, explained Guillaume Tobler, a partner specializing in this sector, at a press conference on Monday.
The number of operations of significant size was 17 last year, the lowest since 2019, underlines the Bain & Company study, based on internal data but also from data providers Preqin and Dealogic .
There was no mega operation in France last year, underlined Mr. Tobler.
The value of the five largest transactions completed in 2023, including for example the sale of the insurance broker April by CVC KKR, painfully exceeds 6 billion dollars (5.5 billion euros), half as much as in 2022.
At 36 billion dollars (33.2 billion euros), the amounts raised by the funds mainly from institutional investors (insurers, asset managers, pension funds, etc.) are also down, returning to their 2018 level. .
The fall is marked for the financing of infrastructure projects but the amount holds up well for strategies for purchasing companies with leverage (leveraged buy-out, or LBO), thanks to two very significant raises from PAI Partners (7.1 billion euros) and Archimed (3.5 billion euros), the latter being focused on the health sector.
The French champion of private equity, Ardian, raised 7.5 billion euros in 2021 for its buy-out fund. Its competitor Astorg is aiming for 4.5 billion euros but only raised 4 billion last summer.