Ardian raises latest buyout platform at €7.5Bn to invest in high-potential businesses

Paris, April 12th, 2021- Ardian, a world leading private investment house, today announces it has raised €6.5 billion for its latest buyout fund, Ardian Buyout Fund VII. Ardian has raised an additional €1 billion via co-investments, which has extended the capacity of the platform to a total of €7.5 billion. The fund significantly surpassed the size of its predecessor, an increase of 60%, with long-term and new investors alike backing Ardian Buyout’s strategy of supporting ambitious management teams to turn regional champions into global leaders in niche markets. The investment strategy is focused on four core sectors of expertise: healthcare, the food value chain, technology and services. The approach encompasses three transverse themes, namely: buy & build, sustainable buyout, tech-enabled & digital solutions.

Ardian Buyout, which has over 52 investment professionals operating across seven offices, will invest the fund in line with its growth-oriented established strategy of backing growing European businesses with an enterprise value of up to €2bn. The fund will also target North American businesses for up to 10% of its size.

Ardian Buyout Fund VII attracted a global and diverse investor base, composed of 221 institutional and private investors, from 27 countries. Approximately a quarter of the fund’s previous investors represent over half of the total amount raised, substantiating the trust and loyalty established by the team. In addition, the fund composition is shifting and broadening. The HNWI investor category now distinctively make up nearly one tenth of the funds raised (8%).

Philippe Poletti, Member of the Executive Committee and Head of Ardian Buyout, said: “The success of our latest fundraise clearly demonstrates the continued trust in our approach by our investors. We are proud to have surpassed our target in such an extraordinary time. The sizable increase clearly shows the efficacy of our investment strategy, which is now truly hardship tested – and one which has a proven track record of six generations.

“Importantly, our investments have shown significant resilience across the past year, and we continue to see compelling opportunities in the market. Our focus on businesses with strong fundamentals in resilient sectors means we are well-positioned to invest in the next generation of global champions. In this unusual time, our ability to offer global investors access to growth-focused and sustainable investments is more compelling than ever before.”
 
Ardian has already committed 50% of the seventh-generation fund across eleven investments. The most recent transactions include Inovie (Medical Laboratory Testing, France), Angus (Specialty additives focused in Life Sciences and Personal Care, USA), AD Education (Creative Arts Education Platform, France) Jakala (Digital Marketing, Italy) and GBA (Food & Environmental Testing, Germany).

Over the past decade, Ardian has incorporated sustainability at the core of company transformation in order to shape high-performing and resilient business models providing measurable impacts on society and the planet. In the past year, the company has introduced a more refined and measured Sustainable Buyout Methodology, which aims to help today’s companies become the companies of the future – we see this as an important societal step and increasingly a clear proxy for company performance. The approach is focused on companies’ ability to transform themselves into more sustainable and more resilient businesses, which includes the ability to improve their positive impact while also reducing their negative impact.

In late 2020, Ardian also strengthened its Buyout team with the appointment of five new Managing Directors, with two external recruits, Scarlett Omar Broca in France and Heiko Geissler in Germany.