Clairfield International’s Post

The countdown to Clairfield’s 20th anniversary continues! With just three weeks until our celebration, we turn an eye to one of our most important client pools – private equity. Private equity is a ubiquitous part of the M&A landscape today, even more so than when Clairfield was founded 20 years ago. More funds have broadened their geographical scope while sharpening their sector focus. Private equity can be a critical lifeline to midmarket companies that need to consolidate to survive. According to Invest Europe, 85% of PE and VC investments were in SMEs. “Clairfield has a robust private equity practice throughout Europe and the world. Our teams have closed more than 650 deals involving private equity since 2010, totalling over USD 20 billion in enterprise value. These figures demonstrate that private equity has become a strategic exit alternative for family-owned and manager-operator-owned companies in addition to traditional multinationals looking to divest non-core assets,” says Frank de Lange, managing partner in the Netherlands. Frank, along with other team members, has special expertise in private equity, having worked in the industry for a number of years. In addition to connecting our clients to private equity counterparties, Clairfield offers comprehensive M&A and financing advisory services to private equity. Our team provides inroads and expertise in local markets and originates investment opportunities through structured processes. We also regularly advise private equity firms on their exits by deploying our international presence to ensure that the most relevant industrial and international buyers are pulled into the sale process. Here’s to another 20 years of international M&A success. Let the countdown continue! #ClairfieldCelebrates #WeAre20 #DefinedByYourSuccess #mergersandacquisitions #privateequity

As Clairfield International our global M&A partnership approaches its 20th birthday party in Paris this month, our countdown celebration turns to private equity. Private Equity is such a critical and valuable segment of the capital markets - accelerating growth, supporting the introduction of good commercial business disciplines and governance, enabling great management teams to do great things - and most importantly being structured to invest in initiatives that may not show a financial return in the first 24 months post investment, but will drive material returns (and therefore add real and substantial shareholder value) in the medium term. They are seeking to invest to build businesses, not gut them and flip them. This medium term return profile is far more difficult for companies to pursue if they are funded by debt or even the public markets where the target return period is much shorter. We have built long term relationships with private equity funds in our markets as we see them as a great partner for many of our clients. Despite what some may fear, we find the people working in private equity are smart, patient, brave and typically delightful to deal with! If you would like to understand more about how private equity works, shoot me a note. And I would love to hear your experiences with private equity - good, bad and amazing! 😀

Private equity firms like EQT Group, Cinven, and Silver Lake are turning to unconventional strategies, buying back companies recently taken public to salvage struggling investments. The challenges of exiting via IPOs are evident as share prices of many 2021 listings plummet. EQT's move to take private German software group SUSE and Cinven's buyback of SYNLAB International highlights a trend gaining momentum. As market dynamics evolve, private equity's creative responses underscore the resilience needed in navigating the complexities of investment exits. https://buff.ly/3usnJ3W #IPO #privateequity #investment

[#SmallMidBuyout] Our Small-mid buyout team is pleased to announce we’ve signed an agreement with EFESO's Partners to welcome TowerBrook Capital Partners L.P. as a reference shareholder in EFESO Management Consultants.   🔎 EFESO is the leading international consulting pure player in operations strategy and performance improvement. Active in 70 countries, EFESO is working side-by-side with its clients to accelerate their transformation towards future-proof operations.                                                                📌 Eurazeo has been supporting the company as a majority shareholder since 2019 and would be reinvesting through its successor fund, under a co-control framework with TowerBrook Capital Partners. EFESO's Partners will consolidate their shareholding in the company.   Over the last five years, EFESO has tripled its size while reinforcing its leading position across operations strategy and performance improvement. EFESO Management Consultants’ teams, Eurazeo and TowerBrook share the ambition of further amplifying the group’s international growth, capitalizing on its pure player positioning and its growing blue chip client base.   🗣 “We are proud of the strong partnership we have created with EFESO’s management team over the last four years, and we are thrilled to renew this collaboration while welcoming TowerBrook onboard. We see significant opportunities for the group in the coming years, in Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific. We believe EFESO perfectly fits the strategy of Eurazeo PME-IV.” states Pierre Meignen, Managing Director – Small-mid buyout at Eurazeo   📰 Read more: https://lnkd.in/etPJuHZ8   #PrivateEquity #buyout #consulting #strategy #performance #internationalisation 

Private Equity firms land in a few different camps when it comes to their level of involvement with portfolio growth and operations.  (we tend to distinguish operations from growth) Prescriptive: Heavily involved in post-acquisition transitions, value creation planning frameworks, and growth & operational performance metrics. Vista Equity Partners probably has one of the more recognizable reputations of a prescriptive model. KKR (Capstone) and Apollo Global Management, Inc. are in this camp as well. (generally most small and mid-cap firms we work with won’t go here, for a number of reasons.) Shepherd: This is the most common amongst mid and small-market firms. They often provide more of a post-acquisition handbook vs. a playbook, along with ongoing operational guidance, nurturing, and support. If anything goes off the rails, instead of screws getting tightened - leadership is more likely to get swapped out. Thinktank: While the port-cos are busy focusing on driving results, the PE firm is helping them to think beyond and stretch their capabilities further.  This brings a significant economy of scale factor along with it, since each port-co that exits leaves a degree of ‘intellectual IP’ behind for the firm to break down and assimilate into future acquisitions. Insight Partners, CVC Capital Partners and Blackstone are excellent examples of this. #privateequity #valuecreation #organicgrowth

It is hard to believe that we are in mid-February already, but reflecting on the past year shows that we've had a tremendously busy time advising our clients across all sectors, with some great deals taking place in what remain 'interesting times'. We’ve seen a wide range of activity across sectors including technology and digital transformation, financial services, energy, industrials, food & drink and healthcare. Stand out deals over the last year include advising on: ◾ the sale of United Living to Apollo's Global Impact Fund ◾ the sale of Fat Face to Next ◾ the sale of 6Point6 to Accenture ◾ the merger of ASDA with EG Group ◾ LDC's investment in Boston Energy ◾ the refinancing of Airedale Chemicals ◾ the investment by Tenzing into Saville Assessment, acting for management ◾ Ryde Studio's fundraising round ◾ the investment in 101 Ways by GCP Already, 2024 is shaping up to be another busy year. We are hugely grateful to all the clients and contacts we have had the privilege of working with, and who trust us to advise on such significant transactions. The deals that we advise on couldn't be done without such an exceptionally talented team all pulling together to make the right kind of impact - a team rightly recognised for their quality of work and collaborative approach by winning the Corporate Law Firm of the Year award at both the 2023 Yorkshire Insider Dealmakers awards and the Business Desk Rainmaker Awards. For all those interested in the nuts and bolts of dealmaking, Addleshaw Goddard has recently produced our annual report on M&A and private equity activity and trends, and you can read our findings here: https://hubs.ly/Q02hGP4l0 #MergersandAquisitions #privateequity #Deals #team

Congratulations to the 10 HUB International clients named to the Top Private Equity Firms of 2024 list! Behind every successful firm is a team of advisors with 20/20 vision. GrowthCap recently announced The Top Private Equity Firms of 2024. Since 2013, they have been gathering information on growth investment firms focused on private companies. To date, they have compiled data which enables them to create a mosaic on each of the leading firms and select the ones who they consider to be the best capital partners for CEOs and management teams. Here is a the full list of award winners: Bain Capital, Hg, American Securities, TA Associates, Thoma Bravo, TPG Growth, Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Trilantic North America, Summit Partners, Oak Hill Capital, Patient Square Capital, Francisco Partners, Vista Equity Partners, Ampersand Capital Partners, Insight Partners, The Vistria Group, General Atlantic, THL Partners, Berkshire Partners, Lee Equity Partners, LLC, Alpine Investors, Accel-KKR, Silversmith Capital Partners, JMI Equity, AE Industrial Partners, LP, Charlesbank Capital Partners, Bregal Sagemount, Brighton Park Capital, Pamlico Capital, H.I.G. Capital, HealthQuest Capital, Serent Capital, Mainsail Partners, One Peak, Sverica Capital Management, Guidepost Growth Equity, Five Elms Capital, and NewSpring. #TeamHUB #privateequity #MnA #capitalmarkets #secondaries Tim Routhieaux Liz Yarger Nathan P. Taphorn Jason Stuke Marc Mingolelli Blake Wiedman Brad Taylor

Add-ons remained an important value driver for private equity firms as economic uncertainty increased in 2022, and the trend line is unlikely to change in the near future. More on why add-ons make sense and considerations for practitioners here: #PrivateEquity #EBITDA

Another private equity firm is heading to the stock market! CVC Capital Partners is preparing to launch its IPO on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange after a year of preparation. The firm aims for a valuation of €15 billion and plans to raise €1.25 billion; it's important to note that CVC manages over €186 billion across a variety of investment strategies. CVC is not alone in its public market ambitions, joining the likes of Blackstone, KKR & Co, Apollo Global Management, EQT, and Bridgepoint. Notably, EQT and Blackstone shares have soared, trading up over 40% in the past 12 months. This approach to fundraising has been notably successful for these private equity firms. Should other firms consider adopting this strategy? #stock #privateequity #investment Financial Times

🚀 Big News in Private Equity! CVC Capital Partners is setting the stage to go public in Amsterdam this Friday, potentially valuing the firm at a whopping $16 billion! 📈 🌍 This isn't just another IPO! If successful, CVC could become the largest private equity firm to debut on the market since TPG in 2022. Plus, they're poised to rank as Europe’s second most valuable PE firm, right behind EQT Group. 💡 Why It Matters: The journey to this IPO hasn't been smooth—delays from geopolitical tensions have pushed back plans, but CVC is now ready to make waves. This listing could set a new benchmark for the industry and is a key indicator of market strength post-challenges. Stay tuned! 🌐 🔗 For more details on the IPO and CVC's market moves: https://lnkd.in/ey3GNxAe