Aurel NextStage holds first EUR61m close

Aurel NextStage has held a first close of Aurel NextStage FCPR Champion Small Cap II on EUR61m. The fund has a target of EUR120m. The fund will take over from Aurel's previous fund Aurel NextStage FCPR Champion Small Cap, which is currently 83% invested. Acanthus acted as placement agent for the fund while SJ Berwin provided legal advice.

Investors

All the investors in the previous fund, such as Caisse des Depots, have subscribed to the new fund although some have invested smaller amounts. More than 50% of total subscriptions in the fund will be brought by new LPs. The investors will include a number of financial institutions as well as family offices, including Groupe Artemis, the financial holding of Francois Pinault.

Investments

The fund will seek to invest 80% of the total commitments in France and the remaining 20% throughout the rest of Europe. The fund will focus on small-cap companies which have an enterprise value below EUR30m and revenues between EUR5-100m.Aurel will follow their current strategy of making growth capital investments in the media, retail, services and manufacturing sectors. Investments will focus particularly on internal growth, geographical expansion, build-ups and innovation integrating. The latter encompasses sustainable development, product integration and IT improvement.

Aurel NextStage will avoid auction processes and rely on a proprietary dealflow generated through a network of 1,500 financial advisers. The fund will be invested with little-to-no leverage taking either a minority or majority stake usually as lead investor. The fund will seek to invest tickets of 3-6x the EBIT per deal, representing an average of EUR5m in around 20 companies with investments of up to EUR15m in five companies. Aurel considers 400+ investment opportunities annually and will seek to use the fund to complete investments in between four and eight of these.

People

Gregoire Sentilhes, Herve de Beublain, Jean-David Hass and Keyvan Nilforoushan will manage the fund for Aurel NextStage. Armando D'amico of Acanthus worked as placement agent and Xavier Comails worked for SJ Berwin.

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