AXA PE kicks it up a gear in 2012

Greg Gille
20 August 2012

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AXA Private Equity (AXA PE) may have mainly attracted attention last year with the start of its spin-off from French insurer AXA, but the firm is letting its deal teams do the talking in 2012. Greg Gille reports

AXA Private Equity has completed a whopping 11 transactions since January, including the €850m buyout of Fives from Charterhouse in France.

The firm's busy year has also been fruitful on the exit side, with June's sale of its 21% stake – jointly held with Pragma Capital – in French public transport operator Keolis to rail operator SNCF, an existing investor in the business. A month later, AXA PE partially exited Germany-based home shopping group HSE24 in a €650m SBO to Providence Equity, keeping a 15% stake in the business.

Jack of all trades
This year also saw AXA PE further delve into unitranche – a type of financing it had already focused on throughout the second half of 2011 – on the SBO of Kermel by Qualium, one of the very few buyouts that took place in France this summer.

Finally, the firm managed to secure $7.1bn for its secondaries fund-of-funds and $900m for its primary investment fund-of-funds in mid-June. It followed up on this announcement by acquiring a portfolio of 11 private equity fund investments and related unfunded commitments from OMERS Private Equity, keeping alive the streak of large secondaries purchases it started last year.

Managing director Dominique Gaillard attributes this year's hectic activity to the success of the firm's "one-stop-shop" approach, but also to months of groundwork coming to fruition: "Being active in all segments of the private equity market – from growth capital to LBOs, secondaries and private debt – enabled us to make the most of all available opportunities. But this is also the result of a proactive approach, especially on the direct funds side: our teams really focused on either sourcing proprietary dealflow, or approaching targets sufficiently ahead of time to end up in very limited auction processes."

He adds that AXA PE is aiming to keep the deals rolling in in the autumn: "We have kept busy throughout the summer and are currently in exclusive talks on a few deals, both on the equity and private debt sides. We may also announce another exit in the coming weeks."

This sudden acceleration in deal-making activity could augur upcoming fundraising efforts for AXA PE – its current mid-market fund, AXA LBO Fund IV, closed on €1.6bn in 2008 – although the firm won't comment on its plans for the time being. Meanwhile the sale process of the management company, initiated by AXA in September last year, seems to be going along at a leisurely pace. No further developments have come to light since the spring, with Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC still tipped as likely buyers.