Unquote

School's out ..

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As we enter the holiday season, further good news arrives in the form of the unquote" Q2 Barometer done in association with Candover, which shows the first uptick for European private equity in a year. Unfortunately, France has not performed as well as its neighbours in terms of recovery. Nevertheless, the French market continued to show a certain resilience by remaining second behind the UK in terms of buyout volumes

The Q2 statistics may have been somewhat distorted by a few larger deals, such as the £553m secondary buyout of Candover-backed energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. I believe Q3 may give a more accurate description on where the buyout market stands. This could be good news for our region as, based on this month's performance, French value figures could match or even exceed the European average in Q3.

Overall deal activity this month has certainly been the highest this year. This included a total of seven buyouts (including the significant AtriA SBO of FPEE (see page 35)), the second highest number so far in 2009. To boot, there are still a number of deals in the pipeline, such as 21 Centrale's Arjowiggins deal and Initiative & Finance's MBO of SLAT, both of which are signed and in the midst of finalising financing prior to close. On that positive note, I wish you all a good summer and look forward to a strong start to the next school year.

If you wish to keep up to date over the summer period you can follow France unquote" on twitter at www.twitter.com/franceunquote to receive breaking news, or sign up to the France unquote" newsletter to receive a weekly round-up of all French private equity and venture capital news.

Yours sincerely,

Francois Rowell

Editor, France unquote"

Tel: +44 20 7004 7524

francois.rowell@incisivemedia.com.

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