Equistone's de Blignières to raise €300m vehicle

Greg Gille
@unquotenews
18 April 2013

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Equistone senior partner Gonzague de Blignières is looking to raise €300m for Raise Capital, a new evergreen structure designed to provide growth capital to French SMEs.

Officially announcing his new side project at the annual Afic Conference in Paris yesterday, de Blignières added that the investment company will be created jointly with a foundation aiming to foster entrepreneurship in France, which will receive 10% of the profits from the vehicle's investments.

Raise Capital will only invest to secure minority stakes in SMEs, with average equity tickets in the region of €20m.

"Growth capital has been slightly left aside recently, not by fund managers but by investors. Of course, we won't necessarily be able to offer the same returns as LBO funds since the investments won't be leveraged – but I want to build something geared for the long term and that will be able to attract private investors," said de Blignières.

De Blignières joined Equistone (then the private equity arm of Barclays) in 1992 to help launch the firm's French business, after a stint at Charterhouse. He headed Equistone's Paris office until 2011, when he handed over the reins to managing partner Guillaume Jacqueau as part of the firm's spin-off from Barclays. He remains chairman of the supervisory board of Equistone France.