Timid progress for diversity in French private equity houses

Study on diversity in private equity, published yearly by trade body Afic and Deloitte, shows that the proportion of women in French fund managers went up by a couple of percentage points in 2013: women account for 41% of all staff at the 107 French GPs surveyed, against 39% in both the 2012 and 2013 studies.

The headline figure still hides a significant imbalance when it comes to the types of roles held. Men are still vastly over-represented when looking purely at investment teams, although a small amount of progress is again visible in the latest study: women account for 19% of staff in investment teams, against 17% in last year's study.

Women also remain an even rarer sight at partner level, although once again a small uptick saw them account for 11% of all partners at the firms surveyed, as opposed to 8% in the 2013 study.

Looking at promotion statistics shows that French private equity houses have made a modicum of effort to address the diversity issue: women accounted for 18% of all promotions in investment teams in the latest study, against 15% in 2012. The proportion of women among those promoted to partner also increased much more significantly, at 14% against none in the 2013 study and 9% the year prior.

Furthermore, nearly a third (30%) of new hires last year were women, a small increase on 2012 (27%).

Despite these hints at progress, the majority of French GPs (54%) still don't have a defined strategy to improve diversity within their teams. This figure is down compared with 2012 (59%), but roughly similar to the levels recorded in 2010 and 2011.

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• Topics
• France
• GPs
• France
• Deloitte
• AFIC