French buyouts resilient amid European decline

According to the Q1 unquote" Barometer, produced in association with Candover, there were only 49 private equity-backed acquisitions completed throughout Europe over the past three months, a decrease of a third on the previous quarter. In the same time frame the total value of the buyouts dropped around two thirds to just EUR2.5bn.

Compared to Q1 2008, itself a fairly modest quarter in comparison to the preceding year, the period recorded drops of 70% and 90% in terms of volume and value respectively. Unsurprisingly, due to the unwillingness of banks to commit to high amounts of debt for leverage transactions, 84% of the buyout deals were located in the lower region of the market. However, the small-cap segment, including deals below the EUR100m mark, still sustained substantial declines, with volume and value recording drops of 36% and 53% respectively from Q4 2008.

While all the European regions saw declines in both volume and value, the French market demonstrated particular resilience over the quarter, dropping by just four deals to 13 in terms of activity and by 42% in value from EUR1.4bn to EUR824m, thus making it the largest European market.

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