Newcomer Essling poaches Amundi funds-of-funds team

Greg Gille
06 September 2017

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Essling Capital, a spinout of Massena Partners, has recruited the funds-of-funds team of limited partner Amundi Private Equity, and will launch its first vehicle shortly.

The team is led by Jean-Yves Lagache and includes Nizar Chayeb as investment director, and senior investment managers Cédric Cabarrus and Sandra Saad. Having worked for 10 years at Amundi, the new team will manage investment vehicles and
specialised mandates, mainly in private equity and private debt.

Essling now counts 17 investment professionals managing €1bn. It will launch its first fund-of-funds in the coming weeks, adding to its existing co-investment, real estate and private debt products.

The private equity team of French asset management firm Massena span out and rebranded as Essling Capital in April this year. The new entity was set up and is owned by Massena founder Frank Noël-Vandenberghe and Michele Mezzarobba, who joined Massena in 2015 as a partner to head up the firm's non-listed activities. Noël-Vandenberghe is a partner in the new entity, while Mezzarobba is president.

Private equity was a significant part of Massena's strategy prior to the spin-out, accounting for around €1bn of the firm's €2bn in assets under management. This portfolio is now managed by Essling, which at the time of the spin-out aimed to double these assets under management within the next two years.

Speaking to unquote" in April, Mezzarobba said that while commercialising its first co-investment fund in 2016, the private equity team was encouraged to spin out to avoid conflicts of interest between wealth management firm Massena and investors from the banking and institutional spaces.

Massena will remain a cornerstone investor in Essling's products, unquote" understood at the time of the spin-out.

Amundi has invested in a number of European private equity funds in recent years – most recently TDR Capital IV, 17Capital Fund 4 and IK VIII Fund among others, according to unquote" data. As of the end of 2015, the firm had €5bn in assets under management and was invested in more than 200 funds in Europe.

It remains unclear how its current fund-of-funds offering will be managed. Amundi could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.