General Atlantic hires Axa veteran de Castries as Europe chair

Henri de Castries of General Atlantic — Henri de Castries, General Atlantic

Amedeo Goria
12 September 2017

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Private Equity firm General Atlantic has hired Henri de Castries as special adviser and chair for its European business.

In his new role, de Castries will advise the team in evaluating investment opportunities in the region and assisting in value creation across the firm's existing portfolio.

De Castries joins General Atlantic from Axa Group, where he worked as chair and CEO for 27 years. During his career at Axa, he worked on several M&A transactions. Prior to that, he worked at the French Treasury, where he oversaw foreign exchange markets and balance of payments. During France's presidential election campaign in May this year, he worked as senior adviser alongside Republican party candidate François Fillon.

De Castries currently serves as chair of French thinktank Institut Montaigne and as a non-executive director of HSBC Group, Nestlé and the French National Foundation for Political Science.

The announcement follows two recent transactions for the GP's EMEA team: a €60m series-C funding round for French DIY website ManoMano alongside Partech Ventures, Piton Capital and BPI France, and a €35m series-B round for Barcelona-based conversational data collection platform Typereform.