Buyout rankings: who invested the most in Europe in Q1 2021?

Greg Gille
16 April 2021

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Unquote tallies the top 10 most active GPs across the European buyout space in the first quarter

The European buyout market remained particularly busy in the first quarter of 2021, as improved market conditions and a pent-up appetite to both invest and divest spurred deal-doing. According to Unquote Data, Europe was home to 344 buyouts valued at an estimated aggregate of €71.8bn.

The volume figure is just shy of the record 376 deals announced in Q4 2020, but still well above the average 280 buyouts inked on a quarterly basis in the past three years.

Meanwhile, the aggregate enterprise value of Q1 deals is the largest ever recorded by Unquote in a single quarter, boosted by a number of mega-deals. These included EQT agreeing to acquire France-based medical diagnostics business Cerba HealthCare from Partners Group for around €4.5bn; Bain and Cinven buying Lonza Specialty Ingredients for €3.9bn; Blackstone agreeing to buy UK-based holiday resort company Bourne Leisure for a reported £3bn; and CVC inking a €2.5bn deal for Danish heavy building materials distributor Stark Group.

Methodology: the following tables comprise buyout deals (structured through a newco) of Europe-headquartered companies, where the sponsor secured a controlling interest, and announced between January and March 2021. In the volume ranking table, GPs with the same volume of deals were sorted by the aggregate value of these investments, in descending order. Aggregate values are based on both publicly disclosed and estimated deal valuations. All data is sourced from Unquote Data.

Top 10 most active GPs by number of investments

Click on the GP's name to access their full profile on Unquote Data, including a list of their recent deals.

Sponsor	No. of deals	Aggregate value of deals (€m)
CVC Capital Partners	4	5,476
Astorg	4	2,586
TA Associates	4	2,542
Intermediate Capital Group	4	768
IK Investment Partners	4	719
Aurelius Equity Opportunities	4	656
Bridgepoint	4	523
Apax Partners	3	2,244
Nordic Capital	3	2,060
Carlyle Group	3	1,376

Note: a number of GPs were tied on three transactions each, before the sorting by aggregate value was applied. Other firms that inked three buyout deals across the period include Inflexion Private Equity, Equistone, Siparex Group, Initiative & Finances and H2 Equity Partners.

Top 10 most active GPs by aggregate value of investments

Click on the GP's name to access their full profile on Unquote Data, including a list of their recent deals.

Sponsor	No. of deals	Aggregate value of deals (€m)
CVC Capital Partners	4	5,476
EQT	2	4,630
Blackstone Group	2	4,139
KPS Capital Partners	2	3,630
Partners Group	2	2,650
Astorg	4	2,586
L Catterton Europe	2	2,580
TA Associates	4	2,542
Apax Partners	3	2,244
Nordic Capital	3	2,060