Italy shines in January thanks to CVC mega-buyout

Top 5 most active countries in January 2013

Anneken Tappe
21 February 2013

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Italy topped Europe's private equity value charts in January, while the UK recorded the most deals, showing both familiar names and outliers starting 2013 on a high.

CVC's massive buyout of business intelligence provider Cerved – valued at €1.13bn – gave Italy a competitive edge compared to all other European countries, catapulting the country to the top spot in value terms.

Even the UK, historically the biggest European private equity market and number one in terms of deals completed in January, only achieved around half of Italy's value benchmark, amounting to around €650m.

The first month of 2013 showed the usual suspects of Great Britain, France and Germany starting the year on an active note, particularly in the mid-market. Switzerland, which only recorded five deals that month, saw a relatively high €416m overall value thanks to the buyout of specialty chemicals firm Clariant by SK Capital Partners.

The Cerved transaction shows how ready some of Europe's larger private equity houses are to embrace quality – and more importantly niche – assets in the otherwise struggling Southern European markets.