Andera Partners has closed Winch Capital 4, a mid-cap fund, surpassing its initial target of 350 million euros. In its first fundraising as an independent management company, Andera Partners has confirmed its position as a key player in the financing of SMEs and mid-cap companies in France and in Europe.
Paris, 18 July 2018 – After successfully completing the recent rounds of financing for Cabestan Capital 2, ActoMezz 3 and BioDiscovery 5, Andera Partners is pursuing the renewal of all of its funds by closing the 1st round of financing for WINCH Capital 4, intended for financing SMEs and mid-caps primarily in France and in Italy.
This first closing comes only 3 months after the management company becoming independent of its historical shareholder, the Edmond de Rothschild group, and is a vivid display of investors’ renewed trust in WINCH Capital funds. The underwriters present in the previous funds, including EIF, BPI France, Sogecap, BNP Paribas Cardif, UMR or even MACSF took stakes that were in fact significantly higher than those in the previous fund, while new investors are entering the fund for this round of fundraising. Having raised more than 360 million euros, the fund has now surpassed its initial target of €350m and the size of the previous WINCH Capital 3 fund (€300m). The final closing should be announced during the second half of the year.
“The WINCH Capital team has carried out a remarkably successful fundraising, explains Pierre-Yves Poirier, managing director at Andera Partners and one of 5 WINCH Capital partners. It is also extremely encouraging for all of the Andera Partners as they strive to reach their growth objectives. ”
The success of this fundraising clearly rewards the performance of the team of 5 partners present on the French market for nearly 20 years, Sylvain Charignon, Antoine Le Bourgeois, François-Xavier Mauron, Pierre-Yves Poirier and Laurent Tourtois. The mission of the WINCH Capital funds is to provide support to the executives-shareholders of growth companies to allow them to scale up quickly. This strategy applies to SMEs/mid-caps of from €30m to €300m in which WINCH Capital has taken either minority or majority stakes, and in which it is investing between €12m and €40m, with the capacity to structure additional rounds of financing of up to €80m. The WINCH Capital funds primarily invest in France, as well as in Italy, with its team based in Milan, and occasionally in other European countries.
The team has conducted some 80 investments since its creation and the companies to which it provides support have made over 110 acquisitions over the last 10 years, with one-fourth of them made abroad. In parallel with this fundraising, several WINCH Capital transactions have been making headlines over the past months, including:
- The sale of its stake in SFAM, French and European leader in affinity insurance brokerage;
- Divestment of its stake in Exclusive Group, a distributor of added value IT security solutions; and
- The acquisition through carve-out of the French, English and American ticketing solutions businesses (design, installation and maintenance) for off-road car parks of the American group, Conduent, Inc. Announced in April, the operation was conducted at the beginning of July and closed the investment period for WINCH Capital fund 3.
In the coming weeks, the WINCH Capital 4 fund will be finalising its first investment by partnering with management of the Skill & You group, the French leader in distance learning.
The WINCH Capital team further strengthened its ranks with the arrival of Vincent Bazzocchi (ESCP Europe ; EdRCP, Bridgepoint, Groupe M6) and Francesco Gonzaga (Bocconi; Goldman Sachs, GIC) as Senior Investment Managers and Quentin Tarasconi (HEC Paris ; EdRCF, PAI Partners, Ardian) as Analyst.