The Private Equity Market

Private Equity market has been experiencing four to five years an unprecedented dynamism. The figures for 2006 speak for themselves:

* 71% growth in business volume in 2006
* 71 billion of funds raised in 2006 or 22% over 2005
* 208 LBOs carried out in France in 2006, with two thirds of companies less than 100M € turnover,
* 1.5 million people now work for a company in France came under LBO, 9 to 10% of private sector employees,

The trend of 2007 is equally positive, as evidenced by recent events in the industry.


Private equity is one of the five main areas of activity of the market says private equity (intervention in the capital of unlisted companies generally to achieve horizon 3-10 years of strong capital gains), other activities are:

* Seed capital (or seed money) which represents the first stage since it is for investment projects still in its infancy, funded in order to develop a technology still in R & D to enable to go forward to a potential market,
* Venture Capital, also known as the Venture Capital (VC), which translates into a capital in innovative companies, being in the early stages of development and which have a high growth potential but also a very high risk,
* Capital reversal of investing in troubled companies to put in place a recovery plan.

The Private Equity, also known financing LBO (Leverage Buy-Out) groups for its funding and leveraged acquisitions of target companies, usually mature companies with strong growth potential. LBO funds - often associated with managers of the target - develop installation and operation of acquisition of the company with the objective to remain the capital of the latter ideally between 5 and 10 years while significantly improving the result of the business recovery. The solutions for output or funds are then variables: initial public offering; taken over by another fund, an industrial sale...