Atria Capital raises 300m

AtriA Capital Partenaires, a French middle market LBO player, closed its third LBO fund with €300m in commitments. These assets were raised in 3 months and are well above the fund’s initial target of €250m. The investor base of predecessor funds AtriA I and AtriA II has been enlarged by new, international institutions such as Altius Associates, CalSTRS, LGT and Pantheon Ventures. Overall, 50% of these institutional commitments were raised from France, 35% from Europe and 15% from North America.

The group reserved, as in its two predecessor funds, 10% of AtriA III commitments to thirty entrepreneurs, half of whom are new and include a large number of CEOs of divested portfolio companies of AtriA I. Overall, AtriA’s Club des Entrepreneurs, launched in 2000, gathers over 50 corporate leaders from all regions of the country and represents the main sectors of the French economy.

The investment policy of AtriA Capital Partenaires will remain unchanged with AtriA III: to sponsor entrepreneurs leading growing French middle market companies with an enterprise value ranging from €20 to €200 million, in leveraged buyout transactions. The AtriA team does not interfere with the day-to-day management of portfolio companies.This investment policy has enabled AtriA Capital Partenaires to generate net returns to its limited partners in excess of 20% since the firm’s inception.

At the beginning of this new chapter, the AtriA team led by Dominique Oger has enhanced its organisation with the appointments of Patrick Bertiaux, Member of the Management Board, as CEO; of Thibaut de Chassey, partner, as member of the management board; and of Edouard Thomazeau, investment director, who joins the partnership alongside Louis-Eric Michel-Weltert, François Poupée and Fabien Sultan who is also company secretary.

Dominique Oger, chairman of the management board of AtriA Capital Partenaires, said: “ I am glad to report that both institutional investors – through the successful, fast fund-raising of AtriA III – and corporate leaders – through the renewal of our Club des Entrepreneurs – have confirmed the successful achievement of AtriA’s main strategic goal: the creation of a long-term, leading player in the French middle-market LBO segment.”