Mezzanine provider of the year

By
Brad Meikle
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Winner: Intermediate Capital Group

Highly commended: Indigo Capital

Highly commended: Pricoa Capital

In making the selections for this award a decision was made to look at dedicated mezzanine players rather than banks, which often offer mezzanine as part of their debt tool kit, rather than out of a commitment to mezzanine as a financing instrument.

Intermediate Capital Group is the winner of evcj’s year 2000 Mezzanine provider of the year award. Intermediate Capital Group’s Paris team had a notable year for buyouts. That team provided mezzanine finance on a five buyouts and on four of those deals it led. The five deals were De Dietrich (Ff3.7 billion), Frans Bonhomme (Ff2.55 billion), HMY (Ff1.9 billion), Saveurs (Ff360 million) and MGE Finance SAS (Ff2.71 billion.) The firm also supported two buyouts in the UK market.

Highly commended is Indigo Capital. Having moved out of Dresdner Bank in 1999, where it operated under the name of Kleinwort Benson Mezzanine Capital, and raised its first independent fund of €250 million, Indigo Capital made its mark on the European mezzanine landscape in 2000. Transactions include the management buyout of Davenham Group from The Bank of NT Butterfield & Son. This was a £60 million buyout where Dunedin Capital Partners led the equity financing. Also, Indigo Capital led the CHF20 million management buyout of ADTCOM Network Computing AG, a leading Swiss pan-European value added distributor and supplier of thin client technology.

Highly commended is Pricoa Capital. In March it supported a $6 million funding round for Buyonet International. Pricoa, which committed $5 million, was joined by Investment AB Bure, which committed the balance. The following month Pricoa joined Apax in a third round of financing for Healy Hudson. The merger of a private equity backed merger between two European intellectual property companies warranted a €15 million mezzanine investment in September. In August the firm committed €10 million to the management buy-in of Irish company Waterford Stanley.