Financial Sponsor Series 2021 - France | Mergermarket Group Ltd | 11 February 2021 | Live

Starting with a strong 1Q20, France M&A remained low in the third quarter, recording less than EUR 10bn in both Q2 (EUR 5.2bn, 121 deals) and Q3 (EUR 7bn, 137 deals), while the deal count was slightly above half of the quarterly average seen throughout 2019 (237 deals). In comparison, from 2010 to 2019 France had seen an average of EUR 16.7bn changing hands across 200 deals per quarter.

The acquisition from private equity firms KKR and Ardian’s EUR 3.3bn of Elsan announced in July, represented the second largest European buyout during Q3, as well the country’s largest buyout targeting the medical sector. This, together with the buyout of Colisee in late September, illustrates the continued appeal of healthcare services providers to GPs across Europe.

In the debt markets, Apollo and Ardian are teaming up to finance Aquiline’s acquisition of Dutch insurance broker Quintes. The debt package is at the higher end of offers with roughly 5.5x leverage based on EUR 16m adjusted EBITDA. That implies around EUR 88m of drawn debt.

Alongside a panel of bank and fund lenders, we’ll ask about their pipelines.

Talking points include:

• How do sponsors see the market evolving into 2021?
• What have been the approaches of lenders to corporate stress?
• What are the attitudes of lenders and sponsors to French tourism and travel?