Sienna Private Equity Launches €200m Mid-Market European Buyout Fund

Sienna Investment Managers’ private equity team has launched a mid-market European buyout fund, Citywire can reveal.

The team of six was spun off from Oaktree Capital Management and joined Sienna IM, which is owned by Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL), an investment holding company, which has investments in companies including Adidas, Pernod Ricard and Voodoo.

GBL has seeded the new fund with €200m in capital and the team will now look to bring in third-party investors.

Vincent Catherine and Hugo d’Avout d’Auerstaedt launched Sienna Private Equity after leaving Oaktree in June 2022. They are based in Paris but long term the private equity team’s ambition is to expand to other major European markets.

The strategy, which will adopt a value-driven approach, will target investments that are ‘off the beaten track’ and generally outside of the traditional auction processes.

It will look for companies in business services, media and leisure, healthcare, industrials and operational real estate.

The team has already made two investments, including in financial advisory firm Eight Advisory. Its second investment was a controlling stake in French group ECT, focused on the upcycling of inert soils.

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Catherine said the team is focused on relative value and will not invest in broken businesses even though they may be sold at large discounts.

He added that they can work on resolving shareholder conflicts or help with transition at family-owned businesses, but they do not fix businesses that are fundamentally broken. The fund will have about seven to nine holdings.

‘We are really cautious about the macro environment,’ he said. ‘It is difficult to have good visibility and we know that in the beginning, the constitution of the portfolio is going to be highly scrutinised.’

Sienna IM has €32bn in assets under management in total and employs more than 280 people. Most recently the group elected Michael Dobson, former chief executive of Schroders, as non-executive chair.

Source: Citywire

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