Executive Summary
Here is a summary of our key findings:
CVC has emerged as the #1 investor in Europe, managing a total EV of approximately €70bn, followed by EQT (€61bn) and KKR (€60bn). Collectively, the top 250 investors manage an EV of €1.6tn.
American and British investors dominate the Europe 250 ranking, with sponsors headquartered in those regions managing an EV of €420bn (26% share) and €373bn (23%) respectively. German-based investors are underrepresented despite it being the foremost economy in Europe, managing an EV of €54bn (3%).
Europe 250 Ranking
Europe 250 Ranking
Sector 50 Rankings
Regional 50 Rankings
UK investors take the top spot in 5 regional rankings (UK&I, Nordics, Iberia, DACH and CEE) with CVC and Cinven bagging the #1 spot twice. Regional sponsors lead in Italy (F2i SGR) and France (Ardian), while the Benelux region is dominated by American investors (KKR, Blackstone and Carlyle).
Below, you'll find a ranking of the top 50 investors in each European region. Use the buttons to switch between different regions.
Portfolio Insights
In this section, we explore the investment portfolios of the top 30 PE investors in Europe, analyzing key metrics such as growth rates, profitability, leverage, buy-and-build initiatives and the sector/regional makeup of their European investments.
Note: We exclude from this analysis any investors who have less than 5 data points for a particular metric.
Methodology
We take a novel approach to our ranking, which is based on total managed enterprise value (EV) in Europe. At Gain.pro, we track over 8,700 investor portfolios in detail. We calculate the total managed EV by multiplying the number of European portfolio companies by the average portfolio EBITDA and a predicted EBITDA multiple.
# of portfolio companies in Europe.
We only consider buyout and minority-owned assets. We exclude any VC investments and publicly listed securities. We also adjust for ownership share, assigning 75% ownership share for any majority investments and 25% share for minority investments.
Average EBITDA.
We only include companies with a positive EBITDA and cap the metric for any outliers.
Predicted EBITDA multiple.
We leverage the company's sector, size, growth rate, margin profile and cash generation to predict its EBITDA multiple.
Further, we exclude any inactive investors from the Europe 250 ranking with i) <5 portfolio companies in Europe; ii) <5 entries since 2018 and iii) <3 positive portfolio EBITDA values. For the sector and regional rankings, we exclude investors with i) <3 portfolio companies in that sector/region; ii) <3 entries in that sector/region since 2018 and iii) <2 positive portfolio EBITDA values.
If you have any questions about the methodology or notice something amiss, do not hesitate to reach out at sid.jain@gain.pro.
