(Bloomberg) -- BC Partners, one of Europe’s oldest and best-known private equity firms, is overhauling its leadership team in moves that will see three of its partners leave.
The firm has been communicating the changes to investors this week, according to people familiar with the matter and a letter sent to investors seen by Bloomberg News. The most senior departure is Jean-Baptiste Wautier, chief investment officer of the private equity business and a member of the firm’s management committee, who will leave at the end of January. Chris Mogge and Pascal Heberling, both partners in private equity, will leave this year.
The decision to revamp its leadership team was taken earlier this year, according to the letter, after the firm underwhelmed when raising its most recent flagship fund. London-based BC Partners, which manages more than 40 billion euros ($39 billion) in assets, said in February it raised 6.9 billion euros in committed capital across all related vehicles for its 11th flagship fund, below the 8.5 billion euros it had originally sought, even after extending the fundraising by several months.
Read more: BC Partners Falls Short of Target in Private Equity Fund Raise
“The end of the fundraising for BC XI was a natural point for every partner to assess and determine whether a continued commitment to the partnership was appropriate,” Raymond Svider, who runs the firm with his executive committee, said in the letter. “Over the last 10 years we have sought to continuously evolve and have made a number of impactful changes to our organization that have successfully sharpened our investment focus and further improved our performance.”
Wautier, who has been at BC Partners for 18 years, was chief investment officer of the private equity business and had been chair of the private equity investment committee since 2015, according to the letter.
His responsibilities will be split among other members of the management committee. Svider will take over as chair of the investment committee and Fahim Ahmed will take over as chair the portfolio review committee, Svider said in the letter.
Dealmaking has become more difficult amid lack of adequate financing and surging interest rates. Mega-buyouts are getting harder to pull off as investors steer clear of deploying equity, Orlando Bravo, the billionaire co-founder of tech-focused private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC, said this week.
The changes leave a group of 16 partners who, on average, have been working at the firm for 14 years, according to the letter. BC Partners was founded in 1986 by Otto van der Wyck and John Burgess and was seen as a pioneer in European leveraged buyouts, raising some of the largest funds on the continent.
Alongside the firm’s main buyout fund, BC Partners has also launched credit and real estate platforms in recent years.
(Updates fundraising total in third paragraph.)
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
Advertisement