Eurazeo doubles private debt fundraising to €1.6bn in H1
French alternative asset manager Eurazeo more than doubled its private debt fundraising year-on-year in the first half of 2024, attracting €1.6bn (£1.3bn) of commitments.
The firm reported private debt assets under management (AUM) of €8.72bn as of 30 June 2024, a 27 per cent increase over the past 12 months.
Private debt fee-paying AUM came in at €5.84bn, a nine per cent increase.
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Eurazeo said that “momentum was strong in the private debt activity” over the first half, highlighting its direct lending strategy that benefitted from the successful initial closing of the EPD VII fund.
The firm’s overall results – encompassing its private equity, debt and real assets activity – showed a nine per cent rise in AUM to €35.4bn and a 10 per cent rise in fee-paying AUM to €25.8bn.
Private debt accounted for the majority of Eurazeo’s overall third-party fundraising, which increased by 63 per cent to €2.1bn.
That figure includes fundraising from private clients, which grew by 30 per cent year-on-year to €453m.
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Eurazeo said that the boost in activity from the wealth market “reaped the first rewards of its expansion outside of France with some first significant commercial successes in Belgium and distribution partnerships signed with leading institutions in Germany, Switzerland and Italy.”
It noted the success of its evergreen fund EPVE 3, which exceeded €2.2bn in AUM.
Meanwhile, realisations more than tripled from the first half of 2023 to €1.6bn, with the firm announcing several exits across a range of its asset classes.
However, Eurazeo reported a net loss of €105m in the first half, while investment activity contribution fell by €156m. “This mainly resulted from the decrease in the portfolio fair value recorded during the first semester while investment activity costs were contained,” Eurazeo said.
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In its first-half results, the firm confirmed its ambition to become the private asset management leader in Europe in the mid-market, growth and impact segments.
“Eurazeo achieved further successes in the execution of its roadmap, in a gradually improving context,” said co-chief executives Christophe Bavière and William Kadouch-Chassaing.
“In the first half of the year, the group continued its positive momentum in fundraising, recorded a surge in realizations, increased shareholder return, made further progress in ESG and extended its impact fund line-up. These results confirm that we are on track to achieve the medium-term objectives presented to the market in November 2023.”
