Eric de Montgolfier is the CEO of Invest Europe.
How has your industry been coping with this health and economic crisis?
With speed, strength and responsibility: the result was a short, sharp shock in 1H 2020, as we moved to protect portfolio companies and their employees, before a rebound in deal activity in 2H 2020. With the exception of 2019, the private equity industry has never invested more capital into Europe’s businesses than it did in 2020: a total of €88 billion of equity invested in over 8,000 European companies.
How do you explain these numbers?
We learnt a number of painful and valuable lessons from the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, building up our resilience, viability and attractiveness as an investment opportunity for institutional investors – and a reliable financing opportunity for businesses of all sizes and types.