The European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) has released its first-ever roundtable on video, bringing together industry insiders to discuss the merits of European private equity.
“With all these discussions about the state of the European economy I think it’s become even more important that we also show all the positive things about Europe, because there are so many positive stories to tell and that is often not happening in the news,” EVCA's secretary-general, Dörte Höppner, told Private Equity International. “Outside of Europe, when you travel abroad, investors tell you they think Europe is in a very difficult situation. Of course we need to explain that private equity is investing in companies, not countries. And Europe is full of fantastic companies. We need to make non-European investors aware of this.”
The EVCA roundtable includes a mix representative of its member base, featuring former chairwoman Uli Fricke, with Triangle Venture Capital Group, KKR's Philipp Freise, IK Investment's Chris Masek, Pantheon's Francesco di Valmarana and Francesca Cornelli, a private equity scholar and associate professor at London Business School.
“The facts do show that European private equity does perform well over time and does generate very nice returns. It’s just all this noise in the newspapers, on TV, on the internet, about Europe being in a such a difficult situation. I feel it’s a challenge but truly believe we’ll come out of this much stronger because we’re going through the necessary reforms right now,” Höppner said, referencing various initiatives in the EU member states, like labour market reforms. “It takes time for these reforms to work.”
A longer version of the roundtable is available on EVCA's website.
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