Private Equity Professionals

LBO France appoints Franck Abadia to operating team

Abadia joins three others as a director on the team, which advises portfolio companies on operational value creation

-

LBO France, one of France’s oldest private equity firms, has appointed Franck Abadia as director within the operating team, according to a statement from the firm.

Abadia took up the role in October of last year, according to his LinkedIn page. He joined the firm from AlixPartners, a consulting firm specialising in operations performance, where he was vice president serving clients in business-to-business sectors such as telecoms and process industries. Prior to this he spent two years at Lafarge headquarters developing energy sourcing optimisation worldwide.

Made up of four members, the operating team, which advises portfolio companies on operational value creation, reports directly to LBO France’s board of directors. Abadia joins Etienne Colas, a former senior director at AlixPartners, Guy Latourrette, former CEO of La Redoute and Devanlay-Lacoste, and Gilles Taldu, partner and member of LBO France’s executive board and former manager of Thomson and Capgemini.

LBO France operates four non-listed strategies through separate teams, two of which focus on private equity. The mid-cap LBO White Knight funds invest in companies with an enterprise value between €100 million and €2.5 billion, while the Hexagone funds focus on companies with enterprise value of less than €100 million.

The firm’s Altercap funds operate in the secondary debt market, while the White Stone and Lapillus funds are dedicated to two real estate strategies.

At the end of October, LBO France used capital from its White Knight funds to acquire Chryso, a construction chemicals specialist, from Materis for €285 million alongside its present management team. The firm had a major shareholding in Materis from November 2003 to May 2006, when the firm sold the building materials company to Wendel in a deal valuing the company at €2.1 billion.

In November the firm used capital from the 2010-vintage €154 million Hexagone Fund III to acquire Fournitures Hospitalières Group, a specialist in orthopaedic prostheses, from previous shareholders including Bpifrance and Matignon Investissement et Conseil, PEI reported at the time.