Berment to Co-head Private Debt Business at AXA PE

AXA Private Equity has promoted Olivier Berment to co-head of its private debt business. Berment will work alongside co-head Cécile Mayer-Lévi and under the overall leadership of Vincent Gombault, who is a member of AXA PE’s executive board and MD of funds of funds and private debt. Berment joined AXA Private Equity in 2001 to manage the firm’s turnaround and recovery activity and helped launch the mezzanine business.

PRESS RELEASE

AXA Private Equity, the leading European diversified private equity firm, announces today the appointment of Olivier Berment as Co-Head of its Private Debt business. Olivier will work alongside fellow Co-Head Cécile Mayer-Lévi under the overall leadership of Vincent Gombault, member of AXA Private Equity’s Executive Board and Managing Director of Funds of Funds and Private Debt.

Olivier Berment joined AXA Private Equity in 2001 to manage the firm’s turnaround and recovery activity and helped launch the mezzanine business, which is now known as Private Debt, in 2005.

This appointment coincides with the creation of the Private Debt Strategic Committee, comprising Managing Directors Olivier Berment, Cécile Mayer-Lévi and Christophe Vulliez. This Committee will drive the development of AXA Private Equity’s unitranche activity, in which the Private Debt team has become the European market leader. Unitranche financing is an innovative form of financing combining the senior and subordinated debt, which gives companies greater access to the necessary resources to finance their investment projects and provides them with a viable alternative to traditional bank financing. In 2011, AXA Private Equity invested around €400 million in Unither Pharmaceuticals, FDS Group, and Biomnis, equating to more than 70% of the total amount invested through unitranche financing in France last year.

Vincent Gombault, member of AXA Private Equity’s Executive Board and Managing Director of Funds of Funds and Private Debt, said: “In an environment of scarce credit, the appointment of Olivier Berment as Co-Head of Private Debt reflects the increasing importance of unitranche financing. The fact that we now have two joint heads of our Private Debt business demonstrates its high strategic importance to AXA Private Equity.”

AXA Private Equity underwrites or arranges financings of between €10 million and €200 million. Its Private Debt team of 13 professionals, based in Paris, London, Milan, New York and Singapore, has emerged as a market leader against a backdrop of tough competition and increasingly diverse transactions.

ABOUT AXA PRIVATE EQUITY

AXA Private Equity is a world leader in private equity, with assets of 30 billion dollars managed or advised in Europe, North America and Asia. The company offers its investors a wide choice of funds covering the full range of asset classes: Funds of Funds (primary, early secondary and secondary), direct funds including Infrastructure, Small and Mid Market Enterprise Capital, Innovation & Growth, Co-Investment and Private Debt.

With offices in Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Singapore, Milan, London, Zurich, Vienna and Luxembourg, AXA Private Equity is committed to supporting companies in their long term growth by providing access to its international network. AXA Private Equity sets great store by the regularity and quality of its reporting on the performance of its funds and the performance of the companies in its portfolio, as a service to its investors.