Damien Henault

Ares Management Co-Founder & CEO Michael Arougheti told the Financial Times that the firm could look to "expand the private equity franchise" through acquisition. What would be some of the driving forces behind Ares Management expanding its private equity franchise beyond the $25B AUM business that it is today? 1️⃣ Cross-selling in a world where capital is consolidating: Ares already does a stellar job of deepening relationships with its LPs. A strong brand and a top-performing private equity firm, particularly one that is big enough to possess the ability to raise large funds and manage evergreen strategies, would enable Ares to offer yet another compelling investment product to LPs in a world where capital is in a flight to scale. 2️⃣ Large, diversified private equity strategies are likely a fit for Defined Contribution plans: Arougheti noted that diversified private equity strategies will be increasingly important as private equity’s inclusion in defined contribution plans move from a possibility to a likelihood. What product structure will most likely be included in 401(k)s? Evergreens. Thus, a PE firm that possesses evergreen private equity capabilities will be the more likely choice for inclusion in a 401(k) product or a multi-manager product or model portfolio that slots into a 401(k). Is a bigger rather than smaller acquisition of a PE firm on the horizon and why might an acquisition of a scaled PE platform by Ares make sense? ➡️ A larger PE platform is more likely to have the ability to successfully run evergreen strategies. ➡️ Evergreen fund product would fit right into Ares’ platform. ➡️ Quicker time to market. ➡️ Readying for 401(k)s. ➡️ Accretive to its stock price. ➡️ Ares’ newly launched GP Stakes strategy could be foreshadowing of PE acquisitions to come. Read on in this week's Alt Goes Mainstream AGM Alts Weekly for more on the strategic moves Ares could make in private equity. https://lnkd.in/eSq2gfCv

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You may have seen the latest Speedinvest announcement on our first continuation fund, which we are celebrating internally quite a bit. Our amazing DPI team - Lawrence, Werner, Lorenzo, Alexander and many more have been working on this for such a long time and more than once, we thought it was all in vain. Executing such transactions is really challenging as you have so many more players - and interests - involved than in a typical fundraise, both internal and external. So building such a muscle within Speedinvest is a significant step forward for us as a firm and we see this as an integral part of any succesful VC practice going forward. The European innovation ecosystem has dramatically matured over the last ten years - we now have more than 700 startups with more than 100M in revenues - and so has the timelines and required scale of venture capital. With typical timelines to exit of 14 years or more, our industry needs to actively tackle the challenge of liquidity. Such transactions will be table stakes in a few years and the ones who move early should be reaping the benefits, as we would hope. Here is our my take on this important topic, we will follow up soon with open-sourcing a lot of our learnings so our peers will not have to start from scratch - as we did more than a year ago. https://lnkd.in/deBhUPrt

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Drake Star acted as exclusive financial advisor to aconso and Keensight Capital on the acquisition of Centric Germany 📣 aconso, a leading AI-powered player in HR DMS, today announced the acquisition of Centric Germany (“Centric”, the German subsidiary of Centric Group). Backed by Keensight Capital, one of Europe’s leading private equity managers dedicated to pan-European Growth Buyout investments, the transaction brings together Centric’s deep SAP document management and compliance expertise with aconso’s vendor-agnostic HR DMS platform. The Drake Star HR Tech team, led by myself, including Pablo Lundershausen and Roman Bauer, is proud to have worked once again with aconso and Keensight Capital – a reflection of strong collaboration and trusted relationships. This transaction combines two market-leading platforms, enhancing scalability, security, and integration for HR teams managing sensitive data and evolving compliance requirements. The combined platform is ideally positioned to drive future innovation and deliver lasting value to its customers. Ulrich Jaenicke, CEO of aconso, commented: “We’re delighted to bring together the expertise of aconso and Centric Germany. This combination deepens our support for document-centric HR processes and compliance across multiple HCM environments. Centric will significantly enhance our position within the SAP ecosystem and strengthen our presence in the DACH region. We are pleased to have once again collaborated with the Drake Star team. Their extensive HR Tech expertise and network enabled a highly successful outcome of this process.” Stanislas de Tinguy, Partner at Keensight Capital, concluded: “We are proud to support aconso with this strategic acquisition. aconso operates in a growing HR technology market where compliance, automation and data security are critical. This combination strengthens its market position and supports its next phase of growth. A special thanks goes to Drake Star for their highly valuable support throughout the entire process, combining deep HR Tech expertise with their strong execution capabilities.” Huge congrats to everyone involved in this strategic deal and special thanks to my team at Drake Star for the excellent work on this transaction. Read the full announcement on our website: https://lnkd.in/djTdSAPX #DealAnnouncement #InvestmentBanking #MergersAndAcquisitions #HRTech

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