“This award represents, of course, a remarkable token of recognition and encouragement for all our teams. Beyond recognition from other firms, our approach focuses on the loyalty and confidence of our investors and the partnerships we have been able to create with the management teams of companies held in the portfolio”, said Pierre-Michel Passy.

2009: a significant capital raising and emblematic transactions

2009 provided confirmation of Edmond de Rothschild Investment Managers’ dominant position in the Development Capital segment with

• our success in raising capital for Winch Capital 2, one of the largest Development Capital funds in France (EUR 250m). This took total assets run by Winch Capital 1 & 2 to EUR 430m. In a difficult period when private equity firms struggled to raise money from investors, this capital raising testifies to the resilience of the Capital development business in France. It is, above all, a token of renewed investor confidence in the team at Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners which managed to close this new fund in less than 8 months. It also validates the investment strategy pursued by Winch Capital;
• The successful closing of Winch Capital’s investment period with (i) two new emblematic transactions, one in the ultimate holding company of Naturex, one of the top five natural ingrédient companies in the world and the other in Groupe TWC, a B2B distributor of watches, costume jewellery and leather goods, and (ii) 2 further investments, FastBooking and Bergame (CEME). In all, Winch Capital made 21 investments between January 2006 and April 2009. The results of this investment period that ended in 2009 (with 94% of funding called up) were very positive. The Winch Capital portfolio also proved to be very robust in 2009 with no treasury incidents despite a very difficult economic environment. This was because SMEs benefited from strong balance sheets and the senior
• management teams were highly motivated by the high level of shareholdings in their companies.The 1990-2008 track record posted strong performance (Multiple of 2.3x and a gross IRR of 23.8%) and further successful divestments from previous funds in 2009 (Archiveco).

Our investment strategy is paying off

The Development Capital team is convinced that a successful strategy relies on 5 conditions:

• Stable companies with genuine growth projects;
• A high-quality proprietary deal flow;
• Significant stakes (30/40%);
• Strong non-financial contributions to help companies in the portfolio grow. This means systematically attending board meetings and significant involvement in specific fields, most notably in build-ups;
• A shared and rigorously contractual exit horizon with the majority shareholder.