We faced unprecedented challenges during 2020,but our management teams reacted quickly and we ended the year trading strongly and well-positioned for further growth. ByVincent Fandozzi, Head of Ardian North America Fund 2020 posed unprecedented challen- to make potentially transformative acquisitions at ges for the mid-market manufacturing and attractive prices. Our components maker Revere industrial companies that we invest in. Plastics also exited 2020 strongly, having acquired Enforced closures of our factories due to the two US facilities during the pandemic and another pandemic led to lost production that could in Mexico. not be recovered. Revere also benefited significantly from the However, thanks to the quality and strategictrend among US manufacturers to bring production flexibility of our management teams, our companiesback onshore and source more components from all ended the year strongly as trading rebounded domestic suppliers. This has resulted in a pipeline of and the benefits of add-on acquisitions completedpotential new business that gives us major optimism during the pandemic started to feed through. for the outlook in 2021. It will also further dilute the share of revenues accounted for by Revere’s main The major changes to the portfolio during customer, Whirlpool, which stood at 80% when 2020 were our acquisitions of Acousti Engineering,we acquired the company and is already down a specialist interiors fit-out contractor based into 50%. Florida, and our first public-to-private deal with the acquisition of PRGX, the leading provider of recovery Soteria Flexibles, which makes specialist audit and spend analytics services. Both transactionswaste bags mainly for medical and educational exemplify our strategy of creating value by customers, saw revenues decline as educational addressing complexity in our targets, whether due toestablishments closed, but added customers and succession issues, constraints on the management’srecovered well. ability to invest in growth, concentrated customer bases or unfinished integration programs. Industrialcompanies inevitably suffered a severe blow when the economy came to an Among our existing companies, auto enforced stop. Our portfolio was not immune, but components maker HDT recovered strongly our companies adapted quickly and entered 2021 from the downturn, during which it reduced debt trading strongly and well-placed to accelerate their significantly, leaving the company well-positionedgrowth with further bolt-on acquisitions. 2020 ACTIVITY REPORT 81