At Ardian, we invest all of ourselves in building companies that last.

Foreword

Dominique Senequier

President of Ardian

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“The pandemic has revealed weaknesses and omissions. It has demonstrated that change in many areas is more urgent than we realized - and in others it is accelerating, whether we are ready or not.”

The world that is emerging from this pandemic will be quite different from the one we used to inhabit. This epoch-making event has thrown everything in the air. It has forced everyone to look again at their plans and assumptions; to question things they took for granted.

For all the terrible loss Covid-19 has caused, positives can ultimately flow from this period of seismic disruption. But this will happen only if we are paying attention to its messages. The pandemic has revealed weaknesses and omissions. It has demonstrated that change in many areas is more urgent than we realized – and in others it is accelerating, whether we are ready or not. This brings fresh possibilities, for sure, but it also unleashes risks that we must recognize and address. Are our institutions and societies as solid and cohesive as we thought? Are our economies and businesses truly resilient? Is our thinking driven by a broad enough range of voices and ideas? Have we fully internalized a sense of our purpose and social solidarity?

One of our most important initiatives during 2020 was to draw up a bold, straightforward statement of our purpose as an organization: At Ardian, we invest all of ourselves in building companies that last. This is both a description of Ardian’s culture and a declaration of intent. In an era when the good faith of all organizations – especially in finance – is more open to question than ever, we must show leadership, commit publicly to put positive impact at the heart of our business and earn our license to operate.

This is the spirit in which we are re-examining Ardian and deciding how our organization and business model need to change. The environment in which we operate is shifting. Private investment markets never stand still. We must adapt to the new realities.

Ardian is the world’s largest investor in secondary Fund of Funds transactions and the leading European player in primary commitments through Ardian Customized Solutions. The Ardian's eight secondaries platform which attracted $19 billion was one of the key events of 2020 for us.

However, our Fund of Funds business can grow much larger than it is today, provided it adapts to the changing shape of its markets. My intention over the course of 2021 is to look again at every aspect of our Fund of Funds activity and ensure it is as strong as possible. We see important opportunities to extend our activities in Asia, where private equity markets are rapidly maturing, and to acquire secondary interests in the continuation funds that a growing number of GPs are now setting up.

“Ardian has come through this test with a renewed sense of strength, purpose and social solidarity.”

Equally, I believe continuation funds will become an important part of our Direct investment activities. We are already examining potential opportunities to extend our partnerships with some of our portfolio companies in this way. Ardian has an excellent record of identifying and investing in companies that can sustain strong, profitable growth over many years. Where we believe portfolio companies have excellent growth prospects beyond our accustomed holding period, where we have a strong partnership with the management team and our interests are fully aligned with our LPs, we will offer them the opportunity to maintain their interest in the company through a continuation vehicle.

Different versions of this model are emerging around the world but the direction of travel is clear: longer holding periods for private equity investments are an important feature of the market of the future. They are also entirely consistent with Ardian’s culture of careful, long-term investment, based on close and trusting partnerships with outstanding management teams. This is a natural next step for our company.

Given Ardian’s scale across multiple private markets and our culture of close and transparent relationships with our clients, it is also natural that providing customized investment solutions will become an even more important part of our future. This conviction is behind our decision to roll our Mandates activity into a separate business unit, Ardian Customized Solutions, and to offer our full range of services to institutional clients of all sizes.

Clients of Ardian Customized Solutions now benefit from access to Trustview Ardian, the online investor portal that we launched for our fund investors in July 2020. Trustview illustrates our willingness to innovate in our market, for example by becoming one of the first private equity firms to offer individual cash flow projections for our LPs. Ardian now provides a world-class, personalized digital experience, including the ability for LPs to subscribe to our funds online. Our next objective is to add a digital dashboard for clients of Ardian Customized Solutions, where they will be able to view all their holdings with Ardian and external managers on a single screen.

We are responding vigorously to the challenges that the Covid-19 crisis has created. Our company is evolving rapidly, and we will be well prepared to prosper in the post-pandemic world. We are promoting a younger generation of managers into the top ranks of our company by enlarging our Operational Executive Committee and empowering these exceptionally talented men and women to help map the next stage of our journey.

Our organization has been thoroughly stress-tested during the pandemic. Ardian has come through this test with a renewed sense of strength, purpose and social solidarity that we express both through our daily work and the expanding activities of the Ardian Foundation.