News

Belgian Growth Fund is honored to announce that it has made a capital commitment of EUR 25 million to the fifth buy-out fund of Ergon Capital Partners, a leading mid-market investor in Europe. Ergon Capital Partners V (ECP V) recently held its final close with EUR 800 million of total commitments. This closing brings Ergon’s total assets under management to EUR 2.5 billion.

Founded in 2005, Ergon is a private equity firm with its origins in Brussels. Additional offices were established in Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Munich and Paris, pursuing a pan-european investment approach. Since its inception Ergon has proven to be a highly effective actor in the Belgian mid-market with successful historical and current portfolio companies, such as King (non-food consumables and disposables), Corialis (aluminum profile systems), Joris Ide (steel cladding solutions), Groupe De Boeck (educational, scientific and academic publishing), Vanreusel (frozen meat-based convenience food) and Sofico (software solutions for automotive finance, leasing, fleet and mobility management).

Proven strategy

The new fund will further proceed with Ergon’s proven strategy and seeks to invest mainly in healthcare, media, services & leisure, consumer goods & luxury, and niche industrials sectors, located in the Benelux, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. ECP V has already allocated approximately one fifth of its capital to three transactions and looks into a strong pipeline of attractive opportunities.

Collaboration

Wolfgang de Limburg, Managing Partner of Ergon Capital Partners states : ”We feel very honored to count Belgian Growth Fund as one of the new limited partners committing to ECP V and we are grateful for their support since the early days of our fundraising process. We look forward to working with them and develop our collaboration considering the Belgian roots of Ergon Capital Partners.”

Capability

Pierre Demaerel of Belgian Growth Fund adds: “We are pleased to partner with Ergon Capital Partners, a top tier investment firm that demonstrated its capability to support entrepreneurs and management teams and enable their strategy and vision. They create shareholder value while applying responsible investment principles and actively promoting ESG considerations throughout the whole investment cycle.”

Eight funds

Including this transaction, Belgian Growth Fund has welcomed since its launch in mid-2019 eight funds in its portfolio. The other fund investments are in Smartfin Capital II, Fortino Capital Growth PE I, Sofindev V, Gilde Healthcare V, Forbion Growth Opportunities Fund I, Andera Expansion III and Kurma Growth Opportunities Fund.