Ardian (former Axa Private Equity) closed fundraising of its third expansion capital private equity fund. Expansion Fund III raised 450 million euros from international investors plus 50 millions of additional committement in coinvestments by some investors of the fund (download here the Italian press release).
The new fund focuses on SMEs in France, Germany and Italy and is quite bigger than the previous fund (353 million euros). The fund invested 25 pct of its committements already in three French companies and in one German company (Frostkrone, CLS Group, Synerlab and Micropross)
Allocation to Italy will be raised to 25 pct of total commitement in the new fund  from 15 pct of the previous fund so Paolo Bergonzini, managing director and head of the Italian team  Expansion, will be busy this year to find new investment opportunities after two divestments in 2013 ( (Duplomatic and Rollon).
