Bridgepoint, a privately held company, expects a share price in London

The UK buying group Bridgepoint Advisers is preparing to be listed on the London Stock Exchange, a market that could cost around € 2 billion and mark the rare entry of a European private equity firm.

Bridgepoint, founded in 2000 by NatWest Equity Partners after acquiring management, plans to sell about a quarter of its shares, raising around £ 500 million.

This would see the inclusion of a small car of negotiated European purchasing groups, including the 3i group listed in the FTSE 100, the Swiss-based Partners Group, the French Eurasian and the Swedish EQT. Listed in 2019.

These four are trading at or near an all-time high, with classmates such as Blackstone, KKR, Carlyle and Apollo listed in the US as the industry size is piled up in the money register.

The IPO would come at a time when private equity trading has reached a record high in the UK, raising the profile of the industry and ignites the reaction some shareholders believe that buying groups are taking advantage of the fall of Brexit and the pandemic to get companies out of business cheaply.

Bridgepoint has 140 employees and Dyal Capital Partners has a 20 percent stake. Under the initial proposals, all shareholders would sell the same proportions of their stake and their shares would be diluted.

It’s the head William Jackson, Who joined the previous one in 1986 as a graduate of the internship.

The additional funds will allow the purchasing group, which typically buys around 1.5 million euros, to put more money into its funds, expand it into new areas such as real estate and infrastructure, and create new offices. It has opened operations in New York, San Francisco and Amsterdam in recent years.

Bridgepoint’s minority stake sale It gave Dyal a chance to buy it in 2018 The EQT Partners competition buying team has a 3.9 billion euro credit arm last year, it expanded its role in lending to companies when the pandemic left businesses in need of loans.

This agreement allowed Dyal, a unit of money manager Neuberger Berman, to obtain a dividend fee and transfer the interest from Bridgepoint.

Bridgepoint is perhaps known in the UK for its Pret A Manger coffee and sandwich chain ownership sell JAB Holdings investment group in 2018. Also protected DornaWith international MotoGP rights.

The private equity firm manages about 26 billion euros in assets according to its website, including a European acquisition fund of 5.7 billion euros.