The Monaco Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (MVCA) was pleased to host Mr. Henry Kravis, Founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), the American-based global private equity company, who had agreed to speak at a special reception for the Monaco private equity and investment community. The event took place on 25^th January, 2012 at the Metropole Hotel.

Commenting on the reception and its purpose, Mr. Zsolt Lavotha, Chairman of MVCA said:

“Monaco is a great place for financial services companies to locate, manage funds and with the highest GDP per capita in the world, increasingly influential as a place for investors to source capital”. Since reforms initiated by the Government of Monaco in 2007 the Principality’s robust and transparent regulatory framework has encouraged the growth of reputable funds and other credit deposits domiciled in the country to grow to EUR 80 billion."

“This visit by Henry Kravis is a further demonstration of the growing success of, and interest in Monaco as a financial center, even as much of the rest of Europe and the world is working to end the current economic downturn.”

KKR, the company that Mr. Kravis co-founded and co-heads, with over $60 billion funds under management, owns hundreds of firms across the world with a total of more than one million employees.

In his speech, Mr. Kravis highlighted that the area of biggest concern to the financial sector was Europe’s failure so far to deal with the sovereign debt crisis. Mr. Kravis said that it would now fall on Private Equity companies to step in where banks are reluctant to provide financing to commercial entities. He also pointed out that the Asian tiger economies were developing in different ways, with growth in India set to lag behind China’s, partly due to high levels of corruption and bureaucracy.

The cocktail dinatoire was attended by 80+ Members as well as government officials, the biggest event turnout since the inception of MVCA.

MVCA had the pleasure to invite all Members to its General Assembly featuring an annual review on MVCA's activities and plans going forward in 2012, presented by its chairman Zsolt Lavotha. MVCA held 15 events in 2011 and increased its membership base by 20 Individual as well as Associate Members. The GA was attended by around 30 Members.

The presentation was followed by a joyful Christmas cocktail among 40 Members and Guests.

MVCA had the pleasure to welcome Mr. Karsten Langer, currently Chairman of EVCA (European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association) as a guest speaker for this lunch event.

Mr. Langer gave his views on how European Private Equity is becoming a more regulated and 'institutional' industry via new directives that EVCA helped to shape and which are currently being implemented into national laws. In his view, this change could be regarded as an opportunity for European Private Equity and hopefully be perceived as a more 'sustainable' and 'non-risky' asset class.

Mr. Langer emphasized that Private Equity in Europe will find its way towards becoming a more 'desired' industry, and in fact a catalyst for economic growth in midst of a solvency crisis.

MVCA had the pleasure to welcome its fellow MVCA member Mr. Antoine Drean as guest speaker for this lunch event. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of Triago – and independent advisory agent dedicated to the Private Equity fund community – as well as Mantra - an investment company exclusively dedicated to “alternative private equity” (listed private equity fund and non?traditional private equity funds).
In his guest speech entitled ‘Where Is Private Equity Going?’, Antoine talked about how today’s PE market changed compared to the past two decades in terms of size, competitiveness as well as number of actors and target companies, highlighting some of the opportunities ahead, such as investing in the secondary market and selected listed Private Equity vehicles in times where market inefficiencies are scarce and competition for assets is fierce.
Around 20 Members joined this lunch event, raising interesting questions alongside the informative and insightful presentation.