The day we dreamed up Tikehau Capital… by A. Flamarion and M. Chabran
The first investors in a sketch
Grégoire Lucas
Pierre-Henri Flamand
Gilles Samyn
Maximilien de Limburg Stirum
Christian Parente
Bruno de Pampelonne
Jean-Pierre Denis
Maxime Laurent-Bellue
Paris in a sketch
Sandra Mence
Baron Luc Bertrand
Olivier Decelle
Jérémy Le Jan
Marie-Françoise Walbaum
Rodolfo Caceres
Laure Sammut
Sports in a sketch
Julian Salisbury
Ronan Le Moal
Christian de Labriffe
London in a sketch
Peter Cirenza
Jean-Jacques Berthelé
François Pérol
Benoît Floutier
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Europe in a sketch
Christian Rouquerol
David Martin
Guillaume Arnaud
Roger Caniard & Stéphane Dessirier
Hélène Henry-Prince
Public market in a sketch
Lord Peter Levene
Édouard Chatenoud
Jean-Baptiste Feat
Robert Peugeot
New York in a sketch
Henri Marcoux
Anne Le Stanguennec
Tim Grell
In memoriam Jacques Mayoux
Florence Lustman
Geoffroy Renard
Carmen Alonso
Patrick Pouyanné
Thomas Friedberger
Private market in a sketch
Dominik P. Felsmann
Roberto Quagliuolo
Christian Flamarion
Bennett Goodman
Thomas Buberl
Emmanuelle Costa
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Lawrence Yanovitch
Cécile Mayer-Lévi
Matteo del Fante
Alison Mass
Asia in a sketch
Jean Odendall
Young Joon Moon
Rudy Neuhof
Asaf Gherman
Christian Dumolin
In memoriam Andrea Potsios
Jane Fraser
Jean-Louis Charon
Léon Seynave
Guillaume Belnat
Foundations & charities in a sketch
Mai Nguyen
Alexandre Van Damme
Vivian Ngoh
Alain Taravella
Slawomir Krupa
Frédéric Giovansili
Louis Igonet
Stefanie Drews
Jennifer Prosek
Thanks for the journey together!
The day that Tikehau Capital begins its next chapter... by A. Flamarion and M. Chabran
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The day dreamedweup Tikehau
Capital…
Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran
Antoine: We met in 1998 at Merrill Lynch. Few years later, we were both working in London – I was then at Goldman Sachs, Mathieu at Deutsche Bank – and we were working like mad. We would work until 2 a.m., 4 a.m., and we would work weekends. It was at a time when KKR, Blackstone, Carlyle and Apollo were making names for themselves. We could see how they managed their operations, how they worked, how they were doing business and we were blown away. They inspired us.
We would often go to a brasserie close to the office, Club Gascon, for dinner together before going back to our offices. We must have eaten there a hundred times. This was before it got its Michelin stars, by the way. We knew each other well at this point from Merrill Lynch –but those dinners were where we really got to know how we were going to work together in our own business. That was where it all began. And since then, we’ve never argued. We align on everything, even though we both have completely different styles to each other.
Mathieu: Antoine’s father was an entrepreneur, and Antoine had seen him create an amazing business that inspired him. My father was a doctor from whom I learned to be available at any time. I had little entrepreneurship in the family. I was more cautious –I knew it was going to be difficult. But we did a first round of fundraising and managed to
get together four million euros. We weren’t a start-up that had four million in capital, we were a company that was going to manage four million. We were going to receive 2 % in management fees, so we’d have € 80,000 in revenue to share. That’s it. And we thought –ok, this is it. Let’s go.
At the time, I was with Deutsche Bank, and I handed in my notice. My boss asked what I was going to do, who I was going to work with and how much capital we had raised already. When I told him, he laughed and said, “Four million. That’s what you’ll have made by the end of next year. You’ll see.”
At the time, I was 28. I already enjoyed a relatively fast track career and was already promoted to director. Based on the feedback I received from my managers at the time, I believe I would have had a great career in banking. At that moment, half of the people I met would tell us, “it is too late in your career to be an entrepreneur,” half of them, “it is too early”… I guess it means it was the right timing.
Antoine: Many people acknowledge that we are entrepreneurs. But what makes an entrepreneur? It’s someone who takes risks, who dares to try something new. The risks must be measured, intelligent and diversified. For us, that’s pretty intuitive, and we know we are fortunate.
In French we have an expression, l’appétit vient en mangeant – the more you do something, the more you want to do it. But with us it wasn’t like that. We knew what we wanted from the start. We were always very ambitious. We always wanted to create something that was at the top of its league. Being an entrepreneur means creating something from zero. And at the time, there were very few entrepreneurs in the world of finance. We didn’t know how we were going to be able to pay the office electricity the first year!
Mathieu: After the four million we did a new round of fundraising and got 11 million – 2 % of that gives us € 220,000 in revenue. That still wasn’t enough to pay the rent of the offices we’d just taken on Rue Royale or a decent salary, but the machine was already running at this point.
Antoine: To make a business like this work, you have to be curious and engaged every day. And willing to make cold calls! Every entrepreneur, however successful they might be now, has spent time on details and on the phone to make it happen. Trying to get a meeting with someone. We did all that, and still do.
Mathieu: Fast forward to 2024, and we’re getting ready to move into our new offices in New York, on 9 West 57th Street, an iconic address,
where those companies that we looked up to 20 years ago were or are headquartered: KKR, Apollo… So, in a way would that mean that we’ve finally got to the place that we wanted to be when we created the company? But that doesn’t mean we are going to sit back and relax. We did not come this far only to come this far… The journey is only getting started.
Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran, Tikehau Capital’s co-founders
“From the outset, we knew exactly what we wanted and remained highly ambitious throughout.”
Mathieu Chabran & Antoine Flamarion
Among the first investors who trusted us in 2004
From top to bottom and left to right:
Quentin Jonas, Stéphane Richard, Bruno de Pampelonne, Christian Flamarion, Jean-Romain Lhomme, Guillaume Arnaud, Grégoire Lucas, Gilles Douillard, David Langlois, Cédric Dubourdieu, Olivier Dubost de Cadalvène, Claire Bussière, Emmanuel Laillier, Patrick Bauné, Arnaud de Pesquidoux, Pascal Morin, Bruno Astier, Thomas Friedberger,
Jean-Louis Charon, Philippe Lenoble, Georges Rocchietta, Sébastien Guyot de La Pommeraye, Alain Chetrit, Hervé Hamon, Philippe Labouret, Bruno Vaffier, Gratien de Pontville.
Antoine and Mathieu.
“I met Antoine Flamarion in 1996, when we were studying at Sciences Po Paris together. After our graduation, he went on to work at Merrill Lynch, whereas I carried on studying. I went to ESCP, a business school in Paris, and that’s where I met Mathieu. We immediately got on really well and spent quite a lot of time together.
Around the time that everyone in the year has to find an end-of-year internship or work placement, Antoine rang me and said that he was looking for someone to come and work alongside him and join the team he was working with. I immediately thought of Mathieu, and suggested he contact Antoine, telling him, ‘He’s really brilliant, fun, and I think you’d have a good and exciting time working together.’
So they met, and afterwards Antoine called me again and said, ‘Your friend Mathieu seems great. I will propose him to join us – I think we’re going to have fun together.’
It’s strange to think that at the time the only intuition I had was that they’d get on well. I never thought that they’d be such a good match that they would go on to found a company together or that they’d become inseparable! Some sort of chemistry happened between them and that was really the beginning of it all.
The magic in their relationship comes down to the fact that they have such complementary personalities. It makes me think of a quote from Star Wars, when Obi-Wan Kenobi says to Han Solo, ‘Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?’ For me, this quote perfectly encapsulates Antoine and Mathieu. Antoine is the crazy guy who brought Mathieu with him into this entrepreneurial adventure, and Mathieu is the fool who followed him! Because you have to be a bit crazy to start something like Tikehau Capital, especially since they were so young at the time. But there’s no barrier to success: if you have the vision, the ambition and the will, then you’ll get there. And they have in common this absolute determination and belief that they can succeed.
Of course, I’ve known both of them since the beginning of their partnership, but I’d be lying if I said that I foresaw all this. It seems like fate played a part: I could have recommended any of my other classmates to Antoine, but I didn’t. Mathieu had other work offers, but he decided to work with Antoine. They could have never met. But they did – and it completely changed both of their lives and may be a bit of ours too.”
Grégoire Lucas, chief strategic relations and synergies officer, Tikehau Capital
... Tikehau Capital engages with the Saint-Ouen flea market operation.
“The investment in the Puces de Paris flea markets became a cornerstone in the early success of Tikehau Capital. It’s that simple. I met Antoine Flamarion when we were both working at Goldman Sachs. Despite excellent career prospects, Antoine left to launch his own investment firm with another young professional, Mathieu Chabran – quite unusual for people of their age. Collaborating with someone who quit is unusual, but my admiration for Antoine was such that when he approached me with the Saint-Ouen deal in 2004, involving two famous flea markets on the edge of Paris, I said yes.
It wasn’t an obvious investment for us. It was very small, below our investment minimum, and our group primarily focused on public markets, whereas this was 100 % illiquid. However, we invested in Paul-Bert and Serpette, two of the 16 areas that comprise the Puces. I felt we were just at the beginning of a long relationship. I was right. One year later, we sold it to the Grosvenor Group, the Duke of Westminster’s privately owned family company, for three times our initial investment.
We subsequently invested in Tikehau Capital, providing working capital in exchange for roughly a third of the capital base, if I remember correctly. Getting the support of Goldman Sachs was transformative. But the DoddFrank regulation led to the discontinuation of our investment group. The team managing the legacy investments must have been surprised to meet Antoine, wearing his famous shirt suspenders, speaking English with a French accent – young but full of self-confidence. This gave Tikehau Capital the opportunity to buy back Goldman Sachs’s stake.
The brilliant Saint-Ouen transaction set off a chain reaction, serving as an extraordinary accelerator for the development of Tikehau Capital. Antoine and Mathieu’s secret has always been their capacity to form connections with more experienced people. They make you trust them for a good reason: they are trustworthy.”
Pierre-Henri Flamand, former Goldman Sachs partner (Goldman Sachs Principal Strategies) and former chief investment officer at
... Albert Frère became Tikehau Capital’s first major investor.
“I was the representative for the Charleroi part of the business at the Compagnie Nationale à Portefeuille (CNP). One evening, an energetic man came to talk to me about the business he was building called Tikehau Capital. It was, of course, Antoine Flamarion. Something told me that this entrepreneur was worth something, and his project was worth looking into. And so I began to meet with Antoine and Mathieu Chabran, the two of them forming a pair that, in my eyes, has always been absolutely essential, insofar as they complement each other so well. I remember that first meeting with Antoine very clearly, because, well, he turns heads. He’s very outspoken. Initially, you’re taken aback by him. And then, over the course of the conversation, you realize that he’s incredibly competent – a competency that is only built upon by Mathieu’s presence.
I decided to present the project to the board of directors, but first to Albert Frère. I went in to see him, and I said, ‘Look, this is going to sound strange, but I think we should trust these two young people and put a bit of money in.’ Of course, he wanted to meet them first, and the first meeting together lasted only about half an hour because it went so well. We were their first major investor, and we had a 50 % stake in the capital, which is not nothing. Businesses only exist because of the entrepreneurs behind them. One is nothing without the other. If the investments aren’t good, but the entrepreneur impressive, we don’t invest. If the company makes sense, but the entrepreneur doesn’t impress us, we still don’t invest. The two are inextricably linked. What was clear from the outset with Tikehau Capital is that they made very shrewd, intelligent investments. They have excellent governance, and the capital follows that.”
Gilles Samyn, chairman of the board of Degroof Petercam; former president of Compagnie Nationale à Portefeuille SA (CNP)
... that CNP invested in Tikehau Capital.
“The partnership with CNP (Compagnie Nationale à Portefeuille) started in 2005, when I was chief investment officer. Antoine came to meet Albert Frère. They talked for about 15 minutes before Mr. Frère called in his right-hand man Gilles Samyn to introduce them to each other and said to him: ‘This guy is nice and he’s dynamic. We have to work with him.’
When Tikehau Capital started, they had modest resources: a little bit of money, a few hotels in the mountains and big ambitions. But they were daring: they had bought and sold the Saint-Ouen flea market for a nice profit. Albert Frère, Gilles Samyn and I fell under their charm. We loved their entrepreneurial spirit and their personal qualities. When you invest, it’s in the company but foremost it’s in the people.
One of the most memorable investments we did with Tikehau Capital, alongside Ackermans & van Haaren, was a controlling stake in Groupe Flo, which belonged to the Bucher family and ran a lot of famous restaurants in Paris like the Brasserie Flo and the Hippopotamus chain. Antoine served as vice-chairman, and we would have quite colorful general assemblies in the basement of the famous brasserie La Coupole. Those are fond memories.
When I left CNP in 2011, there was no longer a reason for me to be on their supervisory board. But Antoine and Mathieu said, ‘Look, you know us so well and we want to have independent board members, so why don’t you stay?’ Consequently, I served as an independent board member for 12 years. Then SFI, which I currently chair, invested in Tikehau Capital in 2023, bringing me back on the board as a representative of a shareholder.
I’ve known Antoine and Mathieu for nearly 20 years. And you get to know people well when you’ve had to negotiate two partnerships with them (CNP in 2005 and SFI in 2023) and you’ve seen all the highs and lows. They have two very complementary personalities and may seem different on the outside, but they have in common a very entrepreneurial spirit and unwavering courage.”
Maximilien de Limburg Stirum, member of the supervisory board, Tikehau Capital; executive chairman, SFI (Société Familiale d’Investissements S.A)
“I first met them in 2006. They were still young at this point, two teenagers starting out in a world of adults – I’m exaggerating, of course, but that was a bit how they were seen at the time. I remember that they were always very proactive and good at finding complicated dossiers that not many people would go for, which meant there would be less competition. And they were good at analyzing them. They were open to looking at anything – nothing was off limits.
At the beginning, the offices were at Rue Royale. That place was a catamaran – that’s the analogy I always think of. There were about eight people in the team, and the two skippers: Mathieu and Antoine. They could just share a glance and would know what the other was thinking. No need to speak. Everyone knew the destination and how to man the ship, everything was welloiled, functioned perfectly. Then Tikehau Capital got bigger. It moved to Boulevard Haussmann, then Rue Monceau. From 10 to 100 to 250, 300 employees. Suddenly the catamaran had become a frigate! All the good things about a smaller operation – the quick reaction times, everyone having the same focus, everything being slick – suddenly that becomes a lot harder on board a huge vessel. But they were able to make that change because they are good with people, and those hundreds of people on board that ship are motivated and ready to work. Building up their network was very important
for them. In the early days, Antoine would host dinners at his with Mathieu and a dozen business leaders. They’re extremely good at cultivating relationships, each in their own way. It’s definitely one of their strengths. That plays out as well in their hiring. The key to success is having good managers. They hire people who have a fundamental respect for their colleagues, whatever their level, and are good at dealing with people. They like people who take responsibility. They hire good people, give them the keys and leave them to it. It’s a real pleasure to work with them. After three decades working in a bank, I’ve now worked at Tikehau Capital for 18 years. It’s given me a second life. But if I had to describe Tikehau Capital? I’d start by saying that they have a healthy ambition. I’ve known a lot of companies over the past 40 years, and I’ve never seen a dynamism like at Tikehau Capital. There’s no one like them. It boils down to their dissatisfaction. They are dissatisfied – but in a good way. They know that there’s always more to do. They have a survival instinct. They want to change things, to shake things up. I know that if there’s a big problem, they’ll be able to sort it out – partly because they come as a pair. If one of them can’t sort it, the other one can!”
Christian Parente, senior advisor Tikehau Capital; former managing director, Natexis
... when Tikehau Capital set off on its journey.
... I decided to become an entrepreneur.
“I actually already knew Antoine and Mathieu from my days in Merrill Lynch where they were in my team. I helped them talk over their plans when they were preparing to launch Tikehau Capital. We were quite close, and I became one of the first investors in the company. They were very persuasive, too. Right after the launch they were calling almost every day to convince me to join them.
I ended up leaving Merrill Lynch in 2006, after 13 years there. It was an important and difficult decision, but life is made from these types of decisions and risks you take! I believe that everyone has an entrepreneurial spirit inside them, a hidden spark. It was the adventure of joining Antoine and Mathieu that appealed to me.
I remember, right at the beginning, Antoine working out of a little office that he was subletting from LBO France. That was where it all started.
After that, there was a pivotal meeting with shareholders from CNP (Compagnie Nationale à Portefeuille), where the decision of creating our asset management company Tikehau IM was taken. We were already discussing our approach with passion, enthusiasm and ambition. What funds were we going to launch? What would our strategy be? What objective should we have?
Early on we had a meeting at my place. We were trying to work out what our asset management company could do. I suggested from the start that it should be a specialized fixed income company, because none (or very few) of these were operating on the continent. There was a gap in the market. That’s how it came into being, with this original focus on debt, and we soon became a major player in that field. That was what was exciting – starting from scratch. We had a blank page before us and could just write on it, everything that we wanted to do.
One important milestone was in 2009, when we were the first regular asset manager to receive the clearance by the AMF to manage mutual securitization funds in France. Before that, we could only buy securities due to banking monopoly. So, it meant we could extend and purchase loans and manage a larger pool of assets. It allowed us to reach the billion mark under management faster than we could have hoped. Tikehau Capital has always been a pioneer.”
Bruno de Pampelonne, vice-chairman of Tikehau Capital
... Tikehau Capital proved my intuition was right.
“Everything started with a meeting in 2007. Christian Parente introduced me to Antoine. I had just started my position as chairman of the Arkéa group. We all had a coffee together and matched right away. I think there’s a feeling, an intuition, that you get in those moments, that makes you want to be part of the adventure. One of their characteristics is that they know how to stand out from the crowd. I met Mathieu as well soon after, and we quite quickly reached the conclusion that Arkéa could be a partner of Tikehau Capital.
Arkéa helped Tikehau Capital in the beginning by providing a sort of reassurance to other investors. At the time, Arkéa was a large company worth billions of euros. Our joining forces with an up-and-coming asset management company helped give them a bit of weight, I think. This was long before the business that we know today. It was still a very small operation at the time, but what I liked was that it seemed to be doing something completely different from the traditional format. What was unusual as well was this real affinity between the two leaders, both equally intelligent, very close, and very complementary. They share the same vision and the same high standards. They both have an intuition for market developments. They were ahead of the curve on things like the energy transition, decarbonization and new types of agriculture. I have a lot of respect for them. They have a very strong growth plan without copying the usual way of doing things.
They have developed an extremely broad asset management platform, with a great deal of expertise behind it. What’s original about their approach is that they invest not only their clients’ money but also their own money in these products. To be able to see their own investments on the balance sheet is very unusual. I think the reason the business has done so well is because of the people behind it. They’re very sensitive people, very loyal too. Antoine and Mathieu are loyal to each other, as we know, but they’re also loyal to those who have supported them. It’s striking to see their ability to build and nurture teams of people over time. I feel like it’s still the first day with them, with a lot of things being created, a lot of desire to move forward, to build, to keep asking questions. I think that’s what it’s all about – not being satisfied with what they already have and constantly moving forward.
I left my role as Arkéa chairman two years ago, but I’m glad that Arkéa is still a business partner as well as having a stake in the company now. Antoine and Mathieu asked me to carry on working with Tikehau Capital and to stay on as a non-voting board member, as well as running their family office. I was very happy to still be involved with the company, for personal reasons as much as for professional reasons.”
Jean-Pierre Denis, member of the supervisory board of Tikehau Capital; vice-chairman of Paprec Group; former chairman of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa
... I almost didn’t join Tikehau Capital at all.
“I didn’t make the cut originally. I came to interview to do an internship, and the people who interviewed me – who are no longer at Tikehau Capital – didn’t like me. It was thanks to Édouard Chatenoud that I’m here today. We had been students together in London and he couldn’t believe that I hadn’t been hired. He said, ‘No, this doesn’t make sense, you at least need to meet Antoine and Mathieu.’ So I managed to meet them, and I remember telling them that I could see myself working my whole life in a company like this. They ended up offering me an internship. That was in 2007! When I was a student, I really hesitated about what path to go down. I had done Sciences Po, and I think I saw myself in geopolitics – at the UN or something like that. I chose finance, even though it wasn’t necessarily a choice that came from the heart at first. I interviewed at some of these big-name companies, and I just hated it. These large, highly hierarchical institutions, where I could sense that I would quickly be put in a box, and a small one. In contrast, when I started at Tikehau Capital, it just felt like the opposite: boldness, movement, initiative and fun. There weren’t even ten of us. It had this financial start-up vibe. I was only 22, and very quickly, I had opportunities that I probably wouldn’t have had elsewhere. At Tikehau Capital, we have this capacity to give out opportunities and encourage taking risks. That approach isn’t for everyone! But what’s certain is that it’s a great place to seize opportunities at the beginning of your career. To celebrate the first deal I landed in 2008, Antoine and Mathieu took me out for dinner, just the three of us. I think they wanted to do the investment banking tradition of cutting my tie to mark the occasion, but I don’t actually remember if they did – what I do remember is the wine we drank! That was probably where my passion for fine wine started.
When I think back on all of my ‘firsts’ – the first job offer, the first deal, the first bonus… Each time, it was kind of terrifying. You feel both grateful for the trust that is placed in you – and also dizzy with the responsibility of it. But each time, I said yes. And here I am, 17 years later.”
Maxime Laurent-Bellue, co-head of credit, head of tactical strategies, Tikehau Capital
“Just when you’re starting to make a name for yourself in France, it takes a lot of courage to say you’re going to start from scratch again in the US.”
Olivier Decelle
Tikehau Capital was born in Paris with its first address being 5 Rue Royale, located between Concorde and Madeleine. Parc Monceau which is the epicenter of finance in France is where Tikehau capital has been located since 2014.
Tikehau Capital is listed in Paris, and its logo was designed for the IPO. This acronym “TKO” also helps English-speaking people pronounce Tikehau Capital correctly. While Mathieu Chabran is based in New York, Antoine Flamarion’s office remains in Paris. Among many books on his desk, there is a Pléiade edition of Balzac's 'La Comédie Humaine, a gift from Mathieu Chabran to Antoine Flamarion to celebrate his Legion of Honor. The gift was also a private joke about the dance of ambitions and pretenses that too often characterizes the world of business in Paris. In Antoine Flamarion’s office, you can find a chessboard, reflecting his strong passion for this game of strategy and anticipation, as well as card games used for magic tricks –another interest that proves useful for easing negotiations. The iPad and iPhone, true extensions of Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran’s hands, receive thousands of messages each day. Additionally, an electric train, a gift from Christian de Labriffe, is set up in Antoine Flamarion’s office. It serves as a reminder that the world keeps turning and one must stay in motion.
Palais de Tokyo is where Tikehau Capital celebrated its 15th anniversary in Paris. Located on Avenue de New York, this venue was a nod to the two most recent offices opened at the time, Tokyo and New York.
... I started at Tikehau Capital (and 15 more years).
“Rue Royale, the setting was remarkable with ornate moldings, hardwood floors, and vibrant, youthful people – everyone exuded energy and had bright smiles. The contrast between this posh place and the buzzing atmosphere was totally unexpected for a two-year-old investment firm. My job interview went well, and I started in July 2007. The beginnings were quite surprising. For six to nine months, I did not understand my job! I kept thinking, ‘what’s going on?’. There was always something urgent to do followed by an even more urgent one. I am not sure when I had a breakthrough but communication with Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran suddenly clicked, and 15 years later, I was still here.
It was hard work, but Antoine and Mathieu were making sure to welcome you with open arms. For instance, they always took time to explain what they were doing, something I never experienced elsewhere. I did not expect either to be integrated into seminars, but I was. An anecdote quite representative of that period is when we were sending out shareholder notices. I was generally working with Édouard Chatenoud – Tikehau Capital’s first intern. We were so stressed from making mistakes that each time it took us two hours before hitting the send button. We were probably lacking experience, but we wanted it to be perfect. The decision to move was difficult; I loved Rue Royale. But it coincided with a company shift. From the moment we arrived at Boulevard Haussman and later Rue Monceau, it seemed like we had reached another level. I could feel it on the phone. Some people who did not bother before were now eager to take the call. In March 2021 I left Tikehau Capital; I enjoyed every second of my time there – the encounters, the trust of Antoine and Mathieu. They gave me a taste for work and independence. Antoine often said we should think outside the box. Today I have set up my own structure thanks to the example of these two people who brought their vision to life and passed it on.”
Sandra Mence, former executive assistant to Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran; founder and managing director of Glowcare Institute
...
Tikehau Capital proved they know how to manage a crisis.
“Together with Compagnie Nationale à Portefeuille (CNP), we invested in Quick group, the fast-food restaurant chain. Quick had some problems that we were able to manage and resolve. We restructured the company and sold it later to the Caisse des Dépôts. It was a very successful investment.
After Quick, we decided, with CNP and Tikehau Capital, to invest in the restaurant group Flo, which owns brasseries in Paris and the Hippopotamus chain. We thought that it wasn’t a particularly risky investment – but that just goes to show the importance of timing in business! Our timing with Quick had been excellent, but it ended up not being great with the Flo deal because there was a dip in the restaurant sector at the time.
It’s in that kind of situation that you really understand the people you’re working with. What I’ve seen over the years is that Tikehau Capital is run by people with extraordinary talent. We all stayed very calm and dealt with it very well. It didn’t damage our reputation, nor theirs, nor the reputations of CNP and Albert Frère. Everyone was in the same boat.
They manage crises extremely well. Part of that is because they have surrounded themselves with very talented people. They’re very good at hiring. Sometimes you make lots of money, sometimes you make less. You must react quickly and adjust your plan accordingly, and Tikehau Capital is very good at that.
Of course, when there are no clouds on the horizon and the sky is blue, everything is much easier. It’s when you run into problems that you realize the quality of the people you are dealing with. The only thing I regret is not having worked with them more!”
Baron Luc Bertrand, chairman, nonexecutive director of Ackermans & van Haaren
... I invested my grandchildren’s inheritance in Tikehau Capital.
“When I say Tikehau Capital thinks big, I mean it. I will never forget my first meeting with them, in an office that was much too large for them at the time on Rue Royale in Paris. They were already thinking of an even bigger office! Antoine was explaining his ideas to me and writing them down at the same time to illustrate what he was saying – except he was sitting opposite me and so was writing everything for me upside down. It was very impressive. Even then, he already had a vision that was very independent, quite quirky. I was used to meeting very institutional bankers and suddenly in front of me I had this young pair who were going to revolutionize the system. It seemed crazy because how could they succeed, with so little money compared to the big players?
I told him afterwards in the lift that I would invest in Tikehau Capital because you must help young entrepreneurs starting out. That was just a joke, though – the truth is that when you’re a private investor, the first thing you’re looking for is trust. And I immediately had that with Antoine and Mathieu. I also share a passion for wine with Antoine. When we meet, it’s for a good bottle of wine and conversation – but not necessarily to talk finance. I like it when he tastes my wines, too, because he always tells me what he really thinks. He’s a good judge of wine and he won’t flatter you. He’s very honest, and so I know that when he tells me that it’s good, it’s because he means it.
Little by little, I increased my level of investment. I’ve noticed that in the world of finance, you’re often given the same spiel, the same old story that is recounted to every client. But Antoine didn’t do that. He actually often went upstream, against what the market was doing.
One thing that really wowed me was their awareness of the importance of building foundations. I’ve built up businesses, and it’s a bit like building a house. You imagine your house or your building, with foundations, and maybe five, maybe even ten floors. Antoine was already imagining an entire town.
I remember them telling me that they were going to go to the United States. That blew my mind a little. Just when you’re starting to make a name for yourself in France and the little Parisian market adores you, it takes a lot of courage to say you’re going to start from scratch again in the US. And sending one of the bosses was proof that they were personally investing in this decision. It’s just like the way that they invest their own money in the company. I’m putting my grandchildren’s money in my investments. But I know that with Tikehau Capital, we’re sharing the risks.”
Olivier Decelle, former chairman and chief executive officer of Picard Surgelés, and winemaker
...Tikehau Capital raced the Tour de France.
“I joined Tikehau Capital on September 3, 2007, at the age of 20. The company was growing a lot, I was on a permanent contract interacting with interns who I felt were much better and more qualified than me. They never missed a chance to ask me why I was hired and not them! At that time Tikehau Capital had reinvested the proceeds of a very successful deal – Antikehau and Saint-Ouen flea market – in six hotels in the French Alps, both deals in partnership with Goldman Sachs. We owned the assets but were not responsible for management, which was delegated to our tenants –tour operators. I thought our role was limited to financial control, then I realized it was much broader. From the elevator to the roof and the balconies, including fire safety issues, as owners we were liable for the entire buildings. In April 2008, one of our tenants changed but the takeover would not happen until September. The meaning? Five months of no man’s land and Tikehau Capital on the front line. I oversaw these assets. One day in June, the mayor of Huez called me: ‘We need to host the whole Tour de France in July. It is key for Alpe d’Huez, you have to open your hotel this summer!’
Meanwhile at Tikehau Capital, we’re having back-to-back meetings with our real estate partners. Ambitious and likely a bit arrogant, I raised my hand, ‘I’m a huge Tour de France fan, I’m ready to take care of it.’ At first Antoine and Mathieu burst out laughing, then they saw my determination. I was on.
Our Hôtel Madriandre had 26 rooms. Everything needed to be upgraded, water, electricity, bedding… in a couple of weeks. By end June, we had booking requests from the German press, but it would not have been enough to cover the costs, so we came up with the idea of a rotation.
With a dream team of five hospitality professionals, we rented the rooms twice a day, at night to the journalists covering the Tour de France and during the day to the Tour’s truck drivers. To add a bit of spice to the challenge, we had spotted a nice abandoned terrace space. Why not use it? One visit to the town hall later and having emptied all the local supermarkets on the way, we had built a bespoke restaurant where we served drinks and food to the entire Tour de France, especially on the D-Day of the most iconic Tour de France climb.
I keep fantastic memories of this experience. We had to deal with a serious challenge in a very short time frame, we turned it into a successful opportunity while combining a remarkable load of audacity with a strong determination. Without Tikehau Capital’s nimbleness, a united commando of professionals on the ground and our leaders’ confidence, it would not have been possible. From my perspective, this example summarizes the way Tikehau Capital has shaped its strong culture: trusting each other to achieve a goal, whatever it takes. In other words, when there is a will, there is a way, together!
When I started, Antoine and Mathieu allowed me to compensate for my nascent experience with passion and unwavering determination to get things across the finish line. It is an invaluable confidence boost that instills a sense of belonging, an emergency for delivering results, the desire to do your best to help the group grow and to grow with it.”
Jérémy Le Jan, head of Canada, Tikehau Capital
... when Tikehau
Capital saw an unique opportunity in the looming 2008 crisis.
“The first time I met Antoine was in 2007, a couple of months before Lehman Brothers collapsed. They were offering BNP Principal Investments to invest in an innovative fund, the Tikehau special situations fund, as they had identified the growing opportunity to provide flexible liquidity in a deteriorating market environment. The following months proved them right.
These two arrived. Antoine, who was bouncing up and down and couldn’t stay still for one second, who had a new idea every four seconds, and Mathieu, who was much calmer, much more reassuring. I remember telling them, ‘Look, I don’t know who you are, give me the information about your case and I’ll look at it.’
But after that, Antoine did not put down his telephone. He’s someone who is very opinionated and never gives up, not for a moment. Honestly, it was less their project than the men themselves that convinced me. I sent it on to the director of the bank, who said he wanted to meet them first. Of course, the same thing happened as with me – at the end of the meeting they had their investment, and they managed very successfully and diligently given the circumstances.
They’re extremely convincing. Antoine has an enormous capacity for forging relationships with people, and not only that, but to know exactly who he needs to speak to on whatever issue and which level of an organization to approach.
What I consider the great success of Tikehau Capital is not the 45 billion euros that they’ve managed to raise, but the relationship between Mathieu and Antoine. For me, there’s a real question mark there, because how can that be possible? They must have had their ups and downs – it would be impossible not to! Not that they’ve ever let it show. But they have worked together and complemented each other for years and that is a real personal and professional achievement. They’re two very talented people who have found in the other the right partner.”
Marie-Françoise Walbaum, former head of principal investments, BNP Paribas; member of the board of directors of Thales, Peugeot Invest and Isatis Capital
“We had a small and dynamic team with already three main funds. Our mezzanine debt activity was going well, with a diversified portfolio. Despite the macro-environment, we were quite confident in this early phase of the Tikehau adventure. I remember that just before that infamous 15 September 2008, which was a Monday, we had a team dinner on Thursday before to discuss future opportunities and our next objectives. And then everything started to accelerate over the weekend. We came into the office on Saturday and Sunday to prepare for what was coming, glued to our screens and to the news from Wall Street. And on the Monday, the unthinkable happened: Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.
This momentous event would have a significant and long-lasting impact across the globe, not only on financial markets. On Friday Lehman Brothers was still a solvent bulge-bracket investment bank with a strong credit rating, and a major counterparty in the market. And on Monday it had filed for Chapter 11. Poof, gone. While the challenges that the bank and other institutions were facing were known, the real shock was that no solution was found to save it. It was no longer ‘too big to fail.’ Over the next few days and weeks, it was chaotic: other financial institutions started to file for bankruptcy or merge with each other, trying to find deep pockets and a strong balance sheet to face the collapse in the financial markets. We were coming to the office with no idea what was going to happen that afternoon or which banks would survive to the next day. The markets went completely crazy. A situation of this magnitude was unprecedented.
As we tried to protect our funds and our investors, the liquidity had disappeared and everyone was very concerned about counterparty risk: if I manage to sell this bond, will the buyer still be there in three days to pay me? There was a huge crisis of confidence in the markets. Everything was changing within the hour. It felt like a rollercoaster – and not just professionally, but on a personal level too. I had worked at Lehman Brothers. A lot of people were losing their jobs from one day to the next, on top of their savings. The financial chaos quickly spread through the economy.
It was a probing time. But the team shook it off and we went on survival mode, reassessing every line of the portfolios. Where was the liquidity, what kind of valuations did we have, what could we sell? What were the redemptions? While the situation was very painful for everyone, we didn’t hide from our clients. We were picking up our calls, responding to emails (even faxes, remember those?). Those discussions with investors were not easy, but at least we were communicating. Not everyone was doing that at the time.
I had joined Tikehau Investment Management, the asset management arm of Tikehau Capital, just two months before, and I was the only analyst in fixed income business unit, along with an intern. As these events unfolded, what stayed with me was that everyone faced up to their responsibilities: no one tried to hide. We were in it together. That period was certainly character-building! But for example, that intern stayed with us for 15 years and had a successful career as an analyst and portfolio manager. That was the good thing about having a small team – you knew that you could rely on your teammates and everyone chipped in.
As well as being in crisis management mode, we were also trying to look out for possible opportunities for our clients. We were stabilizing the boat, but already starting to keep an eye out for good deals. By the beginning of 2009, we started to buy back bonds that had lost a lot of value. I remember that we had a few big chemical companies on our books, and Mathieu was in London for meetings with banks. We were trying to work through this trade, and he was on the Eurostar on the way back and the signal was bad, but we ended up buying INEOS bonds at nine cents –which would end up being redeemed at par a couple of years later. The global financial crisis was a very difficult period, but there were also great investment opportunities that we were able to seize.”
Rodolfo Caceres, head of credit research, Tikehau Capital
... the very first off-site skiing adventure was launched.
“Our first seminars took place in the South, near Avignon, then in Camargue, followed by Ardèche. It turns out many of us come from these beautiful parts of France, and each insisted that we gather in ‘their’ region. But this was before a morning in 2009, just after acquiring a hotel in Tignes – nothing luxurious. An email from Mathieu popped up. At the time, we were based at Boulevard Haussmann, and Tikehau Capital had only 20 employees.
‘Available to spend two days skiing in Tignes?’ Impossible not to jump at that chance; a week later, we were on the train.
The roots of this now long-established event were planted. The rest of the history took place after a very Tikehau Capital-esque evening that ended at dawn. It was 8 a.m., and the entire team’s phones beeped. Text from Mathieu: ‘Hi guys, meeting at 9 a.m. at the top of the slope, be on time!’ Without thinking, we all headed towards this mysterious rendezvous. Mathieu had organized une flèche, a slalom race. Most of us had never done it before, and we were a bit nervous facing the starting gate.
But Tikehau Capital’s ‘play hard, work hard’ mood took over.
We had all partied, now we would all do the flèche; and we loved it! That’s the day I understood the group’s DNA. We’re not afraid to take risks, to step out of our comfort zone, and most importantly, we do it together!
Since then, the annual off-ski weekend with its iconic flèche has become an institution. Amongst our gentle mischiefs, we’ve replaced a town’s entrance sign with Tikehau Capital, convinced a mayor to prominently feature the company name on the slopes; we like our little surprises. The challenge has been to maintain this dynamic, whether we’re 20 as when we started, or almost 650 at Peisey-Vallandry in 2024. A fun story is we often say ‘this is the last one,’ ‘we’re too many,’ ‘it won’t work’; yet we continue, and it works!
I believe this longevity’s secret is the founders’ support. If someone told me Mathieu and Antoine weren’t coming, it wouldn’t feel the same. It’s a bonding moment.”
Laure Sammut, corporate and global networks events manager, Tikehau Capital
THINKING alternative
THINKING alternative
"When there is a will, there is a way, together!"
Jérémy Le Jan
Sports and their demands hold a special place at Tikehau Capital, serving as a source of inspiration and a way to unwind. Inspiration comes from champions like Fabien Gilot in swimming, as well as collective challenges such as the annual “Mont Ventoux challenge” held for ten years in biking, or La Flèche – ski descent organized during global off-sites in skiing, and individual challenges like the Marathon des Sables, in running. In short, at Tikehau Capital, we encourage a mindset that embraces challenges, even if it feels like climbing a summit with just flipflops and a walking stick.
“They just know to increase their chances of success by choosing their battles.”
Christian Flamarion
“I first met Antoine and Mathieu in 2009, when I was at Goldman Sachs. I inherited a portfolio from another part of the firm, which had a whole bunch of positions, one of which was a tiny stake in Tikehau Capital. We should have held on to the stake, it would have done very well! That was when the firm was still in its infancy. Over the years, I’ve seen them basically build an alternative asset manager from scratch.
It’s interesting if you go back and look at who’s risen and who’s fallen and how the playing field has changed in 15 years. They’ve managed to mark themselves out because they are just relentlessly entrepreneurial. That’s at the core of who they are.
They have been dogged in their pursuit to grow a great business. Every time I would go to an event, they would be there. They are very good at building relationships and at staying in touch – and they don’t outsource that work to other people; it’s really the two of them driving it. They’ve made a science out of relationship building. I think this is why they’ve been particularly effective in Europe, because they build long-term partnerships, which really appeals to smaller, medium-sized businesses, which is primarily what they’re financing in private debt.
I think a David and Goliath analogy is a good one. They have always acted like a young, hungry, scrappy start-up, and still do so today, even though they are now one of the leading alternative asset managers in the European market. It would be so easy for them to be sitting there, reveling in their success, thinking about how well they’ve done. But they don’t stop.
Being in the financial services industry is a bit like being on a treadmill. If you don’t keep running, at some point you’re going to fall off the back of the treadmill because the markets are continuing to evolve and get more competitive. But Antoine and Mathieu are the ones pressing the button trying to make it go faster!
One way to sum all of this up is to say, whether it’s the first time I met them in 2009 or the last time I saw Mathieu for breakfast maybe six months ago: they haven’t changed. Their success has not diminished their desire to scale and grow the business. There’s no resting on their laurels.”
Julian Salisbury, partner and co-chief investment officer Sixth Street; former co-head of Goldman Sachs asset management and global head of the merchant banking division
... Tikehau Capital made a science out of building relationships.
... Tikehau Capital and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa started their partnership.
“One of the first moments that comes to mind with Antoine and Mathieu was a very pleasant dinner in June 2009. The discussions between Crédit Mutuel Arkéa (CMA) –which I was leading at the time – and Tikehau Capital to become partners had already begun. I remember enjoying a delightful evening telling myself these two young men would go far. This impression was confirmed across our ongoing discussions with JeanPierre Denis, the president of CMA. What particularly impressed us was their ability to ‘grab’ operations. I use that verb intentionally. They were not just doing finance; they were creating opportunities. They knew how to find deals others had not seen or execute them faster and better, thus winning. JeanPierre and I agreed: We were facing an exceptional team and could not afford to miss out. The founding of our partnership with Tikehau Capital happened on 2009. I see it as a cornerstone in the sense that it helped Tikehau Capital establish credibility among other institutional players. From 2009 to 2015 CMA was considered as highly entrepreneurial, so more than the invested amounts what mattered was the symbolism of having them on board. Since then, they achieved many milestones together, ultimately leading us to joining the governance of Tikehau Capital Advisors. Even though I no longer work for
CMA, I notice that this partnership has never wavered. Tikehau Capital has grown tremendously, yet it has remained loyal to its historical partner. Finance as we practice it is a long-term business; we don’t engage in oneoff deals. If you are not able to foster loyalty among those you work with, you will not be able to create sustainable value. The core of Tikehau Capital’s story has been shaped with this mantra.
As an entrepreneur this is an incredible source of inspiration. What an impressive journey! Starting a company is tough; to go through the rollercoaster of ups and downs, you need motivating examples. Tikehau Capital is my secret weapon. I often take out a paper I received from Antoine in December 2008 and show it to my team. On the front page there is a photo of all Tikehau Capital then, just 15 people, sitting on the lawn of the hotel Flocon de Sel in Megève probably for a seminar. It is an old, not very pretty early internet document, but it summarizes everything the group was already at that time. The message is clear: you can start very small and become one of the biggest.”
Ronan Le Moal, co-founder and CEO Épopée Gestion; former CEO, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa
... Tikehau
Capital showed what it could do in stepping out of its comfort zone.
“In 2010 or 2011, I invited Antoine to my house in Chamonix in France to go skiing. I was still working at Rothschild & Co at the time. It was a beautiful day. We were going to ski the Vallée Blanche, with a 1,000-meter drop on one side, and 800 meters on the other. The snow was quite deep. Antoine was a less experienced skier than the rest of us, but he didn’t complain. And the trip down is long, it takes about an hour and a half. We finally got to a mountain refuge called the Refuge du Requin, which has an incredible view over the valley. We had a good meal there, and then got back on our skis. And the guide took us down an even more dangerous route. We got to this slope which is so steep it’s almost vertical. If you fall, you can really hurt yourself. And Antoine still didn’t say anything; he just got on with it. We all arrived at the bottom alive! That was when I thought, this guy is interesting, because he’s able to get out of his comfort zone. He’s capable of taking risks. It was that day that made me realize that I could work with him. And I think that day was the beginning of his love for the mountains, too. So, we both got something out of it.
It was a couple of years later that I decided to join Tikehau Capital. Every 20 years, I change jobs. I had been at Lazard for 20 years, then Rothschild for 20, and Antoine and Mathieu had been trying to convince me to join them for a while. I knew it was the right time. What interests me is joining something that you can develop, a company that you can multiply by 10. Tikehau Capital was a new adventure for me.”
Christian de Labriffe, chairman of the supervisory board, Tikehau Capital
“London was an obvious choice for the whole team, we immediately felt at home there…”
Lon n d o
Tikehau Capital was conceived by Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran in London at Club Gascon in the early 2000s. London was the first office opened outside France. The opening of the London office was made possible with the support of Lord Peter Levene, former Lord Mayor of the City, JeanPierre Mustier, and Peter Cirenza. From the initial offices at 35 King Street in 2013 to those in the Gherkin, the Tikehau Capital teams have grown significantly, and the expression "Tike… who?" is no longer used.
Dubbed the ‘Crazy’ French pair by the FT when Tikehau Capital first opened the London office in London, ten years later it hosted a 20th anniversary dinner at the Victoria and Albert Museum attended by the largest LPs present in London. Without the Eurostar, this journey would have been much more complicated.
“Amongst their many talents, Antoine and Mathieu have always been particularly good at seeing trends early and then committing to them. To be a pioneer in so many aspects of the private markets requires both vision and commitment, and Tikehau Capital has benefited immensely from having both."
Peter Cirenza, co-chief investment officer, chairman of tactical strategies, Tikehau Capital
...
Tikehau Capital put social impact investing
at the heart of its strategy.
“One of the reasons why we clicked is that we share the same values, in particular this idea of using economic products for helping others, for creating savings that help people in fragile situations.
The mutual savings and pensions company Carac offers a range of different products to its customers, and these products contribute to various charities, such as for ill children, jobseekers in difficult personal circumstances, or for people with disabilities. Tikehau Capital makes a significant financial contribution to these charities, and they were doing it early on; they didn’t wait to be a large company to start doing it.
In 2011, together we created the fund Tikehau Entraid’Épargne Carac (TEEC). Tikehau Capital’s biggest asset is that it returns a portion of its profit to the community, and when we started this partnership, that was a new thing to do in the world of finance. Our relationship progressed to the point where Carac bought shares in Tikehau Capital, which is a first – Carac had never invested in an asset management company before that. We both have the same interest in creating saving accounts that have meaning, products that aren’t made solely to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. They also don’t talk a lot about it or make any outrageous claims about what they’ve done. Some companies do a lot of greenwashing or solidarity-washing: they do some things just to look good. Tikehau Capital doesn’t do that; they are very discreet – maybe too much! There’s a human quality to Tikehau Capital. Of course, there’s a lot of financial talent, but it’s the human encounters that make up Tikehau Capital, the personalities of the two founders.”
Jean-Jacques Berthelé, former chief executive officer Carac
... I came face to face with Tikehau Capital’s ambition
“I was introduced to Antoine in 2011 by a friend we had in common, who told me I had to meet this incredible young businessman. They came to meet me at my office – at the time I was the president of the Banque Populaire Caisse d’Épargne group. This is when Tikehau Capital was still quite a small affair; they hadn’t yet reached one billion euros of assets under management. One of the first things Antoine told me was that Tikehau Capital was going to become the Blackstone of Europe. They were thinking big.
There aren’t many people who can come out with something like that and not sound ridiculous, but there was something different about him. He has a sort of spark, an energy, and a sense of humour. I knew immediately I wanted to get to know him better. We don’t have a lot of people in France like that. Now, I don’t know if I quite believed him at the time – but I almost did! I wanted to help him because what he was saying made sense: there was no European Blackstone, there was a gap in the market, and I could see that he had the temperament to succeed.
There’s something about Antoine’s personality that attracts people. He’s a real entrepreneur. He’s capable of convincing lots of different people, bringing them on board, and speaking to individuals and big corporations alike. I feel like Mathieu complements Antoine in that; he’s perhaps more level-headed, less extroverted, and that makes them a good team.
After that one-hour meeting with Antoine, we started to work together. And I soon realised, ‘This is someone I could go to war with,’ because he was trustworthy. That was almost 14 years ago. I think I can say that I didn’t get it wrong! The story of Tikehau Capital ever since is quite astonishing – there aren’t many stories like theirs in France’s financial sector.”
François Pérol, managing partner, co-chairman of the Group Partners Committee, Rothschild & Co
... I caught the Tikehau
Capital ambition bug.
“Antoine and Mathieu have such an extraordinary level of ambition… I remember back in November 2011, we were working on the company budgets and at the time we must have had 600 million euros in assets under management. We went to see Antoine and Mathieu, all proud of ourselves, to say, ‘You know what, we’re going to get to a billion by the end of 2012.’ And they looked at us, and they said, ‘Guys, that’s not ambitious enough. It’s not a billion. It’s at least 1.5 billion that we’re going to get.’ That was almost twice what we had at the time. It was unattainable, impossible.
And yet… In the end we did it, and even a bit more. And that ambition is a permanent feature of the company. We’ve been listed since 2017, so now our financial objectives are genuine commitments. We manage to move mountains, to get things that normally wouldn’t be possible, loans from financial partners, agreements, deals. And that attitude is contagious. I’ve caught the Tikehau bug too. I know that anything is possible. There’s a passion that drives us all. When I think of Tikehau Capital, I think of a big river, like the Amazon. It starts off as lots of individual small streams that join together and that become this enormous force: that’s the team. We all come together to create this massive success. That’s partly because of Antoine and Mathieu’s talent for drawing out the best in everyone.”
Benoît Floutier, deputy CEO, Makemo Capital, family office of the co-founders
“The message is clear: you can start very small and become one of the biggest.”
Ronan Le Moal
Good deals have no wheels is a phrase coined by Mathieu Chabran to highlight the importance of being closely connected to the markets in which one operates, particularly in private markets. A geographical, linguistic, and cultural proximity that has enabled the opening of offices in Milan with Luca Bucelli, in Madrid with Carmen Alonso, as well as in Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Luxembourg. Making Europe Tikehau Capital’s primary playground.
“What makes me so enthusiastic to work at Tikehau Capital is the businessminded leeway that is given to each employee eager to innovate and to do his best to make Tikehau Capital grow in its market. It is four times bigger now than when I joined but Tikehau Capital's entrepreneurial culture has been maintained and makes it really different from other more traditional entities. I have found at Tikehau Capital many smart and humble professionals happy to do what they do and successful.”
Christian Rouquerol, co-head of Iberia, Tikehau Capital
“What an extraordinary journey Tikehau Capital has been. No one ever said it would be easy, nor without its challenges. Yet, looking back at our recent history, if the journey has been remarkable thus far, I can only imagine what lies ahead. With the energy and expertise of a dynamic and talented generation of professionals across the globe, I am confident in our collective ability to deliver with purpose. This will undoubtedly propel Tikehau Capital forward, while continuing to nurture the unique sense of belonging that defines us.”
David Martin, co-head of Iberia, Tikehau Capital
“Lehman Brothers’s bankruptcy in 2008 changed everything regarding private debt. New formats gained popularity afterwards. Everyone realized that the economy had to be financed differently, especially the life insurance sector. They needed tools to invest in debt funds. One pivotal moment? It occurred when the French insurance code changed to make economic development funds (fonds de prêt à l’économie) eligible. This led us to answer a call for tender to manage NOVO funds, the first ones supporting SMEs and backed by French insurers. We won and got selected alongside BNP Paribas. If that had happened today, choosing us might have seemed easy, but not at that time; we were still small! NOVO funds were launched in 2012 and it significantly contributed to our institutionalization. Another cornerstone was a private debt management agreement, a 50 million euros fund for Swiss Life. When I received the news, we were at a work seminar in the South of France. I interrupted the group to make the announcement. ‘You know how to choose your timing,’ joked Antoine Flamarion. That was important because it was our first fund dedicated to leveraged loans. Then for a long time we did not exceed 50 million euros per mandate until the Suravenir insurance fund, where it eventually reached 250 million euros. The message was clear: hard work was recognized and Tikehau Capital was trustworthy. So which day was the most decisive? To me it is more a series of events combined with the initial Tikehau Capital vision of having a holistic view of the capital structure of a company. For ages we were all just focusing on stocks; Antoine and Mathieu understood that debts were bound to play a decisive role and they explored their different types: senior debt, junior debt, obligations, etc. Subsequently, they have a vision of what ‘financing the economy’ means. Finance is sometimes referred to as a ‘faceless world,’ Tikehau Capital on the other hand is ‘finance with a face.’ We aggregate capital from institutional investors and drive them to finance the ‘real economy.’ It has been in our DNA since the start.”
Guillaume Arnaud, chairman of the management board, Sofidy
... when Tikehau Capital became a pioneer in private debt.
Stéphane Dessirier, CEO, MACSF
... MACSF first formed a partnership with Tikehau Capital
“I first met Tikehau Capital in 2013 while they were seeking an institutional partner to acquire Salvepar, a listed portfolio of growing companies owned by Société Générale. This was an intelligent move on their part and a transformative one. Eventually, the vehicle they used to be listed 4 years later. I could see that they were doing interesting things in the sector. MACSF had already invested in other asset management companies so we already knew the sector quite well. We had just come to the end of our relationship with La Française des Placements so we were looking for a new investment.
It's always the same thing that clinches a deal like that: it’s the people and whether you believe in them, in their ability to grow and I had that with Antoine Flamarion. The big difference with this relationship was that before we had invested in companies that managed listed assets whereas Tikehau Capital at the time was managing predominantly unlisted assets. And, that was exactly what we were looking for, we recognised that private assets were a growing trend that would endure.
What makes Tikehau Capital stand out from its competitors is that it is one of the few asset managers in France that follows
a similar model to the big American players like Blackstone and KKR. The other thing that Tikehau Capital has is that many French companies on the market don’t manage to get beyond France’s borders. But Tikehau Capital has become an international player. That’s because they know that it’s not enough just to take a trip to Japan every six months, you have to be on the ground and develop things there locally. They’ve done that, going from zero to €46 billion euros under management, and have done it by investing locally. Having Mathieu Chabran in New York has been an enormous advantage in helping them expand.
What characterises Tikehau Capital is the level of their ambition and their ability to innovate. MACSF has been partners with them for a long time, and they’ve always been ambitious. Their strength is being able to hold on to this ambition and energy as they’ve expanded, making them a group with a global footprint. Our combined strength also led to the launch of the first evergreen private debt fund, which is fully liquid for our policyholders. We were truly ahead of the curve.”
Roger Caniard, board member, Tikehau Capital; head of financial management, MACSF
... I switched office for the first time.
“If someone had told me that one day I would be able to be part of the opening of a new office in Singapore, or that I’d live in London, I wouldn’t have believed them! I’ve been lucky, because when I joined Tikehau Capital as an intern in 2011, there was no indication that I’d be able to work abroad, and it’s something that I really enjoyed. Working abroad challenges you, forces you to think and do things differently. I wasn’t even going to work in finance originally. I studied humanities and planned on going into marketing, in the luxury sector. But I found it really boring. So, then I switched to something completely different. I wanted to go outside of my comfort zone.
When I started at Tikehau Capital I was working on the debt team. One day, Mathieu sent an email to everyone saying that they were going to open an office in Singapore and did anyone want to go? I volunteered, met with Antoine and Mathieu to talk about it, and then went. It all happened in the space of three months. I had no experience at all in private equity, which is what I was going to be doing in Singapore. So, it was a chance for me to work on something different and learn new things. I didn’t know anyone. At that time, no one knew who we were. We had to create everything from the ground up – I found that really motivating. Then when I wanted to develop my skills even more, I thought about going back to Europe, where there were bigger accounts. The same thing happened – I put my hand up and asked if I could go to London. At Tikehau Capital, they’re very happy to build bridges between different teams and different offices, and to help you develop your career. My first day in London was in January. I’d come from Singapore, where it was 30 °C, and the office was on the 35th floor of a big tower with a view of the sea. Then overnight you get to London in winter and, well… it’s somewhat different!
Moving around like that has given me a lot of self-confidence. I think I was quite shy before – my colleagues have teased me about the fact that when I started, I basically kept apologizing for existing! Now I’m probably one of the people in the company who has moved around the most.”
Hélène Henry-Prince, former co-head of the private equity regenerative agriculture strategy, Tikehau Capital
“They know how to accelerate funds and invest money where it will be the most impactful.”
Patrick Pouyanné
From its early years on Rue Royale to ringing the bell at Palais Brongniart, Tikehau Capital has successfully navigated key growth milestones in the markets, with oversubscribed bond issuances and its stock market debut in 2017. While Mathieu Chabran often reminds us that with the end of quantitative easing, “corporate finance 1.0” is back – emphasizing company valuations based on profitability rather than solely on future potential – Tikehau Capital remains an innovative player in finance. For instance, it was one of the first European firms to successfully launch a SPAC, leading to FL Entertainment’s listing on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. This demonstrates that Antoine Flamarion’s “fasten your seatbelts!” message to investors and partners is far from an empty phrase.
While Tikehau Capital is widely recognized for its private markets expertise, its capital markets strategies, led by Raphael Thuin (head of capital markets strategies) and Laurent Calvet (deputy head of capital markets strategies and head of fixed income), are equally dynamic and integral to the firm’s success. Both expertises share the same global investment philosophy, rooted in conviction, long-term management, and a strong foundation in both financial and extrafinancial analysis.
... when Tikehau Capital opened its Singapore office.
“When Tikehau Capital was looking at moving into Asia, I suggested Singapore. I had launched a very successful business there and told Mathieu and Antoine that I could introduce them to people. So, we all flew to Singapore, and on the first day, Mathieu disappeared for a while. When he came back, I asked, ‘Where have you been?’ And he said, ‘Oh, I went to rent our new office here.’ I was astonished. ‘But you’ve never been here before!’ But once they know they want to do something, they have the attitude of: why waste time?
Singapore was a good way into Asia’s booming market. The government there goes out of its way to reduce obstacles in the way of people setting up a business – and everyone speaks English as well, which helps. One of the people I introduced them to was Ho Ching, the chairperson of Temasek. They got on very well with her, and it seemed like an obvious match. Temasek then became a Tikehau Capital shareholder. I think people in Singapore were curious about them – of course there were lots of other similar companies in Singapore at the time, but they found these two young French guys very driven and go-ahead. Singapore has ended up being one of Tikehau Capital’s most successful ventures!
I had first met Mathieu and Antoine back in London. They were starting from scratch, and I helped them get in contact with people. They are both very amicable as well as being very hard workers. I could recognize myself in them – I had started a quoted company in London when I was 26, so I began pretty young too. I remember that first small office they had in King’s Street. It was pretty hectic! There was a very small number of people trying to do a large number of things – running around, making phone calls, going backwards and forwards. Now they’re in the Gherkin, and it’s a much bigger office in the middle of the financial district. It’s always a buzz when you go in.”
Lord Peter Levene, chairman of Tikehau Capital Europe; former Lord Mayor of London; former chairman Lloyd’s
“In May 2005, as I was completing my studies in London, I stumbled upon a job posting from a group of young entrepreneurs: Tikehau Capital. Soon after, I found myself face-to-face with the founders, Antoine and Mathieu. They immediately won me over. They had both an entrepreneurial spirit and an impressive background in top financial institutions: a perfect blend, the best of both worlds! Subsequent events only solidified my initial impression. By July 2005, just a few weeks after joining, operations were already in full swing. Those were intense days! However, one day stands out in my memory. Our office was on Rue Royale, and on that particular day, the space was buzzing with not one, not two, but three simultaneous meetings! Each discussion was of significant importance – refinancing the Saint-Ouen flea market, acquiring mountain hotels, and exploring opportunities in the restaurant industry. I can still picture myself, a fresh intern, watching Antoine dart from one room to another. From there, progress was swift. We definitely scaled up in April 2006, when we brought Albert Frère, Goldman Sachs and Financière Agache into our capital. It wasn’t merely about the amount of money invested at that time; rather, it was the exceptional quality of our partners – remarkable considering our fund was barely two years old. Since then, this dynamic has never waned, making the whole journey even more captivating than any specific moment. Tikehau Capital’s success story is a movie! Not just a snapshot.”
Édouard Chatenoud, former head of Benelux, Tikehau Capital
... when Tikehau Capital’s first intern became Tikehau Capital’s Benelux director.
... the Ventoux challenge was born.
“The first time we did it, there were probably only about 15 of us. We got changed in the back of a van. It wasn’t like it is now! It was a lot more rough and ready. It used to be planned through word of mouth. It started after Mathieu cycled up Mont Ventoux with his friends to celebrate his 40th birthday. That was where he got the idea. Since then, he’s led the charge on the project. He puts so much in and always takes the time to speak to everyone taking part. Then at some point we decided to create a sort of organizing committee that we called Tikehau au Sommet – TAS. Now it’s better organized: there’s an arch at the finish line that you go under, we get jerseys made with the Tikehau logo, and there’s even a camera crew recording the event!
It’s open to everyone, not just employees. Our partners do it too. As long as you want to do it and you can do it – and that’s important, because you have to train beforehand. It’s not easy! People at work prepare for it together; they go to the gym together or cycle at the weekends. It represents a chance for people to get to know one another. On the day itself, it takes the best cyclists about an hour and a half, but for most people it’s about two or three hours to get to the top. And that’s a long time! But it means that perhaps you’ll start off cycling in a group of friends, and then you’ll fall behind, or you’ll speed up and pull ahead, and you’ll end up cycling in a different group. It’s really friendly. When you’re doing it, there are no barriers between you and the next person. You have the IT guy cycling next to someone from
the comms team, cycling with a senior analyst. And we’ve tried really hard to get more women involved. There are some who are really good, even getting some of the best times. The hill is at about a 8 % incline, so you’re making an effort but you’re able to talk. You end up cycling and chatting with someone you’ve never met before. That’s how you create a rapport with someone, not over a dinner in London or Paris. It’s not a competition. There are some people who are competitive, who want to beat their own time from the year before or want to be in first or second place. But the point is that there’s a familial atmosphere – we’re all supporting each other. Everyone always waits for the last person, and we do a big family photo together. After the photo, we go back down and have lunch and drinks in an exceptional spot, in a little village square under poplar trees, right in the middle of the mountains. Then in the evening, back at the hotel, everyone gets together again for a big dinner and watches video footage from the day. There’s a great atmosphere. In 2021, I was in Singapore and couldn’t travel because of Covid. But with a friend we decided to recreate it here. There’s a hill that is about 40 meters high – so we went up and down it over and over again, to get to Mont Ventoux’s 1,900-meter altitude. We climbed Ventoux in Singapore!”
Jean-Baptiste Feat, co-CIO, co-head of investment and capital solutions, Tikehau Capital
“I’ve always had the spirit of an entrepreneur, and that innate connection with other entrepreneurs has been a defining aspect throughout my life. From the very first time I met Antoine and Mathieu, I knew they were different. Their ambition was palpable. They weren’t just aspiring to build something big – they had already set the foundation for it. However, we all agreed on the importance of simplifying the company’s structure. Back then, the group was a real tangle of knots! Unlisted and complex, but that’s precisely what made it exciting! We all shared the same goal: clarity and growth. I saw their vision, their talent, and their drive, and I knew we could accomplish something significant together.
And we did! After investing in Tikehau Capital Advisors, we accompanied them as they grew. I think our working with them sent a message of confidence. They skyrocketed from managing fewer than ten billion euros to over 40 billion in assets.
Peugeot Invest made several investments alongside Tikehau Capital. Together, we took a bold step when we invested in renewable energy pioneer Total Eren, back in 2015, even before our investment in Tikehau Capital Advisors. Now, renewable energy investments may seem commonplace, but back then, only a handful of investors were willing to take that risk. It was the first time that Peugeot Invest had committed such a significant stake into a project like that.
We all believed deeply that we were onto something great, but in the beginning it was a long process. Finding locations to build solar and wind farms was a journey in itself. We had faith in the project, and we were right, as TotalEnergies later told us when they bought their stake that they would buy us out. It’s always reassuring to have a strategic buyer from the start.
Looking back, I see these investments not just as financial decisions, but as adventures. Whether we were investing in renewables or asset management, we embraced the unknown with conviction and the rewards have been sweet. As they say, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating!’ ”
Robert Peugeot, Peugeot Invest chairman of the board of directors; former Tikehau Capital advisors board member
... Peugeot Invest joined forces with two ambitious entrepreneurs.
“Our aim with Tikehau Capital is to create something that will survive us."
Mathieu Chabran
Since 2018, Tikehau Capital has opened offices in New York. This pivotal move led Mathieu Chabran to relocate there. In his office, there’s a mug inscribed with one of Tikehau Capital’s mottos: “be on the ball.” This motto drives him to actively connect with key players in finance, as evidenced by the numerous event badges hanging in his office. From attending Milken Institute events to financing the new JFK terminal – not to mention a few ski runs won in Colorado – Tikehau Capital is steadily making its mark on the US market while staying connected to its French roots, symbolized by a photo of the latest Tikehau Capital seminar in Les Arcs displayed on Mathieu’s desk.
“Before joining Tikehau Capital back in September 2016, I had embarked on a pilgrimage along the St. James of Compostela route. Between two jobs, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to recharge and reflect—a welcome moment of transition. However, the acceleration of the IPO timeline led me to cut the journey short, and I stopped near Moissac, in the heart of a region renowned for its passion for rugby. This stop served as a symbolic pause, foreshadowing the challenges I was about to face at Tikehau Capital. Preparing for an IPO and the following international developments requires the ability to distinguish between urgency and importance, and to avoid confusing speed with haste — an approach I’ve always strived to maintain, even in the most intense and high-pressure situations we face in a fastgrowing company like Tikehau Capital.”
Henri Marcoux, deputy CEO, Tikehau Capital
“I can hardly believe how the years have flown by! In June 2013, we were about 40 people, managing 1.4 billion euros in assets under management and around 400 million euros in equity, all while actively preparing to open our first office in London. We were no longer a startup, but still very much an entrepreneurial company with ambitious goals. The projects and growth I was promised have been fully realized, from international expansion to numerous corporate finance initiatives... and there's still so much uncharted territory ahead!”
Anne Le Stanguennec, head of internal audit, Tikehau
“In 2019 global private credit was booming. ‘How could we differentiate Tikehau Capital?’ While on a panel at a private debt investors event, the question was asked about fund liquidity. This was the ‘what if ’ moment. Quickly, with the support of TKO’s leadership, balance sheet and a newly formed team, we launched the private debt secondaries business. Being first is never easy, however, if ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’, we should all take pride in our accomplishment. The best is yet to come!"
Tim Grell, chairman of North America, Tikehau Capital
The day
...
Jacques Mayoux shut
my finger in a door and we became friends.
In memoriam Jacques Mayoux
“I met him when I was at Goldman Sachs, where he was Europe vice-president. I was a young associate, not even 25 years old. We were working on a deal with EDF and were in London together. EDF didn’t really want to sell to Goldman Sachs and so we had this important meeting where we had to try to convince them. Jacques probably was about 70 years old at the time, so he knew everyone: the board, the presidents, etc. We arrive in front of their building, and I get out of the car. He then slams the car door – on my thumb. I was in so much pain but didn’t want to go to the hospital because we had to do this meeting. He put his arm around me, and we did the meeting anyway, with him looking after me. Everyone in the meeting must have thought that we were really close but actually I had only just met him. After that, this rumor went round that we were really good friends and that I was the protégé of Jacques Mayoux.
We did end up becoming great friends. He was hilarious. Just a wellspring of culture and intelligence. He took me under his wing. His life was full of amazing experiences. He became Tikehau Capital’s sparring partner. When Mathieu and I founded the company, he came along for the ride and helped us a lot. It was him that introduced us to Albert Frère. At the beginning, we were a really small outfit and we needed to be taken more seriously. Jacques made a list of five people that we needed to meet, and the first name on the list was Frère. So we went to meet him in Charleroi and after that he invested in Tikehau Capital.
Jacques was very attentive to detail and helped us build the company. More than anything, he made people trust us. He was the most brilliant guy in finance in France and, in my opinion, in Europe, so to have him on our side was incredible.”
Antoine Flamarion
“From the very beginning, I was thoroughly impressed by the professionalism of Tikehau Capital. At the time, I was the chief financial officer of La Banque Postale and already served on several boards of directors. When you join a board, you quickly try to understand its operations, identify the key issues, assess all challenges, and evaluate the company’s strengths and weaknesses. At Tikehau Capital, I was able to gather all the necessary information for this analysis in an exceptionally short period, which is quite remarkable.
Additionally, with my background as a supervisor, I’m accustomed to noticing small signals that might indicate a company is not well-organized, fully aware, or consistent across different areas. I can confidently say that I have never observed anything of the sort at Tikehau Capital.
Another notable quality is how Tikehau Capital expertly manages its board meetings. They strike the right balance between setting the agenda, managing the meeting duration, and allocating time for discussions among the directors.
In terms of technical expertise and professionalism, the teams are impeccable. They have created an incredible ecosystem of dedicated and remarkable individuals who, in my opinion, enable them to react very quickly while other financial institutions are often bogged down by internal procedures and regulations.
In contrast, at Tikehau Capital, the analysis and understanding of a proposal can be very efficient, allowing them to make investment offers swiftly. I distinctly remember a situation where many investors were considering a deal, and Tikehau Capital was the first to make an offer.
Several months later, other institutional investors reached the same conclusion as Tikehau Capital and approached them to buy their stake acquired a few months earlier.
When I joined Tikehau Capital’s board, I told Mathieu and Antoine that it felt like a breath of fresh air to be part of their company, and I am very grateful to them for that.”
Florence Lustman, president of the French insurance federation France Assureurs
... I joined Tikehau Capital’s supervisory board.
... Tikehau Capital took the leap and
listed on the Paris stock market.
“As is often the case at Tikehau Capital, we decided to do this a lot more quickly than originally planned. Once we make a decision, we don’t go back and forth about it. We don’t hang around. We wanted to take advantage of the momentum we had.
The model that we had up to 2016 had reached its limits. There were four business units that needed to be brought together and harmonized. An IPO was an opportunity to reorganize everything and would act as an accelerator, a way to level up. At the time, there weren’t that many alternative investment group companies on the market. So, it was innovative, as well as going hand-in-hand with gains in operational efficiency.
The period prior to the listing was quite a tense moment, because it coincided with the Brexit vote, and we were worried companies wouldn’t want to invest. We had to convince them that asset management not only had a future in London, but a Tikehau Capital future. We had to reinvent our story at the time to make sense of this kind of market, so that people would understand who we were and what we were doing. The IPO was a way of showing the world what we were about, communicating our values. It brings even more transparency. It means that if there’s a problem, we have an obligation to inform the market, so our shareholders and the market in general will know what’s happening. That’s a strong selling point for us, because our clients can find out a lot of information about us. We had quite an unusual way of going public, too. Because we already had a listed company in fact, so this was an IPO via a public exchange offer for a subsidiary. There was a lot of work behind the scenes. When we announced the decision, I was exhausted! But the real key moment was when we rang the bell. Maybe it’s a bit obvious, but it’s very symbolic. It’s the moment when months and months of work suddenly become real. When I joined Tikehau Capital in 2013 Antoine had said to me, ‘We’re going to be a billion company.’ And I thought it would take five or even ten years. And then in 2017, there we were, listing a company on the stock market with over a billion in market capitalization, and ten billion in assets under management. 2017 was a very big year for us.”
Geoffroy Renard, general counsel, Tikehau Capital
... we chose Spain and the secrets of Tikehau Capital’s thriving internationalization.
“Initially, I joined Tikehau Capital to work on the internalization of the direct lending strategy outside of France. I started in London in April 2015, when the company was in its early stages of development in Europe, with offices in London, Brussels, and Milan. Madrid was on the roadmap; we were just waiting for the right time. The decision was made on a trip with Mathieu Chabran in the Spring of 2017. After a couple of excellent meetings in Madrid with partners in private debt, we decided: ‘This is the right time, we have the network, the partners, the investments, let’s do it.’ I visited five to ten places, and it soon became clear that I had found the perfect one: a beautiful old building, top floor, a terrace, located in the Golden Mile, the financial district. Let’s be honest, the terrace sealed the deal. If you look at Tikehau Capital’s offices, you will notice that stunning terraces are part of the house’s DNA. There is a fight between offices to decide on which has the most beautiful outdoor spaces. I think we are winning. More seriously, finding the office was easy, the challenge was recruiting the right people.
At Tikehau Capital we have a special vision of what internationalization means. We position ourselves as a long-term local partner to be able to support businesses and investors in different countries, in Italy, in Singapore, everywhere. It is very powerful.
In Spain for instance, one of the regions I am managing, we are successful in fundraising
thanks to the talent of our local dedicated team. Not only do they have the appropriate market knowledge and field experience but they can also speak the same language as local investors, and by that, I don’t just mean fluent Spanish. They can hold conversations about local issues. Europe is a mosaic of cultures, being multi-local is a key differentiator that people trust. Our local offices’ numbers and locations speak for themselves. Tikehau Capital now has a global reach with 17 offices throughout Europe, North America, Middle East and Asia.
There is probably another reason behind Tikehau Capital’s thriving internationalization: how we drive diversity in the workplace. Women lead key strategic roles, and we are close to 50/50 in terms of gender balance across the board. Unfortunately, this is unusual in our industry. So, for a firm in asset management, I think we are quite ahead of the pack. On top of gender diversity, we also have a wide range of nationalities. We are a melting pot! I recently attended our 20 th anniversary offsite, and it was impressive to walk around. You could see and feel the diversity. So many different cultures, so many different backgrounds, so many different languages were spoken in the room. It was fantastic. THIS is Tikehau Capital.”
Carmen Alonso, former head of UK and Iberia, Tikehau Capital
...
Tikehau Capital
entered in business with a blue chip.
“‘Who is this intruder?’ I was at a meeting with AFEP members when I first heard the name of Tikehau Capital. They wanted to join the association and I remember a scene where classical financial institutions were vividly debating. Should they let this intruder – as they were labeling Tikehau Capital at that time – sit at their table? Who were they, anyway? I became intrigued, did some research, and Patricia Barbizet (then Artémis CEO) strongly advised me to see them. We met; Antoine Flamarion was seeking to create an energy transition fund. Timing couldn’t have been more perfect. TotalEnergies wanted to move to renewable energies, and we were already looking at what we could do with private equity regarding the subject. On April 29th, 2018, we officially launched T2 Energy Transition. We invested the same amount: 100 million euros each, with an objective in mind: raising one billion. We obtained 1.4 billion It means that we probably built one of the largest funds dedicated to the energy transition in the West. It worked so well that they launched a follow-up in 2023, Tikehau Capital Decarbonization Fund II. I think it was such a success because our partnership was the reunion of two worlds that usually never talk: CAC 40 industrials and entrepreneurs in finance. We brought our own expertise, our reputation; and they came with their talent for raising money and generating leverage effects. I couldn’t do that! A fun story is that I asked one of our high potential managers to be part of the T2 team to learn from them and ensure connections. But I was scared that work-ing with Tikehau Capital would tempt him to join them! They are just excellent. For instance, regarding energy transition, in T2 Energy Transition they complied with IPCCfals objectives and COP28 Dubai agreements, managing to cover all its aspects: not only renewable energy but also service providers and new technologies. What struck me is that they are able to spot the best companies in their field, such as Amarenco, GreenYellow or Eren Re (which we recently completely bought back). They know how to accelerate funds and invest money where it will be the most impactful. And all we can do to redirect private funds to renewable energy is useful; Tikehau Capital is definitely engaged in that way, together with a giant fossil fuel company in transition: TotalEnergies.”
Patrick Pouyanné, chief executive officer, TotalEnergies
... Tikehau Capital launched its T2 Energy Transition Fund.
“The idea back in 2018 was to create a private equity fund around climate change. It was three years after the Paris Agreement and at the time there were very few funds focused on the energy transition, which was still a very new, small sector. We started a partnership with TotalEnergies, which was of course a big actor in the oil and gas industry, but which had decided to pivot its business towards renewable energy.
For TotalEnergies, it was a side business, but for us it was a strategic fund, so we knew we had to grab their attention. That’s when we recruited Pierre Abadie, an engineer from TotalEnergies, who took a risk in leaving such a big company to come and work for Tikehau Capital. The first time I ever saw him he was wearing jeans and no tie. I told him he was going to have to wear one, and the next time I saw him, he was wearing a tie – with skulls and crossbones printed on it! I think it’s the only tie he has. It’s great working with Pierre, who comes from a completely different world. But that was the beginning of a real partnership with TotalEnergies, and we managed to raise one billion euros.
The fund was innovative at the time. It’s a good example of Tikehau Capital’s disruptive nature – no one really understood where we were going with it, but now it’s one of the largest private equity funds in the energy transition and everyone is copying it.
I was in Japan with Antoine in December; we were doing a press conference with Japanese journalists, and I was talking about our private equity energy transition funds, when a journalist asked me what our fundraising objective was. I was about to say three billion – that was what we’d said we would say – and Antoine surreptitiously put his hand on the table with four fingers outstretched. So, I went with it, and I said four billion. That just shows Tikehau Capital’s ambition.”
Thomas Friedberger, deputy CEO and co-CIO, Tikehau Capital
“All in all, what it says is finance deals through Tikehau Capital are never standardized, and never will be.”
Cécile Mayer-Lévi
Since its inception, Tikehau Capital has established private markets as its core area of expertise. From its early real estate deals, such as the flea market in Paris and Hôtel des Cimes, to becoming a key player in private debt and private equity, Tikehau Capital has assembled talented teams led by Guillaume Arnaud – chairman of the management board at Sofidy, Jean-Marc Peter – chief executive officer at Sofidy, Jérôme Grumler – deputy chief executive officer at Sofidy, Cécile Mayer-Lévi – head of private debt, Emmanuel Laillier – head of private equity, and Frédéric Jariel – co-head of real estate.
As a recognized pioneer in European private markets, Tikehau Capital regularly attends major industry events like IPEM, one of the world’s premier gatherings for private markets. Far from resting on its laurels, Tikehau Capital continues to innovate by investing in climate change solutions through its sustainability-focused and impact investing platform, supporting enablers of the energy transition with financial solutions. This forward-thinking approach has led to its participation in COP 28 as a pioneering force.
“My journey at Tikehau Capital began in March 2021, and from the very start, one thing stood out to me –something I had never experienced before. At Tikehau Capital, we think like shareholders, not just employees. I believe this mindset is crucial, as it fosters the motivation and commitment to drive the company's growth. Each of the 762 employees can contribute to the ongoing success story that Antoine and Mathieu began 20 years ago."
Dominik P. Felsmann, head of Germany, Tikehau Capital
“My journey at Tikehau Capital over the last six years has been extremely exciting and fulfilling. Tikehau Capital is a global organization of a considerable size, but, thanks to its entrepreneurial DNA, acts rapidly and aggressively as a single team, empowering each partner with autonomy and 24/7 support to achieve one’s own ambitious goals. During my tenure at Tikehau Capital the size of the firm has tripled, and we have been able to establish collectively a credible and successful private equity practice.”
Roberto Quagliuolo,
co-head of Italy, deputy head of private equity, Tikehau Capital
The day
... Tikehau Capital bought Sofidy.
“I founded Sofidy in 1986. Antoine was 13 years old. Then one day, you wake up and your son’s company, Tikehau Capital, is negotiating a sale with you! Sofidy’s purchase was an important operation in Tikehau Capital history. Antoine and I were following the process closely, but, due to our personal connections, we made sure to stay in the background. Except one time. Sofidy’s assets included a property-listed company, Selectirente, which was dealing with what we call an ‘activist stakeholder.’ It became a very sensitive point of the negotiations to achieve the acquisition. So, Antoine and Mathieu decided to send a small team, including Christian de Labriffe, Tikehau Capital’s chairman of the supervisory board, and me to go and see the ‘activist.’ During the meeting, Labriffe impressed me. He used a very convincing leaflet to present the project and knew exactly what to say. Our discussion partner was under his charm, and, on September 20th, 2018, we formalized the deal. This deal-making story is typical of Tikehau Capital’s DNA: excellent advisors combined with the art of spotting details which can save stressful situations. And sometimes… with alternative negotiation strategies. Did you know, for instance, that for a few years, in each meeting, Antoine has kept little cards in his jacket like a football referee? As soon as the atmosphere was heating up, he was flagging a red or a yellow sign. People found it funny, and it de-escalated any tension in the room.
As you know, sport has always played a big role in Tikehau Capital’s history. Antoine and Mathieu love to set up competitions during seminars. But did you notice they only select fields in which they excel? They just know to increase their chances of success by choosing their battles. Their business strategy is similar. Last, their stupendous success is obviously rooted in Antoine and Mathieu’s relationship. I am amazed by how well they get along. It is a rare thing in the business world. I have seen many entrepreneurs starting with a group of two or three, generally it deteriorates quickly. After 20 years, we can name Tikehau Capital as a happy marriage.”
... Tikehau Capital sent one of its founders to the US.
“When I first met them, it must have been in 2007. I was at Blackstone at the time. Antoine somehow got on my calendar – I don’t know how he did it, because normally I would never respond to a cold call! They stood out in my mind because they told me, ‘We want to build the Blackstone of France.’ I thought that was incredibly ambitious – some would say audacious given where they were at their stage of development back then – but I admired them because they both had a vision for the firm. Of course, lots of people say things like that. There’s a fine line between being confident and being arrogant. But they don’t suffer from hubris. They’re realists: they know what they’re good at.
I think it was a very clever move to have Mathieu move to New York to start the franchise. It’s quite a statement, sending your founder to lead that effort. And I think he was able to export the company culture along with it, their values of being innovative, clever and a meritocracy. He sets the tone. It means people perceive Tikehau Capital as a consequential firm – he’s not just a tourist, passing through. That’s a key part of their success.
The Tikehau Capital office in New York is in the same office tower as my family office, so I see them all the time. We tend to travel in similar circles; we chat about investment strategies. At Hunter Point Capital, we buy minority equity
stakes in firms like Tikehau Capital, if they’re private. What I’m interested in is how do you grow a general partner; how do you grow a credit business? How do you grow an infrastructure? All the things that Tikehau Capital does. So, it’s fun to talk with them. They have a beautiful patio on the 18th floor, so we’ve got into a habit of having drinks out there. I really look forward to those moments with them.
Tikehau Capital brings a problem-solving perspective to the US market. From an investor perspective, they’re always at the cutting edge of what’s new. They have a lot of different strategies that they incubate for a while to figure out what has legs, what can be scaled. They’re good at figuring out where the opportunities are. I remember them getting into growth equity quite early. They got into clean tech and clean energy early. That’s indicative of their ability to look at the world and identify mismatches between the need for capital and the sources of capital. As an investment manager, that’s where you want to be. You want to be at the forefront of a growing market where there’s not enough capital to meet those needs. That’s the DNA of Tikehau Capital.”
Bennett Goodman, co-founder and executive chairman of Hunter Point Capital; former cofounder of GSO Capital Partners (“GSO”)
... I set Tikehau Capital a challenge.
“One day, Antoine came to introduce himself to me. We had a coffee together. I wasn’t really expecting anything. At the time, private equity investors were really bullish, people who loved taking risks. And in front of me was this man who was very reflective, who was very conscious of risk, who had more cash than investments. I remember thinking to myself that I’d rarely met someone like that. He seemed to think differently from other people.
Since then, we’ve worked together. After that first meeting, I started examining Tikehau Capital in detail, comparing it to its peers. In this sector, the race for scale (amount of assets under management, size, and international expansion) is crucial. To do this, Tikehau Capital had to overcome two significant challenges. The first challenge was to simplify the company. The second challenge was not to keep cash on the balance sheet, but to do something with it. You can be riskaware, but not risk-averse. They have done both of those things, managing to keep their alternative way of thinking and making clever investments, using the balance sheet to seed new strategies. Both Mathieu and Antoine are very innovative – you can see that with a recent product they’ve made, focusing on soil health and regenerative agriculture.
In the past, Antoine and Mathieu have been very good at recruiting unusual profiles, interesting people who are outside the norm. They don’t take on mainstream and they need to keep doing this! For me, that’s one of the questions hanging over them for the future. They also need to hire more experts who will help them to grow, in addition to these more atypical profiles.
Tikehau Capital is playing alongside the big names. But running a company with 300 employees is not the same as one with 30,000 employees! That’s why they need to make sure they surround themselves with all the people they need, to get to the next level.”
Thomas Buberl, chief executive officer, AXA
“Tikehau Capital's entrepreneurial culture provides a unique opportunity to shape and advance one's career. From my own experience, the journey here has been both fulfilling and inspiring. Tikehau is a place where commitment, dedication, and a sense of purpose come together, enabling employees to take ownership of their professional growth with confidence and direction.”
Emmanuelle Costa, head of human capital, Tikehau Capital
“From the idea to building one of the world’s largest climate investment platforms, it took just seven years. At Tikehau Capital, I found the pioneering spirit that has always driven me – only here, it’s supercharged. As we turn 20, we’re just at the end of the beginning. Now, it’s time to think bigger than big.”
Pierre
Abadie, group climate director and co-head of the private equity decarbonisation strategy, Tikehau Capital
“The first time I heard about Tikehau Capital was when Antoine Flamarion called to say he was very interested in the One Planet Sovereign Wealth Fund Network that I was coordinating (and still am). He was closely following the work of our international platform, championed by President Macron in December 2017 to ‘accelerate’ aligning their portfolios with the Paris agreements involving States’ sovereign funds, with the idea of subsequently attracting private finance. I remember this first talk as a very informal one; Antoine was in his car, telling me how engaged Tikehau Capital was about climate issues, how convinced they were that to succeed Paris agreements (remaining on a + 1.5 °C pathway in 2050), companies had a key role to play, especially private equity. At that time, the OPSWF was building a working group on that question. Subsequently we met, all the Tikehau Capital’s leadership team was there including Mathieu Chabran, Daniel Cruise and Grégoire Lucas. The more I was listening to them, the more I was struck by their out-ofthe-box thinking. I could feel the electricity in the room. Trust was established instantly. What will we do together? Forward planning. Tikehau Capital possesses this rare ability: they can analyze the requirements of the transition economy five, 15 years, and so on, from now. I remember vividly a roundtable where Pierre Abadie, group climate director at Tikehau Capital, brought my attention to how important the 2030 agenda is. While he was speaking alongside Mark Carney, former Governor of the Central Bank of England, he made the point
over and over again that we have the tendency to look at the 2050s horizon and yet, climate change is happening now. Pierre was so right! Tikehau Capital also has the talent to provide incentives for many positive actions. I really appreciate the fact that they are determined to engage small medium enterprises in this journey. Tikehau Capital is one of the few companies actually thinking of how to do that.
Did you know that for the majority of restaurants in France, their biggest leakage of energy waste – around 30 % – comes from refrigerator doors not being clothed? Tikehau Capital did. They invested in a company that helps to retrofit refrigerator doors. Not to mention that they are also at the forefront of regenerative agriculture. All these things are concrete facts bringing down-to-earth solutions. It reminds me of my father who was part of the Apollo program. He taught me that to send a man to the moon you have to do incredibly complex calculations but at some point, success depends on very practical issues. Tikehau Capital perfectly understands that. Amongst the OPSWF, they connect dots between investors, initiate systemic change, and forge new ecosystems that will be vital in the future.”
Lawrence Yanovitch, coordinator of the One Planet Sovereign Wealth Fund Network* ; previous officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
... when Tikehau Capital joined the One Planet SWF Network.
... when Covid changed the perception of private debt financing.
“Early January 2020, Antoine Flamarion sent us a Bloomberg wire mentioning the spread of an unusual SARS-like virus. It turns out we were supposed to finance a deal with a company which was, guess what? A travel agent. Another entity was supposed to buy back the loan we had given them. In February they called me saying they would not be able to honor the sale. This was when we started to understand how bad the situation was. Then came Emmanuel Macron’s stay-at-home announcements. Tikehau Capital sent everybody off straight away.
The following hours, days, months, were non-stop phone calls to update investors and companies. Just imagine, some had their turnover cut overnight. Conversations were focusing on how their cash flow was, how to set up state-guaranteed loans and partial unemployment. We were finding solutions. One of them went through the France Invest association of which Tikehau Capital is chairing the private debt chapter. We pushed hard defer interests. Banks and investment funds were disagreeing on the subject at first, until we eventually aligned.
Among the other elements that made a difference, we were one of the asset management companies which worked on creating recovery bonds. We later used them, in addition to addressing the aftermath of Covid-19, to
tackle the consequences of the Ukraine war. This new French tool was also the basis of our approach to create the Belgium Recovery fund. The idea was to support and channel investments towards certain companies to limit Covid’s impact. Looking back, I am proud to say that Tikehau Capital was always keen to initiate the best practices.
It was of course a stressful period, but I also have fond memories such as deals closing. Before the pandemic, these moments were long, taking place in a room, with other people. Suddenly everything shifted online. I remember especially one of the first virtual ones, I can still see all of us holding a glass of champagne behind our screens, smiling. In a way, navigating through the Covid crisis reinforced Tikehau Capital’s strengths on two main points. Private debt financing allows significant flexibility, in crisis context it showed it can make a real difference, along with direct lending raison d’être: proximity with leadership team’s companies. We were already close before coronavirus; we are more than ever. All in all, what it says is finance deals through Tikehau Capital are never standardized, and never will be.”
Cécile Mayer-Lévi, co-head of credit, head of private debt, Tikehau Capital
... Poste Italiane chose Tikehau Capital as a partner.
“Resilience is a feature of Tikehau Capital, and one of the things that I really appreciated about their investment style when I first met them about six years ago. What was really important to me when choosing a partner was a cautious approach.
We were working together during the pandemic. We had to trust Tikehau Capital to invest for us during this time – not only to be resilient during the pandemic, but to pick the right companies who themselves would be resilient. They invested our funds into about 75 companies, and we have now reached the end of the first phase of deployment. All of the funds have been invested and we’ve got very positive results.
I’m a firm believer that every company gets its tone and style from the very top. So, if you have the best leadership, there’s a much higher chance the whole company will be very competent. When I first met Antoine and Mathieu, I thought that they were both very professional, with a very solid financial background. They were also pitching Tikehau Capital in a humble way, very low-key. They weren’t boasting about their successes, how big they were, how much money they had. You know if you go into a shop and the shopkeeper is being pushy, trying to push you towards a certain product? They were never like that. They have always been very respectful of our decision-making process, and this is one of the things we value because they are smart and confident enough to let us make decisions at our own pace.
I should mention that normally Poste Italiane never talks publicly about their investments! However, I’m happy to make an exception for Tikehau Capital because we have a special relationship.”
Matteo Del Fante, chief executive officer, Poste Italiane Spa
The day
...
I
met the
partnership behind Tikehau Capital.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic, in the depths of March, April, May 2020, I had an idea for a series of interviews with great investors. I was thinking about how all of my clients were sitting at home; markets were basically shut down; the whole world was upside down. And I thought to myself: what are the great investors in the world thinking right now? I interviewed Jon Gray at Blackstone, George Roberts at KKR, Chip Kaye at Warburg Pincus… Then one of my partners in Europe rang me and said that Antoine and Mathieu should be guests. I told them, sorry, I don’t do teams of people. I only interview one person at a time. But it became clear that they came as a pair, and it was impossible to convince them not to do it together. And that says a lot about how they think about their partnership – indispensable. That was only four years ago. Since then, they’ve had an incredible growth trajectory. In the interview, they struck me as ambitious, high energy and nimble. I had been interviewing some of the most senior people in the industry and I was really impressed with how Mathieu and Antoine had their finger on the pulse of the alternative asset management business. We have a huge amount of respect for them and this entrepreneurial culture they’ve built. I think it will continue to serve them well.
One thing that stands out to me is their focus on sustainability. They’re really seen as a thought leader in that space. They’re often at the forefront of change, they’re constantly evolving, and they don’t just go along with what everyone else is doing.”
Alison Mass, chairman of investment banking and head of the office of alumni engagement, Goldman Sachs
“Their journey, marked by audacious decisions and relentless pursuit of excellence, exemplifies true entrepreneurial spirit.”
Léon Seynave
Asia marked the first step in Tikehau Capital’s international expansion, starting with the opening of its Singapore office in 2014, followed by locations in Seoul, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. Under the leadership of Bruno de Pampelonne – special advisor to the co-founders – and Jean-Baptiste Feat – co-head of Asia and co-CIO of Tikehau IM – Tikehau Capital has successfully provided its Asian clients with expertise in alternative asset management across multiple asset classes, including private debt, private equity, and real estate, notably through the acquisition of IREIT Global, a real estate investment trust led by Louis d’Estienne d’Orves.This international expansion hasn’t stopped Tikehau Capital from sharing its French roots, as seen in the organization of an event aboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle for its clients in Singapore.
“I joined Tikehau Capital shortly after its fifth birthday when it was not wellknown outside of Paris. It was the vision and drive that Antoine and Mathieu had which convinced me to come onboard. I could see that Tikehau Capital, even at that time, was a special place and would become something big. The reality has vastly exceeded my expectations. Tikehau Capital's journey over the past years has been nothing short of inspiring. I am lucky and proud to have been part of this journey, which I believe has just started.”
Jean Odendall, head of Middle East, deputy head of tactical strategies, Tikehau Capital
“It has been a roller coaster ride since I joined in 2017. I started from scratch with zero investors in Korea and fast forward to 2024, there are 21 investors. Despite numerous moments of frustration, it was the perseverance and faith in myself and in the Tikehau Capital franchise that got me through the lowest points and landed a major win at an unexpected moment. Tikehau Capital will ultimately win the battle of alternative asset managers by being an early mover in the right place at the right time.”
Young Joon Moon, head of business development for Asia-Pacific, Tikehau Capital
“Tikehau Capital’s entrepreneurial spirit thrives on creativity, independence, and an out-of-the-box mindset where nothing is impossible. Tikehau is empowering people to take control of their own destiny, encouraging decisionmaking and personal responsibility. This unique culture has given me the freedom to explore bold ideas, push boundaries, and turn opportunities into realities, allowing me to truly self-realize.”
Rudy Neuhof, co-head of Israel, co-head of investment and capital solutions, Tikehau Capital
“Crossing the line from being a Tikehau Capital LP to becoming a team member was an eye-opening experience. Once you step inside this highly calculated, organized, and top-performing organization, you find yourself part of an ambitious team, where the mindset is that ‘nothing is impossible,’ coupled with the entrepreneurial spirit of a start-up. For me, Tikehau Capital embodies the powerful combination of a large corporation's strength and a fresh, entrepreneurial drive.”
Asaf Gherman,
co-head of Israel, co-CIO, Tikehau Capital
... Tikehau Capital launched the Covid recovery fund.
“The recovery fund was launched in Belgium on September 2, 2021. I contributed, yes, though not from an investor’s perspective, but out of appreciation for our long-lasting relationship. In 2008, when we teamed up, Tikehau Capital relied on companies like mine. Now they are way ahead. I am somewhat like their old uncle who helped them back in the day in their tiny village. No matter what they have achieved, we always share postcards for New Year’s Eve. I appreciate that our strong connection, with profound mutual respect, never failed. Sometimes in business, those who achieve tremendous success tend to forget the people who they started with. Not Mathieu and Antoine.
Regarding Belgium, the fund they created is a very good thing for the country. It mixes, of course, a financial aspect but with tools to help society deal with the Covid’s effects. Belgium is a complex country due to its two linguistic parts, Dutch and French. Tikehau Capital built strong connections with Belgium in its early years. I am, of course, thinking of their work with Albert Frère and then the opening of a bureau in 2015. I would say that the difference is that thanks to this fund, Tikehau Capital is now clearly recognized in Belgium. I take pride in having played a little part. I am 78 years old. I met many people who have developed successful companies throughout my career. I never met entrepreneurs like Mathieu and Antoine who not only started from scratch but also were so young when they did it. I think one day my grandchildren will proclaim, ‘My grandfather knew Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran from their beginnings.’ Their tandem is quite unique; one without the other most likely would not have gone so far. I am glad to have witnessed their journey. Tikehau Capital deserves to be where it is.”
Christian Dumolin, Tikehau Capital’s early investor; chairman and CEO of Koramic Investments; honorary vice-chairman of Wienerberger supervisory board; honorary regent of Belgium’s Nationale Bank
... when Andrea Potsios put Tikehau Capital on Italy’s map.
In memoriam Andrea Potsios
“Andrea Potsios joined us in 2016 when Tikehau Capital was seeking to structure the sales team for the group. At first, Andrea split his time between the French capital and Milan before transitioning full-time to Italy as a country’s co-head with me. From our new office (overlooking the charming Piazza San Fedele) I was focusing on investments while he was handling fundraising.
Together we shared many great experiences, but there is one which I think was especially meaningful, both for our relationship and for Tikehau Capital’s development in Italy: partnering with Fideuram, the private bank of Intesa Sanpaolo (the largest Italian bank), for the structuring and fundraising of an SMA dedicated to their private clients. With Andrea we jokingly called this period of Italy’s Tikehau Capital ‘evangelization.’ We had more than 60 meetings in three months throughout the country to explain who we were and what investing with us meant. Eventually, we raised 500 million euros.
Some did not expect this success, I remember initially facing a bit of skepticism: ‘Private clients are not ready to invest money this way.’
But Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran trusted and backed us. Looking back, that was audacious because if private wealth investment is commonplace today – firms like Blackstone and KKR all have dedicated teams – a few years ago we were pioneers, at least in Italy.
I keep fond memories of this adventure. Intellectually, it was highly stimulating; we discovered that translating our complex world was a healthy exercise. We needed to explain complex notions such as mezzanine financing to physicians, people who had never heard of it! But the very best part? Working with Andrea. Every day was an absolute joy. Never complaining, constantly looking ahead, fantastic stories to share – Gloria Gaynor sang at his wedding. Anybody who knew him would tell you he was a real gentleman. Andrea was in love with life and knew exactly what to do, what to say to each single client because he valued people deeply.
One day we were having a business lunch at Da Vittorio restaurant, in Bergamo, one of the best tables in the country. After exquisite champagne and cuisine, we ended up cooking the dessert with the chef himself. It was obviously thanks to Andrea. He was also always thoughtful towards those who were going through difficult times.
Andrea suddenly passed away in 2021. I always remember him and his family and I am proud to consider him a role model. He had a very positive influence on Tikehau Capital in Italy and beyond. I miss him dearly; we all do.”
Luca Bucelli, former head of Italy, Tikehau Capital
“The relationship between Tikehau Capital and Citi began almost 15 years ago when Citi became the lead structurer and financier of their fast-growing CLO business, but I first met Antoine and Mathieu when I became Citi’s CEO in 2021. It was Pete Cirenza who introduced us. From the beginning, I was impressed by Antoine and Mathieu’s energy, along with their ambition to expand the company’s global reach. That’s what makes Citi a strong partner for Tikehau Capital: our global network and strength in markets and advisory.
Tikehau Capital stands out from its peers because of the diversity of its investors. Not only do they have the most blue-chip investors and partners in France, but also across the US, the Middle East and Asia. They’ve also managed to build close relationships with each of them. If I could describe them in one word, I would say they’re astute. They are both extremely smart and modest about all they have achieved, which is very refreshing. We often meet in New York or Paris and share our ideas about what’s going on in the world and our respective businesses. They have been very kind and generous in how supportive they have been of me personally, making numerous introductions, inviting me to events and helping me build up my network in France.
On a personal level, they set the tone for their firm and lead by example. They always seem to ask the most thought-provoking questions! I remember one meeting in particular with them where they really pushed us to think differently about workplace culture and how to lead in the current environment. They’re not afraid to challenge themselves or those around them, and that’s something I have always admired.”
Jane Fraser, chief executive officer, Citi
... Tikehau Capital helped me build my network in France.
... Tikehau Capital reorganized the group to take the next steps.
“I met Antoine Flamarion when I was managing director of Nexity. Alongside one of our shareholders, LBO France, we were seeking to recruit young talent to launch a real estate fund. Antoine was the perfect fit. We got along so well from the outset that when he informed me of his plans to establish Tikehau Capital, I immediately wanted to be one of the first investors. Fast forward, Tikehau Capital is transitioning into an institutional investor structure and now has a supervisory board. Antoine suggested that I join to oversee the audit function. After two decades of deep friendship and professional collaboration, it did not take me more than five seconds to accept. What a journey! It is hard to select one and only one pivotal moment on their path of success. Tikehau Capital has had so many business achievements, perhaps the acquisition of Salvepar in 2012 was particularly significant. However, I think a crucial shift for the company took place at the corporate level, when they made the decision to reorganize the group in May-July 2021. It simplified the whole structure and ensured a complete alignment of interests between Tikehau Capital’s management shareholders and the other shareholders. Today everyone’s interests are aligned. It clearly gave better legibility. It also reflected the weight of their activity of asset management. History will not tell the what-if scenario without this massive change, but I have always praised the smart way the founders kept on levelling up the company.”
Jean-Louis Charon, member of the supervisory board Tikehau Capital; president of Citystar; former managing director of Nexity
... when Mathieu Chabran got
sketched in the Financial Times.
“‘We will meet again,’ I told Antoine Flamarion as he embarked on his own entrepreneurial journey. Our paths first crossed at LBO France, where Antoine’s dynamic vision caught my eye immediately. Meeting his partner, Mathieu Chabran, only reinforced my impression – here was a duo destined for greatness. They had the spark, the drive, and the indomitable spirit of true entrepreneurs. From that moment, I keenly followed their trajectory, which led me to join the Tikehau Capital supervisory board in 2016. What a vantage point it’s been to witness their remarkable ascent!
Reflecting on their journey, several transformative moments stand out: the strategic Salvepar operation, navigating the turbulent aftermath of Lehman Brothers, and the highstakes deal with the legendary Albert Frère. Each of these milestones showcased their determination.
Another revealing moment was around two years ago, when I opened the Financial Times and saw a story on the Milken Institute Conference with… Mathieu’s face. How did he manage to get there? The Milken Institute think tank is world-renowned and respected. Seeing Mathieu there in company of topnotch financial executives was a testament to Tikehau Capital’s ambition.
Tikehau Capital’s bold leap into the American market in 2018, with the opening of their New York office, exemplifies their fearless entrepreneurial spirit. They stood ready to rebuild from scratch in the world’s most competitive financial arena. This move was a declaration to compete with the best.
Their journey, marked by audacious decisions and relentless pursuit of excellence, exemplifies true entrepreneurial spirit.”
Léon Seynave, former member of Tikehau Capital’s supervisory board; former chairman of Stanhope Capital LLP, and co-founder of Vente-Exclusive.com SA and Mitiska Belgium
... when Tikehau Capital got an investmentgrade rating.
“In 2019, after 15 years of existence, Tikehau Capital’s success story was already written, but one thing was missing: an investment-grade rating from a major agency. The year kicks off; it’s Wednesday, January 30th, and all of Paris is buzzing about the snow blanketing the capital; children are excited, adults complain about disruptions. That day, I vividly remember sitting at my desk, then suddenly jumping up. ‘BBB−!’ I didn’t just shout… I yelled! For our first rating, the credit committee of Fitch Ratings had confirmed that we had reached the investment grade. It was a massive achievement! Antoine and Mathieu were over the moon, and I remember the communication department teasing us: ‘I don’t understand how BBB− is better than BB+, but congrats!’ This moment meant so much to me for two reasons. Not only was it a key milestone in Tikehau Capital’s history, but also in my professional journey. I had just been promoted to head of group treasury, financing, and markets operations less than a year ago, which was my third position at the company in five years. Each of these new roles was a challenge but made me feel like I was advancing with the group. It’s clear to me that Tikehau Capital encourages skills upskilling, as a key factor of global growth and accomplishment.
The ultimate recognition came on March 21, 2022, with the BBB− from Standard & Poor’s. People sometimes wonder if things changed in the days following. Actually, not so much, because of the group’s culture: we celebrate successes, but within an hour, we ask ourselves ‘What’s next?’. In my ten years at Tikehau Capital, I’ve always seen this dynamic, and let me tell you, I am convinced it’s deeply rooted in the trust that Antoine and Mathieu give to their teams.”
Guillaume Belnat, deputy CFO, Tikehau Capital
“Tikehau Capital makes a significant financial contribution to charities, and they were doing it early on; they didn’t wait to be a large company.”
Jean-Jacques Berthelé
Found&ations ties
chari-
Tikehau Capital actively supports various initiatives through partnerships and sponsorships. In 2023, it launched the Tikehau Capital Foundation, which is primarily intended to finance actions in the field of education and social integration and to increase the impact of solidarity actions that have been under way for several years (like the long collaboration with Carac on the Tikehau Entraid’Épargne Carac (TEEC) bond fund for socially responsible savings). Its commitments include supporting the Institut de l’Engagement for youth, contributing to health causes like the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital and Covid-19 research, and being a grand mécène of the AP-HP Foundation. Tikehau Capital also supports social inclusion projects, such as Café Joyeux in New York, and sponsors paralympic athletes like Théo Curin, who swam across Lake Titicaca, as well as other athletes, including Mélanie Hénique.
“They have a desire to create a leader for the long haul, capable of standing up
in the storms that time or the state of the world may bring in the future.”
Alexandre Van Damme
“If we hadn’t had the track record that we had with Tikehau Capital, we would never have created the SG Tikehau private debt fund. It meant that we were able to tell our clients that they had access to this asset class that was normally reserved for institutional investors. Plus, we could tell them that it was through a partner in which we were investing ourselves. I wouldn’t show our customers a product if I wouldn’t pick it for our own euro fund investments.
We’ve had a huge amount of success with our unit-linked policies, which we launched in February 2023. Now, we’re at around 200 million euros in managed assets. It’s an innovative product with an ESG dimension and was quickly very popular. That’s because we went from a purely institutional product to one that is a lot more focused on the private investor. We want to invest in the real economy, and private assets are part and parcel of that. They can offer more attractive yields than traditional bond products, and so were an interesting choice for our clients who were looking for diversification. We ended up launching the product in a high interest rate environment, although we had started thinking about it long before. But these products also make sense in a higher-rate environment, since they track the rise in bond market rates. So, in terms of timing, it was a good move too.
Our first conversations with Tikehau Capital were back in 2012, when they launched their private debt business. We were still in the throes of the financial crisis and were launching this as-yet inexistent activity. We made our first investment in 2013. Now we’re able to look back and see how it took off. Our partnership with Tikehau Capital is a longterm one, and we’ve built up a relationship of trust over the years.”
Mai Nguyen, deputy chief executive officer, Sogecap
... Tikehau Capital and SG Assurances democratized private debt.
... SFI became a shareholder of TCA.
“The first time I heard about Tikehau Capital was around 2012, through Maximilien de Limburg Stirum when he joined SFI. He immediately told me that he wanted to remain a board member of Tikehau Capital, a position he already held at the time. ‘Tik-what?’ I asked, intrigued. After some research, I began to understand what this company was about. Then I met Antoine and Mathieu – outside any business context at the time – and their entrepreneurial drive seduced me straight away. They had started from scratch and built a remarkable company. My own journey is different. Together with our partners, we developed something quite big, but we were lucky to be able to rely on the work others did beforehand. It’s a whole different story to start from zero and get somewhere. That is why I have the deepest respect for their journey. Apart from this extraordinary trajectory, I believe Tikehau Capital’s strength lies in the complementary nature of Mathieu and Antoine. Meeting them together is striking: One is very active, the other very attentive, which I find particularly interesting. With Mathieu being in New York, I have more opportunities to see Antoine. One thing that consistently impresses me is the energy he puts into every undertaking. I remember watching him play a game of chess and thinking ‘wow, he’s moving really fast.’ I did not expect an almost professional dexterity. But I think it is part of the DNA he shares with Mathieu and Tikehau Capital: not only do they fully commit to everything they do, but most importantly, they work for the
long term. That is another point I particularly appreciate. They have a desire to create a leader for the long haul, capable of standing up in the storms that time or the state of the world may bring in the future.
So, I would say that our acquisition of shares, even though it was formalized on a specific date – February 26, 2023 – belongs to a broader, natural process. At SFI, we concentrate our investments on a very small number of companies, and we normally avoid funds; but we like to partner with entrepreneurs who want to create leaders in their sector and who have a long-term vision. What Mathieu and Antoine have been doing for 20 years perfectly embodies this. I liken it to a mountain race, a metaphor that will resonate with Tikehau Capital. As a biker approaching a pass you don’t think of the pass, you are already looking at the next step, then the following one, and so on until you reach the first summit and beyond. Isn’t the ultimate dream of a climber to find himself much further than he initially thought? With Tikehau Capital that is what happens. One morning you wake up, it is ten years later and you have gone much further than you ever imagined!”
Alexandre Van Damme, member of the board of directors of Tikehau Capital Advisors; chairman of Patrinvest SCA, parent company of SFI (Société Familiale d’Investissements SA); one of the controlling shareholders of AB InBev
The day
... we broke through the Singaporean institutional market.
“We have one of the largest insurance companies in Singapore as a client. Our relationship with them started ten years ago, when we had just opened the office in Singapore. We were still a young company, very new to Asia and there were very few people in the market who even knew who we were. It was funny because when we met investors, they would say ‘Tike-who?’.
We took ten years to build something from scratch with this client. It wasn’t the right time for them – but you know what? We just kept at it. And in 2023 they committed a significant amount to us. The relationship is now rock solid.
The team at Tikehau Capital embodies the value of being very tenacious and not taking no for an answer. If we try, there’s a 50 % chance of success. If we don’t try, it’s zero. Brand building is hard work. We knocked on many doors with most outcomes either being rejected or ghosted. But we just kept going back. What has been really fulfilling is seeing investors grow with us across multiple disciplines. It is never transactional, but relational and all about the client experience.
We run closed-end funds and I joke with my clients that they would have to want to talk to this face for at least ten years and not get annoyed by it! It’s about building long-term relationships. Over the past ten years we’ve made tremendous progress in building the company’s footprint in Asia.
I knew when I arrived that I was in for a massive challenge. As soon as I started interviewing here with Bruno de Pampelonne and Jean-Baptiste Feat, it was very clear that everyone regardless of seniority was here to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Our senior management has been highly inspirational with their strong work ethic, support and readiness to battle alongside the team. I had been working with big companies before this, and I could have carried on working at a place that was already well-established. But with Tikehau Capital, I could be involved right from the start. You can really be part of something pioneering and momentous. I think that’s the great thing about Tikehau Capital: that entrepreneurial team spirit.”
Vivian Ngoh, head of Southeast Asia sales, Tikehau Capital
“With Antoine and Mathieu, we have known each other for a long time. We were even competitors for the purchase of Cogedim company in 2007 and from that moment on we never stopped talking. Every two months we call to discuss the real estate situation, very informally. At some point, we had the opportunity to collaborate on an operation. Tikehau Capital wanted to purchase real estate debt at a discounted rate. In one afternoon, I had made up my mind: I would join them. We ended up with excellent profits. After that operation, we were willing to work together again. This happened on the European real estate credit platform, launched on June 1st, 2023. I highly appreciate the fact that when we analyze a case, we speak freely and combine our two different approaches: the expertise of a debt specialist and that of a real estate operator. It is a pleasure to team up because we understand each other perfectly. I especially value their decision-making skills, quick though always sharp, and most importantly, prepared. This is something I noticed early on.
I remember when I first discovered their Rue Royale office. Altarea was at that time much bigger than Tikehau Capital but this was not the impression I got. The fancy building, the energy there – I was not meeting two French bankers; I was meeting two confident American finance businessmen as you picture them blooming in New York. Their secret? Behind the scenes everything has always been squared away, from their strategic analysis to their legal documents. Let’s put it simply: establishing successful real estate companies is not uncommon, but in finance it is somewhat unique. Nothing like Tikehau Capital has ever been done in France.”
Alain Taravella, chairman and founder, Altarea
... of the European real estate credit platform launch with Altarea.
rather than
... that I knew Tikehau Capital would stand the test of time.
“What has always been remarkable about Tikehau Capital is how ahead of the curve they are and they have always been. Last year was the first time in history in the United States that more than half of all credit was provided by private credit investors and not by banks. But when Tikehau Capital began, that trend was still in its infancy. In France, if anyone was doing it, it was institutional investors and banks, for the most part. And Antoine and Mathieu turn up, basically out of nowhere, and do it before anyone else. Now it’s a trend that has marked this century.
They’ve combined that with a very American way of doing business. When Antoine started out, he already seemed to know everyone. He knows how to build long-term relationships. He has very good business sense. Mathieu is the same – he has this kind of American nofrills attitude of being very fact-focused, very market-focused.
They wanted to be present in the US quite early on. They weren’t scared of crossing borders or of creating new products. Even after 20 years, they still have this spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. I have known Antoine for a very long time, since we were students. And what’s funny is he was already investing back then, and I remember conversations with him where he’d complain about the market, saying that he had rung the guy in the trading room to tell him that his warrants prices weren’t competitive enough. That really stuck with me. Can you imagine a 23-year-old ringing up the trading room? Even then, he had this sort of visceral passion for finance.
I think that their passion for the work they do, for their company and their clients will continue to be the driving force for the next 20 years, too. That passion, combined with the level of managerial maturity that they’ve reached, means that they know what the company needs. It’s more than just strategic vision. It’s a sense of continuity and a deep understanding of what the company is.”
Slawomir Krupa, chief executive officer, Société Générale
“Over the past 20 years, TKO has built a solid reputation for growing businesses, backed by extensive investment expertise, international experience, and a strong client focus. In my view, TKO’s success is rooted in strong risk intelligence, with Antoine and Mathieu consistently showing caution during times of excessive optimism and embracing optimism when skepticism was warranted.”
Frédéric Giovansili, deputy CEO, Tikehau Capital
“In nearly seven years with Tikehau Capital, I’ve seen the firm grow into a truly global platform while staying true to its entrepreneurial roots. Our tenacity and our contrarian approach allow us to consistently pull off what others might deem impossible. It’s this boldness and foresight that make me proud to be part of a team that not only adapts but leads the way in shaping the future of finance.”
Louis Igonet, head of corporate strategy, development, and investor relations, Tikehau Capital
“Soon after we signed with Tikehau Capital, we did a roadshow together even before closing on our partnership, just to see if we could really connect. Our first roadshow was in Japan, where we visited about 80 % of the clients as a team and it was amazing. Both parties realized that it was going to work.
We are a traditional asset management firm without private assets. What we were looking for was kind of the opposite of what others in Japan were doing, which was typically trying to find a partner and doing a distribution agreement. We felt that because there’s no knowledge transfer, that doesn’t work. So, we were looking for a partner who could help us upgrade our skillset through that partnership and learn from them, and in the process become aligned partners with the same knowledge base. We sealed the deal on our partnership in June 2024.
I would say it is not easy to establish a successful private asset distribution partnership in Japan. It’s extremely difficult to find a firm with which you click and where you can build that bridge to the market. We came up with a creative construct and a distribution framework, a footprint that no one else has and that other firms can’t provide. What Tikehau Capital provided was the willingness and the ability to make that happen.
Our relationship with Tikehau Capital started quite slowly, just getting to know each other. We decided to approach it differently. We thought, we won’t compete with everybody else through a very crowded door, we’ll compete by going with this really differentiated firm. We realized how unique it was that they were European.
I remember coming out of my first meeting with Tikehau Capital feeling really blown away. There was such quality – in terms of the depth of knowledge but also in the areas they were knowledgeable about. I loved how green they were – they had a strong green layer on so much of what they were doing. They had the first decarbonization fund that they had created, proven themselves with, exited and now were doing it again. It was so ahead of the game. For us, sustainability is a big part of who we are. We were the first Japanese firm that became a signatory to the UK Stewardship Code. We’re trendsetters in Asia on that front and we wanted a partner that could do that as well. And Tikehau Capital does. I knew very quickly that we could click with this firm.”
Stefanie Drews, president, Nikko Asset Management
...
Nikko AM clicked with Tikehau Capital.
“After Tikehau Capital’s first time at the Milken Conference in 2022, the Financial Times published a photo of Mathieu Chabran, alongside industry titans in the financial sector. If you saw that photo, you’d think that Tikehau Capital was a long-standing US institution, but they’d only been in the US for two years at that point! Then at this year’s Milken, my colleague Deirdre Bolton secured Mathieu an interview on CNBC, on the hottest day of the conference, alongside the CIO of California Teachers, one of the bestknown US allocators. I remember thinking: you cannot buy this moment. It is priceless. Mathieu moved his family to the US before the pandemic. And I always say that it was like having a Ferrari idling in the garage, ready to get out, but unable to! Mathieu was ready to conquer the world, and it was very hard to do business in the US at that time.
As a founder of a company myself, my heart went out to him. I came into New York to meet him, and we were outside and wearing masks, and I decided that I would help him network.
What I learned about Mathieu early on is that he is extremely American in his way of doing business. He’s a natural here. He’s a go-getter, he’s ambitious and he does not let an opportunity pass him by. If I introduce him to someone, he’ll be off doing a deal with that person the next day. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere – but New York is a tough place to make it. And from the beginning, it was clear to me that this guy was going to.
We’ve made more progress in the last three years that we’ve been working together than most firms make in ten years. And that’s down to Mathieu. Everything I recommend, he does times ten. He’s showing up, he’s talking with everyone and he’s following up afterwards. He and I get along so well because we’re the same in that regard, never quite satisfied with where we are, always wanting progress. He, and the rest of Tikehau Capital, have what I like to call ‘scrapitas’. It’s a made-up word, a mix between scrappiness and gravitas. It means that you hang on to your grit and hustle, but you’re also serious and taken seriously.”
Jennifer Prosek, founder and managing partner, Prosek Partners
... Tikehau Capital headed West to join its peers.
Thanks for the journey together!
From top to bottom and left to right: Nathalie Bleuven, Mathieu Badjeck, Abigail Lim, Angelika Zoth, Romain Friedman, Louisa Chamberlain, Christoph Steffan, Olivier Mao, Jean-Marc Delfieux
The day Tikehauthat Capital begins its next chapter...
Antoine: It still feels like our first day. We still have the same energy and ambition as when we started. At Tikehau Capital, one of our catchphrases is “Every second is an opportunity.” That’s the mantra on which we built the company.
Mathieu: We’ve always thought about it in three steps: institutionalization, internationalization and then industrialization. We were just two guys in an office, but we started to make a name for ourselves – Tikehau Capital became known as an institution in France first.
Antoine: Then we expanded. We’re in 17 countries, on three continents, half of our third party net new money is raised from non-domestic investors and we count 48 different nationalities. That’s internationalization.
Mathieu: Now we’re in the industrialization phase. We’re developing what we have got already. Looking back at everything, the hardest moments – the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the euro crisis, Covid-19 – made us realize that we’re never as good as we are in adversity. And if we got through, it’s because of the people we have worked with over the years. One of the most important things you can do is be good at hiring people. We want to make sure that people grow and thrive in the company.
Antoine: Over the past 20 years, we’ve learnt a lot about people. How to read them, how they behave in moments of stress, how they behave when it’s plain sailing, when there’s success. At the heart of it all, we’re not robots that invest. Eventually, it is always about people.
Mathieu: When we hired people at the beginning of this adventure, we promised them roads paved with gold – the catch was that they would have to build the roads themselves! But most employees who were there at the
beginning who are interviewed in this book are still working with us, even though the last 20 years have seen huge changes in the industry. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 was our near-death experience. That period was like a washing machine, spinning you round and round. It took us a while to climb back to the surface. It really was a defining moment for us. We found ourselves totally vulnerable, naked in front of our shareholders. And we said, we’re going to bring the ship back to port safely. And we did. Getting ready for the next stages.
Antoine: We’ve never had the feeling of having made it. There are still so many things that we don’t yet do that we’d like to. We have 100 ideas every day. We want to revolutionize the sector. We’ve already been ahead of the game with environmental goals, the energy transition, with cyber and with direct lending in Europe. In 20 years from now, we’ll still have the same mindset, but we’ll be bigger, more diversified and with a marked presence in even more countries.
We’re going to create a world leader in alternative asset management. And we know we’re going to get there. We’ve already done the hard part – going from four million euros in assets under management to 40 billion in 20 years.
Mathieu: Our aim with Tikehau Capital is to create something that will survive us. That’s what’s exciting. Because it feels like we started the company yesterday. We never could have imagined that we’d be here two decades later, in the position we’re in, with this burning ambition to keep going. This isn’t a real conclusion – it’s just the end of a chapter. We’re still dreaming about Tikehau Capital’s future.
Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran, Tikehau Capital’s co-founders
Thank you !
This book reflects our daily lives over the past 20 years, capturing moments that have left a lasting impact on us and those closest to us.
Our entrepreneurial journey, which has brought us together, would not have been possible without the unwavering support of those by our side.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to them for their enduring presence, infinite patience, constant kindness, and valuable advice.
A special thanks to our parents, Édith, Christian, Nicole (†), and Marc whose examples have been our guiding light and continue to inspire us throughout this adventure. To our supportive wives, Laetitia and Virginie, pillars of strength, who genuinely share and challenge our ambitions and doubts. To our children, Reva, Hadrien, Marceau, Martin, and Marie, who fill us with pride by being who they are and by finding their own paths to fulfillment. To our siblings, Marie-Juliette and Maxime, with heartfelt gratitude for their unwavering kindness and support.
Édition : Caroline Albou Levinger
Comité éditorial : Dorothée Duron-Rivron et Grégoire Lucas
Rédaction : Catherine Bennett et Alexia Luquet
Direction artistique : Judith Meyerson
Illustrations : Stéphane Manel
Relecture : Thomas Chaumont
Achevé d’imprimer en 2 000 exemplaires sur papier Coral Book et Materica par la Manufacture Deux Ponts, imprimerie labellisée
Imprim’Vert et certifiée PEFC™ et FSC®
Dépôt légal : décembre 2024
Éditions Porte-plume Conception et réalisation de livres sur mesure porteplume.fr
Lastly, we thank our dear friends who have been with us from the beginning – your companionship has added a unique richness to this adventure that we will always cherish.
