Axis has a €422m FOND-ICOpyme to support SMEs in their expansion plans, with a long-term vision of the business, from start-ups to medium-sized consolidated companies.
Growing investment activity
The investment portfolio comprises 37 companies (€49m in equity and €50m in equity loans) and 16 participations in other venture capital entities (€19m).
The most significant transactions in 2012 according to Capital & Corporate were:
- Oncovision: biotechnology sector, dedicated to medical molecular vision equipment for application in surgery, cancer research and diagnosis, in an LBO operation together with BUllnet and CRB Bio II.
- Albali signalling: in the logistics sector in seed phase for €7.7m.
- Advances outsourcing services together with Baring Private Equity Partners for a minority position.
- In addition to the operations reported by Cap&corp, AXIS itself reports its stake in Delaware, a consulting services company in the field of new technologies with a turnover of €27 million, and Aterga, which provides technical resources for large infrastructures.
"Sectorally AXIS has a generalist character as we have seen in the 2012 operations. There have been investments in biotechnology, logistics and business services. Despite the growing activity, the volume of investments made in 2012 seems to us to be low due to a short rotation of the portfolio of investees. Furthermore, although in their press releases they offer investment to companies in seed stages, the reality is that they favour more developed companies", says Diego Gutierrez, an expert in corporate finance for SMEs, at ABRA INVEST.
Targeted public investment to invest through other specialised funds
In 2012, AXIS participated in 4 funds of venture capital is:
- Amerigo SI technologies with €3 million for seed investment.
- CRB Bio II with €4MM for seed investments in biotechnology.
- Inveready Venture Finance with €3 million for seed investments.
- Seaya ventures with €3 million, the only one for expansion projects.
"In our opinion, it is very good that public entities rely on management teams with extensive experience and recognised in the market for the management of public funds. On the one hand, it brings professionalism to the investment process and, on the other hand, it partly avoids the influence of non-business or political criteria that distort the work of supporting companies with a future, as has happened in the savings banks or similar entities", says Diego Gutierrez.
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