Madison Private Equity gets new board members

Swisscom director Markus Rauh will be joining the board Keystone Archive

Madison Private Equity Holding will be getting two new board members when it holds its annual shareholders meeting this month.

The two newcomers are Peter Everts, a former top manager at Migros, and Swisscom chairman Markus Rauh. The pair will join Dr Ernst Thomke, Hans-Jürg Schär, and chairman Guillaume Pictet on the board of directors.

The company was founded last year as an investment vehicle looking to concentrate on acquiring equity of healthy, privately-owned small and medium-sized Swiss and Continental European companies.

Its first and only investment so far has been Attias Textiles, a wholesaler of jeans and casual wear in Switzerland.

Established in 1974, Attias established the trademarks, Teddy’s, Teddy’s kids and Detto Fatto. It holds a 12 percent share of the Swiss jeans market, with revenues of SFr65.8 million, according to Madison.

Retain investments

Madison Private Equity plans to retain its investments for four to eight years, after which the company “foresees an exit strategy via a trade sale, management buyout, or buy-in, or an IPO”.

Typical target investments are “well-established consumer or industrial brands” that hold a leading position in their respective market segments, with revenues of SFr30-150 million.

Madison shareholders include institutional and private investors with holdings of between SFr1-5 million each.

The management and the board’s commitment totals more than five per cent of the company’s equity. Madison has total assets of SFr74 million.

It has its registered offices in Denges, canton Vaud, and is managed by Zurich-based Madison Management, with whom it has an advisory agreement.

by Valerie Thompson