Former Bainee Denis Villafranca joins Bridgepoint

European private equity group Bridgepoint has bolstered its Paris-based team with former Bain & Company consultant Denis Villafranca.

After graduating from HEC Paris in 1992, Denis Villafranca started his career with Bain & Company, where he spent seven years, in his last role serving as Manager. In 1999 – Villafranca had in the meantime gained an MBA from Harvard – he left the strategy consultancy to join BC Partners, with advised funds of €12.6 billion one of Europe’s leading private equity firms. Over the past 15 years with BC Partners Villafranca worked on dozens of acquisitions, divestments, investments, buy-outs and Initial Public Offerings (IPO’s).

Last month Villafranca decided to embark on a new challenge, and joined Bridgepoint, a private equity counterpart with a focus on middle market companies (typically valued between €200 million and €1 billion). He becomes the fifth partner of Bridgepoint in France*, a few months after the company successfully raised its fifth European fund for a total of €4 billion. With a total of fifteen professionals the Paris-based team is the largest of Bridgepoint’s European network, which also consists of offices in Frankfurt, Istanbul, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, and Stockholm.

Frédéric Pescatori, CEO of Bridgepoint Paris, comments on the appointment: “As part of our fifth fund we decided to strengthen our Paris office and we are delighted to welcome Denis, a very experienced professional. With his experience, we are confident we can continue to support and accelerate the growth of companies in which we invest.”

* Other partners are Frédéric Pescatori, Benoît Bassi, Xavier Robert and Vincent Gaël Baudet.