The HEC Paris Search Fund Club will bring together European investors, acquisition entrepreneurs, CEOs and advisers at ETA Without Borders, a one-day summit taking place on Saturday, 19 September, at Palais Vivienne in Paris, with the support of Innesto Partners, Stek, Matrila and Sebri Valentin Zerrouk.
Created as a practical forum for Europe’s growing ETA community, the summit will focus on a central economic question: who will own, lead and renew the continent’s established SMEs as a generation of founders approaches succession? Rather than treating a SF as simply a financing structure, the conference follows the full journey from aspiring owner to responsible operator.
The programme includes four practitioner panels and two expert addresses covering the European succession supercycle; the choice between acquisition models; cross-border ETA; transaction failures between LOI and closing; the first 100 days as CEO; and the future of the model in Europe. Sessions will examine how sellers evaluate prospective owners, how local legal and financing conventions affect transactions, why apparently viable deals fail after an LOI, and how incoming CEOs establish trust without destabilizing the organizations they have acquired.
Pierre-Paul Benoit (LeFonds Capital) will open the summit with an address on Europe’s succession landscape. Simon Bores Llanos (Istria Capital) will deliver the closing address on the future of ETA. Announced participants include César Ortiz Sotelo, Bruno Lucas, Guillaume de Braquilanges, Florent Robineau, Juan Cuesta, Adrian Carniol, Miguel Paulo, Jaume Argerich, Marc Bartomeus, Newton Campos, Ruben Tros, Joachim de Belgique, Daniel Perthes and Miguel Indekeu.
The wider initiative also includes the ETA Without Borders SF Competition, a pan-school exercise in which student teams identify a real acquisition target, build an investment thesis and defend it before experienced investors and operators.
Programme and tickets: www.etawithoutborders.fr
