European buyout group EQT has appointed Per Franzén as its incoming chief executive, the firm’s third leader in 11 years, as it steps into its next chapter as a mature listed company.
Christian Sinding, who took up the post months before the firm went public in 2019, will later this year become chair of the Stockholm-listed buyout group’s newly formed advisory council. Franzén will take up the role in May.
“I’m just really honoured,” Franzén told the Financial Times. “It’s an exciting day for me.”
He said EQT was embarking on the transition “out of a position of strength”, adding that it was part of the firm’s governance model and culture to change leaders regularly to bring in a “fresh pair of eyes”.
“We have a saying at EQT that everything can always be improved at all times,” he said. “Chris has done an amazing job the last six years so I just really look forward to building on that.”
Franzén is at present the deputy managing partner and head of the firm’s private equity operations across Europe and North America, EQT’s largest business line, which he took over from Sinding in 2019 and doubled assets under management to €113bn.
He has spent nearly two decades at EQT, which manages total assets of €269bn across its buyout, infrastructure and real estate strategies.
He recently led a fundraising for the firm’s €22bn flagship buyout fund, among the largest private equity funds globally at the time.
EQT’s top guard and board made the appointment decision on Monday morning, Franzén said. It follows the firm’s full-year report last month of a 72 per cent increase in proceeds from exiting companies, a 27 per cent rise in deployment of capital and a 5 per cent increase in fee-generating assets under management compared with the previous year.
Sinding expanded the firm from a market capitalisation of about €7bn at the time of its 2019 initial public offering to about €40bn today.
EQT was founded in 1994 with the backing of the industrial Wallenberg family. It invests across Europe, North America and Asia, and recently announced a new strategy dedicated to infrastructure for the transition to renewable energy.
Earlier this month the group planned to announce that former Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg was joining its new advisory council, before he decided to join the Norwegian government.
Sinding will continue to chair the firm’s global investment forum and remain a member of several EQT fund investment committees.
