The Private Equity Firm Behind Some of France’s Smartest Travel Startups
Photo Credit: A pre-pandemic photo of Gare du Nord, a vital intercity and international rail station in Paris. Montefiore, a Paris-based private equity firm with a record of investing in travel, runs the Nov Tourisme fund to support travel companies. Paris Tourist Office / Jacques Lebar
Skift Take
If you're a French travel company right now, you very much want to be on Montefiore's radar, a $2.74 billion fund that's become a kingmaker through the Nov Tourisme fund.
For 16 years, private equity firm Montefiore Investment has avoided the spotlight while making small investments in travel and other sectors — with its best-known travel deal being its sale of Auto Escape Group to Expedia Group. But in the past year, Montefiore has gotten a very public role in helping several French travel companies escape the pandemic trough.
When 16 French institutional investors put together an approximately $210 million (€173 million) fund to help the country's tourism and leisure businesses during the pandemic, they sought applications from a few dozen firms and institutions to manage it. Last October, Montefiore was picked by the French Insurance Federation to lead the new fund, called Nov Tourisme - Relance Durable France.
Montefiore is a Paris-based private equity firm that manages about $2.74 billion (€2.3 billion) of equity, about 43 percent of which it raised in 2019.
It separately has discretionary management of the Nov Tourisme fund, decidin
