Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England.[3] The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai.[4] As of March 2024, the firm had raised and advised funds of approximately US$77 billion.[5] Apax Partners is one of the oldest and largest private equity firms operating on an international basis.[6]
Apax invests across three sectors: technology, internet/consumer and services.[7][8]
Apax raises capital for its investment funds through institutional investors including corporate and public pension funds, university and college endowments, foundations and fund of funds.
In 1972,[9][10] Ronald Mourad Cohen and Maurice Tchénio founded the advisory firm Multinational Management Group (MMG) in London, Paris, and Chicago, marking the beginning of Apax Partners.[11][12] In 1977, they formed a partnership with early venture capitalist Alan Patricof, who founded Patricof & Co in New York in 1969.[13][14] The new firm would be known as Alan Patricof Associates (APA) and ultimately come to be known as Apax Partners (apax means "unique" in classical Greek).[15]
Throughout the 1980s, the firm grew steadily raising capital under a series of separate funds.[16][17]
In 1991, Apax Partners became the official name for all of its European operations[18] however the U.S. business still operated under the Patricof & Co. name. By the mid-1990s Apax had become one of the larger private equity firms globally.[13]
In 2001, Patricof & Co. adopted the Apax Partners branding and formalized its affiliation with its European business.[19][20] In 2002, Apax Partners LLP was established.[21]
In 2005, Apax announced it would acquire middle market leveraged buyout firm Saunders Karp & Megrue to augment its buyout business in the United States.[22][23] In March 2006, Alan Patricof left Apax.[24]
In 2006, Apax Partners in London and Apax Partners France in Paris became independent.[25] Apax Partners France rebranded to Seven2 in 2023.
The circumstances surrounding the demerger, transfer of assets and subsequent collapse of the British United Shoe Machinery in 2000 led to questions about Apax's behaviour being raised in Parliament by MPs of both main parties. After calls for an enquiry into the loss of hundreds of pensions were refused, Ros Altmann, the pensions expert and, as of 2015, UK Pensions minister described it "one of the worst cases ..I have seen ..the actions of the former owners – Apax have been immoral." The Member of Parliament Ashok Kumar said, "I think these people needed flogging ..these are greedy, selfish, capitalists who live on the backs of others."[127][128]
Following its sale of Wind Hellas in 2007, Apax and Hellas co-owner TPG were sued by former bondholders of the telecom company, who allege that Apax and TPG unjustifiably enriched themselves from Hellas and misrepresented the true state of its accounts. Apax has countered that some of these bondholders only began their dispute after passing up on the chance of selling prior to the bankruptcy of 2009, and that Apax sold the business in 2007 (almost three years before the bankruptcy) and so was not the legal owner of Hellas during the periods cited in some of the lawsuits. (In 2005 a New York judge awarded $56 million to some of these bondholders, made against Hellas Telecommunications Finance and Hellas Finance, rather than Apax or TPG). Other lawsuits related to Apax and TPG's ownership of Hellas are being heard in the United States. In December 2015 a separate legal action brought by the liquidators of Hellas Telecommunications was dismissed by a Luxembourg court.[129][130][131][132][133] In February 2018 the liquidators abandoned their UK case against Apax and TPG after four days of trial.[134]
How I rode the rising wave of private equity." The Sunday Times, November 4, 2007
