Day in the Life: Agnès Nahum, partner, private equity firm
0645 My week varies greatly depending on whether I spend it in Paris or travelling. If I'm in Paris, I have time after waking up to see my two young daughters Charlotte and Justine off to school, before I leave our apartment near the Parc Monceau.
If I'm travelling, as I do at least two weeks a month, I will probably get up well before dawn in a foreign hotel room for an intense round of meetings in London, Copenhagen, Munich, Barcelona, or cities further afield. Access Capital Partners invests in European private equity funds of funds, so I spend an enormous amount of time meeting fund managers and prospective investors all over Europe, as well as attending board meetings of the funds we have invested in.
In a typical week, I may be in four European capitals. If just one city is involved, I try to avoid staying overnight by catching the first flight out of Paris and taking the last back.
0830 It's a fairly short drive from home around the Arc de Triomphe to our new offices on the Champs-Elysées. We moved here last spring, and the light and views from our 6th floor windows make very pleasant surroundings for work.
Once behind my desk, I sort through my mail and e-mails while savouring a second cup of coffee. Then I wander down the hall to catch up with the others on the team, including my two partners, Dominique Peninon and Philippe Poggioli, both of whom I've known for years. These informal daily chats are invaluable and they're possible because Access is fairly small, with a team of fourteen professionals.
0900 This is a fairly typical day in Paris, so I spend much of the morning studying files on buy-out and technology funds that Access is considering committing to. This means looking at the track record of the team running the fund, how they generate their deal flow, how they enter into companies and what kinds of exit routes have been used for each investment.
I might also get calls from other fund managers who would like to make a presentation on their fund. I usually know right away whether a meeting makes sense: The world of private equity in Europe, which represents 1,200 teams, is both wide and small, and I've known most of the players in it for many years. It's very much a people business, which is what I like about it.
Ultimately, the decision to invest or not in a fund depends as much on your instincts about the team and the confidence it inspires as it does on the financial aspects of the deal.
1100 Today I spend two hours with one of our analysts who has studied a file on a buy-out fund. We conclude the fund looks interesting, so we decide to set up a meeting with them. If we have a strong feeling, we move to step two by starting our due diligence process, which will take two to three months.
We will study in particular the market environment, the competition, the track record of the team, the origination of the deals. We will meet the CEOs of the investee companies of the fund in due diligence. We will making reference calls to investors in this fund, as well as investors who have invested before with this particular firm but decided not to go into this fund. We will also ask our lawyers about the fund's legal structure.
1300 Lunch at Ladurée, a restaurant and tea salon next door famous for its pastries, with a London-based fund manager in Paris for the day. Despite Paris's reputation for leisurely lunches, the trend today is for quick business-like meals. We get down to the essentials, as he describes his investment strategy for the European buy-out fund he runs.
1430 Back to the office for more calls. This time I find myself on the phone talking to a prospective investor, based in the Netherlands, about our new European funds of funds. He sounds interested, so I make a note to call him back for a meeting next time we're in Amsterdam.
1600 It's time for our weekly team meeting, held every Tuesday, where we go over all the files under study and discuss general internal business affairs. All of us travel a great deal, but we hold these meetings if at least two of the three partners are present plus the rest of the team.
Today we have as guests a team running a Swiss-based technology fund. This is our second meeting with them, and we use it to go over their track record in even greater detail. We ask them how they discovered each company they invested in, how that company is performing against the competition, and what market conditions it's operating in.
This is probably the most time-consuming part of our business. For our first funds of funds, which is invested in 22 private equity funds, we met with 300 management teams.
1730 I have a conference call with the managing partner of a technology fund which is in our ACF 1 portfolio. This team wants to raise their next generation fund and it could be a new commitment for ACF II. We are at the end of the process and we have still some concerns about the legal documentation.
Six people take part in the tough conference call: the managing partner of the fund, the fund's lawyer, our lawyer, one analyst from Access and myself. I think that it has gone well. We will now wait for the new version of the legal documentation.
1930 I leave my office for a cocktail party organised by a French venture capitalist at his offices near the Arc de Triomphe. I try to keep these outings to a minimum, but this one turns out to be useful since I run into the CEO of a company that is one of the major investments of a fund Access may commit funds to. I also meet the bankers who work with the fund's management team.
2030 Home at last for half an hour of conversation with my daughters about their day at school before their bedtime. My husband arrives about 9:00 pm and we talk about our respective days over dinner. At least twice a week we go to dinner parties or entertain friends or business associates at home.
Since tonight we have nothing on, we settle down to read and listen to music for a couple of hours.
Although family time is limited during the week, we are very strict about weekends, which we reserve for family activities and tennis playing . I don't need much sleep, so the lights are rarely out before midnight.
