Astorg’s Judith Charpentier: Mid-market focus will maximize exit choices

Astorg has refocused on its core mid-market segment in a bid to maximize exit optionality, Judith Charpentier, co-managing partner and co-head flagship, told PE Hub.

The market environment for exits is still difficult, with optimism coming into 2026 tempered by macro events like the war in Iran and the AI-driven sell-off in software assets – dubbed the ‘Saaspocalypse.’ But like many of her peers, Charpentier believes 2026 could mirror last year, when a first half interrupted by macro forces ended with a stronger second half for dealmaking.

Astorg has a “good pipeline” of exits, said Charpentier. “For assets of the right quality, you can absolutely execute on exits.”

The M&A market has been bifurcated for some time between those quality assets, which are commanding multiples in line with historical highs, and mid-tier assets that are struggling to transact.

“When you look at the average holding period of portfolio companies sold recently, it has clearly extended to an average of over seven years,” said Charpentier. “It has never been that long. There is pressure on all of us to be very disciplined on DPI and return cash to investors, which makes sellers more realistic about valuation expectations.”

While Charpentier said the valuation gap between buyers and sellers is “slightly reducing,” the volatile macro backdrop makes exit optionality even more important.

“If you look at our portfolio companies, they always raise strategic interest,” said Charpentier. “It’s not always the best option, so it doesn’t mean we sell to trade in 100 percent of cases. But it’s something we have in mind when we make an investment.”

The firm’s fully invested VII fund, raised in 2019, is at a DPI of 0.7x, with an aim to hit 1x next year. The company is preparing a couple of exits from the fund by the end of this year and more next year. It has made three exits from the fund so far, which have generated €3bn of proceeds at a 2.8x money multiple.

Those are: Normec, a testing, inspection, certification and compliance based in Amsterdam that it moved into a €1.4 billion continuation fund in 2024; Anaqua, a Boston-based intellectual property management SaaS platform sold to Nordic Capital in 2025; and Clario, a Philadelphia-based clinical trial data company sold alongside Nordic, Novo Holdings and Cinven to Thermo Fisher Scientific for nearly $9 billion this year.

Optionality is also important given the volatile IPO market.

“IPO windows open, but they can also close very quickly. That’s why we have decided to refocus on our core mid-market segment in terms of investment size – for that specific reason, to maximize exit optionality and not be dependent solely on an IPO for some of our larger exits.”

Astorg’s flagship and mid-market strategies were already operating in a “highly co-ordinated manner, sharing sector expertise and co-ordinating coverage and sourcing across sectors and geographies,” while remaining distinct, a source told PE Hub in February following the departure of Edouard Pillot, co-head of the mid-cap fund.

Value dislocation

While the public markets have been a difficult place to sell, it’s been a source of investments for Astorg. The firm is currently investing from its €4.4 billion 2023 VIII fund and its €1.3 billion 2022 Mid-Cap fund. It has two deals in its pipeline, in medtech and diagnostics – one a P2P and the other a carve-out.

“Those markets have seen some pockets of value dislocation in public markets,” said Charpentier. “Some of these mid-size medtech companies are trading at all-time lows, which creates P2P opportunities. And large corporates, which are challenged in the stock market, need often to refocus their strategy, leading to carve-out opportunities.”

One carve-out Astorg has already signed this year was for the microbiology business of Thermo Fisher Scientific – a company the firm knows well from its sale of Clario – for $1.075 billion. The deal provided additional capital that the seller can deploy to create shareholder value, Marc N Casper, chairman and CEO of Thermo Fisher, said in a statement announcing the deal.

Astorg paid 9.4x 2026E cash EBITDA for the business, PE Hub understands, in a market that typically demands 11x.

“We were able to negotiate a tailor-made package for that deal,” said Charpentier.

The deal ticked a lot of boxes for an Astorg healthcare deal: global, not local; a maker of critical products rather than exposure to a single product; and with a very large and sticky customer base in the B2B sector.

“That’s one of our main investment themes in healthcare: we focus on complex situations in resilient categories. We target medtech and diagnostics segments with growth potential and critical products, where we can create value through complex transaction structures such as carve-outs or P2Ps, and build market leaders with strategic value.”

The deal reminded Charpentier of the creation of Nexpring, a provider of infertility devices. It was another proprietary situation for Astorg, which avoids auctions.

“Nexpring Health is a great example: by combining a take-private with two simultaneous carve-outs, we created one of the industry’s most comprehensive assisted reproductive technology solutions providers, demonstrating how creative dealmaking can unlock differentiated value.”

Enabler

Astorg is leaning into artificial intelligence as a value creation tool. Its portfolio performance team is around 20 people and by the end of the year will have eight people dedicated to value creation in AI across the portfolio.

Efficiency gains of 30 percent have been seen in the portfolio, with R&D in particular an AI winner.

“Across our portfolio, AI is more of an enabler than a risk,” said Charpentier. “We’ve done a diagnostic of the portfolio, and in the vast majority of cases, it’s net positive. For us, it’s really about prioritizing where we see the highest value creation – and that’s not easy, because all our companies want the help of our AI team to accelerate value creation. It’s been quite successful – last year we generated around €30 million of EBITDA through AI, and the objective is to double that this year.”

There is still work to be done when it comes to boosting the revenue side of the EBITDA equation, however.

“AI is a powerful tool to generate efficiencies, but when it comes to generating additional revenues through the sale of agents, it’s harder to find the right business model. People are still scratching their heads over this.”