Alternative Investment Awards 2018

2018 Alternative Investment Awards 11 Best Agribusiness Investor 2018 XIO Group XIO Group is a global alternative investments firm with an integrated international investment team. We profile the firm to find out more and explore how it works to provide investors with strong returns. Company: XIO Group Contact: Joseph Pacini Address: The Shard15th floor, 32 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9SG, UK Phone: 07391 197272 Website: www.xiogroup.com Founded in 2014, XIO Group is a global multi-billion-dollar alternative investments firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Led by its four founders, Athene Li, Joseph Pacini, Murphy Qiao and Carsten Geyer, the group draws on their vast industry expertise and knowledge. XI;’s Founding Partner all joined from institutions including Blackrock, Olympus Capital, Permira, CICC. The partner team have managed over $30bn collectively, and as such they draw on this vast industry experience to drive success for the XIO. The group’s strategy is to identify and invest in market-leading and high-performing businesses located across Europe and North America and to partner with management to help these companies in capitalizing on untapped opportunities in fast growing markets, particularly those in Asia. This unique strategy differentiates the group from rivals, and enables it to outperform its competitors both in sourcing of opportunities and realisation of upside. To support this strategy, XIO Group has operations in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Hong Kong, Mainland China and the United States of America, offering clients a truly global approach and vast international knowledge. XIO Group is a standalone platform that is unaffiliated with any other institution or individual, and as such it provides unbiased support and advise to its clients. Proactively seeking investment opportunities in high-quality, industry-leading companies within the following rapidly growing sectors, the group focuses on the agribusiness, machinery and equipment, consumer healthcare, automotive, environmental, TMT and financial institutions markets. AI180001 Overall, after a string of very attractive results in recent years, the private equity industry has seen significant inflows of investor capital, and in 2017 dry powder hit a record of $628bn. This is against the backdrop of a low interest rate environment, with investors increasing allocations to alternative assets where expected returns are better than traditional bond yields. Global buyout investment value increased by 19% in 2017, and with heightened competition entry multiples have increased to their highest level at 10.6x EV/EBITDA. Such competitive conditions mean that funds need to have an extra angle to win deals, with superior industry knowledge or a unique growth angle being good examples of value adds. Undifferentiated managers are being gradually squeezed out and this trend is likely to continue in 2018/19. As such, XIO Group continues to screen the market for suitable investment opportunities, and maintains the strict selection criteria and rigorous investment process that has been applied since inception. The group continues to see compelling opportunities in select pockets through its extensive network and proprietary sourcing channels, despite a highly competitive PE environment. Long term, XIO plans to build on its already successful private equity platform by adding further investment capabilities in areas such as credit and funds of funds, growing into a full-scale alternatives asset manager. Having a broader operation will enable the group to offer the full suite of alternative investment products to investors, and take advantage of synergies between the strategies.