Jean Bernard Meurisse

Jean-Bernard Meurisse is President & Partner (SmallCap) at Initiative & Finance, a Paris-based private equity firm that has specialized in financing and transferring small and mid-cap SMEs since 1984. An HEC graduate, he began his career in banking at Crédit National (later part of Natixis) before moving into private equity in 1992 at Schroder Ventures — the firm that would later become Permira — where he focused on small-cap leveraged buyouts.

From 1996 to 2003 he continued in small-cap LBOs at Barclays Private Equity France. In 2003 he joined Initiative & Finance as a Partner, and over the following years was successively appointed to the Management Board, then Managing Director, and ultimately President of the firm. He was a central figure in the 2010 management buyout (MBO) of the management company itself, Initiative & Finance Gestion, which spun the team out as an independent house.

Over his tenure he has led roughly twenty investments. Initiative & Finance as a whole has completed more than 350 investments and deployed over €700m in the small-cap segment since inception, positioning it as one of the longest-standing dedicated SME buyout players in France.

• Backs management, not founders looking for seed money: the priority is "to support company executives with their shareholding projects (takeover, buyout, acquisition, growth, etc.)" — buyouts and transmissions of established businesses.
• Quality of the existing team is the filter: the firm prioritizes backing high-quality management teams already in place who want to keep leading their companies; portfolio companies are consistently "profitable, growing entities with ambitious development plans."
• Stage & structure: majority buyouts (LBO/MBO/OBO) primarily, with a portion of capital for growth investments.
• Ticket size: €3m–€20m equity per deal (core €5m–€15m), targeting companies with enterprise values of €5m–€50m for majority positions.
• Guiding values: in his own words, "Durability and SME culture are our fundamental pillars," with loyalty, conviction, simplicity and a collective approach cited as core values.
• Emerging theme: environmental transition and sustainable development, pursued through the firm's "Tomorrow" (Tomorrow Private Equity) strategy targeting companies embedding sustainability in their business models.