Keensight names COO

Keensight Capital, a European growth investor, has appointed Arnaud Cohen as a partner and chief operating officer, according to a statement from the firm.

Cohen will oversee financial, legal and tax issues for the group, as well as taking charge of functions such as compliance. He will also be in charge of the implementation of best practises in investment structuring and portfolio company follow-up, the firm said.

It is unclear whether this is a newly-created position at the firm.

Cohen joins from EY, where he spent 18 years in the transaction advisory services team, in Paris and in New York. He became a partner there in 2010.

Having completed M&A, financial engineering and fundraising projects early in his career, Cohen specialised in valuation and complex business modelling projects, advising international firms and private equity players.

Keensight closed its latest fund, Keensight IV, in October 2014 on its hard-cap of €250 million, above its initial €200 million target. The fund was “significantly oversubscribed”, as Private Equity International reported at the time.

Investors in Fund IV include the Rothschild Group, French financing and business development organisation Bpifrance, the Bankque Cantonale de Genève and European Investment Fund. The fund has also attracted ten new European investors, among them the CERN Pension Fund, French insurance corporation CNP Assurances, and Allianz France.

Keensight spun out from R Capital Management, a subsidiary of the Rothschild Group, in November 2013 with three managing partners, Jean-Michel Beghin, Jérôme Pujol, and Pierre Remy. Following the spin-out Keensight acquired R Capital Fund III, a 2010-vintage €100 million vehicle.
In 2015 Keensight named Alexandre Carrot as chief financial officer, a newly created position. He was previously a deputy CFO at rival European private equity firm LBO France.