We deploy American capital into undervalued European assets — sourced off-market, structured for asymmetric returns, and operated by a team with genuine local depth.
“We don't source deals and hand them over. We acquire, structure and grow them — with your capital, our network, and 20 years of European operating experience.”
— Bruno Ghezali, Principal & Founder
Why Ghezali Capital
Three things no placement agent can replicate.
I
The arbitrage
European mid-market assets — particularly French SMEs, distressed industrials and fragmented services — trade at 3–5x EBITDA where comparable US assets clear 8–12x. We find them before they are intermediated. Your dollar buys more here than anywhere else.
II
The operational depth
We don't source and exit. We structure, install operators, and grow EBITDA before any exit conversation. Our European network — operators, advisors, local partners — is built over two decades. You get a co-investor who runs, not a broker who refers.
III
The principal
Bruno Ghezali has skin in the game on every mandate. Raised in an entrepreneurial family. Trained as an engineer. Built and acquired businesses across France and Europe for 20 years. You are not dealing with an intermediary. You are dealing with a founder-operator who co-invests.
The core thesis
Europe is structurally underpriced for dollar-based buyers.
US and Gulf capital has spent the last decade chasing SaaS multiples and late-stage tech. The result: European mid-market assets — particularly in France, Benelux and Southern Europe — remain largely uncontested by institutional allocators who lack local access.
The EU market is not the US market. Relationship-led, opaque, and deeply local. You cannot access it with a flight and a Bloomberg terminal. You need someone already inside — with the network, the language, the cultural read, and the operating track record to close deals that never reach an auction process.
That is what Ghezali Capital provides. Proprietary access to a market most US allocators cannot enter on their own terms.
Illustrative EBITDA multiple gap — EU vs US mid-market
US
8–12×
UK
6–9×
France
3–5×
S. Europe
2–4×
Potential multiple expansion on exit2–4× gap
Indicative only. Based on publicly available mid-market transaction data. Not a guarantee of returns. Subject to deal-specific variables.
“Most US funds that want European exposure hire a local placement agent. They get a deck, a shortlist, and a fee. They don't get the operator. They don't get the network. They don't get someone who has been doing this for twenty years and still puts capital in alongside them.”
— Bruno Ghezali · Principal, Ghezali Capital
The principal
Bruno Ghezali
Founder & Principal — Ghezali Capital
“I grew up watching entrepreneurs build and lose businesses. I trained as an engineer. I worked inside the largest institutions in France. Then I spent a decade acquiring, building and restructuring companies — with my own capital on the table. Ghezali Capital is not my first attempt at this. It is the distillation of everything that worked.”
BackgroundEngineering degree · French grandes institutions
CorporateTotal Energies · AXA · Capital Banking Solutions
Operating20+ years acquiring & building EU businesses
Bruno Ghezali is not a banker who pivoted to advisory. He is an operator who built real businesses, lost real money, and learned — across two decades of European market cycles — what it actually takes to acquire an asset, restructure it, and exit at a premium.
He was sourcing deals in the French SME market before it had a name. He was automating business operations before AI made it fashionable. He built systems, hired operators, and sold businesses — repeatedly, with his own capital at risk.
This is the profile US and international allocators cannot replicate internally. You can hire a consultant who knows France. You can hire a placement agent who has a database. You cannot hire someone who has already done what you are asking — and is willing to do it again, alongside you, with capital in the deal.
That is Bruno Ghezali. That is Ghezali Capital.
The honest comparison
What you get that you cannot get elsewhere.
Comparison of typical intermediaries versus Ghezali Capital across six allocator needs