Investment funds: what the commission of inquiry says

Key takeaways

On 9 June 2026, the Assemblée nationale adopted the report of its commission of inquiry "on the predation of France's productive capacity by speculative funds". Behind a loaded title, the document speaks with two voices, carries some forty recommendations with no force of law, and has produced only a single text that is genuinely moving forward.

• The report is not a law: its recommendations (forty announced, forty-one numbered, grouped into five orientations) are political guidelines, with no binding force.
• The only measure actually in the legislative pipeline, the so-called "vulture funds" bill, targets only a specific mechanism used by listed companies (OCABSA) and has no effect on unlisted private equity or on LBOs.
• The real risk for the sector lies not in a hypothetical "anti-fund law", but in the autumn finance bill (taxation of acquisition debt, carried interest, management packages) and in the expansion of foreign investment screening.
• In parallel, the AMF is methodically tightening its supervision of alternative investment funds - technical work that is advancing independently of the parliamentary debate.

1. A report with two voices

This is the most instructive fact, and the one most often passed over in silence: this commission contradicts itself within its own report.

The rapporteur, Aurélie Trouvé (La France insoumise), defends an offensive thesis, from which flow some forty recommendations, from the most technical to the most radical: abolishing the tax deductibility of buyout debt, a right of veto for employees over certain disposals, partial nationalisation of certain activities.

Aurélie Trouvé

LFI - NFP

Rapporteur of the commission

"Ultimately, to disarm these vulture funds and reduce the place they occupy in the financing of economic activity."

But the chair of the commission, Emmanuel Mandon (Les Démocrates), distances himself in a dissenting foreword, criticising the report for "confining itself to a critical stance".

Emmanuel Mandon

Les Démocrates

Chair of the commission

"There can be no question of prohibiting or discouraging the intervention of investment funds in France."

This internal fracture is not anecdotal. It says that, even within the commission that produced it, the narrative of "predation" does not command consensus.

Lex27 take. A commission of inquiry report that contradicts itself in its own foreword does not carry the political weight of a consensual text. This internal fracture weakens, from the outset, the force of the most radical recommendations.

2. The diagnosis, and what it is really worth

The report deserves its due: its quantified diagnosis rests on serious sources, not on activist estimates.

The weight of the sector is real. The assets under management of France Invest's members reached nearly EUR 300 billion in private equity at the end of 2024, and the federation claims 2.5 million jobs in the companies under management, or roughly 13% of private-sector salaried employment excluding agriculture. The LBO, the leveraged buyout, has gained ground: it accounted for only one merger-and-acquisition deal out of thirty-three in 2000, against 15% to 20% today by number, and more by value.

The heaviest finding comes from the Banque de France. A study by its financial stability directorate establishes that, one year after an LBO, the probability of default estimated by banks is on average 44% higher than for comparable companies, and bank over-indebtedness 35% higher. This is an argument to be taken seriously.

But it is also an argument to be read correctly. It describes a correlation, not an inevitability, and it flattens a distinction that the very title of the commission deliberately erases: not all funds do the same job. Between growth capital that finances expansion, transmission capital that organises business successions, private debt, and turnaround funds that take over companies in difficulty, talking about "speculative funds" in the singular makes little sense. The most direct voice on this point came from an academic heard by the commission, Professor Ludovic Phalippou (University of Oxford).

3. What the funds answer

The commission heard seven investment funds. Their defence, reasoned and factual, deserves to be restored - it is the counterpoint that the report downplays.

Tikehau Capital, through its supervisory board chair Xavier Musca, flatly rejected the commission's vocabulary and returned leverage to its status as a mere tool.

At Ardian, François Jerphagnon answered on the technical terrain of leverage - a decisive point, since the level he claims sits below the thresholds described as dangerous in the debate.

BC Partners, through Cédric Dubourdieu, dismantled the idea that acquisition debt would weigh on the company being bought: it "is not taken on by the company that is acquired, but by the holding company set up to invest in that company". EQT, for its part, was keen to set itself apart from speculation.

Even the turnaround funds, the most exposed, defended their usefulness. Mutares claims to have "taken responsibility for twelve thousand employees in France" and preserved "roughly 8,400 positions" that were initially condemned - and sums up with an image the confusion it denounces.

On the political side, former economy minister Bruno Le Maire was the most blunt, drawing a dividing line the sector can claim as its own: "It is not a matter of stigmatising this or that fund, because some play a useful role."

Not all cases are equal, and this must be said: certain hearings of employees, around the Lapeyre case taken over by Mutares, produced harsh testimony on cash burn and advisory fees. The fund disputes the figures. This file remains an open factual disagreement between unions and the investor, not an established fact - and that is precisely the nuance an honest reading must preserve.

4. The emblematic cases, damning but nuanced

The report draws on detailed files. Two deserve to be read together, because they tell opposite stories.

Atos embodies the dark scenario. The breaking point dates to the acquisition of Syntel in 2018, "for 3.4 billion dollars financed entirely by bank debt", which broke with the historical principle of "zero debt". After a continuous decline (French headcount halved since 2015, seven chief executives in six years), the accelerated safeguard plan of October 2024 "converted 2.9 billion euros of debt into equity", placing the assets under a holding company governed by Dutch law. Three Anglo-Saxon hedge funds and the bank ING now hold "between 25% and 30% of the capital". The State had to secure the strategic assets through a golden share and the nationalisation of Bull SAS (finalised on 31 March 2026, effective on 1 April, for an enterprise value capped at 404 million euros) - the supercomputers serving, among other things, nuclear deterrence.

LMB Aerospace tells the opposite story: a case where the State managed to set its conditions. This Corrèze-based SME (around 80 employees), equipping the Rafale and submarines, acquired in 2021 by a fund managed by Tikehau for around 200 million euros, was sold at the end of 2025 to the American group Loar Group "for a total amount in the order of 400 million euros". Foreign investment screening genuinely worked: authorisation notified after nine months of review, subject to four strong conditions (industrial continuity in France, protection of sensitive data, an obligation to continue production for 12 to 18 months in the event of disengagement, and a State right of veto via a golden share). No French or European buyer had come forward despite eleven industrial players being approached.

Between the two, Kem One illustrates the central diagnosis: bought by Apollo at the end of 2021, the chemicals group saw its own debt rise "from only 10 million euros at the time of the acquisition to 275 million euros today". This is the type of operation the report wants to regulate - but the fund, in its hearing, placed it back within a logic of managing pension capital and supplementing bank financing.

5. A report is not a law: what is really at stake

This is the point every executive must keep in mind. A commission of inquiry report is a political document: it creates neither obligation nor deadline. Presenting one of its recommendations as "the new rule" would be a mistake.

The only measure genuinely in motion is the so-called "vulture funds" bill, sponsored by deputy Gérault Verny (Union des droites pour la République). Examined in the finance committee on 17 June 2026, it was adopted in its framework version, and not in the outright-ban version defended by the left wing of the commission. The text as voted does not abolish the targeted instrument: it reclassifies as an investment service, subject to AMF authorisation, the activity of those who habitually offer OCABSA (convertible bonds with share subscription warrants) - these highly dilutive convertible bonds used by certain operators on small listed stocks. The aim is the protection of retail investors: a study by the AMF cited in the explanatory memorandum notes that, across a sample of 69 listed companies concerned, the share price fell on average by 72%, while the benchmark index lost only 2% over the period.

Gérault Verny

UDR

Member of the commission · Author of the "vulture funds" bill

"It would be [...] counterproductive to abolish OCABSA. [...] Banning them would deprive certain listed companies of a financing tool."From the explanatory memorandum of his bill

Lex27 take. The message for private equity is clear: this bill touches neither LBOs, nor growth capital, nor unlisted funds. Its scope is narrow and targeted.

So where does the real risk lie? In two directions, more discreet but more probable. First, the autumn finance bill, the usual vehicle for tax measures: this is where the recommendations on the deductibility of acquisition debt, carried interest, or management packages could find expression. Second, the expansion of foreign investment screening, on which the broadest cross-party consensus exists, in the name of economic sovereignty. It is in these two areas, and not in a dedicated "anti-fund law", that the essentials will be decided.

6. The underlying trend: the AMF, without the vocabulary of predation

While the commission was at work, the AMF pursued a methodical tightening of its framework for alternative investment funds: updating its doctrine on the managers of certain "Other AIFs", intensifying its anti-money-laundering controls, and issuing a first publicly named decision sanctioning a private equity management company for its opacity over retrocessions. This movement is technical and autonomous: none of these texts mentions the commission or "responds" to it.

This is perhaps the most useful conclusion for the sector. The regulator is already, seriously, tightening the supervision of practices - who may manage, how, and with what transparency - without needing the vocabulary of "predation" or the principle of a ban. This is exactly the line defended by the chair of the commission: regulate the uses, do not ban the tool. For an investor or an executive, the right reflex is therefore not to react to a report, but to follow two concrete timetables: that of the budget, and that of AMF doctrine.

The full list of the 41 recommendations of the report and that of the persons heard by the commission are set out in the downloadable PDF version below.