Publications
& Policy

The Solvency II Directive is the legislation setting out prudential rules for the European insurance industry. It provides a risk measurement framework for defining capital requirements for insurance companies when they invest into private equity and venture capital funds.

The Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision Directive (IORP II) establishes an EU regulatory framework for the pensions sector. Contrary to Solvency II for insurers and CRD/CRR for banks, the current Directive follows a non-risk based approach to the regulatory requirements for pension funds. However, it clarifies that investments in all alternative asset classes may not exceed 30% of the total assets of the IORP.

The KID-PRIIPS (Key Information Document for Packaged Retail Investment and Insurance-based Products) Regulation requires fund managers who sell investment products to retail investors to produce a three-page document detailing the risk profile, as well as the expected performance of the product, and to disclose costs these investors would face when investing. For this purpose, retail investors are all investors that are not deemed professional under revised MiFID/MiFIR rules, which came into force in 2018.

Nearly all of the proposed amendments of the Market Integration package on asset management will help usually small private equity, venture capital and infrastructure managers to operate more efficiently across the Union – and will therefore unlock capital for the companies they support

Invest Europe, as also part of a coalition of trade associations representing businesses and advisers from the EU and its key trading partners, is committed to creating a level playing field and boosting Europe’s competitiveness, attractiveness and growth. This is why we call upon the European Commission and co-legislators to pursue an ambitious legislative review of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) to hone its scope and tailor its application to create a proportionate balance between targeting distortive foreign subsidies and promoting European competitiveness.

In this paper Invest Europe argued against an interpretation of AIFMD leverage rules that would capture portfolio company debt as leverage of the fund.

During this webinar we unpacked the key elements of the review and discussed what they could mean in practice for PE/VC fund managers and investors.

Invest Europe welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the review of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR). As the association representing private equity (PE), venture capital (VC), and infrastructure fund managers and their investors, we want to highlight that the sector is disproportionately affected by the current FSR regime.

Too many PE/VC-backed companies are mislabelled “in difficulty”, penalizing how innovation is scaled and financed. Invest Europe's response highlights the need to update the rules to reflect real-world business models, to unlock investment, reduce distortions, and support the EU’s competitiveness where it matters most.

Europe has the science, talent, and ambition to lead globally in biotech and healthcare, but to secure that leadership and potential, we must build the conditions that make innovation, capital, and people to start, scale and remain in Europe. In this paper, Invest Europe highlights how to strengthen Europe’s biotech and healthcare ecosystem: unlocking investment at every stage, ensuring public funding complements private capital, promoting smarter and harmonised regulation, creating a competitive end-user market for innovation, harnessing technology and data that accelerate discovery, and strengthening the entrepreneurial workforce - to deliver world-class breakthroughs that drive prosperity, resilience, and better health.

As the European Commission, the European Parliament and national governments are about to negotiate the terms of the next EU Budget, this paper shares the perspective of private market players on the role of public funding for private equity ecosystems. It also examines what can be done to ensure that EU citizens’ money is used in the most efficient way to promote the Union’s goals.

The existence of 28 different company law and corporate governance rulebooks in Europe is considered by the Commission as one of the main barriers to a Capital Markets Union. As a result, further reviews of the Accounting Directives and other relevant pieces of legislation in this field are expected over the next few years.

Public funding has long been relevant to the development of the private equity and venture capital ecosystem. National legislative programmes aim at supporting innovation through venture and growth capital, under EU state aid rules.

The European Commission Recommendation 2003/361 sets out the main factors for determining whether a company is an small and medium-sized enterprise (SME).

Invest Europe welcomes a 28th regime that simplifies and de-risks company formation, operation, and scaling across borders, enabling more businesses to meet PE/VC investability thresholds and boosting deal flow and capital efficiency. A voluntary, digital-by-default EU form that provides legal certainty and flexible governance would offer an attractive alternative to fragmented national rules, provided it is ambitious and supports companies at every stage of growth.