Focus area: Diversity, equity and inclusion in portfolio companies of buyout funds
Focus area: Diversity, equity and inclusion in portfolio companies of buyout funds
Encouraging DEI in buyout funds’ portfolio companies
Permira encourages the buyout funds’ portfolio companies to reflect on their corporate culture and identify which areas of their business require focus to improve their DEI efforts.
0%
of the buyout funds’ portfolio companies have (or partially have) a dedicated Head of Diversity and Inclusion (2021: 30%), up 27% since 2020
0%
of the buyout funds’ portfolio companies reported having a DEI steering committee (2021: 52%), up 41% since 2020
0%
of the buyout funds’ portfolio companies had DEI policies (2021: 82%)
0%
of the buyout funds’ portfolio companies had anti-harassment policies (2021: 89%)
Ethnic diversity
In 2022, Permira continued to request data on ethnic diversity, reflecting guidance from ILPA’s Diversity in Action initiative. Companies operating in certain jurisdictions are unable to collect and report ethnic diversity data due to regulatory restrictions.
The number of the buyout funds’ portfolio companies reporting ethnic diversity data across their total workforces increased slightly to 44% in 2022. Ethnic diversity data is generally more readily available for companies based in the US, where some companies have a regulatory requirement to collect and report such data.
Social reporting across the buyout funds’ portfolio companies1
Chief Human Resource Officer
Dedicated Head of DEI
DEI steering committee
Whistleblowing policy / process
Diversity, inclusion and / or anti-discrimination policy, or similar
Anti-harassment policy (standalone or integrated)
Gender diversity (%)2
Total workforce (%)
Executive Management (%)
Board (%)
CEO (%)
Board Chair (%)
Governance in portfolio companies of buyout funds
Permira believes that well-governed businesses perform better. We expect the same standards of ethical conduct, integrity and transparency in our private equity fund portfolio companies as we do of ourselves.
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1 50 buyout fund portfolio companies (across Permira VIII, Permira VII, Permira VI): ABS, Althea and Vacanceselect (where exits were signed before the end of 2022), and Acuity (a new P8 investment signed in January 2023) were all excluded. For the 22 companies in the PGO funds (across PGO1 and PGO2), nine companies completed the data request, five were completed based on public information, and the remaining eight were either excluded or did not respond. For the first time, data for listed companies across buyout and PGO were based solely on publicly available data, where available, otherwise, all data is self-defined and self-reported by portfolio companies and has not been subject to audit or verification by Permira. For companies where 2022 data were not yet available, information is drawn from the most recently available report (e.g. 2021 or 2022).
2 The data recorded reflects data for companies that reported these gender diversity metrics. Companies which reported no data at all for these metrics are excluded from the charts.