Gimv

CEO Koen Dejonckheere leads the firm, with each of the four investment platforms — Consumer, Healthcare, Smart Industries, and Sustainable Cities — managed by dedicated partner teams who hold autonomous decision-making authority within their domain. The investment committee includes the platform heads and is chaired by Dejonckheere, who joined Gimv in 1998 and became CEO in 2015.

Gimv is a publicly listed asset manager, not a family office. It originated in 1980 as a Flemish government investment vehicle and listed on Euronext Brussels in 1997. Its shareholder base includes institutional investors, Belgian family offices, and retail investors who hold the stock directly.

Because Gimv invests from its own balance sheet rather than through closed-end funds, it faces no capital-return deadlines or fundraising cycles. This allows the firm to hold portfolio companies for extended periods when value creation is still accruing, rather than running a forced exit process. The trade-off is that it must manage liquidity for public shareholders while making illiquid private investments.

Gimv's four-platform structure is exclusionary in effect: the firm does not invest in financial services, upstream energy, defense, or heavy extractive industries. Its stated focuses — Consumer, Healthcare, Smart Industries, and Sustainable Cities — effectively exclude sectors that fall outside those conviction areas.

Gimv invests almost exclusively through direct equity positions in portfolio companies. It does not operate as a fund-of-funds or make material LP commitments to third-party managers. Co-investments alongside other GPs occur when the firm takes minority positions alongside a lead investor, but the balance-sheet structure means it acts as principal in every deal.

Gimv co-invests selectively alongside lead investors in growth and buyout situations, particularly in transactions that exceed its solo ticket range. The firm has partnered with founders, family shareholders, and institutional co-investors across Benelux, French, and DACH deals, but nearly always as an equity participant rather than a passive LP.

Gimv is a limited liability company incorporated under Belgian law with a one-tier board structure. The board includes independent directors alongside executive management. Because the firm is listed and regulated by the FSMA, it publishes semi-annual financial statements, quarterly NAV updates, and ad-hoc press releases for material events — a transparency posture unusual among private equity investors.