On Friday, March 21, in the program "Les Experts," Roland Gillet, François Ecalle, founder of FipEco.fr, and Philippe Mutricy, head of research at Bpifrance, discussed the initiative led by Éric Lombard, France's Minister of Economy, to create a €450 million private equity fund named "Bpifrance Défense." This fund is aimed at non-listed companies in the defense sector.

Roland Gillet emphasized the principle that there is no such thing as a free lunch in finance: private equity offers higher returns than other assets because it carries greater risks. He highlighted specific concerns such as liquidity risk—the possibility that an investor won't be able to quickly convert an asset into cash without incurring significant losses—and concentration risk, which involves excessive exposure to one or more specific investments or asset classes.

Furthermore, he stated that financing alone cannot make a project profitable. Investment decisions are always independent of financing decisions. Therefore, defense companies can choose to incur debt and remain profitable if they were already so from the outset, despite the added financial risks.

Roland Gillet also commended the European Union's swift response to the potential threat of waning support from the United States regarding our security. Member states are finally poised to meet their NATO obligations by increasing military spending and moving closer to the 2% GDP threshold. However, he noted that these measures, which are expected to result in a colossal debt increase (at least €650 billion), could hinder a return to budgetary balance.

Watch the first part of "Les Experts": "Defense, a Smart Investment for Savings?"