Frédéric, a graduate of École Polytechnique and holder of an MBA from INSEAD, began his professional career with an initial cycle of four periods of four years, alternating between industry and private equity: sales engineer at IBM, Private Equity investment manager (Eurosuez fund), CEO and then Chairman of an industrial SME under LBO (Multimixing, €70m revenue), and Private Equity partner at Suez Finanzberatung in Frankfurt, until September 11, 2001.
Upon returning to France, he briefly joined Natexis Industrie as Investment Director in 2002, then co-founded Ardens in early 2003. Through this firm, 29 LBO investments in French SMEs were completed between 2003 and 2026, the year in which management of the Ardens IV fund was transferred to AXIO Capital.
In parallel, Frédéric became Chairman of GT Logistics (with €100m in revenue) in early 2024, as well as Chairman of the holding company of the Sarrat family group in Bordeaux.
Frédéric has also served as President of XMP-Entrepreneur, dedicated to entrepreneurship among alumni of École Polytechnique, Mines, and Ponts, and as President of Grandes Écoles Entrepreneurs (G2E) for six years, from 2019 through 2024.