Advent Int?l E2.5bn fund.

Advent International has announced the final close of its most recent global private equity fund, Advent International GPE V, on €2.5bn (US$3.3bn). The fund was significantly oversubscribed with over €4bn of interest from investors. The new fund brings the total cumulative capital raised by Advent to US$10bn.

Like its predecessor funds, GPE V will invest primarily in Europe and North America. The fund will continue to focus on investments with a typical enterprise value of between €50m and €500m, but will also look at larger deals should the opportunities arise.

Target sectors remain business and financial services, technology, media and telecoms (TMT), retail and consumer, healthcare & life sciences and industrial.

A total of 86 investors participated in GPE V. The fund received strong support from existing limited partners, whose total commitments exceeded the original target of around €2bn. New investors committed the additional capital to reach the €2.5bn total.

Eight of the largest investors in the fund are GIC Special Investments, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, AlpInvest Partners NV, State of Michigan Retirement Systems, funds managed by Standard Life, Pantheon clients, Partners Group-advised clients and California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

The fund saw an increase in interest from European institutional investors who contributed 38% of the capital raised. Forty-six per cent was raised from North American investors and 16% from Asia and the Middle East.

Will Schmidt, managing director at Advent International in London, said: “We believe that the great investor interest in GPE V results from our highly differentiated strategy for identifying and developing mid-market buyout opportunities relative to the industry’s historically more financially-driven models. We hope that the new fund will repeat the strong performance of its predecessors by building a portfolio of companies with high potential for accelerated growth and earnings enhancement.”