Advisory Shop Raises $120M+ For First Fund Of Funds: UPDATED

Firm: Fund Evaluation Group

Fund: FEG Private Opportunities Fund LP

Target: $200 million

Amount Raised: $122.26M

The Cincinnati, Ohio-based firm has raised approximately $122.26 million for the fund, FEG Private Opportunities Fund LP, according to an August 10 regulatory filing. That amount comes from 36 investors. 

(UPDATE: Fund Evaluation Group announced on August 14 that it had closed the fund at $122.3 million, exceeding a target of $100 million.)

Fund Evaluation Group, founded in 1988, manages or advises on approximately $34 billion in assets for clients that include non-profit organizations, retirement plans, insurance companies and wealthy people. It employs more than 70 from offices in Cincinnati, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and Indianapolis.

Executives for the firm were not immediately available for comment. But in an exclusive Buyouts profile of the firm in May 2011, which broke the news of the fund, Managing Principal and Director of Private Capital Susan Mahan Fasig outlined the strategy behind the effort.

Fund Evaluation Group raised the fund as part of an effort to expand its private equity product offering to smaller clients, Buyouts wrote in the profile. The firm was expecting to raise as much as $200 million for the fund, an amount that was contingent on whether the firm inked a potential $100 million slug from one investor. It’s not clear from the filing if the firm landed that commitment.

The fund is largely earmarked for small to mid-market buyout funds, as well as Asia-focused buyout funds and distressed funds.

“I think the return opportunities will continue to be higher in the small mid-market,” Fasig told Buyouts in the profile.

Other attributes that pique Fund Evaluation Group’s interest include: funds in which the general partners commit a healthy amount of their own capital to the fund; funds managed by firms in which carry is more evenly distributed among senior and junior investment professionals; and funds managed by firms that have exhibited a consistent investment strategy.

As Buyouts noted in the profile, the fund is a welcome source of capital for buyout shops in fundraising mode.

(UPDATE: Story has been updated after Fund Evaluation Group announced that it had closed the fund).