Bonderman-Backed ACON Seeks $600M For Fund III

ACON Investments, a firm whose investors include TPG Capital founder David Bonderman, has started reaching out to potential new investors for its third fund, according to a source briefed on the firm’s plans.

The firm, with offices in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Madrid, is seeking $600 million for the fund, ACON Equity Partners III LP, the source said.

ACON Investments typically cuts equity checks of $20 million to $150 million, often to acquire energy and energy services-related companies, Latin American companies and companies that serve the U.S. Hispanic population.

In 2008, the firm raised a total of $565 million—$375 million for its second fund and a $190 million sidecar vehicle to co-invest in deals larger than it typically sought with the main fund. According to one investor, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, that fund was generating a 12.57 IRR as of Sept. 30, 2010.

Other investors in ACON’s previous fund included the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and The New York State Common Retirement Fund. TPG Capital had invested in an earlier fund focused on Latin America, Daniel Jinich, a managing partner at the firm, told Buyouts in 2008. Bonderman then committed some of his own money to Fund II. At the time, Jinich declined to say how much Bonderman contributed to that fund, other than to say, “He’s a very large and special investor in the ACON funds.”

Jinich declined to comment for this article.

Founded in 1996, ACON’s senior executives include Bernard Aronson, a founder and managing partner who formerly was an adviser on Latin America to Goldman Sachs; Ken Brotman, a founder and managing partner who was formerly a partner at another buyout shop, Veritas Capital; Jonathan Ginns, a founder and managing partner and former managing consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton; Guillermo Bron, a managing partner who previously founded another firm, Los Angeles-based Bastion Capital, which wound down in 2005; and Jinich, a managing partner who was previously a senior investment professional with Hicks Muse Tate & Furst, according to ACON’s web site.