Searchlight eyes biggest haul yet for third fund

  • Fund III targets $2.75 bln; cap said to be $3.25 bln
  • Hit market around beginning of year
  • Searchlight closed previous fund in 2015

Searchlight Capital Partners is targeting $2.75 billion for its third flagship fund, sources told Buyouts.

Fund III could be even larger since the cap is $3.25 billion, sources said. The fund hit the market around the beginning of the year, sources said.

Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System will consider committing to Fund III this week, pension documents showed. The documents don’t list a target on Fund III.

At its hard cap, Fund III would be about a 70 percent jump from the firm’s sophomore pool, which closed on more than $1.9 billion in 2015.

Searchlight around a year ago also closed its debut non-control fund on an undisclosed amount.

Searchlight closed its debut on $860 million in 2012, riding a wave of enthusiasm from LPs who gravitated to the all-star founding team. As of Dec. 31, 2017, Searchlight had about $3.8 billion in AUM.

Fund II was generating a 30.3 percent internal rate of return and a 1.45x total value to paid-in multiple as of June 30, 2018, Florida State Board of Administration performance information showed. Data for Fund I could not be found.

Searchlight was formed by Eric Zinterhofer, former co-head of media and telecom at Apollo Global Management; Oliver Haarmann, former partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, who helped build the firm’s European operations; and Erol Uzumeri, who formerly led the private equity business at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Last year, the firm brought on Ralf Ackermann from Apollo, where he’d worked for more than a decade.

Searchlight closed its take-private of the Ottawa business communications company Mitel in November. In July, the firm led a $225 million investment in MediaMath, a digital marketing company.

Action Item: Check out Searchlight’s Form ADV here: https://bit.ly/2HdgLVM