Candover Reaches Final Fund Close Of E3.5B –

Candover has reached a final closing of the Candover 2005 Fund with total commitments of ?3.5 billion, just slightly exceeding its original target of ?3 billion. The 2005 Fund, which was raised in just over six months, has received commitments from 106 investor groups worldwide, including Candover Investments plc, which has invested a total of ?500 million. Eighty percent of commitments have come from existing investors including CalPERS, Canada Pension Plan, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, HarbourVest, Princeton University and funds controlled by Standard Life. Candover has also seen strong support from new investor groups such as Temasek, Partners Group, SPF Beheer and MassPRIM.

The 2005 Fund will follow a similar investment strategy to Candover’s 2001 Fund. It will seek to invest in mid-to-large buyouts across Europe, with a particular emphasis on the U.K., France, Germany, Benelux, Italy, Scandinavia and Spain. Since it was founded in 1980, Candover has invested in more than 125 buyouts with an aggregate value of more than ?25 billion. Nearly 90% of these investments have been realized, and resulted in an IRR of 33% over 25 years.

Benedetto, Gartland & Co. Inc., acted as the placement agent for the fund in North America, while Konom Inc. found LPs in Japan and UBS AG acted as the placement agent for Europe. Legal advisors were SJ Berwin LLP and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP.

Candover has raised eight previous funds and the closing of the 2005 Fund brings the aggregate total of funds raised to date to ?8.7 billion. The investment period of the ?2.7 billion Candover 2001 Fund was finished following the funding of Gala’s acquisition of Coral Eurobet in October 2005. The 2001 Fund has made 16 investments and has had a number of full and partial exits, including the sale of Swissport, the IPO of Aspen and the recaps of Gala, Springer, Vetco and KDG. Together these have returned more than ?1.25 billion.