Chequers raises 600m

Paris-based private equity firm, Chequers Capital has reached a final closing of Chequers Capital XV on €600m. Support from existing investors – including Access Capital, CAAM CI, Commonfund, HarbourVest, HSBC-Nobel, JP Morgan, LGT Capital Partners, Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, and Pantheon – was extremely strong and led to oversubscription. Allocations to new investors was limited to select high quality, long-term institutional investors including Citigroup, Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management (MA PRIM), Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System and QIC (Queensland Investment Corporation), as well as an Asian government entity and a Japanese insurance company.

The hard cap of €600m was self-imposed by the partners of Chequers Capital to stay within the successful mid-market strategy executed by the team since 1993. Of the capital raised, 40% came from pension plans, 33% from fund-of-funds, 23% from insurance companies, banks and other financial institutions and 4%from family offices and high net worth individuals. In terms of geographical distribution, European investors contributed half of the fund, US investors over a third and the rest of the world 15%.

The average transaction size for Chequers Capital XV will be between €30m and €300m enterprise value, with typical equity investments of €15m to €75m.

MVision Private Equity Advisers acted as global placing agent. SJ Berwin acted as legal counsel, with Ropes & Gray acting as legal adviser in the United States.