Eos Partners explores options for LPs in older funds

Eos Partners is exploring liquidity options for investors in its private equity funds, three sources told Buyouts.

The New York firm, led by Managing Partners Steven Friedman and Brian Young, is working with Evercore to explore potential liquidity options. Friedman did not respond to a request for comment.

What form a liquidity process could take is unclear because it’s still early, one source said. The funds are older and in their extension phases, the source said.

Eos raised its last PE fund in 2007, collecting $600 million for its fourth middle-market pool. That fund was generating a 9.9 percent net internal rate of return and a 1.5x multiple as of Sept. 30, 2016, performance information from California Public Employees’ Retirement System shows.

Fund III, which raised $252.5 million in 2004, was producing an 8 percent net IRR and a 1.6x multiple as of that date, CalPERS information says.

According to the firm’s Form ADV, filed March 29, Fund IV had current gross asset value of $532.4 million, and Fund III had current gross asset value of $202.1 million.

Friedman and Young formed Eos in 1994. The two formerly worked at Odyssey Partners. Eos’s PE group focuses on the lower middle market, on business services, consumer, healthcare, technology services, distribution, specialty manufacturing and energy.

Eos has other business lines as well, including credit opportunities and equity strategies with a focus on event-driven or special situations, turnarounds, post-bankruptcies and recapitalizations.

Action Item: Reach Steven Friedman: sfriedman@eospartners.com

A full moon rises behind the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building over the Manhattan skyline on January 9, 2012. Photo courtesy Reuters/Gary Hershorn