EQT Partners Adds Finland to Fund Family –

EQT Finland, which this month closed on FMk 830 million ($146.9 million), is the second country-focused fund EQT Partners AB has added to its stable in the past year.

One of the most active buyout investors in the Nordic region, EQT Partners AB manages SKr 8.6 billion ($1.032 billion) through the EQT Scandinavia I and EQT Scandinavia II, which focus on larger buyouts, and DKr 1 billion ($140 million) through EQT Danmark, a fund raised last year for Danish middle-market transactions.

Investors AB Group and AEA Investors that, together with SE-Banken, founded EQT Partners in 1994, acted as sponsors to EQT Finland and provided around 30% of the total capital raised. A full 50% of the fund was drawn from domestic Finnish sources and the bulk of the balance came from other Scandinavian institutional investors, while a number of individuals connected with EQT Partners contributed a small portion of the fund.

EQT Finland will be advised by the group’s new wholly-owned Finnish subsidiary, EQT Partners Oy, which is headed by Andreas Tallberg and, like other EQT funds, also will have a group of senior advisers. The four-strong team in Helsinki will assess opportunities in Finland in close collaboration with EQT Partners’ other offices in Stockholm and Copenhagen and also will provide advisory services to the other EQT funds.

An Active Deal Market in the North

For its size, Finland is one of the more active private equity markets in Europe. However, although EQT Partners had completed two Finnish acquisitions, Perlos and Vaasan & Vaasan, before setting up EQT Finland, the majority of buyout opportunities coming from Finland have been too small for the EQT Scandinavia funds to consider.

EQT Finland will target deals with transaction values between FMk150 million and FMk400 million.

The fund’s first deal, the acquisition for an undisclosed sum of ADR-Hanp, the leading chemical haulier in the Nordic region, from its family owners, was announced at the closing.