Evercore To Look For $700M Vehicle

New York-based Evercore Partners Inc. plans to come to market this summer with an approximate $700 million second fund, said a source close to the firm.

Evercore makes private equity investments and offers financial advisory services. It raised a $510 million debut fund in 1995 with investors including AMR Investment Services, Daimler Chrysler Corp., Deutsche Banc Alex.Brown, Southern Co. and Strategic Investment Solutions Inc.

Founders of Evercore are former Lehman Brothers partners Roger Altman and David Offensend, as well as Blackstone Group alumni Austin Beutner. Stacey Dick, Neeraj Mital, Christopher Ryan and Jeffrey Sechrest round out the rest of the investment team.

The new fund will be considered a successor fund to Fund I, with the same team and same strategy in place. It will look for deals in energy, media and business services that need equity commitments between $20 million and $90 million. The firm is known, however, for teaming with corporations or other financial buyers to complete transactions.

In one of its largest deals to date, Evercore in 1999 paired with David Pecker, the former head of Hachette Fillipacchi Magazines Inc., to acquire American Media Inc. in an $835 million transaction. The Boca Raton, Fla.-based company publishes The National Enquirer, Star and The Globe.

More recently, Evercore Partners became bi-coastal with the opening of an office in California. Also this year, the firm began expanding its business with a new advisory division that will focus on restructuring and bankruptcy, while moving forward with plans to increase its venture capital investing.