Firms & Funds

A new fund, Atlon Capital Partners, has formed to focus on middle-market buyouts in France. The firm was started in October by Thibaut de Chassey and Edouard Thomazeau, both previously partners at French mid-market firm AtriA Capital Partenaires. Alton Capital Partners will focus on companies with an enterprise value between €30 million ($42 million) and €150 million.

EDG Partners LLC expects to close its debut fund above its $150 million target in December, according to a source close to the fundraising. The firm, which has offices in Arlington, Va., and Atlanta, will close the fund near its $200 million hard cap, the source said.

Energy Investors has successfully closed on its eighth fund, EIF United States Power Fund IV LP, with $1.7 billion in commitments.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is planning to launch a new pan-Asia fund to raise as much as $6 billion in the first quarter of 2012, Reuters reported. KKR is not as far progressed with its plans as TPG Capital, which set a mid-October launch date for its Asia fund of up to $5 billion, or Bain Capital, which is already raising a new Asia fund of at least $2 billion. KKR’s existing Asia fund is among the largest ever raised by a private equity firm for the region, along with a $4.12 billion fund raised by CVC Capital Partners Asia in 2008, and TPG’s $4.25 billion TPG Capital Partners V fund raised in 2008, data provider Preqin said.

NXT Capital, a Chicago-based commercial finance company focused on the mid-market, has raised $318 million in equity commitments from investors including Teachers’ Private Capital, a unit of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. NXT Capital’s new investors include Credit Suisse’s Customized Fund Investment Group, Oak Hill Investment Management and Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois.

OMERS, one of Canada’s largest pension funds, has opened an office in New York City. The fund, with $53 billion in net assets, will have a 30-person team working in New York, specializing in real estate, infrastructure, private equity and capital markets.

The Overseas Private Investment Corp., the U.S. government’s development finance institution, has approved financing for six new investment funds that aim to inject $875 million in the so-called impact investing sector.

Tonka Bay Equity Partners‘ third fund came in at $150 million, above its initial target. The Minnetonka, Minn.-based firm had planned to raise $125 million for Fund III, according to a statement. Instead, Tonka Bay collected $63 million in private capital and, through the SBIC, leveraged the pool to $150 million, said Cary Musech, a Tonka Bay managing principal.

Commodities trading house Trafigura is planning to double the size of its fund arm Galena with the launch of a new private equity fund and the roll out of a macro fund to outside investors, Reuters reported, citing an article in the Financial Times. Galena currently has about $1.8 billion under management. Chief Jeremy Weir told the FT he wanted to grow the fund arm into a $4 billion-plus business to capitalize on the opportunities created by the withdrawal of bank lending, Reuters wrote.

Vestar Capital Partners said it had closed its office in Munich, and has plans to close its Paris office by year-end. Each office had four employees. Speaking of the decision, Vestar Chief Daniel O’Connell said that the firm continues to be concerned about the volatile investment outlook for Europe.