Joshua Adams, OpenGate Capital

OpenGate Capital, which is raising a third flagship buyout fund, expanded the size of its partnership team, Buyouts has learned.

The private equity firm this month promoted Joshua Adams to partner, according to a document seen by Buyouts. He joins existing leadership, consisting of founder and managing partner Andrew Nikou and partner Julien Lagrèze.

Adams was hired in 2012 from Platinum Equity, where he was a vice president and led the European business development team. Before, he was a corporate finance executive with Mazars.

Adams’s promotion, the first such leadership appointment made internally, puts him in charge of the deal origination team. Operating from OpenGate’s Los Angeles headquarters, he is also a member of the investment and portfolio committees.

OpenGate declined to provide a comment on this story.

Several other promotions were made alongside Adams’s, according to the document. Rob Young, recruited in 2018 from Marlin Equity Partners, was named a Los Angeles-based managing director with responsibility for technology investing.

Among seven other appointments, Xavier Lambert was tapped to become a principal, while Nicholas Rérolle and Aleix Sumpsi were promoted to senior vice president. Occupying roles in the deal origination or investment teams, all three are located in OpenGate’s Paris office.

OpenGate was launched by Nikou in 2005 with a transatlantic and operationally focused strategy of acquiring and optimizing mid-market companies across industrials and technology sectors. Target opportunities have revenue of up to $1 billion and enterprise value of up to $300 million.

Areas of deal specialization include carve-outs, growth investing, special situations and turnarounds, founder-owned transactions and roll-ups in fragmented spaces. The firm has to date closed more than 40 platform investments.

OpenGate is presently in the market with OpenGate Capital Partners III, targeted to bring in $750 million. Unveiled in late 2021, the vehicle came two years after the closing of Fund II at $585 million.

The firm last had a three-person partnership team in the period before 2020. In July of that year, Sebastien Kiekert Le Moult departed in what Buyouts reported was an “amicable break.”

Nikou was profiled as part of Buyouts Off-duty series in July 2022.