Polaris Private Equity has reached final close on its second fund on €270m, following the first close in February with initial commitments of €180m. The fund will focus on investments in small and medium-sized industrial and service sector businesses based in Denmark and southern Sweden. The fund has exceeded its original target of €210m.
About 60% of the commitments for Fund II come from existing investors, including AP Moller-Maersk, ATP Private Equity, Danica Pension, Danske Bank, PFA Pension and Kirkbi.
The rest of the commitments come from a number of new investors, including Topdanmark, PensionDanmark, Lærernes Pension, Sparekassen Sjælland, Glitnir, Bagger-Sørensen & Co A/S and a group of private investors.
The private investors have joined the consortium through a separate limited partnership established through Danske Bank. Commitments are evenly distributed, and no single investor has committed more than 20% of the capital of the new fund.
Polaris managing partner Viggo Nedergaard Jensen, said: “We are very pleased with the fact that we’ve managed to strengthen our capital base by more than we had originally expected and that we now have a more diversified group of investors with the private Danish investors as a new and attractive component.”
The first Polaris fund is fully invested in a portfolio of seven businesses, of which four have been sold at very satisfactory returns. Fund I held capital commitments totalling some €210m.
Polaris expects Fund II to invest in eight to 10 businesses, each with revenues of between €20m and €25m or more. To date, the new fund has invested in two businesses, AddPro AB, a Malmo-based IT business, and express delivery service Jetpak Group AB, which was acquired from the SAS Group.
- Primary Capital has reached final closing of its third buyout fund, Primary III, at its hard cap of £200m. Investors in Primary III include insurance and life companies, corporate and local authority pension funds, funds-of funds, endowments and high net worth individuals.
Just over 40% of the fund was raised from UK investors, 35% from the US and the balance from Continental Europe. Three-quarters of the 19 investors committing to the latest fund were existing investors, many of which substantially increased the size of their commitments to the latest fund.
The fundraising was launched in October last year, with an initial close in December to accommodate limited partners investing from 2005 allocations. The fund held a final close on March 30 2006, after the previous fund, Primary Capital II, made its final platform investment, into mobile phone content provider FoneStarz Media Group.
If you do not receive this within five minutes, please try and sign in again. If the problem persists, please
email: