Genstar’s Fund VII could reach $2 bln cap this year

The firm hired Evercore Partners as placement agent for Fund VII. Park Hill Group helped Genstar raise Fund VI about three years ago, according to filings.

Fundraising could wap up this year, sources said. A spokesman for Genstar declined to comment.

If successful, Fund VII would double the $1 billion that Genstar drew in Fund VI, which closed in 2012. Genstar Capital Patners VI had an IRR of 28.25 percent as of Dec. 31, 2014, according to data from Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association cited by alternative assets data provider Bison.

The vintage 2007 Genstar Capital Partners V logged an IRR of 13.25 percent as of Sept. 30, 2014, for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, according to the pension system’s private equity performance report.

Genstar manages about $3 billion in total capital commitments, according to a recent statement from the firm. It targets companies in selected sub-sectors within the financial services, software, industrial technology and healthcare businesses.

In one successful exit, Genstar made 3.8x on its sale of TravelClick to Thoma Bravo for $930 million in a deal announced in early 2014, as previously reported. Genstar initially invested in the provider of marketing and reservation services to hotels in 2007.

More recently, Genstar has been active on the acquisition front.

In June, the firm said it paid an undisclosed sum to Great Hill Partners for All Web Leads (AWL), a customer acquisition marketing business in the U.S. property and casualty, health and life insurance markets.

In April, Genstar invested an undisclosed amount in Boyd Corp, a provider of thermal management, environmental sealing, bonding, protecting and insulating solutions for the mobile computing, consumer and enterprise electronics businesses.

In March, Genstar partnered with management to buy a majority interest in Mercer Advisors, a registered investment advisor, from Lovell Minnick Partners. In February, Genstar platform Pretium Packaging acquired plastic bottle maker Intertech Corp for an undisclosed sum.

Genstar has been particularly active in the insurance business overall, with investments in Acrisure, Financial Horizons Group, Innovative Aftermarket Systems, Insurity and Palomar Specialty Insurance. It exited Confie Seguros in a 2012 sale to Abry Partners, which has been adding onto the insurance brokerage business.