Greenpark doubles secondaries fund

Greenpark Capital, a London-based private equity secondaries fund manager, has held a final close on its third fund, Greenpark International Investors III (GII3), which raised €730m in commitments.

Marketing for GII3 began not long before a first closing in December 2006, according to Greenpark chief executive Marleen Groen, who said that the fund was massively oversubscribed having set an original target of €500m. “It reflects the abundance of deal flow we are finding in our particular space in the secondaries market, the value-add mid-sized deals that are smaller than €100m and are typically between €10m and €50m,” said Groen.

The increasing maturity of the investor base was a major factor in increased secondaries deal flow, said Groen: “Investors are using it much more for portfolio management now. Just as they would take a buy, hold or sell position in the public markets, this is an opportunity to do the same in private equity”.

Groen added that, despite GII3 being more than twice the size of its €350m predecessor, it would stick with the firm’s current strategy as that had proved relatively unique in the market: “It would be unrealistic to say we never compete with anyone on deals, but on over 80 percent of our deals we do not see anyone else.”