Innova’s forth fund oversubscribed

Polish buyout house Innova Capital has closed its fourth fund on its hard cap of €225m just over a year after launching it with a €175m target.

Over 20 investors committed to Innova/4, with half of the capital raised coming from existing investors, with the balance coming from the likes of LODH Private Equity, the private equity division of Swiss private bank Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie; Swiss fund-of-funds Adveq Management; Northwestern University of Chicago, US; Parish Capital, a US fund-of-funds that specialises in investing in smaller, niche private equity managers; Gartmore Investment Management and a number of family offices from the US and Europe. Family offices contributed 36% to the fund. In terms of geographical spread, 75% of LPs come from Europe and the rest from North America.

Leading the fundraising was co-founder and managing partner of Innova Steven Buckley. He said: “Despite requests to raise the hard-cap, Innova configured the fund to maintain a mid-market discipline. With strong demand from current investors, this meant we reluctantly turned away a few high quality investment groups.”

Innova will continue its strategy with its latest offering investing in companies with an enterprise value of between €25m and €75m in the business services and commercial manufacturing sectors. The firm refuses to rule out investing in larger deals, those companies with an enterprise value larger than €100m, but will do so selectively and via co-investment with LPs and other private equity firms from Western Europe.

Fellow co-founder of the firm Robert Conn, said: “We particularly seek cross-border transactions, which deliver integration benefits from the combination of Western European markets and Central European production.”