Jamie Ebersole leaves SL Capital, will launch advisory shop: UPDATED

In a message to Buyouts Ebersole wrote that he left SL Capital, a subsidiary of Edinburgh-based Standard Life Investments Ltd, at the beginning of February: ”…I am in the process of setting up (an) investment advisory firm providing a range of financial planning and portfolio management services to families, HNW individuals and small institutions.” Ebersole added that, contingent on regulatory approvals, he intends to launch the new effort in spring or early summer, at which time he will unveil the firm’s name.

Ebersole, 44, started in the Boston office at SL Capital in mid-2008, according to his LinkedIn profile. In his most recent role he oversaw the firm’s North American investments, and has experience in fund commitments, secondary deals and co-investments. Before that Ebersole spent more than seven years at advisor Allianz Private Equity Partners, ending up as a managing director responsible for the sourcing, vetting and monitoring of fund commitments and co-investments.

In a phone interview with Buyouts, Ebersole said he would start off working alone on the venture out of his house in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, although he expects to add executives down the road as the firm grows. Initial funding comes from friends and family. 

Ebersole said that he “always had designs” on running his own firm, pointing to a tradition of small-business ownership in his family that dates back seven generations. “It’s always been in my blood.” Ebersole also sees a real need to help Baby Boomers plan for retirement and transfer wealth to the next generation. One of his objectives is “bringing the sophistication of the institutional investor to the broad individual investor market,” he said.

SL Capital, which has about 7.1 billion euros ($9.9 billion) in private equity assets under management, as of late January had been hoping to wrap up a North American fund of funds with a $100 million target, SL Capital NASF I LP, in the first half of this year, according to a source familiar with the effort. In North America the firm tends to back five to six lower-middle-market funds (up to $1 billion in size) per year; up to 30 percent of the new fund would be available for secondary investments, our source said.

A spokesperson for SL Capital was not immediately available for comment. In response to a request for comment a spokesperson sent the following statement to Buyouts: “SL Capital confirms that Jamie Ebersole has left the business by mutual agreement and no longer works for SL Capital. We would like to thank Jamie for his contribution and wish him well for the future.”

(Update: This story has been updated from the original version with a comment from SL Capital and additional details provided by an interview with Jamie Ebersole.)