Leonard Green scores $5.3B

Leonard Green & Partners, a buyout shop with a focus on consumer products, media and retail, has closed its fifth fund with $5.3 billion in commitments.

The Los Angeles-based mid-market firm printed the PPM for its fifth fund in October and had its fund raised by January, though it put off closing till March to complete paper work, says one person familiar with the fund. The firm closed its previous fund in 2003 with $1.85 billion in commitments.

A source familiar with the fund-raising said it was the first time the firm had been actually courted by LPs, well in advance of shopping the fund in the market. “The LPs were marketing to [the firm]. That was a new phenomenon,” the source says. —Mark Cecil