Up until recently, admission to the exclusive private equity club was limited to pension funds, endowments and the world’s richest families. But in March, The Carlyle Group announced it planned to lower its minimum commitment to a fund to as little as $50,000. The question for investors is: Now that you have greater access, do you want in?
AXA Private Equity, the private equity unit of the giant French insurance company, has formally issued a plan to spin out from its parent company, AXA Group. The management-led spinout would value the company at around $660 million. If the deal closes, which the firm estimates will happen by the fourth quarter, the new company will ultimately change its name, and its employees will own a sizable stake in the new enterprise.
Riordan Lewis & Haden Equity Partners, a mid-market buyout firm that was co-founded by Richard Riordan, the former mayor of Los Angeles, closed on its latest fund, RLH Investors III LP, with $380 million in commitments. That was substantially more than the fund’s original $250 million target. The fund had been raising money since 2011.
By naming Christine Pastore as Vista Equity Partners’s first-ever chief of investor relations, the firm is signaling, she said, that “it definitely expects to be a larger firm.” She said that Vista expects to come back to market with its fifth flagship fund in 2014, just two years after closing Fund IV.
Windjammer Capital Investors, a credit-focused private equity firm, closed its latest flagship fund, Windjammer Senior Equity Fund IV LP, with $726 million in commitments, slightly above the fund’s original $700 million target.
Affinity Equity Partners has held an interim close of $1.4 billion for its latest Asian buyout fund, Affinity Asia Pacific Fund IV LP. The fundraising has been helped along by several investments by U.S. pension funds, notably the Washington State Investment Board, which committed $300 million at its most recent board meeting.
Neuberger Berman closed on its second co-investment fund, Neuberger Berman Strategic Co-Investment Partners Fund II LP, raising $1.1 billion, substantially more than the original target of $750 million.
Franklin Park, a private equity adviser spun out from Hamilton Lane in 2003, is offering its latest series of funds of funds to the firm’s advisory clients, according to a pair of filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and one of those clients, the Arkansas Teachers’ Retirement System.
It was supposed to be the New New Thing in private equity. But separate accounts haven’t proliferated beyond a handful of big pensions. And a surprising amount of the money has gone into commingled funds on much the same terms as that of other big investors.
The $17 billion New Mexico State Investment Council announced it reached a settlement with Chicago-based Vanderbilt Capital Advisors that awarded the council more than $20 million of the money it lost due to bad investment decisions made in connection with New Mexico’s pay to play scandal. In a related settlement, the $10 billion New Mexico Educational Retirement Board was awarded $4.25 million from the firm.
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