Paul Capital raises $309M for health care

Paul Capital has raised $309 million toward its third fund to target investments in the health care industry, according to a regulatory filing.

The fund, Paul Capital Healthcare III, seeks commercial-stage health care products and investment opportunities.

Since the San Francisco-based firm started fund-raising in November 2006, the third fund is nearly halfway to its $650 million target, with commitments from 37 investors. Its prior vehicle raised $656 million in 2003. Prior to that, the first fund raised $300 million in 2000.

The firm declined to comment.

Despite what looks like slow going for its third fund, Paul Capital has had decent success in other aspects of the fund-raising market this year, meeting the $455 million target for its fourth private equity fund of funds last month. Top Tier II, a 2002 vintage, has posted a 1.1x return on CPP Investment Board’s $96 million commitment.

That’s in addition to a new secondaries fund that Paul Capital raised last year. In December, the firm hired Sabina Sammartino as principal and promoted Elizabeth Coleon and Guillaume Partiot each to principal on its secondaries team. Before that, in June 2008, the firm added consultant Duncan Littlejohn on its secondaries team full time as managing director and hired Lucian Wu to head it’s Asia office as managing director. The firm closed its largest ever secondary fund—a $1.65 billion pool—in May of 2008. That fund brought the firm’s total secondary funds under management to $4.2 billion. —Erin Griffith