Perella Weinberg ups fund target to $600 mln

Firm: Perella Weinberg Partners

Fund: PWP Growth Equity Fund I LP

Amount Raised: $443.9 million

Target: $600 million

Placement Agent: Perella Weinberg Partners, Barclays Capital

The firm listed a goal of $400 million for the fund last year, but raised the figure to $600 million, according to a review of Form D filings. PWP Growth Equity Fund I counted 106 investors as of Aug. 13, with a date of first sale of July 16, 2013. It was not clear whether this filing represented a final close for the fund. A spokeswoman for the firm declined to comment on fundraising.

Investments by Perella Weinberg include Youfit Health Clubs in April, plus $18 million for Fashion To Figure, a plus-size women’s clothing retailer, and a buyout of Trench Plate Rental Co, an equipment and service company for the construction industry.

PWP Growth Equity plans to invest primarily in the consumer, services and industrial sectors, seeking lower mid-market companies with strong management, large addressable markets, compelling margins and solid growth prospects, according to a statement from the firm in 2013 when it hired David Ferguson and Chip Baird as partners in its asset management business to run the fund. Ferguson and Baird were both partners at Weston Presidio and had worked at other firms.

Founded in 2006 by Joseph Perella, a well-known Wall Street executive from Wasserstein Perella & Co and Morgan Stanley, Perella Weinberg raised about $1.7 billion for the 2011 vintage Perella Weinberg Real Estate Fund II, a European opportunistic real estate fund. Perella Weinberg Real Estate Fund I closed on 1.2 billion euros in 2008. Based on recent  currency exchange rates, Fund I raised about $1.6 billion.

PWP Growth Equity came about a year after the firm launched PWP Diversified Equities, a fundamental long/short equity and event-driven strategy led by David Baker, partner and portfolio manager. In 2012, the firm launched PWP Alpha Europe, a European long/short equity strategy led by Andrew Dickson, partner and portfolio manager. Maria Vassalou joined the firm last year to run its PWP Global Macro strategy after working at Soros Fund Management and MIO Partners, a unit of McKinsey & Co.

All told, the firm’s asset management unit has capital commitments and managed assets of about $11.3 billion. Perella Weinberg Partners employs 400 people with offices in New York, London, Abu Dhabi, Denver, Dubai and San Francisco.

Goldman Sachs alumnus Peter Weinberg and Terry Meguid are also co-founders of Perella Weinberg. The firm named Robert K. Steel as CEO in May, with Perella now serving as chairman.