Sun Capital Rockets Forward With $6B Fund

Sun Capital Partners has gone supernova, lining up $6 billion for a buyout fund that would be four times the size of its predecessor.

The Boca Raton, Fla., based-firm, which acquired 33 companies in 2006, is expected to close Sun Capital Partners V LP in April, well ahead of the $4 billion target set when the fund was launched about a month ago, confirmed several sources. Its last control-equity fund, the 2005-vintage Sun Capital Partners IV LP, closed with $1.5 billion in commitments.

Sun Capital appears to have attracted an especially devoted set of backers. One long-time limited partner praised the firm’s founders, Marc Leder and Rodger Krouse, for having built an “amazingly process-driven and constantly learning organization.” It looks like this fundraising from start to finish will take about six weeks, and previous funds have been raised just as quickly.

Past investors in Sun Capital funds include Adams Street Partners, Duke University, Goldman Sachs, Notre Dame, PPM America, M.I.T., Government of Singapore, Private Advisors, University of Virginia, The Wilton Private Equity Fund, and Yale University.

The firm is one of the most acquisitive in the business, having invested in over 140 companies since its inception in 1995. The firm has offices in Boca Raton, Los Angeles and New York, with affiliates in London, Tokyo and Shenzhen. It staffs over 100.

Current portfolio companies include Lee Cooper, the British jeans and clothing maker; Lillian Vernon, the White Plains, N.Y.-based household products catalog company; Indianapolis, Ind.-based Marsh Supermarkets; and Green Bay, Wisc.-based Shopko Stores Inc.

In 2005, Sun Capital’s VP of Communications and Investor Relations, Richard Hurwitz, told Buyouts that Fund IV would have a four-year time horizon to make investments, as opposed to its first two funds, which had two-year investment periods. But the firm didn’t even need two years. Hurwitz declined comment for this article.

Sun’s first investment vehicle was a $28 million pledge fund, which eventually gave way to Sun Capital Partners II LP, a $200 million vehicle that closed in 2001.—M.C.