Palamon announces close of Palamon Auxiliary Partnership 2013
Palamon Capital Partners, L.P., one of Europe’s leading lower mid-market private equity firms, today announces the close of the Palamon Auxiliary Partnership 2013, L.P. and its coinvestment programme ("The Auxiliary Fund") with commitments of €210 million.
The Auxiliary Fund is structured with an innovative two year investment term. Palamon will use The Auxiliary Fund exclusively for new investments, enabling it to maintain its historic annual investment rate for new deals of €100 million.
The Auxiliary Fund will pursue control equity investments of €15 million to €80 million in mid-market growth services businesses across Europe in the same manner and style as the Firm has done successfully since 1999.
The Auxiliary Fund received commitments from a diversified group of over 20 investors including fund-of-funds leader Adams Street Partners, the corporate pension plan of Honeywell, global private equity investors AlpInvest Partners and Quilvest and the endowment of Spelman College. This pool of immediate use capital represents a significant share of the only €1.6 billion raised for European growth capital investment in the last year 1.
Louis Elson, Managing Partner of Palamon Capital Partners, said, "We could not be more pleased that our core investors supported us in this innovative funding structure. We applaud them for their creative thinking and thank them for their confidence in us and our proven investment strategy. Taken together with the remaining capital in our predecessor fund, we have €270 million to invest over the next two years. We expect to have a significant impact on the growth equity market in Europe which continues to suffer from restricted capital. We are seeing many compelling opportunities in our space."
Annette Wilson, Managing Director of Investor Relations at Palamon, added, "Palamon’s strong fourteen year track record of growth investing across Europe has allowed us to secure solid funding in a severely capital constrained fundraising environment. We are delighted that the majority of the commitments were made by existing investors and are also very pleased to welcome a number of new investors."
Since inception, Palamon has completed 33 investments in ten countries. Palamon’s portfolio of investments has consistently achieved a revenue growth rate of approximately 20 per cent per annum, a key indicator of the Firm’s successful value creation approach. Its portfolio of growth companies currently includes Cambridge Education Group, a leading pre-university education group based in the UK; Retail Decisions, a global fraud prevention provider for card-based transactions; SARquavitae, the largest residential elderly care corporate in Spain and OberScharrer Group, a leading ophthalmic healthcare business in Germany.
Note 1: Source - Extract from Prequin fundraising database as at September 2013
