Sweden-based Adelis raises €600m for second fund

Greg Gille
15 June 2017

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Swedish private equity house Adelis Equity Partners has closed its second fund on тЌ600m after just three months on the road.

Adelis Equity Partners Fund II was launched in March this year and reached its final close on 9 June, according to the GP.

O'Melveny & Myers and Vinge acted as legal advisers to Adelis in the fundraise. Park Hill Group provided placement services. The fund is domiciled onshore, like its predecessor.

Stockholm-based Adelis Equity Partners was launched by former Triton executive Jan Åkesson and Gustav Bard, former chairman for the Nordic region at 3i. The founders were later joined by Johan Seger, previously northern Europe operations director at 3i, and former 3i senior deal-maker Steffen Thomsen.

The firm closed its maiden fund on €410m in 2013. Fund I has a traditional 10-year lifespan, and Park Hill Group is understood to have acted as placement agent on that maiden fund as well. According to unquote" data, the vehicle has so far made 12 investments, which would indicate it is nearly fully deployed. These 12 investments have in turn made 20 bolt-on acquisitions, the GP said in a statement.

Investor relations partner Adalbjörn Stefansson told unquote" that deployment rate was the key driver behind the team returning to market within four years: "We anticipated running out of capital by Q3 2017 and hence thought it prudent to launch the fundraise at the end of Q1."

Stefansson added that the maiden fund hadn't made any exits yet but was performing well, with an estimated gross IRR in excess of 20%.

Investments
Adelis Equity Partners Fund II will continue its predecessor's strategy, investing in small and medium-sized Nordic businesses with enterprise values in the €20-200m range.

Given the larger size of the second fund, Adelis expects to target slightly larger equity stakes on average per transaction and to hold one or two additional companies in the fund's portfolio. Stefansson added that buy-and-build would be playing an increasing role in the firm's strategy, requiring more equity per investment.

Investors
The fund attracted around two dozen LPs. Adelis stated it had been able to expand its investor base with LPs from Europe and North America.

Investors in Fund I included Nordic and global pension funds and life insurers (53%), foundations (17%), funds-of-funds (27%) and others (3%).

According to Adelis, the investor mix is broadly similar in Fund II, although the firm saw the number of LPs hailing from the US by 10% and the share of commitments coming from endowments and foundations increased meaningfully.

People
Adelis Equity Partners – Adalbjörn Stefansson (partner); Rasmus Molander (partner).