CEE fundraising defies credit crunch

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Despite global fears over debt markets, LPs are loving the CEE region. Veteran investor Advent International recently raised EUR1bn for investments in CEE. Three times the size of its predecessor, this fourth fund, ACEE VI, was closed less than a month after closing global fund GPE VI on EUR6.6bn.

ACEE VI was launched in October 2007 with an initial hard cap of EUR750m and will make equity investments of EUR30-100m across the region, leading its activity from London and its four offices in the region: Warsaw, Prague, Bucharest and Kiev. (Page 5)

Another record fund comes from Mezzanine Management Central Europe, which raised EUR261m for its fund Accession Mezzanine Capital II (AMC II), more than twice its predecessor and the largest non-leveraged LP mezzanine fund ever for CEE, showing that the region is largely insulated from the credit crunch.

Mezzanine Management surpassed its EUR250m hard-cap for AMC II. The fund will provide mezzanine funding to new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe and those on course to join, and has some capacity to invest in Ukraine and Russia. The vehicle has the ability to act alongside an equity sponsor or to do deals without a buyout house. In fact, it has already made 10 investments, corresponding to around EUR90m. AMC II follows the firm's initial fund, which became CEE's first-ever dedicated to mezzanine when it closed on EUR115m in 2003. AMC will open a Kiev office later this year to assist in deal sourcing. (Page 7).