Steadfast holds final close on €297m

The vehicle surpassed its target of €250m to close just below its €300m hard-cap after two years on the road. It held a first close on €220m in June last year.

The new fund size represents a significant increase on Steadfast Capital Fund III, which held a final close on €128m in June 2011 against a €250m target. Fund III closed with the help of a €104m stapled secondary when ING sold its stake in Fund II to a consortium of investors that also committed capital to the new vehicle.

The raise is understood to have picked up pace following the divestment of road safety services provider AVS Verkehrssicherung to Triton Partners in November 2017. Steadfast generated a multiple of 10.7x on the sale, which has corresponded to a fund-level return of 2.1x and 150% distributions to paid-in, with five portfolio companies remaining. A person with knowledge of the matter told Unquote that the GP is expecting to return up to 3x to investors following further divestments.

The fund is registered in Luxembourg. Legal advice is provided by Dechert, fund administration services by SGG Group, and Northern Lights Alternative Advisors acted as placement agent for the raise.

The fund has market-standard terms, a 10-year life and five-year investment period, with a 2% management fee and 20% carry above an 8% hurdle.

Investors
Most of the commitments to the first close came from European institutions and international funds-of-funds (approximately €80-100m), mainly from US investors.

The European Investment Fund has backed the vehicle, as has fund-of-funds manager Harbourvest, according to Unquote Data.

Investments
The fund is investing in lower-mid-market DACH and Benelux companies with enterprise values of between €20-150m. Its focus will be on companies it can expand through buy-and-build strategies using modest leverage of 3-4x EBITDA.

So far it has made one investment, backing truck tilt mechanism manufacturer Kempf Group.

People
Steadfast Capital – Nick Money-Kyrle (managing partner); Marco Bernecker (managing partner).

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