SHS nears EUR 250m hard cap on sixth fund

Rachel Lewis
21 July 2022

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SHS Gesellschaft, a German specialist healthcare investor, has held a EUR 220m first close on its sixth fund, just EUR 30m shy of the fund’s hard cap.

SHS VI has already exceeded its EUR 200m target and has a hard cap of EUR 250m, which it hopes to reach in the coming weeks with commitments from LPs already underway, the GP's managing partner Uwe Steinbacher told Unquote.

The fund's predecessor, SHS V, closed at EUR 130m in July 2019, short of its EUR 150m target, and is near full deployment, said Steinbacher.

The raise comes at a time of heightened interest in healthcare GPs, in what is set to be a record year for specialist fundraising. "We have done investments with other private equity funds," said Steinbacher. "We bring expertise and insight into the healthcare system for many funds who are quite agnostic."

Recent deals of joint equity tickets include its expansion investment into Norweigan digital health platform Dr.Dropin, alongside Yabeo Capital.

Investors

SHS VI already has around 60 investors with more than half of those participating in the firm's predecessor funds. They include funds-of-funds, insurance companies, pension funds, foundations, family offices, banks, healthcare groups, church investors and entrepreneurs.

Among the fund's largest investors are the European Investment Fund, Scandinavian foundation Realdania, Switzerland's Helsana HealthInvest, L-Bank Baden-Württemberg and larger family offices. SHS also said it has also made a significant investment in the vehicle.

Investments

Like its predecessor, Fund VI will aim to make around 12-15 investments across its 10+2 life span and will make both buyout and growth capital investments. It targets companies that are profitable or with a clear path to profitability, but not those that are pre-revenue.

The average ticket size will be EUR 15m up to a maximum of EUR 50m, said Steinbacher. If the investment requires far more than 20% of the fund, the GP will seek co-investment from its LPs.

The fund will invest across different healthcare subsectors, including medical devices, diagnostics, digital health, healthcare services, and life sciences. It will not, however, finance early-stage drug development companies because the time they take to come to market is often longer than the lifetime of the fund.

The fund is focused on making investments in expansion and innovation financing, succession situations and shareholder changes.

SHS invests across Europe with an emphasis on DACH, Benelux and the Nordics.