Essling closes second co-investment fund on €115m

Oscar Geen
15 February 2018

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Massena Partners spinout Essling Capital has held a final close for its second co-investment fund ECI 2 on €115m, surpassing its initial hard-cap of €100m.

The hard-cap was originally set at €100m, but was raised in order to meet increasing demand from LPs.

The fund was announced in September 2017 and has already invested 40% of its capital across three deals. Like the previous co-investment fund, ECI 2 has an investment period of just 12 months with the option to add an extra six months, and a fund life of five to six years. Essling will not charge fees on undeployed capital.

Essling president Michele Mezzarobba told Unquote in September that the firm chose to favour quick deployment in order to appeal to investors and engage with them more often.

The previous vehicle was launched by Essling while it was still the private equity team at Massena; however, it span out in April 2017, taking approximately €1bn of the €2bn assets under management with it.

Mezzarobba told Unquote in April that the private equity team was encouraged to spin out to avoid conflicts of interest between wealth management firm Massena and investors from the banking and institutional spaces.

DLA Piper provided legal advice to the fund, which is registered in Luxembourg.

Investors
Massena said it would remain a cornerstone investor in Essling's products at the time of the spin-out, and it remains one of the largest investors in the latest fund. Essling stated that ECI 2 received backing from both new and existing investors including pension funds and foreign banks.

Investments
ECI 2 targets four to eight minority investments, with broad diversification across sectors and geographies, committing between €10-30m per deal.

Since September, Essling has evaluated 80 deals and made three investments, including a $17.5m stake in a US dental care company, a €15m stake in Crouzet alongside LBO France, and a €14m investment in construction equipment rental service Kiloutou alongside HLD Group.

People
Essling Capital – Michele Mezzarobba (CIO, CEO).