Government-owned fund sells 30% of

The Norwegian state-owned fund-of-fund, Argentum, has sold a 30% stake of its portfolio to the insurance company Gjensidige. The transaction unlocks close to NOK 600m for the seller.Jørgen Kjærnes, CEO of Argentum, is comfortable with the price. He said: 'There are three reasons for why we are selling: The sale releases capital for us, it shows a nice value creation for Argentum since 2002, and Gjensidige is an important player in the market.'The shares include the investments in nine funds, into which Argentum has injected a total of NOK 1.8bn. Following the sale, Gjensidige is set to gain an attractive position in the Nordic private equity market. Finn Anonsen, director of Gjensidige, said: 'We would like to develop our private equity exposure, and this deal gives us an immediate exposure to a diversified portfolio of high quality.'The deal involved CapMan VII A LP, Convexa IV AS, Energivekst AS, Energy Ventures, FSN Capital II LP, NeoMed Innovation IV LP, Norsk Vekst Private Equity IV LP, Nortzone Ventures IV KS and Teknoinvest VIII KS.Argentum has annually generated an IRR of 40%. Kjærnes confirms that the fund-of-funds has no plans to sell off more in the future.

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