Advent hits $17.5bn hard-cap for ninth fund

Oscar Geen
06 June 2019

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Advent International has held a final close on $17.5bn for its global private equity fund GPE IX.

The vehicle exceeded its $16bn target to hit its hard-cap after a six-month fundraising period, which represents a 35% increase on its predecessor GPE VIII.

Advent plans to acquire 30-35 companies from the business and financial services, healthcare, industrial, consumer, TMT and retail sectors, mainly from North America and Europe.

The close puts it just inside the top 10 for largest Europe-focused buyout funds ever raised, in joint ninth place with Apollo Investment Fund VIII and the top five post-crisis, according to Unquote Data.

It is the third mega-fund to close in Europe in 2019 after Cinven and TA Associates wrapped up their raises on €10bn and $8.5bn respectively. Blackstone Capital Partners, Vista Equity Partners, Warburg Pincus, Permira, Apax Partners, Brookfield Asset Management, Platinum Equity and Ardian (in order of target size) are all still on the road with vehicles looking to attract more than €6bn in commitments each.

Advent employs 195 investment portfolio support professionals and 157 of them will be dedicated to deploying GPE IX.

Goodwin provided legal advice to Advent on the fundraise.

Investors
Existing investors made up 90% of the LP base, according to Advent. Washington State Investment Board was among the largest with a $750m commitment to the vehicle. Other public pension funds including TCRS, Lacera, Minnesota, Oregon and New Mexio made commitments in excess of $100m.

Investments
The fund will be invested in buyout transactions across North America, Europe and Asia. It writes equity tickets between $100m-1bn for companies with enterprise value between $200m-5bn. It will have a six-year investment period, starting from the launch of the fund.

People
Advent International – David Mussafer (managing partner); James Brocklebank (managing partner); Johanna Barr (managing director); Robert Weaver (managing director).