Gyrus Capital bolsters team ahead of imminent fundraise

Mirco Dilda joins as partner following his tenure as co-head of Argos Italia. Alyson Greenwood joins as partner and chief operating officer, heading the back-office and funds departments – she was formerly CFO of Argos.

Geneva-based Gyrus is preparing to launch two funds, Gyrus Principal Fund and Gyrus Cortex. Principal Fund will be a typical closed-ended vehicle, with a target in the region of €200m. The Cortex fund will be more innovative, as it will essentially act as a bespoke committed capital pool, allowing investors to commit based on a desired number of transactions and/or duration, with the possibility to withdraw at any time with notice.

Gyrus is anticipating a first close before year-end, with fundraising continuing into 2020.

Former Argos Wityu exec Guy Semmens teamed up with healthcare specialist Robert Watson to launch Gyrus at the end of 2018.  The new outfit targets value-based, special situations and transformational investments in sectors driven by demographic and regulatory change, specifically the health and sustainability sectors across Europe.

Gyrus initially set up a mini-fund that has pulled together enough capital to execute initial opportunities. The GP has now inked its first deal with a DowDuPont carve-out, and it expects to make two further investments in 2019 that will deplete the initial pool of capital (which is understood to be around the €170m mark).

One of the transactions in the pipeline is in the life sciences space, with the other being in a different sector altogether, according to a source close to the situation. One of the deals would be a carve-out, in keeping with Gyrus's focus on complex situations, while the other would be a more straightforward buyout.

Gyrus has also added four individuals to its network of operational advisers: former Credit Suisse investment banking head Marco Illy, consultant Nino Lo Bianco, family investment holding manager Christina Pamberg and DSS Sustainable Solutions CEO Davide Vassallo.

Gyrus may add another couple of team members in the next year, although it said it was not under particular pressure to do so.

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