PAI Partners to launch €600m mid-market fund

Alessia Argentieri
22 January 2020

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PAI Partners is launching a pan-European mid-market fund to complement its existing large-cap strategy, Unquote understands.

The fund target has not been firmed up yet but is expected to be around €600m, according to a source close to the situation.

The vehicle will invest in companies with enterprise values in the €100-300m range that operate in the business services, consumer, healthcare and industrial sectors in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the Benelux region. It will also pursue buy-and-build strategies aiming at supporting its portfolio companies' market consolidation and international expansion.

The fund will be co-led by PAI partners Raffaele Vitale and Stefano Drago, alongside Mateo Pániker Rumeu, who will join the firm from Ventura Equity Partners. Pániker Rumeu previously spent 12 years as senior partner and member of the investment committee at Investindustrial, working from the firm's Spanish office.

PAI is currently investing its seventh fund, PAI Europe VII, which held a final close hitting its €5bn hard-cap in March 2018. The fund invests in European companies operating in a wide varieties of sectors, including business services, consumer, industrial and healthcare, with enterprise values of €300m-1.5bn. It deploys equity tickets in the €150-400m range and plans to make 15‐17 investments.

In addition, PAI recently transferred the two remaining assets – Froneri and Marcolin – of its fifth fund to a new vehicle, realising liquidity for the firm and some of its LPs. The new vehicle is called PAI Strategic Partnerships and is roughly €2bn in size; it has a five-year term with the possibility of two, one-year extensions. Lead investors include AlpInvest Partners, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Harbourvest Partners.