ICG launches new secondaries fund ahead of schedule

The listed investment manager said it had fast-tracked the launch of its latest secondaries fund, which had originally been slated for 2022, according to the presentation that accompanied its half-year results to 30 September released this week. Strategic Equity IV was instead launched at the beginning of November due to the high deployment of its predecessor fund. The fundraising target will be meaningfully higher than the previous fund though the group has not publicly quantified this, according to a person close to the situation. 

The new vehicle is the successor to Strategic Equity III, which closed on $2.4bn – above its $1.6bn target – in January 2020. This fund was almost 50% deployed as of 30 September 2020, according to the results presentation. 

ICG's $300m Strategic Secondaries I and $1bn Strategic Secondaries II were launched in 2014 and 2016, respectively, and have had gross distributions relative to paid in capital of 174% for the first fund as of 30 September and 79% for the second fund. 

A new strategy focusing on LP secondaries has been put on hold due to Covid-19, the firm said. It will now likely launch in 2022, the source close said. 

Overall, in the first half of the year, ICG raised €2.6bn across all strategies, deployed €2.1bn and had €10.8bn in dry powder available as of 30 September.

In terms of other fundraising plans, ICG said in its presentation that it now expects to raise around €6bn in the 2021 financial year, in line with its long-term fundraising plan. Financial year 2022 is expected to be materially higher, as fundraising for flagship European and Strategic Equity funds have been brought forward, it said. Nonetheless, long-term guidance of €6bn per annum over a three-year rolling basis would likely stay the same.

Currently, 7% of the group's third-party AUM is in secondaries.

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