Akina holds close on €180m for Euro Choice VI

Akina Partners, a Swiss asset manager, has held a third close on its flagship fund of funds vehicle seven months after launching.

The Zurich-based firm has raised €180 million so far for Euro Choice VI, which can make selective secondaries purchases, according to a statement by the firm. The fund is targeting €300 million and focuses on buyout, growth capital and special situations fund investments in the mid and lower ends of the European market.

“The demanding market environment in Europe requires investors to work with specialists close to the market,” Thomas Frei, a senior partner at Akina, said in the statement. “Our in-depth understanding of the European market, our extensive experience and our excellent track record, convinced investors to commit to Euro Choice VI.”

The fund has already closed two deals including one secondaries purchase in a mature Italian portfolio. The deal, which was worth over €40 million and involved acquiring stakes in two Italian mid-market buyout funds, was completed through Euro Choice VI and Euro Choice Secondary, the firm’s dedicated secondaries vehicle, Christian Böhler, the principal in charge of secondaries at Akina, told Secondaries Investor in August.

Euro Choice VI will probably make between 15 to 20 percent of its investments in secondaries, although the fund has no strict allocation amount to the strategy, a spokesman confirmed. Akina expects to hold a final close for Euro Choice VI in the second quarter of 2016.

The fund’s net total value to paid in (TVPI) was 1.2 x the capital drawn as of 30 September, according to the statement. TVPI is a measure of the current value of remaining investments in a fund, plus the total value of all distributions to date, relative to the total amount of capital paid into the fund to date.

Investors in Akina’s previous fund of funds include pension funds, endowments and insurance companies, according to PEI’s Research and Analytics division.

Akina focuses on investing in small- and medium-sized businesses, and its funds have received over €2.2 billion since 1999.