It may be time for Allianz Capital Partners, the investment arm of German insurer Allianz, to clear out some of its portfolio, ACP’s global co-head of fund investing, Michael Lindauer, recently told Secondaries Investor’s sister publication Private Equity International.
“We’re not really in need of selling, but it would be convenient to reduce our tail-end and lower the administrative burden,” he said, referencing the high prices being paid for fund interests and assets in the secondaries marketplace.
ACP has historically been “opportunistic” in the secondaries market, selling assets in 2008 when pricing was also full, and buying in 2009, when the firm “got lucky” and valuations turned out to be at a trough, according to Lindauer.
However, Lindauer definitely does not want to be among the secondary buyers right now. “A lot of money has been raised and people can get debt more easily, so pricing is frothy,” he said.
ACP has €1 billion (£811 million, $1.4 billion) of capital to commit each year and plans to deploy close to €3 billion over a three- or four-year investment plan. Up to €120 million can be invested in large pan-regional partnerships and between €20 million and €40 million can be committed to country- and sector-specific funds, including emerging managers. ACP also considers about 50 co-investments per year and aims to commit to five.
Since inception, ACP has invested €6.4 billion in a core portfolio of 70 private equity fund managers. The firm manages a total of €9.18 billion on behalf of its parent, including direct investments in renewables and infrastructure.
Lindauer joined ACP after working in corporate finance at PwC and at Yahoo Deutschland. He leads ACP’s fund investments with Andress Goh, who works in the firm’s Singapore office.
Allianz has roughly €712 billion of assets under management.
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