Canada’s Overbay bulks up with hire of Devon Park exec

Overbay Capital Partners, a Canadian secondaries firm focusing on LP fund portfolios, has added an experienced industry professional with both buyside and advisory-side experience to its senior ranks.

Sebastien Siou started at the Toronto-based firm last week as a managing director. Siou joins from advisory firm Devon Park, where he was a partner, and has prior experience at Whitehorse Liquidity Partners, where he was also a partner. Prior to that, he was a member of CPP Investments’ secondaries team, based in Toronto.

Siou brings the “mega-institution mindset” of CPPIB, the innovative thinking of Whitehorse and the “business development, network building and sourcing” capabilities from his advisory experience, Rob McGrath, founder and managing director at Overbay, told Secondaries Investor.

Siou’s hire brings the number of professionals at the firm to 13, according to McGrath.

Overbay launched in 2016 and focuses on diversified, mature fund portfolios. It manages around $2 billion in assets and typically invests between $1 million and $150 million into deals, McGrath said.

The firm manages annual programmes for global institutional clients and has made more than 500 fund investments spanning more than 10,000 underlying companies, according to its website.

Overbay aims to return all original capital to investors within roughly four years, according to Siou. “Not many people do that. I think that’s a highly differentiated strategy. It’s a very underserved part of the market,” he told Secondaries Investor.

It seeks returns in the “teens” and a 1.5x multiple on an unlevered basis, according to McGrath.

Siou was included in affiliate title Private Equity International’s Future 40 Leaders of Private Equity list in 2021. He ranked first in Secondaries Investor’s Next Gen Leaders list in 2018.