Citi spinout Auldbrass comes back to market

Niche secondaries firm Auldbrass Partners is returning to market with its third flagship secondaries fund.

The New York-headquartered buyer is in talks with existing investors over Auldbrass Partners Secondary Opportunity Fund III, which is targeting at least $250 million, according to a source with knowledge of the firm.

The fund will target concentrated positions in North America and Europe, mainly through GP-led deals, in growth sectors such as software, healthcare and business services, Secondaries Investor understands. Its bitesize is $15 million-$25 million.

The assets in Fund II had a fair value of more than 2x cost as of the end of June, Secondaries Investor understands.

Auldbrass’s 2017-vintage Secondary Opportunity Fund II raised $185.6 million, against a target of $100 million, from investors such as Allegheny County Retirement System, according to Secondaries Investor data.

In 2019 it invested $5 million in a single-asset deal on Warburg Pincus XI, centred around security company Allied Universal.

Speaking to Secondaries Investor in May, founder and managing director Howard Sanders said that Auldbrass was revisiting a pipeline of GP-led deals that “[we] really liked but thought were overpriced” prior to the coronavirus crisis.

Sanders was responsible for the private assets of Citi Holdings’ $11 billion pension fund, according to the firm’s website. From 2009 until the spinout of Auldbrass in 2011, he also oversaw the divestment of $3.5 billion of limited partnership interests, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Auldbrass declined to comment on fundraising.