Crown Global III sees small NAV increase

LGT Capital Partners’ 2012-vintage secondaries fund increased its net asset value by $176 million last year, according to its annual report.

During 2016, Crown Global Secondaries III committed $326.3 million to 13 secondaries transactions into 18 funds, including four stapled primary private equity funds. It also made investments in three primary private equity funds.

This compares with 19 transactions in 2015 of $629.7 million, composed of 36 private equity funds, including two stapled primary private equity funds, as well as an investment of $20.1 million in four primaries.

The geographic breakdown of Fund III changed slightly between 2015 and 2016. US investments rose from 36.3 percent to 38.9 percent, France from 11.1 percent to 12.2 percent and India from 3.1 percent to 5 percent. UK investments declined from 12.4 percent to 10 percent and China by 10.2 percent to 9.8 percent.

In terms of sectors, consumer discretionary saw its representation increase from 19.5 percent in 2015 to 23.3 percent in 2016. Industrial, whose proportion of the portfolio declined from 15.6 percent to 14.9 percent between 2015 and 2016, and healthcare, which accounted for 11.7 percent in 2016 against 13.8 percent the year before.

Overall the fund has invested $1.72 billion, equivalent to 85.5 percent of the fund, to 71 transactions via 119 different private equity funds. It has also committed $91.3 million (4.6 percent) to 14 primary private equity funds. As of December 31 2016 it had 98 investors and stakes in a total of 2,072 companies.

Crown Global Secondaries III closed in February 2013 at $2 billion, above its $1.5 billion target. Investors in the fund include Employee Retirement System of Texas at $100 million, Cathay Life Insurance which committed $20 million and City of Baltimore Fire & Police Retirement System, which put in $25 million.

Its successor Crown Global Secondaries IV closed at its hard cap of $2.5 billion in November 2016. Employee Retirement System of Texas doubled its stake in the new fund to $200 million.

LGT Group has been run by the royal family of Liechtenstein for more than 90 years. It has more than $50 billion in assets under management and employs 2,000 people across 20 locations in Europe, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East.