Cubera raises €524m for Nordic secondaries

Nordic secondaries specialist Cubera Private Equity has held the final close on its first fund since being acquired by Norway’s largest asset manager.

Cubera IX closed on its hard-cap of €524 million, having held a first close in December, according to a statement. The fundraising was oversubscribed and leans heavily on existing investors, mostly European pensions and family offices.

Fund IX continues the firm’s strategy of acquiring stakes in Nordic buyout funds by targeting portfolios, single lines, restructurings and co-investments, managing partner Kine Buroy Olsen told Secondaries Investor. It will also look at infrastructure assets with buyout characteristics.

“Nordic buyout funds manage about €100 billion, so it is definitely a large underlying market. There are about 60 managers in the region. In the last six years the market has doubled in size,” she said.

Last year, Oslo-headquartered Cubera bought the entire private equity portfolio of listed Danish investment manager Scandinavian Private Equity for €25.7 million, according to a statement. Stakes in the portfolio included Industri Kapital 2007 and Litorina Kapital III, according to UK regulatory filings.

The 2016-vintage Cubera VIII held its final close in 2017 on €405 million, according to Secondaries Investor data. Investors in the fund include AP Fonden 6.

Cubera was acquired last year by Storebrand, a NKr750 billion ($81 billion; €74 billion) asset manager, for Nkr300 million, Secondaries Investor reported. More than half of that amount was earmarked to be reinvested in Cubera’s future funds.

Cubera also has a Nordic-focused primary private equity funds business and a global primary funds business. It employs 20 investment professionals and has €3.5 billion in assets under management.