Greenpark raises $500m

Greenpark Capital, a UK-based secondaries firm, has raised $500 million for its latest secondaries vehicle.

The close was first reported earlier this week by Private Equity News.

After more than two years on the fundraising trail and having had a few rolling closes, Greenpark decided to bring the fundraising to an end in the third quarter so it could focus on investing, according to a source close to the matter. It was unclear at press time how much of Fund IV had been deployed to date.

Greenpark declined to comment.

The fund was said to have originally been targeting $1.2 billion, and is listed as such in some industry databases; however, a source close to the matter suggested the fund’s target had actually been between $850 million and $900 million. It was unclear at press time whether that possibly reflected a difference between target and hard-cap or whether the firm revised its fundraising target.

Raising a mid-market secondaries fund was challenging for Greenpark given current market trends, the source said. “There’s a flight to quality and perceived safety. No one gets fired for backing the big guys like Coller who do deals of $1 billion.”

The $500 million Fund IV is smaller than its predecessor, a €732 million 2006-vintage. However it is understood Greenpark’s investment strategy has not changed and it is still targeting deal sizes between $10 million and $20 million.

Greenpark has a number of ongoing initiatives aside from the recently closed Fund IV.

Last year, it opened an office in Hong Kong and hired Chin Chin Teoh from Bank of America Merrill Lynch to lead the new office, saying at the time it saw increasing appetite from Asian LPs to invest in the secondaries market.

It is also currently raising an emerging markets secondaries fund, having won a mandate from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that anchors the fund – targeting $500 million – with a $100 million commitment.