HQ Capital secondaries co-heads depart – exclusive

HQ Capital‘s two co-heads of secondaries have left the firm, the latest in a string of departures at the German family office’s investment arm.

Managing directors Christian Munafo and Chris Lawrence are no longer with the firm, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The pair left in the last two weeks.

It is unclear where either is headed.

A HQ spokesman confirmed to Secondaries Investor that Munafo “voluntarily resigned two weeks ago to pursue another opportunity” and that Lawrence left the company soon after to pursue other opportunities.

“HQ Capital is excited to have its new team start in July,” the spokesman added.

Munafo joined the firm in 2015 when fund of funds manager Auda International – which rebranded as HQ Capital that year – took over three secondaries funds from asset manager Thomas Weisel Partners. Munafo, who had led San Francisco-based Thomas Weisel’s secondaries programme, joined Auda to continue managing the funds as well as to develop Auda’s secondaries operations.

Munafo first worked with Auda in 2008 through a direct secondaries transaction in a company where the latter was an active co-investor. In September 2015 Auda joined HQ Group’s real estate and buyout affiliates in a rebranding that housed the three investment firms under a single brand.

Lawrence joined the firm in 2008.

The departures follow those of chief executive Georg Wunderlin and chief operating officer Heiko Dimmerling, who left at the end of March. Bernd Türk was appointed to the management in their wake, according to a statement in February.

This is not the first time the secondaries team has left the firm. In 2013 Auda’s secondaries group left to form Newbury Partners, led by Richard Lichter. Newbury has raised four secondaries funds since then, the latest being a $1.4 billion 2017-vintage, according to Secondaries Investor data.

HQ held the final close on its fourth flagship secondaries fund in May last year, raising $503 million for Auda Secondary Fund IV above its target of $450 million, according to PEI data. The firm raised its Auda Asia Secondary Fund a week prior, hitting the fund’s $250 million hard-cap.

Auda was founded in 1989 as the US investment arm of the Harald Quandt family foundation, a German industrial investor, according to its website.

Munafo and Lawrence did not return requests for comment.