Idinvest Partners has been focusing on GP-led deals with its third dedicated secondaries fund in the European mid-market where managers’ receptiveness to such opportunities is increasing.
The Paris-headquartered firm’s Idinvest Secondary Fund III, which held its final close on €442 million in June, is around 25 percent invested, chief executive and managing partner Christophe Bavière told Secondaries Investor. Around 80 percent of those deals are GP-led restructurings, he added.
“It’s the core of what we do now,” Bavière said.
In the upper end of the market, large firms such as Apax Partners do not need to be told how they can use secondaries to change their investor base or portfolio, Bavière said, adding the opportunities lay in the European mid-market.
“In the German mid-market, say a player managing a €450 million fund, you can visit him and explain that he can use tools, that his investor base can change, and that he can keep control of the underlying investment and send cash back to investors,” Bavière said.
GPs are increasingly receptive to such restructuring proposals, he added.
“For GPs today, you’re either in the category of the hottest with a good track record and you fundraise in five seconds. But 90 percent of people are not in the top decile, and they need to restructure their [distributed-to-paid-ins], they need to restructure and change their story.”
ISF III beat its €400 million target after a year and a half of fundraising, according to PEI data.
In November the firm hired Charles Daulon du Laurens as global head of investor relations and marketing to help it expand beyond its French home market.
Idinvest has more than €8 billion in assets under management and invests across primaries, secondaries and direct co-investments, as well as venture and growth capital and debt, according to its website.
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