Schroders among backers of €700m long-hold GP-led

A firm founded by senior executives from Apax Partners and Montagu Private Equity has completed a single-asset restructuring on a prized asset.

A controlling stake in Waterlogic, which provides purified drinking water dispensers, was lifted out of Castik Capital‘s 2014-vintage fund into a continuation vehicle backed by new and rolling investors, according to a statement.

Schroders participated via Schroder British Opportunities Trust, a listed vehicle that targets public and private equity investments in the UK with strong long-term growth prospects, it told investors. It is not clear which other buyers backed the deal.

Castik declined to comment on further questions about the deal.

EPIC I-b closed on its €700 million hard-cap, providing the Luxembourg-based long-hold manager with additional time and capital to execute a buy-and-build strategy, the statement noted.

Monument Group acted as placement agent.

Since Castik invested in 2015, Waterlogic has made 80 add-on acquisitions worldwide, the statement noted. The UK-headquartered company has revenues of around $400 million and EBITDA in excess of $150 million.

The GP-led deal follows the sale of a significant minority stake in the company to British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, Neuberger Berman, StepStone Group and Skandia Asset Management in April last year. It is not clear if these LPs also participated in the secondaries process.

EPIC I held its final close on €1 billion in 2015, according to PEI data. The fund takes equity positions of between €100 million and €300 million in mid-market healthcare, technology and business services and holds them for as long as 10 years.

The firm was founded in 2014 by former Apax executives Marc-Oliver Jauch and Michael Philips, and Michael Gruber from Montagu.

Advisor Greenhill estimated that GP-led deals accounted for 42 percent of secondaries volume in 2020. Among GP-led processes, 31 percent were GP-led compared with 26 percent in 2019.