Seligman holds first close on sophomore secondaries fund

Seligman Private Equity Select, the spin-out from Edmond de Rothschild, held its first close on its sophomore secondaries fund this week, Secondaries Investor has learned.

European Secondary Opportunities II has collected €24 million, according to a source familiar with the matter. The amount raised is about €1 million more than it had collected earlier this month.

The fund launched earlier this year and is targeting €75 million and has a €125 million hard-cap.

Seligman declined to comment.

Seligman has four funds under management – two secondaries funds and two fund of funds that invest in primary and secondaries deals.

Its debut secondaries fund, European Secondary Opportunities I, launched in 2010 and raised €50 million, according to PEI’s Research and Analytics division.

While the firm does not invest in a specific industry, the fund will invest in small companies in Western Europe. The fund will not be used to invest in secondary mezzanine, infrastructure, real estate and external commodities sectors such as oil and gas.

Fund I was invested proportionally between traditional secondaries and secondary direct deals, including the restructuring of Octopus Investments’ Titan VCTs 1-3 fund, according to Octopus’ website. The fund’s investments include Zoopla Property Group, Calastone and Secret Escapes.

Fund II is expected to invest in a similar way.

Seligman was founded in 2011 when the management team of Edmond de Rothschild Private Equity Select bought the company from its owner La Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild Banque, which wanted to reduce its exposure to the asset class. The management buyout was led by Seligman director David Seligman, who led the Edmond de Rothschild private equity arm after spending 25 years at investment bank SG Warburg, which is now known as UBS. Seligman is based in London and has continued to manage the funds raised under the Edmond de Rothschild ownership.