Western Europe

The promotion of Robert de Corainville is one several personnel changes across the preferred equity firm.

The Swiss interdealer-broker has hired two professionals to focus on the asset class, Secondaries Investor has learned.

Thomas Doyle will leave the London-based preferred equity specialist in the coming weeks, having joined from JPMorgan in 2018.

With assets live in the market, outside buyers occasionally swoop in and make better offers, upending months of work building consensus on the secondaries deal.

The fund will partner with high-quality managers to acquire their most attractive companies, according to documents from listed vehicle Pantheon International.

The UK-based team is backed by pension manager BCI and invests in GP-led deals in the European lower- and mid-market.

The listed firm brought the launch of Strategic Equity IV forward by two years due to faster-than-expected deployment.

The top-level hire will work with co-head Michael Woolhouse to build out the firm's secondaries team, Secondaries Investor has learned.

The buyout shop is making a €300m investment from its latest fund in the process, which values Springer Nature at about $7bn.

Tyrus Capital's Gunter Waldner, formerly of AlpInvest Partners, says the market is still littered with downside risks, making disciplined asset selection more important than ever.