Zurmont Madison team acquired by Swiss alternatives firm

Zurmont Madison‘s investment team has been acquired by private debt, real estate and infrastructure specialist Patrimonium Asset Management, three months after the Swiss investment firm restructured its sole fund in a Deutsche Bank-backed deal.

Partners at the Zurich-based investment firm will continue to manage four existing assets as part of Patrimonium Private Equity Advisors, a newly formed subsidiary of Patrimonium, according to statements released by each firm. They will be housed in ZM Opportunity II, a SFr100 million ($99 million; €93 million) vehicle.

“Pooling our efforts in the private equity domain will create added value,” said Werner Schnorf, founding partner at Zurmont Madison and designated managing director of private equity at Patrimonium. “Our business partners will not only benefit from the significantly extended network in the market, but also from the total offerings of the Patrimonium Group.”

Zurmont’s process to restructure its 2007-vintage SFr250 million Zurmont Madison Private Equity fund succeeded in October with an overwhelming majority of limited partners agreeing to sell their stakes to DB Private Equity in a process managed by Park Hill, as Secondaries Investor reported.

The restructuring involved moving the assets – flooring manufacturer Bauwerk Boen, electronic engineering services firm CCS Holding and steel products company SMB – into a new fund, with DB Private Equity committing as much as SFr 25 million to the new vehicle for follow-on investments.

Baar-headquartered Patrimonium is regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority and the firm’s administrative and regulatory capability in areas including fundraising and business development was attractive to Zurmont, Andreas Ziegler, a partner at Zurmont, told Secondaries Investor.

The partnership with Patrimonium was not part of the fund restructuring process put to LPs last year, Ziegler said.

Patrimonium has most recently raised €170 million out of a €250 million target for Patrimonium Middle Market Debt Fund, according to PEI data. The fund launched in March 2012.

The firm has previously invested in private equity on a deal-by-deal basis without raising blind-pool funds, Ziegler said.

Under Patrimonium, the team will focus on maximising value from its ZM Opportunity II and will consider raising a successor fund following Zurmont’s strategy, he said. Zurmont has previously invested in established small to mid-size companies in Austria, Germany and Switzerland across industrial, services and consumer goods sectors, according to its website.

Patrimonium has SFr 2.8 billion in assets under management and employs over 50 investment professionals in three Swiss offices, according to the statement.