Clessidra sgr will start fundraising for its third private equity fund in H2 2014, MF-Milano Finanza writes today. The new fund will target one billion euros.
Led by Claudio Sposito, Clessidra raised its last fund in 2009. In March 2013 Clessidra Capital Partners II asked investors a go ahead for downsizing the fund to 1,1 billion euros from 1.4 billions committed. This was because the fund  invested less than half its total committed capital and the investment period was close to finish. Investors were happy to say ok as the fund had just announced a rich exit from Cerved Group, a leading business information provider in Italy. It was sold to CVC Capital Partners from Clessidra and Bain Capital in January 2013 and Clessidra took back 200 millions out of 70 millions invested in 2010.
On top of that last Monday March 17 Clessidra announced another rich exit, the one from Camfin-Pirelli with a payback of 1.7x invested capital in 9 months (see a previous post in BeBeez) for a total of 250-280 millions euro out of 150 milliions invested. Finally next April is scheduled Anima sgr ipo at the Italian Stock Exchange. Anima is an Italian asset manager with more than 46 billion euros of assets under management. It is valued more than one billion euros. Clessidra owns a 37.5 pct stake.
Clessidra Capital Partners II invested 75 pct of its committed capital till now and it is in exclusive talks for a minority stake in Italian casual fashion brand Harmont&Blaine (see a previous post in BeBeez). The fund is also one of the favorite candidates in taking a minority stake in another Italian sport fashion brand Peuterey  (see a previous post in BeBeez) and made a non binding offer to RCS Media Group for its stake in a portfolio of radio channels owned by Gruppo Finelco.
As far as the first fund is concerned, Clessidra Capital Partners (vintage 2005) had 800 million euros of committed capital and it is now invested for 80 pct of the total with an Irr above 50 pct, even if some problematic assets are still in the portfolio.
