Italian-Spanish private equity firm Investindustrial will announce the final close of its sixth fund by a couple of months, with a size that will be quite higher than the one of the fifth fund which had raised 1.25 billion euros in 2012, MF Milano Finanza writes today.
Marketing for the sixth fund started last November but it has been already closed as international investors were willing to commit many times more than the original target the management team had imagined to reach.
So in the next few weeks Andrea Bonomi and Investindustrial’s other senior principals (Andrea’s brother Carlo Umberto, Dante Razzano, Carl Nauckhoff, Salvatore Catapano, Mateo Paniker, Roberto Maestroni and Joaquin Guell) will be processing all the investors’ demands and deciding where fixing the hard cap for the fundraising.
Investindustrial is not new to having its funds oversubscribed. This happened for the fifth fund too even if fundraising had happened in a period of hard credit crunch and economic recession especially in Italy and Spain which are the countries where the fund invests the most (some investments might be somewhere else in Europe, for example there is one British company in the portfolio now, that is Aston Martin, the luxury car maker). However this time success was really huge and this is quite a good signal of renewed confidence both in Italy and in Investindustrial’s industrial approach to investments.
The fund is actually well known as able to make its portfolio companies to grow internationally thanks to a team of 75 professionals based in 6 offices in the world (in Lugano, Barcellona, London, Luxembourg, New York and Shangai).
Year 2015 hase been quite active for Investindustrial in Italy. The fund acquired control of leading International design furniture company B&B, and the Italian iconic maker of luxury shoes, Sergio Rossi, while through its portfolio company Flos, a high-end lighting designer Italian company, bought both Italy’s Ares and US Lukas Lighting, the latter being specialized in the design, development, and manufacturing of custom lighting products. In Spain Investindustrial did not invest last year, while the fund subscribed a 200 million pounds capital increase in two tranches Aston Martin together with its co-investor from Kuwait Tejara Capital.
On the divestments side Investindustrial sold to SK Capita its portfolio company AEB, a global leader in wine ingredients with growing positions in beer ingredients and food detergents, while in Spain sold its stake in Spain’s tlc services and cable tv provider Euskaltel via a successul ipo. The deal actually gave a rich return to funds run by Investindustrial and co-investor Trilantic Capital Partners who gained more than 3x the capital they invested in October 2012, including a 207 million euros extra-dividend.
Ready for sale is then Polynt, a leading producer of specific polymer intermediates and specialties in Europe, with a growing Asian and US presence but with a strong Italian origin; while Italy’s jewelries retail chain Stroili Oro is to remain some time more in Investindustrial’s portolio, even if there were rumors last December about an offer from French retail jewelleries chain Histoire d’Or. Finally last year Italy’s betting company Cogemat-Cogetch was incorproated in Snai, waiting for better times for the sector in Italy.
