Less than a year after launching the fundraising, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners has held the final closing of its new FPCI, Winch Capital 3, at EUR300m, well over the initial target.
This is the largest fundraising ever for a Winch Capital fund.
Pierre-Michel Passy, president of Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, says: “We were targeting a final closing of EUR250m. In less than a year we reached the EUR300m hard cap after reducing the latest investors to the fund. The success of this fundraising was facilitated by the strong loyalty of our client base as 23 institutional investors in Winch Capital 2 decided to reinvest in Winch 3 with a reinvestment ratio of 140 per cent.
“The team also succeeded in attracting new institutional investors of note like the European Investment Fund (EIF) and SOGECAP. 10 institutional investors including the Edmond de Rothschild Group invested more than EUR 15m each. These included historic investors such as Bpifrance, BNP CARDIF Assurances and CNP Assurances who decided to allocate significant amounts to the Winch Capital 3 investment team. The fund also saw strong interest from individual investors and family offices, representing close to 10 per cent of the fund.”
Winch Capital 3, like its predecessor, will seek to partner with entrepreneurs who are significant shareholders and help them implement their growth projects and transform their companies. The fund targets profitable companies with strong positions on their respective markets and sales of between EUR30m and EUR300m.
It aims to build a portfolio of about 15 companies and invest EUR7m to EUR25m on each deal while maintaining high reinvestment potential, mostly in France and also in Italy, for a maximum of 20 per cent of the fund. The focus is on companies and deal structures with low-leverage so as to concentrate on growth.
Winch Capital 3 will focus its investment policy on companies with international exposure: two-thirds of the portfolio will be comprised of French companies with international activities.
