Euro Choice Secondary, the first pure secondary fund advised by Akina, has held its final close at EUR224 million, exceeding its target of EUR200 million.
The fund attracted a high level of interest with ultimately some 35 high quality limited partners subscribing, including public and private pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, family offices and wealthy individuals. Geographies range from Australia, North America and Canada to various European countries.
Christopher S. Bödtker, Managing Partner of Akina, says: “Euro Choice Secondary, the first pure secondary fund investment programme we advise, exceeding its target size makes us very proud and we are thankful for having received such strong support of existing and new investors.”
Thomas Frei, Senior Partner of Akina, adds: “We are very pleased to welcome an important number of new investors, diversifying their capital base by geography and provenance. This is mainly due to a concentrated fundraising effort as well as the support of major consultants appreciating our differentiated investment strategy.”
Euro Choice Secondary targets value, inflection point and high-discount investment opportunities in the European mid-market. It also seeks to achieve other key portfolio parameters such as early de-risking, asset protection and cycle resilience. The focus on smaller deal sizes ranging from EUR5 to 30 million often allows the fund to benefit from the attractive characteristics of this market, in particular limited competition.
Euro Choice Secondary’s investment opportunities are sourced through Akina’s proprietary network with a focus on sweet spot investments which mirror Akina’s high-conviction macroeconomic views. Akina’s expertise with secondary investments dates back to 2008 and encompasses numerous traditional fund secondaries as well as direct secondary transactions.
Mark Zünd, Senior Partner of Akina, explains: “Euro Choice Secondary had about 45% of committed capital allocated to underlying investments at the end of 2014 and is therefore perfectly in line with its targeted investment pace. Further interesting investment opportunities are in advanced execution stages and we are confident that Euro Choice Secondary will be fully invested by end of 2015, delivering attractive and stable investment performance.”
