Castik Capital, the European private equity investment firm, has held the final close of its European Private Investment Club fund (EPIC I) at EUR1 billion. The fund had a first close in June 2014 at EUR 625 million. EPIC’s investors are all large institutional investors.
“We are very proud to announce the close of our first fund, which was significantly oversubscribed,” says Michael Phillips (pictured), Investment Partner at Castik Capital. “Our team is already making significant progress in executing our investment strategy – we are identifying targets and actively pursuing new deals.”
The fund will seek investments across Europe, with a target transaction size of EUR 300m – EUR1 billion, with approximately EUR100 million-EUR250 million equity committed per deal. Unlike many other funds in the market, EPIC will remain invested for up to ten years and concentrate on a portfolio of only five to six companies. EPIC’s first acquisition was the global water dispenser company Waterlogic Plc, formerly AIM-listed, followed by a number of bolt-on acquisitions designed to consolidate the water industry and supercharge Waterlogic’s growth.
EPIC is managed by Castik’s Luxembourg office, with an advisory office in Munich. The 20-strong team is led by three experienced investment partners – Michael Phillips, formerly Senior Equity Partner of Apax Partners, Dr Marc-Oliver Jauch, formerly of Apax Partners, and Michael Gröber, formerly of Apax Partners and Montagu Private Equity.
Castik Capital also has six Senior Advisory Partners with a vast range of industry experience. These include Dr. Michael Hinderer, previously co-founder and Chairman of Altium, and Reiner Löslein, former Director at Allianz Capital Partners.
Castik recently appointed four new Senior Advisory Partners to support its ambitious growth plans: Dr. Christoph Walther, former Head of Communications at Daimler and Founder and CEO of CNC Communications; François Pauly, Non-Executive Chairman of the Management Board of Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL) and Compagnie Financière La Luxembourgeoise; Hubert Jacobs van Merlen, former President and CEO of IEE; and Dan Arendt, former Senior Equity Partner at Deloitte, Board Member of RTL and CEO and CFO of RTL Luxembourg.
