Nordea Asset Management has reached the EUR150 million target for its first secondary-investments focused fund, Nordea Private Equity Secondary Fund I, ahead of its final close on 12 January 2021.
Nordea Private Equity Secondary Fund I was launched in 2019 and complements Nordea’s Private Equity flagship fund, Nordea Specialised Investment Fund, SICAV-FIS – Global Private Equity Fund, an open-ended solution with over 50 institutional investors and private equity commitments of over EUR 1bn to top quartile funds since 2012.
In a low-yielding environment, investors are looking for opportunities within illiquid asset classes and secondary investments have been delivering strong returns of around 18% gross IRR since 2013. Covid-19 has proven to positively impact secondary deal flows, with many general partners utilising this market to provide liquidity to their investor base. Nordea Private Equity Secondary Fund I takes advantage of this environment and focuses on EUR5-50 million transactions in individual funds, GP-led and larger syndicated deals.
Christen Estrup, Head of Nordea Private Equity, says: “This new product—and indeed our whole product range—offers smaller and medium-sized investors access to Private Equity investments, thanks to a lower threshold for commitments and shorter deployment periods, leading to a rapid scaling of private equity exposure combined with a typically shorter duration. We are making illiquids more liquid for our clients.”
Nordea Private Equity (NPE), a boutique within Nordea Asset Management (NAM), offers a range of diversified Private Equity investment vehicles and manages capital on behalf of institutional clients, family offices and foundations. NPE is one of the most active private equity fund investors in Northern Europe with an annual deployment of over EUR500 million.
The NPE team has over 40 years of combined private equity experience and collectively, the team has executed more than 30 secondary transactions, with a total value of over USD8 billion.
Julien Marencic, Manager of Nordea Private Equity Secondary Fund I, says: “We are very proud of our clients’ confidence despite a very challenging environment and believe that our high selectivity and strong focus on quality assets will enable our first secondary fund to deliver attractive returns to investors.”
In 2020, NAM decided to further deepen its offering in the illiquid space by expanding its internally-managed Private Equity offering as well as developing Private Credit solutions. NAM also maintains a partnership with Trill Impact AB, a Private Equity firm founded by Jan Ståhlberg, one of the most renowned PE veterans.
