Huron Capital Partners has closed its third investment fund, Huron Fund III, with USD350m in aggregate commitments.
Huron Capital Partners has closed its third investment fund, Huron Fund III, with USD350m in aggregate commitments. Fund III is a follow-up to Huron’s first two successful private equity funds, the Huron Fund (USD72m, launched in 2000) and Huron Fund II (USD185m, 2005).
The latest fund will continue to focus on opportunities in the lower middle-market where the firm can partner with seasoned executives to acquire strong performing companies and drive earnings growth through operational improvements and add-on acquisitions.
With strong demand from current and prospective limited partners, the fund was oversubscribed within 30 days after offering documents were made available. ‘We are extremely excited about our current base of blue-chip limited partners,’ says Huron Capital managing partner Brian Demkowicz.
‘We were fortunate enough to receive an enthusiastic response during our pre-offering period which enabled us to conduct an efficient process and close the fund quickly. While we were certainly grateful for the strong interest, we felt it was important to hold firm to our stated hard-cap in order to maintain our focus on the lower middle-market.’
Virtually all of Huron’s previous limited partners invested in Fund III along with a handful of additional institutional investors, including DuPont Pension Trust, AlpInvest Partners, the State of Michigan, RCP Advisors, Northgate Capital, Hartford Life, Allstate Investments, Dow Chemical and National City Equity Partners. In addition, more than 20 of Huron’s operating partners invested in the fund.
The successful fundraising comes on the heels of an active 2007 that saw the firm close 14 acquisition and divestiture transactions with an aggregate value exceeding USD225m. Huron is continuing its strong momentum into 2008 with five transactions in process.
Huron typically invests between USD10m and USD50m in equity to sponsor management buyouts, growth initiatives, recapitalisations and corporate spin-offs of companies with revenues of up to USD200m.
The firm manages a total of more than USD600m in its three funds. Since its establishment in 1999, Huron has acquired or invested in 35 companies in areas including home décor, print solutions, document management, specialty packaging, consumer products, ground passenger transportation, specialty chemicals, medical products and services, building products, office furniture, laboratory testing and further education.
