Pareto Forvaltning, a Norwegian institutional asset management company, and Staur Private Equity, a Norwegian family-owned conglomerate have laucnhed Pareto Staur Energy, a global energy and energy services private equity fund.
Pareto Forvaltning is part of the Pareto group, the largest independent investment bank in the energy sector in Europe. It manages a series of funds and mandates including energy private equity funds.
The fund will implement a small mid-market buy-out strategy with active ownership, a process implemented with success by Staur over the last decade. Pareto Forvaltning and Staur Private Equity will be working as one team and act respectively as investment manager and active owner/operational investment adviser.
The fund, a Guernsey Limited Partnership, aims to raise USD120 million on the international market by the end of June 2012. An additional USD100 million is being raised on the Norwegian market through segregated mandates under Norwegian law and with similar terms and will invest in parallel with the fund.
Cohen Brothers, a specialist placement agent and M&A and Corporate Finance lead adviser, has been appointed as agent for the international placement of the fund.
Bernt Osthus, founder of Staur Private Equity, says: “We have associated with our main business partner, Pareto Forvaltning, to bring our investment business to the next stage. Pareto brings a unique proprietary deal-flow, its experienced private equity investment team and its expertise as an institutional investment services provider under a regulated framework. We have worked closely with the Pareto team over the last three years and we look forward to working as one team”.
Petter Borg, CEO of Pareto Forvaltning, says: “Our association with Staur will bring us a first class active ownership expertise in the energy sector that will ideally complement our investment expertise. The fund launch comes at the right time. Our two private equity funds are in disposal mode and so is Staur Private Equity portfolio. The joint team will be able to concentrate its resources and efforts going forward to make a success of Pareto Staur Energy”.
Robert Cohen, Co-President of Cohen Brothers, says: “We are delighted to enable limited partners in the international market access the proven expertise of Staur, an active owner with a great track record, and of Pareto Forvaltning, an investment advisor with strong institutional private equity and investment management expertise and unique proprietary deal flow in the energy and energy services sector”.
