Just happened
Fundraising fortunes (or a lack thereof)
Private Equity International’s FY 2024 fundraising download is set to hit inboxes shortly and Side Letter has got its hands on a sneak preview. Given the fundraising challenges facing much of the industry, the latest figures are a tad underwhelming. Funds collected $746.48 billion last year, down 18 percent from 2023 to a four-year low.
Time on road increased for the fourth consecutive year, taking 20 months, on average, in 2024. That’s six months longer than in 2019.
On a brighter note, one third of funds closed last year did so at or above their target – the highest share in at least six years. What’s more, only 29 percent of funds missed their target, improving from 34 percent the prior year. It’s important to note, however, that this applies only to funds with disclosed targets; as PEI noted last year, fewer GPs have been disclosing targets for fear they won’t meet them, possibly leading to a bias in the results.
Keep an eye out for the full downloadable data later today.
Siddiqui’s secondaries venture
The worlds of GP stakes and secondaries have overlapped once again with the launch of a mid-market firm. Blackstone’s former global head of GP stakes, Mustafa Siddiqui, has launched a secondaries shop to invest across LP-led and GP-led opportunities, mainly in the US and Europe.
Siddiqui, who had led Blackstone’s GP stakes business since 2020, left the alternatives giant last year. Around that time, it was revealed the firm’s GP stakes unit – which was previously part of Blackstone Alternative Asset Management – would become part of Strategic Partners under the leadership of Verdun Perry.
SQ Capital launches with a “core team” of eight people with direct private equity investing backgrounds at firms including Vista, Carlyle and Paine Schwartz, a spokesperson told our colleagues at Secondaries Investor (registration required). The team includes CFO and CCO Michael Petryczenko, who joins from passive index investing-focused firm NewVest where he was also CFO.
SQ Capital joins a growing number of new entrants to the secondaries market. These include Clipway, founded by ex-Ardian, Coller Capital and New York City Retirement Systems professionals; and credit secondaries-focused FoxPath Capital Partners, established by former executives at Morgan Stanley and Apollo Global Management.
On that note…
New York-based GP staker Bonaccord Capital Partners has held the final close on Bonaccord Capital Partners II, per a statement. The firm reached its $1.6 billion hard-cap, north of its $1.25 billion target. The fund is more than double the size of its predecessor, which held its final close in 2021 on nearly $740 million.
Bonaccord said LPs in the previous vintage increased their commitments by 17 percent. It added that the second vintage has a 66-strong investor base, spanning four continents and 14 countries, with increased representation from the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, as well as private wealth and insurance companies.
Essentials
The ESG Agenda
Three of the biggest priorities for ESG managers this year will be decarbonisation, nature and biodiversity, and ESG reporting regulations. That’s according to Agenda 2025, a series run by our colleagues at New Private Markets, which has gathered impact investing leaders’ thoughts and concerns for the coming 12 months (registration required).
According to the results of the series, private markets managers and investors are making progress when it comes to decarbonisation, with firms including Actis, Permira and Schroders Capital telling NPM they or their portfolio companies have begun completing their ESG commitments.
Many managers plan to turn to nature and biodiversity in 2025, with a particular focus on understanding the risks and opportunities this sub-segment could bring their portfolios. The field remains a relatively untapped investment theme for impact investors, with investment in nature-based assets comprising only one third of the level needed to reach climate, biodiversity and land degradation targets by 2030, per a 2023 report by the UN Environment Programme.
Amid this refocus, regulation will be top of mind for most managers. The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which requires large companies to disclose information on the risks and opportunities arising from social and environmental issues, will guide many impact investors’ strategies.
CSRD was introduced in January 2023, and many private markets firms are working towards a January 2026 checkpoint, by which time they will be required to report on the 2025 fiscal year. “For our portfolio companies, 2025 will be a pivotal year for those subject to the CSRD,” said Bettina Denis, head of sustainability at female-led venture capital firm Revaia.
Dig deeper
Institution: Fubon Life Insurance
Headquarters: Taipei, Taiwan
AUM: NT$5.11 trillion ($156.2 billion; €149.7 billion)
Allocation to private equity: 4.43%
Fubon Life Insurance has committed $70 million to KKR North America Fund XIV, a fund managed by KKR.
The Taiwan-based insurance company recently revealed that it made the commitment to the private equity fund in December 2024. The fund is following a buyout strategy and aims to target a variety of sectors, with the investments to focus on North America and Latin America.
KKR North America Fund XIV launched in June 2024 and has a target size of $20 billion. The predecessor fund, KKR North America Fund XIII closed in March 2022 on $19 billion, above its target of $14 billion. It has an IRR of 7.8 percent, TVPI of 1.11x, DPI of 0.01x and has so far called 70.82 percent of its committed capital.
For more information on Fubon Life Insurance, as well as more than 5,900 other institutions, check out the PEI database.
