Advent International closes USD 17.5 billion global private equity fund

BOSTON and LONDON — Advent Inter­na­tio­nal (“Advent”), one of the world’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced private equity firms, today announ­ced that fund­rai­sing for the Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GPE IX Limi­ted Part­ner­ship Fund (“GPE IX” or the “Fund”) has closed. The fund reached its maxi­mum volume of $17.5 billion (15.6 billion euros) and had alre­ady excee­ded its target of $16 billion (14.3 billion euros) after six months. Advent’s previous fund, GPE VIII, closed in 2016 with a volume of $13 billion (€12 billion).

The same stra­tegy will be pursued for GPE (Global Private Equity) IX as for its eight prede­ces­sor funds; funds will be inves­ted prima­rily in Europe and North America, but also selec­tively in Asia and Latin America, in buy-outs, carve-outs, public-to-private tran­sac­tions and growth financing.
Sector specia­liza­tion has been at the core of Advent’s invest­ment approach since its incep­tion, and the GPE IX fund will also focus on the five core indus­tries in which the firm has exten­sive expe­ri­ence and know­ledge: (1) finan­cial services and busi­ness services; (2) health­care; (3) indus­tri­als and chemi­cals; (4) retail, consu­mer goods and leisure indus­tries; and (5) media and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons. Advent recently announ­ced plans to streng­then its commit­ment to the tech­no­logy sector by expan­ding its tech­no­logy invest­ment team and opening a new office in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area.

“The successful fund­rai­sing for GPE IX is an important mile­stone for Advent and increa­ses the capi­tal base available to us for invest­ments in Germany,” said Ranjan Sen (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Advent Inter­na­tio­nal in Frank­furt. “The funds raised will allow us to conti­nue our proven stra­tegy of part­ne­ring with manage­ment teams to drive sustainable busi­ness growth.”

Ronald Ayles, Mana­ging Part­ner at Advent Inter­na­tio­nal in Frank­furt, added: “Advent has been inves­t­ing in Germany for almost 30 years and has actively supported the value growth of 30 compa­nies with more than 3.1 billion euros. Germany offers a wide range of oppor­tu­ni­ties for an invest­ment company like Advent, which has a strong commit­ment to the markets in which it operates.”

“We are very plea­sed with the strong inte­rest in GPE IX from exis­ting and new inves­tors,” said David Mussa­fer, Mana­ging Part­ner at Advent Inter­na­tio­nal in Boston. “The corner­sto­nes of our success are our proven sector focus, our global presence, our private part­ner­ship model, and the exten­sive opera­tio­nal resour­ces we bring to our investments.”
“Our global team is a key advan­tage in finding and execu­ting attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties around the world,” said James Brock­lebank, Mana­ging Part­ner at Advent in London. “We have exten­sive expe­ri­ence in execu­ting complex tran­sac­tions such as corpo­rate spin-offs. This is where we can bring our resour­ces and exper­tise to create value in these dyna­mic businesses.”

Exten­sive resour­ces to support manage­ment teams
Advent has more than 195 invest­ment and port­fo­lio support specia­lists world­wide. GPX IX is inves­ted by a team of 157 experts in Europe, North America and Asia. They can draw on the exper­tise of 40 specia­lists from Advent’s Latin Ameri­can Private Equity Fund program, as well as a global network of world-class opera­tio­nal resour­ces. This also includes more than 115 exter­nal Opera­ting Part­ners and Opera­ti­ons Advi­sors, former execu­ti­ves with in-depth indus­try and tech­ni­cal expertise.

Through this plat­form, Advent provi­des manage­ment teams with resour­ces and exper­tise to help them grow reve­nue and execute value crea­tion stra­te­gies. Since 2005, port­fo­lio compa­nies in which Advent has held an inte­rest for at least one year have achie­ved average annual reve­nue and EBITDA growth of 14 and 15 percent, respectively.

GPE IX saw high demand from exis­ting inves­tors. More than 90 percent of the commit­ted capi­tal came from the limi­ted part­ners of previous Advent funds.

Strong track record over three decades
Advent’s GPE program has a long track record of acqui­si­ti­ons and dispo­sals over seve­ral fund gene­ra­ti­ons and various econo­mic or private equity cycles. Since 1990, 258 invest­ments have been made in 31 count­ries, of which about 213 have been fully or largely realized.
Across all its funds, Advent has inves­ted $44 billion (€36 billion) in more than 345 private equity tran­sac­tions in 41 count­ries. The company’s current port­fo­lio compa­nies gene­ra­ted annual sales of $50 billion (44 billion euros) and employed more than 290,000 people at year-end.

Recent IPOs and company sales in the GPE program include Ammer­aal Beltech, Bojan­gles’, Coti­viti, Genoa Health­care, KMD, lulu­le­mon athle­tica (partial exit), Mondo Mine­rals, MORSCO and Nexi (IPO, partial exit).

Recent invest­ments in the GPE program include Aimbridge Hospi­ta­lity, BioDuro, Deut­sche Fach­pflege Group, INNIO (form­erly GE Distri­bu­ted Power), Laird, Manjushree Tech­no­pack, Prisma Medios de Pago, Walm­art Brazil and Zentiva.

In addi­tion to the GPE program, Advent is curr­ently inves­t­ing a sixth private equity fund focu­sed on buy-outs and growth finan­cing in Latin America. The 2015 vintage fund, LAPEF VI, has $2.1 billion in assets.
This press release is neither an offer nor a soli­ci­ta­tion of an offer nor an invi­ta­tion or soli­ci­ta­tion to invest in any fund of Advent Inter­na­tio­nal. Invest­ments in Advent Inter­na­tio­nal funds are available solely on the basis of and subject to the terms of the rele­vant fund docu­ments and appli­ca­ble laws.

About Advent Interantional
Foun­ded in 1984, Advent Inter­na­tio­nal (“Advent”) is one of the world’s largest and most expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment compa­nies. The company mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately $36 billion (€31 billion) in assets, exclu­ding $17.5 billion (€15.6 billion) raised under GPE IX (as of Septem­ber 31, Decem­ber 2018).

About Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Germany
Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH was foun­ded in Germany in 1991 and advi­ses Advent with its Fran­k­­furt-based team of consul­tants. Advent is also one of the leading private equity compa­nies in Germany and has been inves­t­ing in Euro­pean compa­nies since 1990. To date, Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH has advi­sed on invest­ments of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 3.1 billion in 30 port­fo­lio compa­nies. Advent Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH’s consul­ting focus is on the follo­wing core sectors: Finan­cial Services and Busi­ness Services; Health­care; Chemi­cals; Retail, Consu­mer Goods and Leisure Indus­tries; and Media and Telecommunications.

Over the past decade, Advent’s invest­ments have included Innio, a global leader in recipro­ca­ting gas engi­nes for power gene­ra­tion and gas compres­sion; Deut­sche Fach­pflege Gruppe (DFG), the largest provi­der of out-of-hospi­­tal inten­sive care in Germany; Concar­dis Payment Group, a leading provi­der of digi­tal payment solu­ti­ons and part of the Nets Group; allnex, the leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of resin coatings for the paint and coatings indus­try; Douglas Holding, Europe’s leading cosme­tics retailer; GFKL, a leading provi­der of receiv­a­bles manage­ment in Germany; and Median Klini­ken, a leading provi­der of inde­pen­dent reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics.
After more than 35 years of inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment acti­vity, Advent remains true to its invest­ment approach of gene­ra­ting sustainable reve­nue and profit growth for its port­fo­lio compa­nies by working in part­ner­ship with manage­ment teams. www.adventinternational.com