FSN Capital raises €400 million for investments in sustainable SMEs

Munich — FSN Capi­tal, a private equity firm with offices in Scan­di­na­via and Germany, has successfully comple­ted fund­rai­sing for a new special fund. Insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors have pled­ged more than EUR 400 million for invest­ments in parti­cu­larly ESG-orien­­ted SMEs. This excee­ded the origi­nal target set for the new Compass Fund. The capi­tal commit­ments come from well-known insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as foun­da­ti­ons, pension funds and insu­rance compa­nies as well as private inves­tors; more than half of the funds come from North America and around 30 percent from Scan­di­na­via and the DACH region.

Respon­si­ble invest­ment approach

Robin Mürer, Co-Mana­­ging Part­ner at FSN Capi­tal in Munich, says: “The addi­tio­nal small-cap focus comple­ments our exis­ting mid-cap stra­tegy. The FSN funds have inves­ted in eight compa­nies in the DACH region over the past seven years and we have found that our respon­si­ble invest­ment approach has been very well recei­ved in our second home market — in this respect, the Compass Fund is a logi­cal exten­sion of our previous invest­ment acti­vi­ties. It enables exci­ting growth part­ner­ships with smal­ler, soci­ally commit­ted compa­nies for which our value crea­tion model and ESG focus are attrac­tive. And we see this in Germany in parti­cu­lar, where sustaina­bi­lity is play­ing an incre­asingly important role in busi­ness and society.”

Epista Life Science alre­ady in the portfolio

The Compass Fund has alre­ady made its first invest­ments, inclu­ding in the company Epista Life Science. The signi­fi­cantly growing IT service and consul­ting company for the biopharma indus­try has 150 employees in Germany, Switz­er­land, Sweden and Denmark who support life science compa­nies world­wide with digi­ta­liza­tion, compli­ance and quality assu­rance. A parti­cu­lar focus is the imple­men­ta­tion of inno­va­tive proces­ses and tech­no­lo­gies that enable custo­mers to successfully adapt to new regu­la­tory requi­re­ments and at the same time drive inno­va­tion in the health­care sector. With this inter­face between busi­ness, poli­tics and society, the invest­ment is a prime exam­ple of the Compass Fund’s invest­ment approach.

Support in achie­ving ESG goals

FSN Capi­tal has alre­ady laun­ched six funds for invest­ments in larger medium-sized compa­nies over the past 25 years; over EUR 1.8 billion was raised for the last fund FSN Capi­tal VI in 2021. The Compass Fund, with its focus on SMEs that address the major social chal­lenges of the coming decade with their products and services, builds on the previous stra­tegy and is mana­ged by the same team with proven proces­ses and strategies.

Accor­ding to Rebecca Svensøy, Head of ESG at FSN Capi­talThe Compass Fund uses an indus­­try-leading ESG approach, ther­eby conso­li­da­ting FSN Capital’s posi­tion as a parti­cu­larly respon­si­ble private equity company: “For us, ESG is not just about risk mini­miza­tion and report­ing compli­ance — in addi­tion to value crea­tion, we are prima­rily concer­ned with the full deve­lo­p­ment of exci­ting, sustainable poten­tial. We actively support compa­nies in imple­men­ting their ESG goals.”

About FSN Capital

FSN Capi­tal, one of the leading Nort­hern Euro­pean private equity firms, was foun­ded in 1999 and has four offices in Oslo, Stock­holm, Copen­ha­gen and since 2017 also in Munich The four funds advi­sed by FSN Capi­tal have four billion euros under manage­ment; for the latest Fund VI, 1.8 billion euros were raised for invest­ments in Scan­di­na­via and the DACH region The funds make majo­rity invest­ments in growth-orien­­ted compa­nies in order to support them on their further path to success and to make them even more sustainable, compe­ti­tive, inter­na­tio­na­li­zed and profi­ta­ble. FSN Capital’s 97-strong team (29 of whom are based in Munich) is commit­ted to inves­t­ing respon­si­bly, achie­ving a posi­tive ESG impact on the port­fo­lio and deli­ve­ring market-leading returns, true to the motto “We are decent people making a decent return in a decent way”. The current port­fo­lio compa­nies in Germany include Bäcker Görtz, MEGABAD (Swash Group), Ecovium, Lobs­ter, impreg, Adra­gos Pharma, Rame­der and TASKING.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.fsncapital.com.