Lower middle-market investor The Beekman Group has held a first and final closing of Beekman Investment Partners III, LP (Fund III ) at its hard cap of $230 million.
Fund III’s strategy, as with prior funds, will be to invest in lower middle-market services companies with enterprise values ranging from $15 million to $75 million. Sectors of interest include consumer, healthcare and business services.
Like other financial and operating themed private equity firms, Beekman works with its management teams to guide growth initiatives and to improve operations. The firm has operating executives that actively engage in industry analysis, investment sourcing, diligence and portfolio company oversight.
The Beekman Group is led by Founder and Managing Partner, John Troiano, a former partner at Onex Corporation, and by Managing Directors, Andrew Marolda and Andrew Brown.
“We are very pleased by the strong investor interest and a single close at our hard cap of $230 million after just three months of fund raising, said Mr. Troiano. “We have remained focused on investing in great companies within our core strategy while continuing to generate top quartile returns for our limited partners over the past 10 years. We appreciate the strong support from our existing and new limited partners.”
Investor demand for Fund III was more than double the hard cap amount of $230 million. Limited partners include the usual combination of institutional investors including endowments, family offices, asset management firms, insurance companies and pension funds. Notably, Fund III’s general partner, and some of its affiliates and associates, committed just over $34 million or 15% of total commitments.
The Beekman Group makes control investments from $5 million to $25 million in privately held companies, family businesses in transition, operating divisions of large companies or small public companies looking to privatize. Typical acquisitions have revenues from $10 million to $200 million and enterprise values of $15 million to $75 million. The Beekman Group was founded in 2004 and is based in New York (www.thebeekmangroup.com).
Sparring Partners served as the exclusive financial advisor and placement agent to The Beekman Group for Fund III. Sparring Partners is an investment bank providing mergers and acquisitions advisory and capital raising services to technology-enabled companies and private equity firms. The firm was founded in 2001 by Warren Spar and is headquartered in New York (www.sparringpartners.com).
The Beekman Group’s previous fund, Beekman Investment Partners II, LP, also used Sparring Partners as its placement agent and held its initial closing in 2011 and final closing in December 2012 with $100 million in commitments and has made seven platform investments.
© 2015 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 1-9-15
