Hard Cap Close at Clearlake
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Hard Cap Close at Clearlake

Clearlake Capital Group has held a hard cap and oversubscribed final close of its sixth private equity fund, Clearlake Capital Partners VI LP, with more than $7 billion in commitments.

The new fund has more than 200 institutional limited partners – including public and corporate pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, foundations and endowments, and family offices – from more than 30 countries. In addition to strong support from existing investors, Fund VI added a number of prominent new investors, with approximately half of them from the U.S. and the remainder from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America.

“At Clearlake, we are grateful to have garnered such strong support among our highly respected, global base of investors, and we are humbled to be able to continue our mission and strategy as the world grapples with this public health crisis and its effects,” said José Feliciano, co-founder and managing partner at Clearlake. “We believe this support reflects our market-leading investment performance, disciplined and operationally-oriented investment approach across economic cycles and ongoing commitment to our investors.”

Clearlake invests in industrials and energy; software and technology-enabled services; and consumer sectors. Over the past two years, 18 of Clearlake’s portfolio companies have had liquidity events with an aggregate of more than $3 billion of realizations. The closing of Fund VI brings Clearlake’s total assets under management to $18 billion.

“Clearlake has many differentiators. We only invest in three core sectors – technology, industrials, and consumer – where our team has built exceptional expertise, and we have a flexible mandate, with the ability to invest in buyouts, corporate carve-outs, and special situations,” added Mr. Feliciano. “In this dynamic market, we believe our experience, focus, and flexibility will allow us to partner with more exceptional management teams as we build lasting value for our platforms and limited partners.”

Clearlake – headquartered in Santa Monica, California – was co-founded by Mr. Feliciano and Behdad Eghbali in 2006. “The safety, health, and well-being of our employees at both Clearlake and our portfolio companies, business partners, and related communities remains our top priority, and our hearts go out to those impacted by this terrible virus,” said Messrs. Feliciano and Eghbali. “We’re truly inspired by the selfless healthcare workers around the world who are on the front lines, tirelessly caring for people in need. As part of our continuing commitment to the community, in conjunction with the closing of Fund VI, we are establishing the Clearlake Foundation which will benefit from a fixed portion of Clearlake’s fees from this fund.”

“The Clearlake strategy has positioned our firm to take advantage of defensive growth as well as turnaround opportunities in this market,” said Mr. Eghbali. “Clearlake couples innovative investing with our proprietary approach to operational improvement – O.P.S. – which brings resources and expertise to companies and helps them build market-leading franchises. These are extraordinary times, and we believe our team is well-prepared to support existing portfolio companies as well as source new platforms as we invest this new fund. We thank our LPs for their support, and we are grateful every day for the hard work from our talented team at Clearlake and our portfolio companies.”

Clearlake’s earlier fund closed in March 2018 at its hard cap with over $3.6 billion in commitments. In June 2019, the firm held a final close of Clearlake Opportunities Partners II LP (COP II) with $1.4 billion of capital commitments. This fund makes non-control investments in middle-market companies across Clearlake’s target sectors of software and technology-enabled services; industrials and energy; and consumer. COP II was oversubscribed and closed at its hard cap.

Credit Suisse Securities (USA) was an advisor and the exclusive placement agent for Fund VI with Kirkland & Ellis providing legal services.

Private Equity Professional | April 15, 2020

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