Pacific Avenue Capital Partners has held a final, oversubscribed, and hard cap close of its first fund, Pacific Avenue Fund I LP, with $500 million of capital commitments.
Fund I was backed by a range of investors including insurance companies, consultants, endowments and foundations, funds of funds, family offices, and individuals.
Pacific Avenue was founded in 2018 by its managing partner Chris Sznewajs and is headquartered in El Segundo, California. Before founding the firm, Mr. Sznewajs was a principal with The Gores Group where he focused on investing in special situations and corporate carve-outs in the industrials sector.
“We would like to thank our investors for their excitement in supporting the Pacific Avenue team. We are both honored and grateful for their support,” said Mr. Sznewajs. “The new fund will allow Pacific Avenue to continue our emphasis on corporate divestitures and other complex situations to create value for our stakeholders.”
Pacific Avenue Capital Partners specializes in middle-market corporate divestitures, carve-outs, and other complex transactions. The firm’s specific targets are North American-focused companies that have up to $1 billion in revenue and up to $50 million of EBITDA. Pacific Avenue is a control investor and will acquire both performing and underperforming businesses across a wide range of industries, making the firm effectively industry agnostic.
Pacific Avenue’s new fund has already closed on one platform investment with the October 2022 buy of Sunrich Products, the sunflower and roasted snack division of publicly traded SunOpta (NASDAQ: STKL). Sunrich is an integrated provider of sunflower seeds and chickpeas used in the food ingredient, snack food, and birdseed markets.
Sunrich is headquartered 290 miles northwest of Minneapolis in Crookston, Minnesota. At the close of the acquisition, Pacific Avenue named Kent Johnson, the general manager of Sunrich, as the company’s new chief executive officer.
In addition, last month, Pacific Avenue formed Resin Solutions to acquire three specialty resin product lines of Cray Valley, a specialty chemical subsidiary of TotalEnergies, a French multinational energy company. This carve-out transaction, which is expected to close in the second or third quarter, includes four production sites in the United States, one production site in Italy, and customer relationships across the adhesives, sealants, packaging, tapes and labels, and coatings markets. Resin Solutions is headquartered near Philadelphia in Exton, Pennsylvania.
Lazard Frères was the placement agent used by Pacific Avenue and Weil, Gotshal & Manges provided legal services.
© 2023 Private Equity Professional | May 5, 2023
