Adveq co-invests in Dutch oil deal

Adveq, a Swiss fund of funds manager, has teamed up with Amsterdam-based HPE Growth Capital to investment in Airborne Oil & Gas, a Dutch hi-tech manufacturer in the oil and gas sector, according to a statement.

Financial details of the transaction were undisclosed. Adveq and HPE Growth Capital, formerly known as Holland Private Equity, did not respond to a request for comment at press time.

Airborne Oil & Gas, which was founded in 1995, delivers complex pipe solutions for demanding offshore applications to oil and gas operators and service companies. The business is headquartered in The Hague and has an additional engineering and manufacturing site in Gerona, Spain. Airborne employs more than 140 people.

HPE Growth Capital initially invested in the business in 2010, according to the firm’s website. The firm, which focuses on growth-stage investments in small to mid-market technology companies in the Benelux and Germany, typically takes substantial minority stakes and deploys between €10 million and 20 million per transaction. The firm is currently investing its HPE PRO Institutional Fund, a €155.8 million vehicle raised in 2010, according to Private Equity International’s Research & Analytics division.

For Adveq, this co-investment comes shortly after it held a first close at around €50 million on its debut co-investment vehicle, PEI revealed earlier this month. The fund, which came to market towards the end of last year, is aiming to raise between €100 million and €150 million. Adveq plans to invest the fund in approximately two to three years, and has already done “a couple” of deals using capital from the new vehicle, a source told PEI at the time.

While the firm can co-invest in larger transactions, Adveq mainly plans to do deals alongside GPs operating at the lower end of the market, the source added. The fund can invest in the whole of Europe but will primarily target the German-speaking region, the UK, France, Benelux and the Nordics, which is where the majority of Adveq’s GPs are based. It will mainly invest alongside the firm’s existing managers, although it can team up with other GPs as well.

The vehicle is Adveq’s first blind pool co-investment fund. Adveq didn’t participate in many co-investments pre-crisis because it felt the opportunities on offer were too cyclical, according to the source. This started to change in 2009 and 2010, and since then, the firm has been actively pursuing a co-investment strategy.