Private Equity News & Analysis

CBPE hires BC Partners exec amid fundraise

Rob McCombie has joined the Close Brothers spin-out, which has so far raised £300m for its first fund independent of its former parent.

-

CBPE Capital has hired Rob McCombie as an investment manager, bringing to 14 the mid-market firm’s number of professionals.

Rob McCombie

The London-based firm has also promoted Ben Alexander and Matthew Hutchinson to partner, while Andy Nelson and Anand Jain have been promoted to investment director.

McCombie previously spent three years as a member of BC Partners’ London-based investment team, before which he spent two years as a private equity-focused consultant for Deloitte.

We expect to be deploying the first capital from the new fund shortly.

John Snook

“We are very pleased to welcome Rob into the team at an important point in our development,” John Snook, CBPE managing partner, said in a statement. “Our fundraising for the mid-market is progressing well and we expect to be deploying the first capital from the new fund shortly.”

The firm has so far raised about £300 million ($497 million; €342 million) for CBPE’s Fund VIII, its first since gaining independence in December from UK investment bank Close Brothers. The fund’s limited partners include The University of Michigan, which approved a £10 million commitment, according to the university’s meeting minutes.

No target size has been formally announced for Fund VIII, but the firm is expected to raise a similar amount for the fund as its predecessor, which closed on £360 million in 2004 and has so far returned 0.35x capital to investors, with 10 investments as yet unrealised.

Investors in the previous fund included AlpInvest Partners, JPMorgan Asset Management, the University of Michigan and the Kuwait Investment Authority.