Flexpoint raises $1.3bn for financial services and healthcare

Flexpoint Ford, formerly Flexpoint Partners, has closed its second fund on $800 million (€576 million) alongside a $480 million sidecar fund.

The sidecar fund will invest alongside the main fund on larger transactions and also has the ability to invest on its own in the event that the main fund becomes depleted, chief executive Donald Edwards told PEO.

The healthcare- and financial services-focused firm’s executives contributed $150 million of the total capital. All limited partners as well as the general partners are invested pro rata across both funds essentially making it irrelevant to investors which pool of capital is used in the transactions, said Edwards.

Flexpoint changed its name as the result of “special limited partner” and longtime bank investor Gerald Ford joining the firm full-time as chairman. Ford’s colleagues Randy Staff and Carl Webb have also joined Flexpoint.

As a result of Ford joining the firm, Fund II will focus more heavily on financial services than Fund I, said Edwards.

Former Bear Stearns senior managing director Stephen Begleiter and former Grotech Capital Group general partner Harris Hyman have also joined Flexpoint as principals. Begleiter will open a New York office for Flexpoint and focus on financial services while Hyman will focus on healthcare out of the firm’s Chicago heaquarters.

Flexpoint maintains a third office in Dallas, Texas.

Flexpoint closed its debut fund on $225 million in 2005. The firm was founded by Edwards, Ethan Budin and Charles Glew who worked together as principals of GTCR Golder Rauner, a healthcare focused private equity firm.