MVision senior executives launch private credit firm

Four senior members of MVision Private Equity Advisors, including founder and chief executive Mounir Guen, have joined two senior Spanish private equity professionals to launch a business that backs emerging private equity firms.

Meteor5 Capital invests in “exceptionally talented new private equity managers seeking strategic advice and development capital prior to raising funds from institutional investors”, according to its website. It prefers spin-out teams with top-quartile investment performance which are targeting between $300 million and $500 million for their debut funds and which are predominantly US-focused and focuses on buyout and growth strategies.

The firm registered Meteor5 Capital Fund I in January, according to a Delaware filing.

It is understood the firm will provide financing to new managers in the form of credit and is seeking around $100 million for Fund I. The firm intends to seek capital from long-term-focused institutional investors such as insurance companies and family offices, according to a source familiar with the firm’s strategy.

A Meteor5 representative declined to comment.

The firm’s partners include MVision senior managing director Loren Boston, founding partner Hussein Khalifa and managing director Dennis Kwan. The fourth person from MVision, Guen, was named in Private Equity International‘s Rainmaker 50 list of top fundraisers in April.

Boston is a seasoned private equity professional whose career history includes being president and chief operating officer of investment bank Hycroft, global head of origination in Merrill Lynch’s private equity funds group and head of Citigroup Global Markets’ private equity fund group.

It is understood that Boston has been appointed to lead the effort.

Before co-founding MVision in 2001 Khalifa was founding director and chief executive of UK corporate finance advisory boutique Archstone Capital. Kwan, who joined MVision in 2014, co-managed the private equity and infrastructure funds investments programme at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust in Hong Kong.

Javier Loizaga, former chairman of Spanish private equity firm Mercapital and current chairman of MOIRA Capital Partners, and MOIRA partner Sebastián Cerezo, are also listed as partners at Meteor5.

The six partners have collectively raised more than 350 private equity funds and have personally invested in at least 200 of them, according to Meteor5’s website.

The firm has a “strategic alliance” with MVision, according to its website.

First-generation GPs manage their debut funds in the most risk-averse fashion compared with later generations, according to data from CEPRES. The private equity data firm analysed around 4,700 investments made by 444 buyout funds between 2009 and 2016 and found that while new vehicles are not the top performers, first-time funds overall make better risk-adjusted returns than mature managers.

– Isobel Markham contributed to this report.