Private Advisors closes co-invest fund on $120m

Virginia-based Private Advisors has held a final close on $120 million for its third co-investment fund, according to a statement.

Private Advisors, the boutique firm of New York Life Investments, closed the fund above its $100 million target and just shy of its $125 million hard-cap. The fund was in market for 12 months. More than half of the fund’s capital came from existing investors.

Fund III will make co-investments in lower mid-market private equity transactions. The fund will invest alongside North American GPs Private Advisors has previously backed as well as groups to which the firm has not previously committed primary capital. Approximately 35 percent of Fund III has already been committed or invested.

“The most important thing associated with any co-investment that we make is quality of sponsor,” Chris Stringer, partner and head of private equity at Private Advisors, told Private Equity International. “While about 40 percent of the deals we've done historically are with fund managers where we haven't backed their fund, we have to have had a long enough relationship and be able to assess the quality of the underlying GP as a first element of our diligence.”

Private Advisors aims to invest between $3 million and $10 million in each co-investment and will focus primarily on buyout and growth equity transactions. The firm's previous co-investment fund, a 2010 vintage, closed on $70 million.

Private Advisors has co-invested in 51 transactions in the lower mid-market in the past decade, a segment with more than 100 co-investment deals per year, according to the firm.

The closing of the co-investment fund vehicle comes after the firm closed its Private Advisors Small Company Buyout Fund V last July on $279 million, above its $250 million target. A parallel Employee Retirement Income Security Act fund raised $61 million. The funds, which total $340 million, were in the market for about 18 months, PEI reported at the time.