General Partners

Strong private equity activity this year has helped boost Wisconsin Investment Board’s private equity portfolio on track to easily surpass its benchmark returns.

The capital solutions group was formed to combine the bank’s GP-led secondaries advisory activity with its efforts to source capital for direct and co-investments.

Nexus’s fund is young compared to most GP-led deals, though some recent transactions have involved younger assets in what appears to be something of an expansion of the scope of the strategy.

Investcorp’s Strategic Capital Group, launched in 2019, is led by Anthony Maniscalco, formerly co-head of Anteil Capital Partners, Credit Suisse’s GP stakes business.

GPI was founded in 2016 by managing partners Khai Ha, Alex Migon and William Royan, all ex-members of Ontario Teachers’ high-conviction equities group.

The deal, unusual for a pension, is a structure that has traditionally been used by banks and other financial institutions to trim down private equity holdings while still retaining exposure to certain GPs.

In formalizing the GP-led strategy, Kline Hill joins several other firms like TPG, Blackstone Group and Partners Group that are building separate teams, and funds, to pursue such deals.

As GP-led processes continue gathering momentum and LP portfolio deals are likely to surge on pent up demand, Proskauer partners Mike Suppappola and Chris Robinson highlight key focus areas for buyers.

LPs, who may already be committed to an older fund that is subject to a secondaries process, can also choose to directly invest through a passive co-investment in assets moving out of the fund.

The need for transparency, always a vital aspect of executing a GP-led deal, takes on greater significance when external M&A buyers express interest in picking off choice assets.