Private Equity News & Analysis

Thoma Cressey Bravo to split(2)

Thoma Cressey Bravo will divide its investment team in two for its next round of fundraising. Bryan Cressey will raise and manage a healthcare-focussed fund, and Carl Thoma and Orlando Bravo will raise and manage a software-focussed fund.

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Thoma Cressey Bravo will split its operations in half for its next round of fundraising, with partners Bryan Cressey and Peter Ehrich focussed on healthcare, and partners Carl Thoma, Orlando Bravo, Lee Mitchell and Scott Crabill focussed on the software and services sectors.

Carl Thoma

Thoma Cressey Bravo’s current fund, which closed on $765 million in 2006, will soon be fully committed. The firm said in a statement that as it considered its course of action for the next fund, it came to the conclusion that the split is “the most effective way to invest subsequent funds”.

Limited partners in previous Thoma Cressey Bravo funds included the Los Angeles City Employees Retirement System, HarbourVest, The Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management and The University of Colorado Foundation.

Bryan Cressey

Though each of the new funds will be raised and managed separately, the partners will continue to work together on existing funds, and will share administrative resources.

The firm did not say whether it will eventually divide into two completely separate partnerships.

The split comes just months after the firm lengthened its name to include Bravo, in recognition of his “substantial contributions” after nearly a decade of employment there.

Orlando Bravo

This is not the first time managing partners Carl Thoma and Bryan Cressey have seen their firm transformed, be it in name or composition. In 1998, Thoma and Cressey spun out of Chicago-based private equity firm GTCR, which originally launched in 1980 as Golder, Thoma, Cressey, and is now called GTCR Golder Rauner.