TPG bolsters European team

TPG Capital has promoted Karl Peterson, a San Francisco-based partner, to co-head its activities in Europe, according to a source familiar with the matter. He will assume the role next month, working alongside European co-head Philippe Costeletos.

The firm also recently hired Simon Henderson, the former head of UK buyouts at London-based European Capital. Peterson and Henderson will both be based in London.

TPG declined to comment.

Peterson, who re-joined TPG in 2004, currently leads TPG’s investment activities on travel, leisure, media and entertainment. He was previously president and CEO of Hotwire. Prior to his work at Hotwire, Peterson was a principal of TPG in San Francisco. Before that, Peterson was an investment banker in the M&A department and the leveraged buyout group of Goldman Sachs.

Prior to TPG, Henderson was a managing director-UK buyouts for European Capital, which he joined in 2005. He joined the firm from Barclays Private Equity, where he had been a director, focusing on UK mid-market buyout transactions since December 1995.

TPG’s last deal in Europe was last September, when the firm acquired a 35 percent stake in Lenta Group, a Russian food retailer, for $110 million. The deal was TPG's second since setting up in Moscow in 2006. Its first was in April 2008 when it wrote an $800 million equity cheque-the country's biggest private equity deal ever-for a 50 percent stake in SIA International, the largest pharmaceutical distributor in Russia.

TPG, which was founded in 1992, has more than $45 billion of capital under management.