Munich Private Equity Partners (MPEP) has started fundraising for its fifth fund-of-funds program. Like the predecessor funds, MPEP V will invest in funds focusing on the North American and European lower mid-market buyout segments. The fund’s structure, with two separate vehicles, allows professional investors to flexibly chose their regional allocation at the time of investment. MPEP V will be an actively managed fund without reference to an index.
MPEP’s existing investor base includes pension funds, insurance companies, asset managers, banks, foundations, and family offices. For the two vehicles of its fifth investment program, as with its predecessor, the private equity specialist is targeting a total of €300 million of capital commitments and expects to commit to 10 to 12 lower mid-market buyout funds per investment region.
“In volatile markets, the expertise of management teams is more important than ever. Managers with a proven track record and ability of further developing companies are in extremely high demand and are being offered significantly more capital by investors than they can accept, even in today’s market. New investors often only have a chance to gain access if they spent years of building personal relationships. Since our inception in 2011, we have completed as investment manager more than 100 buyout fund investments and built a reliable network of best-in-class lower mid-market managers in Europe and North America. With some of our managers, we have already been investing for three fund generations”.
Christopher Bär, Managing Director at MPEP.
Selection criteria include market-leading performance in previous investment programs, significant manager alignment, competitive sourcing advantages, and proven experience in the strategic and operational improvement of companies through all market and economic cycles. MPEP V is also classified as an Article 8 product according to the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). As with all investments, investing in this product may also entail risks such as market volatility and company-specific risks, liquidity risk, or currency risks. Further details can be found in the offering document.
The previous program, MPEP IV, closed in December 2022 with capital commitments of €392 million, well above its target of €300 million. The final subscription amount was also significantly higher than the capitalization of the MPEP III program, which also closed well above target with institutional investors committing €162 million. The average gross multiple of all 83 full realizations to date within the lower mid- and mid-market strategy of MPEP programs I-IV Europe and North America equals 4.0x (from 1 January 2016 to 31 May 2023, MPEP figures).
