Gregory Roth

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., a Wall Street firm that goes back nearly two centuries, announced that it closed on its fourth private equity fund, BBH Capital Partners IV LP, raising $517 million. The amount eclipsed the fund’s initial target of $300 million, which the firm set when it started raising money nine months ago. Like BBH’s previous funds, Fund IV will have a diversified focus, investing in both equity and debt, and both control and minority-stake situations. The firm, which has had a private equity group since 1989, manages $1.35 billion in private equity capital. While the fund plans to invest in a variety of industries...

The New York City Bureau of Asset Management, which manages $115 billion in assets from the city's five municipal pension funds, committed an impressive $880 million to four private equity funds, according to recent investment reports and a spokesman at the city comptroller's office. The largest of the four commitments was $300 million to Leonard Green & Partners' Green Equity Investors VI LP, a private equity fund with a $5 billion target. The Los Angeles-based consumer retail specialist is known for making investments in such high profile companies as Neiman Marcus, J. Crew, Whole Foods, Rite-Aid, Sports Authority, Petco and BJ’s Wholesale. The fund has been on a fundraising tear...

Encore Consumer Capital, a private equity shop that focuses on small consumer product companies, had an interim $100 million close on its second fund, Encore Consumer Capital II LP, according to a source with knowledge of the firm’s plans. The San Francisco-based firm, which oversees $175 million in committed capital, was founded in 2005 by Scott Sellers and Robert Brown, who came from Swander Pace Capital, another consumer products private equity firm, and Gary Smith, who founded Encore Associates, an affiliated firm that offers strategic advice to the consumer products industry. Encore Consumer Capital primarily invests in...

The Gores Group, a buyout firm that oversees $3.8 billion across three funds, has started raising a fourth fund to tap opportunities among distressed situations at the smaller end of the market. The new fund, the Gores Small Capitalization Fund LP, has a $300 million target. Information about the new fund was contained in memos from the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association, which finalized a $30 million commitment to the new fund at its Dec. 15 investment meeting, confirmed Yegin Chen, San Diego CERA’s head of private equity, in an e-mail message. Terms of San Diego CERA’s investment include...

As we home in on private equity winners and losers during 2011, the editors of sister magazine Buyouts wanted to give you a little snack from our big year-end issue, which comes out on Jan. 2, 2012. Since it’s been a truly “special” year (imagine my best Casey Kasem voice), here’s a countdown of the year’s […]

Despite a shell-shocked global economy, a strong majority of limited partners plan to continue their steadfast commitments to private equity, with 83 percent saying they will maintain or increase their allocations to the asset class in the coming year, according to a closely watched study by Coller Capital on investors’ attitudes and plans. And, in […]

Robert Borden, the South Carolina Retirement System’s controversial chief investment officer, announced today that he would resign to become a managing partner and chief investment officer at FTA Partners, a multi-family office in Chapel Hill, N.C., that has more than $1 billion in assets. Borden will stay on until February 2012, after which he will be replaced on an interim basis by Hershel Harper, the pension’s deputy chief investment officer. Borden has sparred publicly with the state treasurer and others about his compensation, his expenses and his proposal to create an independent company to help manage a portion of the pension’s $26 billion in assets. The state’s pension system is underfunded by $13 billion. As of June 30, the system had 6.8 percent of its assets in private equity, a level that ...

Parish Capital, a North Carolina-based funds-of-funds manager with $2 billion under management, has agreed to be sold to StepStone, two individuals not associated with the firms confirmed to Buyouts. The deal is expected to close in January of 2012. Terms of the deal were not available. As part of the deal, two of Parish Capital’s three founders, Charles Merritt and James Mason, are unlikely to have active roles once the deal closes, the sources said. The firm’s third founder, Wendell McCain, left Parish Capital in 2010 to start a new firm, Onset Capital Partners. The three founders, all of whom graduated from the University of North Carolina, founded Parish Capital in 2003. One Parish investor, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the sale, said: “We felt that they were smart guys, but they’ve had a ton of turnover, and when you have that kind of turnover, you start to feel ...

It must be international month in the Washington State Investment Board cafeteria. At its November board meeting, the $79 billion pension system made more than $550 million in commitments to two global private equity managers, including $300 million for London-based Apax Partners and its Apax Europe VIII LP, and $250 million for Actis’s latest emerging markets offering, Actis Global 4 LP. Washington State has one of the nation’s largest private equity programs, with $15.6 billion in existing private equity assets. Private equity represents about 25 percent of its main fund’s total assets.

Hiring new chief investment officers was the order of business this week at three of the nation’s pension funds in Illinois and Connecticut. The $25 billion Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund named Dhvani Shah as its new chief investment officer. She will start her new role on Dec.19. Shah comes to IMRF from the $90 billion New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, where she has been managing director of the fund’s private equity investments. She joined NYSTRS in 2009.