AlpInvest North American funds chief Marek Herchel leaves firm

Marek Herchel, head of North American fund investing at AlpInvest Partners, has left the Carlyle Group-backed firm, spokesman Randy Whitestone confirmed for Buyouts.

Principal Eric Hanno has been promoted to managing director and is now leading North American fund investing at AlpInvest.

Why Herchel left the firm is unclear. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Herchel joined AlpInvest in 2004 from Fleet Fund Investors, where he managed the private equity portfolio. Earlier he was a senior analyst with State Street, monitoring PE commitments to 40 buyout and venture firms, an archived version of his profile on AlpInvest’s website shows.

Hanno rejoined AlpInvest in 2015 from Partners Group, where he worked on U.S. buyout and distressed fund investing. He was an AlpInvest associate from 2010 to 2011, his LinkedIn profile said.

Other executives on the fund-investing team include Managing Directors Maarten Vervoort, who leads the fund investing team, and Wendy Zhu; Principal Joseph O’Connor, and Vice Presidents Piet-Hein den Blanken, Serina Yu and Marleen Dijkstra.

AlpInvest focuses on primary fund investing, secondaries and co-investments. In April, the group announced the close of AlpInvest Secondaries Program VI on a total of $6.5 billion, which includes a $3.3 billion commingled vehicle and $3.2 billion in separately managed accounts.

The group is part of Carlyle’s Investment Solutions business, which has about $44 billion in assets under management. Solutions is led by Lauren Dillard, managing director, who succeeded former chief Jacques Chappuis at the end of 2015.

The Solutions business includes AlpInvest and Metropolitan Real Estate, which builds and manages real estate portfolios. The RE portfolios include primary and secondary fund interests as well as co-investments.

Last year, Carlyle shuttered its Diversified Global Asset Management fund-of-hedge-funds to concentrate its efforts on private-market secondaries, co-investments and managed account activities, Buyouts reported.

For the first quarter Solutions reported $11.9 million in economic net income, which measures both realized and unrealized gains and losses. That was off from $17.1 million for the fourth quarter.

Update: This story has been updated to include information about AlpInvest’s sixth secondaries pool.

Action Item: Carlyle’s Q1 earnings report: http://bit.ly/2qXE5M6

Photo of Marek Herchel courtesy of LinkedIn