Monitor Clipper mulls options for older funds

Monitor Clipper Partners decided last year to stop raising its fourth fund, choosing instead to work on a deal-by-deal basis and wind down older funds.

Now the firm is taking a path trod by other managers in such situations, exploring the possibility of restructuring or providing other types of liquidity options for investors in its older funds.

Monitor Clipper is considering restructuring its second fund, an $800 million pool raised in 2004, three sources told Buyouts. The firm is working with Evercore on the process, the sources said.

The most recent performance information available showed Fund II generating a 10.6 percent gross internal rate of return and a 1.6x gross multiple as of December 2013, according to a marketing document from that time.

Fund II had a gross asset value of $263.2 million, according to Monitor Clipper’s Form ADV as of March 31, 2016.

The firm also is considering options for its $500 million third fund, closed in 2008. It’s unclear whether the firm also wants to restructure Fund III or provide some other type of exit option to LPs.

Fund III had a gross asset value of $286.1 million, the Form ADV said.

Monitor Clipper Partner Adam Doctoroff and Partner and Chief Financial Officer April Evans did not respond to requests for comment.

The Boston firm last year suspended fundraising on Fund IV, after raising only about a third of the fund’s $600 million target.

“They had a lot of challenges trying to raise the fund,” an LP told Buyouts in an interview last year. “A lot of people were like, ‘let’s see the results [before] we re-commit.’”

The firm raised its debut fund in 1997, collecting about $630 million. Monitor Clipper was formed from the combination of Monitor Group’s consulting resources and Clipper Group’s private equity team.

Action Item: Partner Adam Doctoroff: adoctoroff@monitorclipper.com

Dancers from Boston Ballet ride a swan boat on the pond in the Public Garden, ahead of the company’s performances of “Swan Lake,” in Boston on August 21, 2014. Photo courtesy Reuters/Brian Snyder