Multi-strategy private equity firm Siguler Guff & Company, which along with its affiliates has over $10 billion of assets under management, has closed its new commingled or pooled fund Siguler Guff BRIC Opportunities Fund III, LP (BRIC III) at around $650 million, as per a company statement. Siguler Guff manages funds of funds across strategies like distressed investments, real estate, small buyout besides direct investment funds in Russia.
BRIC III seeks to assemble a diversified portfolio of investments and co-investments in the emerging markets, with a primary focus on Brazil, Russia, India and China. It is a little over a quarter less than its predecessor BRIC II under which it raised $893 million in August 2007. The first fund in the series BRIC had raised $610 million in April 2005.
Siguler Guff said it has also closed three emerging markets-focused separate accounts during BRIC III fundraising.
Siguler Guff has been investing in the emerging markets since the early 1990s and in 1995 became the first US PE firm to invest in Russia. In 2005 it became the first private equity firm to raise a multi-manager fund targeting the BRIC economies and a year later became the first BRIC private equity fund of funds manager to establish an office in China.
“We look forward to continuing to use our extensive experience in these regions to create value for our clients," said Drew Guff, MD and founding partner of Siguler Guff.
"We seek to invest opportunistically within the emerging markets by exploiting areas of inefficiency and leveraging the high-growth characteristics of these regions," said Ralph Jaeger, MD and portfolio manager of the firm's emerging markets funds.
New York-headquartered Siguler Guff is involved in three lines of business: multi-manager funds, direct investment funds and separate accounts.
Siguler Guff has invested in over 380 private equity funds though its funds. The firm, which also provides discretionary private equity advisory services through Siguler Guff Advisers, has offices in Boston, Chicago, Moscow, Shanghai and So Paulo, and a local affiliate office in Mumbai.
In India, Siguler Guff has invested in several home-grown private equity funds besides direct investments in unlisted private sector lender Catholic Syrian Bank and gold loan retailer Manappuram Finance.
Last year, Praneet Singh, who headed Mumbai office of Siguler Guff, moved to New York to help the firm expand its investments in emerging market private equity funds. Singh, a managing director with the multi-strategy private equity firm, continues to manage the India investments of the firm. He is a member of the investment committees for the BRIC Opportunities Funds.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)