Australian private equity firm Anacacia Capital said on Friday it has raised A$75 million ($77 million) for its second fund in just six weeks, attracting local and international investors after posting strong returns for its first fund.
The first close for the fund, reached on Thursday, was well above the initial target of A$50 million, Anacacia founder and managing director Jeremy Samuel told Reuters in an interview.
Anacacia is the second Australian buyout firm to close a fundraising this week. Larger CHAMP Ventures closed its seventh fund at A$475 million on Monday after more than a year in the market.
It has been a tough period for fundraising for many buyout firms, which have been forced to hold onto companies for years longer than initially planned because the market for sales and initial public offerings is weak.
But Anacacia's Samuel said many of the first fund's investors recommitted to Fund II, as well as a larger proportion of international investors. The final close in coming months has a target of up to A$150 million.
Anacacia has tripled the earnings of three of its top companies, including the popular Rafferty's Garden brand of organic baby food. It achieved a return of 4.3 times its initial investment for its laboratory chemicals firm Lomb Scientific, which was sold to Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc last year.
"Small and medium-size buyouts in Australia are an attractive segment. There is lots of demand, many business owners are dealing with succession issues and the available options for them are relativley limited," Samuel said.
Anacacia's first fund closed in 2007 and was named the world's best-performing private equity fund in 2011 by research firm Preqin, for funds raised during the 2006-2008 period.
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