eQ Asset Management held a final close at Euro 130 million for its eQ PE VI North investment program on 30 June 2014. The program was raised in only 9 months and exceeded its Euro 100 million target significantly. The program, which is the largest raised by eQ so far, consists of a Euro 100 million fund and a Euro 30 million mandate from a local institutional investor.

The eQ PE VI North –program invests in funds investing in unlisted small and medium-sized companies operating in Northern Europe. The program will invest in both primary funds as well as acquire secondary positions in existing funds.

Staffan Jåfs, head of private equity, comments:

“Manager selection is the key investment criteria in private equity – our team has a proven track record and more than 15 years’ experience of picking winners. Currently, the best managers are hard to access and offered almost exclusively to existing investors. All primary investments made from the program so far have been made to oversubscribed funds. Thanks to our longstanding manager relationships we have secured access to them. Our goal is to commit the program and get capital deployed as quickly as possible and we are therefore actively participating in the secondary market.

Private equity is a long-term and illiquid asset class, at the same time it provides above-average return expectations. Consequently, it suits pension investors, endowments and other long-term investors exceptionally well. We are pleased to welcome 35 investors in our new program - of those as many as 23 are first-time investors in eQ’s private equity funds. With the establishment of eQ PE VI North the private equity assets managed by eQ exceeds Euro 2.8 billion in total.”