Clearlake Capital Group completed the fundraising for its sixth private equity fund, Clearlake Capital Partners VI, with more than $7 billion in commitments.
The oversubscribed fund brings the firm’s total assets under management to approximately $18 billion and comes on the heels of a record-setting two years, as 18 of the firm’s portfolio companies achieved notable liquidity events resulting in over $3 billion of realizations.
Notable realizations over the past two years include ConvergeOne, Lytx, Perforce, and Sage Automotive.
Fund VI had an initial target of $5 billion and reached its hard cap at $7 billion.
“At Clearlake, we are grateful to have garnered such strong support among our highly respected, global base of investors, and we are humbled to be able to continue our mission and strategy as the world grapples with this public health crisis and its effects,” said Jose Feliciano, co-founder and managing partner at Clearlake.
The firm established the Clearlake Foundation to support the community. The foundation will benefit from a fixed portion of Clearlake’s fees from the new Fund VI.
More than 200 different institutional investors are limited partners in the new fund representing more than 30 countries. Half of the new investors in the fund are based in the U.S. The investor sets include public and corporate pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, foundations and endowments and family offices.
As previously reported by Alternatives Watch, institutional allocations to Clearlake funds so far this year have been at the Teachers Retirement System of Illinois; Maryland State Retirement & Pension System; Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System; Oregon Investment Council; Teachers’ Retirement System of Texas; and Michigan Bureau of Investments.
In mid-2019, Clearlake completed fundraising for Clearlake Opportunities Partners II, which makes non-control investments in middle market companies across Clearlake’s target sectors of technology, industrials, and consumer, with $1.4 billion in commitments. In 2017, Clearlake raised more than $3.6 billion for Clearlake Capital Partners V, L.P.
Clearlake invests in three core sectors – technology, industrials and consumer – where the firm has built exceptional expertise and the flexible mandate and ability to invest in buyouts, corporate carveouts and special situations.
“In this dynamic market, we believe our experience, focus and flexibility will allow us to partner with more exceptional management teams as we build lasting value for our platforms and limited partners,” Feliciano added.
“The Clearlake strategy has positioned our firm to take advantage of defensive growth as well as turnaround opportunities in this market,” said Behdad Eghbali, co-founder and managing partner at Clearlake.
