CapVest raising €50m in Ireland

A major European private equity house is raising €50 million from Irish individuals and institutions to form part of a €500 million debt-equity fund.

London-based CapVest, which owns the Findus and Young's seafood brands, is currently raising €500 million across Europe to fund potential leveraged buyout opportunities.

The company has been working with NCB in raising cash from a combination of Irish high net worth individuals and financial institutions.

CapVest principal, Séamus FitzPatrick said that the fund expects to raise €50 million in this country, and added that this should be completed by April.

"We've been raising money across Europe, in Scandinavia, France, the UK and Ireland," he said.

Mr FitzPatrick, who is originally from Belturbet, Co Cavan, said that while Irish investors have tended to lean towards property in recent years, many of them are now looking for new opportunities, including private equity.

"There's been an awful lot of interest, we've been very well received, it's been very good,there's a real appetite for private equity here," he said. Mr FitzPatrick said that CapVest is also interested in investment opportunities in this country. CapVest is a mid-market private investment house focused on leveraged buyouts, that is buyouts featuring a combination of debt and equity.

Last year it bought the €450 million-a-year Findus frozen food business from its Swedish owners. Through its vehicle, Foodvest, it combined this with Young's seafood operation, which it purchased five years ago, to create one of Europe's biggest frozen food operations.

It was subsequently involved in the high profile race to buy the Birds Eye business from Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever where one of the other bidders was a consortium led by the Kerry Group.

Unilever sold Birds Eye to Permira for £1.7 billion in August. It was one of the bigger private equity deals done in Europe last year.

CapVest also owns the biggest bread producer in the Baltic region, Vaasan and Vaasan. Mr FitzPatrick founded CapVest with a colleague, Randy Shure, in 1999. Both men had worked for Bankers Trust in London previous to that.