ECI 12 closes at £1bn hard cap

26/09/2023
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Chris Watt Tom Wrenn
  • ECI 12 hits £1 billion hard cap, beating £900 million target and marking a 40%+ increase on its £700 million predecessor fund
  • Strong reup rate of 95% driven by market leading returns across recent funds, supplemented by over £300 million of new capital from across the globe, with significant growth from US, Europe and Asia
  • Fund was oversubscribed at final close with excess demand of over £250m above the hard cap despite the widely reported challenging fundraising environment

We are pleased to announce the final closing of our twelfth buyout fund, ECI 12. The fund reached its hard cap of £1 billion, beating its target of £900 million.

This achievement is especially notable given the widely reported private equity fundraising doldrums over the past 12 months. This result, alongside a strong re-up rate of 95% from existing investors reflects the strength of ECI’s track record, with two of ECI’s three most recent funds marked as the top performers in Europe in their respective vintages. ECI 12 has also attracted c.£300m of new capital, with high quality investors from across the globe, including North American pension plans, European foundations as well as capital from Asia.

The ECI 12 fundraise represents a 40%+ growth on ECI’s previous £700m ECI 11 fund, and was significantly oversubscribed at final close.

Chris Watt and Tom Wrenn
Chris Watt and Tom Wrenn

This is our biggest ever fund, and we’re particularly proud to have exceeded our target and to be oversubscribed, given the difficulties the fundraising market is currently experiencing. This is a reflection of our ability to generate market leading returns, with particular success across our last three fund vintages. Ultimately it is testament to the firm and the team’s ability to identify high-growth, resilient companies, and to support fantastic management teams to drive sustainable growth.

We are incredibly grateful to the large proportion of existing investors for their continued support, many of whom have entrusted us with their capital for over 30 years. We’re also delighted to have secured several new international investors and look forward to building long-standing strategic relationships with them.”

Chris Watt

Managing Partner, ECI

Resilience is more important than ever in today’s economic climate, so with our new fund we’re going to continue our successful formula of looking for resilient business models and fantastic management teams operating in high growth markets. This will be our 12th single strategy fund with consistent fund on fund growth, demonstrating our significant experience understanding how to help these businesses grow, whether that’s organically or through M&A, in the UK or at a global scale. As a case in point, we recently announced our largest ever investment – €300 million – in Commify, the European leader in business messaging solutions to Local Enterprises.  The investment will help drive the company’s expansion through further acquisitions in both new European markets and in the US.”

Tom Wrenn

Managing Partner, ECI

Advisors

Macfarlanes LLP acted as lead legal counsel for ECI 12, having been ECI’s Fund Advisor since ECI 7 in 2000.   

A record period of deployment for ECI in Q4 2024

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