Nazca begins a new phase as a multi-fund private equity manager
The entity will increase its staff with up to ten new members. It is launching a vehicle of 150 million euros for investment in smaller businesses. Having obtained extensive experience, Nazca is reinventing itself as a private equity manager. The entity led by Carlos Carbó and Álvaro Mariátegui is leaving behind a single focus – common in Spanish private equity operators – and will from now on carry out twofold activity through two simultaneous funds which will be aimed at different parts of the market seeking opportunities, as Carbó states.
The manager is establishing a new vehicle, which will become the fifth of the firm, with which it plans to raise up to 150 million euros. It will operate alongside the fourth fund of 275 million euros, launched in 2016, and which today has only spent 25% of the resources raised in three purchase operations: McBath (resin bathroom products), Phibo (implantology solutions) and Herbex (fresh aromatic herbs), as the managing director of the firm explains. The plans for the new fund will involve establishing a new portfolio of around ten investees which require investments of 7 to 15 million euros – smaller companies than those sought by the previous vehicle.
This market share is where the first funds of the entity were aimed (Nazca I, with 100 million euros, and Nazca II, with 150 million euros), but the manager left behind this segment as it gained force in raising and establishing funds with greater potential for undertaking larger operations, such as Nazca IV, which intends to carry out transactions for 16 to 40 million euros. Nazca has been warned that neglecting this niche may become an error, as in Spain there are an abundance of companies within it and there is less competition than in other funds (especially international funds); two coinciding factors which increase the possibility of finding attractive transactions. Thus, in September, the managers of the entity chose to intensify operating efforts and double their presence in the industry.
The fund was named Nazca V, and has attracted the interest of different investors, 80% of which have previous links with the manager, as Carbó explains. Nazca expects to complete the first transaction of this new vehicle next January and to be able to unveil the acquisitions in the first quarter of 2019, as they are engaged in the analysis of several operations. The management of funds has involved an in-depth reorganization of the private equity entity, the bases of which have already been established.
From now on, Nazca will have two independent, specific teams for each one of its investment vehicles. Celia Pérez-Beato has become the manager of Fund V and Carlos Pérez de Jáuregui will lead Fund IV. Within this process, the private equity manager has appointed two new partners with extensive experience at the firm: Juan López de Novales and Daniel Pascual. They will join Carbó and Mariátegui (founders and managing directors) and Pérez de Jáuregui, Pérez-Beato and Ignacio Portela (partners) at the top of the firm.
Additionally, Nazca has begun a hiring process for different profiles. In total, it intends to increase the staff by 10 professionals, to a total of 27 employees. Some of these incorporations have already been completed, and those which are pending will be completed before February. This operational strengthening responds to the vocation of permanence of the multi-fund strategy of the manager. Thus, Carbó indicates that the current existence of two funds is not a coincidence, but is to “make the project more robust.”