Written by Saeed Azhar
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc (N ๐ has closed a $9.7 billion private equity fund, the largest since 2007, that seeks to invest in companies worth between $750 million and $2 billion, the bank said Tuesday.
The fund sits under the asset management arm of the Wall Street giant and is known as West Street Capital Partners VIII. It plans to invest an average of $300 million to acquire controlling stakes in companies in the financial and business services sectors, as well as healthcare, consumer, technology and climate change transformation.
โThis funding builds on our 30-year history in private equity, as we continue to expand the business and make our alternative offerings available to a larger group of investors,โ said Julian Salisbury, global co-chair of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. statement. GSAM, as the business is known, oversees $2.5 trillion in assets, with a private equity (PE) investment of $176 billion.
Goldman’s money managers are not alone in raising private equity funds. BlackRock Inc (NYSE:) has about $35 billion focused on PE strategies, and in the past year alone, it raised $3 billion to invest in PE secondary market deals.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: Investment Management also closed several private equity funds this year with more than $3.25 billion in assets under management, a spokesperson said.
The company’s credit and private equity platform has $40 billion in assets under management, including $25 billion in direct, secondary and co-investment private equity funds.
Investors in Goldman Sachs’ latest projects include pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions, family offices and high net worth individuals. The bank and some of its employees have also invested.
The fund has already backed the European pharmaceutical company Norgine. Nibo Corp., a road paving company in Japan; and Parexel, a clinical research organization, among others.
“The fund is well positioned relative to the market environment and we see opportunities across multiple sectors and geographies,” Salisbury said.
New risks such as inflation, rising interest rates, geopolitical turmoil and increased government oversight have contributed to increased market volatility and a slowdown in private equity deals in 2022, PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a recent report.
