Bertram Pushes Back Fundraising

Bertram Capital has pushed back marketing for its second fund until this summer, as first reported by VentureWire. I spoke this morning with Bertram’s Jeff Drazen, who said the move was caused by smaller deal sizes:

“Everything we’re buying right now is substantially under 5x EBITDA, but we originally forecasted paying 8x EBITDA or more. [Canadian publisher] Trafford is a good example. It’s a $10 million business we’re buying for a couple hundred thousand… I just don’t feel we can go out until Fund I is 75% committed, and we’re just not there yet.”

Bertram raised $350 million for its debut fund, and is targeting $500 million for the second one. Drazen reconciled the larger fund size with the smaller deal sizes by pointing out that most Bertram investments are viewed as platform plays, and that the ultimate investment size remains the same (around $70m per platform). It’s simply that the initial outlays are smaller, and that the platforms can do more add-ons than originally expected.