Florida SBA, major secondary seller, brings $1 bln-plus portfolio to market

Florida State Board of Administration is shopping a large portfolio of stakes in private equity funds, many of which are high quality, sources told Buyouts.

The portfolio, which officially hit the market this week, is said to be valued at more than $1 billion, sources said. Evercore is said to be adviser on the deal.

It consists of stakes in high-quality funds, one source said, including recent-vintage funds from Providence Equity, Carlyle Group, Abry Partners and New Mountain Capital, the source said.

Florida SBA manages about $204.4 billion of assets across numerous funds. The system’s PE portfolio is valued at about $13.8 billion. It has a 6 percent target to PE, with an actual allocation of 7.1 percent.

Florida recently has been a major secondary seller. In 2016 the system shopped a portfolio with a net asset value of about $1.1 billion that also included high-quality names, Buyouts previously reported.

A year earlier, the system sold another large portfolio that included a big chunk of exposure to TPG, Buyouts reported at the time.

Park Hill Group ran both of those sales.

The system also sold a portfolio in 2013. At the time, system spokesman John Kuczwanski said the sale included funds “that were approaching or had exceeded the end of their fund term. We viewed this as both a portfolio cleanup exercise and a way to redeploy capital into new opportunities.”

Kuczwanski did not return a request for comment. No one from Evercore returned a request for comment.

Secondaries have hit deal volume records for the past several years, and this year is on track to yet again break records.

The first half saw about $32 billion of total volume, up 18 percent from the year-earlier period, Evercore said in its half-year volume report. Total volume last year came in at an estimated $54 billion, Evercore said.

Action Item: Read more about Florida’s portfolio here: https://www.sbafla.com/fsb/Home.aspx