People Moves – MGPE completes German team as new fund signs $700 million

Morgan Grenfell Private Equity (MGPE) has brought its new German operation up to full strength with the appointment of a fourth executive, and the group’s Frankfurt office is now up and running. Market reports indicate that the group also recently held a first closing on Deutsche European Partners IV, the euro 1.5 billion target vehicle launched in February.

The latest recruit to the Frankfurt team is Anthony Schweintzer, who joins as an associate from New York private equity house Joseph Littlejohn & Levy. Schweintzer previously worked with Hayes Lemmerz International in Koln and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in New York. Fellow associate Thomas Neumann earlier transferred from Deutsche Bank’s leveraged finance division in London. The pair will work with director Tom Leader, formerly of the London-based MGPE team, who last year led the group’s Dm900 million (euro 460 million) Vianova buyout. Dr Karl-Gerhard Siefert, the former CEO of Clariant, was appointed earlier this year to head the German team.

MGPE’s latest fund will be managed by the teams in London, Frankfurt and Milan and, at its target level, will be more than twice the size of MGPE’s previous

pan-European and Italian funds combined. According to an investor in the vehicle, the recent close was just short of the $700 million (euro 673 million) mark, or roughly halfway to the target figure. Going forward, MGPE plans a series of rolling closes, the first of which was scheduled to take place before the end of September. The fourteen participants that signed at the first close – among them Commercial Union, Fuji Bank, Ina and Deutsche Bank, which will itself provide 25 per cent of the fund – included both new and existing investors.

The closing seems to be timely: an informed source revealed that MGPE is co-leading the widely publicised Piaggio acquisition alongside Texas Pacific Group, while rumours are circulating that MGPE expects to close another transaction – its largest to date – during the final quarter.