EQT, a global investment firm, needed a little more than two years to collect its biggest fund ever. EQT X came in at 22 billion euros ($24 billion) in total commitments, making it one of the largest pools ever raised in all of private equity.
EQT, of Stockholm, is a global investment firm with 232 billion euros in total assets under management. In private equity, the firm focuses on health care, technology, business services, and industrial technology. EQT, like many firms, has several different funds including pools that target venture, life sciences, growth investing, real estate, and infrastructure. EQT X has announced seven investments since June 2022, including its buy of Envirotainer, Zeus, Billtrust, and Dechra Pharmaceuticals. Fund X is 30% to 35% invested, said Eric Liu, head of North American private equity at EQT.
EQT X ended up exceeding its target of 20 billion euros ($21.6 billion). It also weighed in about 40% bigger than EQT’s last pool, which collected 15.6 billion euros in 2021. While large, EQT X isn’t the biggest PE fund ever. That title currently belongs to CVC Capital Partners, which raised 26 billion euros in July.
Fundraising for EQT X began in January 2022, meaning the firm was in the market about two years, said Liu. The fund’s investor base included traditional LPs like insurance companies, as well as pension and sovereign wealth funds, Liu told Coins2Day. EQT sought to expand its private wealth segment to include more private wealth investors, including family offices and high-net-worth individuals, he said. Private wealth will be “an important part of our strategy moving forward,” Liu said.
Private equity fundraising plunged to a six-year low in 2023, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, which cited Preqin data. One reason for the fundraising slowdown was the lack of mergers last year. This meant many private equity firms weren’t able to exit their deals.
Liu, who is also co-head of the global health care sector team at EQT, said mergers have started to normalize this year. He pointed to three deals during the past two weeks. The first came when KKR on Feb. 14 agreed to buy a stake in Cotiviti from Veritas Capital, in a transaction that was said to value the health care technology company at $10 billion to $11 billion.
On Monday, New Mountain made an offer to buy the remaining portion of R1 RCM, a health care tech company, that it didn’t own for $13.75 a share, according to a regulatory filing. The news caused R1 shares to soar more than 25%, valuing the company at about $6 billion. Lastly, Thomas H. Lee Partners agreed to buy Agiliti on Monday, in a deal that values the medical inventory management services provider at $2.5 billion.
“The deal market is coming back to life,” Liu said.