SANTA MONICA, CA – April 14, 2020 – Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. (“Clearlake”), a leading investment firm that invests in the technology, industrials, and consumer sectors, today announced it has completed fundraising for its sixth private equity fund, Clearlake Capital Partners VI (“Fund VI”), with more than $7 billion in commitments. This brings Clearlake’s total assets under management to approximately $18 billion and comes on the heels of a record two years, as 18 of the firm’s portfolio companies achieved notable liquidity events resulting in over $3 billion of realizations. With an initial target of $5 billion, Fund VI was oversubscribed with total commitments of more than $7 billion, including commitments from the General Partner and affiliates, reaching its hard cap.
“At Clearlake, we are grateful to have garnered such strong support among our highly respected, global base of investors, and we are humbled to be able to continue our mission and strategy as the world grapples with this public health crisis and its effects,”said José E. Feliciano, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Clearlake. “We believe this support reflects our market-leading investment performance, disciplined and operationally-oriented investment approach across economic cycles, and ongoing commitment to our investors. Clearlake has many differentiators. We only invest in three core sectors – technology, industrials, and consumer – where our team has built exceptional expertise, and we have a flexible mandate, with the ability to invest in buyouts, corporate carveouts, and special situations. In this dynamic market, we believe our experience, focus, and flexibility will allow us to partner with more exceptional management teams as we build lasting value for our platforms and Limited Partners.”
“The Clearlake strategy has positioned our firm to take advantage of defensive growth as well as turnaround opportunities in this market,”said Behdad Eghbali, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Clearlake. “Clearlake couples innovative investing with our proprietary approach to operational improvement – O.P.S.® – which brings resources and expertise to companies and helps them build market-leading franchises. These are extraordinary times, and we believe our team is well-prepared to support existing portfolio companies as well as source new platforms as we invest this new fund. We thank our LPs for their support, and we are grateful every day for the hard work from our talented team at Clearlake and our portfolio companies.”
More than 200 different institutional investors are Limited Partners in Fund VI representing over 30 countries. In addition to the overwhelming support from longstanding investors, Fund VI garnered a number of prominent new investors, with approximately half of these new investors based in the U.S. and the remainder from regions including Asia, Middle East, Europe, and North and South America. Clearlake’s Limited Partner relationships include public and corporate pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, foundations and endowments, and family offices.
“The safety, health, and well-being of our employees at both Clearlake and our portfolio companies, business partners, and related communities remains our top priority, and our hearts go out to those impacted by this terrible virus,”added Behdad and José. “We’re truly inspired by the selfless healthcare workers around the world who are on the front lines, tirelessly caring for people in need. As part of our continuing commitment to the community, in conjunction with the closing of Fund VI, we are establishing the Clearlake Foundation which will benefit from a fixed portion of Clearlake’s fees from this fund.”
In mid-2019, Clearlake completed fundraising for Clearlake Opportunities Partners II, which makes non-control investments in middle market companies across Clearlake’s target sectors of technology, industrials, and consumer, with $1.4 billion in commitments. In 2017, Clearlake raised more than $3.6 billion for Clearlake Capital Partners V, L.P.
Notable realizations over the past two years include ConvergeOne, Lytx, Perforce, and Sage Automotive.
Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC acted as advisor and exclusive placement agent for Fund VI, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal adviser for the Fund.