News | Corporate Finance

Friday 14th March 2008

SJ Berwin advised Target Partners, a Munich-based venture capital firm, on the first closing of its new fund, Target Partners Fund II, at € 61.5 Million. Private individuals, family offices and institutional investors made commitments, including Morgan Stanley, LGT Capital Partners, Bayerische Beamten Lebensversicherung a.G., RWB RenditeWertBeteiligungen AG and CS Strategic Partners. "We were convinced by the quality and professionalism of the team and the demonstrated success of Target Partners Fund I", explained Mr. Jamey Sperans, Executive Director of Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners. "Target Partners represents one of the most exciting opportunities to invest in Europe’s resurgent venture capital sector which, in our view, compares quite favourably to opportunities we are seeing globally."

"With Fund II, we are committed to continue the success we started with Fund I", stated Kurt Mueller, Partner at Target Partners. Since the year 2000, Target Partners Fund I (€ 112 Million) has invested in 17 young companies, of which 5 have been successfully exited so far. The new fund, Target Partners Fund II, has a target size of € 120 Million. "We plan to continue our successful strategy of investing in young technology companies with ‘home run’ potential for the fund", continued Mueller. The fund will mainly invest in companies from the German speaking countries, with sectors including IT, communications, Internet, media and clean-tech.

Target Partners is one of the leading early-stage venture capital firms in Germany. The firm invests in start-up and early stage companies and supports them during their build-out and expansion phases. With many years of experience as managers, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, the team at Target Partners supports entrepreneurs in developing and marketing products and services, building organizations, raising money and taking companies public in Europe and the United States.

The SJ Berwin team advising on the structuring of the Fund, the key documentation and negotiations with investors comprised of corporate partner Sonya Pauls assisted by associate Martin Brockhausen with tax advice from partner Dr. André Gloede assisted by associate Dr. Michael Hils, all from the Munich office.      

For further information, please contact:

Sonya Pauls, Partner on +49 (0)89 89 0 81 0 or by emailing sonya.pauls@sjberwin.com 

Ann-Charlott Steinbrück, Marketing & Communications +49 (0)69 50 50 32 318 or by emailing ann-charlott.steinbrueck@sjberwin.com

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• SJ Berwin is at the core of European private equity. SJ Berwin has one of the largest fund formation teams in Europe with 22 leading funds partners advising institutional equity providers and management teams on private equity and venture capital fund establishments.
  
  
• SJ Berwin has a reputation for innovation. Our extensive knowledge and history in the private equity industry means that we lead the European market on fund terms and conditions and are at the cutting edge of fund structuring.
  SJ Berwin are the recognised market leader in fund structuring and are ranked in the tier in both Chambers and Legal 500.In addition the private equity team has won a number of recent awards including:  
  
  - "European Law Firm of the Year (Fund Formation) 2007 at the Private Equity International Awards,   
  - “Fund Formation Team of the Year” 2006 at the Financial News Awards for Excellence in Private Equity Advisory Services,
  - “European Law Firm of the Year" 2004 -  2006 at the EVCA/Real Deals European Private Equity Awards,
  - ”European Law Firm of the Year" (fund formation) 2001 - 2007 by subscribers to PrivateEquityOnline and Private Equity International
  - "Private Equity Law Firm of the Year" 2004 -  2007 at the European Venture Capital journal awards 2004
  - "LBO Firm of the Year" 2004 at the Finance and Law Awards in Paris
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