Paine & Partners raise $893M for new agriculture fund

Paine & Partners, a global private equity firm focused on investing in food and agribusiness has announced that they’ve closed $893 million in capital commitments for their fourth fund.

Paine & Partners reports that they had their first closing in July and their final close on December 18, 2014 and that the fund was oversubscribed. In the new fund, Paine & Partners said that they’ve expanded their investor base to include new regions, including the Middle East, and that they continue to experience high participation rates from endowments and family offices. Paine & Partners said that they will continue to focus on investing in the global food and agribusiness industry where it they’ve already has deployed more than $1 billion of equity capital over the last decade.

“We are excited to continue our leadership in food and agribusiness investing with the closing of Fund IV, which is the largest, dedicated food and agribusiness private equity fund,” said W. Dexter Paine (Pictured above), Chairman, CEO and a founding Partner of Paine & Partners. “Fund IV’s swift close and oversubscription are a testament to Paine & Partners’ expertise deploying a thesis-driven approach to successfully identify, evaluate and invest in the most attractive areas in the space. We appreciate the support from our Limited Partners – both long-standing and new – who have entrusted Paine & Partners as stewards of their capital, and we look forward to investing through Fund IV.”

Kevin Schwartz, President of Paine & Partners and a founding Partner of Paine & Partners, said, “The food and agribusiness sector is underserved from a private equity perspective, and Fund IV will benefit from this dynamic by meeting the demand for investment across the food and agribusiness value chain. We will continue to focus on the upstream sectors of the agribusiness value chain and will also pursue opportunities downstream where we have developed specific investment theses. Through our proprietary research and extensive network, we continue to identify value and to seek complex deals that provide us attractive entry valuations. In addition, our deep bench of seasoned operating professionals will enhance our ability to drive growth and unlock value in our investments.”

Paine & Partners focuses on the food and agribusiness industry globally, and its principals, through a predecessor fund, have made strategic investments in Seminis, then the world’s leading global developer, producer and marketer of vegetable and fruit seeds; and Advanta, at the time, the largest independent agronomic seed company in the world. Paine & Partners also invested in Icicle Seafoods, a leading producer, harvester and processer of salmon, pollock, halibut, cod, crab and other seafood products with operations in North and South America and sales globally.

Paine & Partners’ most recent investments include Sunrise Growers~Frozsun Foods, a leading value-added frozen fruit processor and marketer; Eurodrip, a global manufacturer and supplier of drip irrigation solutions; Verdesian Life Sciences, a U.S.-based plant health and nutrition investment platform; Scanbio Marine Group, a leading Norwegian producer of fish protein concentrate, fish meal, and fish oil; and Costa Group, Australia’s largest integrated grower, packer and marketer of fresh fruits and vegetables.

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