Australia's Hostplus establishes US emerging managers program

The program will make allocations over the next three years to GPs running their first, second and third funds. “For Hostplus, developing and maintaining long-term partnerships with investment managers is critical to securing privileged access to successor funds and future deal flow,” said Sam Sicilia, CIO of Hostplus, in a statement. “More than anywhere else, managing relationships with market leaders is particularly important for access to private markets.”

Flexstone was established last year as an affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers through the merger of three existing businesses: Singapore’s Eagle Asia Partners, Switzerland-based Euro Private Equity, and Caspian Private Equity of the US. It seeks mandates from institutional investors to make primary and secondary investments as well as co-investments across private equity, private debt, real estate, and infrastructure strategies.

“We believe successful US emerging managers program members tend to deliver higher fund returns, on average, compared to the returns of their former funds. In addition, with their successes, when they become more established, emerging managers may become increasingly difficult to access, as LPs compete to get capacity,” said Nitin Gupta, managing partner at Flexstone.

Hostplus represents Australia’s hospitality, tourism, recreation and sport industries. As of June 2018, it had A$34 billion ($24.1 billion) in funds under management, including A$2.18 billion in private equity, A$3.1 billion in infrastructure, A$4.2 billion in real estate, and A$281 million in private debt.

Just over one-third of the private equity portfolio was deployed in buyouts, with 16.9% in venture capital, 11.3% in growth capital, and 20.8% in co-investment. More than three-quarters of this capital – or A$1.68 billion – was deployed overseas, with the US and China accounting for A$934.1 million and A$270.1 million, respectively.

Most of Hostplus’ offshore PE exposure is through mandates awarded to the likes of LGT Capital Partners, Hermes, IFM Investors, Lexington Partners, Partners Group, ROC Partners, Siguler Guff, and Wilshire Private Markets. It also has a pre-existing relationship with Caspian.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Australasia
• North America
• LPs
• Fundraising
• Fund-of-funds
• Australia
• USA
• HOSTPLUS
• Flexstone Partners