European PE firm launching US credit fund

Bregal Sagemount, the New York based private capital arm of Bregal Investments, is launching its first dedicated credit strategy and has hired a former Goldman Sachs lending expert for the effort. Clayton Main, who spent 10 years at Goldman Sachs and was one of the founding members of the bank’s Specialty Lending Group, has joined Bregal Sagemount as a partner and head of credit, the firm announced today (30 October).  

The firm has raised $650 million for the new fund. 

Bregal Sagemount plans to lend between $15 and $75 million in companies, and in partnership with Bregal Investments, can invest up to $150 million. Target investments will be in growth sectors, including business services, software and technology-enabled businesses, information and media, financial services and healthcare. The fund will take control and non-control positions, and will make both equity and debt investments, according to the statement. 

“The credit platform is a complimentary extension of the existing equity growth fund and will focus on providing flexible capital solutions to defensible growth companies,” Main said in a statement.

“Since launching two years ago, our flexible capital approach has resonated strongly with market leaders in growth sectors.  In our direct conversations with those businesses, we have found significant demand for debt capital, and credit is a natural addition to our existing capabilities in buyouts, growth equity, and structured equity,” Gene Yoon, managing partner of Bregal Sagemount, commented. 

The US-based Bregal Sagemount is a growth-focused private equity firm that typically makes investments of $15 to $150 million in high-growth companies. Netherlands-based parent firm Bregal Investments has invested €7 billion in private equity globally since 2002 and is funded by a sixth generation European family foundation. 

Bregal was founded in 2002 to consolidate and grow the private equity investment activities of COFRA Holding AG, a European holding company for a privately-owned group of companies. The group includes a clothing retail organization and a real estate company and traces its origins back to two brothers, Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer. The Brenninkmeijers founded a textile wholesaling operation in the Netherlands in 1841 that started what is today a worldwide chain of over 1,800 stores.