Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises Waterland Private Equity Investments on the fundraising for its seventh institutional fund

Clifford Chance advised Waterland Private Equity Investments (“Waterland”) a Dutch-based buyout firm, on the fundraising of EUR 2 billion for its seventh institutional fund, Waterland Private Equity VII (WPEF VII).

Waterland spent less than two months on the road after the initial launch of WPEF VII, which was heavily oversubscribed. The investor base comprises commitments from Europe (40%), the United States (42%), the Middle East (12%) and Asia Pacific (6%).

The buyout firm will target medium-sized companies in fragmented markets, with a focus on buy-and-build strategies in Northern Europe. Having recently opened offices in Manchester and Copenhagen, Waterland will expand its geographical remit to encompass the UK and Nordics, as well as its existing Benelux, German and Polish operations. 

The Clifford Chance team was led by Quirine Eenhorst and consisted of Ate Veenstra (tax, regulatory), Loes Mensink, Harmen Wielens, Lavanya Raghavan, Carolina Barry-Laso, Martin van Oyen and Stance van der Linden. The team was assisted by Clifford Chance London (Gerard Saviola, Alexander Chester, Simon Crown, Owen Lysak, David Boyd, Tony Stewart), New York (Paul Koppel, Jeff Berman, Ashwini Habbu, Andrew Nelson, Avrohom Gelber, Rebecca Pereira), Brussels (Brice Hillen, Philippe Hamer, Chloe Vander Velpen, Pierre-Olivier van Caubergh, Niek de Pauw, Sophie Delwaide), Frankfurt (Olaf Mertgen, Alexandra Uhl, Jan Grabbe) and Warsaw (Anna Biala, Tomasz Szymura, Abram Grzegorz) and Amsterdam (Manuel Manders, Marierose Kouwenberg, Michiel Sunderman, Mark-Jan Arends and Leen Kranenburg). A number of local law firms from Guernsey, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland assisted the Clifford Chance team on the deal.