Uncategorized | Mercury Capital Advisors

Mercury Expands Fundraising Capabilities with Appointment of Jeff Davis as Partner, Origination & Project Management

Posted July 9, 2024 by Muhammad Ibrahim Masudi

-Mercury Capital Advisors, a leading global placement and advisory firm and a subsidiary of Investcorp, today announced that Jeff Davis has joined the Firm as a Partner based in New York. As a senior member of the Firm, Mr. Davis will lead North American private equity and private credit origination, client relationships and project management.

Mr. Davis brings to Mercury over 25 years of financial services experience, of which 20 years have been spent in placement for private funds, collaborating with managers across private equity, private credit, real estate and real assets. He joins from FirstPoint Equity Capital where he was responsible for private equity and private credit origination and distribution. Mr. Davis previously held several leadership roles at Eaton Partners, including Head of Project Management and Co-Head of Private Credit, a business line he helped launch and successfully grow over a ten-year span. Complementing his placement and advisory experience, he has also had roles as an LP at Capital Dynamics and as a GP at GE Equity, a unit of GE Capital. He began his finance career in investment management and real estate investment banking at Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank.

John Franklin, Managing Partner commented, “We look forward to leveraging Jeff’s expertise to build upon our fundraising and advisory capabilities. He brings to Mercury deep industry knowledge, a global network of relationships, and significant experience launching strategies across major asset classes that will further strengthen the bespoke advice and service our clients desire.”

Mercury continues to provide a comprehensive one-stop solution for its GP clients across fund placement, secondary advisory, fund co-investments and direct placement. It has added several new clients in the last year, including Metric Capital Partners, Kennedy Wilson, and Pomona, while continuing to provide services to its long-standing clients such as Gaw Capital Partners, Coller Capital, and Orchestra Private Equity, among others.

About Mercury Capital Partners
Mercury Capital Advisors is a leading global private fund and investment advisory firm. Founded in 2009 as a spinoff from the Merrill Lynch Private Funds Group, the firm assists general partners and limited partners in fundraising and secondary advisory, co-investment and direct deal placement. The firm specializes in alternative assets including private equity, real estate, infrastructure, credit, venture capital, secondaries and special situations investments. Mercury has advised on over 100 fundraisings and closed over $100 billion in fund commitments since its inception in 2009.

With distribution coverage in North America, Europe, the Gulf and Asia, including Japan, the firm maintains strong relationships with a broad range of the world’s pre-eminent institutional investors, including sovereign wealth funds, corporate and public pension plans, insurance companies, endowments, family offices, wealth platforms, foundations, secondary funds, funds of funds and consultants.

Mercury Capital Advisors is a 100% owned subsidiary of Investcorp, a global investment manager specializing in alternative investments across four asset classes: Private Equity (Mid-Market Buyouts, Growth Investments, and GP Staking), Real Assets (Infrastructure and Real Estate), Credit (CLOs, Broadly Syndicated Loans & Structured Credit, and Middle-Market Direct Lending), and Liquid Strategies (Absolute Return Investments and Insurance Asset Management). Today, Investcorp manages $52 billion in assets, including assets managed by third party managers. Investcorp has 14 offices in the US, Europe, GCC and Asia, including, India, China, Japan and Singapore, and employs approximately 500 people from 50 nationalities globally.

Source: Business Wire

Capitol Meridian Partners Raises $900 Million for First Fund; Hits Hard Cap

Posted March 14, 2024 by Muhammad Ibrahim Masudi

Founder-friendly Capitol Meridian Partners invests in companies at the nexus of government and commercial markets

Capitol Meridian Partners (CMP), a Washington, DC-based firm that invests in companies at the nexus of government and commercial markets, has raised $900 million for its first fund, Capitol Meridian Fund I, L.P. (Fund I); the fund exceeded its target and hit its hard cap. CMP was founded in 2021 by Adam Palmer and Brooke Coburn, each, 27-year private equity veterans.

CMP Founding Partner Brooke Coburn said, “We are deeply grateful and proud of the blue-chip investor group that came together in support of our inaugural fund. Although CMP is a new firm, investors were drawn to our team’s 80+ years of collective experience investing in our target markets, our deep experience of building value via hands-on engagement and partnership with founders and management teams, and our ability to do larger deals opportunistically because of strong coinvestment appetite from our investors.”

CMP Founding Partner Adam Palmer said, “This is one of the toughest fundraising markets in decades. Nonetheless, capital is available for proven teams with a compelling strategy; we focus on the accelerating adoption of technology in the government and defense markets. Further, our longstanding presence in the Washington, DC market, together with our founder-friendly approach enables us to partner with and support entrepreneurs who are building companies and innovating for their customers.” He added: “We have already completed investments in five platform companies and have a robust pipeline of additional opportunities.”

More than 30 institutional investors committed capital to Fund I, including endowments and foundations, pension funds, fund-of-funds, insurance companies, and family offices.

The CMP Investment Approach:
• Sector Expertise: CMP is a sector-focused, specialist investor. Target markets are opaque, acronym-intensive landscapes with high levels of complexity and expansive layers of regulation.
• Deep Network: CMP brings together investment experience with a network of sophisticated executives and subject matter and value creation experts to drive growth, operational improvements, and value creation.
• Support Management: CMP is an investor, not an operator; CMP supports management teams as they work to build their businesses and create value.
• Significant Limited Partner (LP) Coinvestment: CMP has provided LP coinvestment in a number of investments to date, totaling approximately $300 million.

Fund I Investments:
• Altumint: a technology services company providing public safety and analytical solutions to state and local government customers
• Clarity Innovations: a provider of advanced data and cyber analytics services and software to the U.S. national security community
• LMI Consulting: a provider of technology-enabled management consulting, logistics, and digital & analytics solutions to the U.S. government
• PrimeFlight: a diversified aviation services business
• Project Nimbus: a defense technology business (transaction complete but not yet announced)

*****

About Capitol Meridian Partners
Capitol Meridian Partners was formed in 2021 to invest at the nexus of government and commercial markets, targeting opportunities where the firm can invest and drive value creation through active engagement with management. The firm draws upon the deep network of industry veterans curated over 27+ years of its principals’ experience in the sector to bring thoughtful strategic resources to each investment opportunity. www.capitolmeridian.com

Source: EIN Presswire

Gates-backed MetaVC Partners raises $62m for debut fund

Posted April 19, 2023 by Muhammad Ibrahim Masudi

MetaVC Partners, which is backed by Bill Gates, has closed on $62 million for its debut fund to invest in start-ups working with new advanced materials.

Besides Gates Frontier, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ investment fund, investors in the debut fund include Corning Inc and JSR Corporation. Nathan Myhrvold, formerly chief technology officer for Microsoft, is also an LP, along with two other investors whose names have not been disclosed, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The San Francisco-based firm was co-founded in 2020 by managing partners Chris Alliegro and Conrad Burke. Alliegro, based in Seattle, most recently was managing director of the Invention Science Fund, following eight years as managing director of the Invention Development Fund and 14 years as an executive at Microsoft. Burke, based in San Francisco, previously founded and was chief executive of energy materials start-up Innovalight, which was acquired by DuPont, and was a venture partner at Sevin Rosen Funds and Invention Science Fund.

“We’re delighted to help support innovation advancements in the exciting new area of metamaterials through our recent venture capital investment,” Corning executive vice-president Marty Curran said in a statement. “Corning’s capabilities and optimized precision glass products complement MetaVC’s investment opportunities related to breakthrough products in consumer electronics, 5G communications, automotive and clean energy.”

MetaVC invests in so-called ‘metamaterials,’ which are manufactured materials used in high-performance and energy-efficient products in computing, imaging, wireless communications and sensors. The firm’s investments include Lumotive, a producer of scanning sensors for anti-collision systems and consumer electronics applications, and Imagia, a creator of flat-optical lens technologies used in AR/VR headsets and other consumer electronics products.

Source: Venture Capital Journal

Mercury hires Glendower exec to lead on secondaries

Posted March 2, 2023 by Muhammad Ibrahim Masudi

Mercury Capital Advisors has hired an executive from Glendower Capital as partner to lead its secondaries advisory effort.

London-based Devrup Banerjee joined Mercury on 1 February, according to a statement seen by Secondaries Investor. At Glendower, where he was a principal, he was responsible for sourcing, structuring, evaluating, negotiating and closing a broad range of secondaries private equity transactions, including both LP portfolio and single and multi-asset GP-led transactions.

He began his career in Goldman Sachs’ investment banking division, according to the statement, before moving on to Deutsche Bank, according to his LinkedIn.

His appointment comes after Sabina Sammartino departed the business on Tuesday, as Secondaries Investor reported. Sammartino, who helped build the secondaries practice at Mercury, said she will communicate her next step in April in a farewell email.

In July, Mercury hired Vik Salh from Upwelling Capital as a vice-president of secondaries, as Secondaries Investor reported.

Mercury managing partners John Franklin and Enrique Cuan said the firm continues to see strong momentum in both GP-led and LP-led secondaries transaction volumes.

“With his extensive experience, we are confident that Devrup will add significant value and contribute to the growth of our secondaries business vertical,” they said in the statement.

Recent mandates for Mercury have included a preferred equity deal for European special situations manager Springwater Capital with Morningside Capital Management and LSV Advisors, and a strategic investment by 17Capital in a portfolio of private equity, real estate and credit assets held by Investcorp, the statement said.

Its longstanding client roster includes Gaw Capital Partners, Coller Capital and Valar Ventures, with the firm advising new clients such as NGP Energy Capital, 3i Group and Capitol Meridian in the past year, it added.

Mercury Capital was acquired by Bahrain-headquartered investment firm Investcorp in 2019. In addition to its secondaries business, it has been a regular placement agent for GPs such as Coller and Asia-focused growth investor Anchor Equity Partners.

Source: Secondaries Investor

eWTP Arabia spotlights Arab-Asian collaboration at SuperReturn Middle East

Posted November 2, 2022 by SANCHIT TANEJA

Dubai, UAE: eWTP Arabia Capital, a leading Saudi Arabia and China based growth stage venture fund, is co-sponsor of SuperReturn Middle East, the leading private equity event serving the Middle East region, held in Dubai from 01st to 02nd November 2022. At the event, senior leadership of eWTP Arabia will also be speaking at fireside chats and panel discussions, bringing to the fore eWTPA’s experience in bridging the innovation and funding transfers between China and the Middle East.

eWTPA is optimistic about the potential of the region, with strong growth indicators driving inbound investment. MENA-based start-ups attracted over US$1.2 billion in the first half of 2021, representing 64 per cent year-on-year growth. Of this 71 per cent was invested in the Saudi Arabia, UAE (mainly through DIFC and ADGM), and Egypt. The innovation and investment bridge that eWTPA has built between Asia and the MENA region is timely as regional markets attract global attention and unlock new forms and waves of interest and investment.

Jerry Li, Managing Partner, eWTP Arabia Capital, engaged in a fireside chat entitled ‘Investing in ‘Chinarabia’’ with Enrique Cuan, Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Mercury Capital Advisors. The discussion centred around Chinese technology, proven business models, technologies, applications, and products that can offer competitive advantages in a new region as well. With diminishing domestic growth in China, enterprises that sought to expand internationally were still slow to consider the MENA market. With eWTPA’s efforts and guidance, there is renewed interest in the region, and a growing awareness of the huge potential presented in a region with strong purchasing power, abundant capital, and preferential policies.

“There can be no doubt that digitalization and smart technology will shape our future economy. At eWTPA, we strive to utilize Chinese capabilities and technologies to realise the value and potential of a local digital ecosystem. Introduction of leading technologies from abroad enhances regional technology capabilities, and aids in the improvement of the local entrepreneur ecosystem”, Jerry Li said

He added, “We have a strong track-record of successful investments in sectors such as cloud services, fintech, mobile entertainment, gaming, cybersecurity, internet communications, healthcare, edtech, e-commerce, and logistics, and more. With our origin from Alibaba, eWTPA serves as a platform, and has facilitated 100+ Chinese tech giants to enter the MENA region through a considered Private Equity or buyout strategy”.

Jessica Wong, Managing Partner, eWTP Arabia Capital, was on a panel discussion titled ‘Where are the Exits?’ alongside industry peers from organisations such as Emerging Investment Partners, AlMal Investment Company, Gulf Islamic Investments, moderated by Melissa Guzy, Managing Partner and Founder, Arbor Ventures.

Jessica Wong said: “When it comes to exits, there is nothing more rewarding than the investment going public, and we have seen a marked increase in preference to list on Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul. Out of our portfolio companies, four from neutral host business, cloud communication, and mobile gaming sectors have already start the process towards IPO on Tadawul, with more exploring this route. What we like to call ‘Chinarabia’ is in reality now developing to be a strong opportunity for innovators and investors, and we are truly in the right place at the right time.”

eWTP Arabia Capital has operated from Saudi Arabia for almost four years, and has been at the forefront of major technology-driven transitions in the region. Digital transformation is regarded as vitally important for the success of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, and Chinese technology companies are uniquely suited to drive the next wave of high-tech projects.

Through its US$400 million Fund I, eWTPA has invested in 16 companies in the digital sector, 13 of which have already established themselves successfully in Saudi Arabia. Investments include the hugely successful Saudi Cloud Computing Company (“SCCC”) the kingdom’s leading provider of cloud Services and J&T Logistics, which is now the fastest-growing logistics provider in the country.

Source: Zawya

Mercury adds US secondaries advisory exec

Posted July 12, 2022 by Muhammad Ibrahim Masudi

The adviser and placement agent sees a growing opportunity in the US lower middle market, particularly in preferred equity.

Mercury Capital Advisors has brought a new hire over from the West Coast to join its New York secondaries advisory business.

The adviser and placement agent has appointed Vik Salh vice president of secondaries, according to his LinkedIn profile. Salh joins from Davis, California-headquartered advisory shop Upwelling Capital, where he spent six years.

Mercury’s London-headquartered head of secondaries Sabina Sammartino told Secondaries Investor that the firm will make more hires in the US in response to an uptick in lower mid-market deal flow, particularly in the preferred equity space. “Given where we are in the market, in terms of volatility and the potential gap in pricing expectations between buyers and sellers, preferred equity is an elegant way of bridging that gap,” she said. “It’s something we are very much aware of and think is going to be a good opportunity in the coming months.”

Earlier this week, Secondaries Investor reported that Mercury advised on a preferred equity deal centred on European special situations manager Springwater Capital. Morningside Capital Management and LSV Advisors provided capital to help the GP take advantage of opportunities brought about by market dislocation.

Volatile public markets are making it more difficult to value private assets, leading to greater risk aversion among buyers and an increase in the number of secondaries deals stalling and being repriced, Secondaries Investor reported.

Mercury Capital was acquired by Bahrain-headquartered investment firm Investcorp in 2019. In addition to its secondaries business, it has been a regular placement agent for GPs such as Coller Capital and Asia-focused growth investor Anchor Equity Partners.

Source: Secondaries Investor

Springwater Capital partners with Morningside Capital Management and LSV Advisors in a structured solution of a European portfolio of alternative assets.

Posted July 5, 2022 by Muhammad Ibrahim Masudi

Springwater, a leading pan-European special situations investment firm, received a preferred equity investment in a portfolio of European private equity assets with a value of over €100 million. Fresh capital raised will be deployed to make new investments in Europe, one of which has already been successfully completed.

Morningside Capital Management, a GP-led secondary specialist firm run by former CPP Investments professionals, and LSV Advisors, a New York-based special situations secondary fund manager, partnered on the investment. This transaction will enable Springwater to continue to build out its platform and to take advantage of the current market conditions to provide sophisticated capital solutions to companies with high growth potential whilst also broadening its investor base.

Mercury Capital Advisors, a leading private fund placement and secondary advisory firm, served as exclusive financial advisor to Springwater on the transaction.

Martin Gruschka, Founding Partner at Springwater, said: “Given the strength of our current pipeline, this transaction enables us to further invest in high quality opportunities whilst simultaneously expanding our LP base. Morningside and LSV are both very successful platforms offering creative and customized solutions and we look forward to continuing to build the relationship.”

“We are excited to support the Springwater team on its most recent investment through a highly creative financing structure,” said Henry Zhang, Founding Partner of Morningside. “With this structure in place, we look forward to expanding our partnership to pursue future investment opportunities.”

Sabina Sammartino, Head of Secondary Advisory at Mercury Capital Advisors, said: “We are delighted to have advised Springwater on this innovative transaction, leveraging the strength of their existing portfolio to raise the additional fresh capital they require to invest in new and exciting opportunities whilst also offering superior risk-adjusted returns to investors. We are increasingly seeing managers get creative in their pursuit of capital and this is a prime example where it works for all parties.”

About Springwater Capital

Springwater is a leading pan-European special situations investment firm headquartered in Switzerland. Established in 2002, Springwater provides sophisticated capital solutions to companies with high growth potential across Europe. For further information, visit www.springwatercapital.ch.

About Mercury Capital Advisors

Mercury is a leading global private fund placement and secondary advisory firm founded in 2009 as a spinoff from the Merrill Lynch Private Equity Funds Group. With offices in New York, London, Dubai, Tokyo, New Delhi, and Singapore, the firm maintains strong relationships with a broad range of institutional investors. Mercury’s secondary advisory practice provides comprehensive solutions to managers and owners of alternative asset portfolios seeking to leverage the secondary market to achieve their objectives. For further information, visit www.mercurycapitaladvisors.com.

About Morningside Capital Management

Morningside is a private equity investment firm based in Toronto, Canada, with an exclusive focus on GP-led secondary solutions. Morningside manages and advises on over $300 million in assets on behalf of institutional and high net worth clients. For further information, visit www.morningsidemgmt.com/.

About LSV Advisors

LSV is a New York-based special situations secondary fund manager with approximately $1.5 billion in assets and commitments on behalf of institutional and family office clients worldwide. For further information, visit www.lsvfinancial.com.

Infrastructure Managers Rake in $124B for
New Fundraising Record

Posted February 17, 2022 by Muhammad Ibrahim Masudi

Money poured into infrastructure funds at a record pace last year, powered by factors such as a post-pandemic rebound, a range of potential risk and return options and a wide array of investment targets – crumbling highways and bridges, 5G cell towers, data centers, renewable energy plants and battery storage installations.

EQT’s fifth infrastructure fund was by far the biggest to close last year, raising $18 billion, while Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners was next with $8.4 billion for its fourth fund. And the fundraising rush has continued in early 2022 with Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners closing its fourth North America fund at $14 billion earlier this month and Partners Group this week closing its third infrastructure fund at $6.4 billion, which it will invest alongside another $2.1 billion in separate accounts and other vehicles.

And with more and bigger managers becoming increasingly active in the space, indications are that this year will be just as strong for the asset class.

Last year had 117 infrastructure funds close overall with $124 billion in assets, according to new data from Preqin. While the fund count was down from 143 in 2020 and 147 in 2019, the total dollars raised was an
easy record, up from $113 billion in 2020 and $118 billion in 2019, per Preqin.

The average fund size was up as well, continuing a multi-year trend of larger and larger infrastructure funds. The average such fund is now about $1.5 billion, up from just $600 million in 2016, according to Campbell Lutyens data.

Some of the inflows last year were held over from the lockdown interrupted year of 2020. “Infrastructure had a strong bounce-back year after Covid impacted fund closings in 2020 and pushed out allocations to
2021,” said Eugene Park, principal at Mercury Capital Advisors.

Several other managers had large closes beyond EQT and Copenhagen’s funds, including Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, which closed its sixth Americas fund at $6.9 billion, according to Preqin data. In addition, Wren House raised $5 billion, Manulife closed its second infrastructure fund at $4.7 billion in November, and Ares Management raised $2.2 billion for its Ares Climate Infrastructure Partners Fund.
Other big managers raising big money in 2021 included Blakstone Group’s open-end infrastructure fund, which brought in $6.7 billion in the fourth quarter, said Jon Gray, the manager’s president and chief operating officer, on an earnings call in late January. And Brookfield Asset Management held a $7 billion first close of its energy transition fund in July, on its way to a target of more than double that figure.
And early this year, Apollo Global Management announced a close for its second infrastructure equity fund at more than $2.5 billion.

Various managers are still in the market with large infrastructure funds beyond Brookfield. KKR is targeting $12 billion for its fifth infrastructure fund, while I Squared Capital is aiming for the same amount for its third fund.

The longstanding low-interest-rate environment has been a big driver of money into infrastructure, according to Gordon Bajnai, head of global infrastructure at Campbell Lutyens. “A lot of new money is coming into infrastructure allocations, and most of that new money is going to high single-digit-yielding, downside-protected, long-term core infrastructure,” he said. “That’s because investors are trying
to replace negative-yielding fixed income investments with core infrastructure.”

One of the biggest areas of interest for infrastructure investors last year was the transition to a low-carbon economy – with more deals targeting renewable power, battery storage and other sustainability projects, broadly referred to as “energy transition” investments.

“One of the dominant themes last year was around renewables and clean energy,” said Christian Busken, senior vice president and director of real assets at Fund Evaluation Group. “Anything with that label attached to it was getting a fair amount of attention.”

Such investments grew thanks to a virtuous circle of increased investor demand and a growing opportunity set, said Iftikhar Ahmed, partner at Aon’s investment consulting unit. That’s clear from the success of funds from the likes of Brookfield and Ares, though many infrastructure funds now include an energy transition sleeve as well. “It’s a trend that’s not reversing anytime soon,” he said. “We expect growth in dedicated sustainable/energy transition funds and an increased focus on sustainable/energy transition deals by otherwise diversified funds.”

And Bajnai cites recent studies that forecast hundreds of billions of dollars of climate-related infrastructure investment in the near term.

“That’s a massive increase – more than doubling the speed of deployment in a few years,” he said.
Indeed, Brookfield had planned to close its energy transition fund at $12.5 billion, but later upped the target to $15 billion, CEO Bruce Flatt said at a conference in December. That $15 billion “could have been more,” he added.

It helps that managers can create a wide array of investment strategies from such assets. “Energy transition is a space that is growing so fast that you can easily allocate to different risk/return strategies within the asset class,” Bajnai said. That can range from a low-risk product built around proven technologies targeting a 5% return to something that’s “more technologically risky” with a 20% return target, he pointed out.

Another area seeing attention from both investors and managers is digital infrastructure, such as cell towers and data centers. “We’ve seen various groups raising capital around that theme, and I think
those areas are going to remain on everybody’s radar,” Busken said.

A Campbell Lutyens survey last fall of institutional investors found more than 50% of respondents expressing ongoing interest in energy transition investments, while 50% say they want more digital infrastructure.

Inflation could be another driver of flows into infrastructure investments, which often are seen as a hedge against inflation, “due to the nature of long-term contracts with inflation-linkage and the essentiality of the assets to economic activity,” Park noted. While it’s not entirely clear if infrastructure actually does provide protection from inflation, the belief is there, and as Park put it, “We expect inflationary concerns to continue driving allocations to this asset class.”

And the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that President Biden signed into law last November might also have only a limited impact on the space, some experts believe. Such spending programs tend to come with “long procurement processes,” Ahmed noted.

But that’s unlikely to be a drag on the continued growth of infrastructure investing overall. “We expect the overall fundraising to remain strong in 2022, if not even stronger,” Ahmed said.

Mercury Capital Advisors Boosts its US Origination and Distribution Capabilities

Posted February 15, 2022 by Muhammad Ibrahim Masudi

*(Picture – James Howe (left), Michael Dunham (right))*

Mercury Capital Advisors announced today that it has added James Howe and Michael Dunham as Partners to further enhance its origination and distribution capabilities. Howe and Dunham are based out of Mercury’s New York office. Mr. Howe will be leading Mercury’s US Origination efforts, while Mr. Dunham joins as a Partner on the US Distribution Team.

“We are thrilled to welcome James and Michael to the Firm. We continue to see a strong momentum of deal flow in 2022 across all our verticals: fund placements, directs, and secondary advisory transactions. With decades of experience in private markets, we are confident that James and Michael will contribute significantly to the next phase of our growth,” said John Franklin and Enrique Cuan, Managing Partners at Mercury.

Mr. Howe joins Mercury from Stanwich Advisors where he managed Origination, Distribution and Project Management functions. He started his financial industry career at UBS, where he was one of the founding members of the UBS Private Equity Funds group and managed placement teams. After a 14-year tenure at UBS, he joined Strategic Value Partners in a fundraising capacity for its private equity structured vehicles and hedge fund products. Mr. Howe then spent 9 years at NovaFund Advisors, a private equity fund advisory and placement firm that he established and built.

Mr. Dunham also brings a tenured placement expertise to the Firm after spending 16 years as a Partner at Pinnacle Trust Partners, an independent placement and advisory firm for alternative investments. Prior to joining Pinnacle, Mr. Dunham was a Senior Vice President at Trust Company of the West (TCW), a $265 billion asset management firm based in Los Angeles, CA, where he was responsible for marketing all investment products to insurance companies and other financial institutions. Earlier in his career, Mr. Dunham worked in Institutional Sales at JP Morgan Securities and UBS Securities in New York.

These appointments come on the back of a very strong year for Mercury in 2021, having advised on several fund closings including those of American Landmark, Ocean Link, MML, Valor Equity Partners, Gaw Capital Partners, Blue Torch Capital and Investcorp. Mercury continues to expand its global placement capabilities; it has currently local distribution presence in New York, London, Dubai, Singapore, Tokyo and Los Angeles covering institutions and family offices in North America, Europe, Asia and the Gulf.

About Mercury Capital Advisors

Mercury Capital Advisors is a leading global private fund and investment advisory firm. Founded in 2009 as a spinoff from the Merrill Lynch Private Funds Group, the firm assists general partners and limited partners in fundraising and secondary advisory, co-investment and direct deal placement. The firm specializes in alternative assets including private equity, real estate, infrastructure, credit, venture capital, secondaries and special situations investments. Mercury has advised on over 100 fundraisings and closed over $100 billion in fund commitments since its inception in 2009.

With offices in New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo and New Delhi, the firm maintains strong relationships with a broad range of the world’s pre-eminent institutional investors, including sovereign wealth funds, corporate and public pension plans, insurance companies, endowments, family offices, foundations, secondary funds, funds of funds and consultants.

Mercury Capital Advisors is a 100% owned subsidiary of Investcorp, a global investment manager specializing in alternative investments across private equity, real estate, credit, absolute return strategies, GP stakes and infrastructure. As of June 30, 2021, Investcorp Group had US $37.6 billion in total AUM, including assets managed by third-party managers, and employed over 430 people from 45 nationalities globally across its offices in 12 countries spanning the US, Europe, GCC and Asia.

Mercury Capital Advisors Adds Masashi Hirose and Eugene Park to Growing Team

Posted December 9, 2021 by Muhammad Ibrahim Masudi

*(Picture – Masashi Hirose (left), Eugene Park (right))*

Mercury Capital Advisors announced today that it has added Masashi Hirose as Partner and Eugene Park as Principal to boost distribution and project management efforts for the firm, respectively. Hirose is based in Tokyo while Park has joined Mercury’s New York office.

“We are excited to bring Masashi and Eugene on board to leverage their relationships and fundraising experience, and to strengthen our growing team. These hires will expand our capacity to manage the very strong deal flow that we experienced in 2021 across our fund placements, directs and secondary advisory transactions,” said John Franklin and Enrique Cuan, Managing Partners at Mercury.

Mr. Hirose joins Mercury from Teneo Partners, where he served as Director and led major capital raising mandates across real estate, infrastructure, private equity, direct loans, hedge funds and venture capital. Prior to Teneo, Mr. Hirose spent eight years at AIG Investments (AIG Japan Securities), where he served as Managing Director, Head of Marketing and Client Services and Product Specialist of Alternative Products. While at AIG, he helped grow the firm’s hedge fund assets from scratch to $1.3 billion. Mr. Hirose has also held senior-level roles at Pinebridge Investments (ex. AIG Investments), HVB Capital Asia Limited, Barclays and Paribas Capital.

Mr. Park also brings a robust industry background to Mercury, joining the firm after more than nine years at First Avenue Partners. As a Director in Project Management, Mr. Park forged deep relationships with GPs to develop and refine their marketing strategy, conducted due diligence, and helped amplify sales efforts across the institutional spectrum. He also completed significant capital raises across a variety of fund types and direct deals in key asset classes including infrastructure, private credit, and private equity. Prior to First Avenue Partners, Mr. Park was an equity research analyst covering healthcare services at BB&T Capital Markets and Madison Williams & Company.

These appointments continue to fuel Mercury’s success in 2021, as the firm hired senior distribution leaders – Matthew Haimes, Jill Cohen, Jennifer Tunney and Sara Modalal – and advised on several fund closings year to date, including those of American Landmark, Ocean Link, MML, Valor Equity Partners, Gaw Capital Partners, Blue Torch Capital and Investcorp.

About Mercury Capital Advisors

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