Biggest Nordic Buyout Firm, EQT, Starts New $1.8 Billion Fund

(Bloomberg) -- EQT Partners AB, the biggest private equity fund in the Nordic region, closed a new fund targeting mid-sized companies in northern Europe.

The fund has about 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) that it can invest in and around its home market, EQT said in a statement on Tuesday. “We believe Northern Europe is one of the most attractive regions for private equity investments,” Jannik Kruse Petersen, a partner and head of Mid Market Europe at EQT, said in the statement.

The fund has already committed to four companies, spanning the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Spain, with an industry focus that covers technology to medicinal chewing gum, EQT said.

Investors in the new fund include pension firms and other funds, including Danica, Danske Bank Wealth Management, DNB’s private equity unit, BNP Paribas Fortis and UBS Asset Management, among others, EQT said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Niclas Rolander in Stockholm at nrolander@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net.