Bain Capital has brought in €4.35 billion (about $5.1 billion) for its fifth European buyout fund, according to Bloomberg, surpassing both its initial target and the size of the firm's previous Europe fund by nearly 25% each. The close continues a busy stretch of fundraising for Bain Capital, including a $9.4 billion flagship vehicle that wrapped up in September and a $720 million life sciences fund that closed in May 2017.
After all, you need a healthy stockpile of cash to pursue deals like Bain Capital's $18 billion acquisition of the memory chip unit previously owned by Toshiba, which was finalized this spring after more than a year of drama.
At least one of the firm's high-profile deals, however, has turned sour: its $6.6 billion takeover of the now-bankrupt Toys R Us, which was conducted along with KKR in 2005. Congress has confronted the firms over their actions as the owners of Toys R Us, and cries have been raised for Bain Capital and KKR to pay the severance owed to tens of thousands of the toy store's former employees.
While only one buyout fund closed in the US this year has topped the $5 billion mark—a $7 billion effort from American Securities, per the PitchBook Platform—Bain Capital is the latest of a handful of firms to reach such heights in Europe over the past six-plus months. Here are the headliners:
Those mega-funds are part of a larger shift in LP dollars from one side of the Atlantic to the other during 2018, building on the momentum that began with a €16 billion fund from CVC Capital Partners last year, one of Europe's largest in recent memory.
Related read: Europe surpasses the US in PE fundraising in 2018