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| Marleen Groen |
Marleen Groen founded Greenpark Capital, a $700 million global secondary private-equity investment manager, in 2000. Plans to close the firm’s first fund by September 30 2001 were dealt a blow by the turmoil that followed September 11. But it would take much more than that to hold back a woman who once marched through an ancient Indian rainforest trail between Colombia and Panama with a machete. Jungle, mountains, rivers, ticks, snakes and a giant spider couldn’t stop her then, so it is hardly surprising that the fund closed on target soon after.
Groen does not give up easily. After being forced a year ago to turn back 500 metres from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain at 5,896m, because of problems adjusting to the altitude, she went back this year and conquered it for charity. The oxygen level at that altitude is half that at sea level. “What can I say? I’m Dutch, I was born below sea level, my cells like oxygen,” she says.
Last month, Groen returned to East Africa and successfully scaled the extinct volcano in six days with 16 other members of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) on a charity trip that raised more than $150,000. A third of the money will go towards building a water pipeline for villages on the mountain; the other two-thirds will part fund an EVPA programme that helps charities to operate more efficiently and to charities of the participants’ choice.
“It was fun because we all knew each other and with all of us from private equity there was a lot of determination in the group,” Groen explains. “Every single person made it to the top whereas normally the average success rate is only 40%. Nobody was prepared to get left behind.” Groen, as determined as the rest, lost 5kg in the process.
Before starting Greenpark Capital, Groen was investment director at Coller Capital, another secondary private-equity fund. She also worked at WestLB and is a former head of M&A at SG in London.
Identifying winners
Secondary private-equity funds invest in existing private-equity investments held by investors in primary private-equity funds and directly in portfolios of companies held by institutions. By buying assets from existing primary fund investors midway through the assets’ normal investment timeframe, secondary funds have a better chance of avoiding early stage losses and of identifying winners.
Secondary private-equity funds are still relatively obscure and there are only about 20 dedicated secondary funds in the US and Europe combined.
Between 1% and 3% of the private-equity capital pool is recycled into secondary funds each year. Last year about $7 billion in private-equity assets changed hands in the secondary market, about four times the $1.9 billion in 2002. Estimates for the next three years suggest that there will be between $25 billion and $35 billion of assets for sale to secondary funds. Some in the industry expect total funds under management to reach $20 billion this year, up from just $3 billion in 2000.
Greenpark now employs seven investment professionals with a combined experience in the secondary market of over 30 years, a substantial amount given that the market has only existed in a meaningful form since the early 1990s. The firm specializes in mid-size and late-stage deals, typically those that have been over 70% invested.
The firm was started with third-party backing from RMF, a Swiss subsidiary of Man Group, although that stake has since been bought back.
Groen studied German language and literature at the University of Leiden and also psychology and economics. She did her MBA at the University of Delft and at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Groen started her career in 1986 doing corporate finance at Amro Bank in London. “When I was doing my MBA I was adamant that I didn’t want to go into banking,” says Groen, who once wanted to be a vet. “But I was persuaded to do an internship and was then offered a job. I came to London on a one-year secondment but have ended up staying nearly 20 years!”
Although she has as busy a schedule as anyone in the City, Groen makes the most of her holidays, getting as far away from work as possible. On one recent 10-day trip, she ventured into the three-volcanoes region, located between Rwanda and Uganda to observe mountain gorillas in the wild – a trip that requires you to travel with armed guards and is not for the faint-hearted. Groen still keeps her machete at her home in London.
