With a strong fundraising environment throughout Europe and a slew of open funds set to close this year, executive recruiters serving clients in the private markets should see increased demand for their services. 1Q broke records with the close of three mega-funds (each totaling over €5 billion) while 2Q saw the close of 20 additional funds—an 11 percent increase from the previous quarter. With five open funds aiming to raise over €3 billion, fundraising momentum will likely continue.
To capitalise on this flurry of activity, executive search firms need data that helps them quickly and easily find the right leaders for investment teams and portfolio companies. Here is how PitchBook—the most comprehensive private market database—can help.
Identify new private equity investors and first-time funds to find new clients
Given the low rates of turnover in private equity, it can be difficult for headhunters to find new clients, as many top firms or fund managers already work with preferred providers. However, although private equity investors are often slow to move on or retire, the total number of investors and funds has grown exponentially. In fact, in the last decade, the number of private equity investors has risen 28 percent, driving fund volume to record levels.
With comprehensive private market data from PitchBook, executive search firms can easily identify new private equity investors and first-time funds to gain valuable new clients and serve them throughout the lifecycle of their fund or career.
Identify recently closed funds to see who needs to scale
When a private equity firm concludes its fundraising activity, it is ready to start investing. In other words, a recently closed fund indicates that a series of transactions is about to take place as the firm adds new companies to its portfolio. To handle that influx in workload, the firm will likely expand its investment team.
With PitchBook, executive search firms can instantly identify recently closed funds, either by searching within the platform or setting alerts to receive notifications about relevant activity. It is an easy way for recruiters to prioritise their outreach: instead of indiscriminately contacting hundreds of firms to see who is looking to expand headcount, headhunters can work from a manageable, curated list of promising targets.
Identify active investors to keep your pipeline full
A period of active fundraising is followed by investing, which in turn often drives growth or restructuring. To guarantee a pipeline of assignments for the next three to four years, headhunters need to know which investors are active dealmakers, since working with these firms offers the most opportunity for staffing newly acquired companies.
With in-depth information on investors from PitchBook, recruiters can quickly and easily evaluate who would be most valuable to work with: Who has plenty of dry powder available and will likely be investing in the immediate future? Who has an open mandate they need to fill? Who has a strong, active deal history? Then, with access to investors’ contact information (including email address and phone numbers), executive recruiters can easily reach out to build valuable partnerships that build their business.
By working with firms ready to expand their investment teams or staffing newly acquired portfolio companies, executive recruiters serving private equity clients have successfully tapped into a valuable niche business opportunity. With the right data, they can better capitalise on the current strong fundraising environment to quickly and easily find new clients.
Does your firm have the data you need? Find out with our guide for executive search.
