Leaders in middle market private equity

Apogem Capital leverages our deep networks and data to proactively develop relationships with established and emerging managers. We seek managers focused on business building who invest in established, specialized lower middle market and middle market companies, often as the first institutional capital into founder or family-owned businesses.

We believe the middle market offers compelling advantages relative to the large and mega segments of the PE market, including a larger number of potential targets, limited competition, historically lower purchase prices, more conservative use of leverage, and consistent and robust exit opportunities.

We currently manage more than $14.7 billion across commingled funds and custom accounts and have committed to over 600 private equity funds since 1991, with a consistent focus on the middle market.

We believe our fund investing strategy can offer clients access to compelling opportunities for outperformance, while mitigating risk through diversification across strategies, vintage years, and industries.

Our commingled fund investing strategy focuses on the lower middle market, and typically targets:

• Strategies: buyout, growth, distressed / turnaround
• Geography: United States, Canada
• Funds typically raising less than $500 million
• Managers with a specialized sector or geography focus and / or differentiated sourcing network / process
• Complementary allocation to co-investments and secondaries
• Typical commitment: $10 – $125 million across the platform

Apogem’s middle market footprint extends beyond the lower middle market to larger funds ($1 – $5 billion+) and managers based outside of North America. We partner with clients to develop custom programs to access these relationships, which are often capacity constrained.

Apogem Capital has been investing in private equity secondaries for nearly a decade, leveraging our deep middle market relationships to source and underwrite attractive opportunities. We seek secondary investments where the strength of the Apogem platform creates an advantage, generally resulting in limited competition, enhanced access to due diligence, and / or processes where we lead the transaction.

We currently manage more than $1.0 billion across commingled funds and custom accounts and have committed to over 80 secondary investments since 2012.

Apogem has experience across the complex and evolving secondaries landscape, including LP Solutions (purchase of LP portfolio(s)) and GP Solutions, including continuation vehicles, fund restructurings, direct investments, credit injections, and tender offers.

Our secondaries strategy typically targets:

• Strategies: buyout, growth
• Geographies: United States, Canada
• Diversification across transaction styles, industries, strategies, and portfolio / company size and maturity
• Highly funded investments at an earlier stage of value creation than typical secondaries
• Companies with conservative capital structures
• Backwards diversification across vintage years
• 30+ investments
• Typical commitment: $5 – $75+ million across the platform

Apogem Capital’s long tenure in the middle market has generated a robust pipeline of co-investment and direct investment opportunities from top-tier existing and prospective fund managers, as well as independent sponsors. Our broad sourcing platform coupled with our highly selective approach can be a source of potential private equity alpha.

We currently manage more than $2.5 billion across commingled funds and custom accounts and have completed over 350 co-investments since 1991.

Apogem specializes in lower middle market (less than $250 million in EV) and middle market co-investments (greater than $250 million in EV), capitalizing on the full range of our manager relationships.

Apogem’s co-investment portfolios offer diversified exposure to what we believe are the best co-investment opportunities sourced from our network, and typically target:

• Strategies: buyout, growth
• Geographies: United States, Canada, Europe
• Companies with conservative capital structures, multiple ways to create value, a proven management team, and strong alignment of interests
• 25+ positions in typical commingled portfolio
• Typical commitment: $5 – $30+ million across the platform

Launched in 2020, RidgeLake Partners (RidgeLake) is a strategic partnership between Apogem Capital and Ottawa Avenue Private Capital (OAPC). RidgeLake seeks to build a portfolio of minority equity investments in middle market GPs across private markets strategies.

We believe the RidgeLake team’s significant experience as both a GP stakes and private equity investor uniquely positions it to capitalize on the largely untapped opportunity in middle market GP stakes. RidgeLake also seeks to be a value-added partner to GPs, offering a long-term capital solution while supporting partner GPs with strategic counsel and access to RidgeLake’s deep industry relationships.

RidgeLake’s strategy is focused on:

• Building a portfolio of minority equity investments in middle market GPs, typically with AUM between $1 billion and $10 billion and focused on private equity (buyout, growth, turnaround), secondaries, real assets, and opportunistic credit strategies
• Providing strategic capital to established GPs sourced through our deep relationships with leading fund managers
• Creating alternative methods for clients to access private equity with a differentiated return and cash yield profile

Apogem Capital has a long history of investing with emerging managers (generally, first or second time funds). Since 2000, we have committed more than $1.5 billion to over 95 emerging manager funds. While emerging managers can be challenging to source and underwrite without significant experience and relationships, we believe these managers can offer a source of alpha potential in the private equity landscape.

In 2021, Apogem launched its Social Advancement strategy to focus on emerging managers led by diverse individuals. We believe by supporting diverse managers when they are raising their first or second fund, this strategy can have the greatest impact on the fundraising success of diverse-led managers, which are drastically underrepresented in the private equity market.

With Apogem’s deep relationships and emerging manager investing experience, we believe we can have a meaningful impact on supporting diverse-led managers while continuing to generate attractive return opportunities.

Our Social Advancement strategy typically targets:

• Strategies: buyout, growth
• Geography: United States, Canada
• Emerging managers (first or second institutional funds)
• 10 – 12 fund commitments led by diverse individuals
• Co-investments alongside diverse sponsors and / or in companies led by a diverse team or with a DEI mission