Clearlake Capital has raised $7.5bn as part of its $15bn goal for Clearlake Capital Partners VIII, setting a $16.7bn hard cap for its eighth primary buyout fund, according to a report by Buyouts citing the May Investment Advisory Council meeting materials from the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds.
CCP VIII was introduced in 2023 and the CRPTF documents reveal that a final close is planned for Q4 2024.
The documents noted that the process of exiting assets, which had an unrealised value of $6.5bn in the portfolios of Funds IV and V as of December, would require a significant amount of the investment team’s time. According to a Buyouts source, this unrealised value is partially due to the practice of recycling capital.
This is described as a potential risk for Clearlake, though mitigated by an approximately 50% overlap in outstanding investments across the two funds. Furthermore, Clearlake anticipates exiting one-third of the assets within the next 12-18 months.
Gross realisations from 2021 to 2023 totalled $17bn, nearly three times the volume from 2018 to 2020, according to Clearlake data cited in the CRPTF documents. As of December, Funds II through VII had a net multiple of 1.7x and a net IRR of 28.7%.
The firm most recently exited Janus, a global manufacturer and supplier of turn-key building solutions and access control technologies for the self-storage, commercial and industrial sectors, which was announced in January.
Other private investment opportunities discussed during the CRPTF meeting include Stellex Capital Partners III and Oaktree Opportunities Fund XII.
Clearlake was founded in 2006 by José Feliciano, Behdad Eghbali and Steven Chang, the latter of whom left in 2015. Blue Owl Capital entity Dyal Capital and Goldman Sachs entity Petershill hold passive minority interests in Clearlake. The firm invests primarily North American mid- to large-sized companies valued between $1bn and $3bn and operating in the software and technology, energy and industrials, and food and consumer services sectors.
