Administration February 11, 2004

JP Morgan Expects to Shutter $8 Billion Private Equity Fund

November 26, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. expects to close an $8-billion private equity fund - the world's biggest buyout pool - as early as this week, after two years of fund raising, Reuters reported.

Reported by

Fred Schneyer

J.P. Morgan originally hoped to raise as much as $13 billion.

J.P. Morgan expects to focus the new fund on investments in traditional economy sectors like manufacturing, financial businesses and retail.

Get more! Sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters. 

The investment bank expects to kick in about $6 billion of its own capital, according to a person familiar with the situation as quoted by Reuters. The bank’s private equity arm, J.P. Morgan Partners, also sought outside investments for the first time, raising another $2 billion from pension funds, private investors and other institutions, Reuters said.

The fund, J.P. Morgan Partners Global Investment Partners LP, would be larger than the $6.4-billion pool raised by Blackstone Group earlier this year, the largest such buyout fund to date.

The new pool of capital follows several tumultuous years of investing as buy-out funds bet on telecom and technology companies. J.P. Morgan posted $299 million of private equity related losses in the third quarter, following a $1.2 billion loss in 2001, Reuters said.