(Bloomberg) — Private equity firm Lightrock, which is backed by Liechtenstein’s royal family, is moving into publicly traded investments with the launch of a new strategy that will put money in global small-cap stocks.
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The investor plans to put money in traded companies that have a market capitalization of €500 million ($540 million) to €20 billion, Pal Erik Sjatil, Lightrock’s managing partner and chief executive officer, said in an interview.
Since mid-April, the new UCITS fund has deployed most of its €400 million in seed money into about 61 global stocks across the US, Europe and Japan, said Chris Kaashoek, a partner at Lightrock. The new fund will be benchmarked against MSCI World Small Cap Index, he said.
LGT Group, the private banking and asset-management firm of the Liechtenstein’s royal family, is an anchor investor in the new fund, which will also be open to third-party investors, Kaashoek said. Still, the daily traded fund will be capped at €3.5 billion to €4.5 billion, given limited liquidity in small-cap stocks, Sjatil said.
The new fund plans to put money in companies with strong balance sheets that have strong sustainability credentials, Sjatil and Kaashoek said.
Read More: Europe’s Richest Royal Family Builds $300 Billion Finance Empire
The launch follows the appointment of a dedicated public equity team last year, comprising Maarten Vankan, Luuk Jagtenberg, Michiel van Dijk and Tessa Sosef, as well as Kaashoek, Lightrock said in a statement Thursday.
(Adds details from statement in last paragraph.)
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