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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowNew York-based investment bank Credit Suisse is building quite a book of private-equity business in Indiana.
Credit Suisse has been chosen to manage the Indiana Public Employees’ Retirement Fund’s new $105 million Indiana Investment Fund. It also directs the $73 million Indiana Future Fund, which was launched by BioCrossroads, a local organization dedicated to developing the state’s life sciences industry.
Indiana’s not the only place Credit Suisse is applying its expertise.
Last fall, Ohio formed the Ohio-Midwest Fund, a regionally focused privateequity fund backed by $50 million from the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and $1 million from Credit Suisse.
Like the BioCrossroads Indiana Future Fund, the Ohio-Midwest Fund is
a fund of funds, which means it doesn’t make direct investments into companies. Instead, it invests in venture-capital partnerships that generate their own deals.
In April, OPERS announced that $27 million of the Ohio-Midwest Fund’s $51 million had been awarded to four venturecapital partnerships. One was Cincinnatibased Triathlon Medical Ventures. Triathlon is also one of the six venturecapital firms that received backing from BioCrossroads’ Indiana Future Fund.
Similarly, the state of Oregon has hired Credit Suisse to invest $100 million in Oregon-based companies. The Oregon Investment Fund will also have a fundof-funds structure, according to information listed with the Oregon State Treasury’s Investment Division.
Credit Suisse is one of the world’s
largest investment-banking firms and does business across the country. Venture experts say Credit Suisse probably has more than enough resources to make sure it doesn’t lose any focus on Indiana.
BioCrossroads President David Johnson is certainly satisfied with its work. And he said there’s no reason to be concerned that Credit Suisse now controls one-fifth of the private-equity money directed specifically at Indiana.
“Credit Suisse really has delivered on the proposition they made to the 11 other institutional investors we have in the Indiana Future Fund,” he said.
“I think that it helps to actually have one entity that has that kind of depth in the state now,” Johnson added. “There’s real leverage with having them involved.”
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