Munich — PARAGON PARTNERS, one of the leading invest­ment compa­nies in the German-spea­king region, recently closed its PARAGON FUND III (“P3”) with capi­tal commit­ments of EUR 783 million. Due to strong demand, P3 signi­fi­cantly excee­ded both the origi­nal target size and the size of the prede­ces­sor fund, which closed at EUR 412 million.

The new fund was over­sub­scri­bed and gene­ra­ted strong demand mainly from exis­ting inves­tors, but also from some new ones. This helps PARAGON PARTNERS to broa­den its inves­tor base and further deve­lop its rela­ti­onships in Europe and North America. Euro­pean inves­tors, and espe­ci­ally inves­tors from German-spea­king count­ries, conti­nue to be well repre­sen­ted. The inves­tor base includes renow­ned insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as funds of funds, public and company pension funds, insu­rance compa­nies, foun­da­ti­ons and family holding companies.

With the new fund, PARAGON PARTNERS can further expand its posi­tion as one of the leading invest­ment compa­nies in the German-spea­king region with a focus on sustainable value-orien­­ted invest­ments in the range of EUR 30 million to EUR 250 million.

PARAGON PARTNERS is also plea­sed to announce the first invest­ment of the new fund: pro optik, the third largest opti­cian chain in Germany. The chain curr­ently compri­ses a network of 145 stores based on a successful part­ner­ship model, offe­ring its part­ners the oppor­tu­nity to act as either joint venture or fran­chise part­ners. pro optik sells around 400,000 pairs of glas­ses a year and the product range extends from high-quality frames from both well-known top brands and less expen­sive own brands to high-quality lenses and glas­ses. The company has also recently expan­ded its offe­ring to include hearing aids. In 2018, pro optik gene­ra­ted sales of EUR 125 million.

PARAGON PARTNERS conti­nues its proven invest­ment stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with opera­tio­nal growth and value enhance­ment poten­tial in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land, as well as selec­tively in neigh­bor­ing count­ries. The invest­ment company is commit­ted to a sustainable invest­ment approach and inte­gra­tes envi­ron­men­tal, social and honest corpo­rate gover­nance conside­ra­ti­ons into its invest­ment decis­i­ons and also trans­fers these sustaina­bi­lity stan­dards into the corpo­rate gover­nance of its port­fo­lio companies.

The Munich-based fund is advi­sed by a moti­va­ted team of invest­ment mana­gers with many years of invest­ment and exten­sive opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence, charac­te­ri­zed by strong cohe­sion and stabi­lity for more than 15 years.

About PARAGON PARTNERS
PARAGON PARTNERS is a private equity company foun­ded in 2004 with more than EUR 1.2 billion in equity under manage­ment. PARAGON PARTNERS works with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and market leader­ship. PARAGON PARTNERS unlocks new value in funda­men­tally attrac­tive busi­nesses and has the ability to address comple­xity from both a tran­sac­tional and opera­tio­nal perspec­tive and to repo­si­tion busi­nesses through custo­mi­zed value crea­tion programs.