(New York, NY) — Cortec Group Management Services, LLC (“Cortec” or the “Firm”) is pleased to announce that on February 28, 2024 it held the final closing of its eighth institutional private equity fund, Cortec Group Fund VIII, L.P. (“Cortec VIII”), with $3.2 billion of total capital commitments. Cortec VIII was oversubscribed, garnering $3.1 billion of limited partner commitments, which meaningfully exceeded its target of $2.5 billion and, with limited partner approval, was above its hard cap of $3.0 billion. The members of the general partner of Cortec VIII committed $135 million alongside the limited partners’ $3.1 billion. Cortec now has more than $6 billion in assets under management across its three active U.S. middle-market focused private equity funds.

Cortec VIII secured commitments from the vast majority of the Firm’s existing limited partners (which accounted for more than 75% of total limited partner commitments) along with new investors, consisting of a range of U.S. and international financial institutions, pension plans, high net worth families and endowments. Also, more than thirty current and former Cortec Group portfolio company senior executives committed in excess of $45 million to Cortec VIII and no single limited partner accounted for more than 5% of Cortec VIII’s committed capital. “We are grateful to our longstanding investors for their support of Cortec VIII and are excited to welcome a distinguished group of new LPs to Cortec,” said Co-President Dave Schnadig. “This fundraise is a significant milestone in Cortec’s history and will enable the Firm to continue investing alongside talented entrepreneurs, families and management teams to help them evolve and build their companies. Our successful raising of Cortec VIII is a testament to Cortec’s talented and long-tenured leadership team, differentiated and difficult-to-replicate business model and consistently strong returns over the past 25 years.”

Managing Partners Michael Najjar, Jonathan Stein and Jeffrey Shannon will continue in their roles, while concurrent with Cortec VIII’s initial closing the Firm promoted several executives to more senior positions. Bill Tucker, Doug Kruep and Rob Whipple, each of whom has been at Cortec for between 8 and 20 years, were elevated to Managing Partner, and Aaron Hildebrand and Allie Klazkin were promoted to Partner from Managing Director. Co-President Jeff Lipsitz said, “We are proud to promote our next generation of leaders to their new roles and look forward to working closely with them in the development of Cortec VIII’s portfolio companies. We now have ten senior leaders plus our founder, Scott Schafler, who have extensive experience in adding value to and growing entrepreneur-led, family-owned and other companies.”

Cortec VIII will continue to advance Cortec’s successful strategy and track record of partnering with entrepreneurs, families and management teams of platform acquisitions with $10 to $50+ million of EBITDA, which it capitalizes with prudent leverage levels in order to fund growth, enhance operations and facilitate add-on acquisitions. More information about Cortec can be found at www.cortecgroup.com.

Cortec was assisted in the placement of a portion of Cortec VIII by Connaught LLC. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel to Cortec VIII.