Founded 2002 Type of business Private Ownership | Number of employees 46 | |
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Industry Private Equity Secondaries Founder Colin McGrady, Scott Myers, Stephen Sloan, Ian Charles, and Brian Mooney Products Secondary Advisory, Research Website www.cogent-partners.com Headquarters Dallas, Texas, United States | ||
Cogent Partners is a boutique, private equity-focused investment bank and advisory firm and was one of the first advisory firms dedicated to transactions in the private equity secondary market (secondaries). The firm, which was founded in 2002, provides an array of sell-side advisory services such as secondary advisory, portfolio valuation and other research functions. Since inception, Cogent Partners has advised on over 5,639 limited partnership interests representing over $103 billion in private equity secondaries.
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Cogent Partners offers various private equity research products, including both fund and portfolio-level performance monitoring as well as due diligence services for new fund commitments. The firm publishes research bulletins for distribution to institutional investors. The firm has offices in Dallas, New York City, San Francisco, London and Singapore. The firm was composed of 46 professionals at the time of the 2015 acquisition by Greenhill.
The firm was founded by former investment professionals from the Crossroads Group. Among its founders were Colin McGrady, Scott Myers, Stephen Sloan, Ian Charles, and Brian Mooney. Crossroads was a private equity investment manager investing primarily as a fund of funds. Within the secondary space, Crossroads was noted for its $340 million acquisition of a portfolio of direct investments in large- to mid-cap companies from Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Since then, the firm has added a variety of professionals from various investment banking and management consulting backgrounds.
In April 2015, Greenhill & Co., Inc. (NYSE: GHL) finalized the acquisition of Cogent Partners which is now part of the Capital Advisory division of Greenhill and trades under the name of "Greenhill Cogent".
Regulations
CP COGENT SECURITIES LP is a broker-dealer licensed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and is a member of Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). COGENT PARTNERS EUROPE, LLP is a broker-dealer authorized and regulated by the U.K. Financial Services Authority. Additionally, Cogent Partners Europe, LLP is a member of the British Venture Capital Association (BVCA), of the European Venture Capital Association (EVCA) and of the Association Française des Investisseurs en Capital (AFIC).
Competitors
Within the secondary advisory space, other advisors also include investments banks (Credit Suisse and UBS), electronic exchanges (NYPPE also a buyer of secondary interests through Allen Capital Partners), dedicated secondary advisory firm Setter Capital, as well as established fund placement agents (Campbell Lutyens, Park Hill Group, Probitas Partners and Triago).