DENMARK - Danske Private Equity has reached a final close for its fifth vehicle at €650m, securing investments wholly from European institutional investors.

The Danske Private Equity Partners V fund is to invest half the funds in Western Europe and the other half in North America.

The fund, first launched in 2011 with the aim of investing in small and medium-sized buyout funds, closed above its initial target of €600m.

Managing partner John Danielsen said Danske Private Equity had been pleased to have reached its new hard cap on schedule in such a difficult fundraising market - "including both strong support from long-term investors and new names in new geographies".

He said the fund remained "fully on track" with six primary commitments and the company's first-ever co-investment.

A recent report by research and data provider Preqin found that investors worldwide are increasingly willing to allocate fresh capital to private equity funds, as the asset class's return on investment since the beginning of the year has exceeded expectations.

The survey found that investors are still committing capital to private equity funds despite uncertainty in the wider financial markets, with 90% expecting to maintain or increase allocations in the longer term.

However, another Preqin report also found that private equity fund managers involved in company buyouts have been forced to hold their portfolios for longer than initially planned to extract the desired value in the financial downturn.

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