Robin Doumar may have just launched one of the biggest independent mezzanine funds Europe has ever seen, but that doesn’t mean he has a huge appetite for risk -- far from it. The former head of Goldman Sachs’ European mezzanine debt division wants his new firm, Park Square Capital Partners, to invest in stable companies with consistent, predictable cash flows. “Boring!” quips Doumar, 41, who left Goldman last summer after 15 years to set up Park Square in London’s tony Mayfair district. “I really like boring companies, and the more boring the better. Mezzanine is interesting relative to equity, where you have strong businesses that are very cash-generative but may not have much growth.” Doumar’s conservative, time-tested approach -- he spent the past six years heading Goldman’s GS Mezzanine Partners, a $2.7 billion fund -- was just the thing for his initial investors. Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec put up most of the E1 billion ($1.3 billion) to launch Park Square’s inaugural fund on October 5. The new fund won’t use leverage. The firm will invest across Europe, where the leveraged buyout business has taken off in recent years. “Family-owned companies are undergoing major transitions,” Doumar says. “Ownership structures are changing as the postwar generation gets older. And many of these transactions are first-time buyouts.” To him, nothing could be more exciting than a big, unleveraged buyout of a wonderfully boring company.
