Client story: Ocean Capital

The context:

Based in London, Ocean Capital provides merchant banking services to medium-sized private enterprises across Europe. It offers a personalized service aimed at resolving the specific challenges encountered by each individual client and is always commissioned by the dominant shareholder. 

“We are sector agnostic, and the one thing that our clients have in common is that they have a problem, whether it’s to raise money, either debt or equity, resolve shareholder disputes, a need to finance growth or to find an industrial partner, or they want to structure a complex financing,” explained Charlotte Errazuriz, Associate in Ocean’s Corporate Finance and Execution team. 

One of the key services the firm offers is capital raising for privately-owned companies. They assist their clients with raising debt or equity, and source the right fund managers to invest in specific deals. “We don't consider ourselves to be advisors,” Charlotte continued, “we're more of an in-house team and assist clients in resolving their problem. With fundraising, we help them find the right investor who can provide money, either debt or equity, and we assist the client all the way through that journey. At every stage, whatever they'll need.”

The challenge:

Prior to choosing Preqin, Ocean had a relatively small list of fund managers to target to help their clients raise capital. As the firm grew and expanded to new sectors, such as technology, they needed access to a wider range of investors. 

“We began to grow and more and more companies from different sectors were interested in our services. Finding fund managers interested in those specific sectors was one of our main challenges,” says Charlotte.

Ocean also needed to map the market from the deal distribution point of view to assess the pool of fund managers interested in investing in specific sectors, such as logistics or construction.

The result:

Preqin’s comprehensive database of those investing in alternative assets gave Ocean the ability to engage with a wide range of fund managers, increasing the likelihood of successful fundraising for their clients. 

“Preqin opened up the wider fund manager world for us,” Charlotte continued. “The Preqin Pro platform makes it easy to search for relevant fund managers based on sector and ticket size, which is something we didn’t have before. The breadth of our outreach has immensely increased since using Preqin data. Plus, we’re able to be more focused with our targeting.” 

The firm has also been able to expand their services to a new client base. As a result of a recent outreach, it signed a mandate with a fund manager to help them grow their investor coverage. “Preqin opened that side of the market to us – working with fund managers as clients rather than investors in our clients’ companies,” says Charlotte. 

It was very easy to integrate Preqin into Ocean’s workflows. Access to Preqin Pro enhanced how the Corporate Finance and Execution team works and made their processes more efficient. “It saves us so much time, probably the work of one person on our team,” Charlotte added. 

Ocean also take advantage of Preqin’s Insights+ industry research and webinars to keep updated with key market developments. It’s great for their new joiners to give them an overview of the market.

Why Ocean Capital chose Preqin

• Ocean initially considered Preqin because of peer recommendations and, as Charlotte explained, “Preqin’s great reputation in the market”. Once they’ve had a look at the data and the platform, the decision to choose Preqin was an easy one. They praised the depth and breadth of the data, the simple and intuitive platform, and a straightforward onboarding process. 

• Charlotte is also very pleased with the level of customer service and account management support Preqin provides. “We had a few training sessions to start with and now any time any of us have a specific question, your Client Success Manager is always happy to jump on a call and help us find what we’re looking for.” 

• Access to webinars and industry insights, especially outlooks for private equity and private debt, gives Ocean a holistic view of the industry and a data-driven perspective. They use wider industry data in pitches and presentations to set the context for clients, as they’re often not familiar with the private markets space.

About Ocean Capital

Ocean Capital provides merchant banking services inspired by the tradition of merchant banks. They are intent on meeting the specific needs of their clients in a way that leads to long-term relationships. They believe in the singularity of enterprises and advocate a personalized service, with a bespoke approach to each situation. 

Ocean’s first client was a French company. In March 2003, they structured a transaction that financed their wool inventories for an amount of EUR 60 million with an equity tranche of EUR 250,000 placed by Ocean. Ocean’s other landmark transaction is a trade receivable transaction of EUR 400 million for a large European company with an equity tranche of EUR 10 million placed by Ocean. Their relationship with their clients is based on trust and is the starting point for word-of-mouth recommendations.