GSAM raises $9.7 billion for latest buyout fund

Goldman Sachs Asset Management closed its West Street Capital Partners VIII fund at $9.7 billion.

The buyout fund closed "significantly above its original target," GSAM said in a news release Wednesday.

A GSAM spokesman added that "it's the biggest private equity fund raised by Goldman Sachs since 2007."

Investors in the fund include a "diverse group of LPs including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions, and family offices," the spokesman said in an email.

Specific investors in the fund were not disclosed.

The fund will "continue its strategy of targeting predominantly control-oriented investments in the upper midmarket, with an average investment size of $300 million," the news release said.

Targeted sectors for the fund are expected to be financial and business services, health care, consumer, technology and climate transition.

Companies the fund has already invested in include Norgine, a Dutch-based specialty pharmaceutical company; Nippo, a Japanese road pavement firm; Parexel International, a U.S.-based global clinical research organization; and LRQA, a U.K.-based global provider of assurance, inspection and consulting services.

GSAM had more than $2 trillion in assets under supervision as of June 30.