Coller fine-tunes management structure

Tim Jones has become chief executive of the secondaries firm, while founder Jeremy Coller has moved into the role of executive chairman.

Sister publication Private Equity International has learned that private equity secondaries specialist Coller Capital has promoted Tim Jones to step up to a newly created role of chief executive. Jeremy Coller, who founded the firm in 1990, is now executive chairman and will also continue in his current role as chief investment officer. 

Jones joined Coller Capital in 2000 from ScotiaBank. For several years, he has been the most senior partner in the firm behind Coller himself, playing leading roles in the investment process, investor relations and fundraising. 

Tim Jones

According to a source, the firm has told investors that the appointment was the next step of its institutionalisation, at a time when changing industry dynamics had created a need to broaden the management structure. Limited partners have also been told that Jeremy Coller’s full-time involvement in the firm would remain unchanged.

Asked to comment on the change, a spokesman for the firm said: “Tim has been deeply involved with Coller Capital’s core business for well over a decade. Appointing him CEO was a natural step.”

An early adopter of the secondary investment strategy in private equity, Coller Capital closed its sixth fund on $5.5 billion in 2012. The fund is understood to be over a third invested at this point. 

Last August the firm beat out competition from rival secondary investors and sovereign wealth funds to acquire a large portfolio of partnership stakes from Lloyds Banking Group. The deal, at £1.03 billion (€1.32 billion; $1.62 billion), represented one of the largest secondary deals on record.