Veritas Targets Largest Cash Pool of $10 Billion for Buyout Fund

(Bloomberg) -- Veritas Capital is seeking to raise $10 billion for what would be its biggest buyout fund as the private equity industry aims to build larger pools of cash.

The latest capital-raising would be for the firm's eighth flagship buyout fund, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The New York-based firm invests in businesses that provide services to the government, including in aerospace and defense, health care, software and national security, according to its website.

A representative for Veritas, which was founded in 1992, declined to comment.

The predecessor fund, Veritas Capital Fund VII, garnered $6.5 billion in 2019 in less than six months, surpassing its initial target of $5 billion, according to a statement at the time. The firm raised its first fund in 1998.

Veritas is part of a trend among private equity firms, which are raising record amounts of money from yield-starved investors seeking better returns in an environment of low interest rates. Carlyle Group Inc. is targeting $22 billion for its biggest-ever flagship fund and expects to amass nearly half of that total in the first phase of capital-raising, Bloomberg has reported.

The private equity industry overall has been raking in cash this year -- amassing $188 billion in the first quarter, according to Preqin. That's up 15% from the same three-month period in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic upended markets.

Veritas has been busy this year. The firm said in January that it was buying Perspecta Inc., a provider of information technology services to public sector agencies, in a transaction valued at $7.1 billion and was part of a February deal for Cubic Corp., which provides communications and combat-systems technology as well as ticketing systems for public transit projects. In March, Veritas agreed to sell Abaco Systems Inc. to Ametek Inc. for $1.35 billion.