Leonard Green raises $5.3 billion for new fund

Leonard Green & Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm that has invested in Petco Animal Supplies Inc. and Neiman Marcus Group Inc., raised $5.3 billion for its fifth fund.

Green Equity Investors V is about three times as big as the firm’s most recent fund raised five years ago. Clients include U.S. and international investors, Leonard Green said in a statement Wednesday.

Leonard Green typically invests in retail companies valued at $500 million to $2 billion. The firm has invested in 42 companies since its founding in 1989. Buyout firms and other companies have acquired $185 billion worth of retail companies in the last year with the eighth-highest number of deals among industry groups, according to Bloomberg data.

Private equity firms, which buy public companies with the intent of cutting costs and improving operations before selling them three to five years later, may raise as much as $500 billion this year, up from $432 billion last year, according to London-based researcher Private Equity Intelligence Ltd.

Leading the investments at Leonard Green are managing partners John G. Danhakl, Peter J. Nolan and Jonathan D. Sokoloff. Company founder Leonard I. Green died in 2002.