AlpInvest Partners, a Dutch private equity investor, finished first in the race to acquire up to EUR800 million of private equity assets from HypoVereinsbank, according to three individuals with knowledge of the situation. HypoVereinsbank is the German subsidiary of Italian bank UniCredit.

The deal is the latest secondaries package by a European financial institution. New regulatory restrictions such as Solvency II and Basel III have pushed banks and insurers to offload their obligations to private equity.

The sources said that only after driving back competition did AlpInvest start exclusive discussions to purchase a variety of direct investments and secondhand fund interests. Bid challengers included secondaries firms Axa Private Equity and Coller Capital, one of the sources said.

One person appraised the assets to be worth approximately EUR800 million while another added the deal would incorporate the bank's management team as well.

Two of the sources said AlpInvest was already setting up to put up for sale some of the HypoVereinsbank assets to primary institutional investors. It remains to be seen if AlpInvest will be providing additional capital for the newly acquired unit or whether it will concentrate on managing pre-existing assets.