Buyout group, Alchemy, has launched its largest fund to invest in financially troubled European companies, Financial Times reports. The fund will spend £500 million to buy debt and equity of public and private companies in the U.K. and continental Europe during the next four years. The U.K. firm’s second special opportunities fund will follow a similar investment strategy as its first such fund, which was launched in 2006. The company’s first special opportunities fund raised more than £300 million, but with a lock-up of seven years rather than five.

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