GENEVA (Bloomberg) ? A Lazard Ltd.-backed company is looking for investors in a fund targeting unlisted businesses in Germany, Spain and Italy.

The new Geneva-based company LFPE, a division of Groupe LFPI with 1.1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in assets under management, says it plans to raise 150 million euros over the next six to nine months from institutional and private investors that it will invest in funds of funds to expand its activities across Europe.

"We're capable of spotting and investing in a diversified range of companies where there are enormous opportunities and in small caps there are three times fewer investors than potential deals," Gilles Etrillard, a managing partner at Lazard, said today in Geneva. Bermuda-registered Lazard is the investment bank led by Bruce Wasserstein.