(Bloomberg) -- CVC Capital Partners co-founder Steve Koltes announced plans to step down from the European private equity giant as it prepares for an initial public offering. 

Koltes, CVC’s 65-year-old co-chair, leave his active role effective Oct. 1 to focus on private interests, according to an emailed statement Friday. He will remain on the CVC board in a non-executive capacity, while day-to-day operations will be overseen by the firm’s managing partners.

The change comes as CVC moves forward with plans for a blockbuster listing that could value the firm at more than $20 billion. CVC has lined up Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley to work on the share sale, which could take place in London or Amsterdam in the second half of the year, people with knowledge of the matter have said. 

Koltes joined CVC’s predecessor, a London-based arm of Citicorp, in 1988. He teamed up with colleagues including Donald Mackenzie and Rolly van Rappard to negotiate a spinoff of the business in 1993. It now has about $125 billion of assets under management across a range of buyout, credit and growth funds. 

One of CVC’s other co-founders, Michael Smith, retired in 2013.

The latest move comes at a time when many well-known private equity firms are laying the groundwork for a new generation of dealmakers. TDR Capital founding partners Stephen Robertson and Manjit Dale are passing on management control after spending two decades building up the British buyout firm, Bloomberg News reported this month.        

In October, KKR & Co.’s billionaire founders Henry Kravis and George Roberts handed over control of the firm, following a similar move by rival Carlyle Group Inc. in 2017. 

The decisions of these founders to step back follow a golden decade for private equity firms, which have been flooded with capital by yield-hungry investors. That’s fueled a global buyout boom. 

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