HONG KONG, Aug 20 (Reuters) – News and developments in Asia
private equity from Reuters News for the week ending Aug. 17.
AUGUST 17
THE CALIFORNIA Public Employees’ Retirement System, the
biggest U.S. pension fund said it will invest $530 million in
two new real estate funds of ARA Asset Management, and
$50 million in ARA’s Dragon Fund II that will primarily focus on
retail, office and residential properties in China, Singapore,
Hong Kong and Malaysia.
AUGUST 16
PRIVATE EQUITY fund MBK Partners will pay 1.2 trillion won
($1.1 billion) for a stake in South Korean water purifier maker
Woongjin Coway Co, sources said, in the country’s
second billion-dollar plus buyout deal in under two weeks.
A CONSORTIUM formed by South Korean private equity fund STIC
Investments and Hana Daetoo Securities was picked as the
preferred bidder to acquire a 49 percent stake in unlisted
defence company LIG Nex1 worth around $440 million, a source
said.
FACED WITH growing obligations and shrinking returns, many
of the largest U.S. public pensions have raised their exposure
to alternative investments to record levels this year, despite
ongoing criticism of the risks and costs.
BREAKINGVIEWS-GOING private may give Focus Media a
break from accusations by a U.S. shortseller over the quality of
its accounting. But the 8 percent jump of the Chinese group’s
stock ahead of the $3.5 billion management buyout offer raises
new questions.
AUGUST 15
U.S. BUYOUT fund Carlyle Group said it has acquired a
13.5 percent stake in Meinian Onehealth Healthcare Group Co Ltd,
placing a bet on rising spending on preventive healthcare from
China’s growing middle class and ageing populations.
AUGUST 14
CARLYLE AND some of China’s top private equity funds are
targeting the biggest ever delisting of a New York-listed
Chinese company, attempting to privatise Focus Media, a
firm directly targeted by shortseller Muddy Waters.
PRIVATE EQUITY funds that invest in emerging markets may
have raised similar amounts of cash in the first half of 2012
than a year earlier, but they used less of it, the Emerging
Markets Private Equity Association said on
Tuesday.
ADVEQ, AN asset manager investing in private equity funds
globally, said that it has opened an office in Hong Kong, its
third in the region to follow offices in Beijing and Shanghai.
AUGUST 13
PRIVATE EQUITY funds jointly managed by India’s top lender,
State Bank of India, and Australia’s Macquarie Group
, have agreed to invest $150 million in a unit of
infrastructure firm Ashoka Buildcon, sending the road
builder’s shares up by as much as 11.3 percent in early trade.
THE PRIVATE equity arm of Goldman Sachs and American
venture capital fund New Enterprise Associates (NEA) jointly
invested about $54 million in an Indian healthcare firm, in a
long-term bet on growing healthcare spending in the country.
PCCW said it has agreed to commit up to $25
million to Vision Knight Capital (China) Fund I L.P.
