Asia Alternatives, an Asia focused private equity fund-of-funds (FoF), has announced the final close of its second fund at $950 million. Asia Alternatives Capital Partners II has closed above its original target of $850 million. The first FoF raised $515 million and was closed in May 2007.
India will be one of the primary geographic focus area of the fund. The other areas of focus will be Greater China, Japan and Korea. Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand will also be considered on an opportunistic basis, the firm said in a release. Asia Alternatives tracks over 600 Asia-focused private equity managers.
There are about 84 funds from India which are out in the market to raise capital aggregating to $27.2 billion, according to Prequin. Some of the Indian funds out in the market to raise capital are Avigo Capital Partners, Jacob Ballas Capital, Axis Private Equity, UTI Ventures, Blue River Capital, ICICI Venture and Lazard India.
The investors in Asia Alternatives second fund were state and corporate pension funds, foundations, university endowments, insurance companies and family offices in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. A majority of the funds raised were from the returning investors. Some of the investors were CalPERS, New York State Common Retirement Fund, OHIM Asia Investors, LP, an affiliate of Oak Hill Investment Management, F. Warren Hellman, founder of private equity firm Hellman & Friedman LLC and Arthur Rock, a venture capitalist.
C.P. Eaton Partners, LLC acted as the placement agent for Asia for Asia Alternatives.
FoFs In India
Increasing number of global FoFs are showing interest in investing in India. CDC, the UK government-backed FoFs with net assets of $4 billion, is one of the most active in India. This year it has invested $250 million in two infrastructure and a real estate funds and $185 million into six PE funds in India. Capvent AG, the Zurich-headquartered fund of funds, has started investing in the country out of its second fund of $250 million exclusively set aside for India. Their first FoF was of size $125 million.
The others who have a presence in India include Evolvence India Fund (EIF), with a corpus of $67.8 million, and Thomas Weisel India Opportunities Fund, who had a corpus of $60 million. Thomas Weisel India has been recently acquired by Guggenheim Partners.
Then there are also some international FoFs looking at India. HarbourVest Partners, a global private equity fund of funds, is raising a $3 billion fund sixth fund and has a sub-fund for various regions. The corpus for the Asia sub-fund is $500 million. Other large funds like Partners Group and Rho Funds are also looking at setting up shop in India.
