Carlyle registers third Japan fund

The filing for the fund, known as Carlyle Japan International Partners III, was made on Monday.

Carlyle revealed plans to launch the vehicle when discussing its fourth quarter earnings earlier this year. The PE firm's previous Japan fund received commitments of JPY215 billion ($2.2 billion) in 2006, but the corpus was subsequently reduced to JPY165.6 billion. 

This third fund comes as time when investor sentiment towards Japan is gradually changing. Fiscal and monetary reforms brought in by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have made LPs more interested in the country, but lack of clarity over structural reforms and corporate governance concerns are still a barrier.

Carlyle has been investing in Japan for more than a decade. The 2001 vintage Carlyle Japan Partners I fund posted a 37% net IRR as of year-end 2012, better than the PE firm's US and European funds raised around the same time. It successor, Carlyle Japan Partners II, is still in investment mode and recorded a negative net IRR of 5%.

In October last year, Carlyle agreed to buy Diversey Japan, a cleaning supply business, from the Sealed Air Corporation for JPY30 billion ($377 million). In addition, it recently sold Qualicaps to Mitsubishi Chemical and completed a partial exit from Chimney. A majority stake in Japanese software company Broadleaf was sold though an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in March.

Rival global buyout firm KKR - which recently saw a $6 billion final close on its second pan-Asian fund -is also looking to be more active in Japan having recently grown its 12-person Tokyo team with the addition of two new directors and appointing turnaround expert, Shu Minoda, as its new Japan CEO.

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• Topics
• Fundraising
• North Asia
• Buyout
• The Carlyle Group
• KKR
• Fundraising
• buyout