Paul Capital to wind down, close HK office

Paul Capital is said to have informed investors it will make no more investments related to its most recent fund and return open commitments. The existing portfolio will be wound down.

The firm is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in New York, London, Paris and Sao Paulo, in addition to Hong Kong. Asia operations are led by Lucian Wu and Jason Sambanju.

There have been some junior level departures in Hong Kong in the last year and AVCJ understands that other team members have already secured new positions.

Successes in Asia include backing the spin-out of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Asia private equity team to form secondaries direct specialist NewQuest Capital Partners in 2011. Paul Capital, HarbourVest Partners, LGT Capital Partners and Axiom Asia supported a $400 million fund used to acquire assets from NewQuest's former parent.

Paul Capital did not participate in the first close of NewQuest's second fund, announced in December, which was linked to the difficulties the firm was facing raising capital for its own latest vehicle.

As of June 2013, it had raised $6.7 billion for investment in private equity secondaries and healthcare. Paul Capital's fund-of-funds business spun out in 2011 as Top Tier Capital Partners.

Ten years ago, the global secondaries industry was dominated by independents but it is estimated they now account for less than half the market by number of participants. This is put down to an influx of new entrants that are part of captive groups and existing players choosing to affiliate.

Last year, Green Park Capital, another independent struggling to fundraise, merged with StepStone Group.

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• Topics
• Secondaries
• Secondaries
• Paul Capital Partners