Blackstone's Asia head Michael Chae to return to New York
Michael Chae, head of international private equity at The Blackstone Group, will move back to New York after a four-year stint in Hong Kong.
Chae will continue to oversee Blackstone's Asia Pacific PE investments and will also reassume responsibility for firm's media and communications investments. In addition, Chae - who will sit on both the US and Asia investment committees - will help oversee the firm's $5 billion Tactical Opportunities Fund, which launched in 2012.
Blackstone opened its first Asia office in Mumbai in 2005, with offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai opening over the following two years. The firm transferred Chae over to Hong Kong in 2010 to replace the former Asian head Ben Jenkins. At the time, Chae had been serving as a senior partner in New York.
A significant part of his remit was to build the Blackstone's team in Asia, combining local hires with talent developed in the New York and London offices. During the last four years Blackstone has more doubled its Asian headcount to 225. This has included opening an office in Singapore last year with 30 people.
According to AVCJ Research, during the course of Chae's tenure in Asia, Blackstone has backed around 31 companies in region. Deals include the $625 million take-private of US-listed Pactera Technology International, a Chinese tech outsourcing firm, which was completed last month.
Ed Huang and Yi Luo will lead Blackstone's PE investments in China and Jan Neilsen and James Carnegie will head the business elsewhere in Asia. Huang and Neilsen will coordinate day-to-day operations from the Hong Kong office, while Luo and Carnegie will continue to head the Shanghai/ Beijing and Sydney offices, respectively.
Also, Gautam Banerjee, chairman of Blackstone Singapore, will become a senior managing director and co-chairman of Blackstone's Asia operating committee.
The move comes at a time when Blackstone has already seen a number of changes involving senior management. In February Anthony Leung - chairman for Greater China - left to join Hong Kong conglomerate Nan Fung Group a chief executive.
Last year, Blackstone replaced its head of India private equity, Akhil Gupta, as the Indian portfolio continued to struggle in the face of slow economic growth in the country.
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