Weekly digest - October 04 2023
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04 October 2023
COVER STORY
Regulatory pressures are encouraging Chinese VC firms to end US affiliations, but the impact of impending legislation cuts deeper into China sentiment.
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Q&A
CHRIS BOTSFORD OF ADM CAPITAL
 Chris Botsford, co-founding partner and CIO of Asia-focused private credit provider ADM Capital, on linking financial and sustainability outcomes, the merits of SMAs, and opportunities in complexity.DEAL FOCUS
GPs CHANGE CHANNEL ON CONTENT STREAMING
 The Fundamentum Group sees mass-market promise in Indian digital audio platform Kuku FM. It’s targeting a 50% market share by focusing on uniquely local content in vernacular languages.DEAL FOCUS
BOLTTECH BENEFITS FROM RUNNING START
 Bolttech has pieced together one of the world’s largest digital insurance broking platforms through targeted acquisitions. Now, increased emphasis is attached to expansion from broking into underwriting. |
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By the Numbers
AVCJ RESEARCH
VIETNAM'S FAMILIAR FACES
“Whenever you make a new investment, you can do all the checks and due diligence, you can talk to everyone who ever worked there, but you don’t really know if the partnership will work,” Hans Christian Jacobsen, a managing partner at PENM Partners said earlier this year. “Instead of entering into seven or eight new relationships with each fund, the most valuable thing for us is the knowledge and trust we have built with a company.”
Jacobsen was explaining PENM’s affinity for Masan Group, a Vietnamese conglomerate it has backed multiple times. Masan is a consistent theme running through the firm’s history: each of the firm’s four funds raised to date has invested in at least one Masan subsidiary, and Jacobsen expects to repeat the trick in Fund V. He is not alone in favouring Masan – it might as well be the go-to private equity portfolio company in Vietnam. AVCJ Research has records of investments in 25 companies in the Masan family, from VinaCapital’s early dabbling in Masan Food and KKR’s sizeable cheques for Masan Consumer Corporation and Masan Nutri-Science through BPEA EQT and TPG Capital support for The CrownX, the product of an ambitious merger between Masan Consumer Holdings and VinCommerce. Bain Capital is the latest addition, making its Vietnam debut with a USD 200m commitment to Masan at group level. The investment was positioned much like The CrownX – an opportunity to participate in the company’s transition from a branded products company into an integrated consumer-retail platform. These repeat deals point to the prevailing private equity habit of gravitating towards counterparties of size and repute in Indonesia. The same applies to Southeast Asia and for much the same reason: these markets are still nascent, corporate track records are unproven, stick to what – and who – you know. 
All of the trends featured here were sourced from AVCJ's proprietary database, AVCJ Research, featuring comprehensive information on private equity deals, fundraises and exits.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
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