Shaw Kwei seeks $800m for Asia fund

The launch comes three months after the GP agreed to sell YongLe Tape, China’s largest producer of PVC adhesive tape, to Avery Dennison for $190 million, with additional earn-outs of up to $55 million. It privatized the business – then known as CHT Holdings – in 2012 at a valuation of $66 million, working with the founder and chairman.

YongLe is fairly typical of Shaw Kwei’s strategy of purchasing traditional industrial businesses and pursuing operational efficiencies. It introduced enterprise resource planning protocols at YongLe, upgraded manufacturing equipment and refocused marketing towards more complex products, as well as making improvements to the sales team.

This was one of three privatizations Shaw Kwei completed in Singapore, alongside Beyonics and Chosen. Beyonics initially focused on electronic manufacturing services but the private equity firm repositioned it as a precision manufacturer and last year merged the business with Chosen, creating a one-stop precision engineering services provider to medical, automotive and industrial customers.

The private equity firm has also backed two German companies, the most recent being capital equipment producer Schmid Group in 2014. Both were already generating most of their revenues from China, although the core manufacturing capabilities are in Germany. Shaw Kwei invested with a view to getting the companies’ Asian businesses running more efficiently.

Shaw Kwei, which has offices in Hong Kong and Singapore, raised $450 million for its previous fund in 2010. Last year, the firm appointed Peter Ko, formerly of H&Q Asia Pacific, as a partner based in Hong Kong, while David Hudson joined as a senior advisor in New York from Darby Private Equity.

Shaw Kwei declined to comment on fundraising.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Southeast Asia
• Fundraising
• Buyout
• GPs
• China
• Shaw Kwei & Partners