Singapore's Dymon closes Fund II at $450m
Singapore-based Dymon Asia Private Equity (DAPE) has closed its second fund targeting lower middle-market companies in Southeast Asia with $450 million in commitments. It had initially targeted a corpus of $350 million.
Fund II was launched in October last year and reached a first close of $325 million in December. It will make growth and control investments in companies that have annual profits of $5-30 million.
LPs include existing and new backers, many of which are said to be international institutions. These include sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, banks, multi-generational family offices, and asset managers.
“We believe these investors will further widen our network to the benefit of our portfolio companies and bring tangible benefits to our businesses,” Gerald Chiu, a partner at DAPE, said in a statement. “We are truly energized by our investors’ confidence in us and are currently working on finding great companies to partner with.”
DAPE attributes its fundraising traction to a strong performance for its debut fund, which has delivered three exits to date. The firm claims these exits have returned more than the capital drawn from investors for Fund I.
Fund I closed at S$300 million ($225 million) in 2014 with a view to filling the mid-market gap left when other regionally active GPs such as Baring Private Equity Asia and Navis Capital Partners scaled up their fund sizes to $1 billion or more. It invested in 12 companies across Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, achieving a net IRR of 30% from inception to December 2017.
DAPE was set up as a PE arm of hedge fund Dymon Asia Capital in 2012. It targets opportunities across retail, fast-moving consumer goods, food and beverage, healthcare, manufacturing, education, and B2B business models via offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
Recent investment activity includes the acquisition of a minority stake in Malaysia-based and Myanmar-listed bottled water producer Spritzer for about MYR63 million ($16 million). Last month, the firm exited Singapore and Malaysia-based electrical systems services provider Wah Loon Engineering to a European strategic.
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