KKR names Hirano, Shastry as co-heads of Asia PE

They assume responsibility for oversight of the asset class from Ming Lu, the overall head of Asia. Hirano will cover the northern geographies of Japan, Korea and China, with Shastry overseeing Southeast Asia, India, and Australia and New Zealand, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Lu remains the lead partner in the private equity business, serving on the investment committee for KKR's pan-regional funds, which is chaired by Joe Bae. However, handing over day-to-day duties to Hirano and Shastry will ease a burden that also includes real estate, infrastructure, and credit. It also brings private equity in line with KKR's other verticals, which have dedicated Asia heads.

The change comes with KKR expected to begin raising its fourth Asian private equity fund within the next 12 months. It is already raising capital for infrastructure and real estate strategies in the region. The firm's third pan-regional PE vehicle closed at $9.3 billion in June 2017, up from $6 billion in the previous vintage. As of June, Fund III had $5.9 billion in uncalled commitments. There were no realizations and the fair value of the portfolio was $4.5 billion.

In late June and early July, KKR announced the first two exits from the vehicle: The firm agreed to sell Korean copper foils manufacturer KCF Technologies to an affiliate of SK Group for KRW1.2 trillion ($1 billion) and Japan's Kokusai Electric to Applied Materials for $2.2 billion.

Since joining KKR in 2006, Lu has also held the position of head of Southeast Asia. He assumed the overall Asia leadership role in early 2018, following the elevation of his predecessor – Bae – to co-president and co-COO of KKR.

Hirano has been with the firm since 2013. He previously worked for AlixPartners. Before that, he led Nikko Cordial Group's principal investment arm and served as chairman of Nikko Principal between 1999 and 2006. Hirano has been involved in a string of corporate carve-outs in Japan, including Panasonic Healthcare, Pioneer DJ, Calsonic Kansei, Hitachi Koki and Hitachi Kokusai Electric.

Shastry joined KKR in 2016 from Northstar Group, where he spent five years. Shastry had risen to partner and head of Southeast Asia at TPG Capital, when the firm acquired a minority stake in Northstar, which in turn received a smaller percentage interest in TPG. Shastry moved over as part of the arrangement. He sits on the board of companies such as Goodpack and PropertyGuru.

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