Manulife secondaries business to target Asia

“Given Manulife Investment Management’s long-standing presence in the region, we expect the Asian secondaries business to become a core component of the overall Manulife secondaries business in time,” a spokesperson told AVCJ. “Local teams in Asia have tended to be smaller than teams in North America and Western Europe. However, in recent years the need for staffing in Asia has grown as local-to-local deals have become a more prominent piece of the total transaction pie.”

It comes as Manulife launches a new secondaries program in its private markets platform to be led by Jeff Hammer and Paul Sanabria, both of whom were recruited from Houlihan Lokey earlier this year to serve as global co-heads in New York. Private markets activity otherwise includes exposure to private equity, credit, infrastructure, real estate, timber, and agriculture. The plan is to build out secondaries capacity focused on GP-led and special situation transactions, and partners with PE, credit and secondary fund sponsors. 

Manulife has $877 billion in assets under management globally, about 12% of which is in private markets. Earlier this year, the firm reinforced its Asia strategy with the appointment of Myron Zhu, formerly co-head of PE at Aberdeen Standard Investments, as its regional private markets head based in Hong Kong. Zhu said he aims to make Manulife one of the major players in Asian private markets within 3-5 years, especially through the development of third-party relationships.

“We note with great interest the significant increase in private markets activity in the Asian region,” the spokesperson added. “We expect that as the private equity industry continues to mature the region will develop even higher volumes of secondary activity.  As a global business, with substantial private markets capabilities already in Asia, we are well-positioned to become a leader in the asset class.”

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• Topics
• LPs
• Secondaries
• Asia
• Manulife