PAG, Centurium win firm of the year prizes at AVCJ Awards

PAG claimed three out of the 16 prizes presented, adding the fundraising and deal of the year awards to its firm of the year title – each one in the large-cap category. Ramnath’s award capped a strong showing by India’s private equity community, with A91 Ventures and ChrysCapital Partners triumphing in the VC and mid-cap fundraising categories and Gaja Capital taking the operational value-add prize for its work on EuroKids International.

Pacific Equity Partners took the mid-cap exit award for Manuka Health, 12 months after the same company won the responsible investment prize. Its successor in that category was Organica, a Vietnam-based retailer and wholesaler of organic foods and beverages backed by SEAF. CBC Group, CITIC Capital, Unison Capital, and KKR were among the other winners.

Collecting the firm of the year award, David Kim, a partner and COO at PAG, reflected on how far the organization has come since Weijian Shan moved over from TPG Capital in 2010 and started the PAG private equity team with a “relatively small group of professionals." He said: "Ten years later, we are up to 49 professionals on the buyout side and we have nine members in our growth fund. We’ve done three fundraisings on the buyout side and one on the growth side."

In addition to closing Fund III at the hard cap of $6.1 billion, PAG has deployed $2.3 billion over the past 12 months. Transactions include two complex buyouts from state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China – Baosteel Gases and Hisun BioRay Biopharmaceutical. The former saw PAG invest $780 million for a 65% stake through a public tender from Baowu Group and the acquisition of interests in various Baosteel Gases subsidiaries that were swapped into shares in the parent.

The private equity firm was up against a US strategic in the tender, with each side upping the ante an incremental bidding war. “We just made the bet that the American board would want to go to bed and not stay up,” said Lincoln Pan, a partner at PAG. “Their China team had a cap and around 2.30 p.m. or 3 p.m. in the afternoon they stopped bidding.”

If PAG’s awards reflected the culmination of nearly a decade spent accumulating talent, experience and credibility, India-based A91 Ventures is at the other end of the spectrum. The firm was established last year by a trio of investment professionals – Gautam Mago, Abhay Pandey, and V.T. Bharadwaj – who spun out from Sequoia Capital India. They closed their debut fund earlier this year at $351 million, beating a target of $330 million.

“Raising a first fund is a difficult journey – it’s challenging, there’s a lot of anxiety, a lot of nervousness, a lot of uncertainty, but also a lot of optimism. During this journey people who give you support and encouragement are very valuable. We are lucky to have entrepreneurs and people in the Indian ecosystem who supported us early on and gave us the confidence,” said Pandey.

For Ramnath, that journey began in 1999 when she gave up a career with ICICI’s merchant banking and corporate finance business to pursue an e-commerce investment initiative. Fascinated by the role that foreign private equity firms had played in enabling the development of India’s entrepreneurs, Ramnath stuck to her task – becoming CEO of ICICI Venture in 2001 – even as those around her expressed bemusement as such a career choice.

“A lot of people thought that I was trying to take it easy, many said I had put a career epitaph on myself, and many said I was mad, to say the least. ‘Why would you give up such a large opportunity, such a large balance sheet to go and do something non-existent?’ they asked me,” she recalled, while accepting the special achievement award, which recognizes an individual who has distinguished himself or herself over a long period of time in facilitating the growth of the industry.

Ramnath credited ICICI for its patience, given the first four years delivered nothing in the way of results – they would come in 2007 as Indian private equity enjoyed its first boom period. She also singled out Life Insurance Corporation of India for having faith in her when no foreign institutional investors were willing to look at the country.

“They gave me INR150 crores [INR1.5 billion], which is in the low $20 millions, but in those days it was big money. They said ‘You have been coming here for three years, maybe you’ve come 50 times. We can’t say we understand this product any more than we did three years back, but you look more confident. So please remember we are giving the money to you, not ICICI, you had better stay there and deliver.’ With that message and the backing of ICICI I started my journey,” Ramnath said.

The AVCJ Awards took place on the eve of the 2019 AVCJ Forum, which is being held in Hong Kong from November 12-14. For more information, please go to www.avcjforum.com. For further details on how the awards winners were chosen, please go to www.avcjforum.com/awards.

The winners in full:

• Fundraising of the Year – Venture Capital: A91 Partners Fund I (A91 Partners)
• Fundraising of the Year – Mid Cap: ChrysCapital VIII (ChrysCapital Partners)
• Fundraising of the Year – Large Cap: PAG Asia III (PAG Asia Capital)
• Deal of the Year – Small Cap: AffaMed Therapeutics (CBC Group)
• Deal of the Year – Mid Cap: Hangzhou UCO Cosmetics (CITIC Capital)
• Deal of the Year – Large Cap: Baosteel Gases (PAG Asia Capital)
• Exit of the Year – IPO: Innovent Biologics (6 Dimensions Capital/Ally Bridge Group/Capital Group Private Markets/CBC Group/Cormorant Asset Management/Cowin Capital/Eight Roads Ventures/F-Prime Capital/Hillhouse Capital/Legend Capital/Lilly Asia Ventures/Rock Springs Capital/Temasek Holdings)
• Exit of the Year – Small Cap: Gong Cha Korea (Unison Capital)
• Exit of the Year – Mid Cap: Manuka Health (Pacific Equity Partners)
• Exit of the Year – Large Cap: KCF Technologies (KKR))
• Responsible Investment Award: Organica (SEAF)
• Operational Value Add Award: EuroKids International (Gaja Capital)
• Firm of the Year – Mid Cap: Centurium Capital
• Firm of the Year – Large Cap: PAG Asia Capital
• AVCJ Special Achievement Award: Renuka Ramnath

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