Axiom closes latest Asia fund-of-funds at $1.8b

The vehicle launched in April with a target of $1.4 billion and received backing Montana State Board of Investments, the Metropolitan Government of Nashville & Davidson County, Tennessee, and State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, among others. More than 90% of commitments came from existing investors. Axiom claims to work with over 100 institutional investors from 21 countries, including public and private pension plans, endowments, foundations, and family offices.

“The decline in fundraising in Asia, coupled with better deal dynamics, and a strong exit environment, has caused attractive deal flow across primary funds, co-investments and secondaries to increase to the highest level we have seen in 15 years,” said Edmond Ng, a managing partner at the firm, in a statement.

Alex Lee, another managing partner and head of secondaries, added that he expects to see robust activity across the Asian secondary market for at least the next 12-18 months. Axiom describes its approach to secondaries as quick and discrete, supporting GP-led restructurings and acquiring LP interests in funds.

The firm closed its previous fund at $1.39 billion in 2018, simultaneously raising $210 million for its first dedicated co-investment vehicle. The mid-market strategy is unchanged, across primaries, secondaries, and co-investment. No details were given regarding deployment. The objective for Fund V was to build a portfolio of about 20 managers across buyout, growth, and venture, with 80% of the corpus earmarked for primaries and 20% for secondaries and co-investment.

Axiom’s 21-strong investment team continues to be led by Ng, Lee and two more managing partners, Chris Loh, and Marc Lau. A leadership transition occurred prior to Fund IV – which closed at just over $1 billion in 2015 – with the exit of two co-founders. Total commitments across the six fund-of-funds and one co-investment fund stand at $7 billion.

While fundraising by Asia-focused GPs has rebounded to near pre-COVID-19 levels – commitments fell from $28.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019 to $11.7 billion in the first three months of 2020 but have reached $39.4 billion and $29.4 billion, respectively, in the following two quarters – money is gravitating towards better-known names. There were more than 830 partial or final closes in 2019; the total for 2020 through November is about 350.

In terms of private equity investment, $52.2 billion was deployed across more than 1,370 deals in the third quarter of 2020, exceeding the quarterly average for 2019 on both counts. While exits remain muted, there has been a resurgence in IPO activity, especially concerning China.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Fundraising
• Fund-of-funds
• LPs
• Asia
• Axiom Asia Private Capital