Thailand's Lakeshore closes second fund at $150m
Lakeshore Capital, a mid-market private equity firm focused on Thailand and the Greater Mekong region, has closed its second fund oversubscribed at the hard cap of $150 million.
The fund was launched in mid-2020 with an initial target of $125 million and received a commitment of $20 million from the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The fundraising process is said to have been completed within four months.
LPs include pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, fund-of-funds, family offices, and development finance institutions from the US, UK, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Lakeshore claims there was strong support from both existing and new investors. The fund is more than twice the size of its predecessor, which closed at $60.7 million in 2015.
Fundraising was buoyed by at least two exits from Fund I, including the sale of Bangkok area steakhouse chain Santa Fe to Singha Corporation in 2019 for $50 million, generating a 2.7x return. Lakeshore paid $4.5 million for a stake of undisclosed size in 2015 and help grow the company's footprint from 66 to 116 restaurants as it expanded into Cambodia.
Lakeshore's first exit was HR services provider Humanica. The private equity firm took a 25% interest in the company for an undisclosed size in 2015 and generated a 13x return following an IPO in 2017 and the sale of its remaining stake the following year.
"Lakeshore has demonstrated its ability to source and actively manage proprietary investments, and has built a diversified portfolio of leading businesses that are dominant within their respective markets, with a focus on strategic value creation and business transformation," Panaikorn Chartikavanij, co-founder and partner at Lakeshore, said in a statement.
Fund II will continue Lakeshore's strategy of backing Thai small to medium-sized enterprises deemed to be at an inflection point in their growth and then providing hands-on support in operations and business transformation. Target areas include business services, technology, consumer products and retail, healthcare, education, and logistics.
Chartikavanij, formerly an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, set up Lakeshore in 2009 alongside Supawat Likittanawong, who used to work for Boston Consulting Group and Standard Chartered. The firm has made a feature of its environmental, social, and governance policy, which is managed by Leonard Cohen, previously of Goldman Sachs and Capital Z Asia.
Asante Capital Group advised Lakeshore on the fundraising.
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