China's Qiming recruits partner from LACERA

Qiming closed its seventh US dollar-denominated fund on USD 1.2bn in 2020, expecting an equal split between technology, media, and telecom (TMT) and healthcare. Last year, it launched Springhill Fund, a USD 500m vehicle that invests in healthcare public equities.

Prior to joining LACERA in 2014, Chu (pictured) worked at incubator Idealab in the US and founded Shanghai-based financial advisory firm SVP Capital Advisors. During 10 years at SVP, he led the sourcing and execution of a dozen fundraising and M&A transactions.

At LACERA, Chu helped design and implement, and then led, the private equity and venture capital co-investment and secondaries program. On becoming a senior investment officer in 2018, he assumed responsibility for the global venture capital and growth equity portfolio.

He represented LACERA on 30 advisory boards and led over USD 2.5bn in approved commitments across funds, co-investments, and secondaries. As of June 2021, the pension system had USD 75.4bn in assets, including USD 11.5bn in private equity.

Qiming is not the first Chinese manager to make a senior hire from the US pension community. In 2017, Real Desrochers, who previously led the alternatives program at California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), became a managing director at CITIC Private Equity, now CPE.

In Asia more broadly, Mark Warner left his role as head of natural resources investments at University of Texas Investment Management (UTIMCO) in 2018 to become a partner at infrastructure investor Equis Group. Indian and Southeast Asia-focused Everstone Group also recruited Suneel Kaji from UTIMCO to serve as a managing director.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• People
• Venture
• Fundraising
• Qiming Venture Partners
• China
• Investor relations
• Appointments
• Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA)