Jefferies hires Dennis Kwan to lead Asia secondaries advisory

Kwan will serve as a Hong Kong-based managing director in the private capital advisory (PCA) team. Jefferies entered the secondaries space in 2021 with the recruitment of a clutch of senior professionals out of Greenhill.

It is the second such appointment in a fortnight. Asia-focused BDA Partners launched its PCA business with the hiring of Dominik Woessner, who previously led secondaries advisory coverage at Thrive Alternatives and Lazard, and before that worked for Greenhill.

The recruitment activity coincides with rising expectations of a secondaries glut in Asia as valuations stabilise at lower levels and investors consider their liquidity needs amid a slowdown in exits.

“Asia is a fast-growing but largely untapped secondaries market. We are seeing increasing demand for our solutions from both LPs and GPs, and I am very excited to have the opportunity to build on Jefferies’ distinguished position in the secondary market,” Kwan said in a statement.

He added that the PCA business is fully integrated with the broader Jefferies’ investment banking platform, which will allow the PCA team to continue serving LPs in Asia while also building a GP-led advisory practice by leveraging Jefferies’ sponsor network across the region.

Kwan started his alternatives career at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust, covering investments in private equity, private credit, and infrastructure globally. This was followed by six years at MVision, latterly as a managing director and regional head of Asia.

In 2020, Kwan moved to Harvest Investments Management, a private equity unit under asset manager Harvest Fund Management, as a founding member and head of investor relations of US dollar-denominated funds. He was responsible for HI Transformational Fund, an enterprise technology-focused business incubated by Harvest Fund Management.

HI Transformational Fund closed its debut US dollar fund on USD 110m in 2020. As of early 2021, it also had three renminbi vehicles and several project funds, taking total assets under management to CNY 10bn (USD 1.43b).

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

• Topics
• Advisory
• People
• Secondaries
• Asia
• professional services
• Secondaries
• Jefferies
• Appointments