Carlyle closes third Japan fund at $1b
The Carlyle Group has closed its third Japan-focused fund at JPY119.5 billion ($1 billion), exceeding the target of JPY100 billion.
The vehicle launched in the middle of 2013 and crossed the $600 million threshold last October, with commitments from predominantly domestic investors. In July, a filing indicated Carlyle had reached $775 million and by this point the overseas LPs - including Teachers' Retirement System of the State of Illinois - were coming on board.
Carlyle is the only global GP to have a series of dedicated Japan funds. The second vehicle closed at JPY215 billion in 2006, but the corpus was subsequently reduced to JPY165.6 billion. As of December 2014, the fund had delivered a net multiple of 0.9x and a negative IRR, according the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS).
The 2001 vintage Carlyle Japan Partners I, meanwhile - which closed in 2003 with a corpus of JPY50 billion - had a net multiple of 2.5x and IRR of 34.1%.
Fund III has already made four investments, including Oyatsu Company, a manufacturer of Baby-Star ramen snacks, Sunsho Pharmaceutical, a contract manufacturer in the health and nutrition industry, Aruhi Corporation, a mortgage bank previously known as SBI Mortgage, and Hitachi Metals Techno, a second-tier subsidiary of Hitachi.
"There are many Japanese companies with good products and technologies that have strong potential for global business expansion. We will build upon our track record of value creation to help Japanese companies grow and expand their businesses, both domestically and globally," Kazuhiro Yamada, managing director and co-head of Carlyle Japan, said in a statement.
Tamotsu Adachi, who runs the Japan team alongside Yamada, added that the firm continues to see investment opportunities created by succession planning issues within domestic companies and corporations deciding to divest non-core assets.
Carlyle has completed 20 investments in Japan across the three funds. Across all strategies, the firm has completed 40 transactions in the country, investing $2.6 billion in equity. The Tokyo office opened in 2000 and now houses 20 investment professionals.
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