Unison closes debut Korea fund at $280m - update

The vehicle received an anchor commitment from the National Pension Service of Korea (NPS) and all the other LPs are Korean. A first investment came last autumn with the acquisition of a 70% stake in the company that holds the Korea and Japan master franchises for Gong Cha, a Taiwan-headquartered bubble tea chain.

Gong Cha is well-established in Korea with neary 300 stores. Unison plans to support domestic expansion, augment the management team, and take the company into the Japanese market.

"Over the last couple of years we have started to look at the Korean market, largely starting from business opportunities related to portfolio companies we have acquired in Japan," said T.J. Kono, a partner at Unison. "We have seen other opportunities and we felt it was prudent to consider investments in Korea and we thought we had something to bring to the market that existing players do not."

He draws comparisons between Unison's strategy when it raised its first Japan fund more than 15 years ago and what the team is looking to achieve in Korea today. The target companies are small- to mid-cap players and they face similar challenges to some of their Japanese counterparts: overcoming management inefficiencies, hiring talent, and expanding overseas.

Unison is also in the process of raising its fourth Japan fund, which reached a first close of JPY45 billion ($428 million) last September and is expected to close at JPY75 billion.

There is one Korean investment in the firm's previous Japan vehicle - Nexcon Technology, a manufacturer of lithium-ion battery packs and related products that was acquired through a KRW119.8 billion management buyout in 2012. Unison has since helped the company build up its Japanese customer base.

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• Topics
• Fundraising
• North Asia
• Buyout
• South Korea
• Unison Capital
• buyout
• Japan
• Fundraising
• National Pension Service (Korea)