Creador reaches $132m final close on debut fund
Creador, a Southeast Asia and India-focused private equity firm, has reached a final close of $132 million for its debut fund. This comes after a first close of $100 million in late 2011. Creador already has plans to launch a second fund in 2013.
The PE firm, which was set up by former ChrysCapital Partners executive Brahmal Vasudevan (pictured), originally sought to raise $350 million, but the fundraising environment has been challenging. According to AVCJ Research, LP commitments to Asia-based GPs have been in decline since the middle of 2011. Preliminary numbers for the fourth quarter of 2012 have fundraising at a multi-year low of $6.4 billion.
Creador targets growth-oriented middle market businesses, with a typical investment size of $10-50 million. Speaking to AVCJ last year, Vasudevan said that 40-50% of the fund corpus would be deployed in Indonesia. He compared present-day Indonesia to India 8-9 years ago: fewer opportunities because entrepreneurs are unaccustomed to the asset class; bottom-up rather than intermediary-led deal sourcing; and longer periods of time spent on transaction execution.
Creador completed three deals in 2012 and expects to commit $39 million to two more transactions in the next month.
Last year the GP played an anchor role in Indonesian pay TV company MNC Skyvision's IPO, putting in $28 million, of which $13 million was a co-investment from an LP. It also invested in OldTown White Coffee, the number-one Asian restaurant chain in Malaysia, and Cholamandalam Investment & Finance, an Indian financial services provider.
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