MBK closes third North Asia buyout fund at $2.7b hard cap

MBK Partners III reached a first close of $1.25 billion last November, buoyed by re-ups from the likes of Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Other significant LPs include Illinois Teachers' Retirement System and Korea's National Pension Service (NPS).

The Seoul-based GP raised $1.6 billion for its second fund in 2009. Its debut vehicle, which raised $1.56 billion three years earlier, was at the time Asia's largest-ever first time fund.

Investment from the new vehicle is already well underway, with MBK responsible for three buyouts so far this year: Japanese coffee shop chain Komeda was acquired from Advantage Partners for approximately $483 million in January; Korean clothing retailer NEPA came later the same month for $958 million; and a $1.65 billion carve-out of ING's Korea life insurance business followed in August.

MBK's geographies of interest remain China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. This approach dates back to the firm's inception and a desire to find a middle ground between pan-regional platforms that might be too broad and shallow in coverage and country funds where there is a concentration risk.

"As a block they represent a larger GDP than the euro zone or the US, and we thought that North Asia was really where all the buyouts were happening," Kim told AVCJ last year. "We wanted to concentrate on this very fertile set of markets rather than do pan-Asia. You can't spread yourself too thin. We don't do venture, we don't do growth, we don't do distress. We do buyouts and we do them in North Asia."

Credit Suisse was placement agent for Fund III while Cleary Gottlieb served as legal counsel.

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• Topics
• Fundraising
• North Asia
• Greater China
• Buyout
• Fundraising
• Asia
• MBK Partners
• South Korea
• China
• Japan