SCPE backs Vietnam's Golden Gate, Mekong secures 9x exit

Golden Gate owns and operates a portfolio of 11 proprietary restaurant brands across 67 outlets located in and around Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Its brands include four hotpot concepts - mushroom, rotary express, grill and hotpot and Inner Mongolian, respectively - as well as a bar and steakhouse concept, traditional and buffet Japanese cuisine, a traditional street food concept and Korean barbecue.

When Mekong invested in the company in April 2008 it had only five restaurants under mushroom hotpot brand Ashima. The private equity firm put in $1.5 million from Mekong Enterprise Fund II through a convertible bond and has generated a gross IRR of 45.1% on the investment. The business has been cash generative since inception.

Much like Mobile World - a mobile phone retail chain backed by Mekong that went public earlier this year - Golden Gate was created by a several co-founders with relevant experience working for foreign companies in Vietnam or overseas. The Golden Gate team previously lived in Russia for many years.

"We remain very excited about the long term future of the company as the management team has set a clear long term vision and a clear plan for achieving that vision. Furthermore, they have consistently been open to learning from others, swiftly adopting best practices and building up their team. Nonetheless, as a lot of value had been created in the period of our investment, we saw this as an opportunity to realize profits for the fund," Chad Ovel, a partner at Mekong, said in a statement.

SCPE will provide strategic input into Golden Gate's business planning and support the management in its expansion plans. It is the firm's first investment in Vietnam, although it has been active in Southeast Asia for a number of years. Bert Kwan, SCPE's head of Southeast Asia excluding Indonesia, and Lee Tjen Chew will join the Golden Gate board.

"We are excited to have the opportunity to partner with one of the highest quality management teams in the region - a team that has demonstrated a remarkable track record of developing successful dining concepts within Vietnam," Kwan said in a statement.

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• Topics
• Exits
• Consumer
• Southeast Asia
• Exit
• Secondaries
• Consumer
• Southeast Asia
• Vietnam
• Trade sale