Advantage Partners has no plans for new fund – report

The Japanese private equity firm added that it wouldn't seek to extend the investment period for Advantage Partners IV, Reuters reported, citing three people who attended the meeting.

Last month, Hideyuki Inokuma, the firm's chief administrative officer, said that the possibility of an extension had been in discussion since the second half of 2011 due to a poor deal-making environment. However, he added that the environment had since improved, so a final decision would be delayed until April.

The fund in question closed in June 2007 at JPY215.6 billion ($2.66 billion), close to one-fifth of which has yet to be invested. It has already recorded a significant loss on Tokyo Star Bank. Advantage Partners bought a majority stake in the lender for JPY170 billion in 2007 but struggled with the asset after the global financial crisis. Tokyo Star was surrendered to creditors last year as debts tied to the acquisition went unpaid.

Advantage Partners is not the only Japanese private equity firm to encounter difficulties recently. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust has reportedly cut the target for its latest mezzanine debt fund by half to $375 million, while Unison Capital has reduced its third fund by one quarter to JPY107 billion. In 2009, The Carlyle Group handed back to LPs JPY50 billion of its JPY215.6 billion vehicle raised three years earlier.

Last year, Advent International closed its Japan office and wound up its JPY60 billion fund without making any investments.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Fundraising
• Investments
• Japan
• Advantage Partners
• Fundraising
• Unison Capital
• Sumitomo Mitsui