AVCJ Awards: Fundraising of the Year - Large Cap: CVC Capital Partners

A total of 450 investor meetings, 85 road trips and a data room of 130 documents went towards the raising of CVC Capital Partners Asia Pacific IV, which closed at the hard cap of $3.5 billion in May.

While US and European LPs account for about half the corpus, the Asian share is one third. The rise of the Asian LP is a feature of most of the pan-regional buyout funds raised in the last few years. CVC, however, can claim an extra victory. The investors in Fund IV include the Japan Bank for International Corporation (JBIC), making its first commitment to a traditional top-tier buyout fund.

"This participation can be a model that will facilitate greater coordination among PE funds, JBIC, Japanese financial institutions and Japanese companies as potential buyers for portfolio companies," Shigeki Kimura, managing executive officer at JBIC told AVCJ earlier this year.

JBIC is a distinguished addition to a fund that two years ago looked set for a difficult time in the market, with the write-off of CVC's investment in Nine Entertainment was still fresh in the memory. There is no Australia allocation in Fund IV, which is partly why the vehicle is smaller than its predecessor.

However, the PE firm has found better fortune in recent years in Southeast Asia, with deals such as Indonesia-based Matahari Department Store buoying Fund III returns. CVC acquired control of the retailer at a valuation of $892 million in 2010 and made a sizeable partial exit in 2013 at a valuation of $3.3 billion.

Control and joint control deals across consumer-retail, healthcare and financial services are likely to be a theme of Fund IV. Three of the last four investments from the previous fund were China buyouts. Since then CVC has bought a fast food franchise in Korea, a pan-regional serviced officer provider and a 50% interest in a Japanese broadband provider.

"With our well established presence, local networks and on-the-ground experts, CVC has a strong track record across Asia and will continue to identify investment opportunities benefiting from increased consumer affluence and domestic demand in Greater China, South East Asia, Japan and Korea," says Steve Koltes, the private equity firm's co-founder and co-chairman.

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• Topics
• Fundraising
• Buyout
• CVC Capital Partners
• Fundraising
• Asia
• AVCJ Awards