Creador rushes to launch Fund II

Creador, which spun out from Indian GP ChrysCapital in 2011, eventually held a final close on Fund I at a revised target of $132 million in January. But, having decided to stick to its original investment thesis, the firm anticipated it would burn through its dry powder quickly and within days of finishing capital-raising for Fund I, Creador started eyeing a second vehicle.

"We could have done smaller deals and therefore maintained a normal investment lifespan - but we decided that was not the right thing to do," says Vasudevan. "We would rather do the right deals and we thought the right deals for us were $10-30 million in size because the companies would be in the right state of development."

He claims Creador is able to deploy around $80 million per year, targeting minority deals in mid-cap companies in India and Southeast Asia. With around five investments so far, Fund I is now around 80% deployed and recently made its first partial exit - selling half of its 10% stake in Malaysia's OldTown White Coffee restaurant chain at a 2x money multiple.

Now Fund II has launched with a target $250 million - just four months after the final close of its predecessor. Vasudevan originally envisioned a hard cap of $200 million, but increased it due to a positive response from LPs. The fund has already attracted $100 million in commitments from existing investors with a soft circle interest for another $50-75 million. A first close is expected by September with a final close coming early next year.

"Two years on, I think many of those issues we had initially have gone away. We now have proven team stability and a track record in both deals and an exit," says Vasudevan, adding that there will be co-investment opportunities for LPs in around one third of all deals.

In terms of geographical deployment, Fund II will follow the pattern of its predecessor, with a strong focus on Southeast Asia. Around 60% of the corpus will be deployed in Indonesia, 30% in Malaysia and 10% in India.

"In India we continue to be cautious because the macroeconomic situation is weak and valuations continue to be above what we consider reasonable, because there is still excess capital," says Vasudevan. "In Southeast Asia, on the other hand, we have mid-sized companies that are growing fast. Couple that with the fact there are still fewer PE players in the country and it makes for an excellent environment."

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• Topics
• Fundraising
• Southeast Asia
• South Asia
• Fundraising
• Southeast Asia
• India
• Creador