Opinion
Top-up time: VC opportunity funds
Northern Light Venture Capital would like to have participated in the recent $50 million Series D round of funding for Daojia, but it could not. The Series C round last September wasn’t possible either. As it stands, the VC firm has recorded a handsome...
What now, Alibaba?
Chinese online furniture retailer Meilele started out life as a store within Taobao, Alibaba Group's C2C e-commerce platform in 2008. The company's transactions ran through the Taobao platform, with online payment service Alipay collecting monies owed....
China short-selling: Short shrift?
“The chairman just threatened to have me killed.” Delivered in a panicked voice, the statement brought proceedings to a standstill. As it happened, the meeting had been convened to share the news of my imminent departure with staff. But my bombshell...
Asia fundraising: Big beasts
And just like that, it was done. This week The Carlyle Group closed its fourth Asian fund, drawing a line under a three-year process that has seen nearly all of the largest global and Asia-based private equity firms raise their first regional vehicles...
A new, improved AVCJ Awards
As Asia’s private equity market deepens and becomes more diversified in terms of asset class, deal size and structure, and geography, the way we asses performance must evolve. The AVCJ Awards are and must remain limited in number – it is vital to...
Taiwan exits: Tread carefully
AVCJ has devoted considerable space to the challenges tied to foreign private equity buyouts in Taiwan, highlighting industry concerns about an opaque approvals process and the subsequent calls for clearer guidance on where PE is capital is and isn’t...
Asia energy: Oil angle
The continued growth of the Asia economies means increased demand for energy. Major Asian countries and corporations are rising to the challenge and paying top dollar for almost every oil and gas interest they can lay their hands on - not to mention extraction...
Oil angle: PE finds a route in Asia
The continued growth of the Asian economies means increased demand for energy. Major Asian countries and corporations are rising to the challenge and paying top dollar for almost every oil and gas interest they can lay their hands on – not to mention...
Evolution of the spin-out
Traditionally, private equity spin-outs have fallen somewhere along a scale that features autonomy at one end and greed (or, more kindly, a desire for talents to be appropriately rewarded) at the other, with innate entrepreneurism occupying the middle.
Asian Venture Capital: Not yet bubble territory
Is Asian venture capital back in favor? Based on what has been happening in the last year or so, the answer would be a resounding yes. Like their peers in Silicon Valley, the Asian VC community is certainly seeing more activity than say three years ago.
Thriller in Manila: PE investors target the Philippines
The Philippines is the fifth-largest economy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and has the second-largest population. GDP growth is among the fastest in Asia. But in terms of inbound and outbound commerce the country trails its comparable...
WH Group IPO: The pigs will fly
“I told everyone at the beginning of the year, ‘The two biggest risks for our industry are Shuanghui and Alibaba messing up.’ I knew there was going to be a pain trade but I thought it would be Alibaba, not Shuanghui.”
Cross-border PE: The ASEAN angle
Ambitions of building scale underpin many private equity investments in Southeast Asia. It is remarkable – although perhaps unsurprising – how few have succeeded. So far, at least.
Inside fundraising: Gleanings from the first half of 2014
At the halfway point of 2014, what do the private equity fundraising numbers tell us? According to provisional data from AVCJ Research, 82 funds have reached incremental or final closes worth $23.6 billion so far this year. This compares to $25.5 billion...
VC in China P2P: Revert to the norm?
China venture capital goes through fads and phases. A business model – perhaps already proven in another market – is rolled out locally. This precipitates a flood of copycats, plunging the market into a period of cutthroat competition. Consolidation...
Japan economics: The third arrow
The timing of the AVCJ Japan forum in recent years has seemed somewhat fortuitous.
The food thesis
Food has and continues to be one of the more compelling investment theses for private equity in China. The first phase of the consumer story was leveraging the emergence of discretionary consumption - households with sufficient income to choose one brand...
Red heat: China PE on the rebound?
Investors have not been chasing as hard as they used to on opportunities in Chinese private equity these past few years. It’s not hard to understand why: the combination of slowing economic conditions, frequently unrealistic valuations, the temporary...
India e-commerce: Arms race
Chinese online retailer JD.com's US IPO was preceded by a three-year period in which it raised $1.7 billion from private equity and venture capital investors. This faith has, so far, paid off, with $1.8 billion raised through the IPO – allowing partial...
Policy vacuum?
Everyone wants to be Silicon Valley. Beijing's Zhongguancun area, Bangalore in India and Tokyo's Shibuya district are among those to earn versions of the moniker by virtue of their technical might. Hong Kong and Singapore have lofty but as yet unrealized...
Play the man
Denham Capital's investment in Pembroke Resources appears to follow a standard pattern: Find a management team with a track record of building and selling resources companies; furnish them with start-up capital to accumulate a portfolio of assets; provide...
A heavy hand
In an industry seemingly obsessed with global standards, the Australian government's requirement that superannuation funds publish the full details of their portfolio holdings on a look-through basis was a step away from the norm. The delays in its implementation...
PE firms and IPOs – again
Fifteen months ago this space was used to pour water on the notion of Asian private equity firms going public.
Flights of fancy
Jiangyin Zhongnan Heavy industries is a Chinese steel equipment manufacturer harboring an ambition. The Shenzhen-listed company produces more than 40,000 tons per year of pipe fittings and associated paraphernalia, serving petrochemical, shipbuilding,...