Issued by Aureos
A new US$250 million Aureos South-East Asia Fund II (ASEAF II) is being launched by Aureos Capital Ltd, a leading private equity fund management company specialising in investments in small to mid-cap businesses across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The new fund will be the largest pan South-East Asian fund to exclusively target small to mid-cap businesses.
ASEAF II will invest across the South-East Asian region and will seek to make investments of between US$2 million and US$10 million.
The fund will target investments in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, building on the successful track record of Aureos’ South-East Asia Fund I and the Aureos Malaysia Fund.
Sev Vettivetpillai, Chief Executive of Aureos Advisers Ltd, comments: “South-East Asia is well placed to be one of the first regions to fully emerge from the current economic downturn.”
“The strength of the region’s economies lies partly in the practical lessons that were learnt from the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. This has left the region with low levels of leverage, flexible exchange rates and high foreign exchange reserves.”
“Combined with the region’s flexible labour markets, many small and middle-market companies are now well positioned for strong growth and profitability, particularly in their domestic and regional markets.”
Sev Vettivetpillai notes that the type of companies Aureos intends to invest in are very attractively priced, despite the region’s strong fundamentals, in part because they have been under-served by regional private equity funds and other more traditional sources of funding.
He explains: “China and India have overshadowed other investment opportunities in the broader Asian region which has left South-East Asian companies undervalued. Global private equity investors lack the local infrastructure to properly invest in the companies of the size that we focus on.”
Other factors in favour of investment in the region include:
The fund will be diversified with a primary focus on two market segments:
The ASEAF II team will be led by Hanjaya Limanto, Aureos’ Managing Partner in Indonesia, who has 20 years’ experience in private equity, venture capital, marketing and product development gained in the United States and Indonesia. His team has an average of 15 years’ private equity investment experience in South-East Asia.
Hanjaya Limanto observes: “The size of the region’s economy, with a population of over 575 million and GDP of US$1.3 trillion, means that it has now reached a scale where it should form a core holding for investors seeking to invest on a global basis. The region has a sound track record of economic development and is becoming more democratic, reducing political risk for investors.”
“In the small to mid-cap segment we continue to see a demand for risk capital from good quality, well managed companies with growth potential, particularly those focused on the growing middle class and domestic markets in South-East Asia.”
“Those companies are also seeking practical help to improve their competitiveness. It is through providing this kind of additional help that Aureos has established a strong track record for unlocking value in its portfolio companies.”
Hanjaya adds: “Aureos has established offices in all the principal countries in the region with its highly skilled and well networked investment executives. Aureos’ strong regional network enables us to generate consistent deal flow and establish strong local relationships. This provides an edge over the larger PE players that tend to operate on a fly-in, fly-out basis, limiting their ability to access similar opportunities.” “In contrast to a number of local funds, which typically do larger deals in excess of US$20 million and often demonstrate a strong preference for specific sectors, such as commodities, Aureos is the only small to mid-market investor in South-East Asia with such a region-wide presence of experienced professionals.”