Hosen Capital Ltd (厚生投資) is looking to raise as much as US$1 billion to buy stakes in Asian food producers and predicts that more companies will be up for grabs in the region.
It would be the Beijing-based private equity firm’s third US dollar-denominated fund and its biggest, founding partner Hang Wang (王航) said in an interview.
Hosen is looking for targets in the region, including in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, he said.
“Mergers and acquisitions is a trend, so this will demand a larger fund,” Wang said, adding that fundraising would begin by June.
Hosen already manages a US$130 million and a US$460 million fund; the first made fourfold returns and, with more than half of the second invested, it expects at least a similar earning.
The firm also made a fourfold return on US$58 million invested in hot pot restaurant chain Haidilao International Holding Ltd (海底撈) last year, Wang said.
Asia’s private equity market is booming and now accounts for 26 percent of global assets, having doubled in share over the past decade, Bain & Co data showed.
Firms such as Hosen, which mainly focuses on the agriculture and food sector, are betting that the world’s most populated region will throw up unprecedented opportunity as incomes rise.
Hosen also has yuan-denominated funds totaling US$446 million, and two of the firms in which it has invested have applied to go public on a new, high-profile venue for technology stocks.
More are expected to do so, Wang said.
Wang said he sees more companies being put up for sale in Asia, citing as an example a wave of Taiwanese businesspeople who arrived in China in the 1990s and, as they approach retirement age, are looking to cede control to new investors.
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