Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA) has announced the final close of its eighth fund at $11.2 billion, making it one of the largest private equity funds raised by an Asia-based private equity firm.
The final close exceeded the firm’s initial target of $8.5 billion.
BPEA said commitments to the vehicle, Baring Asia Private Equity Fund VIII, were “equally split” between local Asian investors and limited partners from North America and EMEA.
Fund VIII will continue the firm’s active ownership strategy to make control-oriented investments across the Asia-Pacific, focusing on healthcare, technology services, business services, education, financial services, consumer and advanced manufacturing.
DealStreetAsia had earlier reported that BPEA’s eighth fund will allocate up to 10% of its capital to growth-stage investments, alongside traditional buyouts, and will write cheques between $150 million and $500 million across 18-22 companies.
BPEA said as of June 2022, its predecessor Fund VII was delivering a gross IRR of 38%. The firm manages $22 billion of assets.
“We operate in one of the most dynamic regions for private market investing, and the scale of BPEA Fund VIII positions our firm well to capitalise on investment opportunities across the entire Asia-Pacific region,” said Jean Eric Salata, CEO and founding partner of BPEA.
In March, BPEA and Swiss private equity group EQT announced a business combination, which is now expected to close in Q4 2022. Salata will become head of BPEA EQT Asia and oversee EQT’s private capital business in Asia.
In October last year, BPEA established a sustainability-linked credit facility worth up to $3.2 billion, the largest of its kind in Asia for environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments. The firm said on Tuesday that this loan facility will deploy along with its eighth fund.
One of BPEA’s recent investments is a take-private transaction in Taiwanese contact lens producer Ginko in May.
Last month, DealStreetAsia reported that Biocon Biologics Limited, a unit of India’s largest biopharmaceutical company Biocon, was in talks with the Hong Kong-based PE firm to sell a minority stake.
BPEA’s portfolio companies in India include Virtusa, Citius Tech, Coforge (formerly called NIIT Technologies), CMS, AGS Health and RBS Bank. In Southeast Asia, the firm has backed retail platform The CrownX and Vietnam-USA Society English Centres in Vietnam; business services provider TELUS International, education solutions provider Straive and game development company Virtuos in Singapore.