Private equity (PE) firm MBK Partners is in the market raising its sixth flagship fund, according to its latest filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
MBK, which manages over $25.6 billion and invests exclusively in North Asian markets including China, Japan, and South Korea, disclosed in the SEC filing, dated November 2, of its plan to raise MBK Partners Fund VI.
The filing, signed by the firm’s partner and co-founder Michael B. Kim, did not disclose the fundraising target. But sources cited in a Mergermarket report from August said that MBK was looking to raise as much as $7 billion for the new fund.
DealStreetAsia has reached out to MBK.
MBK’s Fund V reached its hard cap of $6.5 billion in May 2020, according to AVCJ.
MBK’s network of limited partners (LPs) includes the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Temasek, and China Investment Corporation (CIC). It also works with South Korean LPs including the National Pension Service, the Public Officials Benefit Association, the Teachers’ Pension, and Korean Reinsurance.
Established in March 2005, MBK is led by Kim, ex-president of Carlyle Asia Partners where he oversaw Carlyle’s buyout activities in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan.
The firm specialises in buyouts and special situations, with an investment team of almost 100 professionals across offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo, according to its website.
MBK’s management team also includes partner Stephen Le and partner & chief operating officer (COO) Bryan Byungsuk Min, both of whom are based in Hong Kong.
Under the buyout strategy, MBK acquires companies through management-led buyouts with a focus on control investments for value creation. It buys subsidiary businesses via corporate divestitures, partners with strategic buyers, takes publicly listed firms private, and grows companies through add-on acquisitions.
Its special situation strategy invests in customised, secured lending, secondary credit investments in stressed and distressed opportunities, and non-control structured equity investments, according to its website.
MBK agreed to sell a roughly 13% stake to Dyal Capital Partners, a US-based division of Neuberger Berman, for approximately $1 billion as it was planning to expand into real estate and growth capital investing, Bloomberg reported in January 2022, citing sources.
In February this year, MBK Partners paid over $300 million to wholly acquire Unimat Retirement Community Co (URC), a Japanese elderly care service provider, according to a Reuters report.