Siguler Guff plans to raise $350 mn second Asia fund
1 min read 23 Mar 2023, 12:16 AM ISTThe fund, along with its limited partners will deploy $700 million in the region, they said, seeking anonymity.
PremiumMUMBAI : Siguler Guff, a multi-strategy private markets investor with over $16 billion in assets under management, is considering a $350-million Asia fund, which will back companies in India and Southeast Asia, two people in the know said.
The fund, along with its limited partners will deploy $700 million in the region, they said, seeking anonymity. In 2021, Siguler had raised a $240 million fund for Asia, of which around 50% flowed into the Indian market. Along with limited partners, or investors, it has invested $460 million in India and China from the first fund, one of the people said. It typically doubles the quantum of investments for a region.
“From the new fund, Siguler may move out from China and invest in new regions such as Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and Indonesia," the second person said.
Since 2018, the fund put to use $258 million in India, including co-investments.
Its investments include value apparel retailer Bazaar Kolkata ($59 million), consumer electrical firm Luker ($24 million), Sterling Hospitals and Verse Innovation, which owns news aggregator service Dailyhunt ($90 million).
“The firm made SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) filing for a new fund and will target the first close in the June quarter," the third person cited above said. It will be targeting growth private equity opportunities of $25-100 million, and will focus on consumer, healthcare, tech, and financial services. A Siguler spokesperson in India declined to comment on the matter.
In addition to its headquarters in New York, Siguler Guff has offices in Boston, London, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo. As per the Bain & Co.’s latest report released in early March, India continued to demonstrate resilience to global headwinds as structural enablers drove a positive economic outlook The decline was driven primarily by average deal size compression from $25 million to $16 million over 2021–2022. A significant drop in $100 million-plus “mega-rounds" (from 92 to 48 over 2021–2022) was a key factor in the deal size compression, with global investors exercising caution on large-ticket size deals, the report said. Global funds have been conclusively moving away from the China+1 strategy to invest in the Indian market, which dominates the Asian markets, where allocation is being recalibrated to rally behind growth markets including India.
