AlpInvest strengthens Asia secondaries team

Amsterdam-based AlpInvest Partners has hired Michael Camacho as a principal in its Hong Kong office, a source close to the matter told Private Equity International. Moving from the firm’s Dutch headquarters, his new appointment was effective from early November.

Camacho is in the firm’s secondaries investment team and replaces Neal Costello, principal and head of the Hong Kong secondaries team, who left the firm in June after less than a year in the position, PEI reported earlier.

AlpInvest did not confirm his departure at the time, but PEI’s source said he left to pursue another opportunity. In July 2012, Costello had relocated from AlpInvest’s New York office to set up a dedicated secondaries team in the Hong Kong office.

Camacho was also an existing member of the firm, having joined in 2007 from Bear Stearns’ investment banking division in New York. He then transferred to the firm’s Amsterdam office in 2009, before relocating to Hong Kong in 2013.

There are now three people based in AlpInvest’s Hong Kong office, including investment manager Nicole Su and one associate.

The firm has also been active in Asia’s secondaries market this year, having invested close to $200 million in secondaries deals in the region during 2013, according to PEI’s source.

In a deal that closed very early in 2013, AlpInvest took a cornerstone stake in a fund of a captive GP for around $130 million, the source said. He did not confirm which GP it was, but another industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said it was Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia.

The firm also invested $80 million across two other Asia-based transactions this year. One, a $55 million investment in three Asian GP positions, allowed the firm to “cherry-pick” from the LP portfolio the best GPs, which included ones from Australia, China and India, the source said.

AlpInvest is currently investing from its Global Secondaries Program V, which reached its hard cap of $750 million in October this year, according to an earlier company statement. The firm’s investments will be split evenly 40 percent and 40 percent for the US and Europe respectively, with the balance going to the rest of the world, which is likely to be predominantly in Asia and  Latin America.