Ant Capital spin-out hits first close on debut fund

AB Value Capital Partners, the direct secondaries firm that spun out of Japan’s Ant Capital Partners in July, is more than halfway toward the target of its debut fund.

The firm held a first close on $57 million out of a $100 million target for AB Value Bridge VI in December, the same month it rebranded from Ant Bridge Capital Partners. The fund, which launched in July, is expected to hold its final close in September, AB Value founder and managing partner Shunsa Hayashi told Secondaries Investor.

Investors in the fund are mainly international limited partners, mostly from the US, Hong Kong and Taiwan, unlike Ant Capital’s LPs who are primarily Japanese institutional investors such as regional banks and corporate pensions, Hayashi said. He declined to name any LPs.

“We will continue to focus on specialist secondaries and look at deals opportunistically,” he said. “The firm wants to provide a broader scope of liquidity solutions such as funds of funds and secondary LP interests marketed in Japan and Taiwan, and not go into the traditional venture capital and buyout space.”

Hayashi was previously a managing director with Tokyo-based Ant Capital, which specialises in Japanese small- and medium-sized enterprises as well as secondaries. He led Ant Capital’s secondaries business focusing on greater China and Taiwan, managing its $77 million 2006-vintage Primasia Ant Bridge No.1 and $67 million 2012-vintage Ant Bridge Asia V.

He left Ant Capital in September 2015 and bought out management of the firm’s Taiwan entity, taking over its two funds and leaving the Japan-based yen funds to Ant Capital.

AB Value employs ten professionals in Taipei, Tokyo and Singapore, according to its website.

In January, Hiro Hatayama, former head of secondaries at Tokyo-based advisory firm Ark Totan, joined the firm as a principal specialising in sourcing Asia-Pacific secondaries deals, according to his LinkedIn profile.