CVC, PEP, CDH top wish-lists for Asian secondaries

Pacific Equity Partners (PEP), CVC Asia Pacific and CDH Investments manage the most in-demand Asian funds among secondaries buyers, according to broker and advisor Setter Capital.

The firm’s ‘liquidity rating’ is based on factors including a fund’s popularity/number of followers on SecondaryLink, Setter’s online platform for market participants to track funds and share due diligence. Setter itself then subjectively determines the likely number of prime buyers and gives each fund a rating based in part on the seriousness, capacity and number of interested buyers for a fund and the ease of transfer.

The three funds given a liquidity rating of ‘excellent’ all had more than forty investors interested in buying positions.

The next rating of ‘very good’ covered 15 funds that had between 20 and 40 interested investors on the secondaries market. They included TPG Asia; Affinity Equity Partners; Carlyle Asia Growth Partners; Hony Capital; Arche Capital; KKR Asia; New Horizon Fund; Bain Capital Asia; CHAMP Private Equity; Carlyle Asia Partners; Cerberus Asia Partners; Orchid Asia; Baring Asia; Capital Today China; Ironbridge and Citic Capital China (PE).

Setter also recognised MBK Partners and Carlyle Japan Partners as having ‘good’ liquidity, performing above the secondaries market demand average, with between 10 and 20 interested parties.

Setter Capital is one of several advisory groups keeping tabs on the secondaries market. It published a market report in December last year, which estimated private equity secondaries volume at $27.9 billion and secondaries activity across all alternative asset classes at $36 billion.