Fundraising

Fubon Life makes first commitments to Ardian and Lexington

The Taiwanese insurer has committed $80m a piece to ASF VIII and Lexington Capital Partners IX at a time when Asian insurers are upping their alternatives exposure to boost returns.

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A Taiwan-headquartered insurer with $245 billion in assets under management has made a pair of secondaries commitments.

Fubon Life Insurance committed $80 million a piece to ASF VIII and Lexington Capital Partners IX, according to two filings with the Taiwanese stock exchange.

According to PEI data, this is the first time Fubon has invested with either firm. It has in the past committed to HarbourVest Partners’ Dover Street IX and StepStone Secondary Opportunities Fund III, both 2015-vintage funds.

Ardian passed the three-quarter mark on fundraising for ASF VIII after just eight months in market, Secondaries Investor reported last week. It has collected at least $9 billion out of a $12 billion target, according to two sources. The fund is already being invested.

Florida State Board of Administration, Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System and University of Houston System are among the limited partners in the fund.

Lexington Partners started raising its ninth flagship secondaries fund in February with a target of $12 billion, Secondaries Investor reported.

Florida SBA, Los Angeles Water & Power Employees Retirement Plan and Minnesota State Board of Investment are among its investors.

Asian insurance companies are deploying more capital to alternatives in the hunt for higher yield and greater diversification of assets, Secondaries Investor noted in November.

Insurers in China, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia had a four-fold increase in their alternatives allocation between 2013 and 2017, hitting $973.8 billion in 2017. Alternative assets as a percentage of insurers’ investable assets have also seen an upward trend – from 12.4 percent in 2013 to 25.2 percent in 2017.