LGT doubles down on Asia with Vertex GP-led

LGT Capital Partners is to back its second large Asian GP-led deal of 2020, Secondaries Investor has learned.

The Pfäffikon-headquartered alternatives manager is lead investor on a GP-led process involving Vertex Holdings, a venture capital subsidiary of Temasek, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The process is expected to complete in January, according to one of the sources.

Continuation vehicle Vertex Legacy Fund (SG) was registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 23 November.

Secondaries Investor reported in June that Vertex had offered liquidity options to investors in several funds as part of a process worth as much as $500 million.

Evercore is understood to be advising on the deal.

In September, Secondaries Investor reported that LGT was among the backers of a $600 million yuan-to-dollar restructuring carried out by Chinese private equity manager IDG Capital. HarbourVest Partners led the deal run by Lazard.

Speaking to Secondaries Investor in 2018, Doug Coulter, partner and head of private equity for Asia at LGT, said: “We can clearly use our secondaries business when the downturn does come and valuations fall, and nobody wants to buy assets anymore in Asia.”

“We can buy good-quality assets at cheaper prices,” he added.

Founded in 1988, Singapore-headquartered Vertex Holdings has around $3 billion in assets under management across several geographically targeted VC funds, according to Secondaries Investor data. It makes early stage information technology and healthcare investments in South-East Asia, India, the US, China and Israel.

Active investments include Singapore-based ride-hailing app Grab, which was valued at $14 billion after an investment from Softbank in March last year. It is not clear if Grab is part of this secondaries process.

Asia accounted for 6 percent of GP-led deals by volume last year, compared with 17 percent the year before, according to data from advisor Greenhill.

Vertex and LGT did not respond to requests for comment. Evercore declined to comment.

– Adam Le contributed to this report.