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ICG revamps its mezzanine and equity team for Asia-Pacific

With new hires, the firm’s Asian strategy now includes providing ‘flexible capital’ for management buyouts.

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Intermediate Capital Group has revamped its mezzanine and equity investment team for Asia-Pacific with its third Asian mezzanine fund having invested more than 90 percent of its capital.

According to its half-year earnings results announced on 15 November 2018, ICG Asia Pacific Fund III had seven assets and had invested 91 percent of its capital.

A London-based spokeswoman from the firm declined to comment on ICG’s Asian mezzanine fundraising updates, including Fund III, but confirmed last Friday that the firm hired four investment professionals in local markets across Singapore, Japan, and Australia, with an additional appointment due to be made in H1 2019.

ICG announced on 10 January that Wooseok Jun, a former head of Korea at ICG, had succeeded Chris Heine as head of Asia-Pacific for its equity and mezzanine investment business as of September 2018. Heine, the former head of Asia-Pacific at ICG, retired at the end of 2018.

Jun has been with ICG for more than five years, since he joined as a managing director and head of Korea. Prior to ICG, he was a director at Providence Equity Partners, a Rhode Island-headquartered private credit and equity asset manager. He also held a vice president position at private equity firm Affinity Equity Partners and worked there for five years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Offering his view on the investment climate, Jun told PDI that management teams of some private companies in the region are often keen to undertake management buyouts but do not usually have the means to do so.

He added that many developed Asian economies, including Japan, have family-owned companies that are increasingly facing up to challenges in business succession as their founders retire and may not have others in the family to succeed them.

“This is where our business model of providing flexible capital solutions to management teams and families is very powerful and well suited for these upcoming challenges,” he added.

ICG managed €33.6 billion ($38.6 billion) in assets and its fee-earning AUM was recorded at €26 billion as of end-September 2018.