MBK Partners, a North Asia-focused private equity firm owned by billionaire Michael Kim, sells and declined to be identified as the information is still confidential.
MBK Partners is looking beyond private equity and special project funds and expanding to real estate and capital growth investing. This sector is expanding as rivals who are cash-rich are bidding up the valuations and, at the same time, circumventing a Chinese regime that is highly suspicious of offshore investments in the sensitive real estate sector.
MBK follows rivals in Asia such as Baring Private Equity and PAG footstep. They had sold minority stakes in 2016 and 2018 respectively to global firms.
According to Preqin, the investment market in Asia is set for explosive growth in the coming years as assets owned by Private Capital Managements are on course to touch $ 6 trillion in 2025.
A spokesperson for Blue Owl Capital inc., a subsidiary of Dyal Capital, and a representative of MBK declined to comment on the development.
MBK has been on a fundraising spree since the pandemic. It raised $ 6.5 billion in May 2020 for its fifth buyout fund and $1.8 billion in November 2020 for its second special situation fund. The buyout second and third funds have tripled in value while the first special situation fund of its fourth fund has doubled.
Global Private equity firms have expanded beyond leveraged buyouts in Asia in the past few years. New York-based KKR & Co. has added strategic assets in infrastructure and real estate and acting as capital market advisors to portfolio companies. Carlyle Group and Bain Capital are looking for growth in the credit business.
MBK’s pay-out of $ 3.6 billion dividends in 2020 is its second-highest annual distribution ever. The PE firm has delivered $ 14. 4 billion in the last 16 years; in 2020 the proceeds were the highest among Asian Private equity firms in a letter to its investors.
The MBK fund was founded by Michael ByungJu Kim, Kuo-Chuan Kung, along with four senior Asian executives from the Carlyle Group. MBK is the only significant buyout fund globally to focus exclusively on South Korea, Japan, and China.
New York-based Dyal Capital Partners, which buys stakes in hedge funds and PE funds, raised more than $ 9 billion in 2019 for its largest-ever fund. It combined Owl Rock and a blank cheque firm to Blue Owl Capital subsidiary Inc.
