South Korean private equity firm IMM Private Equity has hit the final close of its third Korea-focused buyout fund with a corpus of 1.25 trillion won ($1.15 billion), several media reports said, quoting executives from the firm.
The new vehicle, named IMM RoseGold PEF III, began its fundraising in 2014 and closed the first chunk of 485 billion won in March last year. It will inherit the preceding fund’s strategy to look at deals in the consumer, food and beverage and industrial sectors, Private Equity International said in a report.
The fundraising process for the IMM RoseGold PEF III has seen increased interest from foreign investors, the report added, quotingJoseph Lee, partner and senior managing director at IMM.
While most of the funding came from Korean limited partners, including the National Pension Service of Korea, Hyundai Marine and Fire Insurance and Public Officials Benefit Association, Lee reportedly said that about 20 per cent of the latest vehicle was raised from international investors such as sovereign wealth funds and large pension funds.
“For PEF III a lot of our limited partners felt that they wanted to get exposure in the mid-market space in Korea – deals with an enterprise value of under $1 billion – where most of the deals in are mainly chaebol (family-owned businesses) carve-outs, mid-cap companies where founders are cashing out, or growth capital investments,” the report further quoted Lee as stating.
The IMM RoseGold PEF II, launched in 2011, was oversubscribed, beating the 700 billion won target, and finally closed at 755.7 billion won. The second fund was fully deployed this year and has invested in life insurance, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, and materials industries.
The overall transaction value by the second Korea-focused series reached over $1.8 billion, through both equity, co-investments, debt and mezzanine financing, the report quoted Lee as stating.
The first RoseGold fund, established in 2008, had a size of 312.5 billion won. In total, the Seoul-headquartered private equity firm has raised over 1.6 trillion won across four funds and exited 104 billion won worth of investments..
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