Korean buyout fund VIG Partners to chase mid-market firms valued at up to $300m

Korean buyout fund VIG Partners to chase mid-market firms valued at up to $300m

Seoul, South Korea. Photo by Emile-Victor Portenart on Unsplash.

Korean buyout fund VIG Partners, which recently reached the first close of its fourth country-focused fund, is targeting mid-market companies with enterprise value in the range of $100 million to $300 million for its upcoming investments, according to a top executive of the firm.

“Our focus industries are consumer, retail healthcare, lifestyle and finance. In terms of size, we are targeting mid-market companies from $100 million to $300 million enterprise value,” VIG Partners managing partner Chulmin Lee told DEALSTREETASIA in an interaction.

The fourth fund, which reached its first close at $530 million in May, is targeting to raise $800 million by the end of the third quarter this year.

The latest fund will follow the same strategy as the firm’s previous funds in focusing on domestic mid-market control deals in consumer, retail, lifestyle, healthcare and financial services segments.

“A difference would be that we have a larger international LP base in Fund 4, which has led to the increase in fund size and [consequently] more portfolio companies,” said Lee.

VIG Partners, formerly Vogo Investment, raised $600 million for its third Korea-based fund, up by about $100 million from its earlier target, in 2017.

To date, the firm has made seven investments from Fund 3. It has also made three complete exits out of 7 investments, and one partial exit through an IPO from Fund 2.

Since inception in 2005, it has invested over $2 billion of capital across 20 portfolio companies in Korea.

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