Warburg Pincus-backed industrial logistics platform BW Industrial has appointed Gene King as chief investment officer, targeting to launch a fund management business later this year.
BW will launch private equity vehicles in both growth and core strategies, the company said in a statement, driven by the surging demand from supply-chain diversification and investment appetite for Vietnam industrial assets.
King will continue to be based in Ho Chi Minh City and will oversee all equity-related strategies from capital raising and JV partnership to fund management, BW added.
King has been stationed in Ho Chi Minh City since 2016. He was managing director of Taiwanese industrial property developer Ally Logistic Property Vietnam (ALP Vietnam), and covered Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. He served as principal of Cathay Private Equity’s SEA Logistics Infrastructure Partnership during the tenure.
Prior to setting foot in Vietnam, he had been senior investment manager at Taiwanese conglomerate Fubon Financial, where he spearheaded overseas property investments of the Taiwanese insurance fund in New York, Paris, London, and Ho Chi Minh City.
He has been an advisor to BW since March last year, per his LinkedIn profile.
In 2018, US private equity firm Warburg Pincus set up BW with its local joint venture partner Becamex, with an initial investment of $200 million.
Today, BW has secured equity commitments of more than $1 billion. The company operates over 9 million square metres of industrial land across Vietnam.
Early last year, ESR Group acquired a strategic equity stake in BW as the lead investor in a funding round, which is part of BW’s larger goal of raising up to $450 million. This followed ESR’s industrial park joint venture between the two a couple of years earlier.
Like BW, ESR was also co-founded by Warburg Pincus and developed into a real estate investment manager.
In 2021, the US private equity firm exited ESR before the latter acquired real estate fund manager ARA Asset Management, another portfolio company of Warburg Pincus.
Currently, Warburg Pincus is among ESR’s primary shareholders with a 13.4% stake, according to Bloomberg.
