Capital International Private Equity Funds (CIPEF) has held the final close of the Capital International Private Equity Fund VI (CIPEF VI).
According to the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA), CIPEF VI, which exceeded its target of USD2.5 billion and met its hard cap of USD3.0 billion, is the largest global emerging markets private equity fund closed in the last five years.
As a pioneer of the global emerging market model for private equity investment, CIPEF has been consistently backed by the leading global LP programs which span all major geographies and investor types. Since 1992, Capital International’s research network and resources have allowed CIPEF to identify and execute on attractive bottom-up investment opportunities in 78 portfolio companies with 59 full or partial exits.
“We have worked to methodically build a deeply experienced team with a strong track record in emerging markets private equity,” says Koenraad Foulon, co-founder and senior managing partner. “We are thankful for the strong support from our investors in today’s challenging fundraising market and believe that CIPEF VI is optimally sized to allow investment in the current generation of compelling emerging market investment opportunities in local, leading companies and franchises.”
CIPEF VI is targeting 15-20 investments and will prioritize on roughly 16 of the 138 emerging market countries in the world. To date, CIPEF has committed nearly 20% of capital from CIPEF VI into several investments including; Eaton Towers, a pan African telecom tower development and management company and L&T Financial Holdings Limited (LTFH) India’s rapidly growing equipment and infrastructure finance affiliate of Larsen & Toubro, the country’s largest private sector engineering and construction company.
Of the capital raised from new and existing limited partners, CIPEF VI was oversubscribed having secured commitments from over 60 major institutional investors, including a 90% re-commitment rate among existing CIPEF investors with active private equity allocations. The diversity of CIPEF VI’s limited partner pool speaks to Capital International’s LP-friendly reputation achieved through consistency with ILPA guidelines and its global appeal with institutional investors from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. CIPEF VI investors include Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund and Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System.
“As the first private equity program to focus exclusively on global emerging market private equity investment, without the rigidity of regional or country specific quotas, we are able to take a truly holistic view of the emerging markets investment universe,” says Lam Nguyen-Phuong, CIPEF co-founder and senior managing partner. “We have no ‘must do’ countries or sectors and believe this gives us a meaningful advantage when choosing which portfolio companies we want to partner with.”
Emerging markets are expected to generate almost 50% of global purchasing power and nearly 66% of expected global GDP growth as the emerging marketplace becomes more interdependent. Emerging market issuers continued to drive global IPO activity in the first quarter of 2012 according to Ernst & Young.
The CIPEF investment team consists of 24 investment professionals, fluent in 19 languages with an average of 16 years of relevant investment experience. The team is located in five offices around the world, representing 18 countries of origin.
MVision Private Equity Advisers served as the exclusive global placement agent and strategic advisor and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP served as legal counsel.
