Two Six Capital, a technology-enabled firm that has pioneered data science for private equity, has advised Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA) on the acquisition of Acuon Capital, a South Korea-based consumer finance and leasing company.
To harness the power of data science, Two Six Capital combines large scale engineering, statistics and machine learning to analyze revenue data and customer patterns. The firm’s goal is to help private equity investors unmask the intrinsic value of their prospective and current portfolio companies.
“As is the case with each of our investments in the increasingly competitive Asian market, it is critical to conduct a thorough and in-depth due diligence process in advance of executing an investment,” says Han Chul Kim, a Managing Director at BPEA. “In seeking to ensure we were investing in a quality company with strong growth potential, Two Six helped us discover several areas within Acuon’s business model that we believe will provide value-creation opportunities. Two Six leveraged their technology to generate valuable insights from Acuon Capital’s loan tapes in a compressed timeframe, undertaking due diligence in regard to credit quality and potential impact of economic cycles.”
“There has been limited technology innovation in the private equity industry since the advent of the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet,” says Sajjad Jaffer, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Two Six Capital. “Built on decades of research from Wharton, our large data technology platform has ushered in a new wave of innovation. With over 50 per cent of Two Six Capital’s deal flow sourced outside the United States, Asia has emerged as the fastest growing market for our firm. BPEA has shown that it is at the forefront of embracing data analytics in its investment process, and we were honored to embed our data science and engineering capabilities within BPEA’s impressive private equity team.”