Fund manager Pantheon hires for Hong Kong office

Private equity investor and fund-of-funds manager Pantheon has appointed Brian Lim as principal. Lim will be based in Hong Kong, adding to the firm's seven-strong team here.

Pantheon was formed in 1982 as the private equity investment division of GT Management in London. It has grown to a firm with $23 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2008, and 143 employees across four offices worldwide. Pantheon's investors include public and private pension plans, endowments, foundations and family offices. It also acts as manager of Pantheon International Participations, a quoted private equity fund-of-funds that was launched in 1987 and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Pantheon was early to identify the potential for private equity in Asia and opened its Hong Kong office in 1992. The office is currently headed by Chris Meads, who is a partner at the firm and leads Pantheon's investment activities in Asia. Meads joined Pantheon in 2001 from HSBC in Hong Kong. Pantheon has one other partner in Hong Kong, Vincent Huang, who joined in 2004 from AIG Investment Corporation.

Lim joins Pantheon from the UK government-backed investor, CDC Group, where he has been portfolio director for the pan-Asia region since 2005. Before joining CDC, Lim spent six years with Watson Wyatt, advising institutional investors on strategies and private equity allocations.

"[Lim's] experience, spanning both LP [limited partner] and GP [general partner] investment strategies as well as [his] strong focus on emerging Asian markets, is distinctive," said Meads, commenting on the hire. "As we come out of this current economic downturn, we expect Asia to attract increasing interest."