Weekly Digest: China mulls stabilisation fund; Singapore steps up scrutiny of family offices
The following briefs are curated from press releases and third-party media sources.
TOP NEWS OF THE WEEK
China is considering creating a state-backed stabilisation fund to shore up confidence in its equity markets, Bloomberg News said.
Financial regulators, including the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), recently submitted a preliminary plan to the country's top leadership after at least two rounds of consultation with industry participants over several months, the report said citing people familiar with the matter.
The plan calls for the fund to have access to total capital of up to hundreds of billions of yuan, the report said, adding that implementation details have not been finalised and there could be a chance the proposal will be scrapped.
Source: Reuters/Bloomberg
California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) committed a total of $275 million to two Asia-focused private equity (PE) funds in the first six months of this year.
CalSTRS committed $150 million to Bain Capital Asia V and another $125 million to CVC Capital Partners Asia VI. Both were re-up commitments.
Bain Capital Asia V is a buyout fund that targets investments in TMT, industrial, consumer, healthcare, and financial & business services in Asia. CVC Capital Partners Asia VI is buyout fund that targets investments in business services, high-growth consumer sectors, and TMT in Asia.
Source: CalSTRS
Singapore is investigating the role that some single family offices played in one of the city's biggest money laundering cases, adding to questions about gaps in the financial hub's defense against bad actors.
Authorities found that one or more of the accused in the case involving more than S$2.8 billion (HK$15.9 billion) of assets may have been linked to single family offices that were awarded tax incentives, Minister of State Alvin Tan said.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore is reviewing its internal incentive administration processes and will tighten them where necessary, Tan said.
MAS said in July it will boost surveillance and safeguards against laundering risks in the family office space and tighten requirements for those seeking so-called 13O and 13U tax exemptions.
Source: The Standard/Bloomberg
OTHER INVESTMENT NEWS
AUSTRALIA
Keppel Education Asset Fund (KEAF), a private fund of Singapore-based multi-national Keppel Corporation, announced the acquisition of two education assets in Sydney, Australia, costing A$198 million ($125 million) on October 12.
This move will increase Keppel's Australian portfolio value to around $3 billion.
KEAF, backed by institutional investors, aims to invest in education-related assets across the Asia Pacific, catering to different education levels.
The first asset, a campus in Kensington, Sydney, is leased to the University of New South Wales. The second asset, a commercial building in North Sydney, will be converted into a K12 independent school campus upon completion in 2025.
Source: Keppel Corporation
INDIA
Indian startup InsuranceDekho has raised $60 million in Series B funding, driving the online insurance seller’s valuation to more than $650 million.
Investors including Japanese giant Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. and insurer BNP Paribas Cardif participated in the funding round, InsuranceDekho said in a statement. The company’s name means “look for insurance” in Hindi.
“We will use this money for M&A opportunities, to build a strong tech product team, for branding and we’re going to use it to open new business lines like getting into reinsurance,” Ankit Agrawal, the founder and chief executive officer of InsuranceDekho, said in an interview.
Source: Bloomberg
Temasek has extended its joint venture with Infosys for another five years.
Infosys Compaz (iCompaz), the Infosys-Temasek joint venture entity, has collaborated with large corporations in Southeast Asia on their digital transformation journeys, leveraging its deep technology expertise across cloud, data and analytics, cybersecurity, digital, artificial intelligence, and automation, among others.
The extension aims to push iCompaz’s plans to growing its presence in Singapore and the broader Southeast Asian market.
Source: Technode Global
INDONESIA
Indonesia Investment Authority (INA) has inked a strategic partnership with SK Plasma, a South Korean biopharmaceutical firm.
This partnership marks a pivotal step towards building Indonesia's first plasma fractionation facility, aiming to bolster the nation's healthcare capabilities.
To cater to Indonesia’s large population, the planned plasma fractionation facility will also be the largest in Southeast Asia by production capacity.
Healthcare is one of INA's key focus sectors.
Source: INA
KOREA
Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) has given most of its capital for investments in alternative assets such as real estate and private equity to foreign managers, causing calls for more assignments to local financial companies for such deals.
The sovereign wealth fund - which invests overseas - allocated $28.1 billion to 137 offshore asset management companies for alternative investments last year, or 99.6% of its $28.3 billion total entrusted funds for such investments, according to Jung Taeho, a lawmaker of South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party.
“The sovereign wealth fund KIC needs to contribute to the development of the local financial industry by entrusting certain parts of alternative investments to Korean managers, which it is aggressively expanding,” Jung said.
Source: Korea Economic Daily
Korea Asset Management Corporation, the quasi-governmental organisation that acquires and resolves financial institutions' non-performing loans and restructures businesses, has put out a request for proposals (RFPs) for a W40 billion ($29.5 million) non-performing loan mandate.
The blind fund will have a three-year investment period and a seven-year maturity. One asset manager will be selected for the mandate, and asset managers submitting RFPs must have a track record of at least three years managing non-performing loan funds.
Applications are open until November 2. The prevailing bidder will be hired by the end of 2023.
Source: Korea Asset Management Corporation
SINGAPORE
Great Eastern Holdings has agreed to buy two insurance businesses in Malaysia for about SGD325 million ($236.7 million).
The Singapore-based insurance company, majority-owned by Overseas-Chinese Banking, will buy AmMetLife Insurance and AmMetLife Takaful in an all-cash deal, OCBC said in a filing to the Singapore Stock Exchange.
Source: MarketWatch
GIC has agreed to acquire a southern India business park from a fund managed by Europe’s Pimco Prime Real Estate after being part of a partnership which sold the asset to that venture four years ago.
Sources familiar with the transaction said that Singapore’s sovereign fund signed an agreement to buy Waverock, a 2.4 million square foot office property in the capital of Telangana state, with local media accounts valuing the transaction at 21.5 billion Indian rupees ($258.7 million).
Source: Mingtiandi
REST OF THE WORLD
The Teacher Retirement System (TRS) of Texas has pledged to invest $125 million in TPG Asia VIII, TPG Capital's latest Asia-centric buyout fund.
This commitment forms part of the $710.6 million total commitments approved by TRS of Texas in September.
TPG Asia VIII, launched in 2022, seeks growth buyouts and a variety of minority investments in Asia-Pacific businesses.
Despite market instability and global macroeconomic uncertainties, the fund aims to raise $6 billion in total commitments.
Source: Nikkei Asia