The Hong Kong office of Debevoise & Plimpton has secured a heavyweight instruction advising Baring Private Equity Asia on the formation of Fund VI, a $4bn fund believed to be the largest private equity fund ever raised by an Asia-based manager and one of the largest targeting the region. Offshore firm Maples and Calder also provided Cayman Islands counsel on the deal.
Baring, an independent PE house that advises funds with total committed capital of over $9bn, was advised by a multi-jurisdictional team from Debevoise including Hong Kong-based corporate partner and chair of the Asia PE practice Andrew Ostrognai, and international counsel Gavin Anderson. Other team members included New York-based partner Adele Karig, and Washington DC-based partners Satish Kini and Kenneth Berman. The PE giant is a longstanding client of Debevoise which has been advising on its fundraising activities for more than ten years, while the Hong Kong office also boasts Carlyle Group and AIF Capital on its client roster.
Other major funds work for Maples and Calder, meanwhile, includes acting on the $3bn privatisation of Chinese online gaming group Giant Interactive, which was previously listed on the New York Stock Exchange, as well as its handling of Irish and regulatory aspects of the establishment of KKR’s $6bn second Asia buyout fund in 2013.
Asia looks to be offering a healthy pipeline of funds related work for firms, as aggregate capital raised in 2014 totalled $55bn according to the Preqin’s 2015 Global Private Equity & Venture Capital Report, with $9.6bn raised by Asia-focused venture capital funds, 2.7 times more capital than 2013. On a global scale, last year’s league table by Bloomberg saw Weil Gotshal & Manges come out top for H1, ahead of Latham & Watkins in second and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in third, while Magic Circle trio Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, and Clifford Chance all lost market share.
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk
