JPMorgan to Funnel $750 Million into Asia Private Equity Fund

JPMorgan Chase announced a major push on Monday into private-equity investing in Asia, saying it had earmarked at least $750 million of its own capital to take minority stakes in businesses in a region where buyouts are notoriously difficult.

The expansion will be headed by Varun Bery and John Troy, co-founders of an Asia-focused private equity firm, TVG Capital Partners, who will join JPMorgan as managing directors. Their team will look for opportunities to invest in ventures with existing corporate clients in a broad range of sectors, including consumer, retail, industrial, health care and natural resources.

TVG, which has offices in Hong Kong, Bangalore and Sydney and manages more than $700 million in capital, is being wound down, according to Reuters.

JPMorgan said it would allow its corporate and financial sponsor clients to put their own capital together with that of the bank to “co-invest” in the opportunities it finds.

The new team will be the Asia arm of JPMorgan’s Private Equity Principal Investments business, which is led by Bob Case from New York. JPMorgan has also invested in Asian private equity through its units One Equity Partners and Principal Investment Management.

Private equity funds run by the likes of Morgan Stanley, the Blackstone Group and the Carlyle Group are ratcheting up their investments in the fast-growing Indian and Chinese markets as a global credit crunch hampers big buyouts in Europe and the United States.

But in a region where full-scale buyouts are often frowned upon and are difficult because families are still the main players in business, funds have had to settle mostly for taking minority stakes.