East Asia

Yorkville Advisors opens in Hong Kong

The hybrid alternative investment firm has established its first office in the Asia Pacific with an investment team of six.

Blackstone in $3.6bn pharma exit

Twenty months after investing $500m in dermatology company Stiefel, the 162-year-old US company has been sold to GlaxoSmithKline.

Investment in China climbs 78%

China's real estate sector has expanded in terms of investment deals, with $25bn of property transactions in the first half of the year. However it has been mainly driven by domestic investors. Deals by foreign firms declined by more than two-thirds over the past year.

LaSalle proceeds with 'caution' in Asia

The Chicago-based fund manager is targeting its $3bn Asia fund mainly in Japan and China. LaSalle, which has invested 20% of the fund, says it is in no hurry to make more investments in 2009.

Asian investors back US stem cell company

A consortium led by RimAsia Capital Partners has invested $11m in NeoStem to help the company expand its activities in China. RimAsia's Eric Wei sees 'huge market potential' for stem cell therapies in the country.

Asian deal value drops 54 percent in Q1

Deals done by Hopu and Terra Firma were among the handful of transactions larger than $100m agreed in a region where deal value and volume have both declined significantly.

HSBC in first exit since re-launch

The UK mid-market investor has sold Transmission & Distribution Group 15 months after backing the company's management buyout. The deal represents an IRR in excess of 40%.

ICG closes Tokyo office

The UK-listed mezzanine house is the latest firm to close a Tokyo office after having found the Japanese market difficult to penetrate. It will instead bolster its team in Sydney, where it has seen more deal flow.

Study: Emerging markets hold their appeal

Institutional investors remain committed to emerging markets private equity and convinced it can offer higher returns than more developed markets. However, their perception of the risk involved has incresed since 2008.

Ex-GIC executive joins Vertex

Tay Choon Chong has left GIC to join Vertex, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore's other sovereign wealth fund Temasek.