Japanese financial services group SBI Holdings plans to raise ¥30 billion ($334 million; €243 million) for a second venture capital fund focused on making investments in Asia’s clean technology sector, an SBI spokesman has confirmed.
The fund is to be raised this year and will target investors such as Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings and Masdar Clean Tech Fund, a $250 million clean technology-focused fund of funds. It will likely aim for an internal rate of return of between 25 percent and 30 percent, according to the spokesman.
Within the clean technology sector, SBI is targeting solar, batteries, LEDs and water management, Takashi Nakagawa, an SBI director, told news provider Bloomberg.
The second fund launch will be discussed further after SBI’s first clean technology-focused fund, a $20 million vehicle, has been fully deployed, the SBI spokesman told PEI Asia.
That fund was a joint venture private equity fund set up in December 2008 by SBI and Abu Dhabi-based investment company Mubadala Development Company. The fund began operations in June 2009 and, to date, has looked at 2,500 clean technology companies in Japan. It has identified two companies and intends to fully invest the fund in these targets by May 2010, the spokesman said.
SBI has a history of partnering other firms. It also manages the Green Growth Fund alongside Korean private equity firms Korea Technology Investment Corporation and Benex Investment. That fund aims to raise $80 million and will invest 70 percent of its capital in Korea.
The firm also manages the ¥10 billion India Knowledge Fund, an equal joint venture with SBI Capital Markets, the investment banking subsidiary of the State Bank of India.
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