TA Associates appoints China director

Boston-headquartered TA Associates has hired Daisy Cai as China director in its Hong Kong office, according to a statement from the firm.

Cai is joining TA Associates Asia Pacific to focus on investments in growth companies in China. She joins from Goldman Sachs Investment Partners in Hong Kong, where she has been leading deal sourcing, due diligence, transaction execution and portfolio management for growth capital investments in the TMT, consumer and education sectors in Greater China, TA Associates said.

Prior to this Cai worked at Deutsche Bank Principal Investments in Hong Kong, working on deal sourcing and execution for growth equity investments and private investments in public equity in Greater China. Cai was also previously at Advanced Micro Devices in Silicon Valley, and holds six US patents in semiconductor chip design.

“Since establishing the Hong Kong office in 2011, TA has been an active investor in the Asia Pacific region,” Edward Sippel, managing director and co-head of Asia, said in a statement. “We believe it will continue to be a healthy and vibrant market for investment and are growing our team to take advantage of those opportunities.”

Last month TA Associates partnered with Far East Horizon, a provider of tailored financial leasing and other value-added services, to invest in China-based payments service provider YeePay. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Other current investments in Asia include Dr Lal PathLabs, a diagnostics and pathology services company in India, Chinese web game developer and publisher Forgame, and Micromax Informatics, a provider of wireless handsets and solutions across the Indian sub-continent and neighbouring regions.

TA Associates is reportedly in market with its latest flagship fund targeting $4 billion for growth equity investments.