Firm of the Year – Mid Cap (AUM – below $7.5 billion)

CBC Group

CBC Group continues its transition from China-focused healthcare investor to globally minded sector specialist with footholds across different asset classes. The firm closed its fifth flagship fund in March 2022 on USD 1.67bn, nearly twice the size of the previous vintage. As before, much of the capital will go to large platforms that CBC builds from the ground up and relatively mature biotech, medical technology, and healthcare services companies. Meanwhile, the firm’s debut healthcare royalty fund completed its first investment, and a healthcare infrastructure fund was created with APG. CBC also closed its USD 1.5bn acquisition of Korea’s Hugel.

East Ventures

East Ventures closed its second Southeast Asia growth fund in May 2022, but its first in a solo capacity, following the dissolution of the co-GP structure with Sinar Mas Digital Ventures and YJ Capital. In raising USD 400m, the firm successfully broadened the LP base, adding names from the US and Europe a previously Asia-centric roster. Meanwhile, East closed what is described as its ninth early-stage fund with commitments of USD 150m. The re-up rate among existing LPs was 120%. The firm has made more than 80 investments to date and has capacity to close 1-2 deals a week.

Pacific Equity Partners

Australia-based Pacific Equity Partners (PEP) has completed five exits in the past 12 months and signed two more, with an average return of nearly 4x. Two of them, Winconnect and Intellihub, came from the firm’s debut secured assets fund – creating helpful momentum for the successor vehicle, which launched with a target of AUD 1bn. PEP has shown it can thrive at the nexus of private equity and infrastructure. Intellihub, which was shifted into a single-asset continuation fund once the business matured and its risk profile changed, is a good example. New PE investments included Healthe Care, Cranky Health, and Agright.

Potentia Capital

Potential Capital’s debut fundraise was a drawn-out process, running to nearly two years. The successor fund took just four months to hit the hard cap of AUD 635m (USD 438m) in June 2022, underscoring how perceptions have changed regarding B2B technology in Australia and New Zealand. Potentia has contributed to this transformation, not least through exits. Trade sales of CompliSpace and Micromine generated returned of 4.3x and 9.4x, respectively, pushing the Fund I distributions to paid-in (DPI) to 1.59x and the IRR to 80%. Potentia more than returned the Fund I principal with the proceeds from Micromine alone.

Quadrant Private Equity

Quadrant Private Equity highlighted the robustness of its still relatively new growth strategy with two more exits at attractive multiples: Arq Group was sold to NCS Group and Modibodi was picked up by Sweden’s Essity. The flagship buyout strategy also made realisations from the likes of Probe CX, Journey Beyond, and Peter Warren Automotive. Probe CX was a multi-jurisdictional customer experience and business process outsourcing roll-up that demonstrated Quadrant’s ability to reach beyond Australia and New Zealand. On the investment side, the firm completed five new deals: Affinity Education Group, Seertech Solutions, Southern Star Research, Cancer Care Partners, and Jaybro.