Tokyo-based mid-market private equity firm Advantage Partners is reportedly in the market to raise 250 billion yen (about $1.65 billion) for its latest Japan buyout fund.
Mergermarket reported that the PE firm launched the fundraising process for its eighth Japan buyout fund this week, with plans to make a first close at the end of February next year.
The firm’s target for the latest fund is higher than the 215 billion yen raised for Fund IV in 2007. Fund VII closed at its hard cap of 130 billion yen in April 2023.
Set up in 1992 by Folsom and Taisuke Sasanuma, both former Bain & Company management consultants, Advantage Partners was the first private equity firm in Japan. It focused on buyouts in Japan until 2016, when it launched its Asia Fund I, targeting mid-market companies with enterprise values of between $50 million and $150 million.
In December last year, the firm was said to have raised about 50% of the target corpus of its second pan-Asian buyout fund, Asia Fund 2. The fund has a $600-million target, nearly 60% larger than its predecessor. Roughly 60% of the fund is expected to be deployed into Southeast Asia, and about a quarter is earmarked for 3-4 transactions in India.
Advantage Partners also announced that a vehicle backed by the firm and LYFE Capital has completed a tender offer for shares of Nihon Chouzai, one of Japan’s largest dispensing pharmaceutical businesses.
AP86 Co., Ltd., funded by a fund serviced by Advantage Partners and an affiliated fund of LYFE Capital Investment Management, finished the offer for Nihon Chouzai’s common shares, according to a Sept. 17 notice.
Nihon Chouzai operates a nationwide dispensing pharmacy network and also runs pharmaceutical manufacturing and sales, as well as medical professional staffing and placement businesses.
Advantage Partners and LYFE Capital said they plan to support the company’s next phase by combining AP’s management improvement expertise with LYFE’s global life sciences network.
The two firms have jointly launched a 94.8-billion-yen ($635 million) tender offer to delist Nihon Chouzai, from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
