T&I AsiaWatch for July 14th, 2025

64 transactions, another week of HKEX IPOs, keeps 2025 in third place over 7 years

Jul 13, 2025

Editor’s Note: Despite Trump’s latest tariff tiff, 6 GPs hit one year highs: AFC, AMG, Carlyle, CITIC, Everbright, JAFCO. PEP Australia; Partners in India; Korea has record 3 PE auctions offing. Japan? An all VC week. US-based, China hedge funds, VCs (CDH, Qiming) begin recycling capital back into PRC after the IPO boom. HKEX IPOs had 21 filings (17 resubmitted). USA’s 12 filings sees 2 Asia IPOs. BSE/NSE has 3 filed, 3 open. Trump Terrible Tariffs Return for the again for the coming week with Japan, Myanmar, other Asian countries struggling to close agreements this week.

Australia: Australia wins T&I’s “Best All Around Geography” award for the first half of 2025 for its steady flow and wide dispersion among classes for deals across all sectors and classes. US-based Blue Owl announced its Credit Income Fund for Australian financial advisors, following other asset managers expanding into Australia. Macquarie bought 381 million of its own shares. Pacific Equity Partners paid A$1.1 billion (at a 77% premium for its most recent ASX price) for building services group Johns Lyng. Local listed GP Sandon Capital reported a very modest 0.2% return for July. TH Global Capital reported first half work on 4 PE buyouts. Hancock Mining-backed U.S. rare earth producer Mountain Pass (MP) reported the U.S. DoD investing multiple billions making it MP’s largest shareholder. Federal involvement will allow the mine to overcome decades of California’s NIMBY assault on the USA’s rare earths industry.

China: China’s flood of IPOs continued with 21 filings, though 17 were re-submissions before a final listing. The IPOs are mostly SOE fund backed, but one dozen foreign (mostly U.S.-based) GPs will take significant returns out of the PRC after years of waiting for regulator approval. The result? Foreign VCs have begun to recycle capital back into China. Abu Dhabi, Hony, Oaktree, UBS-backed Apple supplier Lens Technology IPO’d on the HKEX. Anhui, other SOE VCs backed Anhui Hamiacloud Tech filed to IPO on HKEX. Ant, Shenzhen VC, Yunxin, Xiaomi-12 other VCs backed Sunmi Tech filed to IPO on HKEX. CICC PE, Hangzhou Capital, other SOEs formed a JV with France’s Renault to establish a NEV Fund in Hangzhou. China’s brief, intense data center boom begun in 2020 to support AI has already gone bust. Turns out no one needs them as DeepSeek doesn’t consume power wastefully like USA LLMs. E-town Capital-backed IC equipment maker E-Town Semiconductor Technology IPO’ed on the STAR Market raising $350 million. FWD (Li Ka-Shing’s son) completed a HKEX IPO on its third try, raising $442 million. The Hong Kong Jockey Club retained Jefferies to sell $1 billion in PE stakes in Blackstone, Clayton Duybilier, TA Associates and Warburg in the secondary market as it seeks to lower its profile with Beijing. Intel, Samsung Ventures-backed Montage (Nasdaq:Mont) filed to IPO on HKEX. Qiming, Hongshan, Vertex, SOE-VCs-backed Vietrix Technology filed to IPO on HKEX. Redpoint, others-backed Megatronic filed to IPO on HKEX. HongShan,GA, Mubadala,Tiger, Jafco, Brookfield-backed Shein filed a confidential HKEX IPO. Robot makers Deep Robotics and Robertera had investments led respectively by Fortune VC and CDH. Shanghai PudongInvestment-backed Omnivision filed to IPO on HKEX. Shenzhen Fortune, other SOE VCs-backed BlueFocus Intelligent filed to IPO on HKEX. Shenzhen Oriental VC-backed Shenzhen Senior Technology Material filed to IPO on HKEX. Shunwei-backed Yangtuo Technology filed to IPO on HKEX. Sinovac completed its $55 a share dividend for domestic backers despite litigation by institutional shareholders not included. U.S. CFIUS denies Suirui's (HK) buyout of Jupiter Systems on national security grounds. U.S. DoJ extradites indicted PRC State Security hackers of US research institutions in 2021’s.

India: The deflation of India’s for-profit education era continues as U.S. Courts and vultures pick at the remains of the corpus from the billions of dollars invested and lost in uni-corpse Byju, after Delaware’s Chancery Court fined the founder $10,000 per day a “strategic and patterned failure” to submit basic documents or show up in court. Why, we ask, did so many Gen-Z foreign VCs invest in for-profit education in India given the repeated, well documented failure of such schemes in the USA? I don’t know, but that cycle is repeated in India across AI, Fintech, Food delivery, F&B, ….on and on, as though VC investments that can’t survive in America are going to flourish in even more dubious circumstances. LPs, you have no one to blame but yourself. Keeping to topics of investing in well worn investment themes, Frances’ venerable consultancy Capgemini paid $3.3 billion for call center operator (AKA: BPM) WNS, just as chatbots and flawed AI bots are racing to dominate the call center sector. I suppose that justified Goldman Sachs writing that India will capitalize on AI, for which I agree; lots of capitalization will occur, with no value added in the end. Moving on to well worn sectors that have a real need, IFC-backed battery storage giant IndiGrid is proposed as India’s first successful green infrastructure project. On the theme of IPO envy The Economic Times continued enthusiastic promotion of yet-to- IPOs, reporting public listings made up 68% of all PE and VC exits. Given 27 IPOs in India YTDand with 9 of those PE-VC backed, if 9 IPOs constitute 68% of all PE and VC exits in India YTD it’s hardly a ringing endorsement. Just sayin… LeapFrog Investments is reported evaluating a secondary sale of its 2013 LeapFrog Fund II. Oyo Hotels Texas gets a free ad from Texas bloggers. PAG’s auction of its 55% stake in listed Indian wealth manager Nuvama ground to a halt after Nuvama partner Jane Street was banned in Korea. Partners Group paid $230 million for Jungle Ventures-backed Infinity Fincorp Solutions. Warburg Pincus and Bharti Airtel founderMittal are reported bidding $720 million for 49% of Haier’s Indian unit.

Indonesia: SWF Danantara, Saudi utility ACWA Power and Pertamina announced a $10 billion JV to develop an integrated green hydrogen and water desalination project.

Korea: E&F PE selected 4 bidders for its waste manager Kongtec. KHI Investment and UAMCO, (domestic bad debt bank) retained managers to sell K Shipbuilding. Macquarieselected Brookfield, Stonepeak and Air Liquide (France) as final bidders for its industrial gas firm DIG Airgas. MBK Partners is sued by investors in MBK’s asset backed bonds for failed Home Plus.

Myanmar: The dirty little secret is out once again; much of China’s rare earth material is sourced from Myanmar for processing in China. In other PRC related news Chinese authorities have begun prosecuting the leaders of the notorious Bai family crime syndicate, a powerful clan from Myanmar’s northern Kokang region. Among them is Bai Suocheng, former chairman of Kokang — a self-administered zone that has become a hotbed of cybercrime targeting Chinese citizens

Philippines: Japan gifts six last-generation destroyer escorts to the Philippines. Game on.

Singapore: Macquarie is reported selling its 50% stake in Advario petrochemical storage.

Vietnam: Dynam Capital's Craig Martin goes Guy Ritchie, writes “Vietnam’s better, it didn’t get a letter” as analysis of the Vietnam-US Trade Deal lowers tariffs to 20% for Vietnamese goods, but adds 40% on Chinese companies using Vietnam to circumvent tariffs. VinaCapital Chief Economist Kokalari published an analysis of Infrastructure Investments’ surge and separately, his Macroeconomic Commentary for June. Separately VinaCapital makes 3 transactions in its own shares. DragonCapital reports June VEIL results.

Pan-Asia: Asia Frontier Capital publishes its June funds reports for Asia, Iraq, Uzbekistan and Vietnam; a trip report to Bangladesh and its July 24th AFC quarterly web meetings. Apax made five transactions in its own shares. Chenghe Acquisition III SPAC targeting businesses with an Asia presence, filed for a $110 million IPO. Frasers Property, the Thai, Singapore-based property developer and manager announced expansion in Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.GLG announced reducing exposure to AI and data centers in Asia, in June as demand plummets. Stonepeak Partners is reported investing $1 billion in Warburg-backed Singaporean data center operator Princeton Digital. HVPE made 5 transactions in its own shares. Invesco reports June AUM. Pantheon International made 4 transactions in its own shares.

Tech Rant: Trains. SCMP reports the 650 KM/H maglev train from Beijing to Shanghai is near operation. Having just travelled on “America’s High speed trains” between Boston and Washington DC — bumping along at an average of well under 150 KMPH, barely able to stand or work as the filthy cars lurched along, despite decades of false promises and billions of dollars invested — I’m ashamed for America. Dallas Houston just killed their high speed train; Newsom’s boondoggle lost $6 billion on a dead LA to SF train; and now a multi-billion train from nowhere in LA to Las Vegas is touted as opening in 2027. Yikes.

Industry rant: Korea’s second largest SWF, Korea Investment Corporation (AUM $206 billion) succumbed to herd pressure and will implement a “Total Portfolio Approach” (TPA) to replace its “Strategic Asset Allocation” for investments. The Horror. As if CFA, ILPA, PRI, DEI, ESG and other quasi-official industry certifications don’t provide enough drag on overhead and daily operation, another trade indicia arrives for addition to stationary and web portals, just months after BlackRock led the exorcism of ESG from the body of our industry.

Transaction Pace: 64 transactions keeps us narrowly in third place, same as we’ve been for the past four weeks. Everything depends now on whether the world gets past the Trump Tariffs. Australia is our best behaved, more diverse alternatives market. China continues to lead all of the world in IPOs filed and completed. India continues to lead with VC investment. Korea and Japan are immersed in internal and external politics that has rendered Q3’s start an also-ran after a solid start to the year.