Vietnam’s SSI Asset Management, Japan’s Daiwa complete the first close of planned $100m fund

SSI Asset Management and its partner Daiwa Corporate Investment, the VC arm of Japan’s Daiwa Securities Group, announced they have completed the initial closing of their third private equity fund.

Photo credit: Mongkol Chuewong / 123RF

Daiwa-SSIAM III, also know as Fund 3, has target corpus size of US$100 million and will focus on investing in consumer-related goods and services and export-oriented segments, as well as other potential sectors including distribution, logistics, healthcare, education, and media. In addition, the fund may also consider potential equitization or divestment opportunities of state-owned enterprises, the company said in a statement.

Fund 3 has raised US$31 million in its first close, as per a DealStreetAsia report.

The new fund, which is the third special vehicle launched in collaboration between the two companies, will seek a 10% to 30% stake in each investee company, while SSI Asset Management’s investment team will join the boards of the investee companies.

It targets Vietnam companies with ticket sizes under US$10 million each.

Daiwa Securities Group is the strategic shareholder of SSI Securities Corporation. In 2009, the two companies launched the DSCAP-SSIAM Vietnam Investment Growth Fund (The Fund 1) with corpus size of around US$28 million; it invested in five companies.

In 2015, they established the Daiwa-SSIAM Vietnam Growth Fund II (The Fund 2) with corpus size of about US$40 million, which invested in seven firms and is currently in the post-investment and divestment phase.

As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vietnam’s SSI Securities Corporation, SSI Asset Management has also launched more funds this year, including two exchange-traded funds (SSIAM VNFINLEAD ETF and SSIAM VN30 ETF) and two private equity funds (SSIAM-DBJ-CP Vietnam Growth Investment Fund “VGIF” and the Fund 3).

To differentiate itself from Fund 3, VGIF would seek investment targets of US$10 million to US$20 million each.